Lake Lightning for R by Sean Thomas Dougherty

Image via Frantisek Duris

Tonight like some kind of calligraphy scrawled across the night sky, out over the lake, like an electrocortical of light, which is to say a sign, an omen the old ones would say, and tonight the man is leaving after sixteen years of living in this institution. He stands, staring out at the rain, touches the small scar on the side of his head from the gunshot that crossed him in a shootout down in the city of bridges, when he was a young man and nearly lost to his mama, and his grandmama who comes to visit, and he goes home to see, and eat the batches of biscuits like the ones he brings back to us. 

He says, “Biscuits need to be smothered. Butter and honey. Butter and honey.”

He wears his Pittsburgh Pirates cap slanted to one side to show off his scar like a medal. The man would get mad when he first came here as a young man, and grab a chair, raise it as if to hit you. He could barely speak. Then the words began to come out as a stutter. Then sentences.

Now the man speaks halting but can be understood, and he has learned to wait. He’d stamp and hit before he could speak. Now he walks slow with patience, sometimes too much. Late for meds, or dinner, he moves an easy river. His anger found a box in his brain he rarely now lets the lid off. Still his memory is bad and full of holes, like the bullet holes that filled his body that night he nearly died, and his family sent him here, not just for rehab but to hide. He suffers from night terrors and insomnia. 

Sometimes he wakes and doesn’t know where he is. I guide him slowly back to bed. In the morning, he is full of grins and high fives. He has learned to shower and dress himself. He can’t tie his shoes. He will never have a job, but he can set the table. He can get his own cereal. He can say his prayers. He attends church with a volunteer. He sings out loud and offkey. He is good with days and time which is no small thing. He can tell you the statistics of every Pittsburgh pirate. He knows when he is talked down to. 

“I’m not a child,” he says. “I’m not a child.” 

But now nearly two decades have passed since the bullet pierced his head, and he is a man, one who likes to stay up late and watch wrestling, who wants two sandwiches each day for lunch, a man who can play checkers and win. He falls to sleep singing—offkey with his headphones on. I gently tap his shoulder, say, “R maybe go to bed? You fell asleep in your chair.” 

He looks at me. His eyes brown and deep. One eye wanders a bit, as if someone is sneaking up on him. “OK man,” he says. 

He says it all the time, “OK Man. You’re OK man.” 

His mother now is out of prison. She is clean and working at a hair salon, drives up to visit these last years. His cousins say they can help. And he will help his mother stay clean. He will help her clean the house and do the dishes. She will tuck him in and he will say, “Mama, I am a man.” 

We stand under the awning and watch the rain. 

He says, “The sky is angry.” 

I say, “Amen.” 

“Angry ain’t get you nothing. Angry ain’t get you nothing.” 

We watch the lightning crisscross and jag. 

The thunder rumbles as if a last goodbye.

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Sean Thomas Dougherty (he/him) is the author of Death Prefers the Minor Keys from BOA Editions. Recent essays in Brevity, Craft, Midway Journal, and River & South.  He works as a Caregiver and Medtech along Lake Erie.