I need to get back in the game.
My daddy done up and left me, my mama on some regrets, and my brother believes he’ll be incarcerated forever.
My father is lying in a cemetery and the government mailed me a letter saying they didn’t issue him a military headstone, after all. This news arriving 45 days after I left his body—my father’s body—in a cemetery in Louisiana. How do I even know what was put into the plot I paid for?
This is disturbing. But so is the block I live on and the people I listen to at night outside my window, fighting, singing, doing whatever the fuck they feel like at 3am. I am also an unemployed person. An uninsured American…
I’ve been mulling that phrase for the last 48 hours or so…looking into the mirror thinking about the stories and voices of the “Middle” America depicted on the nightly news. I guess I just realized, “Oh, I’m them.”
I don’t know where I went wrong because things never have seemed to go quite right anyway. But there is an odd peace that envelops me.
The man who raised me is lying in the ground and hopefully not secretly cremated or his remains lost by careless groundskeepers. More likely than not, I will never know. He was gone when I arrived in Arkansas. He was gone when I left. And he will be gone when I return. That phase of my life has ended. All opportunities to call him, to listen to him, to ride with him are gone. All that is left is what I can remember or gather from others. He was a man who lived a life, who touched another, and then another, and then another, and then another. This kept going on and while he breathed, he forged relationships with each of them, in his and their own way. I know now, better than I did before, that I had a good, solid relationship with my father, despite what I thought about it while it was (merely?) physical. The old man loved and was proud of me, and he knew I worried and cared fiercely about him. I was his good daughter – a smart girl who made good choices after a few initial bumps on the head. My brother told me—
My brother.
What the hell are we going to do?
How come no one talked to us about the possibility of losing our father? What will we do when our mother dies? She seems so fragile now. Tough, and mean as ever, but such a fragile little ferocity. Like a mosquito…
Today I had some Wendy’s for lunch because I was on a road trip. When I went home, I felt off—a little too full, a little bit of indigestion, a little like, “why the fuck did I eat that?”
And I was cold.
So I put on a sweater, some socks, and my robe…tied a scarf on my head. I went into the bathroom, got a toothbrush and toothpaste, and started brushing my tongue, like I normally do when I brush, but this time not just to clean it. To make myself gag, and get that shit out, I initiated a bulimic episode and I don’t regret it.
What is happening to me? I look in the mirror and think: I need to get back in the game.
Life feels unapologetically short and things are exceedingly undesirable financially. In truth, I want some of that dirty money out there. That filthy capital that makes the world go round seems to be getting harder to come by for some folks. Trying to get me a piece, and spending time with folks before they die are all I really care about at the moment.
I wrote this two days ago. May as well post this morning while I consider the 4am thoughts that continue to haunt me throughout my days. The game…
Nonfiction Woman 