hair and sheet metal

Dad is feeling the objects on his dining room table. He comes to an item in a crinkly plastic wrapper and can’t figure out what it is. “That’s a fortune cookie,” I tell him. “You mean I open it and hope for the best?” he says.

Later, Kate S. and I are sitting on the couch while Dad is in his customary rocker, and he says, “If you have any trouble, tell me and I’ll make it worse.” This is a glimpse of the old Dad, who was known for joking with his friends.

His friend Charlie calls. I don’t know what they’re discussing, but Dad says, “bullshit is male, right? And cowshit can be anything.” Kate S. and I crack up laughing.

Dad’s singing the Stars and Stripes Forever again. Why this snippet of music keeps re-occurring is a mystery to me, but it’s gotten so common that Kate S. and I sing along. Dad seems pleased by this.

Dad is trying to give me money again. Because of his tendency to give his cash away – he always had a very generous personality – he gets a small “allowance” on a weekly basis. I tell him, “Dad, we don’t need money. Sitting on your ass is an absolutely free activity.” “I believe you,” he says “and I’m going to do it right now.”

Brianna goes to get Dad a cigar from the other room. When she returns she reports, “if anyone needs a band-aid, there’s a box of them in the humidor.”

Dad surveys his plate – salad with black beans and avocado and cilantro-lime dressing and homemade tortilla chips –and announces, “there’s nothing on my plate but hair and sheet metal.” Unfazed, Kate S. urges him to try a chip, “this sheet metal is edible – take a bite.”

“I’m starting a bottle-cap collection,” says Kate S., collecting several from the dining room table. “A heart attack collection?” asks Dad. I offer her my biological father’s heart attack in Heathrow airport to start with – it was fatal, so it should be worth more.

We’re listening to John Mellencamp, but Dad has a complaint; “There’s too much sand in there,” he says, referring to the music.

I’m reminding Dad that he has to let his lady help him bathe, at least once a week. “I don’t see a point in taking a shower every day,” he says, “unless you’re working in mud puddles.”

Later, as we’re watching his cat eat, he says to me, “you live in a cat world, you can’t deny it.”

As it gets later, Dad slips out of reality. “How old am I now? About 18? 17? 15?” he asks. “Dad, you’re 85,” I tell him. He laughs like I have made the world’s funniest joke. “85!” he gasps, “oh, come on, you’ve killed that one.”