Another Revision of my Novel

This is the final cut of the first chapter of my novel. This has been reworked from many, many pages of information.

The green-copper eyes of the sower watched over Lincoln like a stone guardian. It did this job everyday for seventy years and probably would for another seventy. The sower faced west and its green-copper eyes rested squarely on Tanker Hill.
Six miles away Everett Gibson stared right back at the flood-light lit building. He was at the highest elevated point in the area, but his mood didn’t match.
His right hand held a small tube of paper with a glowing end. He paid a lot of money just to go to a hospital later. In his left hand he held the letter. He had been clutching it and carrying it and folding it and opening it since he got it last week. Wrinkled and blurred from sweating palms, it still carried the same message.
He crushed the fifteenth glowing filter under his foot and waited. A fog rolled over a hill far to the north and was spilling over the city. Before he could finish the eighteenth tube the fog spread over everything. The capitol became a bright-dim blur in the distance and only the blinking red warning light at the base of the sower was clear.
Too bad, he thought, a plane crash would be a nice distraction.
Occasionally a wind would charge up the hill from the suburbs below. He didn’t notice; he just lit number nineteen.

The weekly ritual was about to begin.
He pushed the doors open as far as they would go. This was probably the most action they’ve seen from a non-staff member in a week, he thought.
The letter was in his coat pocket. He could feel it pressing against his heart. He was not looking forward to this conversation.
The door creaked back into place and he strolled through the common area. Everywhere between where he was and where he was going was old people. Loud, wheezing coughs pierced his ear drums and oxygen tanks hissed at him. Some people stared at the wall with the intensity of a college football fanatic watching the big game. Some lay in beds, bodies buried beneath bleached sheets. Their mouths moved but no sound came out, just a little drool. These people didn’t bother him
The people in the room that knew him or his mother knew what he did bothered him. Those people turned away, or coughed to distract themselves as soon as he walked in. Some scuttled away from him like roaches and a few squirmed uncomfortably and tried to look at anything else until he walked past.
Every time he came here this happened and he still couldn’t understand why. These people acted like he was the angel of death come to take them away. He (probably) wouldn’t kill any of them; he would just simply make their frail forms presentable—as this crowd clearly needed—for the family (if living) and the friends (if any).

The red, yellow, blue and green pinpoints of the “airport” floated not too far away. Every couple of seconds a spotlight would sweep over the area on its axis. He pulled out a new square box from his jacket, turned it upside down, smashed it against his palm a few times, took off all the wrappers and foils and pulled out a new tube. He spit toward the search light and lit up, again.
After taking a drag, his mouth was invaded with the taste of burning cotton and rancid anus.
“Fuck!” he shouted at the disinterested grass and shrouded town.
He threw the burnt filter, brown tobacco and white paper as far as he could and tried again. This time he succeeded.

He paused a second in front of the khaki door in the light-green-carpeted hallway, the letter in one pocket, a lighter in the other and a rose in his hand. He took a deep breath. He let it out and knocked on the door. This time the ritual was going to be a little different.
“Come in,” a feeble voice said on the other side.
He opened the door and saw his mother and forced himself to smile. It wasn’t a completely false smile, but the letter was good a detracting him from positive emotions.
She was sitting on her bed looking at a particular wall. On the wall were three particular pictures. There was a big picture of the farm he grew up on, the farm his parents ran for so long and the farm they had to sell when Everett came to college, Dad died, and Mom got old. He didn’t know who owned it now. He wouldn’t go there anymore. There was no reason.
On the left of this picture was his mother and father’s wedding photo and to the right was his graduation photo. This was usually how he found his mother when he came for this weekly visit.
She looked at her son and smiled back. It had been a week since he saw her last, which means it had been a week since anybody outside the home spoke to her.
“How’s work?”
“Its busy, Ma. Same old same old, though. This is for you.”
He gave her the rose.
“Thank-you. This means so much to me. I’m so glad you came. You work so hard. You’re such a good son for coming to visit your mother.”
He gave a quiet, laughing snort at himself.
“Guess who’s coming to visit me next week?”
“Who?”
“Father Devorak. He took Dad’s Rosary to the Arch-bishop in Omaha to have it blessed. It already had been, but one more won’t hurt.”
“It certainly will not. You ready for Mass?” he was in a state of grace solely because of his mother.
She was always ready to go to St. Mary’s. It was her chance to get out and see something relatively new. Everett didn’t particularly care for church, but it meant a lot to her.
He remembered the letter and felt the message growing in his chest and coming to his throat. It just needed to go six more inches and then she would know.
“Before we go, there’s something I need to tell you.”
His heart began to pound.
“What’s that, dear?”
“I have to work late next Sunday, so I’m going to have to come see you on Saturday instead, is that okay?”
Damn it! It was almost out. Oh well. No reason to spoil Mass for her, he thought. Besides, he could tell her afterwards.

The fog was pressing in more and more and it was pissing him off more and more. He could hardly see any lights anymore. The capitol’s flood lights were shut off and only the tiny red speck under the invisible sower remained.
He wished he could be anybody else in the missing city before him, anybody else with anybody else’s problems. He removed the letter from its envelope and frowned at it. The letters mocked him, even though he couldn’t see them. “Past due” it said. “One month remained” it said. Time was running out before they kicked his mom out because he didn’t have enough money to keep her where she was. She was running out of time and the worst part was she didn’t even know.
If only she could stay with him, he thought. If only he hadn’t rented the duplex with no wheelchair access. If only he could get out of his lease. He could find a place she could get in and maybe get a live-in nurse. Then she would get more human contact. Then everything would be okay.
He put his face between his hands and sighed loudly.

They drove down “O” street andchatted about what he did this week, like they did every week. How his Menke was treating him and all the other mindless things people talk about to avoid silence.
Halfway to the church, they prove past a Planned Parenthood and she lowered he head and made a sign of the cross.

He was halfway through the pack and his lungs weren’t even sore. His throat wasn’t even dry. His mood wasn’t even affected. He was putting hundreds of chemicals in his body trying to find some kind of solution or idea or courage but instead found a small pile of tan cotton filters at his feet.
He stood up and started pacing. He thought for a second about how much he smoked tonight. He realized it wasn’t helping, but it wasn’t hurting either. Well, his thought process at least.

After Mass they went to the next part of the weekly ritual, which was just a regular as the service they attended. He resolved in the car ride over that he would tell her as soon as they sat down and ordered.
He could see it now. As soon as the waitress left earshot, he would tell her. She would be upset, she’d cry and he shuddered at the thought.
By a miracle (no doubt their reward for going to church) they found a parking spot.
Old Chicago again. The waitress recognized them and instantly snapped on a smile. She seated them and took their orders; a burger for him, a small salad for her. The waitress was promising how she’d be right back and he was getting that familiar feeling again. He was nervous. He thought he was going to vomit.
The waitress left and so did his courage.
“Remember how Dad used to call biscuits and gravy ‘shit-on-a-shingle?’”
They both laughed. He could wait until after the meal, right?

He looked at his watch. It was three in the morning. He had to work tomorrow. He had to get sleep. He had to find a way to make extra money. He had to do something. He sat back down and the last scene of the day played out in his head.

Their weekly ritual always ended the same way and always cut him like a razor blade dipped in rubbing alcohol.
After losing heart every time he was about to tell her, he knew why it would be easier to try and find a quiet way of fixing the situation. After all, she was eighty three, she didn’t need anymore stress on her failing heart.
Visiting hours were almost over. He stood up from the uncomfortable maroon recliner that he sat in every week.
“Ma, I had fun today,” he looked at the white-tiled floor, then back at her, “but I have to go now.”
He couldn’t look away but he couldn’t look at her. Trapped in this middle zone, again, he put on the stone face he earned after so many repeats of this event.
Her white hair seemed whiter than the sheets the bed-ridden patients decayed in. Her face turned stop-sign red as her quiet voice got quieter and more broken. He blouse was suddenly dotted with salty raindrops from her tear ducts. The hoarse whisper sounded like she dying.
“Please. Don’t go. Stay.”
“Ma, I have to go. The nurse needs to give you your medication and I’d just get in the way,” he said this like he was taling to a child and he hated himself for it. He wished he could hold her until she felt better, until they felt better.
A new twist on this came when she grabbed his forearm and some of her tears landed on his wrist.
“Please…”
“I’ll be back Saturday, I promise. I’ll be back. I always come back. I love you, Ma.”
“Please…”
“I’ll be back as soon as I can. I swear. I love you, Mom. Good-bye.”
He kissed her on the enflamed cheek and turned around.
“I love you.”
He could feel her eyes watching him as he turned around and walked away. He could feel her eyes as he walked past his future paychecks. He could feel her eyes when he got in his car and drove away.

And he could feel her eyes on top of the hill when he smoked his last cigarette and looked at the letter.
Paper shouldn’t control lives like this, he thought.
He flicked his last cigarette into the darkness and left for his car.