More Ted

[mallorys_camera]

Sometimes I used to send him groceries. Anonymously. This was back when he used to live in a transient hotel somewhere in San Diego. I’d pore over the online grocery list, looking for stuff he’d really hate. Lima beans. Instant mashed potatoes. I thought about sending him dog food – if he was drunk enough, I figured he’d eat that.

On Tuesday another case manager called me. He’d taken a turn for the worst – not surprising. “He’s in atrial fib, he’s got pneumonia, he’s septicemic – we cultured yeast from his blood. He’s in kidney failure and his liver is shot.” She hesitated for a moment. “Does he have any kind of advance directive?”

“Not that I know about,” I said. “But we’ve never been exactly what you would call close. Is he dying?”

“Not without a DNR,” she said.

“Good for another three or four jump-starts, huh?” I asked.

“Excuse me?” she said.

“You know, it’s not a decision I’m comfortable making,” I said. “I mean if it were up to me, I’d say sure, make him a no code. There are quality of life issues. Assuming he survives –“

“The chances of that are slim,” the case manager said gently.

“You don’t know my father,” I said. “Should he survive, he’ll never be able to live on his own again and he wouldn’t want to be alive under those circumstances. Reason enough to pull the plug. But it can’t be my decision. It’s just not appropriate. He was closer to my half-sisters and brothers. I think the decision has to come from them.”

I called Jeanna.

“I say we vote on it,” said Jeanna.

I started humming John Philip Sousa’s American Bandstand march. “Vote for Death! Death! The most stringent and yet ultimately compassionate of possible outcomes.”

She laughed. “I’m there. You know the last time we talked, just before he checked himself into the hospital, after Deneene left, he moaned, ‘I’m dying,’ and I said, ‘What have you done to prepare for death?’ And we did a little hypnosis over the phone. I think that helped. I think that’s where he got the strength to check himself in.”

I didn’t want to pop her balloon but I knew for a fact that he’d checked himself in on his ex-wife Pam’s advice. I knew this because when I’d come back from a string of bumbled errands, there was a phone message from a Dr. Chang on my voicemail.

I called him back.

“I know Pam from when she was a nurse in Bakersfield. She call from Alabama. She talk him into going to the ER. I see him there – he in bad shape.”

Apparently Ted had tried to talk Pam into letting him go live with her. Pam wasn’t buying though. I thought back to the last time I’d seen Ted, I’d seen Pam. Thirteen years ago, Max was four. At the time of Max’s birth, I’d cut off communication with practically all my blood relatives – they were a pain in the ass, every interaction left me drained. But the big revelation with the birth of my son was that I couldn’t choose his family, he had a right to make those choices for himself. Thus I reconciled with my mother; thus, I tracked down the phantom father who it turned out was living very close to me, in a ratty apartment complex off Alma Street in Palo Alto.

This was a time in my life when I had a series of cars, all of which broke down at exactly the same point – a gas station on Red Hill Road in the phantom town of Cordelia Junction.

One such car was a 1968 Mercedes sedan. It broke down because I never put oil in it, not even once, not in the entire four years I owned it.

Remember I’d grown up without the advantage of a father, someone who could advise me on engines and the benefits of regular maintenance and upkeep.

Ted volunteered to tow the car from the gas station in the middle of nowhere to a mechanic.

Except on the day that the tow was supposed to take place, he didn’t show.

I called him from a pay phone, hysterical. “Where are you?”

“Thought you could scam me into that one, didn’t you?” he sneered. “Well, find somebody else to do your dirty work. The sweet talk don’t work on me.” He was very drunk.

In those days, I was much more outspoken and histrionic than I am today. Confrontation was a kind of sport. I was so outraged by Ted’s mischaracterizations that I got into the car I had borrowed from my boyfriend and drove down to Palo Alto to ream him a new asshole. Some kind of ugly scene ensued, I don’t remember the details. What I remember was the apartment’s smell – that ketone smell that hard core alcoholics exude – and Pam standing by, wringing her hands.

I didn’t quite get Pam. She seemed to be a normal person in many ways. She was a nurse, she held a manager’s job. We’d compared travel notes – London, Amsterdam, Cairo. Was she blinded by love? Ted was quite the charmer when he wasn’t shit-faced, stumbling over his own shoes. All the men on my father’s side of the family were charmers. Maybe a little bit bowlegged but otherwise handsome as silver-tongued gods.

Pam walked me apologetically back out to the car. “There’s nothing to do when he gets like this,” she said. “You know tomorrow he won’t remember a thing. He really does want to help you with that car –“

“There’s one thing I don’t understand, Pam,” I said. “Why do you stick around? I mean, look at him. Does he ever lift a finger? He looks like he’s six months pregnant. You’re the nurse, Pam. That’s ascites, liver failure. He’ll be dead in five years. If you stick around, you’ll die with him.”

She was gone within a year.

But as it turned out, I was wrong about the timeline. Fourteen years later and he’s still ticking.

Comments

[usedmonsters.livejournal.com]

This is an amazing entry. The photos really add to the realization that this man's life could be any of our fathers or uncles. I've thought before, wondering about the "meaning of life", that it's probably only about helping each other get through it, and how/what we contribute to each other's narrative. I'm sorry you didn't get more good stuff from him. It makes you wonder about our society too, and what's valued and what we're expected to contribute, or how we fail to -- if we're only supposed to be good workers and consumers to carry on this whole shell game. I guess that's where human relations comes in, and the necessity to be decent to ourselves so that we can be decent to others. Take care.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

I love the notion of random acts of kindness. Of course, it's so much harder to do when recipients of said burbling cheeriness are people you actually interact with. My father was -- is for a couple of more days -- such a horrible man. He's caused so much damage to so many lives. Thanks for the good thoughts.

[usedmonsters.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, I agree. I wasn't implying that you failed him in any way.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Oh, hey -- you are always cool. I was just riffing on how easy it is to be Zen-like and kind to strangers, and how difficult with some people whose personal histories overlap your own.

[usedmonsters.livejournal.com]

That is so true. I've seen that, and cursed that, in myself. There's this artificial politeness we have to put out there, especially in work relations, but then we come home to the ones we love and take it out on them. It's sick. I told myself once that I was going to switch that around, and have only been mildly successful in doing that. Wouldn't it be a hell of a lot more fun to just royally ream some of your customers and then come home and have a good laugh with your family about your day? :)