mirror box
My father is not afraid to cry. His father was, I think. I have a picture of the two of them together, from some time in the late 70s or early 80s. My father has on a rockstar face, one of a series of expressions he learned from Mick Jagger. My grandfather looks made of wood or stone. No expression. I wonder if his face ever moved, except out of anger. His life was so devastatingly hard, what I know of it.
I see that face on the homeless men scattered around downtown. It's a cliché, really - ghosts in the flesh. Corpses that don't know they're dead. Some of them don't even ask me for money, they just look at me, like I'm a silhouette in the distance.
My father will lose his place to stay in 2 weeks; he has no prospects. My brother won't take him, can't - his girlfriend won't allow it. I told him he could stay with me, if he saw a doctor and took prescribed medication. I wasn't hoping for a cure, just some kind of relief. A day or two in the week, or even an hour, when he could get by without hearing voices, without twitching, without trying to convince me that he's growing younger and will soon save the world.
He refused.
It took a day before the finality of it hit me. In 2 weeks, he will be on the streets, and I will have no way to help him. I'm a Starbucks employee with a Pell grant, no heat or hot water, eating the food my customers won't buy. Working and studying full-time. I have no room in my life for sickness.
I almost deleted that last line. I'm so ashamed. I promised the people who care about me and see me in the middle of this that I would be selfish, that I wouldn't try to fix what I can't fix. "I have no room for sickness in my life." I keep telling them I've moved past guilt, because the looks on their faces say they need to hear it, but I haven't. I'm terribly ashamed, and torn open, and lately, seconds away from tears. The right words will do it, as my manager discovered a few days ago. I had to excuse myself to the back, find a small corner and cry. I think about what I have to tell my family in Italy, when the time comes that he's disappeared. I won't know what to say. I'm filthy with guilt. I hate my choices. None of them are bearable, and I'm most ashamed of the one I've made.
It won't be over for a long while. He's not dead, and until he is, I don't have any way of letting go. While he's still breathing, while he can still speak, I'm almost convinced that bond is still attached. But it's not, and for gods sake, it won't stop hurting.
Ciro
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"And all his disciples, they shave in the gutter, and they gather what's left of his clothes."
- Tom Waits, "Diamonds and Gold"