Right Here

The kid. . . you may remember. . . I used him in lots of pictures.  He get's married today.  Twenty-three years old.  I can't go to the wedding, of course, it being in the far north and Ibeing sole caregiver of my mother here, so I made a little card and sent it to him with apologies.  I'm thinking it must be very strange for his mom. 

I had no appointments I needed to take my mother to yesterday.  That was kind of nice, but I didn't actually get much done.  Being worn out all the time, I just don't have the drive to go go go in the few hours I have to myself.  I went to my house.  I showered.  I sat and answered emails.  Well. . . nobody writes emails any longer.  Texts.  And I made a few things for people's entertainment.  

My friend in the midwest sent me a photo of her cat in a bag.  She said that she and another woman from the factory want me to teach a photography course in "Accidentally Wes Anderson."  I have no idea why.  But, in the spirit of the thing, I quickly made up an introduction to the course and sent back an A.I. version of her photo. 

And since I was at it, I made up an Anderson version for the kid. 

See?  I was busy.  

It was relaxing.  It was just fun.  I didn't want to do anything but be home for awhile in my place where my things are, where I have memories.  

But I couldn't stay.  I had to get back to make dinner for my mother.  I had plans for the evening.  I was going to duck out for a bit and take myself to a sushi dinner.  

When I got back to her house, she'd had a haircut.  A really bad haircut.  Now, as often happens with old people, you can't tell if she is a boy or a girl.  I guess she looks like an ancient lesbian.  She was sitting in the garage when I pulled in, her face a mask of grief and pain.  My moment of almost happiness drained away before I'd even gotten out of the car.  

"How are you doing?"

"Oh. . . I hurt.  You don't know how much I hurt."

It is true.  Nobody knows how much pain other people are in.  It is impossible.  At the hospital, they always ask the question, "On a scale of one to ten, ten being the worst. . . ."

How in the hell do you know how to answer that question?  The memory of pain, all studies show, is quick to fade.  

I said something she didn't hear.

"What?"

"Do you have your hearing aids in?"

"I knew that would be the first question you'd ask."

The whole point of getting her hair cut like a man was so she would not have to deal with her hair when she put in her hearing aids.  

She didn't have them in.  Of course.  

I made a Negroni and came out to sit with her.  

She told me the across the street neighbor came over and looked at the a.c.  He said the float was bad and replaced it, she said.  He'd brought a shop vac over and sucked up a big bucket of water.  All of this was putting me over the cliff.  I'd gone over once earlier in the day.  I didn't have any gym clothes in my bag, so I had to drive back to my house to get dressed then drive back to go to the gym.  As I was coming around a blind curve a block from my house on a narrow brick street, a big lawn care truck and trailer was parked so that you were really driving blind.  As I passed it, a big Mexican fellow was blowing leaves into the street, something the city has made an ordinance against.  As I came around, I had to drive through his leaves, and as I did, he looked up and blew his blower at my driver's side window.  I snapped.  I lost it.  I hit the brakes and put the car in reverse.  I was in the Xterra so when I rolled down the window, we were eye to eye.  I won't record the conversation here.  It was ugly.  I called him many provocative names in a very angry way.  You wouldn't have known I was a physical wreck if you had seen me in the moment.  He didn't either and when I didn't blink, I could see the doubt come into his very dark eyes.  He then apologized, but as I drove away, I knew it was only because he was Mexican and I was a white guy in a wealthy white part of town, and I know he was wishing we were in his part of town and was certain I wouldn't be as brave.  And of course, no matter how I tried to spin it, I knew he was right.  That didn't make me wrong, of course, but we both knew why he was deescalating things.  While he provoked the whole episode, I never feel any sense of victory when I let myself get angry.  Only a fool can't control his emotions and getting angry is the best way to lose every time. 

So, having snapped once that day, I simply went back inside to see what was going on.  There was a little fan blowing over the now damp carpet.  I was going to get a carpet shampooer that afternoon, but I didn't.  I just shook my head and went back outside and finished my Negroni.  And just as I did, the across the street neighbor pulled into the driveway.  Shit piss fuck goddamn.  I was just about ready to make my mother's dinner so I could escape.  But he got out of the car with a bottle of whiskey he wanted me to try.  

"Get two glasses," he said.  

We walked around talking about the a.c. problem.  Pretty much little of what my mother had reported to me was true.  He had not replaced a float.  He had not gotten a bucket of water out of the carpet.  I drank the whiskey thinking once again that I shouldn't let myself get so worked up.  

And so we went back outside and the neighbors' wife came across the street just as he was calling to some kids walking their dog on the opposite sidewalk, the daughter and her boyfriend of another neighbor three houses away.  It is that kind of neighborhood.  

The kids came up.  The daughter of the neighbor is nineteen or twenty and was wearing a little top and short shorts that showed her newly perfect figure which is there reason the across the street neighbor had called her over I am sure.  And I am equally certain that is why his wife came over with a scowl on her face.  I tried very hard to pay attention to the dog.  

An hour after I pulled into the garage, everyone had left, and I prepared dinner for my mother.  

"Dinner's on the table," I said.  "I'm going to get some sushi.  I'll be back shortly.  Will you be alright?"

And then, as the song goes, "Down the road I go."

I parked the car a few blocks from the restaurant.  The street was full of Friday evening diners.  The bars were packed.  As sometimes happens, there was a sense of danger and excitement in the air.  Who knew what might happen on such a night?  

I did, for one.  For me.  I got a seat at the sushi bar beside a woman and her mother.  The waitress welcomed me back.  I gave her my order like The Rain Man I often am.  Miso.  Hot sake.  Oh, damn. . . . 

Then dinner.  Everything was good.  All around me, groups of happy, pretty people were smiling, laughing at something someone had said.  I wanted to stay.  I wanted more.  But duty called.  

I'd given my mother a Percocet before I left for dinner.  It was just beginning to get dark when I pulled into the driveway.  My mother was sitting in the same chair in the dark.  

"Did you eat?"

"Yes.  That was a lot of food."

I went inside and poured a whiskey.  My mother followed.  She wanted me to know she was miserable.  The joy of dinner left me quickly to be replaced by some darkly shrouded guilt.  

"How can you enjoy yourself when your mother is like this," a little voice inside me said.  We sat.  I don't remember what we did.  Television was useless.  I asked her if she wanted to watch her cowboy shows.  

"What?"

"I'm going to read," I said.  

In a minute, she pushed her walker through the living room.  

"I'm going to bed," she said.  I gave her another Percocet.  

It was 8:30.  I played some gentle music and read more of Sally Mann's book.  It might have been what I would be doing in my own home, but I wasn't in my own home and it wasn't working.  My nerves felt brittle.  After awhile, I put the book down and made one of my midwestern friend's photos of her cat into a little painting.  

Then I queried ChatGPT about some of the ways it went about making this Renaissance look.  I got it to create some overlays for me that I might use on my own.  

It was 9:30.  Nerves frayed, I drank more whiskey and went to bed.  

It is morning now.  My mother was up and down all night.  She left lights on that crept into the room where I sleep.  I got up and turned them off.  When I woke a little later, they were all on again.  She is very busy this morning pushing her walker around, back and forth, in some dizzying, slow motion frenzy.  It is not a good sign.  She doesn't look at me but into something far ahead.  I must get ready to take her to a pain management doc in a little while.  Then I am going to an AARP seminar for family caregivers.  

It is Saturday.  Q texted to tell me he was going to NYC.  Museums.  Lunches with wine.  Tennessee is in Nashville celebrating his son's 23rd birthday.  In the far north, two families prepared to unite.  In the midwest, my friend is staying in a Bed and Breakfast that was converted from an old elementary school.  In the far west, my mountain buddy takes his family on a hike.  

And I'm here where it seems I'll always be.