For What it's Worth

He didn’t think to wear anything special, donning a button-down shirt and the jeans he found lying on his chair, the pant legs hung with a carelessness that mirrored the exhaustion he felt in his throat. The mirror was cracked in the corner, and the overhead lights flickered as if still deciding whether to shine a spotlight on the man.

He didn't come with high expectations for the establishment; it had the basics of what he needed, and that’s all there was to want. The staff had tried to spiff up the back room, a paper sat folded atop the desk, folded in ‘hamburger style’, which annoyed him slightly, and acted as a name plate that read “Beckett” in clearly handwritten letters.

It was sweet, he guessed, but not enough to elicit anything close to a smile.

He leaned toward the uncomfortable stare of his blue eyes, fighting with the button of his shirt to function as it should against the blue stripes that tortured his fatigued eyes.

His mind was getting old, Beckett thought, because what thirty-year-old wore striped button-downs? His grandpa might’ve referred to him as a dapper young chap, to which the words alone would’ve caused him to scramble for any alternative clothing choice.

“It’s a way to sell yourself, Beck. That’s the entire point of appearances,” he had scolded the young adult whenever he visited his grandpa in that dreadfully sterile room. Apparently, sweatpants had not been a suitable option for family visits.

“And what are you selling yourself for? Heaven?” His voice was a sneer, aimed at the crinkled button-down shirt that had peeked through the thin bed sheets. “I hate to break it to you, grandpa, but I don’t think the gates will open for someone who can’t take the time to iron their shirt.”

His grandpa might’ve been offended, but he never showed it. Always chuckling at the snark Beckett threw at him, saying praises like, “You’ve got a humor that takes my breath away,” before finishing in a fit of coughs.

“If that’s what you want to call it, I won’t try to correct your delusions.” He found his phone, sitting in the old sofa chair that blew up dust whenever he sat down every six months.

There hadn’t been any words spoken after that, and Beckett never knew if that annoyed him more or less. The entire visit would already bristle his skin, having to have traveled for five hours out of town in a world where gas was already too expensive for his, then, 20-year old life. His only retaliation to it all was the petty reprieve he sought in his device, ignoring the old man that laid pitifully in the machine-laden bed.

“Will you help me up, Beck?” His grandpa’s voice spoke quietly over Beckett’s phone, only just enough for the man to lower his device and wonder if it had been an auditory figment.

“What, you want me to detach you from all the life-supporting machines?” He found himself smiling for once in incredulity at his old man’s question.

“Yes.”

“Grandpa–”

“I only want to see the stars. It’s a beautiful night out.” Beckett might’ve stood stronger had he not been faced with the hapless sight of his shaking hands scraping away at the taped IV.

His grandpa ordered Beckett to bring him onto his rickety front porch, the wood long deceased, despite the fact that he was helpless in his grandson’s grip. Eventually, as the porch slats creaked and threatened to buckle under their weight, Beckett couldn’t even find himself to look up at the insignificant specks in the sky.

This is what his grandpa spent his energy on– what was more important than the life-sustaining machines?

“What’s the point, Grandpa?”

“Of what?”

“Of coming out here? Of leaving your machines? You say it all the time, you’re going to be up there anyway.” Beckett couldn’t see the same light that his grandfather did from the dots in the sky; his pupils did not twinkle with any wonder but instead reflected the obscure shadows of the yard in front of him.

“What’s the point of you driving all this way when you know I’m dying anyway?”

Beckett looked at the wrinkles in his grandpa’s face, noting how the smile lines and crow's feet seemed more weighed down than usual. He never spoke of death outright, always talking about ‘leaving this place’ or ‘ascending to the sky,’ but the word death always seemed too bleak for a man like him. Beckett didn’t know how he felt about hearing the words then.

“Because you know Mom nags me, and she’s more annoying when–”

“No, Beckett, there is no point. There’s no real point in anything at all.” He wasn’t looking at Beckett anymore, but once again at those damn stars. Beckett had been close to responding, opening his mouth until his grandpa continued, “Do you know how large our universe is, Beck?”

“I don’t know, like a few light years?”

“Try 13 billion.”

“Is there a reason for the science lesson?” Nothing mattered, he had said, so why was Beckett’s grandpa deeming science a matter worth explaining?

“Beckett, we are so unimportant.” He looked back at his grandson with the same twinkle in his eyes that the stars kindled from him.

“Wow, thank you.”

Used to his apathy, he pushed forward. “It’s because things don’t matter that we search for the things that do. Beckett,” he had pointed his weak, brittle finger into his chest to emphasize his point, “we are beings of matter.”

“And here you are thinking your words are ones that matter too. Is that where this is going, O’ wise one?”

Beckett had only rolled his eyes when his grandpa let out a guffaw before the coughs stole his breath once again.

“There’s that humor again.”

Their silence had breathed for more moments, only interrupted by the whining wood beneath them. Beckett had thought for a moment that they would not sustain the added weight of their conversation.

“We live short lives, Beckett. I only wanted to see the stars one last time…” he paused, letting his wisdom permeate, “and maybe to make you stop and see them for the first time.”

“That’s stupid, they are going to be there tomorrow.” As if still a petulant child, Beckett had refused to let his gaze meet the orbs in the sky.

“The mindset of infinity is dangerous– nothing ever lasts.”

“So then why bother finding things that matter then, huh? If they don’t bother to stay.” The thought of the gas receipts outlasting the man beside him had felt more unsettling than Beckett would’ve admitted.

“We don’t tell jokes thinking we laugh forever, Beckett.”

The rest of the words spoken that night did not matter– because his grandpa was not there to say anything anymore, and therefore, the striped shirt remained.

“Mr. Beckett–”

“Beck is fine.” He corrected the crew member behind him; the girl’s in-ear microphone bounced with her anxiously tapping her heel.

“Sorry, Beck. You’re on in less than a minute.” She pointed to her clipboard as if that was supposed to arouse a sense of urgency.

Apparently, punctuality mattered to this establishment.

“Thank you, lead the way.” His stubborn button was forgotten as he followed the stage crew member towards the wing.

“Happy to have you here, Beck.” She turned to him, handing his microphone from the black box that lay undisturbed next to the sound console. “I have to say, I’m a bit of a fan.”

“Thank you.”

She only nodded in response before listening to cues in her headset and signalling him to the stage. The applause erupted as the light beamed on his striped shirt. The audience was a mass of black with specks of phone lights twinkling, camera flash on as they were desperate to capture the memory.

Beckett felt the skin stretch around the smile on his face as he stared right back at the dozens of light specks, “I came here tonight with only the hope to make you all laugh at least once.”