After my dad succumbed to lung cancer on December 15, 2003, my mom started playing what she calls “the garbage game.”
The garbage game is essentially an aggrandized version of beat the clock. Time runs out when my brother, who is now nineteen and living on his own, moves out of our dad’s house, either to live on his own someplace else or with my mom and her boyfriend, Dale, in Penn Hills. Her goal is chip away at the mountain of junk in the basement one Sunday night at a time until his move-out day, when we will leave the two-bedroom house on the rear of 204 Penn Adamsburg Road behind forever.
I was nineteen when my dad died; my brother, sixteen. We found ourselves suddenly living alone together surrounded by the residue of our lives with our dad. I began stumbling upon the less-obvious packed-away things after my dad died because then, it seemed okay to open the lockbox or dig through the piles of papers in the center drawer of the desk. I found things in three levels. There were the things I always knew to be there – the kind of things you save for no real purpose other than to say you have, like miss-stamped quarters that escaped the Philadelphia Mint and the Tooth Fairy’s silver dollars. There was important documentation – our birth certificates and Social Security cards. Then, I found the things that existed only in concept to me: my dad’s wedding band, pictures of my mother, pictures of mother and father on their wedding day, match books saved from their honeymoon in Aruba. The kind of things my dad only ever showed himself.
The box was filled with things like this – things I’d never seen before, but my mom knew the meaning behind. I found a necklace – gold, with a long chain. The pendant was a gold elephant, adorned with tiny cubic zirconium jewels up and down its legs and on the blanket slung on its back.
“What is this?” I asked her. She walked over to me, touched the elephant with the tips of her fingers hidden under long, mauve-painted acrylic fingernails.
“Oh, that probably belonged to your dad’s aunt.”
I searched around the box some more.
“Isn’t this dad’s wedding ring?” I said. I had fished a gold ring from my dad’s jewelry box. It had a black face and a diamond set in the middle. My mother sat in the blue armchair (the chair my dad sat in every day), watching a black-and-white movie on AMC. She is forty-seven; her hair would be gray, but she dyes it, renews its medium brown and highlights it with blonde. She loves old movies; her hair is cut short like Audrey Hepburn’s in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. At this time, since my dad got sick, I lived at home and commuted forty-minutes everyday to the University of Pittsburgh – my mom slept over a few nights a week.
“No, our wedding bands were gold,” she said.
I had never seen these rings. I remembered my mother’s engagement ring – slung on the neck of a ceramic swan when she did the dishes – and the huge black ring on my dad’s finger. I always assumed it was his wedding band. Turns out he kept it hidden in the lockbox with the rest of the remnants of their marriage.
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Friday, May 26, 2006
part 2
“The Giarrussos are pack rats,” my mother said to me once about the volume of belongings stashed in attics, in closets, under beds, in desk drawers, in the Secretary in the living room, in stacks under the glass of the coffee table, in the drawers of the entertainment center, and, to the highest degree, in the basements of the houses we had lived in.
I like to keep things; I also like to throw them away. Being this kind of pack-rat is a self-perpetuating hobby – I keep things so that, when they build up to a certain level, I will have lots of things to choose from when I start pitching. My dad kept everything he ever owned, I think, and never threw any of it away. Most of this followed him from the basement of 426 Ross Avenue, to the garage of 9 Gratz Street after he and my mother divorced, to our two-bedroom on Penn-Adamsburg Road. There were boxes full of never-opened children’s toys (trucks, dolls, Mork and Mindy figurines). A box of vintage Playboy magazines from the seventies. His mother’s sewing machine, jars full of screws, nails, bolts, salvaged squares of Velcro. Scattered throughout the house were treasure chests of things saved over two or three decades. Camping equipment saved since he was an Eagle Scout: tents, thick, green sleeping bags, a canteen, pots and pans, at least six different Swiss Army knives. A fire-proof metal box containing back-up disks for every computer he had ever owned. There’s a recycled wine box of pictures, thousands of them, from the mid-seventies until the time of my parent’s divorce. There’s a glass book case full of his old college textbooks (psychology, business, a Webster’s unabridged dictionary) and, of course, the lockbox in the bottom-left drawer of his desk.
I like to keep things; I also like to throw them away. Being this kind of pack-rat is a self-perpetuating hobby – I keep things so that, when they build up to a certain level, I will have lots of things to choose from when I start pitching. My dad kept everything he ever owned, I think, and never threw any of it away. Most of this followed him from the basement of 426 Ross Avenue, to the garage of 9 Gratz Street after he and my mother divorced, to our two-bedroom on Penn-Adamsburg Road. There were boxes full of never-opened children’s toys (trucks, dolls, Mork and Mindy figurines). A box of vintage Playboy magazines from the seventies. His mother’s sewing machine, jars full of screws, nails, bolts, salvaged squares of Velcro. Scattered throughout the house were treasure chests of things saved over two or three decades. Camping equipment saved since he was an Eagle Scout: tents, thick, green sleeping bags, a canteen, pots and pans, at least six different Swiss Army knives. A fire-proof metal box containing back-up disks for every computer he had ever owned. There’s a recycled wine box of pictures, thousands of them, from the mid-seventies until the time of my parent’s divorce. There’s a glass book case full of his old college textbooks (psychology, business, a Webster’s unabridged dictionary) and, of course, the lockbox in the bottom-left drawer of his desk.
Thursday, May 25, 2006
part 3
In my mind, I see the black ring on my dad’s finger, his hands on the steering wheel, driving two Turnpike-exits away to my aunt and uncle’s house in Oakmont. There are two ways to ride in the car – just riding, listening to music, eyes on the telephone wires along the highway, or having such a deep conversation that you lose track of time and scenery.
Car trips with my dad were always the former. Because of this, I don’t remember specific things my dad and I talked about when we drove; I remember what cars he drove in what years (the red Nissan, the silver Mazda 626, the green Saturn, the gold Saturn), I remember things from alongside the highway, I remember the songs that he played. Our trip went from mile-marker 67 to 48; right around mile 51, I’d look out my window on the passenger side for the Mushroom house (it was rounded on top, like an igloo, but calling it that made less sense). The play list – cassette tapes dubbed from compact discs to preserve the originals – rarely changed over the span of my childhood. The Eagles, The Beach Boys, Chicago, and Simon and Garfunkel (The Concert in Central Park, recorded on September 19, 1981).
When I think back, these seem like the only albums we ever listened to. My dad would sing along, always harmonizing, never leading, in an airy, raspy voice that spoke not only of his years spent in a barbershop quartet but also of the decades he spent smoking Marlboro lights.
“Am I a good singer?” I asked my dad once.
“You have a good voice, but you aren’t a good singer,” he said. “You don’t sing enough.”
“I want to take voice lessons.”
“You don’t need to take lessons, just sing along. Learn Art Garfunkel’s parts – they’re in your range. Practice them, you’ll get it.”
I’ve listened to The Concert in Central Park so many times now that I know both Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel’s parts. I can tell you the banter they exchanged in between songs: the jokes about selling joints in the crowd, the reference to then-mayor of New York city, Ed Koch, the way that Garfunkel stumbled on the first few lines of “The Boxer” in the encore, starting the line “I have squandered my existence on a pocketful of mumbles, such are promises” too early. I put it on when I walk to class, when I’m trying to sleep, when I’m playing the garbage game in my own apartment.
Car trips with my dad were always the former. Because of this, I don’t remember specific things my dad and I talked about when we drove; I remember what cars he drove in what years (the red Nissan, the silver Mazda 626, the green Saturn, the gold Saturn), I remember things from alongside the highway, I remember the songs that he played. Our trip went from mile-marker 67 to 48; right around mile 51, I’d look out my window on the passenger side for the Mushroom house (it was rounded on top, like an igloo, but calling it that made less sense). The play list – cassette tapes dubbed from compact discs to preserve the originals – rarely changed over the span of my childhood. The Eagles, The Beach Boys, Chicago, and Simon and Garfunkel (The Concert in Central Park, recorded on September 19, 1981).
When I think back, these seem like the only albums we ever listened to. My dad would sing along, always harmonizing, never leading, in an airy, raspy voice that spoke not only of his years spent in a barbershop quartet but also of the decades he spent smoking Marlboro lights.
“Am I a good singer?” I asked my dad once.
“You have a good voice, but you aren’t a good singer,” he said. “You don’t sing enough.”
“I want to take voice lessons.”
“You don’t need to take lessons, just sing along. Learn Art Garfunkel’s parts – they’re in your range. Practice them, you’ll get it.”
I’ve listened to The Concert in Central Park so many times now that I know both Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel’s parts. I can tell you the banter they exchanged in between songs: the jokes about selling joints in the crowd, the reference to then-mayor of New York city, Ed Koch, the way that Garfunkel stumbled on the first few lines of “The Boxer” in the encore, starting the line “I have squandered my existence on a pocketful of mumbles, such are promises” too early. I put it on when I walk to class, when I’m trying to sleep, when I’m playing the garbage game in my own apartment.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
part 4
Riding in cars with my mom’s boyfriend, Dale, is the latter, the type that finds the riders deep in conversation. The times I’ve spent alone with Dale are usually returning from holiday functions at his parent’s house in Ligonier. I remember specific conversations we had; one, about his relationship with my mother, happened on Thanksgiving. We stayed behind to watch the Pitt football game – we listened to the second half on the radio, but I can’t remember any of the play-by-play. We tuned it out. I don’t remember how, but our conversation ambled toward Dale and my mom.
“How long did you and my mom date before she moved in?” I asked.
“We didn’t really date too long before that – but we had known each other for years. I always had affection for her.”
As we passed through green lights going west on Route 30, Dale told me why he loves my mom. These are things I never heard from my dad; there was no explanation, it was just a fact that he loved her. I knew that from the things he kept around, the pictures and the wedding band; I knew because we weren’t allowed to see Dale while my dad was still alive.
“I’ve never fought with your mother, ever,” Dale says.
“Well, are there things worth fighting about that you just don’t bring up?”
“No. We just don’t do things to each other like that; I think your mother and I are cut from the same cloth. Once, maybe, that time that your brother wrecked his car, two or so years ago. She knew about it, but she didn’t tell me. She knew I would have things to say about it, and she didn’t want to deal with it. She didn’t need to be hiding things. But that’s it.”
I tried to think back, to remember if my mom is just non-confrontational. She is; I could picture her being upset about things and not saying it. But I had never heard her say one thing about fighting with Dale, in the fifteen years she had known him.
“Why don’t you get married?” I asked. I remembered a conversation I’d heard my mom having with Dale’s mom on the way home from one of our trips to an arts and crafts festival in Westmoreland County. I could tell she wanted to, and Dale’s mom wished they would.
“I never wanted to get married. I don’t want kids. It’s just not something that’s in the cards.”
“How long did you and my mom date before she moved in?” I asked.
“We didn’t really date too long before that – but we had known each other for years. I always had affection for her.”
As we passed through green lights going west on Route 30, Dale told me why he loves my mom. These are things I never heard from my dad; there was no explanation, it was just a fact that he loved her. I knew that from the things he kept around, the pictures and the wedding band; I knew because we weren’t allowed to see Dale while my dad was still alive.
“I’ve never fought with your mother, ever,” Dale says.
“Well, are there things worth fighting about that you just don’t bring up?”
“No. We just don’t do things to each other like that; I think your mother and I are cut from the same cloth. Once, maybe, that time that your brother wrecked his car, two or so years ago. She knew about it, but she didn’t tell me. She knew I would have things to say about it, and she didn’t want to deal with it. She didn’t need to be hiding things. But that’s it.”
I tried to think back, to remember if my mom is just non-confrontational. She is; I could picture her being upset about things and not saying it. But I had never heard her say one thing about fighting with Dale, in the fifteen years she had known him.
“Why don’t you get married?” I asked. I remembered a conversation I’d heard my mom having with Dale’s mom on the way home from one of our trips to an arts and crafts festival in Westmoreland County. I could tell she wanted to, and Dale’s mom wished they would.
“I never wanted to get married. I don’t want kids. It’s just not something that’s in the cards.”
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
part 5
“If I get a hot dog, do I have to eat the bun?” I asked my dad. Every time we went to Eat N Park, I got the hot-dog-and-fries kid’s meal. And every time we had this argument.
“Yes,” he said.
“Can I ask them not to grill it?”
“Fine,” he said. “Hey, did you know I used to sell the ice machines that make these ice cubes?” He flicks his cigarette into the ashtray near the window, and then tries to fish one of the cubes out of his class of Coke.
“Why don’t you just eat your dinner,” my brother said. He kicked my leg under the table. My brother was probably seven years old, making me ten. He was short and thin, his hair still light brown but by this time the curls had grown out and his hair had flattened, parted down the middle. He had glasses; he had his first round of braces. At this age (and pretty much until I left for college), our favorite past time was fighting with each other.
“Stop it. Can’t we get through dinner just once without any bickering from you?”
The nights my Mom didn’t waitress at Tivoli’s Restaurant she visited– usually Mondays and Wednesdays. These were “mom days,” – she would arrive before my dad got home from work and take my brother and me out to eat dinner or to Westmoreland Mall. When we lived in the house on Gratz Street, my dad would stay in his room, watching television by himself, while my brother and I sat with our mom in the living room. From time to time he’d ask if we all wanted to go out to dinner together – which is how we ended up at Eat N Park.
When dinner was over, my mom reached for the check. She began shuffling through bills in her wallet.
“I’ll pay tonight,” my dad offered. He pulled his silver Discover Card out of his wallet.
“You don’t have to do that,” my mom said.
“I want to. You can leave the tip.”
I think he liked to pretend, on these Mondays and Wednesdays, when we went out to dinner together, that we were still a family.
“Yes,” he said.
“Can I ask them not to grill it?”
“Fine,” he said. “Hey, did you know I used to sell the ice machines that make these ice cubes?” He flicks his cigarette into the ashtray near the window, and then tries to fish one of the cubes out of his class of Coke.
“Why don’t you just eat your dinner,” my brother said. He kicked my leg under the table. My brother was probably seven years old, making me ten. He was short and thin, his hair still light brown but by this time the curls had grown out and his hair had flattened, parted down the middle. He had glasses; he had his first round of braces. At this age (and pretty much until I left for college), our favorite past time was fighting with each other.
“Stop it. Can’t we get through dinner just once without any bickering from you?”
The nights my Mom didn’t waitress at Tivoli’s Restaurant she visited– usually Mondays and Wednesdays. These were “mom days,” – she would arrive before my dad got home from work and take my brother and me out to eat dinner or to Westmoreland Mall. When we lived in the house on Gratz Street, my dad would stay in his room, watching television by himself, while my brother and I sat with our mom in the living room. From time to time he’d ask if we all wanted to go out to dinner together – which is how we ended up at Eat N Park.
When dinner was over, my mom reached for the check. She began shuffling through bills in her wallet.
“I’ll pay tonight,” my dad offered. He pulled his silver Discover Card out of his wallet.
“You don’t have to do that,” my mom said.
“I want to. You can leave the tip.”
I think he liked to pretend, on these Mondays and Wednesdays, when we went out to dinner together, that we were still a family.
Monday, May 22, 2006
part 6
I’m cleaning the bathroom of my apartment, tossing out old magazines; I stop at the copy of Coastal Living my mom sent to me a few weeks earlier.
It seems to me that Coastal Living is the cruelest publication in existence.
I mentioned to my mom, just once, that I had flipped through an issue of this magazine at work. Myself and my coworkers were having one of those discussions about having an interim year, driving across the country, getting jobs in romanticized American cities like New York or San Francisco – the same things that every almost-graduate talks about. There it was, sitting on the table in the break room. The magazine had pages and pages of double-spaced type, pictures of clear-blue water and skies, kids dressed in sweaters and jeans playing on porch-swings, and plans for beach homes. It included quotes like “I wake up in the morning and just look out the window at the ocean.” That was that day that I decided living somewhere completely opposite of Pittsburgh, somewhere like California, for a few years was reasonable.
"I don't see how anyone enjoys Coastal Living," I said to her. We were talking on the phone. I was pacing the kitchen, probably cooking something; by cooking, I mean heating up a frozen Green Giant side dish.
"Oh, I love that magazine," she said.
"Why? Doesn't it only make you feel sad about living in Pittsburgh?"
"No. It's good because you can compare different places to live, decide what you might want your house to look like."
The key to this conversation is my mother's certainty that she will, someday, live on the beach. I contemplate living on the beach from time to time, usually in early February while I'm walking to class through a few inches of snow, hair frozen, scarf wrapped around my face. Frankly, I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I lived on the beach -- or any place it wasn't cold or rainy at least some of the time. It seems that a good percentage of Pittsburgh conversation revolves around the weather; if it's going to snow and how much, the first time it will be warm enough to play beer pong outside, how miserable it is to walk to class in the rain because no matter what you do, your jeans will be wet up to the knees for the rest of the day. What do coastal residents talk about?
"I want to live on a houseboat," Dale said. We're sitting around the table at his parents' house in Ligonier. It's Christmas day; you can tell because Dale is wearing "the Christmas shirt," which is a short-sleeved button-down featuring the members of the band AC/DC. Also you can tell because it's snowing, Mrs. Young is cooking a ham, and Mr. Young is inevitably questioning some soon-to-be-adult in the house about his or her life plans.
"I can't live on a boat," my mom replied. She sipped Asti Spumante sparkling wine out of a green champagne flute. "Plus, do you think we can have cats on a houseboat? Won't they jump into the water?"
"Cats don't like water," Dale said. My mom and Dale have been vacationing to Myrtle Beach together for years. The last time I remember my parents going to the beach, I was one year old. It doesn't make sense that one day I will be visiting my mom at her home on Myrtle Beach -- and that home might be a boat. I can’t decide if my mom was always a beach person – if that was a quality that made an intermittent appearance, beginning with my dad, fading away and then resurfacing with Dale – or if she had become a beach person with Dale, revealing a new side of herself that never showed itself when she was with my dad.
It seems to me that Coastal Living is the cruelest publication in existence.
I mentioned to my mom, just once, that I had flipped through an issue of this magazine at work. Myself and my coworkers were having one of those discussions about having an interim year, driving across the country, getting jobs in romanticized American cities like New York or San Francisco – the same things that every almost-graduate talks about. There it was, sitting on the table in the break room. The magazine had pages and pages of double-spaced type, pictures of clear-blue water and skies, kids dressed in sweaters and jeans playing on porch-swings, and plans for beach homes. It included quotes like “I wake up in the morning and just look out the window at the ocean.” That was that day that I decided living somewhere completely opposite of Pittsburgh, somewhere like California, for a few years was reasonable.
"I don't see how anyone enjoys Coastal Living," I said to her. We were talking on the phone. I was pacing the kitchen, probably cooking something; by cooking, I mean heating up a frozen Green Giant side dish.
"Oh, I love that magazine," she said.
"Why? Doesn't it only make you feel sad about living in Pittsburgh?"
"No. It's good because you can compare different places to live, decide what you might want your house to look like."
The key to this conversation is my mother's certainty that she will, someday, live on the beach. I contemplate living on the beach from time to time, usually in early February while I'm walking to class through a few inches of snow, hair frozen, scarf wrapped around my face. Frankly, I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I lived on the beach -- or any place it wasn't cold or rainy at least some of the time. It seems that a good percentage of Pittsburgh conversation revolves around the weather; if it's going to snow and how much, the first time it will be warm enough to play beer pong outside, how miserable it is to walk to class in the rain because no matter what you do, your jeans will be wet up to the knees for the rest of the day. What do coastal residents talk about?
"I want to live on a houseboat," Dale said. We're sitting around the table at his parents' house in Ligonier. It's Christmas day; you can tell because Dale is wearing "the Christmas shirt," which is a short-sleeved button-down featuring the members of the band AC/DC. Also you can tell because it's snowing, Mrs. Young is cooking a ham, and Mr. Young is inevitably questioning some soon-to-be-adult in the house about his or her life plans.
"I can't live on a boat," my mom replied. She sipped Asti Spumante sparkling wine out of a green champagne flute. "Plus, do you think we can have cats on a houseboat? Won't they jump into the water?"
"Cats don't like water," Dale said. My mom and Dale have been vacationing to Myrtle Beach together for years. The last time I remember my parents going to the beach, I was one year old. It doesn't make sense that one day I will be visiting my mom at her home on Myrtle Beach -- and that home might be a boat. I can’t decide if my mom was always a beach person – if that was a quality that made an intermittent appearance, beginning with my dad, fading away and then resurfacing with Dale – or if she had become a beach person with Dale, revealing a new side of herself that never showed itself when she was with my dad.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
part 7
I cried exactly twice in the year surrounding my dad’s death; the last time, at the funeral service, as I listened to my cousin Lisa read a passage from the Bible. My brother and I sat in the front pew and I remember that I wanted to stop crying before we had to stand to give the priest the wine and plate of bread.
I didn’t cry when I went to the nursing home to find my dad in a deep sleep, hooked up to an oxygen machine, and was unable to wake him up. I didn’t cry when I got a phone call a few hours later from my cousin Ray, telling me that my dad had died. I didn’t cry between then and the funeral, not at the viewing, when my brother, mom and I sat, lined up like ducks in a shooting gallery, my dad across the room in the suit and tie my mom picked out, his eyes and mouth held shut with some kind of human glue. The only other time I cried was a year earlier, late December of 2002, when my dad told me he was ready to die.
We sat in the living room, he on the blue armchair as I sat on the red couch. Law and Order was on television; the room was filled with smoke.
“I just want you to know that I’m happy with my life,” he said. “I have no regrets. I did everything I wanted to do.”
The words were simple, even trite. When you imagine someone on their deathbed, this is what you want them to say. You don’t want them to regret decisions, to wish they had done more things or that the events of their life had gone differently. But somehow, I cried harder when he said that then I had in years. My chin bobbed, tears streamed down my face. I didn’t want him to see me cry, but I couldn’t help it – he wouldn’t die for another year, but the finality of those words seemed to end everything there. I couldn’t understand how someone could be ready to let go so easily.
I’m not a crier, but since December of 2003, the only things that can make me cry are father-daughter related. I cry at the end of movies, like I Am Sam, when Sam is on the witness stand in court to regain custody of his daughter and he uses Beatles songs to explain that he can’t be separated from her. Paul’s songs wouldn’t have been the same without John, and vice-versa. They were an inseparable pair. Sam says, “Paul wrote the beginning of Michelle, then handed it to John so he could write the part that goes ‘I love you, I love you, I love you.’ He said it wouldn’t have been the same without that part, and that’s why the whole country cried when the Beatles broke up.”
I didn’t cry when I went to the nursing home to find my dad in a deep sleep, hooked up to an oxygen machine, and was unable to wake him up. I didn’t cry when I got a phone call a few hours later from my cousin Ray, telling me that my dad had died. I didn’t cry between then and the funeral, not at the viewing, when my brother, mom and I sat, lined up like ducks in a shooting gallery, my dad across the room in the suit and tie my mom picked out, his eyes and mouth held shut with some kind of human glue. The only other time I cried was a year earlier, late December of 2002, when my dad told me he was ready to die.
We sat in the living room, he on the blue armchair as I sat on the red couch. Law and Order was on television; the room was filled with smoke.
“I just want you to know that I’m happy with my life,” he said. “I have no regrets. I did everything I wanted to do.”
The words were simple, even trite. When you imagine someone on their deathbed, this is what you want them to say. You don’t want them to regret decisions, to wish they had done more things or that the events of their life had gone differently. But somehow, I cried harder when he said that then I had in years. My chin bobbed, tears streamed down my face. I didn’t want him to see me cry, but I couldn’t help it – he wouldn’t die for another year, but the finality of those words seemed to end everything there. I couldn’t understand how someone could be ready to let go so easily.
I’m not a crier, but since December of 2003, the only things that can make me cry are father-daughter related. I cry at the end of movies, like I Am Sam, when Sam is on the witness stand in court to regain custody of his daughter and he uses Beatles songs to explain that he can’t be separated from her. Paul’s songs wouldn’t have been the same without John, and vice-versa. They were an inseparable pair. Sam says, “Paul wrote the beginning of Michelle, then handed it to John so he could write the part that goes ‘I love you, I love you, I love you.’ He said it wouldn’t have been the same without that part, and that’s why the whole country cried when the Beatles broke up.”
Saturday, May 20, 2006
part 8
When I call my mom for money, tapping into my poor-college-student lifeline, she always sends some extras down with Dale. She works late at the USPS handling building in Warrendale, but Dale gets done parking cars at Tivoli's around 10:30 or 11pm. Tonight he's bundled up in a pair of maroon sweatpants, sweatshirt and ski cap.
"Here's the stuff from your mom," Dale says. We're standing in the doorway of my apartment on Neville Street, only the light of the hallway illuminating us. Dale hands me a plastic shopping bag.
"Thanks." I rifle through the bag. There are a few magazines -- People Weekly, Coastal Living, and Vogue (which is funny, considering I rarely make it out of jeans and a sweatshirt on a daily basis). My mom slipped the Coastal Living into my care package because she has the uncanny ability to remember even the slightest thing I mention. I said once that I like Milano cookies. That was at least five years ago. I get them in every single care package. There's a four-pack of Angel Soft toilet paper. There are some snacks -- the Milano cookies, of course, and some cheddar-flavored Baby Goldfish.
"The Gamecocks, huh?" The team supported by Dale’s hooded sweatshirts is usually a toss up between the University of South Carolina or the North Carolina Tarheels.
"Yeah, check out my socks," he reaches down to his ankles, pulling the elastic ankle band of his pants away from his black and white Pumas. The heel of his sock shows another Gamecocks logo.
"How's school going?" he says.
"All right. I was just reading," I say. I'm lying. In actuality I was probably surfing the Facebook or checking away messages.
"Good. So you needed some money, right?"
I nod. Dale pulls two twenties out of the pocket of his sweatpants and hands them to me.
"Will that be enough?" I nod again. He fishes through his pocket his truck's keys and looks toward the door of the apartment building.
I thank him for the money, for coming down so late, for helping me out. Then I reach out both my arms for a hug. This is the first time I can ever remember us hugging, and I immediately have two thoughts. It is the most awkward moment we'd ever shared -- it feels like a move two young kids would make on a first date. And, at the same time, it feels like the natural thing to do.
"Here's the stuff from your mom," Dale says. We're standing in the doorway of my apartment on Neville Street, only the light of the hallway illuminating us. Dale hands me a plastic shopping bag.
"Thanks." I rifle through the bag. There are a few magazines -- People Weekly, Coastal Living, and Vogue (which is funny, considering I rarely make it out of jeans and a sweatshirt on a daily basis). My mom slipped the Coastal Living into my care package because she has the uncanny ability to remember even the slightest thing I mention. I said once that I like Milano cookies. That was at least five years ago. I get them in every single care package. There's a four-pack of Angel Soft toilet paper. There are some snacks -- the Milano cookies, of course, and some cheddar-flavored Baby Goldfish.
"The Gamecocks, huh?" The team supported by Dale’s hooded sweatshirts is usually a toss up between the University of South Carolina or the North Carolina Tarheels.
"Yeah, check out my socks," he reaches down to his ankles, pulling the elastic ankle band of his pants away from his black and white Pumas. The heel of his sock shows another Gamecocks logo.
"How's school going?" he says.
"All right. I was just reading," I say. I'm lying. In actuality I was probably surfing the Facebook or checking away messages.
"Good. So you needed some money, right?"
I nod. Dale pulls two twenties out of the pocket of his sweatpants and hands them to me.
"Will that be enough?" I nod again. He fishes through his pocket his truck's keys and looks toward the door of the apartment building.
I thank him for the money, for coming down so late, for helping me out. Then I reach out both my arms for a hug. This is the first time I can ever remember us hugging, and I immediately have two thoughts. It is the most awkward moment we'd ever shared -- it feels like a move two young kids would make on a first date. And, at the same time, it feels like the natural thing to do.
Friday, May 19, 2006
part 9
My mother and I are playing the garbage game in the basement. She’s thumbing through papers in filing cabinet, deciding what is important enough to keep and what can become the game’s next victim.
“You’re not going to throw that away, are you?” My dad says. He appears in the corner of the basement next to the green Lawn Boy mower. He’s wearing the outfit I always imagine my dad wearing when I think back on him; holey red sweatpants and a white Hanes undershirt. He stands on the dirty, cold cement floor, a pair of ten-year-old, worn-out Wal Mart moccasins on his feet (this is the second pair he’s owned).
“There’s so much junk in this basement,” my mom replies. “Plus, what are you saving it for now? You’re dead.”
My mom turns back to the filing cabinet. I notice a bleach stain on the back of her navy-blue Bugs Bunny sweatshirt and remember that it’s always been there. I borrowed the sweatshirt in fourth grade, when it still reached my knees; the shirt and the stain had to be at least ten years old. I wouldn’t consider my mom someone who could be characterized by a Looney Tunes sweatshirt, but she seriously wears this all the time. On her, however, it’s funny; it’s not an “embarrassing mom shirt.”
“My death doesn’t erase my possessions of meaning. The kids might want to keep them around,” he says. '
“The kids never come down here. Jen wants to keep your records; BJ fiddles around in the workshop. Other than that, these boxes collect dust.”
“Sticky Fingers is kind of neat," I interject. "You can unzip Mick Jagger's fly."
“That’s the difference between us,” my Dad says. “You’re willing to throw things away too easily. Our marriage, for example.”
“I wouldn’t jump so quickly to assume that I was the one throwing our marriage away.”
“You cheated on me with Nick. Then as we were trying to reconcile, you shacked up with Dale,” my dad defends.
“Don’t bring me into this,” Dale says. He comes down the stairs. “I never intended to break up a marriage. I kept my distance for years, the first few years we worked together at Tivoli’s. I liked her, but I never stepped in.”
My mom, dad and Dale are now having, in my mind, the three-way conversation that never occurred in real life. My mom is now playing referee as two of the timelines of her life collide.
“I don’t understand why you hate Dale so much, why you refused to let him be a part of the kids’ lives,” my mom says.
“I don’t hate Dale. Obviously, I don’t even know him. We’ve had maybe two conversations, ever. I hate what Dale represents.” My dad scratches the salt-and-pepper beard scruff on his chin and lights a cigarette.
“And what’s that? Being in a relationship that’s actually reasonable?” In my head, my mom is sassy. She shoots this question at him.
“What’s more reasonable about your relationship with Dale?”
“Well, it’s an actual relationship,” she says. “He doesn’t expect me to be a housewife and have a job, while he comes home from work every day just to sit around.”
"I never stopped loving you. From when we divorced until the day I died. When you visited, when you brought the kids to the nursing home, I pretended like nothing had ever changed," my dad said.
“For whatever reason, there were no more sparks,” my mom says. “Don’t you believe in sparks? Why hold onto something when the reason for having it is gone?”
“You’re not going to throw that away, are you?” My dad says. He appears in the corner of the basement next to the green Lawn Boy mower. He’s wearing the outfit I always imagine my dad wearing when I think back on him; holey red sweatpants and a white Hanes undershirt. He stands on the dirty, cold cement floor, a pair of ten-year-old, worn-out Wal Mart moccasins on his feet (this is the second pair he’s owned).
“There’s so much junk in this basement,” my mom replies. “Plus, what are you saving it for now? You’re dead.”
My mom turns back to the filing cabinet. I notice a bleach stain on the back of her navy-blue Bugs Bunny sweatshirt and remember that it’s always been there. I borrowed the sweatshirt in fourth grade, when it still reached my knees; the shirt and the stain had to be at least ten years old. I wouldn’t consider my mom someone who could be characterized by a Looney Tunes sweatshirt, but she seriously wears this all the time. On her, however, it’s funny; it’s not an “embarrassing mom shirt.”
“My death doesn’t erase my possessions of meaning. The kids might want to keep them around,” he says. '
“The kids never come down here. Jen wants to keep your records; BJ fiddles around in the workshop. Other than that, these boxes collect dust.”
“Sticky Fingers is kind of neat," I interject. "You can unzip Mick Jagger's fly."
“That’s the difference between us,” my Dad says. “You’re willing to throw things away too easily. Our marriage, for example.”
“I wouldn’t jump so quickly to assume that I was the one throwing our marriage away.”
“You cheated on me with Nick. Then as we were trying to reconcile, you shacked up with Dale,” my dad defends.
“Don’t bring me into this,” Dale says. He comes down the stairs. “I never intended to break up a marriage. I kept my distance for years, the first few years we worked together at Tivoli’s. I liked her, but I never stepped in.”
My mom, dad and Dale are now having, in my mind, the three-way conversation that never occurred in real life. My mom is now playing referee as two of the timelines of her life collide.
“I don’t understand why you hate Dale so much, why you refused to let him be a part of the kids’ lives,” my mom says.
“I don’t hate Dale. Obviously, I don’t even know him. We’ve had maybe two conversations, ever. I hate what Dale represents.” My dad scratches the salt-and-pepper beard scruff on his chin and lights a cigarette.
“And what’s that? Being in a relationship that’s actually reasonable?” In my head, my mom is sassy. She shoots this question at him.
“What’s more reasonable about your relationship with Dale?”
“Well, it’s an actual relationship,” she says. “He doesn’t expect me to be a housewife and have a job, while he comes home from work every day just to sit around.”
"I never stopped loving you. From when we divorced until the day I died. When you visited, when you brought the kids to the nursing home, I pretended like nothing had ever changed," my dad said.
“For whatever reason, there were no more sparks,” my mom says. “Don’t you believe in sparks? Why hold onto something when the reason for having it is gone?”
Thursday, May 18, 2006
part 10
Dale and I are riding home from Ligonier again – this time it’s Easter. My laundry basket is sandwiched in between us in the cab of his truck and I’ve got my feet propped up on the dashboard to avoid stepping on the paper bag of leftover ham, cheesy potatoes, corn and rolls (un-burnt, thanks to the preparation skills of yours truly) that sits on the floor. I’m telling him about a boy who I’ve decided doesn’t like me as much as I wish he did, as much as I like him.
“When I met your mother,” he says, “I just knew.” He adjusts the black Pirates hat covering his shaved head. “I hadn’t even met her yet. I just saw her. I knew things about her – she was married, had you and Beej. She had everything I didn’t want, yet I still found myself wanting to spend time with her.”
“I remember the first thing she said to me,” he continues. “We were sitting in the break room at the restaurant. I lit up a cigarette and she says, ‘you’re a smoker?!’”
Dale does a good job mimicking my mother’s voice, the tone she must have used. I can imagine it in my head – she doesn’t ask a question, she shoots it at you like a dart. The waitresses in the other room probably heard it, too.
“I was tongue tied,” he says. “And you know me. I’m usually pretty snappy with the rebuttals.”
Dale tells me about being young – the years he spent living in Nags Head, surfing and working, seeing girls here and there but never settling down.
“I had this self-centered mentality. But then I met your mother and I forgot all of that,” he says. “And the thing is, I still feel exactly the same way about her today as I did the first time I saw her.”
“When I met your mother,” he says, “I just knew.” He adjusts the black Pirates hat covering his shaved head. “I hadn’t even met her yet. I just saw her. I knew things about her – she was married, had you and Beej. She had everything I didn’t want, yet I still found myself wanting to spend time with her.”
“I remember the first thing she said to me,” he continues. “We were sitting in the break room at the restaurant. I lit up a cigarette and she says, ‘you’re a smoker?!’”
Dale does a good job mimicking my mother’s voice, the tone she must have used. I can imagine it in my head – she doesn’t ask a question, she shoots it at you like a dart. The waitresses in the other room probably heard it, too.
“I was tongue tied,” he says. “And you know me. I’m usually pretty snappy with the rebuttals.”
Dale tells me about being young – the years he spent living in Nags Head, surfing and working, seeing girls here and there but never settling down.
“I had this self-centered mentality. But then I met your mother and I forgot all of that,” he says. “And the thing is, I still feel exactly the same way about her today as I did the first time I saw her.”
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
part 11
My mom, my brother and I are sitting on the empty bed in my dad’s double room at Baldock. This is the nursing home where he would spend the last three months of his life – today, it’s Thanksgiving. We’re visiting him for the afternoon before having dinner at Dale’s parents’ house. My dad will die in about two weeks.
“We have to go,” I say to him. He’s lying on the bed, propped up by pillows. He’s covered by one of the brown, fuzzy blankets emblazoned with a giant lion’s face that we’ve had in our house all my life.
“Where are you going?”
“We’re having dinner at the Young’s in Ligonier.”
“Oh,” he says. He looks around the room, up at the flickering scenes of the Food Network on the television in the corner. “Can you put my watch on for me?”
“You have your watch on,” I say. I look down at his wrist. He touches the face of his watch with fingers so skinny they look like sticks.
“I want my other watch.”
“You don’t need two watches.”
“I don’t have two watches.”
I fish through the drawer at his bedside table for the watch that hasn’t ticked in months. It has his phone numbers in it; maybe that’s why he won’t let it go.
“Joe, you don’t need another watch, you have your watch on,” my mom says.
“Please just put it on,” he answers. “And can you get me a piece of candy? A red one.” I don’t know what it is, but cancer gave my dad a constant craving for hard candy.
I sift through Tootsie Rolls, Werther’s Originals, bubble gum (which he always vetoed because it is not, in fact, a hard candy – even though my mom always shoveled some in the bag anyway). I find a cinnamon candy and unwrap it for him.
My brother and I walk outside while the nurse talks to my mom and dad. After the nurse leaves, my mom lingers in the room with him for a minute or two. They talk about nothing in particular; she unwraps a few more candies for him, places them on the table next to his head. She puts the second watch on his wrist beside the first.
“We have to go,” I say to him. He’s lying on the bed, propped up by pillows. He’s covered by one of the brown, fuzzy blankets emblazoned with a giant lion’s face that we’ve had in our house all my life.
“Where are you going?”
“We’re having dinner at the Young’s in Ligonier.”
“Oh,” he says. He looks around the room, up at the flickering scenes of the Food Network on the television in the corner. “Can you put my watch on for me?”
“You have your watch on,” I say. I look down at his wrist. He touches the face of his watch with fingers so skinny they look like sticks.
“I want my other watch.”
“You don’t need two watches.”
“I don’t have two watches.”
I fish through the drawer at his bedside table for the watch that hasn’t ticked in months. It has his phone numbers in it; maybe that’s why he won’t let it go.
“Joe, you don’t need another watch, you have your watch on,” my mom says.
“Please just put it on,” he answers. “And can you get me a piece of candy? A red one.” I don’t know what it is, but cancer gave my dad a constant craving for hard candy.
I sift through Tootsie Rolls, Werther’s Originals, bubble gum (which he always vetoed because it is not, in fact, a hard candy – even though my mom always shoveled some in the bag anyway). I find a cinnamon candy and unwrap it for him.
My brother and I walk outside while the nurse talks to my mom and dad. After the nurse leaves, my mom lingers in the room with him for a minute or two. They talk about nothing in particular; she unwraps a few more candies for him, places them on the table next to his head. She puts the second watch on his wrist beside the first.
Monday, May 15, 2006
part 12
“Jen,” my brother says to me on the phone. “I want you to look through all the stuff I cleaned out of your closet. Let me know what you want to keep.”
My brother played the garbage game in the closet of his bedroom, which for a time was my bedroom after it stopped being my dad’s bedroom. When I moved my belongings into my first apartment, I left some things behind – my white Adidas shell tops from the summer I worked at Kennywood, one blue and silver pom-pom from middle school cheerleading (what had happened to the white one, I wondered?), a flat soccer ball, and some other high-school related paperwork.
I’d come to a recent revelation. I don’t know if it can be applied to my family, because when it comes down to it, all revelations are personal. I decided I want to get rid of all the junk, all the relics of my past, the physical manifestations of memories I already have filed away in the corners of my brain. I don’t want to take two truckloads and two carloads of stuff with me when I move out of my apartment on Neville Street in August.
But I find myself struggling – which memories had lost their importance only intermittently? Which ones, in thirty years, would I wish I could stumble upon that seemed irrelevant right now? Do I need ticket stubs from every concert I’d ever been to – did I need a ticket to remind me that I went to see the Foo Fighters one July with a man, the 28-year-old nuclear physicist friend of a girl I was working with at Kennywood at the time? Do I need folders full of notes from every class I’ve taken at college – if I need to know about the myelin sheath, can’t I google it instead of digging through a notebook from Intro to Psych? Do I need this closet full of sweaters, old soccer t-shirts, pairs of jeans I never wear? When I snap out of this need for catharsis, the need to feel free of this clutter (which I inevitably will), what will I miss? I want to know what matters – who we are, or what we remember?
So, I start digging through this pile of junk my brother has set aside. Underneath some of the inconsequential (according to my recent decision) things was the cardboard wine box – the picture box. I am halted. This box never ceases to captivate me for hours, each time I see it, despite having looked at every picture tens and hundreds of times. On top were letter-sized envelopes with clear plastic windows – school pictures from every year since third grade. I notice the progression of my hairstyle – short curls in second grade, a frizzy triangle in third grade, long, combed-out curls in eighth grade, a poor attempt at straight hair in ninth grade. Always bad. The box itself is full of all the stages of my childhood, stacked upon each other like singles on a roof. I sift through the pictures – the time I dressed as a ghost for Halloween, a hole cut out in a Tivoli’s tablecloth for my painted-white face. A picture of my brother and I bundled up for winter like the kids in the movie A Christmas Story. A picture of my mom, dad and newborn me on the patterned couch in the apartment on Ross Avenue, surrounded by the seven kittens born a few weeks after me in July of 1984. This box is my childhood – memories exist like pictures, thrown in a box.
But the physical memories begin to blend with the ones tucked away in my head. I can remember things there are no pictures of: my mom and dad sitting next to each other on the piano stool in our living room, her fingers laced over his, teaching him to play a song. I remember the time I picked a green bean the length of my forearm from our garden – I was wearing a white t-shirt and a red and black plaid skirt. I remember the time I picked all the still-green tomatoes from their vines. I put them in a red plastic bowl and proudly handed them to my mom. I remember going to the Cogos across the street from our house in Wilkinsburg; I’d always ask my mom to buy me Sixlets.
My lockbox is an orange Fossil watch tin. Inside are the things that will never fall victim to my own garbage game – a phone number scrawled on a piece of Blockbuster receipt tape, stale sticks of Juicy Fruit from soccer camp. Some other things I snatched away that don’t have much meaning, except they belonged to my dad – the elephant necklace, an Allegheny Refrigeration keychain (shaped like the ice cubes from the machines he sold). I’ll never throw these things away, and as I go along I find ways to stuff more things into this tiny tin, which someday might expand a shoebox and then maybe a Rubbermaid bin or an empty wine box. These things I will never get rid of, but I also know that I haven’t stopped collecting.
“Can I inherit the picture box?” I say to my mom. She and my brother were in the room as I was picking through the pile of closet stuff awaiting the fate of the garbage game. My mom folds my laundry onto the dining room table as my brother is watching television on the couch.
“Do you think it’ll be safe with you?” she asked. “Or do you think I should inherit it?”
“No, I want it,” I answer. “It’ll be fine.”
My brother played the garbage game in the closet of his bedroom, which for a time was my bedroom after it stopped being my dad’s bedroom. When I moved my belongings into my first apartment, I left some things behind – my white Adidas shell tops from the summer I worked at Kennywood, one blue and silver pom-pom from middle school cheerleading (what had happened to the white one, I wondered?), a flat soccer ball, and some other high-school related paperwork.
I’d come to a recent revelation. I don’t know if it can be applied to my family, because when it comes down to it, all revelations are personal. I decided I want to get rid of all the junk, all the relics of my past, the physical manifestations of memories I already have filed away in the corners of my brain. I don’t want to take two truckloads and two carloads of stuff with me when I move out of my apartment on Neville Street in August.
But I find myself struggling – which memories had lost their importance only intermittently? Which ones, in thirty years, would I wish I could stumble upon that seemed irrelevant right now? Do I need ticket stubs from every concert I’d ever been to – did I need a ticket to remind me that I went to see the Foo Fighters one July with a man, the 28-year-old nuclear physicist friend of a girl I was working with at Kennywood at the time? Do I need folders full of notes from every class I’ve taken at college – if I need to know about the myelin sheath, can’t I google it instead of digging through a notebook from Intro to Psych? Do I need this closet full of sweaters, old soccer t-shirts, pairs of jeans I never wear? When I snap out of this need for catharsis, the need to feel free of this clutter (which I inevitably will), what will I miss? I want to know what matters – who we are, or what we remember?
So, I start digging through this pile of junk my brother has set aside. Underneath some of the inconsequential (according to my recent decision) things was the cardboard wine box – the picture box. I am halted. This box never ceases to captivate me for hours, each time I see it, despite having looked at every picture tens and hundreds of times. On top were letter-sized envelopes with clear plastic windows – school pictures from every year since third grade. I notice the progression of my hairstyle – short curls in second grade, a frizzy triangle in third grade, long, combed-out curls in eighth grade, a poor attempt at straight hair in ninth grade. Always bad. The box itself is full of all the stages of my childhood, stacked upon each other like singles on a roof. I sift through the pictures – the time I dressed as a ghost for Halloween, a hole cut out in a Tivoli’s tablecloth for my painted-white face. A picture of my brother and I bundled up for winter like the kids in the movie A Christmas Story. A picture of my mom, dad and newborn me on the patterned couch in the apartment on Ross Avenue, surrounded by the seven kittens born a few weeks after me in July of 1984. This box is my childhood – memories exist like pictures, thrown in a box.
But the physical memories begin to blend with the ones tucked away in my head. I can remember things there are no pictures of: my mom and dad sitting next to each other on the piano stool in our living room, her fingers laced over his, teaching him to play a song. I remember the time I picked a green bean the length of my forearm from our garden – I was wearing a white t-shirt and a red and black plaid skirt. I remember the time I picked all the still-green tomatoes from their vines. I put them in a red plastic bowl and proudly handed them to my mom. I remember going to the Cogos across the street from our house in Wilkinsburg; I’d always ask my mom to buy me Sixlets.
My lockbox is an orange Fossil watch tin. Inside are the things that will never fall victim to my own garbage game – a phone number scrawled on a piece of Blockbuster receipt tape, stale sticks of Juicy Fruit from soccer camp. Some other things I snatched away that don’t have much meaning, except they belonged to my dad – the elephant necklace, an Allegheny Refrigeration keychain (shaped like the ice cubes from the machines he sold). I’ll never throw these things away, and as I go along I find ways to stuff more things into this tiny tin, which someday might expand a shoebox and then maybe a Rubbermaid bin or an empty wine box. These things I will never get rid of, but I also know that I haven’t stopped collecting.
“Can I inherit the picture box?” I say to my mom. She and my brother were in the room as I was picking through the pile of closet stuff awaiting the fate of the garbage game. My mom folds my laundry onto the dining room table as my brother is watching television on the couch.
“Do you think it’ll be safe with you?” she asked. “Or do you think I should inherit it?”
“No, I want it,” I answer. “It’ll be fine.”
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