A filmmaker named Eric told me a story about scattering the ashes of his older brother into a creek, one of their favorite boyhood haunts. Late one winter afternoon, Eric popped the lid, shook out the crumbs and pieces, and watched the current take them away. He said a prayer. That night, as if God wanted the story to be just right, the weather in the northeast sharply turned bitter and the season’s first snow fell, delicately, like a benediction. Eric said it would have made a fine shot in a movie.
He said, “It looked like a huge barnacle, or some kind of obscene, petrified sponge.” Nobody spoke. “I wanted to gather him up.”
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Al Nightingale was a buddy of dad’s in Rockford, when my parents were still married and we lived on Thelma Street, before the divorce and dad’s disappearance and his wandering.
Dad had been cleaning his gun in the kitchen. Mom was bitching about the housework and dad’s general lack of initiative. This was during a period of heavy drinking in my father’s life, and he was polishing the barrel of his gun while Mom complained, and he said to her in a slurred voice, “I could put you out of your misery.” In about three minutes Mom had me and a bundle of clothes loaded in the car. We never went back.
“Excuse me,” I heard him say. I woke up. I thought he was talking to me. In his shaky hand he held out to the flight attendant a small, square bucket full nearly to the brim with bright yellow liquid.
In March dad’s doctor called from the Augusta VA hospital. “The time has not come, but your father has given us instructions,” he said. “We need some documents from you before we can implement the advance directive. He doesn’t want anyone jumping up and down on his chest.” They’d already amputated his useless legs, bloated and marked with infected bedsores. He had been diagnosed with leukemia, his blood pressure had gone haywire, and his kidneys were failing.
The man ran a wand up and down my spread arms and legs.
