by Dan Marshall
Then shit got real again.
In early March, I went out to visit Abby in Berkeley. It had been a trying year for our relationship, but things were improving between us. There was some light at the end of the tunnel, and there was even some talk of us trying to find a place together in Berkeley. We were at least hanging and having a fun time.
But, one morning, while we were still in bed flirting with the idea of a second round of morning sex, I got a call from my crying mom. Nothing derails morning sex like a call from your crying mom. I figured she was calling to ask something about my dad’s respirator, as I was practically a respiratory nurse by now. Jeff was so proud of me. My mom instead said, “Well, Jessica just dropped a bomb on us.”
“Fuck,” I said. I thought maybe Jessica had decided to drop out of school. She had turned eighteen in January and it was her decision at this point. She hadn’t really been going to school anyway, despite Greg’s and my best efforts to wake her in the morning and get her out the door. We were also finding her passed out from drinking more and more often in weirder and weirder places: the shower, her car, our trampoline, next to a plate of half-eaten lasagna, under a pinball machine. We had recently caught her in our basement drunkenly making out with some random kid from our rival high school. So I also thought that, because she was combining drinking and fooling around with boys, she had accidentally gotten pregnant.
“Jessica’s dropping out of school so she can marry Todd. They just told us,” my mom said.
“Todd, the lacrosse coach? Or some other Todd?” I asked.
“The lacrosse coach. Creepy Todd,” she said. “God, I need another Fentanyl patch.”
What the fuck? We’d thought that Creepy Todd was out of the picture. I’d thought that by coming home and acting like an overprotective parent, I had scared him away, but apparently it just made them more and more secretive about their relationship. They had still been hanging out behind our backs. And now Jessica was eighteen. She was legally an adult. She could do whatever the fuck she wanted, and she wanted to marry Creepy Todd. It was her decision.
I dropped the phone and started to cry. Not a soft cry either. It was a really, really hard cry—one of the hardest in my life. To me, this announcement meant that we had lost. Lou Gehrig’s disease was getting my dad and turning our family into a muddled pile of white-trash shit. How could this happen? Why would this happen? Could we really handle another big piece of news like this?
I had these moments I called “if only” moments, where I’d think of the way things would be if only my dad didn’t have Lou Gehrig’s disease. If only my dad didn’t have Lou Gehrig’s disease, I’d still be working toward a normal life in California and have a functional relationship with the girl I love. If only my dad didn’t have Lou Gehrig’s disease, our house wouldn’t be turning to a crumbling pile of shit that looked more like a hospital than a home. If only my dad didn’t have Lou Gehrig’s disease, my mom wouldn’t be taking so many Fentanyl patches to numb the cancer and life pain. This felt like another “if only” moment. If only my dad didn’t have Lou Gehrig’s disease, Jessica wouldn’t be marrying Creepy Todd. My dad wouldn’t have let this happen if he were healthy.
But he wasn’t, so it did.
The worst part of the announcement was that I could hear my dad crying in the background—a low and wobbly hum that sounded like a dying animal. Since his diagnosis, I had rarely heard my dad cry or complain. Complaining wasn’t in his nature. To him, this announcement meant that he had lost control of his family. He was helpless and hopeless. He couldn’t be the protective father he wanted to be anymore. He had to lie paralyzed in his hospital bed as all this bullshit happened around him. So he cried, and cried, and cried. Poor guy.
Abby couldn’t believe it. She cried a little, too, and held me tightly. We had dinner with her parents that night, and I got absolutely shit-faced, because that seemed like the right thing to do.
I flew home after spending the rest of the weekend bawling in Abby’s arms. As I left, I could sense that shit was officially getting too intense for her. She hadn’t signed up for all this drama. Life in your mid-twenties was supposed to be fun and easy, not full of dying parents and insane family news. We were supposed to be off wine tasting in Napa, lying in the sun in Palm Desert, and trying every brunch spot in San Francisco’s Marina.
When I got home, there was a palpable tension in the house. I could hear my dad crying the instant I opened the door. I ran upstairs. Jessica sat there holding his hand. “Don’t say anything, Danny. I know you’re pissed,” she said.
“Why would I be pissed? You’re only making a terrible decision that will add lots more grief and tragedy to our lives,” I said back.
My dad cried even harder.
I finally had a chance to speak with him alone during a feeding.
“Well, this is totally fucked, isn’t it?” I said as I watched the yellow Promote slowly drain into him. The smell of it was starting to make me nauseous. I hated it. I hated everything. Fuck Lou Gehrig’s disease.
“How could this happen?” he managed to say in his respirator voice.
“I don’t know. Jessica isn’t thinking right now. Her head is all mixed up,” I said.
“DJ, I feel like I failed as a father,” he said, his wobbly hum-cry starting as he looked up to the ceiling, trying to hide his tears.
I rubbed his bony hand. “Nah, you’ve done all you can. You’re a great dad,” I said, starting to tear up a little as well.
“Not anymore,” he said, officially bursting into his wobbly hum-cry. I wanted to punch that creepy son of a bitch for bringing so much added grief to this situation and making my dad doubt whether he was a good father.
At some point during this whole mess, Stana came up to me. She loved getting in the middle of our family drama. This Jessica news was a gold mine; it doesn’t get much juicier than this. She said, “Danny, you is believin’ this son of a bitch is marry Jessica?”
“I can’t believe it, honestly. Of all the crazy shit to happen,” I said.
“Jessica is tryin’ replace Daddy with this old man, but Stana cuttin’ penis off,” she said, making scissors with her fingers.
“I’d love to see that,” I said. “This whole mess is just too bad. It seems like Jessica has just given up on life.”
Stana shook her head and said, “Danny, Jessica is no seein’ bright light of future.”
Stana always said things best, in broken English that seemed to make more sense than regular English. Jessica was in pain. She was struggling with school and it was making her feel like shit. To top it off, she was losing her dad—the one man who always stood up for her. It was hard to see the future as being bright instead of dark. She wanted an immediate fix to the problems right in front of her. Her solution was to create a new life with a new person.
It all makes sense now, but at the time we were fucking pissed. We were so pissed, in fact, that we tried to talk Jessica out of it. It was a big decision, because, in addition, she had decided that she would convert to Mormonism after dropping out of school. Now, in our family it’s better to be a murderer than a Mormon. We had been subjected to Mormons’ judgmental opinions of us throughout our lives. They always assumed we weren’t good people because we drank and occasionally—okay, frequently—said “fuck.” Plus, some of their core beliefs were just insane, like believing there were three heavens. We didn’t even believe in one. We really didn’t want one of us joining them. We explained to Jessica why she shouldn’t go through with the marriage.
But Jessica wasn’t listening. She had made up her mind. “I’m doing it, and you can’t stop me,” she said. She loved Todd, and Todd loved her. They were getting married. What a fucking fairy tale.
They were planning on running off to Vegas (because that’s where all successful marriages begin). My mom, however, talked them into holding the ceremony in our living room so my dad could attend. Though at first my mom had been appalled by the idea, she became strangel
y supportive of Jessica’s decision to marry Todd, despite our pleas. I’m not sure exactly what brought about the transformation. Maybe it was the Fentanyl. We were on her ass, constantly trying to get her to change her opinion and stop this wedding.
“I’m not going to call it off. Jessica is happy. We have to be happy for her,” she explained to Greg and me, working on a yogurt.
“But Mom, this is so fucked up. We can’t let this happen. You’re her mom. Fucking do something,” said Greg.
“This is no more fucked up than you coming out of the closet.”
“Wow. That’s the most screwed up thing anyone has ever told me. I’m going to try to pretend you didn’t say that, because you’re better than that,” said Greg.
“And if I do something, they’ll still get married. If we support it, then at least we get to go to the wedding,” my mom said.
“Yeah, because I really want to go to a Mormon wedding,” Greg said.
My mom was choosing to see this as good news instead of bad. She was excited to see one of her children get married, and thought it was sort of neat that Jessica was doing so while my dad was still alive to see it. She also thought that maybe if Jessica married Todd she’d stop drinking, which would potentially stop her from getting into harder drugs.
“Like Fentanyl?” I quipped like an asshole.
“Shut up. These are for my cancer pain. I need them,” my mom said.
But she had a point. Maybe this marriage would at least put an end to the drinking and passing out. Greg and I were pretty sick of carrying Jessica to bed at night.
“Well, she’s Todd’s problem now. It’s actually sort of a relief,” said Greg.
Tiffany was taking the marriage news the worst. She and Jessica were relatively close, and it was hard to see something like this happen. She kept talking about cutting Creepy Todd’s dick off. Everyone was after Creepy Todd’s dick, it seemed. Tiff and I finally made peace over this situation. We were no longer at each other’s throats. We realized that we were in this together, that it was us against the rest of the world. She even came over and had a glass of wine with me.
“I can’t believe our family has gotten this ridiculous,” she said. “We used to be this classy family, and now we’re shit.”
I agreed and said that things had gotten really out of control this year, and noted that none of our friends had to go through such intense family drama so early in life. “All those other fuckers are in graduate school. It doesn’t seem fair, but fuck it. Oh well,” I said. “At least we’re still rich enough to afford wine.”
“God, I really want to cut Todd’s dick off,” she said.
* * *
At the time, I was still the only person who knew how to make my dad’s respirator portable. So my mom begged me to make him portable for the wedding. I told her to fuck off, that I wasn’t going to do it, that she’d have to figure it out if she wanted to support this marriage. She tried to learn, but would get halfway through, break down, and begin crying as I watched her fumble around with the tubes, smiling like the devil. “I can’t do it, Dan. It’s too complicated. Just stop being a fucker and help me.”
“Fuck off,” I said back, the devil’s horns growing out of my head.
I had started to truly resent her. She was losing her mind. She was letting her eighteen-year-old daughter marry a thirty-five-year-old. She was making a difficult situation more difficult. Couldn’t we just be a family full of dying parents? Did we also have to have this creepy stuff happen?
The afternoon before the wedding, Regina came and found me being sad in our basement, playing pinball. I was playing a lot of pinball lately. It was nice to feel that I was able to control something. She said that my dad wanted to see me. I walked into his room, sat next to his bed. His cuff was deflated. He wanted to chat.
“DJ, I know you hate this whole situation and don’t want any part of it. I don’t either. But it’s going to happen, so we might as well be there for Jessica. We have no choice but to support each other. We’re still a family, even if we’re broken down,” he said, struggling to not cry. “So would you please make me portable for the wedding?”
I took a deep breath and said, “Nice speech, Dad, but I’m not doing it.”
I started to head out of the room. He started to cry, sounding like a cow being kicked to death.
I turned back. “Ah, Jesus. If you want to support this marriage, I’ll support you. I’ll make you portable. But I’m doing this for you. Not for Jessica. Not for Mom. Not for Creepy Todd.”
He smiled and thanked me, implying that I was a hero (of sorts) and the best son in the history of sons. “Thanks, Dan. We couldn’t do this without you.”
“Whatever, Dad. This horrible shit is ruining our lives.”
* * *
The next day, in our family’s living room, in front of the windows facing out on trusty, snow-capped Mount Olympus, we were to hold a ceremony with some friends and family from both sides.
To prepare, my friend Dom and I spent several hours getting drunk. I had asked Dom to film the event, since I thought it was so fucked up. Having a dead dad, Dom was used to tragedy, so he didn’t mind hanging around. I was surprised the rest of my family members—minus my dad—weren’t drinking. However, when Tiffany showed up, and I asked, “Why aren’t you drinking?” she turned to me with a sly smile and said, “Oh, I had six beers before I came here.” Tiffany wasn’t a big drinker, so seeing her drunk was rare.
Minutes before the ceremony, Tiffany pulled Jessica into the basement to try to talk her out of the marriage. Jessica was already in her wedding dress.
“Jess, run as fast as you can,” Tiffany said.
“Ha. Yeah right,” said Jess.
“I’m serious. Run. You don’t have to do this. Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Don’t do it,” Tiffany pleaded.
Jess didn’t run. She went upstairs to get married.
“Fucking fucker,” said Tiff. “I need another beer.” So we all cracked open some fresh beers and chugged them into our tired, sad bodies.
The guests started to arrive.
Regina and I got my dad into his suit. I made his respirator portable. We got him into his chair and into the elevator, heading down to the main level where the wedding would take place. As I wheeled him into the kitchen, I saw a sea of Todd’s Mormon relatives snacking and drinking caffeine-free sodas. It was what I imagined hell looking like. Once I got into the kitchen, I yelled, “Ladies and gentlemen! I present to you, the father of the bride!”
All heads turned to my poor, crippled father, trying to manage a smile, looking as sharp as a man with Lou Gehrig’s disease glued to a wheelchair can look. Everyone was stunned—shocked into silence. Eventually, Greg started to applaud. “Oh, Daddy, you look so good!” he yelled sarcastically.
Everyone started clapping along with Greg. There were even a few hoots. My dad smiled. At least he’d get to see one of his kids get married.
I got my dad into the living room and situated him in the back. All the chairs were set up. We had a few family friends there, like Sam and Sue, but it was mainly Todd’s massive Mormon family. They didn’t know what to make of the marriage, either. One brother-in-law on his side said, “Well, this sure is a strange event.”
“Yeah, it’s like a really fucked-up Woody Allen movie starring stupid people instead of intellectuals,” I said back, realizing as I said it that he was probably too much of a Mormon to ever watch a Woody Allen film.
My mom’s friend Janet sang Beatles songs as she strummed away on her acoustic guitar. Todd and Jessica had brought in a Mormon bishop to marry them. I guess this was officially a Mormon wedding, in our childhood house. Fucking unreal.
Right before Jessica was about to walk down the mock-aisle and into Creepy Todd’s arms, my dad looked over at me and motioned for me to deflate his cuff, allowing him to talk. I did.
“I want to walk her down the aisle,” he said.
“Dad, you can’t really walk, though, rem
ember?”
“I can go a few feet. I know it. As long as you hold me up,” he said.
“All right. I’ll try,” I said.
Jessica appeared in her beautiful dress. She looked great. She looked happy. She looked like she was excited to start a new life. It was her rebirth as much as it was her wedding.
Janet started playing “Here Comes the Sun,” the same song my parents had walked down the aisle to some thirty years earlier. I wrapped the gait belt around my dad’s bony rib cage and strapped the respirator around my fat shoulder, making sure not to step on any of the tubes dangling from the trach. I pulled him up out of his wheelchair and got him standing. I moved around so I could hold him up from behind. He looked over and smiled at Jessica. She smiled back. She slipped her hand into his. Everyone stood, and he started the walk down the aisle with his little girl, his fat son holding on to him from behind like he was Bernie from Weekend at Bernie’s.
“I love you, Jess,” he said as he passed her off to Todd. “Good luck.”
* * *
After the ceremony, a very drunk Tiffany tossed Creepy Todd up against our garage and threatened to cut his dick off. Meanwhile, I sat drunk and naked in the hot tub with a few random non-Mormon wedding guests I was able to round up, because that seemed like the right thing to do.
SPA DAY
As this horrible Lou Gehrig’s situation grew more and more intense, I started to expect more and more support and sympathy from family and friends. No one experienced my demanding wrath like Abby.
From my perspective, I thought Abby should have made my life easier by being more attentive and loving. After all, we had been together for five years now. I was initially understanding of her lack of empathy, but then it started to annoy me. She acted as though I wanted to go through this, as though I had a choice. I didn’t. I couldn’t leave my family to deal with my dad’s disease alone. I was on Abby’s ass to act as if she cared more. It’s not that she didn’t care. She really did. She loved my dad and me. She just didn’t know how to handle everything. It wasn’t her tragedy, and it was a little too intense for a cute blonde in her mid-twenties to go through if she didn’t absolutely have to. So for her, the easiest thing was to ignore the situation, pretend it didn’t exist, and hope her boyfriend came out of it relatively normal and well adjusted, so that we could continue living our happy, sunshine-and-Jäger-shots lives.
