For my beautiful mother Last Part in the series

I sensed it in the very first syllable my father muttered, that first indigo note, the way his voice broke gracelessly like a pubescent choir boy’s; something was wrong, the situation was exigent. He told me my mother would need a second operation to remove cancer from her lungs. The air left my own with his revelation. I felt like I had received a vicious, unforgiving blow to the solar plexus. My legs were out to sea.

I sat down, seeing double, my throat too dry to speak, eyes burning backwards into me. My father took a long pause, like me he needed some time to regain some semblance of composure, a scared little boy on his own, trying to stay strong for his own scared little boy. The surgeon wanted to get back inside my mother while her wounds were still fresh and tender. This time they would be removing a much larger piece of her. There was potential, as there is with all serious operations, for coma and possibly death. There were imminent lesser risks too, ribs might be broken, her breathing may never be the same, the cancer may have spread out from the lungs. I sat there, at work, listening, while something vital buckled inside of me, while I suppressed a rising howl, clearly evident in my wounded eyes.

I left work early. At first my plan was to get over to the hospital, support my mother and father during a time of crisis, the responsible son approach. I took the expressway down from the mountains. The sky was the weakest blue and the sunlight made me feel overexposed, vulnerable. I avoided the stereo, fearing all the potent connections I make with the music I listen too; driving and crying looked almost as silly as masturbating and crying. I had urges to fend off, there in my van, where I normally felt a primordial comfort. I wanted to cut the wheel severely, on a bias, free fall down into the languid brown river below or accelerate head on into the jagged rocks on the other side of the howling highway; better to explode in some kind of new sun than implode and fade into one’s self, pitifully collapse without a sound.

I knew these urges were passed on to me in genes, forged in the furnace of affliction. My father had wrapped a few cars around telephone poles, once even drove straight into a neighbor’s living room back in his Deacon Blue days. My mother was no stranger to the finite rush of destructive urges either. I hated hospitals, I hated flower shops; both reminded me of funerals. I had been to far too many of those recently. I decided to forgo the hospital, with its sterile, near death experience lighting and all of those tired, wheezing machines. I needed a good bottle of scotch and some time alone.

My mother played all gentle on my mind during that drive, soft focus scenes from my childhood, simple meaningful scenes, beautiful Christmases, weightless vacations, movies in the family room. I remembered the time, subsequent to being released from the hospital after my first suicide attempt, we were at the shore house and we both couldn’t sleep. Together we walked the beach, moon as only witness. We talked about everything. We kept on walking, watched the sunrise, its golden yolk shattering itself all over the dark, restless water. The sunrise, all the colours of summer, softly parading across my mother’s beautiful face, her long brown hair catching and releasing the gentle breeze.

We shared breakfast at an open-air diner on the boardwalk, fed waffles to the streaming seagulls – their cries always triggered memories, most good, I longed to be a child in the safety of her arms again. We walked all the way back, never feeling closer, tired and giddy, laughing about my father; the poor guy was probably having a panic attack, wondering where we were, driving himself crazy, a short jaunt indeed. It all came back to me – the sights, the smells, the sea’s spray, the assuasive percussion of the waves — skinned my heart, I needed a drink, bad.

I made it home barely in one piece. Cradling the bottle of single malt scotch in my arms like a big old baby, as we all cope differently; this was my way, with solitude, liquor and music. It was what most would consider to be a beautiful day, copious sunshine, high of 75, agreeable breezes. Personally I preferred the generous applause of hard rain, the comfort of a sky low and gray, a cool 50 degrees.

Our backyard was in voluptuous bloom, lush and verdant. I set up the rabbit Casey’s run out there by the avocado tree, and made sure he had equal parts shade and sun. I placed the stereo speakers in the window, selected a few old jazz records, all recorded by tragic genius musicians that died too young, that couldn’t afford their own funerals: Harold “Tina” Brooks, Bobby Timmons, Clifford Brown and Sonny Clark. I broke the seal on the scotch, watched as warm, wild honey gold poured in rich ribbons over the rocks. The first swallow was all things redolent of summer. There’s a certain warmth in scotch, it spreads out from the first sip, finds a raw place deep inside and gauzes it. It’s a warmth that allows the drinker to fall back inside himself, I enjoy that fiercely loyal warmth, the way it is conducive to solo flights of introspection.

I finished the first one with celerity, then I carried the rabbit Casey and our box turtle Pfred out to the run, the old hare and tortoise routine. I lay in the shade of that tree, listening to the bluesy, lyrical cry of Tina’s tenor sax; it truly expressed the inexpressible. I watched Casey gracefully weaving in and out of pillars of sunlight, in time with the poetry of the jazz, the soft susurrations of the tree. It all worked like an efficacious palliative, dulcified my concussed mind, mellowed the blood.

I always felt closer to that rabbit than the humans in my life, well, maybe with the exception of my girlfriend Kim. To me, the rabbit represented all things pure and sincere still left in life, and disrupted the world’s disorder just by virtue of his grace, I learned many things from him he helped me to live in the present. He picked up quickly on my mood that afternoon, did his best to cheer me up, serious in his frivolity, two old souls connecting,. I knew our bond and love went back many lifetimes. The music, the drink, the company was just enough.

We stayed out there all day. Kim brought us in later that night. She had heard the news from my father too. She saw us out back in the yard when she got home from work, later that afternoon, and said we looked far too happy to interrupt our reverie. Later, I would go on to write a piece called “Patient”, directly influenced by that fateful day. In it I projected my mother’s condition onto myself; Casey found his way into the piece too, always a pure light source, in my work.

I went over to the hospital to see my mother the following morning. I was ruined by a Three Mile Island hangover, and needed a Silkwood shower. Her surgery was set for the following day; it would be a long, arduous procedure. She was a strong, beautiful woman. Even in that precarious setting, she always had a way of tempering the serious with the goofy. She made a blow fish face at me when she saw me in the doorway. She lit up like a lemon tree when she saw Kim with me. Kim had become the daughter she always wanted.

During her convalescence from the last surgery, Kim took time off from work and looked after her. Kim’s selflessness and humanity made her a heroine in my father’s eyes, mine too. I felt lucky to have her, to have known her the way I have, I know it sounds all wide eyed and ruritanian, but her love has made me a better man. My mother was all smiles, tried to joke a little, keep things light, keep the shadows of her sickness at bay. Still, I saw the fear, tiny pain bubbles in her eyes, green as the ones she gave me. They always guided me from this kind of darkness, who would guide her?

I was pissed at the cancer for invading her body, for molesting her body. She had been molested by family as a little girl. For years, she had successfully blocked those memories, only to be crushed and crippled by the weight of them, when they returned in all their hideous obduracy. She had watched her mother, my beloved grandmother, Grace die from the very same disease; she was just a little older than my mother when she passed on.

Kim reminded me of her. Our relationship was cogent proof of the Oedipus/Elektra complexes. I reminded Kim of her father too. It was true of all my serious relationships, the ones with any kind of commitment or longevity. My mother served as the paradigm: a gorgeous, voluptuous brunette, a pulchritude matched only by her scythe sharp wit and emotional honesty. It was a comfort being inside that room with her by my side, it kept me from collapsing.

I envied my mother’s strength; even if she looked like a scared child ready to be engulfed by the sterile blazes of that uncaring hospital room. I kissed her, and Kim kissed her. We hugged my father, who started crying. I had learned to love that about him, as a kid it was embarrassing, but now it made perfect sense to me. His emotional honesty was admirable, the way he could cry without impugning his integrity as a man; if anything, it seemed to make him more of one. I sometimes wish tears were that easy for me. I internalize everything, then, after it festers and ferments, I write it down. That’s how I cry.

My mother’s second operation was a triumph. The cancer was eradicated, completely excised from her body. It felt like an exorcism for all of us. Kim once again took time off from work to help my mother through her convalescence, practically moved in to her house. Kim’s commitment to my mother didn’t surprise me. I knew from day one that no heart was ever as pure as hers. It seemed fitting that my mother had introduced us, the book wrote itself after that, pure poetry in every line.

There’s honey in every hollow of Kim’s flawless body. My mother’s recovery remained wonderfully progressive until her dog passed. The woman couldn’t catch a break. Princess Becky Rose, (my mother always gave our animals ostentatious names), was like a daughter to my mother; they were inseparable. Consequently, my mother fell into a deep depression. She started smoking again, surreptitiously. She became emotionally fragile, like the mother I sometimes knew as a small child. It broke my heart; she had been so strong through the whole cancer scare. Kim and I made it a point to take her out places, get her out of the house. She talked about the dog incessantly, in elegiac tones, and we made plans to adopt a puppy for her. Maybe in the new year, since she needed time to mourn, time to recover.

Then my Uncle Kenny passed away on my brother Michael’s birthday. I knew his health had been in precipitous decline over several years. He had the lung capacity of a Marlboro cowboy with emphysema; his medicine cabinet rivaled any corner pharmacy in the neighborhood. In fact, the very last time I had seen Kenny was at the doctor’s office. He was in really bad shape, and thought I was my brother Michael. We talked a little about my writing, about how his father, my grandfather Swain, was a truck driver poet. I promised to send over some of my stuff, and never did get around to it. Kenny was the eccentric, wolf-of-the-steppes, brother on my father’s side. He did his own thing, liked to drink alone, take impetuous late night drives to the shore. He was also the only brother in my father’s family with a full head of hair; much to the chagrin of my father, his brothers Bucky and Bobby, and even his sister Patsy… the blues is a woman with male pattern baldness.

My father called to tell me about the funeral. It was to be held at a church I knew all too well, All Saints.I spent two years there in Catholic grade school. I remembered the vaulted, hand painted ceilings, saints with toilet seat hairlines, milky rubenesque madonnas pressing haloed cherubs against their sacred breasts, breasts that cast sinful shadows on the innocents. I remembered the statue of Christ, the big bloody heart with flames shooting out of it, watching his eyes to see if they would move, shed bloody teardrops.

The priest was an abject asshole there, Father Kennedy, textbook dipsomaniacal priest. He hated my guts, felt I was the class wiseacre. I was, fuck his tight holy ass anyway. I knew he couldn’t possibly be still alive, the guy was a fossil way back then. He looked like he had already been embalmed, I was relieved to learn that he had in fact died well on 15 years ago. I remembered the beautiful pipe organ up in the balcony of that old church, the wounded sparrow voice of the lady that played it. I looked forward to hearing it all again. I remembered Kenny taking me to my confirmation at that church. He was the only religious one in the family back then. I still have a picture of my nerdy sixth grade ass wearing a scarlet robe and standing next to a leisure suited Kenny on the steps of that very church.

I didn’t have a bad memory of the guy. I did have some hysterical ones that almost rendered me incontinent upon remembering them. Like the time Kenny volunteered to drive me and my brother to our little league baseball game in his mint green Ford Fairmount. We were on a team called the Leprechauns. We had never won a single game. We had these hideous little cry for help uniforms, all piss pot gold and gall bladder green. Our coach Eddie was a major pothead. We’d run laps at practice while he’d sit over by the trashcan and fire up his bowl. We were beyond bad news.

Anyway, during the ride over to the field, my brother had accidentally stepped on a can of ether Kenny had on the floor in the back of the car. The smell seemed strange, but we couldn’t place it. We wound up passing out in the backseat. I finally came to when I heard the door slam shut and another one open up. It was Kenny waking us up telling us it was game time. The heavy fumes from the ether were stinging my nose, eyes, and lungs. Michael was having a serious asthma attack, turning purple as Grimace. Kenny, however, seemed completely unphased.

We stumbled in out retarded uniforms over to the team dugout. The Lasorda-esque coach Eddie took one long look at us and waved an off duty cop (his son was on our team) over. He told the officer we appeared to have been drugged. The cop accosted Kenny and asked him some hard questions. He quickly discovered that Kenny wasn’t some sick pederast and that the ether was somehow being used to start Kenny’s lemon. Kenny was a chainsmoker; fortunately for us, he had forgotten his smokes that day. We all would have been blown to bits, just like the M.O.V.E. house was by Wilson B. Goode.

When my father found out about Kenny’s carelessness, he got drunk and harangued Kenny and his wife Rita. He told Kenny that he always believed him to be an acutely retarded individual, a veritable mouthbreather. Rita tried to mouth off to my father. He hated her passionately. He whipped out his penis, waved it at her, and told her to kiss it goodbye, for some bizarre reason.

As a result of my father’s juvenile and hurtful antics, Kenny refused to speak to us for well over a year, and he lived right across the street! My brother and I would sometimes work up the nerve to crank him on the phone. Kenny would pick up and coolly state, “Hello (deep puff of cig), this is the bird sanctuary”. That killed us every time; we were all shits and giggles after that.

Now Kenny was gone. The strange bird had flown, leaving a wife behind that stopped loving him decades ago, that pretty much let him die. Also he left behind a daughter, little Rita, who was once a beautiful model, the pride of the family; then she became a glorified pincushion for pseudo-celebrity and political types. She managed a dilapidated night club that finally gave up and sunk into the stinking Delaware River, she interned for local politicians. She blew Michael Buffer; he probably said, “Let’s get ready to rumble” while she provided oral congress. Kenny loved her though; that was his little girl, and I respected him for that.

Rita was now married to some Jimmy Hoffa wannabe, some union bigshot. He made all the funeral arrangements, this pissed of my father and his brothers. They felt that this was their responsibility, that he was doing it just to show off his money and connections. My father felt he was a man of low degree, in cahoots with Kenny’s wife Rita. Neither was to be trusted. They let Kenny die; if they had got him the proper care, he would have made it through the holidays. Kim was broken up over Kenny’s passing, almost as much as my father, Kenny was her favorite uncle of mine. Kenny liked her too, Kim probably reminded him of his own daughter, when she was younger. My mother just seemed distant and ambivalent.

The sky was undecided as to what it wanted to do the day of Kenny’s funeral. It hung itself all low and gray, looked like the stone they were carving for Kenny. I was pulling for rain; it just seemed right. I decided not to wear a suit. There’s this song by Bill Callahan (SMOG), and in it, he sings “whenever I get dressed up, I feel like an Ex-con trying to make good” – truer words were never spoken in regard to me in a suit. Kim looked stunning, hotter than firecrackers on the fourth; she looked too good for a funeral. Junoesque and over six feet tall in heels, classic figure, hazel eyes coruscating so brightly at their core, but rimmed with a heavy sadness, a sadness which reminded me to be dignified, for this was a somber moment, a sad gathering.

When we arrived at the church, I instantly started looking for my brother. He was more fun at funerals than parties. Every family needs someone like Michael. Someone that effortlessly provides levity in those heavy times. That was his way of coping, with barbs and jokes about our family, with lecherous comments about our ridiculously attractive second cousins, all of whom seemed to be strippers now. It wasn’t that he was disrespectful or obdurate; it was just that he used gallows humor to keep the snapping black dog of depression at bay. He’s like one of those tragic Lenny Bruce types that way. I was disappointed when I didn’t see him in the lugubrious black line of mourners entering the church. The mourners reminded me of starlings, wings weighted down by the rain of ceremony, no longer volant; broken by a straw that only they, each one of them, knew the individual weight of.

I held the tall wooden door of the church open for Kim, then I entered just behind her. She reached for my hand, which I gratefully took; it was trembling. I got instant tunnel vision upon entering, smelled incense burning, the grandiose whirl of the pipe organ, a woman singing in sad satin sparrow tones. It didn’t even look like Kenny there in the open-faced coffin. He was pale and shrunken, desiccated and vampire-like; his skin looked like the shell of a snake’s egg, all leathery and discolored. I kept thinking, this could have been my mother, and the thought eviscerated me. Kim started crying big time when she saw Kenny lying there. My father came over and he was crying too. I looked around and noticed they were the only two crying. This made sense, since they were the most emotionally honest people I knew. The rest seemed to be mingling with one another, unfocused, distant, impossibly disaffected. I didn’t get it.

I looked over towards the pews. I saw the ghost of my late grandmother, my father’s mother Anna. It actually turned out to be her sister, a woman I had never met. I saw my father’s brothers numbed by grief and/or pre-funeral drinks. I saw Kenny’s wife and his daughter glad handing an ex-mayor that caused a stir with his presence, no doubt orchestrated by the bucktoothed, balding, impeccably tailored, Hoffa hubby.

I saw a morbidly corpulent priest preparing the altar for the service. He looked like a dissolute monk from a Jess Franco film. He had the physique of a slave trader. There was an altar boy and two altar girls (when did that happen?) assisting him with the motions. I wondered if he molested them; the thought made me sick. My mind has some really fucked up angles to it. I saw all of those second cousins my brother Michael wanted discount lap dances from; one even gave me a big hug and thought I was Michael. She held the embrace a few beats too long. It was awkward, her perfume triggered my allergies, and I sneezed into her crisp head of Jersey hair.

I turned just in time to catch a glimpse of my mother. She was smiling in my direction, a big beaming beatific one, waving me and Kim over to the pew where she was seated. Some light had found a crack in the slate gray of the sky outside. It was getting into the church, through the stained glass, and it played all prismatic across my mother’s face. Her exquisite lineaments reminded me of that sunrise on the beach. She looked more beautiful and youthful than ever before, bright with life and good health. It was amazing. The thought occurred to me, once again, that this service could have been hers. I took her in my arms. She was light as anything, and I told her I loved her., holding her there, feeling her heartbeat, majestic and beautiful. We were a family again, several straws later and somehow still unbroken, weightless and with one another, the way it was meant to be, always.