Whatchacallits, On A Spit
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Got a call from my father two weeks ago that convinced me he was dying. He had just come from a monthlong stay in the Veteran's clinic in Battle Creek, MI, where he was being diagnosed with a collapsed lung. Not many details, something about his years in the floor-covering business, breathing in asbestos and fortmaldahyde and whatever else carpets were made of back in the 70's and 80's. His voice was deathly weak over the phone. I had a reading upcoming in Chicago and so booked a train to Kalamazoo to have lunch with him--a very rare occassion, as we're estranged. I do remember visiting him at Migala carpets when I was about knee-high, climbing up those mountains of pumpkin and deep green and honey colored carpets and rolling into the valleys of them, getting nauseous and high from the plasticine fumes. "I feel like one of those, whatchacallits, on a spit, one of those indian spirits who float away through the woods," he said.
Seeing him Tuesday, I was surprised to see him healthier than ever: healthier, that is, discounting the burbling generator feeding oxygen through his nose. He had lost weight, kept away as he had been from his numerous vices for a month. He was on some new medication and quite lucid. On top of that he was quicker, more spry. The softness had come away from his face, the redness and wrinkles now indicated a sharpness I hadn't seen before, life experience, long nights of spartan loneliness lived in full awareness. We talked, as we usually do, about New York: the time he spent in the early sixties stationed at Fort Dix, his leaves to the big city to see fine art, jazz, the Aida. He told the story again of the woman he saw painting in the middle of the street who was suddenly struck by a seizure as my uniformed father watched. "People just stepped over her, stepped on her paints. There was paint all over the sidewalk. Ack." He told the story of how he fell asleep on the 6 train and got his watch stolen by some nimble thief he never laid eyes on. We drank a brandy together and, when there was nothing more to talk about, said that we loved each other. I am now exactly half his age, 35 to his 70.
After lunch, we went around to a park bench (his apartment was across the street but he needs very often to sit and catch his breath) and talked briefly of our future plans. Dad plans to build a rig for the motorized L'il Rascal he is obliged to use for any travel of over a block in length. After he's done with it he says it will hold two oxygen tanks instead of just the one. As I walked away I looked back, as one is likely to do to one's possibly dying father, and saw just his legs cradling his oxygen tank from behind a bush. I'll admit the sight was a touch ghostly.
posted by Greg Purcell @ 4:00 PM,
