Ike nods. “Frontotemporal dementia. It can happen with ALS.”
Fuck. It has a name. My mind blanks into terrified static, but I wrestle it back to reality as quickly as I can. “So what does this mean for him? For us?”
He considers again. “He might get stuck on a word, which you’ve seen him do, or be childish, or rude, or say the wrong thing. He’ll lose words and act selfish and make shitty decisions, but there’s no real way to predict when those things will happen.”
I can’t keep the anger out of my voice. “Wasn’t it just supposed to be his muscles?”
Ike gives me a patient look, which I may or may not deserve. “The only blessing is he won’t realize how his brain is deteriorating. Sometimes he might, like when he’s in the middle of too much emotion, but not the other stuff—the rudeness, the bad decisions, whatever. Which sucks for us, of course.”
For two seconds, I’m pissed, but then it hits me. “Imagine how pissed he’d be if he understood his brain was quitting, too.” It almost takes my breath away, it’s so awful. Especially on top of losing his body.
“Which is why I can understand his choice for suicide, even if I don’t support it.”
“What do you have against it, aside from the fact that you’re Catholic?” I’ve been too chicken to ask.
“Want to know how many people I’ve seen die?”
“No.”
“Two guys in my squad. Unexpected both times. Not going to tell you about it. Completely excruciating.”
“I can’t even imagine.” I consider climbing in the backseat, because I can feel the waves of sadness and anger and hurt coming off him, but it would be unsafe to unbuckle my seatbelt while we’re going seventy-five down the interstate.
“Those guys didn’t have a chance to save themselves. But suicide is a little different. There may be choice involved, and it can be stopped sometimes, if the illness isn’t too intense.”
“Illness?”
“Depression. Or whatever brain imbalance makes them think suicide is an option.”
I hadn’t thought about it that way.
“Science says living organisms are consistently oriented toward survival unless something’s wrong. So, when a human is convinced that death is the right choice, you know something’s off.” Ike sighs. “Except in cases like your dad’s.”
“When people are going to die anyway?”
“Right. And people like me take oaths to fix brain imbalances. To save lives. Not to end them.”
“Fair enough. But how can you think it’s okay but not okay at the same time?”
“Cognitive dissonance and critical thinking are my friends. And my values don’t have to be other people’s values. We all get to choose.”
Silence settles over the car again. We’re getting closer to the Cities. There are more fields here, flat open spaces people fill with crops or buildings or billboards. An occasional pond, sometimes a horse. Sometimes a hawk. One billboard looks like it says SAVE BIG MONEY ON FRONTOTEMPORAL DEMENTIA. But when I blink, FRONTOTEMPORAL DEMENTIA has been replaced with MENARDS.
My mouth is dry again, and I take another gulp of water. “Do you . . . flip-flop? Ever think the opposite is the right answer?”
Ike doesn’t hesitate. “No. But it’s truly not my business. People get to make decisions. And your dad’s being tortured. It’s pretty horrifying.”
Torture. Horrifying.
I can barely hear myself. “I don’t support him.”
“I don’t blame you.” Ike gives me a sad smile.
Silence again.
A new awareness creeps into my brain as I watch the road roll by.
What if he can’t do it on his own?
He might shake so badly he can’t pour the liquid into a glass. He might not be able to hold it to his mouth and drink it.
And Ike won’t help him.
My dad’s not the first dying person, or the last, to choose this option, I’ve discovered. It’s amazing how many places—in America, in other countries, wherever—sell pentobarbital online. What he wants to do is legal in lots of other countries. But if he can’t do it himself, then things change. If my research is correct, I’d be committing a criminal act in the state of Minnesota.
The road hum of the car is suddenly really loud. My dad’s snoring is really loud.
Ike touches my arm. “You need to understand there’s some bad shit coming down the pike. Feeding tubes. Ventilators. No ability to talk. No way to move. Maybe no ability to even think for himself anymore. Or constant laughing or crying, with no way to stop it.”
Snoring. Snoring means he’s breathing. That’s good. I look at the billboards going by. Visit St. Paul! Visit Minneapolis! Buy a boat from this place! Build a log cabin! Happy things. Family things. Outdoor things. Smiling people doing things together. Nobody dying.
“He’s not trying to ignore your needs. He’s just . . . he’s in pain. Mostly mentally and emotionally, but there will be physical pain, too. He’s got to do what’s good for him.”
“That’s how my parents roll, isn’t it? Doing what’s best for them?” I spit it out with way more anger than Ike deserves. He looks away.
“I’m sorry, Tobin.” Ike is quiet. “I don’t know how it feels to be your kind of alone.”
People going and doing and being. Happy mothers and fathers and kids.
“Let’s just go to Hawaii right now.” I say it to the window.
“Yes. Let’s do that.” He reaches across and puts his hand on my shoulder. “It’s not fair. To either of you.”
Signs. Looking at them. My dad snoring in the back.
“So what? It’s happening.” I say it, but barely loud enough to hear it myself.
“Yes.” Ike sighs. “It’s happening.”
My dad snores all night long.
Except when he’s tossing and turning, which is every other minute.
I’m exhausted when morning comes around, and of course we have to be there at the ass crack of dawn. But we get everything into the airport, despite the impossibly long ricket from the parking garage to the Delta desk, and sure enough, there’s a wheelchair. My dad audibly sighs when he gets in.
I take a picture of him in his wheelchair and send it to Gracie: Like a boss.
She texts back: He looks happy. #GoSteve #Ilovehim #havefun #loveyou
I’ll try. #loveyoutoo And I will.
Maybe I should chip the ice off my heart first.
It’s eight hours to Hawaii, because it’s in the middle of the freaking Pacific Ocean. Like the middle. Lake Superior is a drop in the bucket compared to the Pacific Ocean. I don’t know who managed to get us direct flights, but I sure am glad.
Ike plays a game on his phone. My dad sleeps and reads. Nobody tries to talk to me about anything deep or weird, which is good. So I think. Which is bad.
I want to stand up and go to each passenger, asking if they know how I should behave. How should someone act when their father is dying—when he’s going to kill himself so he can die faster? How does a person just go about their day while they carry that knowledge? How do I cook supper, go to school, go to work, all the time knowing my life is shattering, tiny crack by tiny crack?
I truly don’t know. Maybe the strangers do.
But I imagine what would happen if I actually did it. People would frown, look horrified, turn away. Someone would call the flight attendant. Nobody wants to think horrible thoughts on the way to a tropical island. And the flight attendants might tie me to my seat or something if I actually tried.
So I don’t do anything. I concentrate on thawing my heart—just temporarily, of course. I imagine a blowtorch and some blue flame, deep in the depths of the lake, working on a black lump.
Then I read a dumb mystery that my English teacher gave me. Eight hours is one thing when you’re sleeping. It’s another when you’re on a plane. The book’s not great, but it’s enough to pass the time.
Every so often, Ike passes me a mazapan with a knowing grin. He’s right. The
y’re delicious. I scarf down each one of them.
About once an hour, I think: I don’t know if I can help him. If that time comes. When that time comes.
But how can anyone know if they’ve never been there? How could it be possible that death is better than life? I could ask the other passengers that question, too.
The flight attendants would lock me in the bathroom.
So I read some more.
When we’re landing on Oahu, the plane looks like it’s going to skid right off the west side of the island, the airport is so close to the water. I text Gracie a photo of the airport, since half of it is outside, like gates and baggage claim are just . . . outside. Super weird. Then we wait for another plane to the Big Island, which is actually named Hawaii, but nobody calls it that, and that ride is short. They give us free juice.
Ninety minutes from the time we get on the second plane in Honolulu, we have a rental car and are driving into Kailua-Kona. The doctor’s condo is nice, in a place called the Keauhou-Kona Surf and Racquet Club, not fancy, but nice. But the place is on the first floor, so my dad rolls his rented wheelchair into the apartment, and we’ve arrived.
It’s the longest day and the longest trip of my life. But I’m in Hawaii. And my dad is still alive, looking out the sliding doors at the patio, where there are green geckos climbing the wall in the glare of the motion-sensing deck light.
I feel the warm air working on my heart. It’s dripping in my chest. And on my face, but thankfully no one sees. There’s no crying in Paradise.
Here are the top ten things I take photos of in Hawaii, in no particular order:
1. Sea turtles. Way more Zen than Mama Duck. I stood next to one for an hour—you can stand on the lava, at the edge of the ocean, in calf-deep water, where the turtles like to hang out—just watching it float and peace out. Incredible. I stuck my underwater camera in and took pictures of its face. I want to be a sea turtle in my next life. I want to live on this beach. I want to pet one, which is illegal.
2. Fish. Lots of fish. Including the humuhumunukunukuapua’a. We snorkel every day. Ike ties a clothesline to Dad, so they float along together. I buy three more disposable underwater cameras and use them all. I see transparent stick-like fish, fish wearing lipstick and eyeliner, lots of parrotfish fish, a few Marlin/Nemo fish, a bunch of fish I don’t know the names of, and an eel, which scares the shit out of me.
3. Hibiscus flowers. Gorgeous. They have hibiscus hedges in Hawaii. And plumeria trees. So many kinds of flowers.
4. Lava. So many textures and shadows in lava.
5. The ocean. So many textures and shadows in the ocean.
6. Sunsets. Totally cheesy but true. Amazing. They look like someone painted them on the sky.
7. Everything else outside.
8. Volcanoes National Park. Holy shit. The grass burns from the ground up. Stay on the path, or get fried instantaneously? Yessir, Mr. Park Ranger. Live lava in other places, though not in the park, but the steam from the caldera is scary enough.
9. Food.
10. My dad.
I take so many photos of my dad. Laughing, swimming, smiling, eating at the luau, where there was tons of food, including poi, which isn’t as horrible as people say it is. Dad watching the hula dancers. Dad looking at the ocean. Ike rents this bicycle for two with a chair in the front—someone with a disability can ride in the chair while someone else pedals—and I take pictures of him looking like a four-year-old in the front of the bike. Ike loves pedaling him around.
My dad never mentions that he and Meredith honeymooned here. Not once. Ike tells me.
We all buy Hawaiian clothes—I buy two dresses, and Ike and Dad each get a couple shirts. I find a dress for Gracie, after texting her a million different fabrics so she can pick one.
We eat whole fish—like, whole on the plate, with eyes and scales and everything—in a Thai restaurant on the top of an old shopping center that’s part of an even older hotel. The whole thing is wood framed, like a house, very humble and weathered. Ike carries my dad up the stairs, and Dad doesn’t mind. He does throw his napkin and a fork at the wait staff because he’s mad he doesn’t have any water, but they’re nice about it after Ike takes them aside and explains. They bring me free sorbet, completely out of pity, but I don’t mind. It was rose petal sorbet, and it was delicious.
We don’t go back, even though the food is the best we have in all ten days.
The official Ironman triathlon is held in and around Kailua-Kona, so we check out the T-shirt shop with posters of every year of the triathlon since it’s been held there—1981 on. It’s the only time my dad cries, and it isn’t even uncontrollable. He’s just sad. I know a triathlon was a goal for him.
We’re there during a full moon, so one night Ike and I put him in his wheelchair and push him out to the tiny rock beach by the condos. It’s so bright we can see each other’s faces perfectly. Ike and I sit in some crap-ass plastic chairs someone’s left behind, on either side of my dad, and watch the water while the moon gazes down on us.
The air is thick with vibrations—from the ocean, from the moon, from whatever vibrates, which is all of life. I sit and watch the waves and feel the energy.
After a while, Dad turns to me. “Thank you for being the best part of my good life. You’re my favorite person on Earth.”
I don’t say anything. I hug him, then sit back down and feel the vibes some more.
Torture. Horrifying. I hear Ike’s voice in my head.
I shove the horrifying part into the waves, close to Japan, far away from us.
My dad is lucid, calm, and happy the whole time we’re gone, except for tiny moments here and there, like when he threw the fork. Almost as if the warm air and salt waves and barren lava fields restored his brain.
It’s the best ten days of my life.
Dad’s Big Book of Advice #10
Keep your nudie pix to yourself, goddammit. And do not trust a guy who sends a dick pic. He’ll end up without a job, sleeping on your couch and eating your food.
MAY 28
It’s Memorial Day weekend, and there are tourists everywhere. In the back room of Trash Box, looking for a bathroom (“Um, no, we don’t have bathrooms for the public here . . . oh, it’s an emergency? Just around the corner . . . oh, you have an emergency, too?”), knocking glass off the shelves, scattering magazines into every corner, leaving their garbage on the shelves for me to find. And they’re all crabby, because it’s not warm. “It’s Memorial Day weekend! It’s supposed to be warm! I saw a snowflake!”
Um, have you ever been to Duluth?
I’m standing in the back room, pulling out what looks salvageable from our maybe-this-stuff-will-sell corner, when I hear Paul’s voice: “Hey, Tobin! You have a guest!”
Paul lets Allison partake of his services on Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends, but that’s usually it, unless she’s in a serious fix. His solution for rude tourists is a lecture on the historical details that relate to the piece they’re purchasing. They tend to stop being rude and hurry out of the shop after that. Paul enjoys the hell out of it. Occasionally a tourist will engage him, and then he’s stuck for a while, but he doesn’t mind.
When I emerge from the back room with three picture frames, four antique books, and one lamp on our transport cart, I see it’s Sid. With his violin.
“Hi, Tobin.” He’s got his violin out, on his shoulder, and he gives it a flourish.
“What are you doing?” It’s not like Sid to just wander around with his instrument.
“I give concerts on street corners.” He gestures with his bow out the window. “When I’m not slopping up puke at Vista Fleet, that is.” Big grin. “I made thirty-five dollars already today. By the candy store.”
“Better than Trash Box.”
Paul shushes me before Allison hears. “Young lady, you know that name’s not appreciated round these parts. And that’s not illegal, young man?”
“Not as far as I know.” Sid looks around, l
ike someone might be following him. “But I guess I haven’t seen a police officer yet.”
Paul nods. “What do you play?”
“I know, I know!” I wave my hand like I’m in Professor Paul Oliver’s history lecture.
Sid rolls his eyes at me, then turns to Paul. “John Williams tunes. Everybody loves it when they can identify Star Wars or Jurassic Park or some other famous movie. But I’ve only had one person guess right for Empire of the Sun.”
Paul’s smile is amused. “Do you do requests?”
“Sometimes, if I know it.”
“Any Charlie Daniels?”
Sid puts bow to strings, and “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” erupts out of them. There are maybe ten people in the store, and they all stop what they’re doing to watch. He doesn’t play the whole thing, but when he stops, slightly sweaty from the exertion, there’s loud, long applause. Sid blushes.
“Tobin, you’ve got some pretty talented friends.” Paul is ringing up a grandma-looking lady, and she’s giving Sid a big smile.
“It seems so.”
The grandma lady hands Sid a five. “I’ll look for you in a symphony somewhere.” Sid blushes even harder.
“You’re going to get recruited right off the streets of Duluth.” I go back to the cart where I’ve left the merchandise. “Did you come in for anything in particular, or just to serenade us?”
Sid pulls his violin off his shoulder and walks over to me. “I came to make sure you were still alive. You weren’t in school for the last two weeks. And you’re a crappy texter. Can we . . . talk?” He nods his head toward the sidewalk.
“Paul, can you cover for me for five minutes?”
Paul looks at his watch, then at the door to the back room. “Make it snappy.” He smiles at Sid. “You’ve got some chops. Best of luck.”
“Thank you, sir.” He extends his hand, which Paul shakes, then heads out the door, me right behind him.
It’s not that cold out here. People are just wimps.
Once we’re away from the windows, Sid looks me straight in the eye. “So?”
“Yes?”
Then he drops his eyes. “I . . . um . . . just wanted to check on you. Like I said, I hadn’t seen you.” He looks like he’s going to either jump out of his skin or drop his violin.
Wreck: A Novel Page 9
