Emergency Room at Northwestern Memorial Hospital

Fifty finches, parakeets, cockatoos. My name is Mr. Rivera.

Ambien, Ativan, Lipitor. My beautiful wife—she’s 10 years older.

I already have three psychiatrists! I came for a psychologist. My beautiful wife, I’m driving her crazy. I want to talk and she doesn’t want to listen.

She’s an alcoholic. I steal for her. I steal six beers for her, every day, for the last 10 years. Never get caught, and I’m worried. I am committing a felony.

I didn’t say that I am Santa Claus. I said that I like Santa Claus. He brings presents to children. Six beers, every day, the last 10 years.

Yes, a referral, that’s what you call it. You can call Dr. Joseph but you will probably get Dr. Elaine. She helps Dr. Joseph.

It is Thursday or Friday. I am 48 years old. The month is July. Yes, I know.

I told you. Fifty finches, parakeets, cockatoos.

Great Day for a Breakdown

The last time I sputtered—that’s what I’m calling it—was two years ago and tears—the fibrous heart-kinds and saline face-kinds—but not as chilly or cerebral, at least how I’m remembering it. I never got around to writing about the incident (I will) because there are a lot of supercilious details: non-FDA approved caffeine pills; Mets at Cubs, seven rows behind dugout, soundly believing one in 42,000 spectators had to be a doctor; sitting on the shower mat for hours, warm streams reviving nothing and waiting for vultures; riding to the hospital, straddling a forgotten quart of tom yum soup in a slow-moving cab; EKGs and IVs and residents’ pens scribbling, reducing me to an incident that happened 11 years earlier; midnight sedation and afternoon revival and dropping my cell phone in a glass of water, the first motion—the first test—of my groggy new life.

Tell me—what sick clown runs into somebody they know in the emergency room? I was inexplicably self-conscious that this patient, this acquaintance—an alcoholic gay sex columnist from my college newspaper, remembered for such headlines as "Barebacking is Whack", and presumably admitted for the same anxieties or overdoses and looking just as shitty and unhygienic—saw my nipples peaking through my gown. More self-conscious about him than the tattooed, hetero-anesthesiologist pricking me four, five, six times and making frustrated jokes about uncooperative veins, unmistakably gawking at my splayed and shivering chest.

No, I’m not going to talk about the last time. It wasn’t an artful trough. The latest sputter might’ve been, as far as breakdowns go. It began:

“Manager, I’m not coming into work tomorrow,” shaky, but so are sailors, at times. “I’m very much freaking out.”

It continued like this:

“Boy I Slept With Two Years Ago, do you want to buy me a Manhattan? If I don’t have bourbon and bitters, I might die.”

Repeat times four. (Rejection, from even the girls.)

Then tears, strictly saline face-kinds. Those all-familiar goosebumps; wobbly and wavering and blinded, and I sit naked for hours, nowhere to go, renewing my predilection for memorizing nuance of ceiling, cracks, without something tactile (necessarily).

I stare off into atoms. They found my brother naked—a grisly, unmentionable detail—and I regret revealing my own blatant exposure to my mom the next day. I spend the better part of morning trying to convince her, “No, I’m not depressed. This is exhaustion. This is a sign of loving life with every ounce of being, and being let down. I’m your happy kid.”

It goes:

I can’t sleep so I text Ricardo to ask if one-year expired sedatives are passable—he is in law school, not medical school—and he prescribes only one. I take two. Potency undergoes a half life. He expects good things for my 89 years and I shall not disappoint.

I try:

To play it cool. I go to a pizzeria-brewery, the daytime talisman for ‘back to normal,’ considering the stay-at-home dad clientele, my usually stabilizing bacon-mushroom-clam order. I can do this. I am an object of interest. I switch to the charcuterie-whiskey bar, the early evening harbinger of hope. I write 12 pages of notes, mute and right-leaning, like drugged ants crossing a page. I read all cuckoo’s nest.

And:

In a stupor, I try going to my job the next morning, a fish with wings. I feel obtuse and duckling, like I’m jutting out and spilling over. Revolving doors and minutes after my security badge takes me past the last portal, I’m ushered into an accusatory ambush—a peer mediation meeting with someone I didn’t even know I had a problem with?—and I erupt and quiver and make pet sounds.

This is highly unlike me. I am sent home with pay.

Then:

Naked, again. On a bed without sheets. I ask Cait what her favorite Audrey Hepburn movie is of three. “Sabrina,” she says. And I vow to watch Sabrina, because I can never sit and watch a movie; I can never give myself time to myself; to rest wringing hands or tautological thoughts, for even two hours. I can never do what regular people do, even though I promise, my leisure isn’t spent any less self-interestedly.

I watch Sabrina. By that I mean, I eyeball the DVD case, still shrink-wrapped and balanced on its centimeter spine next to a horizontal me, still very naked in bed. I don’t open the case or view the movie. But I watch Sabrina, next to me, upright in compendium with Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Roman Holiday, simply there if I want those two hours, or four hours, or six. I pay for my time.

At dusk, the last shiver dissipates—a smoke ring, a fugitive pall. I could handle this any number of ways. Another bath, where I run the chance—rather, penance—of having to look at myself. A resignation letter. Pills with more potency and less half life.

If:

I sunk too low, I wouldn’t have stories.
If I rose above, I wouldn’t have pride.
I never knew either to make a distinction;
That’s why the coroner will find me alive.

Letter from Los Angeles

We saw Greenberg and Greg wanted to know why a 25-year-old would willingly subject herself to a 40-something misanthrope and all I could say was um; I need to treat my stomach better when I get back, better than tacos and milkshakes, I had this episode where I was swimming in dark beer and medication and deposited three pounds of puppy chow on the sidewalk, and then we took a picture of the vomit, I had never seen so much, it seemed like the Hollywood thing to do; I'm not sure about graduate school, I don't do well in institutions, I'm bootstraps and breadwinning and there are many names I haven't read, and every year that passes, it seems like there are more; when I crashed my bike I was filled with a liter of wine and my arm turned purple, then yellow, aurora borealis from wrist to shoulder, and I took pictures of scars because that, then, seemed like the Chicago thing to do; and I remind you that you have to be careful, you are irreplaceable, I saw you made your dad write in all caps, don't keep doing that. Last day here, can I bring you a souvenir?

Twenty to a Pack

Last night put me on some crazy eightfold path shit, Vee. Vee? Vee! Are you listening? Scraping the bottom of the carton, spoon that could knife. It doesn’t always come full circle. Sometimes it comes serpentine, meanders; doesn’t come at all. That was some closure, you can’t get mad at it. Have you ever seen Strangers on a Train? I whacked yours and you whacked mine. They could never muster the courage. We overlap; all fuck-me boots and whiskey smiles and ten-car pile-ups (could they, really, pile up)? Let’s go to sleep. Yes, now. Now. Lights.

==

If I smoked cigarettes I’d be more deliberate. It’s worked into the play. It’s puff, consideration, puff. Eyes skyward, ash, exhale, ash. I’m much too straightforward a girl to sail, did you know that? I hate jargon and I hate strings. [Ash.] Sailing is just jargon and strings. [Ash.] Knots. You know what? If you were my boyfriend, I could say, “I love my boyfriend,” and for the first time in my life, actually mean it. [Flick.] There’s no ocean. It’s Chicago. There’s no fucking ocean.

==

How We Met, because we still haven’t. Nobody asked you to fall for the idea of me. (That would be exhausting.) You were selling your dead girlfriend’s belongings on the front lawn in the summertime. I looked to passersby for the source of ice cream sandwiches. They melt; her paperbacks and records and coats won’t, will never. I have reverence for dedications, the inscribed. You’re older, I want older, but we must matriculate together; to-get-her.

==

Contraction, I have favorites. Excited apostrophe, rashly stamped, too late for some. You wrote me on my birthday. “I know we’re not friends, but.” Prove that I’m not your adversary; anniversary! Does your hair still fall over your eyes? I don’t want to see you, but I kind of want to know.

St. Valentine's Day Massacre: 81st Year Commemorative Edition

A little blood, a little moonlight. See, I'm not so useless after all.

"When You Have The Gift, Like We Do..."

VII.

What the palm reader said. We wait until we are settled—sidled—onto bar stools, wind left whipping—wincing outside—to talk about indentations and impressions and fates. Kay’s aura is relatively clean and Stevi has a cracked crown and I, well. My heart is blocked.

“She said I have to free my brother from limbo,” I confess.

“How are you supposed to do that?” Stevi wonders.

“No fucking clue. Maybe instead of calling her hotline I should sleep with another Crowley Brother?”

Our cackles hit the ceiling before our chins tilt upward and, elbows bent, we wield beer cans like archers, aiming acutely. For all the ill prognoses, we can’t dismantle the mirth. Kay is first to leave.

“There she goes, there she goes again.” But we don’t grieve.

This was supposed to be my year to be selfish and now I’m half-considering what munitions are required for an overnight in purgatory. I am $20 poorer and cannot contentedly believe such restlessness could be my vocation, that such a waiting room could even exist. I can only shrug and sigh. And acquiesce.

I will spelunk for story’s sake. I will set you free, on my own terms. If you promise not to climb on my back.



VI.

“Ter, raise your hand,” Dean implores.

“Why, what was the question?” I ask dazedly.

“The question was, ‘Who actually liked high school?’”

My palm obligingly shoots up and the room giggles, not at my expense, but at my distance, distinction. I am a girl off-tempo, particularly this evening, and never quite deserving of the extemporaneous Most Likely to Succeed.

My forearm retracts when I remember that I had dreams.



V.

I lose three pounds while I’m home for Christmas. I want to gorge on meats and cheeses and pastries, but I can’t choke it down. The refrigerator squeals at me, smugly, like a malevolent bottled-nosed dolphin, every time the door is opened and closed. The doctors don’t know what’s wrong with me—only what’s not wrong with me—and I frankly stop caring after I am prescribed something strong and given permission to get back on the bottle.

When I am autopsied, you will find your burden, writhing or swimming or circulating. I take on your burden, and yours, and yours. People will tell you that I’m mature, that I’m responsible, that I’m an old soul. I hate that. They can’t see me collapsing under the weight of their shortcomings.

“Why do you keep chasing after your brother?” My mother is serious, almost grave, and she turns my chin with her right hand so I can’t divert my gaze. “Why do go for these charity cases? You’re not going to save him.”

When you cut open my insides, it will be hard to tell that I was striving for immutable beauty. That I was trying for ineffable truth.



IV.

Boxing Day feels like a blanket. I am somewhere else, but clothed and centered. I don’t parade my quixotic residue in a sad or impaired or lofty way. It’s just how it is; I moved. But this couch is still crouched in my heart; this basement is still my brethren. I make promises to play songs on a guitar, songs that I never learned. I drink more than I need and stay longer than I intend. My left hand delivers a heavy pour into a steaming mug at my right, and a boy who knew Older Brother compliments, “Definitely his sister.” Or, I take it as a compliment. The intonation crosses air to remind me of blood we shared. And I remind the boy that I met him 14 years ago, maybe, when my dad drove him home to save a batch of cookies he accidentally left in the oven.

There are new friends in old places because I choose centrifugal force.



III.

I can’t think about One without thinking of The Other. I’m prone, squirming, sweating, reliving the 11 courses of Christmas dinner, the table wine and lager, the rote of early morning catechism. Littlest Brother wants to know why lone tears keep forming at the crest of my eye, submitting to gravity in soundless cascade, and I can only lie: I’m drunk. There’s a worm eating my stomach. I’ll tell you when you’re older.

Anger was never my forte; it never seemed an evolved enough emotion to dedicate myself to fully. I’m reluctant to dabble in negative space. But what I would tell One—I deserved better than I Don’t Know. And what I would tell The Other—You got your Validation of Marketability and I got my Free Beers, so let’s call it a draw. I am loath to loathe, but I can escape. I will escape and sing.



II.

“Discretion is the better part of valor,” he says.

“It’s knowing when to fight,” I volunteer.

“Shakespeare said that. But what do I know? I’m just your cab driver.”

“With all due respect, sir. William Shakespeare didn’t drive me home tonight.”

He smiles with his eyes closed. I exit before he can speak. I need a bed and I don’t wait for my change.



I.

I was conceived after a wedding, which I knew. I was a week late, which always surprised me. (I mostly make excuses to leave bed early because I realize this doesn’t last forever.) And, my mother tells me now—as I unwrap a layer of aluminum foil, a layer of banana leaf, to reveal chocolate molé and sweet corn masa, a chunk of pork and a strip of pimiento—she tried to dislodge me from her womb by eating only tamales, but I wouldn’t budge. Then she tried to induce labor with a gigantic heart-shaped box of chocolate. Only when the grid was emptied, and the snowstorm had stopped, and the post-Valentine’s Day sales died, could I fathom an entrance.

She tells this story like my foray into living was regal and pronounced. When I unwrap layers it reminds her of lengths. I hope that after twenty-five years I may weave a tale of indigestion for my brood.

This is a happy anecdote that will never make it to a book. To you, it hasn’t made a murmur. But I keep it here, waiting for something to kick.

A Brief History of Dads

If you've tried looking me up, the DSM IV doesn't have a place for my kind. So here it is, succinct susceptibilities to explain my predilection for the older gents. By no means complete, but some of the features that make me complete, birth to present.


1985

Pushed out of the uterus on the early morning of Mardi Gras. Adapts well to the notion of being naked and ogled by elders in exchange for beads.

Spends crucial mental- and pulmonary-development months starring as The Lucky Baby at Babylon Lanes, a tobacco-tarnished talisman passed around her parents’ bowling circle.

1986

Dad introduces his wobbly, clapping daughter to the Amazin’ Mets in a victory against Houston on July 3. Apt preparation for the coke-snorting, room-wrecking, egomaniacal jocks who would hit on his wobbly, clapping daughter in fraternity houses 20 years later.

1987

Demands to dress up as “Chinese food” for Halloween, prompting her mother to tailor a politically incorrect interpretation of a Japanese geisha and forevermore equip her with an alias to entertain businessmen at tea houses in Kyoto.

1988

Imaginary boyfriend, Billy, debuts. He is 21, drives a red Cadillac, lives on Mexico Island and does not win Mom’s imaginary approval.

Learns how to play poker in Atlantic City, and is thereby inducted into one of the largest of old man milieus before entering kindergarten.

1989

Develops first pseudo-sexual crush on Mike, her public pool’s swim instructor. Foreign to effectual flirting, takes to splashing at inopportune, unrequited moments. Never advances beyond the level of Guppy.

1990

Develops first pseudo-puppy crush on Steven, the oldest kid on the school bus. Vaguely familiar with the biological concept of peacocking, she is drawn to his Reebok Pumps and his ability to consume a whole cupcake in two bites.

1992

Sees her grandfather for a final visit before mandatory estrangement, the direct result of him trying to strangle her grandmother with a telephone cord. The first of the familial males to isolate her, she mourns a Dennis the Menace-watching and soft-boiled egg-eating partner-in-crime.

1993

Seeks counsel in her five-years-older BFF on How to Write a Dirty Letter. Drops a note that alludes to “playing doctor” in the sweatshirt hood of yet another schoolbus crush—Sean, the freckled, brace-faced and ribbed sweater-wearing elder statesman of Hobart Route 9.

1994

Takes the amateur pornography short story circuit by storm with an offering penned by herself and a sleepover accomplice, in which protagonist Sydney Cartwell, an Australian with a BIG PENIS, decides to HAVE SEX while using A CONDOM with a girl who says MMM. For an entire paragraph. Her mother finds the story on loose leaf paper in her bookshelf. The accomplice is, undoubtedly, never invited to sleep over again.

Harbors an improbable crush on Rob, the affably misunderstood community college professor who runs an astronomy course in her enrichment workshop. Quickly learns that inflatable starlabs are the most romantic place to meet your fellow air sign.

1995

Copes with the stroke of her non-estranged grandfather, a pitfall that renders the mental and physical faculties of her biggest fan completely non-responsive. Noticing the incalculable vacancy in his eyes when she floats her softball sportsmanship trophy before his face, she internalizes this as her symbolic death of patriarchs.

1996

Wooed by the wondrous world of America Online chat rooms in a hot, dial-up minute, she lures such luminaries such as SirSexySam, Shlngboy99 and KingSc0rp with pictures of girls cut from magazines and promises of future nudies.

1997

Develops the most inappropriate, never-to-be-seen-or-mentioned-again crush possible on her brother’s uncle—no, not her uncle—at her brother’s understatedly tragic funeral. Um. Don’t judge her grief.

1998

Male history teacher wins her over with such lines as, “You’re much too fun for the Ivy League,” and “Yours was the second-bloodiest diorama I graded this year.”

Fine-tunes the finite identity of Julee Wellington, her promiscuous 23-year-old Manhattanite artist Instant Messenger alter ego. Forms lasting correspondence with Brian from Seattle, with help from a picture of her friend’s skate punk older sister. And promises of nudies.

1999

Reads Lolita. Claims to not see “what all the fuss is about,” but curses her rearing and genetics for not allowing a nymphet pre-pubescence to take hold.

Watches Robin Ventura hit his legendary Grand Single in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series on television, in a 15-inning game lasting five hours and 46 minutes. Masturbates for the same length of time immediately following the game.

2000

Remains completely undaunted when mother gives birth to a miracle baby and the hometown populace immediately assumes it’s hers.


2001

Wins first prize in a poetry contest for an entry with graphic references to statutory rape. Reads prize-winning free verse in a hotel banquet room before her parents. Oh, joy.

2002

Watches the movie Beautiful Girls. Not Timothy Hutton’s best role, but it basically. explains. everything.


2003

Male English teacher writes in her senior yearbook, “Don’t let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy.” Swoon.

Loses virginity to a junior after senior prom. Never sleeps with a younger guy again. Ever.

2004

Assumes a three-year-long crush on The Boy in the Study Lounge, the lone of her dormitory contemporaries to use a trucker hat to hide male pattern baldness and wear old man slippers to solve problem sets.

Finds a minefield of dejected dads when she starts working the overnight shift at Home Depot. Just sayin’.

2005

Creates a football home game T-shirt slogan that attempts, for the first time, to elucidate her long-standing unnatural proclivity in a Big Ten forum. Ahem: Thank Your Dad for Parents Weekend.

2006

Nearing blackout, puckers up for the kiss that lives in Evanston infamy—her coordinates, Bill’s Blues, and her victim, a 50-year-old golf course groundskeeper unflatteringly dubbed “Mike the Irish” by his cohorts.

2007

Tiring of peers, opts to date a 37-year-old part-time tennis instructor, beach bum, drunk driver, progeny of an electrical engineering professor and Mike the Irish acquaintance. Breaks it off after he texts her a picture of a rainbow, but not before employing his brute strength to help her move to a new Lakeview apartment.

Joins an intermediate-level co-recreational slow pitch softball team in Roscoe Village. Embraces her veritable-ringer status as the cookie-baking, sock-wearing, youngest 20-something on a 30-something squad.


2008

Forms the band Weekend Dad with Kay and Espe. The Hawaiian shirt-and-Doobie Brothers concept never makes it past the first rehearsal.

Finds unhappiness with a 34-year-old reformed heroin addict and ex-convict bartender who is evicted during their courtship. What else is new.

Tries to semi-retire the term “dad” in favor of the acronym “IUs” (Irresponsible Uncles) to better describe her conquests. “Dad” rebounds as the irremovable colloquialism when she considers the probability of her trysts’ seeds’ whereabouts.

Forms a fleeting penpalship with a 43-year-old NASA rocket scientist and microbrewery stakeholder from Maryland. His Julie Newmar fetish take correspondence to a taxing level, then a very terminated level.


2009

Sensing distance from her roots when she takes to dating guys within ten years of her own age, registers “worldsgreatestfather” as her personalized Facebook URL. Blessed be.