One of the larger things on her plate was Mom, a semi-invalid living back East. (Her father passed away years before.) The family business, Ballendine’s Second Penny, a high-end antiques shop, had been a fixture in Syracuse for over 40 years; it only took Kelly’s alcoholic brother three months to run it into the ground. Her mother had heart problems complicated by diabetes or maybe it was the other way around. The brother was living at home, doing more harm than good. Like all old people, Mom insisted she didn’t need help even though she could barely make it to the john. The caregivers my wife managed to hire — she interviewed them over the phone from Berkeley, the brother being a useless piece of shit — usually didn’t last the day, and for $4 an hour the best you could hope for was they didn’t steal, at least not in front of you, or beat your loved one to a pulp. Like all daughters (the ones I’ve known), Kelly’s relationship with her mom was deeply fucked up. Whole lotta codependency goin’ on. Clara was a real pro at pushing Kelly’s buttons, especially the one marked GUILT. She started flying back there every other weekend. Once she even took Ryder. He came home with a twitch; I made sure that never happened again. I used to have one when I was a kid and now there was Ryder, widening his mouth every 10 seconds like a fish scooped from its aquarium.
I was surprised when Clara died. I mean, shocked at the speed of it. The flying back and forth and whatnot, the hassling with the brother, all that, had only been going on for maybe three months and I was settling in — we both were — for the long run. The money drain, the emotional drain, the massive inconvenience of it… So when we got the call she was gone, I actually couldn’t believe it! I was like: You’re kidding me. I might even have expressed as much when Kelly gave me the news. Because how many times does a pain-in-the-ass parent die in a timely way, with relatively minimal fuss? Thanks to modern medicine, the death of a parent is usually protracted, more unnatural in cause than natural. And medical heroics aside, the old scumbags seem to willfully hang on! Like they’re invested in not making an easy death — not for themselves, not for their kids, not for the caregivers, not for anyone. I don’t mean to sound devilish but I thought she’d linger until she was 100 and counting. We both did, which has to be most children’s secret fear. So in its own way, my mother-in-law’s death was as surprising as Ryder’s conception. A miracle death! I remember thinking about Clara — just a thought, no malice, hell, I was grateful to her — I remember thinking, “You go, girl! That’s the way to do it—bravo.” There was even some money thrown in (another shocker), not a lot but enough for Kelly to take a sabbatical and go find herself.
Kelly thought it was a good time to get married. Mom always said she wanted to dance at her wedding and I couldn’t figure out if Kelly’s proposal to me was a sentimental capitulation to Clara’s wishes or a posthumous Fuck You. Anyway, it was done. Nothing fancy. A backyard affair with a dozen guests and a Buddhist monk presiding. Ryder walked her up the aisle between rent-a-chairs and was the ring-bearer as well. That was sweet. Kind of a funny fortieth birthday present for me. I think I was a pretty good husband though. Maybe it sounds nuts, but I was good husband material.
I thought that would chill Kelly out — not so much the marriage as her mother’s death. The irony is that when she left her job at school things really began to unravel. Having both parties home at the same time is a game-changer. The house was small. We kept bumping into each other, literally underfoot. You begin paying hostile attention, like cellmates… you get weirdly focused on the annoying habits, shitty sights, sounds, smells and general disgusting lameness of the other party. You start judging them in your head and your heart. Everything gets poisoned, paranoid. Contempt is the order of the day — and night.
You know, I consider myself lucky. I “found” myself a long time ago. And I’m grateful for that. I truly am.
I didn’t say I liked what I found but the finding’s half the journey. Jesus, probably more than half. When you think that most people are out there still looking. What’s the definition of finding yourself, anyway? It really just means being comfortable in your own skin. That’s all enlightenment is, isn’t it? The Buddhists can do their crazy calisthenics, their marathons of Silence and devotion and ritual bullshit but at the end of the day if someone’s happy in their own skin, that’s the Buddha. That’s an enlightened being. People think they need that perfect job or perfect inspiration or perfect spiritual practice but all anyone wants or needs is peace of mind. And you don’t need a Nobel Prize or a million dollars to have it. It helps but it ain’t mandatory. I’ve got my books and my van — it’s a wonderfully nomadic life I wouldn’t trade for the world. [sings, robustly] “Well I’ve got a hammer, and I’ve got a bell, and I’ve got a song to sing, all over this land!” Freedom’s my landlord. The sky above and the mud below. I’ve got a mirror in my knapsack… sometimes I leave it there and sometimes I take it out and point it to the Lord Above!
By most standards I’m a wealthy man. I could buy a house tomorrow if I wanted. A nice house. Which surprises people. Not that I go around saying that because I don’t. When you live the way I do, you can’t be flashy. That’s asking for trouble. You know, Bruce, I don’t own a home or property by choice. Aside from the van and my books, I really don’t have any personal possessions. Nothing to speak of. I’m unencumbered and I think that’s what saved me. The one thing I sometimes yearn for is companionship. A human touch that isn’t lurid. All and all, I’m at peace. I won’t lie, there are days and nights when I feel alone, almost insanely alone — I don’t think that’s too strong a word — times when I feel abandoned by God and man. Not, incidentally, such a wonderful feeling! I’ve had to face certain truths. I can whine about not having a partner to share my itinerant life but the simple truth is I don’t think I’m capable emotionally, maybe even spiritually, of a committed relationship. Not the happiest of insights but that’s what hundreds of hours of therapy’ll get you. (Most of it back in the ’80s.) The last committed relationship I had and will ever have was with my son. Ryder. I’ll never get resolution on that one, never have closure. After he died, a lot of friends told me I should return to therapy. But guess what — I already know the source of my supreme fucked-up-ness. It’s called the Catholic Church. Whoop-dee friggin’ doo.
Whenever I start to feel that alone thing, I look back over the last 24 hours to see what I’ve eaten because sometimes food’ll make you crazy. I know I’m really in a bad place when I personify the Lord our God — play the blame game — because I happen to subscribe to the opinion of those Christian mystics, their elegant assertion being that God or the idea of God is beyond our ability to grasp. To speak of “atheists” and “believers” in relation to God is roughly the same as believing you can convince an ant that it might enjoy a cartoon in The New Yorker. Or getting a rat to read an illuminated text—