I always had the stronger arm and this like everything else made Charlie jealous.
Right next to that drawing I have a Mother stick figure smoking a stick cigarette and drinking a stick drink and in a drawing next to that one I have the same Mother stick figure quitting smoking and drinking for the last time.
How I have this stick figure quitting for the last time is her hands are on either side of her head like it's about to come off her shoulders.
Should the phone ring I won't stop the conversation with myself to answer. I think I have been in the middle of the conversation with myself for thirty-two years now. It is hard to mark the time when they won't let you have a clock for the wall or a television to watch.
The conversation with myself is never boring. When we were kids Mother said I was a lively conversationalist and I'm the same way with myself today.
Mother and I would discuss any number of things when I was a boy though most of them had to do with Charlie. What Charlie was doing and where Charlie was and why couldn't I be more like Charlie were some of her favorite topics.
When she said why I couldn't be more like Charlie she meant why did I have to be someone who would get hurt and die like that all the time.
When I am in the middle I never stop to answer the phone unless I think the caller might say something I haven't been saying to myself already. There is no way to know this beforehand which is why it is always a crapshoot to answer the phone when it rings.
The conversation with myself last night started with me saying a man died last night.
Then I asked how.
Then I said it doesn't matter because he is dead.
He is passed away.
Passed on.
Deceased.
Expired.
He is no longer with us.
He has bought the farm.
Checked out.
Cashed in.
He is deader than a doornail.
Headed for the happy hunting ground.
How.
He smoke'm peace pipe.
He is six feet under.
Down for the dirt nap.
Pushing up daisies.
Then I said how did he die.
I answered he did not feel well.
He was under the weather.
Not himself.
Not a happy camper.
Out of sorts.
Below par not up to snuff.
I asked myself what did he do.
I answered he sought medical attention.
He was better safe than sorry.
He was an ounce of prevention all over a pound of cure.
He checked himself in.
He had hesitated and lost.
Had one foot in the grave.
His days were numbered.
He was at death's door.
On thin ice.
He was treated aggressively.
Better late than never.
Locking the barn door.
So that's when he died I guessed.
No I said the treatments were successful.
It was a miracle.
He was a lucky man.
He was blessed.
He felt better.
He went home.
Counted his blessings.
Stopped and smelled the roses.
Took time for himself.
He went back to work.
Put his shoulder to the wheel so that his nose to the grindstone.
He went for a walk.
Went on vacation.
Saw the world.
Sowed oats.
Burned the candle at both ends.
Borrowed from Peter to pay Paul.
What happened next I said.
He went to the bathroom is what happened next.
He found blood I asked.
That's right I said.
I knew it I said back.
He cursed his maker.
He went back to the doctor.
He had reaped what he sowed.
He was asking for it.
Tempted fate.
Pressed his luck.
What did they do I wondered.
I said he was treated aggressively but the treatments were unsuccessful this time.
He was past the point of rescue of no return.
And then.
He suffered.
I see.
He died.
So that's that I said.
I said no that's not that because before he died and before he got sick. Between the here and now and the happily ever after and the way back when. He was always more than one way to skin a cat. He was every dog having its day. He was quiet as a church mouse and all monkey see monkey do. Happy as a clam with a pig in shit and crazier than a fox in a henhouse. Ate like a horse and drank like a fish which was wise as an owl and stubborn as a mule. Ran around like a chicken without a head and naked as the day a jaybird was born. He was all or nothing. No in-between no happy medium. He was the polar opposite. He was the left hand not knowing the right. Cold as a witch's elbow and hot to trot at the same time. He was six on one hand half dozen on the other and finally in the end he was better the devil you know.
And now he is dead like a dead man.
At least he is not suffering I said.
He is at peace.
He is in a better place.
Watching over us.
I had this conversation with myself and the phone didn't ring once during it and even if it did.
How I knew a man died last night is I'm not as dumb as I look.
I tell this to the doctors when they come in to examine me. I say I'm not as dumb as I look like that. They almost never respond when I say this. Sometimes when one of them is examining me another one is in the corner reading the newspaper. He is sitting there with his legs crossed like he is on a park bench somewhere. I always tell this one to go fuck himself.
Should the phone ring I might let it keep ringing so that the machine answers because sometimes the machine will say you have reached me so please leave a name and number and a brief message. I never listen to the message whether it is brief or not. I figure there's nothing in the message that has anything to do with me so I don't listen to it.
My best hand is to the right of the window from where they watch me. What's different about this one is I didn't trace my left hand for this drawing. I wanted to see if I could draw a hand without tracing and it turns out I was right all along.
I concentrated on the chalk and the wall in front of me. I didn't think about my situation once while I was moving the chalk around and I didn't think about them watching me on the other side of the window either.
Sometimes I try to look through the window myself but it's impossible. You have to be on the other side of this window to look through it although I have never been on the other side of the window myself. I might ask them when they bring me my pills later if I can see through the other side of the window but they would probably say no so why bother.
Up close I couldn't tell what I was drawing although I knew I wanted it to be a hand. The palm of this hand is thin and the fingers are long like Charlie's. I don't think I was trying to draw Charlie's hands on purpose but I'm not surprised it turned out that way.
I couldn't draw fingernails on any of the traced left hands but I came close with Charlie's hand. There are four imperfect ovals on four fingers and for Charlie that is good enough.
How you know they are Charlie's hands is because of the knuckles. Charlie had the ugliest knuckles you ever saw and the hands on the walls here are no different.
Charlie had to have broken each of his ten knuckles at least ten times during the course of his boxing career. We'd stuff padding inside his gloves but it never worked. We'd tape his hands up tight and that wouldn't work either.
This is why we had him drink raw eggs and milk all the time for the calcium. Charlie read that calcium was good for bones and we knew his bones needed all the help they could get.