The First Day
He lived alone. In a small apartment in Sun Valley. Very minimalist. One chair, a TV, a VCR, a small fridge, and a few porno magazines. He ate canned fruits, cereal without milk, and drank a lot of orange juice.
He was living off his Social Security and the occasional ballroom dance lesson.
He was old, but he sure could cut a mean rug. And I figure that’s why the ladies loved him. And I figure that’s why my mother left him.
Yesterday, he was discharged from the hospital. They said he was strong enough, but he still had the piece of his skull missing, the piece that they put under the skin of his stomach for safe keeping, until the swelling in his brain went down enough for the doctors to put it back where it was supposed to be. They said that was procedure. Cutting a piece of the skull out and putting it in their stomach because the swelling in the brain was so bad, if the doctors didn’t do that, his head would implode. That was regular for aneurysm patients, they said. So they let him go home.
I’m pretty sure though, it had to do with insurance. And my dad’s coverage ran out. As long as he wasn’t going to die immediately, the hospital could discharge him. And they did. Because they said he was making good progress.
To me, however, whenever I looked at that flat side of his head, saw the skin stretched like it was a pelt, I kind of thought he was the furthest thing from strong enough, the furthest thing from making good progress.
None of it mattered though. We didn’t have enough money to keep him in there. So they gave us a helmet and a walker and wished us good luck.
My sister, Edna, cursed me for never visiting him while he was in the hospital. She complained about how she had to deal with the social worker, the doctors, the nurses, the pharmacists, all the people necessary to help my dad not die from a swollen brain. And how she had to practically carry him, by herself, to her car. And drive him back to his apartment while I was at rehearsal. And how she carried him into his apartment by herself. And how she had to build all the safety stools and rails in the bathroom and next to the bed and in the hallways. All by herself.
So because she did all of that, by herself, I was the one who was going to take care of him. At least for the first couple of weeks. Until we found an affordable live-in care-giver to watch him.
And there I was, the first day, the first night, listening to him breathe from across the hall, waiting for him to call my name. To take to the bathroom. To turn on the light. To turn off the TV. To give him his medicine. For whatever he needed.
In the dark, on a chair, typing some story about strip clubs and naked ladies and drugs and video-games, I was waiting for him to call my name.
