Home Is Burning (36 page)

I shake my head in self-loathing, knowing that my dad has been expecting me to hang out with him and take him for a long walk up Millcreek Canyon—one of the few places he can still frequent in his 450-pound chair.

To top it all off, I'm fresh off sleeping with Becca. I hadn't seen her since our ecstasy adventure a couple weeks earlier, but she came over last night to hang with Greg. We all got drunk. We all went swimming. It just happened. She was still with her boyfriend. I felt guilty.

I had just driven Becca home in my mom's car. On my way back to my house, I ran out of gas. I had been driving the thing on empty all weekend, assuming that luxury vehicles don't ever run out of gas—that they run on being better than everyone else or something. I had a cell phone, but I had been too busy fucking Becca to think about charging it. It was deader than my dad was going to be. I was only about a mile or so from Becca's house, so I walked back to it.

I arrived. “My fat ass ran out of gas. I'm sure a dumb, unemployed motherfucker with a dick that most non-Asian girls would consider small. Well, you know. It was inside you last night,” I wanted to say.

“I ran out of gas because I'm a big fat idiot,” I really said.

She drove me to a gas station. I filled up and fed my thirsty car as sweat and apologies poured out of me. In the process, I accidentally poured some gas on my pants and hands. “I'm a fucking shithead,” I said aloud.

Perfect way to start off Father's Day.

After filling up, I sped home, yelling at myself the whole way. “Dan, you're a fucking asshole. What were you thinking? That was pretty great sex, though, wasn't it? She's a real sweetheart. I think I actually like her.”

I pulled into our driveway, having just done a number on my self-worth.

“Hey, Dad. Happy F. Day,” I said, bursting into the room, hoping my mom wouldn't notice the combined stench of gasoline, sex, sweat, and self-defeat I radiated.

My tired mom—who had spent the night with our dad while Greg and I and our friends poured gin on our brains and puffed nicotine into our lungs—didn't take note of my appearance or tardiness but instead said, “Can you get him up so I can change his sheets?”

“Anything for my father on Father's Day,” I said.

I walked over to his bed and pulled his limp body up to a sitting position.

“How are you doing?” I asked. His cuff was inflated. He couldn't talk. He just nodded and gave a shrug.

“Well, that's good. What you been up to?” I asked. He gave me a what-do-you-think-I've-been-up-to-given-the-fact-that-I-can't-move-my-own-body look.

I straightened the shirt that hung loosely from his bony shoulders and reached over to a nearby dresser to grab his gait belt. As I began to lift him from the bed and onto the recliner, my mom began peeling the wrinkly sheets from my dad's sticky hospital bed. She seemed too tired to give a shit about anything but getting those sheets off. I was thankful. Then it seemed to hit her.

“So, did you sleep with Becca last night?” she asked casually.

I was so shocked by the question that I lost strength in my arms and dropped my dad to the floor. Happy Father's Day! He lay there screaming in pain, but since he was on the trach no words came out. It was just a facial expression.

“That's none of your fucking business, Mom,” I said.

“I know, but did you fuck her? We know she slept over,” she said.

“Mom, stop. You're being nosy,” I said.

“I'm just kidding,” she said.

“Help me get Dad up. It's Father's Day and he's lying in pain on the floor,” I said.

“But seriously, did you fuck her?” she asked again.

“Mom. Stop it,” I said. I didn't want to get into this. I mean, my dad probably would've been fine with it, but I still didn't want to talk about it with him.

“I'm just joking,” she said. “But did you?”

“Yeah, all right. I slept with her,” I said, finally giving in. “Guilty as charged.”

My mom smiled big, forced a high five onto me, and said, “Good, maybe you'll get over that bitch Abby faster.”

My dad was still on the ground like a 130-pound sack of bones. He was too heavy for my mom and me to lift, so I told her to get Greg, who was fresh off fucking his new boyfriend down the hallway of our once normal house. He had started dating a Mormon named Kevin. They'd met on one of those fuck sites for gay people: manhunt.com, or gay.com, or Craigslist. Kevin had acted straight his whole life, even going as far as marrying a woman for a bit. He finally broke free and now found himself fucking the son of a dying man. In addition to being a gay Mormon, Kevin was also a chef and would cook for us. I was so sick of lasagna and Stana's potato salad by now that any new food was welcome. He made these croissants filled with ham and cheese that my fat ass loved. He was surprisingly comfortable around my dad, and would even help with some of his care. I liked Kevin.

“Greg, get your ass in here. This is an emergency,” my mom piercingly yelled, using all the strength in her cancer-filled body.

Greg came stumbling in after five or six more yells, wearing a robe. “He better be on the brink of death for you to yell like that,” he said.

Greg noticed that Dad was on the floor and finally reacted like it was an emergency. Dropping our dad on the ground was about the worst, most painful thing we could put him through at this stage. He looked as uncomfortable as I've ever seen him. His eyes were watery. Happy Father's Day!

As we were pulling him off the ground—which required that Greg, my mom, and I lift with all our strength—I began brainstorming ways we could prevent this in the future. “We absolutely need to have more people now. Dad's legs are weaker. He can't stand on his own,” I said.

I knew the Hoyer lift was the next option. A Hoyer lift is a gallows-shaped device that patients can be harnessed into and lifted from bed to chair, from chair to bed, from bed to coffin, etc. But he didn't want to use one. When you have an illness that slowly starts destroying all the things you used to be able to do, you begin hanging on to whatever you have left. He had said good-bye to eating, to walking, to talking, to scratching his own nose, to turning on the TV and watching whatever he wanted, to fucking, to driving, to picking up his kids from school, to wearing boxers instead of diapers, to being treated like a father rather than a hospital patient. The Hoyer lift would symbolize that things had gotten about as bad as they would get, that the disease had won, that there wasn't any fight left in his dying body.

I didn't think I should mention it. I knew that it was Father's Day, and that that was the last thing he wanted to hear, especially since both of his sons reeked of sex. I mentioned it anyway. “We should start looking into getting you a Hoyer lift,” I said. I looked over at my dad. He had defeat in his eyes.

“No way. If it's time for a Hoyer lift, it's time for you to go,” Greg said. Greg was becoming more blunt, more callous as this situation evolved.

“Jesus, Greg. It's fucking Father's Day. Can we have one day where we don't talk about death?” I said.

“I know. What I meant to say was, ‘I love you, Daddy, and don't want you to die. Not today, at least,'” Greg said, giving him a kiss on his forehead.

After we got my dad back into the chair—a position in which his face no longer grimaced—I turned on the TV. Tiger Woods was leading the U.S. Open and was playing with a hurt knee. Many of the highlights from the Saturday round showed Tiger crumpling to the ground in pain after smacking the ball three-hundred-some-odd yards. He had eagled the eighteenth hole and was three under par heading into the final eighteen at Torrey Pines. I turned to my dad.

“Goddamn. That Tiger is amazing. I can't believe what a fighter he is. I mean, to have a sore knee and still be winning one of the most prestigious tournaments on one of the hardest courses in the world. My God. He has gone through so much and still remains strong,” I said.

My dad looked at me as if he had just watched a sample clip from the Biggest Asshole in the World awards ceremony.

Here my dad was—having been thrown the biggest curve ball of all, having gone from being a marathon runner to a permanent hospital patient, having gone from breathing on his own to not—and his son was marveling at Tiger Goddamn Woods's fucking golf performance.

And the winner for biggest asshole in the world is: Dan Marshall, for his Father's Day Tiger Woods rant!

*   *   *

Later in the day, Greg finally drove his boyfriend home. I showered the sex and gasoline smells off me. My mom went to sleep, curling up in her bed with our cat Brighton. Chelsea had left for a dance camp in Boise, Idaho, so she was gone for a while, but Tiffany came over, as did Jessica. She and Creepy Todd were now living together in Todd's parents' basement. She was about to leave for Thailand with him. They were trying to “bring lacrosse to the girls of Thailand because many of them don't get to exercise,” in her new husband's words. If marrying her wasn't bad enough, he was now taking our Jessica halfway around the world to start a girls' lacrosse league. To top it off, Jessica had just announced that she was already pregnant. She was officially cementing herself into this shitty situation. And all my dad could do was watch.

Overall, it was a pretty dismal showing for what would probably be our dad's last Father's Day.

Eventually Greg, Tiff, and I decided to turn things around and drive my dad up Millcreek Canyon for the walk we had promised. Jessica decided not to come. She needed to rest since she had a Mormon growing inside of her now. She went back to her new home. Greg, Tiff, and I loaded my dad into the van. Greg was singing Disney songs to emphasize how nonchalantly we were approaching Father's Day this year.

Tiffany sat shotgun and I drove. Tiffany dove right in. “So I heard you slept with Becca last night,” she said.

“Yeah, so what?” I said.

“I just think that's an interesting choice. I think she's into drugs, and doesn't she have her clit pierced or something?” Tiffany said.

“Those are rumors. Please, just leave me alone. And leave her alone. She's a sweet girl,” I said, flashing back to our amazing ecstasy night.

“Was she good?” Tiffany asked, not letting it go.

“She fucks like a racehorse,” I said as I adjusted the rearview mirror to see if my dad was catching all of this. He was.

“Fucks like a racehorse? What does that even mean?” asked Tiffany.

“I'm not really sure,” I admitted.

Greg was a little uncomfortable with Becca and me hooking up. He knew Becca had a boyfriend and didn't want either of us to get involved in a sketchy situation. So he wasn't a proponent of Becca's and my budding relationship. Becca had apparently told him about the ecstasy night, so I was always on edge that he would bring it up anytime Becca was the subject of conversation. I didn't want my dad knowing that I had not only fucked her, but had also done illegal drugs with her.

“Becca's not really your type,” Greg said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“She's not a blond bitch like Abby,” he said.

“Listen, why don't you assholes just stay out of my life, okay?” I demanded.

We arrived at the parking lot at Millcreek Canyon. A handicap parking spot was available! We are so lucky sometimes, you guys! Several other families were also treating their fathers and grandfathers to some nice, fresh air. But all those families could go fuck themselves. That's right, go fuck yourselves, families—what with your fully functioning fathers, and your smiles, and your laughter, and your hiking boots, and your backpacks. The only thing hanging from our father was a thirty-pound breathing machine. But we loved him more than they loved their dads. We had proved that through the constant care we gave him: all the hospital visits, all the feedings, all of everything. We had poured our lives into keeping him going. We were way better kids than they were. Fuck those other families and fuck their stupid, shitty dads.

Toward the top of Millcreek, there is a road that's closed to cars. It's big and wide open. This is our family spot. During the previous summer, my mom and dad would walk our dogs up there every night. When I was growing up, we'd often celebrate Marshall family events by hiking in the canyon, enjoying the mountains, and letting Berkeley and Mazie run in and out of the swift-moving river. The dogs would shake off right in front of us and ensure we couldn't get mad by flashing us big smiles. Assholes.

We steered my dad's chair onto the road and began heading up. It wasn't the Suburban voyage up the canyon that I had been imagining, but it was nice to get some fresh air and to talk to Dad.

I envisioned us being treated to some words of poignant wisdom from our dad. I imagined him solving all our personal problems with a simple logical statement. I envisioned us all stopping in front of some shit-eating family and circling our dad for the world's longest and loudest “I love you, Dad” chant. I envisioned a lot of hugs, a lot of shoulder rubs. Fuck, maybe we'd get halfway up the mountain and it would turn out that the fresh air and togetherness was the perfect mixture needed to cure Lou Gehrig's disease. That's it. He was going to walk back down this mountain. We would push his chair into the river and, later on, he'd come walking up here with my mom and watch as the dogs ran into the river to play on the chair as if it were a toy instead of a device used to get my dad's limp body around town.

My daydream was interrupted by Tiffany's scream. “Fuck, you ran over my toe! Shit, that hurt.” We stopped. My dad wanted to be deflated so he could talk. This was the start of the miraculous turnaround, I thought. He was going to give his triumphant speech. Tiffany deflated him, even with the hurt toe.

“The chair is running out of batteries fast. We should turn around and head back,” my dad struggled to say. Fuck. We hadn't properly charged the chair, so it had run out of battery power. We had to turn back. We were epic shitheads, and on Father's Day. I had wanted to use the day to show how much we really did love and appreciate him. I wanted to show him that we didn't mind caring for our pal, because he had spent so much of his life caring for us. I wanted the day to be a reflection of how great we were capable of being, instead of how shitty the situation had made us. Oh well.