the end in slo-motion
i was watching the tube and heard a crash and then a groan. i waited for the commercial and then walked out to the kitchen to check. Dad was on all fours, in his pajama top. his balls hung down like old tits, swaying from side to side. he was pushing a glass of vodka in front of him, first with the inside of his hand, then with the outside, like it was a hockey puck. (one more 5th retrieved from the woodpile not discovered by my mom and drained into the sink.) ‘you okay?’ ’yeah, yeah, yeah.’ he has a big dipper of strange red spots on his forehead. he’s puking blood. he refuses to go to the hospital. he refuses to join AA or go to that ridiculous drying out center called Live-N-Grin (who can blame him?). he is using up the leftovers of his life fast, trying to make up for the extended stupor of his twenty-five year long marriage and hateful job at the bank. there’s nothing any of us can do. that’s what I tell myself. Lloyd Ritter claims that if you catch a guy by the hair as he’s jumping off a cliff, okay. but if he jumps again when your back is turned, it’s none of your business. Dad definitely wants to jump. he’s been jumping for years. a slow, pre-meditated alcoholic suicide. i don’t think the end is near, but it is coming. ‘i’ll predecease you,’ he is forever promising Grandpa (the legal language of the estate planner). he cuts a big slobbering path through life — the old battle-ax thundering through the heat and the flies.
This is an excerpt from my book, The Paragraphs — Cutlass Press
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