I Was There the Night He Died Read online

  But if you lose the poison, you lose its root cause, too. I don’t want to lose my roots. My roots are mine.

  * * *

  Dropping me off from Thames View Gardens, Uncle Donny doesn’t offer to come inside to help get me settled or to wait idling in the driveway to make sure my key works, doesn’t even give me a good luck wave goodbye. He does what he’s always done, races into the street in reverse without bothering to look behind him and honks, once, when he’s almost out of sight. I hear it after I’ve set my bags down and am closing the front door.

  Not that there’s much reason to bother bolting the door—locking up is a Toronto tick, where there aren’t subdivisions named Buttercup Village and people occasionally wander further than their front doors on the way to their cars—but I do it anyway and let the streetlight out front light my way through the living room and into the kitchen where I know there’s a switch. My parents moved here five years ago, just before my mother died of a stroke, just before the first discernible signs of Alzheimer’s afflicted my father, and I’m still not used to the layout of their would-be dream house: large, unlandscaped front and back lawns for him to work and worry over, two floors of brand new appliances and shiny fixtures and wall-to-wall spongy fresh carpeting for her to happily wear herself out cleaning. At least she died in action, the vacuum cleaner still humming when Dad found her collapsed on the bedroom floor. He hadn’t been so lucky, had only gotten as far as laying down the sod before he began peeing off the front step and not remembering why he’d brought his shovel with him into the bathroom.

  The lights work, but the taps are dead and the heat vents too, so I go down to the basement to check the furnace. It’s not the pilot light—there is no pilot light—the furnace almost as cold to the touch as the inside of the freezer still three-quarters full of rump roasts and snow-­entombed bags of peas and corn. Uncle Donny has been looking after Dad’s bills for a while now, but apparently the water and gas bills haven’t been on his to-do list lately. Ignoring Dad’s power tools, Mum’s collection of orthopedic shoes, and the boxed and electrical tape-sealed plastic Christmas tree that’s seen its last Buttercup Village Christmas, I go back upstairs where at least it’s only cold, not damp and cold. One of the reasons I’m here is to decide what to do with a lifetime’s worth of valuables that aren’t valuable anymore, but difficult decisions are what tomorrows are made for.

  I never noticed before how many framed photographs my parents had of me. Of Sara and me. After Barney died not long after Sara, the discovery of an old tennis ball long-forgotten underneath the couch could instantly wound. Of course I knew he was gone; it was the sudden stab of remembering that he’d lived that ached. I did my best to make sure that every errant ball, every half-chewed bone, every well-gummed, stolen sock of mine was collected and boxed and waiting for the new dog I keep telling myself I’m going to get one day. I walk from room to room turning pictures of Sara and me face down.

  I sit on the couch without taking off my coat and pick up the remote. Without the cable being connected, though, there’s no picture, not even angry fuzz, nor even—like when I was a kid and we got our signal from the antenna on the roof—mute ghost people hidden behind the silencing snowstorm filling up the screen. I click off the TV. I should probably smoke a joint. This is probably a perfect example of one of those times when I should smoke a joint.

  Marijuana has never made much sense to me, no more than non-alcoholic beer. Just like why someone would want to get fat without getting drunk, if you’re going to get high, why choose a drug that makes you lazier, dozier, even more slow-witted than you already are? Unless, perhaps, you have a debilitating psychological predilection for jumpy drugs in general and dextroamphetamine sulfate in particular; in that case, pass the doobie, brother, and let that soothing smoke do its dumbing-down job. It was either that or take up yoga. I bought my first quarter ounce of weed just before I left Toronto.

  I stand over the kitchen sink and light the joint and inhale and hold it in as best I can, but still cough a non-smoker’s cough until my eyes begin to water. I push the ash that’s accumulated in the hacking interim down the drain. Even if I can manage to get this shit in my lungs, I can’t do it in here, my Mother at any moment about to float into the kitchen with a ghost dustpan and broom. Besides, it can’t be much colder outside. Uncle Donny neglecting to pay the water bill at least ensured that the pipes didn’t freeze. He must have drained them at some point too, which shows uncharacteristic foresight, like he knew that the water was going to be cut off.

  Because my parents were among the first to buy a lot in the new subdivision, they were lucky enough to get what is perhaps Buttercup Village’s premier location, a corner lot right next to the postage-stamp-sized park that separates their house from their nearest neighbor. I sit down on the single bench which is located directly underneath the single tree which stands right beside the small sign that tells you where you are and what you should be doing.

  BUTTERCUP VILLAGE PARKETTTE

  ENJOY!

  I stick the joint between my lips and cup my mouth with one hand, pull the lighter out of my coat pocket with my other. I’m only worried about the wind, not nosey neighbors, people willingly on foot in the daytime in Chatham an anomaly, after eleven o’clock at night downright abnormal. Just to be sure, I look left and then right and see all there is to see, identical darkened house after darkened house only occasionally interrupted by the throb of a flickering television screen. I manage to get the joint lit and inhale, less deeply than before, but with more sucking success.

  “I won’t tell if you don’t.”

  I palm the joint and turn around on the bench. A girl, a teenage girl with a nose ring, underdressed in a too-big hooded sweatshirt overtop of black jeans and white low-top Converse running shoes, is sitting in one of the two swings still hanging from the swing set, the other one wrapped around and around its top. She must have been sitting there the entire time. I’ve managed to extinguish the joint on the edge of the bench and am about to ask her what she means when I see the tiny orange glow of her own joint as she lifts it to her mouth.

  “Good luck,” I say, standing up, going back the way I came. Good luck. What a ridiculous thing to say.

  She’s busy inhaling, obviously knows what she’s doing, only nods.

  “You, too,” I hear through the dark, and then I’m home.

  Chapter Two

  “What you want to do is provide your father with actual physical reminders of his past. It’s not enough to conversationally bring them up—he needs to actually see them, even touch them for himself.”

  Uncle Donny and I are sitting across the desk from Mrs. Hampton, director of the Alzheimer’s ward.

  “Right. But … ”

  Mrs. Hampton raises an eyebrow; Uncle Donny recrosses his legs, right over left this time, looks out the window.

  “But he doesn’t … I mean, what we talked about—the seventh stage, the severest or advanced stage—the stage you said he’s at now. Isn’t that when the patient is basically unable to communicate or remember anything?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. That’s an inevitable part of the disease’s progress. And in your father’s case, the disease has been unusually aggressive.”

  “Right. So … ”

  Mrs. Hampton’s eyebrow manages to lift even higher, nearly merging with her hairline. Uncle Donny has got his chin in his hand now, elbow on his crossed knee.

  “So what’s the point?” I say, more huffily, I know, than I have a right to. Mrs. Hampton and Uncle Donny and all of Dad’s other caretakers have been here from the beginning, the entire deterioration countdown. I’ve been counting, too, but not in person, at least not every day. I don’t deserve to be so annoyed. Not at people trying to help, anyway.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m just frustrated.”

  “Of course you are,” Mrs. Hampton says. “That’s perf
ectly understandable. Just try to be patient.”

  I nod. “I’ll try.”

  “Good,” she says. “Now. On to other matters. As I’m sure your uncle has made you aware, I think you’ll agree that Thames View has been very patient in the matter of—”

  “Oh, he agrees,” Uncle Donny says, popping up from his chair. “We’re both on board with you 110 percent, believe you me. And we both understand what has to be done, absolutely. And pronto, too.”

  “Well, that’s—”

  But Uncle Donny has grabbed her hand and is shaking it so vigorously she can’t complete her sentence before he’s got me by the elbow and has practically dragged me out the door.

  “What was that all about?” I say. “What is it you’re supposed to have made me understand?”

  Uncle Donny swats the air in front of his face like he’s being bothered by a pesky mosquito. “If you give that woman half a chance she’ll yak your ear right off.”

  “But what was she talking about?”

  “Who knows? A woman like that, she just likes to hear herself talk.”

  We’ve already done our Dad visit—watched him be fed; watched him slurp milk with the aid of what’s left of his gulping reflex—and are heading toward the front door at the other end of the building when Uncle Donny’s hand is in and out of my coat pocket before I know what he’s doing. “Take ’em,” he says.

  I pull out three brand new toothbrushes still in their packaging. “Where did you get these?” I whisper, afraid that he’d somehow managed to lift them from Thames View, afraid that this is the first forgetful sign that he’s the next Samson family member on the fast track to assisted living.

  “Shopper’s,” he says. “They were half-price last week, and then this week they were half-price again on top of that. Seventy-two cents each before tax. That’s like giving them away.”

  I don’t bother informing him that, no matter how extraordinary the discount, I don’t really need three toothbrushes in addition to the one I already have; instead, say only, “Thanks.”

  “I’m telling you, that’s like giving them away.”

  I stick the toothbrushes back in my pocket, in the process notice for the first time that Uncle Donny is wearing a cell phone on his belt. Aside from him being cheap enough that he’d be using a tin can and a piece of string at home if he could get away with it, there’s no one for him to call and no one to call him.

  “What’s with that?” I say, tapping the phone with a forefinger.

  “It’s a phone.”

  “Yeah, I know what it is. Why do you have one?”

  “So I can talk to people. Why the hell else would I have one?”

  We’re almost at the front door when an old woman inching down the connecting corridor with the aid of an aluminum cane smiles at us like we’re arriving relatives and not exiting strangers. She’s wearing the standard Thames View Gardens old lady uniform—loose-fitting, matching floral blouse and pants; spotlight-white running shoes; big brown plastic glasses; freshly cut, hairspray-hardened hairdo—but her warm, welcoming face is the energizing upper that I didn’t take this morning when I sat down at the kitchen table to work. Maybe caffeine and positive visualization are enough to get one through the day. And who knows? Maybe somewhere way back there in his decomposing brain Dad is just as happy as her, we just can’t see it. After all, aside from watching the Red Wings and doing lawn work, eating and sleeping were his favourite things to do anyway. Twenty-four hours of both now, and a full-time staff to make sure he never misses a single meal or afternoon nap.

  I grin the old lady as good as she gave—I was a dog owner long enough to know that wagging tails beget wagging tails—and while Uncle Donny steps ahead to open the door, the old lady shuffles past; although not before catching me hard across my right shin with a whack of her cane.

  “Fuck,” I say, hopping on one leg, rubbing my burning shin.

  “Hey,” Uncle Donny snaps, spinning around at the door. “Watch your mouth.” He nods in the direction of the escaping old lady. “These people in here, they don’t want to hear language like that.” He finally notices me massaging my leg. “What the hell’s the matter with you?”

  “That woman,” I say, pointing. “She … ” I stop rubbing, stand up straight, watch her snail away behind one of the hallway doors.

  “Yeah? That woman what?”

  “Nothing.” I must have imagined it. I must have been the one who knocked into her. “Let’s just get going.”

  In the parking lot, on the way to the car, “You’ve got to remember you’re not in Toronto anymore,” Uncle Donny says. “This is just a small town, for God’s sake. People down here, they don’t act the same way as they do up there.”

  * * *

  A cup of tea and an extra sweater and mind over matter just doesn’t matter—I need more heat. By keeping a small space heater going full-blast full-time in the basement, I’ve gotten the water turned back on without the risk of bursting pipes, but my fingers are stuck underneath my armpits for warmth more than they’re on the keyboard of my laptop, and instead of the next sentence, my mind is focused on how much warmer it would be if only I wrote in bed where the heating blanket is. Having determined to forsake my customary morning bennie, however, for the sake of a long list of deeply desirable nots—not being itchy irritable all of the time; not suffering tear-inducing insomnia; not having perpetual dry mouth, nausea, and for-no-good-reason nervousness; not, in other words, being a pill-poisoned drug addict—there’s no chance of my changing my work habits from the vertical to the horizontal for fear of falling straight asleep. Because being clean also means not feeling instantly energetic and extra-mentally alert and even faintly exhilarated, also for no good reason. Mental health has a price, but I’m determined to pay it.

  All of my heroes have been dope friends, so the initial decision to self-medicate wasn’t difficult. Besides, woozy booze was always my recreational drug of choice—Dexedrine was for working. For getting down to work sooner. For keeping at the work table longer. For making the imagination click quicker. And it did. And did and did. I’ve written and published six novels plus two collections of essays in the last fourteen years, all the while being busy with making up for the money that rarely comes from writing literature. But teaching or writing book reviews or doing whatever else for a paycheque never needed pharmaceutical assistance. Never deserved pharmaceutical assistance. Art was holy because life clearly was not, and that little pill that washed over my tongue each morning was the consecrated wafer that turned the body and mind of merely tepid me into something burning and bright; just like W.H. Auden and Delmore Schwartz and Jack Kerouac and every other dedicated worker in words who knows that the human spirit needs a little chemical boost if it’s ever going to soar where it’s supposed to.

  But nobody flies for free. When Sara was alive, I could cover the cost, or at least better ignore how expensive the bill was. Living alone for the first time in eighteen years, however, everything that’s odd or ugly or unhealthy about yourself is amplified, no one around to distract you and no dutiful couple things to do to soften the crazy corners of your mind. Plus, for almost a year after the funeral I wasn’t seriously writing, the first extended period since my mid-twenties that I hadn’t been filtering all of that artificial energy through my fingers. Not tap-tapping at my laptop, I turned all of that chemically concentrated attention on myself, a wooly woodpecker in a brightly lit house of mirrors. All dosed up and nowhere to go, I got sweaty panicky waiting for the light to change from red to green. I purposefully bumped into texting-obsessed strangers on the sidewalk I knew didn’t see me coming. I counted heartbeats at night instead of sheep. (Not that there was much of a chance of my getting an overabundance of rest anyway—without a dog at the end of the bed cramping your feet and a woman to fight with over the blankets, a bed can be a very uncomfortable place.) When I got into a shouting matc
h with a street person who, I was sure, called me an asshole when I said I didn’t have any spare change, I knew it was time to get help.

  Surprisingly, my biggest worry—missing the creative kick of the morning’s first black beauty—hasn’t been a problem. With enough Mountain Dew and a good night’s sleep behind me, the words have found their way onto the page and the pages have been adding up. I’m a hundred pages deep into Lives of the Poets (with Guitars) and the only thing I’m lacking right now is my record player and LPs back in Toronto and enough heat to unthaw my fingertips. If only heating blankets were as portable as turntables.

  I get up from the kitchen table and head to the basement. My dad had—has—everything the do-it-yourselfer could want: every tool, every spare part, every kind of nail, screw, and washer, each of the latter kept in individual glass baby food jars, their lids nailed to the underside of a ten-foot-long suspended two-by-four for easy see-through identification. Let’s see if he has an extension cord. Of course he does—of course he has two: a six-footer and an eighteen-footer.

  Upstairs, I pull the heating blanket off the bed and attach it to the shorter extension cord and then plug the longer one into it. Back in the kitchen, with the connected cords plugged into the outlet, I drape the blanket around me like a cape and sit back down at my makeshift kitchen-table desk. Immediately, I feel waves of electric heat washing over my frozen joints and shivering skin. I decide to give my new furnace a test ride—rise and go to the refrigerator and get a can of Mountain Dew, as cozy as could be.

  I pop the tab, take a bubbly slurp. Okay. Tonight’s topic: Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Let’s get down to work.

  * * *

  “Well, I’ll be a sonofagun,” Steady Eddie says, nearly scooping me off my feet with a short but rib-bending bear hug. “What’s going on, man?”