fortunate son

Sometimes I think I am being fucked with, that as soon as I think I have put something behind me, stepped into a normal routine, started living a joyful life, something (in this case, some one) has to emerge from the place I escaped, grab my ankles as I try to escape the horror house, and say "No, no, you didn't think you were going to get out that easy, did you?" It is my friend, now a zombie, a bloody fucking zombie, begging of me not to leave them there, to take them with me. And really, they just want me dead also. They don't want to be alone. No one does. I don't want to be alone, but I'd rather be alone than in the company of zombies, of bloody fucking zombies.

I just got off the phone with my dad's sister, my aunt, Herta. She called me about a week ago for the first time in a year or so, holding back tears, just saying she needed someone to talk to, and that she knew she could always call me, told me that my father was not doing well, and blah blah blah, more shit trying to make me numb. When she called last week, a chill went down my spine right before I answered the phone, there was a pause where I considered how I should react to the news of my father's death. However, that wasn't going to be the call. I have known the call was going to come one of these days out of the blue, telling me that my father had died. He has had lung cancer for the past two years, and when he was first diagnosed, he was only supposed to have six more months to live.

That wasn't the call I recieved today either. Herta started off this call by saying that she would understand if I couldn't answer her question, that I didn't have to. And I wondered what question could warrant this warning, nervous about what she was to ask, and then she asked me if she could have my address so she could mail me letters. And that was the question I did not want the most. I did not want my father to have my address, I did not want him to ever show up helpless on my doorstep. And so, I was forced to be an asshole and refuse my address to my dying father. Herta seemed a little suprised by my No, and asked if she could ask why. I merely said that I did not want many people having my address. Then she went into a near crying monologue with these themes, all tied together, and repeated numerous times: I don't know everything that occured with your father, I know he has had problems, He has found peace now and this makes me so happy to know that my brother has found God, I don't know if you are religious or not, Your father is very sick, I need to know who is going to take care of him when the time comes, If your mother is, Or if not, if you are, Because I need to know if I need to take care of him, I really don't understand what I have done or what your father has done for you, and your mother, and your sister to act this way, I know that you and your sister are the most important things to him in the world, He loves you, Have a good life.

And she ended our conversation by saying, "Have a good life." Throughout the entire conversation, I was laconic, my heart is cautious when it comes to my father, cautious from experience, not letting other people know the pain he has inflicted, guarded so as not to allow him to inflict any more pain. My only real inputs into the conversation were, "No, I just don't feel comfortable giving out my address. I am sorry," and, "I don't know what my mom's plans regarding my father's arrangements are, but I know there is no way that I can do anything. I have no money, whatsoever. So yeah, that's something that my mom's going to have to decide." And it was shortly after this last statement that Herta told me to have a good life, but not before telling me to ask my mom to contact her.

My mom is doing her best to avoid the zombie's lunges for her ankles, is trying to keep her heart away from the swamp creatures, and so I am the only person right now in contact with my aunt, and man, it is rough. I am going home for Thanksgiving today, am boarding a bus in three short hours, and I don't know whether to tell my mom about this or not. I don't want to be the zombie lunging for my mom's ankles, the Herta in her life. I am glad my mom is doing well. I am sorry that it took to many shocks to her Catholic sense of charity to finally say No to my father. And we'll see, we'll see. I will have time on the bus to think about this, and to not think about this, to read the magazines I purchased yesterday for my bus ride, to listen to music on my headphones, and to watch the earth roll on by me at sixty, maybe seventy miles an hour.