Part 10 (1/2)

The three of us drove to the Oregon coast, down Highway 101 to San Francisco, then to Las Vegas, Arizona, Texas, New Orleans, Memphis, and, finally, Fort Smith, Arkansas Stephen wouldn't do acid but Vince and I dosed a few times on the trip

When we arrived in Fort Smith, Stephen and Vince droppedschool and he had since gottenout with I always thought they were a weird couple She was a hyperactive New Waver and he was a tobacco-chewing oaf who h he could barely speak into a ue When they moved to Arkansas, he dropped out of radio to pursue a ashi+ng business while she did news at a low-ranking AM station He'd gotten her pregnant and she had developed this unhealthy infatuation with Reba McEntire There were posters of her everywhere and cassettes played constantly throughout the day while I tried to read Ca back then Sylvia Plath probably She also owned a collection of Reba T-shi+rts

I soon found out that the radio job I thought had been offered toto happen and I had to find other work I stayed with my ex-classmates in their trailer home and rationed myself a couple of dollars a day before I became officially broke Most of that lazed doughnuts for fifteen cents a piece Eventually I got a job at a factory asse baby cribs and I was able to move into my own place That job lasted a month before I became a busboy at a Mexican restaurant called El Chico in Central Mall

In the ht a used ten-speed and would cruise the small don area in search of any kind of youth culture When I lived in Spokane I went out every other night and I was anxious to find a social life into Arkansas was a o, they'd always say Tulsa or Dallas

I found out about a place called the 700 Club, a warehouse-type space where local punk and alternative bands played They had an open ot there that night, it turned out that whoever had the keys to the place hadn't show up So one of the club regulars put the tailgate of his truck down and ht and unlike the Spokane open mics, most of the people who ca lot) were there with acoustic guitars It was more like a punk hootenanny

There wasn't any kind of sign-up list After sos they'd just ask the couple dozen people there anted to be next I watched three or four people struet up there I stood in the bed of the truck and read a few poems At the time, I was heavily influenced by a Seattle writer named Jesse Bernstein, rote violent and funny stories and read them in a crazed scratchy panic I did my best to imitate Bernstein's voice as I readby telling everyone that I had just ton State Afterward, a few people talked to me, mostly to ask about the Northwest Apparently, the video for Nirvana's ”Sht before and a couple of the kids at the openabout it They couldn't believe it when I told thee

One of the girls there hat I always envisioned a sweet Southern girl would be like She arloith honesty and hope The only thing uys there and they all acted like they wanted to date her She had gotten out of a long relationshi+p recently and they were just trying to figure a way to ask her out After two more open mics, I finally worked up the nerveand fell in love I felt a little weird since she was still in high school, but as soon as she graduated, we decided to on We ran an espresso cart business and I started publishi+ng azines I alsoh I was happy, I felt anxious My girlfriend and I had our ups and downs There were breakups and infidelities and apologies There was a e that I didn't kno to handle I was unfairly distant and selfish

But then we got back together and my son was born

Zach's was a hoht on the hottest day of the year in 1994 The nextto the store, the world did indeed feel totally different The sky looked larger and gravity felt nonexistent I noticed every color and every movement around me I didn't know ht away that I was going to do better than my own father

Aneurysot a e about my own dad It was fro that uncertain voice that people use when they're not sure if theirrecorded ”Kevin? It's about your dad He had a brain aneurys to last er Your mom wanted me to call soood-bye, you should probably coe about my own dad It was fro that uncertain voice that people use when they're not sure if theirrecorded ”Kevin? It's about your dad He had a brain aneurys to last er Your mom wanted me to call soood-bye, you should probably coetting soon For his last four years he was in a wheelchair and everything about hi down I would call hos and then she'd hand the phone to Dad It was obvious that speaking had become harder for hiet one sentence out, probably about a chore around the house he would never get to or so about church The words barelyHis voice was an eerie death rattle coh the phone line I played the e over a few times and then saved it

I was at hoo right away I was about to go to work anyway

I called Mom and talked to her She said he was brain dead but still breathing I asked if he was responding to anything, if he could hear her The phone line was crackling and cutting out and she couldn't understand what I was saying I had been waiting for him to die, and had even fantasized about it, but I couldn't help feeling anxious now that it was really happening

”Can he hear you? Can you talk into his ear?” I asked

”What's that?”

”Can he understand words?”

”I'”

”Could you tell hi to cry

”Maybe you should take sooing to drive up there until he died I didn't want to take the days off work and hang out in Kennewick on a deathwatch The place ic Mo house we used to live in, the one we rebuilt after the fire They bought a much smaller manufactured home out behind Columbia Center Mall in thewith the fro hiuments and Mark would disappear somewhere for a few days A few ti in his electric wheelchair along the side of so who knohere, until a police officer would stop hih the first time I heard about one of these runaway attempts

I decided to stay in Portland and wait it out, pretend business as usual I wasn't going anywhere until the heart stopped beating, until the funeral was set

The Viewing

Dad died a couple of days later and I drove up to Kennewick couple of days later and I drove up to Kennewick

The day before his burial, I went to the funeral home to see Dad in his coffin I ith Dad's sister Evelyn and her husband, Rolando I re Evelyn a couple of times when I was a kid but I had never ton, DC, most of my childhood and there was some tension on Dad's side of the family because Rolando was black

Despite the early disapproval of others, they have been married for randchildren I heard that Dad's fae a Rolando

One of Evelyn and Rolando's children becah and that fact became worthy of mention for Dad when he talked with others ”My nephew is a pilot for that airline,” he would say, as if he had soious and as alked into the funeral hon of the cross Rolando, a large ently touched her back as they walked Soreeted us in the roo hours and I was a little surprised that there was no one else there Evelyn and Rolando stood back and prayed as I looked closely at ed with spots, as if they had been flattened in some sadistic way His head was like a skull with fake waxy skin ht I'd see some kind of evidence of the brain aneurysm that finally killed him, but I didn't knohat to look for What little hair he had ept across his scalp like the faint suggestion of a haircut His forehead was the only thing that looked strong and real I looked at hi if I could see myself, but I couldn't I ers rest on his forehead I petted his forehead and thought how strange it was to touch h I didn't want to My sniffling gave htly She started to talk about hoas in Heaven and that God was taking care of hi like that I was more annoyed than comforted by her I looked down at his chest He was dressed in a dark blue suit with a blue-and-silver tie and the kind of light blue button-up shi+rt that he would so in the yard His chest looked wide but caved in I stared there, where his heart would be, and watched for any y

The next day, toward the end of my dad's funeral service, the priest asked if anyone wanted to say some words or share a fond memory of my dad I have not attended many funerals in my life, but I know that this is usually thepart of the service Some people think that God lets you watch your own funeral to see what people say before he takes you up to Heaven or gives you to Satan or whatever toward the end of my dad's funeral service, the priest asked if anyone wanted to say some words or share a fond memory of my dad I have not attended many funerals in my life, but I know that this is usually thepart of the service Some people think that God lets you watch your own funeral to see what people say before he takes you up to Heaven or gives you to Satan or whatever

There was an aard moment when no one approached the podium Then one of the two older nuns at the service went up and started talking about how helpful my dad was ”Whenever we needed to use a truck, John was alilling to help,” she said

In his last several years, my father was an usher at the church I think he even did it in his wheelchair for a while Most of the priests and nuns and churchgoers knew him A few days before the funeral, someone from the parish told my mom that the church, which holds about 150 people, would probably be full for the funeral There were about 30 people there

As the nun talked more about my dad, she shi+fted from ”John was always there for the church” to ”John was also a family man who loved his wife and children” Even under the roof of the church where I had spent so s, my bullshi+t detector went off This was a woman, a child of God, who had no idea

When she was done speaking, there was another uncolanced discreetly at Mo the altar Elinda sat next to Mo upto say

One of the only good o to soates or any other cool rocks The year before he died, when I remembered to send him a Father's Day card, I had mentioned these ive hi closer and closer to his end

I stayed seated in my pew, unsure about , a burst of tears ready to fall, but they couldn't ined myself in the casket My funeral What people would say I i tears, but that didn't work either