Incidental Beach Music (Part 2)
by VATERGrrl
Although he'd intended to pop his briefcase open right away and immerse himself in the latest findings of pediatric oncology researchers, the overwhelmingly musty smell of the cabin propelled Jed back to the small utility closet at the back of the cabin. The selection of cleaning implements was a bit more limited than he would have liked, but he was able to find a sturdy broom and a metal dustpan, the handle of which looked as if someone had stepped on it by accident, sending the back half of it off at a forty-five degree angle from the front portion.
Before he set to work chasing dust bunnies out of every reachable nook and cranny of the cabin, he plugged in and turned on a clock radio, tuning it to the local classical music station without bothering to set the correct time. Strains of J.S. Bach's Bist Du Bei Mir floated out, prompting Jed to reach back down and switch the station to something peppier and more modern. After all, the music was intended to help sweep away his worries, not add to them. Once he found a more sufficiently upbeat play list, he picked up the broom and began pushing it in slow, short lines over the floor, trying his best to keep the dust from billowing up into the air and resettling somewhere else.
Kenny Rogers had folded `em for the last time, and Billy Joel was halfway through "My Life," when Jed found that his eyes were stinging and his nose was itching. He took one hand off of the broom handle in order to rub the heel of his hand over his eyes, then slapped the same hand down to his leg when he recalled that he admonished his patients thirty-eight times a day to not rub their eyes, lest they begin to swell. When his eyes continued to sting, he clenched his hand in a tight fist and plunged it into his pants pocket to avert the urge to scrub away the tears gathering in the corners and then claw at his eyes for good measure.
Not three seconds later, he regretted taking his own advice, as the aggravating tickles that had been dancing recklessly about his nose built to an uncontainable pitch and he was unable to extricate his free hand in time to cover a sneeze. "Ehp-chkkkk!" He sniffled automatically to draw in a breath, and wished he hadn't when he felt yet more dust rush in to tantalize his irritated nose.
"Ihh-heh...eh-huhhh..." He carefully propped the long yellow handle of the broom against a corner, making sure it was secure in the vee between the side and front walls before he succumbed to the need to sneeze again, a rough "Eshh-hoooo!" that he still had no opportunity to cover with his hands or even the long sleeve of his shirt.
The thought that he was being just as careless and inept at covering his sneezes as his son passed through his consciousness, but was quickly dashed back out with another sneeze. "ISHH-huhhhh!" Blinking rapidly to clear his vision of the stinging, allergic tears that were now seeping out and dripping down the sides of his face, he shuffled to what he assumed was a front window, and struggled to open it with a single hand. The other was engaged in pinching his nostrils together in an attempt to drive back yet more sneezes.
A rush of cool, salt-laced air rewarded his fumbling efforts to open the window, but not before Jed had violated yet another of his proudly-held medical precepts, stifling twice in hard "hnnggkk!" noises which made his ears pop with the contained pressure.
"Sud-of-a..." he muttered to himself, glad that neither his son nor his son's friend was there to hear him curse. Inching his way blindly down the front wall toward the doorway, keeping the fingers of his right hand splayed against the rough-hewn panels to maintain his balance, he sniffled repeatedly, sharp intakes of breath designed to keep his nose from running too badly as he tried with difficulty to extricate a handkerchief from his right back pocket with his left hand.
It occurred to him to simply give up and swipe his shirtsleeve under his nose, but before he could bring himself to turn his face into his right arm, his right hand curled around the doorframe, while his left index finger simultaneously hooked around and caught a corner of the handkerchief he'd tucked not quite all the way into his pocket. He stepped out onto the porch and into the sunlight with an audible sigh of relief, settling himself back down on the top step before pulling out his handkerchief and burrowing his nose between folds of cloth.
"Huptchh! Chshh! Chhhh!" Jed was a bit surprised when he sneezed again, even before he felt he could take a proper breath. He had not sneezed so much, or with quite such a feeling of insistence, in ages, if indeed he ever had in his life. Certainly, he was prone to bouts of great, roaring sneezes when he caught cold, which was not as often as most other pediatricians or teachers of his acquaintance, but he had never thought himself particularly allergic to anything. Indeed, he'd gone entire months without a single sneeze, and tucked a handkerchief into his pocket every morning because his mother had insisted on it in his childhood, rather than from any perceived need. He'd once told his mother flat out that it was stupid and pointless, after a solid week of pocketing the same handkerchief in the morning and then slapping it back on top of his dresser at night, unused.
But, old habits died hard, he supposed, and he'd thanked his mother's memory more than once when Tom had been a toddler with a propensity for knocking over sippy cups, catching every cold that passed through his daycare center, or falling down and skinning his knee on the rough surface of the playground. These days, he thought as he blew his nose and then shoved the `kerf back away, he would jump at the chance to return to those days of a more prosaic purpose. Now he had to consciously tuck away a dark colored bandanna or handkerchief every morning, usually in his front pocket for easy access and to not confuse it for the plain white or pale blue squares he preferred for himself, rarely used as they were.
Fortunately for the both of them, Jed had been able to repeat the same morning tuck-in, evening dresser-top routine with both cloths for a week and a half, something of a miracle given the whopping cold Tom had been nursing for the last week. Jed still cringed, though mostly imperceptibly, when he saw his son's shoulders tense and his face contract then slacken in the sort of pre-sneeze expression he saw a hundred times a day at work. Occasionally, Tom had thought to turn away or, more laudably, lift a cupped hand near his face, before he sneezed, but for the most part, Jed could count on a completely uncovered "ashhooo!" followed by a liquid sniffle and the drag of a bare forearm under his son's nose.
Just what you yourself nearly succumbed to, he reminded himself raising one hand toward the railing beside him and using it to pull himself up. He wasn't going to make a big deal of hygiene that weekend, not when the whole point of coming out to Fox Island and having invited Cory Marshall to come with them was to grant Tom as much freedom as he could want, within a very few limits. If his son felt congested enough to ask for a tissue, Jed would gladly fork one over without a fuss, even if the request came, as he noticed it had on the ride down, from an intermediary with a doubtful talent for lying.
As he walked reluctantly back into the still-dusty house, folding the bandanna from his left pocket into a triangle and tying it over his nose and mouth so that he looked like a bank robber from the days of the wild west, he began to hum the tune from the popular Billy Joel tune he'd had to walk out on a few minutes before. Its laisez-faire, do your own thing attitude seemed appropriate to the situation, though within a few minutes of sweeping up new piles of dust and shuttling them from dustpan to trash can, Jed got caught up in another song from the radio, Melissa Manchester's wildly popular new hit, "Don't Cry Out Loud," also fit the times, though in a much darker way.
I wanted to allow one of my characters a few moments to reflect on single parenthood, a few hints of his own upbringing, and show him violating a few of his own medical "rules". Also some play with a few of the biggest musical hits of 1979 -- the scene is set in the summer of 1980.