My fathers duty’s

"What the hell am I doing here?" I ask out loud, even though there is no one else in the car with me. The vehicle is off and the inside is dark, the only light being a slight glow of red from the tip of my cigarette.  I ignite the tip by taking a long drag.  As I release a column of smoke, a cloud of gray that swirls and builds within the enclosed space around me, I take in my surroundings. 

I am near enough to Cleveland that I can still see the electric glow emitting from the tall buildings, but I sit just beyond its reach, in the shadows, among the obscured and rundown parts at the edges of the city, abandoned apartment buildings and warehouses that are now only populated by rats and drug addicts.

"What the hell am I doing here?" I say again, a consistent nervousness running up and down my spine.

I check my gps for the thousandth time, making sure that I was in the right spot, knowing damned well that I was.

A deserted three-story building fills my windshield.  The tall brick building is cracked and little more than a shell of what it might have been; a corpse of the past standing tall and dead against the night sky. But it is not the sight of the hollow, abandoned windows that fill me with a sense of dread and unease. 

It is that one single burning bulb on the first floor.

That one speck of light among the gloom.

"What the hell am I doing here?" I say one last time.

Reaching across to the vacant passenger seat, I pick up a wallet sized photo laying there. I place the picture close to my face so that I can make out the features of the young girl through the darkness.

Josephine.

Eight years old.

My angel.

The picture is little over a year old, back when her blonde hair still had bounce and her chubby cheeks were still rosy red. When the picture had been taken, I remember trying desperately to coax that little girl into a wide smile, a glowing grin, but instead I only got an uneven smirk for my troubles.  I remember being just a little bit irritated.  Yet, looking at that same photo now, the full, bent lips and cocky young smirk beamed brighter than any glow that I could have asked for. 

I tuck the picture away into my coat pocket.

Stretching my arm back over to the passenger seat, I grab the shiny, chrome .22 pistol. After I slip the weapon into the same coat pocket, I extinguish my nearly deceased cigarette and then climb from my car. The chill of the night hits my face like a back-handed slap, but I pull up my collar and keep moving. 

As I walk, I think about my daughter.

From a chair in the corner, I watched Josephine as she slept, her petite figure appeared even more tiny and fragile laying on the large hospital bed.  Her eyes danced and fluttered behind their lids.  But it wasn't because she was lost in happy, warm dreams. The discomfort and pain that I knew was plaguing my little girl was making it hard for her to rest peacefully.

I wanted to go to her and comfort her, but I knew that there would be no comfort for my daughter, at least none that I was able to provide. It was a father's duty to protect his child from harm, to shield his child from pain, but, at that moment, I was failing my duties. 

A father. That had become my soul identity in the world.  And I was failing at the only thing that truly mattered to me. I was failing...her.  

And as I watched Joesphine suffer, knowing that there was nothing that I could do to stop it, another part of me began to rot.

Hopeless...didn't even begin to describe how I was feeling.

More like...worthless.

So, I was forced to watch helplessly as my little girl fidgeted and squirmed in her sleep, tortured, distressed, and trapped in the agonizing limbo between asleep and awake.

A gentle set of taps interrupted my thoughts. I turned toward the open door to see Josephine's doctor standing there. Without speaking, Dr. Kolat motioned for me. I slipped from my chair quietly and followed her into the hallway.  My shoulders became tense as a firm nervousness grabbed hold of my neck and began to squeeze.

I had been waiting for her all day.  But the doctor's presence immediately caused me unease. 

After we walked a few feet from the door to my daughter's room, Dr. Kolat turned to me and I at once noticed that she was holding a piece of paper.  "The results of your tissue test finally showed up, Mr. Thomas.  I am sorry that it took so long," she told me. She then looked at the piece of paper, even though we were both aware that she already knew what was on it. 

What she was about to tell me would tip the scales for my little girl and I.  It would be life or death.  I wanted to hear it, but at the same time didn't. If I didn't have an answer one or the other, then I could still pretend, I could still live in that fantasy world between hope and truth. Right then, that was where I wanted to exist more than anything. 

"What does it say?" I asked.

"I'm sorry," Dr. Kolat began, "but you are not a match."

All around me nurses and patients chattered, machines beeped and chirped, footsteps echoed toward and away, but inside my mind there was only silence. 

No matter how grand the fantasy, truth and reality will eventually pull you away.

"Are there any other family members that we might be able to test?" the doctor asked.

She had asked the question before.

And I gave her the same answer.

"No."

"The mother?" she asked for what might have been the third time.

"Passed."

Dr. Kolat reached out and put a hand on my shoulder.  "We are going to make Josephine as comfortable as possible. She is at the top of the transplant list and will be the first one to get a liver if a match comes available. Don't lose hope" 

I watched the doctor turn and walk away. Once she was out of sight, I went back to my little girl's bedside. With a damp cloth, I began to wipe at the sweat that had been gathering on her forehead. I could clean away the sweat, but I would never be able to wash away the sickly yellow tint that covered Josephine's skin, no matter how firmly I scrubbed.

Her eyes opened and she peered up at me.

"Daddy?" she asked. She seemed confused. "Where am I?"

I put down the cloth so that I could run my fingers through her flat, greasy hair. "It's okay, sweetheart.  Go back to sleep."

"But the man needs to sit down," she mumbled.

"What man?"

"He is very old," she continues, her voice filled with sleep and exhaustion. "He is older than time and all the rivers of the world."

She was speaking nonsense, so I didn't answer.

A few seconds later she returned to the epic struggle that was sleep. 

The parking lot of the abandoned building is empty, as it probably has been for some time.  Yet, instead of parking directly in front of the building, I park at the center of the fractured and mangled asphalt lot, that way I can see everything on all sides. 

"What the hell am I doing here?" I repeat for the hundredth time.

The moon is full and the strong light causes deep shadows and dark corners, obscured spots that might conceal any number of dangers. I don't know what I am walking into and that unknown is causing my anxiety and imagination to spiral into strange places. I begin to question every subtle breeze or ambiguous noise as being something more ominous. 

What might be hiding in the night?

Evil and monsters and lurking creatures ready to strike? 

Maybe.

Even though I have no idea what is waiting for me, some impulse keeps me moving across the parking lot. But as I grow closer and closer to the dark structure, my grip on my pistol grows a little tighter. The gun doesn't leave my coat pocket, but my hand remains wrapped around it just the same. 

My other hand cradles another cigarette.  I put it to my lips and continuously pull in smoke until my lungs can't hold anymore and starts to burn. Releasing a massive pillar of smoke into the air, I try to release some of my tension along with it.  But the effort is fruitless.  My anxiety and tension isn't relieved one bit.

I briefly stop in front of the building and take a closer look at the light in the first-story window, which had been drawing me in like a moth to a flame. The glass in the window is somehow still intact and in one piece, but it's filthy. I can't see anything through it. I can only see the light from within being cast against the dirt and grime.

Immediately upon seeing the light in the window, I know that it couldn't be electric. It is obvious that the abandoned structure hasn't seen electricity in quite a few years. Now that I am closer, I can easily make out the shifting and swaying of the illumination, telling me that it is most likely candlelight that I am seeing. 

Several candles, in fact. 

I remain still for several more seconds and stare at the front entrance to the building, an empty, dark opening where a set of double doors might have once existed.

Apartment 1A.

Simple enough.

Shaking off a ripple of goosebumps, I toss my nearly finished smoke to the ground and enter into the building. Once inside, it becomes nearly impossible to see. Luckily, a hint of the moonlight follows me into the building and allows me to see several feet beyond the entrance. And, thankfully, that is all I need.

Apartment 1A is the very first door on the left. 

I consider knocking.  

Instead, I grab the doorknob with my left hand, my right hand still touching my gun. When I touch the metal of the knob, I receive a brief shock through the tips of my fingers.

"Damn," I curse, without removing my hand. 

Twisting the knob, I push the door and let it swing all the way open without entering. Gazing through the open doorway, I can see an average looking, empty apartment. It is dusty and dirty and smells of mold and age, but other than that, it is nothing special.

I can clearly see the candlelight moving and wiggling within the space, but can't yet see the actual candles. 

And then something catches me off guard. A familiar voice telling me to…"Feel free to come inside, James."

A new liver...  

My little girl needed a new liver and I can't give her even a tiny part of mine…

Why...how...what the hell am I supposed to do?

I couldn't just sit and watch my kid die...

Defeated thoughts ran through my mind as I sat on an empty bench several feet from the hospital's entrance, far enough from the building to smoke a much needed cigarette. But even the burn from the smoke and nicotine did nothing to distract me from the dark clouds that hung over my head.

The sun was bright and low in the sky, but the mass of sadness and hopelessness blocked any chance of the light finding me.

Gray clouds swirled directly above me, growing heavier and more dense by the minute. There was just nothing that I could do to stop the rain from coming. So, instead of trying to stop the coming storm from pouring down onto me, I exhaled my cigarette smoke upward into the clouds and helped the damned thing along. 

"Mr. Thomas?" I hear a man's voice ask.

I shook myself free of my haze and looked up to find a young man standing a few inches away. His young babyface immediately seemed familiar, but I couldn't at first recognize him. He was wearing a worn out set of dark blue scrubs, so he obviously worked for the hospital, even though he seemed barely old enough to be out of high school.  Outside of the hospital scrubs, I wasn't sure how the young man could possibly know my name. 

The young man was smiling at me and, for some reason, his strange half-grin made me uncomfortable. 

"Do you mind if I sit with you?" the young man asked.

For a moment, I considered telling him that I wanted to be alone, but changed my mind and slid over to make room on the bench.

"Smoke?" I asked him, offering him my nearly full pack.

He shook his head, "No, thank you."

When the young man sat down next to me, I wasn't sure if I was supposed to say something or just let him sit in peace, as I had been. The confusion created a breath or two of awkward silence, but luckily the young man decided to be the one to bring the moment of discomfort to an end.

"Josephine is a lovely young lady," he stated, the half-grin still on his face.

I bit back the taste of anger at the sound of my daughter's name coming from the lips of a stranger.

"How do you know my kid?" I asked, the question holding more venom that I would have liked, but less than expected.  "Mr…?"

"Frank Constantine," the young man explained, pointing a finger to a badge hanging from his ID shirt.  "You can call me Frank, Mr. Thomas."

I felt embarrassed by not noticing the badge, but pushed the emotion away and replied, "Call me James."

"I…" Frank began, "I clean your daughter's floor. Her room. Such a beautiful girl. So sad to see her in such a state.  I bet you are just out of your mind with grief and worry."

"You clean Josephine's room?" I asked.  "I don't remember ever seeing you."

"Who really notices the cleaning staff," Frank replied, shrugging his shoulders.  "You know what I mean? We are the invisible ones."

I simply nodded, not sure what else to say to the weird young man.

"You seem like a good father," Frank said.

A taste of anger was once again drawn into my mouth, but that time I couldn't bite it back. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"I mean no disrespect, James," Frank explained, the half-grin finally falling away. "I am not always the best with words. All I mean is that...it is obvious that you love your daughter very much. Deeply.  In your core.  I know that your liver test was not a match and I can see how much you are hurting. I can feel it pouring from your skin. You feel helpless.  Lost. Out of options."

"Maybe it is time for you to go back to work, Mr. Constantine," I insisted. 

"Hear me out, first," Frank pleaded. "I am a very good judge of character.  It is a gift.  And I can see you, James Thomas.  I can see that you are the type of man who would do anything to help the ones they love.  And that you love no one more than young Josephine."

"And how the hell would you know anything about me?" I spat.  "You don't know me or my daughter or anything about nothing.  So...move...along...please."

When the strange man didn't instantly get up and leave, I wanted to jump up and walk away myself. But I didn't.  And I can't explain why.  Something...kept me sitting there, even when my mind was screaming at me to run. I felt...an energy coming from him...an energy that I can't explain in words.  It was a feeling...like electricity. So, I continued sitting there.  And I began to listen. 

Frank continued.

"It is a father's duty to keep their child safe," the young man told me. "You think that you are failing that duty.  Am I right?  You think that you are out of options, but you are not."

"What options do I have?" I grumbled.

"You have one more option," Frank clarified.  "Me."

"You?"

As if from thin air, Frank was holding a folded piece of paper. He reached out and tried to hand it to me. "Come to this address tonight by 10 pm and bring everything on that list.  I know it all sounds strange, but trust me.  I am now your only option."

The odd, invisible electrical sensation still crackled in the air, arcing between Frank Constantine and myself.

"Why the hell should I trust you?" I asked.  "The doctor says that my little girl is on the transplant list and will have a new liver anytime now. Why the hell do I need to trust a strange little man, like you?"

"No liver is coming," Frank said.  "And you know that.  Not in time to save Josephine, anyway."  

He was right.  

Damn it.  

He was right.

"But I can save her, James," the young man claimed.

And I believed him.

Without another word, I reached out and took hold of the piece of paper.  When my fingers touched it, it gave me a minor shock, like a building static finally released.

At the sound of the voice I move swiftly through the open apartment door and enter into a dingy living room space. Immediately to my left, I see a row of four lit candles perched along a window ledge, throwing yellow light against a soiled sheet of glass.  

All four candles are tall and red, thick wax runoff forming down the sides. 

The row of candles momentarily draw my attention, but the voice speaks again, causing me to turn my sights in that direction.  

"I am so glad that you came, James," the voice says.

I swiftly pivot my head to the right, toward the voice, where I at once see a doorless entrance leading into a cramped kitchen. Standing in the abandoned kitchen, beside what might have once been a usable sink, I see the grinning face of Frank Constantine. At the man's feet, spread across a nasty, white tiled floor, I can see another row of four candles, tall and red, like the others. Laying next to the candles is a square sheet of clear plastic, positioned nice and neat and wrinkle free. 

Something in my brain clicks when I see the candles and sheet of plastic.  I free my pistol from my coat and, in one seamless motion, aim the weapon at the head of Frank.  My hand slightly trembles with the weight of the gun, but I do my best to hide it.

"What the fuck is this?" I demand. "Are you playing sick games with me?  Are you going to kill me and chop up my body into bite sized treats?"

I feel the sensation of electricity again, the tingle of current flowing through the air, and now understand that it is somehow coming from Frank.  A part of me already knew it, but didn't want to admit it.

"How are you doing that?" I ask him.

Frank shrugs his shoulders.

"Put the gun down, James," he says, not a speck of worry in his tone. "That was not on my list. And you won't have any use for it here."

I don't just lower the .22 pistol, but abruptly drop it onto the floor, surprised when it doesn't misfire upon smacking onto the carpet. I no longer have the strength to hold the small weapon, because all the fight has suddenly left my body.  The all-encompassing fatigue that I have been fending off for what feels like an eternity has finally taken full control of me. And what little bit of strength I do somehow hold onto is just barely enough for my legs to hold me up.

I'm tired.

Exhausted.

And at last I am willing to hear what the man has to say.

"I am here to do what I said I would," Frank states. "The real question isn't what I am here to do, James.  The real question is for you.  Why are you here?  Because I am here to save beautiful Josephine from her pain and suffering.  From her dying.  Are you?  And are you willing to do whatever it takes to get it done?"

"Yes," I reply weakly. 

"Are you?" he asks again.

"Yes!" I respond with more vigor.  "I will do whatever I have to do to save her!"

"Okay then," Frank says. "Then step over here and give me what I have asked for."

I step into the kitchen as I reach deep into my coat pocket. 

The first thing I pull out is the wallet sized picture of Josephine that I had been looking at in the car.  Giving the photo, her bouncy blonde hair and rosy cheeks, one last glance, I hand it to the strange man. 

After Frank snatches the picture from me, I fish around in my coat pocket for the second item. A clipping of Josephine's hair wrapped tightly with a pink ribbon. I cut it from her head a couple of hours before, while she was sound asleep.

After grabbing the hair from me, Frank asks, "And the third item?"

I stare back at him, confused.  What third item?  The man had only written down two things. 

"You," he explains.  "You are the third item."

Frank holds both items in his right hand and uses his left to motion to the sheet of plastic.  He then asks, "Will you please take off your coat and shirt and lay down, please, James?"

I don't have to ask why. I follow the man's instructions, before going into the kitchen and lying down at his feet. I'm not entirely sure what is about to happen to me, but I don't care anymore.  

Whatever it takes.

"Is it going to hurt?" I ask.

"Yes." In a low voice, Frank instructs me to, "Now, close your eyes and picture your daughter. Remember as clearly as you can the last words that you said to her."

No matter how much I wiped at the sweat building across her forehead, Josephine never seemed to get clean. The damp cloth was useless.  And the sticky sweat just kept coming back, to cover her skin, moisten her cheeks, and cause her hair to look grimy.

Over and over it returned.

An endless cycle.

And there was nothing I could do to stop it.

The frustration must have been written all over my face, because my little girl's hand found mine.  Her voice told me, "It will be okay daddy. Sweat is a good thing. The body needs to sweat."

Her soft hand settled mine and I put the cloth aside.

"You are way too smart," I insisted.  "Way smarter than your old man."

"You are not that dumb, daddy," she replied and then chuckled.  "You are kind of smart. You might be as smart...as...a turtle."

"A turtle?" I responded with my own laugh.  "Yeah?  I'll take it.  Turtles are pretty smart little rascals."

She suddenly looked tired again.  So, I leaned down and kissed her forehead.

"Get some sleep," I told her.  "I have to run out, but I will be back when you wake you.  Okay?"

Josephine nodded.

"I love you, daddy," she said.

"Daddy loves you, too, sweetheart," I replied.  "I love you more than the Earth and the Moon."

"And I love you more," she responded, "than all the stars in the universe."

From the floor, from atop the sheet of plastic, I watch as the man calling himself Frank Constantine slowly kneels down next to me, putting both of his knees to the floor. I notice that he is still tightly clutching the photo and patch of hair. 

After shifting the patch of hair from one hand to the other, Frank then takes the photo and passes it directly over the flame of the nearest candle. The instant that the photo touches the fire, the flames burst into a bright flash of purple and blue, so bright that it forces me to glance away.  

Quickly, the flash dissipates and I am able to return my eyes to the man's hand.

The photo of Josephine is gone.

Frank then does the same thing with the patch of hair and creates another burst of purples and blues, this time even brighter.

And then like the photo, the hair is no more.

"You wanted to know if this is going to hurt?" Frank asks me.

I nod.

"The pain will be more than you have ever felt in your entire existence," he explains. "More than you ever thought possible. But the agony needs to be. It must. What you are about to feel is the most crucial sensation that has ever been, because pain, physical and mental anguish, is what connects people in reality. There is nothing more important, more essential in all of the cosmos than pure and complete suffering."

"What about love?"

"Love," Franklin insists, "is just another form of pain."

I can't argue.

"Will I survive?" I ask.

"Does it matter?"

I shake my head.

Frank extends both of his hands so that they hover a foot over my stomach, palms downward. The static charge that has been flowing between this man and myself begins to vastly intensify.  I start to feel what can only be described as tiny, invisible lightning bolts that shoot across the surface of my skin.

It is energy, pure and unfiltered, and it flows from every pore of Frank Constantine. 

"What are you?" I ask.

"I am nothing but a very old man, James," the man replies.  "Older than time itself and all the rivers of the world.  And I am going to save your daughter."

"How?"

"By making a simple trade," he states.

"And what do you get out of it?"

"I get," Frank states, "to feed."

And that is when the facade that is Frank Constantine shutters and falls away, leaving behind something else entirely. 

Gravity grabs hold of his handsome babyface and pulls hard. The once tight, flawless flesh around his eyes and mouth begins to sink and sag as deep valleys and crevices form and spread from ear to ear.

His hair, full and without a stray strand, disappears, falling away into oblivion.  His now bald scalp is not only covered in wrinkles and grooves, but it is also speckled with a million liver spots, dark and black.

The bright white, never ending half-grin is replaced with brown, rotted teeth. 

And his hands are no longer the well manicured hands of a young orderly. His fingers become grotesquely long and abnormally thin.  At their tips, his nails become daggers, jagged and yellow. 

"Embrace the pain," the ancient creature says.  "Use it to find Josephine. Connect with her in your agony."

With the quickness of the young man the creature used to be, its sharp talons pierce the soft skin of my exposed abdomen.  I howl as a strong surge of electricity also enters my body.  Nothing could have prepared me for how it felt when the creature began to peel the flesh away from the area above my stomach.

"Embrace the pain," it repeated.  "Find Josephine."

I fight against the pain and shocks of energy for the slightest fragment of clear thought.  As the anguish and the lighting rip at my existence, I battle to remain awake, even while my consciousness wants nothing more than to fade away.

As the creature's long fingers push deeply into me and begins to search my insides, I shut my eyes tight. I embrace the pain and pulsing energy and I use it to find my Josephine. Somehow, I am actually able to see her face, even through the storm that is destroying my mind. 

What I am seeing is not the sick face in the hospital bed. No. Instead of seeing what is right now, I can clearly see what will be once again.  Her beauty, her vibrant glow returning, reemerging from beneath all the sweat and grime.

"Daddy loves you, Josephine!" I scream as the creature pries from me what I instinctively know to be my liver.

I open my eyes to watch the creature sinking its rotting teeth into my tender organ, but I can only watch for a fleeting second. As I am being swallowed by the pain and electrical storm, I scream one last time.

"Daddy loves you!"