Prayer Naked 1.2

I came back from Vermont.  And then we had to do a show at USC.

Three whole years I’d been doing this. Flying cross country, for free, performing at theatres, colleges, conferences, whatever, staying in hotels I didn’t pay for, eating meals they footed. Came home, hit up O’Neal’s with Yas, boose it up, call up some random girl who thought I was cute and intelligent in a temporary companion kind of way, and maybe get to fuck in a parking lot or a park. Then wake up and go to work at The Glass. I felt like a rock star. Just without the rock.

Really though, it was pretty retarded. I’d talk about how I worked at a strip club, how much money I would steal from the company, how much alcohol I’d consumed in just three months, and how many combinations of drugs I’ve tried just to see what dying felt like. And they ate it up. They loved it. They drowned themselves in my stories, thinking all of it to be some Hollywood script. They got drunk themselves off of the fantastical, the outlandish, the insane stories I would regale.

And the funny thing was, I was beginning to do all of that shit just to be able to come up with some outlandish, crazy, Hollywood type story. Because I had to live it in order to tell it. That was the only way it could be real, be honest, and true. Otherwise I’d be some sort of hack, like I’d been before the Grains of Rice.

Then my dad had to go and have an aneurysm. It fucked and saved me at the same time.

Aneurysm. Aneurysm. Aneurysm…

On the way home from Vermont, my sister Edna called me to tell me. She said I should come home. That I should stop running around the country doing stupid art shit and that I should get a real job to help her pay for my fathers hospital bills that were sure to come up. That she couldn’t do it alone and that I needed to do my part for the family. That I need to become more responsible.

Instead, I stayed in Vermont and told a few hundred strangers a story while he was having surgery.

Edna had never liked me. Maybe because I was a boy. And boys got to do anything they wanted. Maybe it was because I was never around to help her. And that I was never there to help her out. And maybe, because of that, she blamed me for my parent’s divorce.

I walked into my dad’s empty apartment. It smelled like him. it smelled like him  a few years earlier. When he was more alive. I decided I was going to stay with him to keep him company. So he wouldn’t die in the middle of the night. Alone.

As I walked through the front door, luggage still in my hands, the phone rang. The caller ID said it was Edna. I sighed, and picked up the phone.

“Xavier. When are you going to visit him in the hospital?” She said, “He’s your dad. You should be at the hospital.”

“I know he’s my dad.” I said. “I look like him.”

I could feel disappointment through the phone. “What time are you going to visit him?” She asked.

“I don’t know. I’ll probably see him when he gets home.” I said, still holding my luggage.

“I need you there.” She said. I felt judgment. “We need to take turns watching him.”

“Why? Is he going to run away?” I said, still holding my luggage. “Are the Russians going to kidnap him?”

I could feel her anger through the phone. “Xavier!” She yelled. “He’s your father!”

“Look, what do you want from me?” I asked. “I’ll be here when he gets home. You’re not going to be the one taking care of them. I will. So you go to the hospital now. I’ll take car of it when he…”

She hung up.

I slammed the phone. It broke.

I stood there, in the dark. I hadn’t even closed the door yet. I hadn’t even turned the lights on yet. I hadn’t done anything yet. The first thing I did was get into a fight with my sister.

Immediately, a guilt washed over me like a cold, hard-water, waterfall. I was a bad son. One that was selfish and self-centered. One that was afraid. One that hid behind a lot of jokes and drinks and drugs and naked ladies.

I cried. Alone. In his apartment. In the dark.

I dropped to my knees. The tears hit my hands. I couldn’t see anything except the explosions inside my eyes. The milky light from the back of my lids, shut tight, hurting. My face was a crumpled mess. My neck had no strength. My shoulders sunk to my waist. I was the weakest thing in the world.

“God…” I heard myself say. “Don’t let him die…”