‘Deep Water’ by Mike Carson

Mike Carson has always loved stories and believed in the power of words, a love that led him to a degree in English and a thirty-year career in teaching. As he tells us, I can think of nothing more wonderful than being able to share great literature with young people, and to see how minds can be irrevocably stretched by great words and new ideas. Nothing, that is, except, perhaps, to know that those transformative words are your own. That is why I simply can’t let go of the dream of publishing a novel … to have created something enduring, something beautiful, something that even one other person might read and feel a sense of connection, of shared humanity. 

In ‘Deep Water’, runner-up for the 2019 Surrey International Writers’ Conference Storyteller Award, Mike articulates beautifully this shared humanity, and the bonds — and bounds — of memory and machine. Enjoy this excerpt from Pulp Literature Issue 26 as he explore the limits of responsibility in fragile relationships. 

Deep Water

by Mike Carson

I could hear my father shouting as I passed the nurses’ station. Room 1201A: portal to Hell. I tried to pump a little iron into my spine as I pushed through the heavy faux-wood door. Everything in the room was pretty much as it had been on my last visit, including the shouting: the same seasickness-green walls, scuffed by the rubber bumpers of countless hospital beds. In the humid air, the smell of stale urine and industrial cleanser were duking it out. As usual, urine had the upper hand.

The curtain was open on the old man’s side of the room, his bed neatly made, a hospital cart on wheels rolled up to it. There was a small television mounted on a swivel arm — ten bucks extra per day for that little luxury, by the way — a small table, yellow flowers withering in a vase, an IV cart, and the usual hospital machinery that could make all variety of pings and beeps and buzzes but could do nothing to bring back an old man’s mind.

I stepped around the curtain toward the little sitting area: a barred window with two rocking chairs overlooking a vista of flat rooftops and air-conditioning units. In the distance, two scraggly palm trees clawed at the smoggy California skyline. The old man stood in front of the window, arms waving, obscenities pouring out of his mouth. His hospital gown was untied at the back, white ass-cheeks protruding like two plastic bags filled with cottage cheese. Charlie Cahill: A bare, forked animal, an unaccommodated man. My old man.

 The brunt of his wrath was borne, as usual, by Rose Celestin, a young Haitian nurse with long, glistening hair twisted into tight cornrows. She was standing with her arms folded across her narrow chest, head tilted to one side. She looked as fragile as a bird, but I’d seen her toss these old-timers around like they were bags of cotton candy. “Mr Cahill,” she said, “why don’t you go on and get yourself dressed?” She pointed at a pile of neatly folded clothes on the table beside her. “You’ll need your medicine before dinner. They’ll be missing you in the dining room.”

 “Who the hell are you?” he said, pointing a bony finger. “You’re the bitch that’s been stealin’ from me, ain’tcha?” He turned toward the door, saw me. “Wally,” he said, squinting, “That’s you, ain’t it? Call the cops, Wally. They’re stealin’ from me.”

Wally. His brother. Killed over fifty years ago, back in ’68, just outside Da Nang. The old man told me once that what they shipped home of Wally could have been buried in a cereal box. “No, Dad,” I said. “I’m Matt, your son. Remember?”

His shoulders fell. He began to shake, and tears trickled out of the corners of his eyes. “Liar,” he said quietly. “My son’s dead.” He turned, giving me a full view of everything he didn’t have on, and then sat down in one of the rockers. He stared straight ahead, not moving, as if he could see to the end of the world. Or maybe it was only the palm trees. 

“Bonswa, Matthew,” Rose said, putting a little French twist on my name so that it sounded a bit like a classy sneeze: Mah-choo.

“Tough day?” I said.

She shrugged. 

I walked to the old man, put my hand on his shoulder. “Hey Dad,” I said. “Gonna get dressed today?”

“Fuck off, Wally,” he said. He started to rock, still staring straight ahead. His shoulders were shaking. Whose wouldn’t, I thought, if your dead brother’s ghost kept dropping by to visit?

To find out what happens next, pick up your copy of Issue 26, Spring 2020 here!

Mike Carson has been teaching high school English for thirty years, and, like many other English teachers, he has been working on a novel for approximately the same length of time: it’s going to be great. He lived most of his life in Prince George, but recently moved to Kamloops with his wife, fledgling twin sons, and an eclectic assortment of ill-mannered pets. Mike’s work has appeared in numerous publications, including The Malahat Review (his creative nonfiction piece ‘The Neanderthal and the Cave’ won the 2015 Open Season Award), The London Magazine, Tall Tales and Short Stories, B.C. Outfitter Magazine, and The Storyteller (his nonfiction piece ‘A Matter of Faith’ was unanimously awarded the Readers Choice Award). ‘Deep Water’ was a runner-up for the 2019 Surrey International Writers’ Conference Storyteller Award, judged by Jack Whyte and Diana Gabaldon, and appeared in Pulp Literature Issue 26.