(no subject)
Made it up to my mom's yesterday and took her out to Chilli's. That's fancy up-town stuff for my mom, living in Reno. Picked her up at the emergency room, next to which there is a helicopter landing pad. I'll take Reno over Vegas any day but it's still a weird town. The hospitals are packed and there are smokes for sale in casino vending machines, there are people puffing in restaurants.. coughing over their food.. the god damn Quicky Jiff gas station place even goes so far as to hang a big casual sign the just says CIGS. Anyway, they buzz all over the valley scooping them up in helicopters and landing at the hospital. Totally insane. We finished dinner and went back to my mom's after my mom had a smoke, we walked across the street to meet her neighbors Jack and Laura who were smoking and for some reason standing in their driveway. The man was a pot bellied moustache guy with a booming voice that ran off in every direction and sounded like it was going to crash. He talked over his wife, who was this washed up German thing in a sweatshirt with a dog on the front. They held coffee cups of something and took great big puffs from freshly lit cigarettes. Jack chose his words poorly and I assumed he was drunk. He seemed to have temporariy mistaken our little talk-circle for a tailgate party and was rambling about some other woman down the block who had also "lost her husband". The guy kind of disgusted me as he really seemed filled with self-imprtance and flat out delusions of grandure, but I had to endure as they are they're giving my mom rides to the hospital.
We went back to my mom's and her dog Meg barked it's ass off at me. It paced back and forth kind of sideways and half crazed in the living room. I made no attempt to pet it. My mother went to sleep at eight while I stayed up a couple hours tapping on the computer waiting to get sleepy. Around ten I climbed into the country-motif bed she had with way too many pillows on it. I tried not to think about how she had bought it ten years earllier and probably expected me to have slept in it many times already. In the past, I'd always checked into hotels when I visited so that I could get drunk and stumble around leering at cocktail waitresses.
In the morning I heard Meg doing her bat-shit crazy growl-barks and got out from under the Kleenex style electric blanket and had some coffee. We decided to go to IHOP for breakfast and climbed in the black Cruiser I'd rented and headed down Virginia street. On the way over, I saw what looked like a giant puffy cookie waving to traffic driving by. I said "Hey, uh, look - it's giant cookie. He's waving to us." I honked and waved back. After going all the way down Virginia street I realized I'd missed IHOP and doubled back. That's when I realized it was actually a giant pancake and not a cookie that'd been waving to us. I corrected myself saying "Oh, uh, I guess he's a big pancake. Distracted me from seeing the restaurant" When we got closer I saw it had sort of a pink frilly skirt coming out the bottom of the pancake and corrected myself again "oh, uh, I guess it's a she.." We got inside and crazy motherfucker with giant Aqua Net hair charged us with menus goin "WELCOME! WELCOME! TODAY IS NATIONAL PANCAKE DAY - WELCOME!" I told her that's why we were there - we felt it was our duty to observe the holiday. She didn't seem to find a touch of irony in my comment and parked us. I had two chocolate chip pancakes and my mom had bacon and eggs.
After that we drove over to emergency. I dropped my mother off and went to the grocery store to pick up her groceries. I bought everything on the list she made out plus some yellow roses for her coffee table. I went back and put them on the coffee table and tucked the money she had given me under the vase. I put the donuts and lunchmeat and other stuff away. Megan was apparentl hurling her body against the bedroom door in protest so I went and opened it and ran out of their before she could attack me.
When I got back to emergency, I went in to meet my mother where Perry was. I'm joking around typing a quick recap of the visit, but I can't tell you how truly sad and bitter it was to see him like this. To walk up a hallway, into an elevator, around a corner and up to a curtain, and see the very face of death behind that curtain is stunning. It is a humbling experience, that in a certain way, makes one marvel at the sheer smallness of man. To see him crumpled in fear, mouth open, eyes fixed on nothing, writhing frantically to break free was pituful and horrifying. I felt I had no right to see him like this. The doctors had him hooked up to a million machines and a long tube taped in his mouth by several chunks of white tape. Nurses glided in and out and checked numbers and administered shots. He was awake, but not in the room with us. A nurse stroked his forehead telling him that it would be alright, to stay calm. Standing there the full force of what my mother had been facing the past ten days rained down on me and made me feel like shit. I couldn't do anything. i couldn't say anthing. There was absolutely no way to spin it. About all I could do was try and be myself and not succumb to the almighty power of the icky smelling hospital and their god-like overpaid mechanics. What a load of shit for a man to be a good guy and bust his ass all his life and wind up in a fix like this. It made no sense.
When my mother walked away I went over near the bed. Perry's eyes, covered with a blue milky substance focused on something far far away while his stomach moved up and down. I felt like it might be my one opportunity so I said "Hey, Perry -- I'll take care of my mother from here - you don't have to worry about her. I'm here. It's alright. Hey listen - you're a good guy." I looked at the face I had no right to look at.. nothing. . and my mother came back. After another hour or so we decided to call it a day. The "team" of doctors had no new information for my mother and I so we just went home. At my mom's place I gave Megan a few crackers while she put the flowers in some water. then I hit the road.
We went back to my mom's and her dog Meg barked it's ass off at me. It paced back and forth kind of sideways and half crazed in the living room. I made no attempt to pet it. My mother went to sleep at eight while I stayed up a couple hours tapping on the computer waiting to get sleepy. Around ten I climbed into the country-motif bed she had with way too many pillows on it. I tried not to think about how she had bought it ten years earllier and probably expected me to have slept in it many times already. In the past, I'd always checked into hotels when I visited so that I could get drunk and stumble around leering at cocktail waitresses.
In the morning I heard Meg doing her bat-shit crazy growl-barks and got out from under the Kleenex style electric blanket and had some coffee. We decided to go to IHOP for breakfast and climbed in the black Cruiser I'd rented and headed down Virginia street. On the way over, I saw what looked like a giant puffy cookie waving to traffic driving by. I said "Hey, uh, look - it's giant cookie. He's waving to us." I honked and waved back. After going all the way down Virginia street I realized I'd missed IHOP and doubled back. That's when I realized it was actually a giant pancake and not a cookie that'd been waving to us. I corrected myself saying "Oh, uh, I guess he's a big pancake. Distracted me from seeing the restaurant" When we got closer I saw it had sort of a pink frilly skirt coming out the bottom of the pancake and corrected myself again "oh, uh, I guess it's a she.." We got inside and crazy motherfucker with giant Aqua Net hair charged us with menus goin "WELCOME! WELCOME! TODAY IS NATIONAL PANCAKE DAY - WELCOME!" I told her that's why we were there - we felt it was our duty to observe the holiday. She didn't seem to find a touch of irony in my comment and parked us. I had two chocolate chip pancakes and my mom had bacon and eggs.
After that we drove over to emergency. I dropped my mother off and went to the grocery store to pick up her groceries. I bought everything on the list she made out plus some yellow roses for her coffee table. I went back and put them on the coffee table and tucked the money she had given me under the vase. I put the donuts and lunchmeat and other stuff away. Megan was apparentl hurling her body against the bedroom door in protest so I went and opened it and ran out of their before she could attack me.
When I got back to emergency, I went in to meet my mother where Perry was. I'm joking around typing a quick recap of the visit, but I can't tell you how truly sad and bitter it was to see him like this. To walk up a hallway, into an elevator, around a corner and up to a curtain, and see the very face of death behind that curtain is stunning. It is a humbling experience, that in a certain way, makes one marvel at the sheer smallness of man. To see him crumpled in fear, mouth open, eyes fixed on nothing, writhing frantically to break free was pituful and horrifying. I felt I had no right to see him like this. The doctors had him hooked up to a million machines and a long tube taped in his mouth by several chunks of white tape. Nurses glided in and out and checked numbers and administered shots. He was awake, but not in the room with us. A nurse stroked his forehead telling him that it would be alright, to stay calm. Standing there the full force of what my mother had been facing the past ten days rained down on me and made me feel like shit. I couldn't do anything. i couldn't say anthing. There was absolutely no way to spin it. About all I could do was try and be myself and not succumb to the almighty power of the icky smelling hospital and their god-like overpaid mechanics. What a load of shit for a man to be a good guy and bust his ass all his life and wind up in a fix like this. It made no sense.
When my mother walked away I went over near the bed. Perry's eyes, covered with a blue milky substance focused on something far far away while his stomach moved up and down. I felt like it might be my one opportunity so I said "Hey, Perry -- I'll take care of my mother from here - you don't have to worry about her. I'm here. It's alright. Hey listen - you're a good guy." I looked at the face I had no right to look at.. nothing. . and my mother came back. After another hour or so we decided to call it a day. The "team" of doctors had no new information for my mother and I so we just went home. At my mom's place I gave Megan a few crackers while she put the flowers in some water. then I hit the road.