“Waking Up Uncle Francis: A Short Story”
So there he was, my Uncle Francis, lying on his stomach in his Girard Avenue apartment. I knew I’d gotten into his place some way, though I can’t remember how. How I get from place to place sometimes can be a blur. My father blames this on drinking, like that one time I collapsed near Johnny Brenda’s and Uncle Francis had to come and get me. I tend to drink too many beers (usually in the wrong places) to the point where I black out or just fall apart. Needless to say, I am used to not knowing where I am.
I don’t even remember walking through Uncle Francis’ front door or even if he buzzed me in or not. Either way, I wound up standing in his bedroom doorway watching him sleep. How late was it? Maybe 3 or 4 in the morning, the bewitching hours, the hour of the wolf. The apartment was quiet except for the sound of passing traffic and the couple upstairs. Why are they so loud? Don’t they ever give it a rest?
“Hello, hello, it’s Dan!” I said to my sleeping uncle.
Why wasn’t Uncle Francis waking up? When I visit him, he’s usually walking around or sitting on his sofa reading. He then he puts on a pot of coffee (he knows I love coffee), but he wasn’t budging this time. I was afraid that something was wrong. Was he sick again? Or could this be something worse?
I thought if I relaxed in his living room for a while he would wake up in time. Because of his bad heart I didn’t want to wake him out of a deep sleep. I felt I needed to sit and rest anyway — I was having thoughts of my mother who died last month. It was Uncle Francis who broke the news of her death to me. This must have been hard for him — he knew how close I was to mother. She died while I was on the Market Street El coming in from 69th Street, she’d been sick for so long. I was heading to Uncle Francis’ place and mother died while I was en route. My father called Uncle Francis and told him the news so that he could tell me. When I arrived at Uncle Francis’ that day, he sat me down and told me what had happened. I called my father after that and cried. Uncle walked me back to the El and the rest of the month was a blur. I did not want to live.
“Uncle Francis, wake up sleepy head!” I said to his dormant body. If he can’t hear me then we have a problem. “Hey lazy bones, snicklefrit, get the hell up!”
That’s what he always called me when I was a boy — snicklefrit, little snicklefrit. Crazy, huh? We do funny things in our crazy Irish family. We have aunts who hate alcohol and drink only tea paired up with uncles who hate tea and call their wives old maids. Mother liked Old Fashions and Manhattans, but her sister disapproved of alcohol, drinking mostly Arctic Splash and seltzer water. She even had an alcohol-free wedding and expected everyone to come and have a good time. “It was so Mennonite,” my mother told me. “The worst wedding I’ve ever attended. The only spicy thing about it was the onions in the salad.”
“I have to stop thinking about waking him up,” I said to myself. “Why don’t I just crash on his sofa and sleep till morning when we can both go out for bacon and eggs at Paradise restaurant?”
I found it hard to sit still so I paced the living room until I was looking out the big window that faced Girard. You can see everything and everyone from the window: joggers, taxis, vagrants, drug users, hipsters.
I turned away and noticed how messy the living room was. This was untypical of Uncle Francis. He had a book of poems lying about and there were two pictures of me propped up behind a crucifix. God, I’d never seen that before. Uncle Francis was not religious.
The Philadelphia Inquirer was open on his dining room table and I could see that he had a news story circled in red pen. Beside it was a small tablet and it looked as if he’d been taking notes. I could have read it if I wanted to, but I was feeling impatient and didn’t want to turn on the lights.
I tried to sleep again, but that didn’t work. I finally realized that the only thing to stop the restlessness was to go into uncle’s bedroom and wake him up, maybe shake his bed or even jump into it like I did when I was a kid.
“Hey uncle, here I come!” I gave his mattress a tug, but nothing. I gave it another tug and still nothing.
I thought, “This isn’t good. He’s not moving.” For a moment I was afraid that I’d given him a heart attack, but then I took his right arm and moved it snug against his body. I repositioned his right arm by bending it at the elbow a bit.
“Uncle Snickelfrit!”
I started thinking about how God had taken my mother away from me — what if he had done the same thing with Uncle Francis? I’d have nobody to talk to. Two loved ones in one month! There was this sense of urgency about waking him up. I knew I had to act fast and that time was running out.
“Uncle Francis please get up,” I said, tugging at his hair. Then I saw him move. He scratched his head where I had touched it. “Uncle,” I said again, patting him on the forehead, but with this he turned over in his sleep, snored, made a coughing noise but then opened his eyes. He looked straight at me but then went to sleep again… One of his crazy jokes.
I wondered if he’d been drinking, so I went into the living room and checked what he had in the refrigerator. I spotted a half empty bottle of Jamison. I went to pour myself a small glass because I knew that Uncle wouldn’t mind, but when I went to drink it I didn’t feel anything.
The whole night was screwed up. First, I didn’t even know how I got here; second, Uncle didn’t even know I was there; third, I couldn’t even feel the booze.
I reached for a smoke in my trouser pocket, but noticed that I didn’t have any. I checked the apartment for a cigarette, searching behind the sofa cushions because when I visit I always find plenty of lose stuff there. When I didn’t find anything, I went back to the dining room table and thought about reading The Inquirer article that Uncle had circled in red.
I started thinking how I hated life and how life was not fair. What if Uncle Francis is getting ready to die?
“This can’t be happening,” I thought, “I will dive into the bed and land on top of him and then slap his forehead to wake him up.”
I did just that, slapping him lightly on the forehead and then — surprise, surprise — he did sit up in bed with a look of terror on his face. He looked around and then directly into my face but he didn’t seem to be seeing anything at all.
“Who’s there?” he said, placing his hand over his ailing heart.
We looked at one another but there was still no reaction. Then he struggled to get out of bed and limped around the apartment. He walked past me. What is wrong? I ran up to him again but he didn’t notice.
“Uncle Francis!”
I slipped into his bed and curled up under the covers, but when he came back he laid down on top of me. He was on top of me, but I feel nothing. I just slipped out from under him. He felt something and he called my name and asked me to stop.
“Please stop!”
He can see me, but he can’t see me?
Finally, Uncle Francis got out of bed and walked to the dining room table where he switched on a small lamp and began to look at the article circled in red. I read the newspaper standing over his shoulder.
“City Cites Pinched Wires In Man’s Electrocution”
Pinched wires electrified a city street light that electrocuted a pedestrian Sunday night in University City, city officials said.
Alexander L. “Pete” Hoskins, the city streets commissioner, said his department was still investigating how the wires became pinched.
He said the pole, in the 600 block of University Avenue near the University Bridge over the Schuylkill, was knocked down May 28 and repaired the next day. The pinched, or touching wires, were found near the door leading to the repair box, he said.
Hoskins said that all similar lights would be checked as a safety precaution. He said he had no reason to believe the problem went beyond the one light.
The Medical Examiner’s Office said it had identified the victim as Daniel Joseph Reilly, 23, of the first block of North Maple Street in Lansdowne. Reilly was found with his neck and chin touching the light pole. He was pulled from the pole by Hoskins.
You can imagine my dismay and shock when I realized that I had been dead for a week. While I won’t go into the particulars of my transition, I do have advice for the living:
