“Why are you just now getting here?” my mom said.  “I told you an hour ago.  I don’t think you’ll make it.”

Last minute driving- 60 miles across town mind you- in seemingly bumper to bumper traffic put me in no mood for the dressing down my mother wanted to dish out.  I had to weave my car into seemingly-empty areas of the freeway as if by ESP to get here by the time I made it.  Traffic stopped.  Then it began to move and I was quicker than the guy to my right.  He forgot to step on his gas pedal before me.  I hit it hard.  My white Z28 grabbed the opening like a drunken letch at an underage bayou strip club.  I didn’t so much drive as I assaulted most everyone along the freeway tonight.

“Come on mom,” I said looking around at the ground, “give me a break.  I made it.”

Mom stepped back.  She studied me like a booger in tapioca pudding.

“You look horrible,” she said.  “Have you been taking care of yourself?”

I smiled with greasy ease and replied, “Sure.  I huff a little paint at night and wake up with a glass of orange juice every morning.  I’m tip top toots.”

“Smart ass.”  She said, “You look like you’re on drugs.”

“Cocaine’s not a drug is it?” I asked.

I was only being partially honest.  Mom didn’t smile.  The lines on her wrinkled face deepened.  Her lips puckered like a suction cup sticking to a window.  The red scalp beneath her gray hair stood out like glow sticks in spaghetti noodles as she glared at me.  Glancing around, she moved closer. 

She whispered, “Don’t give anyone else in the family a reason to suspect.”

I looked over her shoulder at the family.  Parasites- one and all- stood in line outside his room waiting as if with hands out.  I looked back down at Mom and lost my way trying to trace the maze of lines on her face.

“Did you hear me?” she asked.

I tried to find my way out.  I came up empty.  I fell into the trap of thinking her wrinkles held a solution.  She pinched me under my arm like I was a grubby-nosed kid in the Safeway screaming for some Smuckers, only not pronouncing the beginning sounds quite right.  She gripped the soft flesh under my arm that would later droop when I aged beyond fifty.  She nipped it.  She pinched and it sent hot soldering iron pain up my arm.  The pain saved me from the maze.

“I heard you,” I said, “but what about him?”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“What about him,” I repeated.  “Can I let him know I took some mushrooms?”

“Don’t be a smart ass,” was her only reply.

We turned.  We faced the front of the line.  I kept my hands to my sides.   

When the door knob rested in the palm of my hand my attitude slid off like dust in a rainstorm.  The doorknob melted my waxen legs.  My heart felt light as a leaf on the wind while beating too fast like nitrous through a Hemi.  I couldn’t catch my breath except to say I’m sorry.  I pushed open the door.  

The room seemed uncommonly comfortable like a too plush pillow.  The caramel lighting teased my eyes- not too bright yet there was no strain to see.  Across a soothing sea blue rug rested my old man in a bed of luxury too much for a hospital.  In fact, that bed was too expensive for sleeping.  Underneath the warm, motherly arms of his comforter my father laid well-rested at peace.  The temperature of the room assaulted my sense of touch with the motionless warmth of a still-born womb. 

“Come in Johnny,” my father said.  “Close the door behind you.”

Tears trickled down my cheek like a forgotten memory.  The last time I cried was when I was nine.  I ate all of the Oreo’s before my mom unpacked the groceries.  She told me I was a greedy little boy.  I was.  I agreed with my tears in torrents.  I vowed years later- in self-righteous anger- to never cry again.  It was a pack of Oreo’s for Christ’s sake!  I didn’t kill anybody. 

I hadn’t snorted three lines of crystal meth before coming to say good night to my father.  Not back then at least.

“Close the door Johnny,” my dad said.  “Come closer.  I want to look at you.”

I cried from hidden recesses of my body.  The drugs had dehydrated me.  Tears washed streaks of film and residue down my cheeks.  I wiped once then gave up.  I stood there.  The door closed behind me.  I stared through the lens of tears as my wavering father reached out to me.  He looked healthy, until he reached for me.  He coughed hard like a death sneeze.  He coughed often like a dung beetle had rooted deep in his chest.  I moved closer. 

I didn’t touch him.

“You look good son,” my dad said.  “I’m glad you made it.”

“I wouldn’t miss it dad.”

“So,” my dad said, “this is it.  I’ve listened to them all day.  They tell me it’s a bad idea.  It feels right though Johnny.”

“Don’t do it dad.”

“I’ve already told you the options son,” my dad said.  “I can live like this for six months- maybe a year.  I’ll slowly fade away before your eyes.  Coughing and hacking.  I’ll be praying for a merciful end.  Then there’s this.”

I asked him, “Why?  Why now?”

“If not now,” my dad said, “when?  When will be better?”

“Tomorrow,” I cried.  “Tomorrow I’ll be clean.  Tomorrow there may be a cure.  Tomorrow I won’t have to feel like I’m losing you today.”

“Tomorrow’s a fool’s dream Johnny,” my dad said.  “I don’t care if you’re clean right now.  I was there when you were born.  We talked then, but you don’t remember.  This is the same thing.  We talk now, but tomorrow I won’t remember.”

The comfortable room pressed against my skull like an obligation.  The blue carpet pulled against my feet like a crushing undertow.  I stopped wanting to see.  My tears obliged.  I stopped wanting to hear.  My crushing heart obliged.  I stopped wanting to speak.  The meth I snorted betrayed me.

“How can you do this to me dad?” I asked.  “We never talked about anything important and now you’re leaving me.  I never told you I love you.  We never hiked a mountain.  You never gave me the sex talk.”

My father smiled.

“We’re talking now son,” my dad said, “that’s more than some get.  What more is owed to you or me?  We’ve got now.  Now will carry us as far as we need to let it.  I love you Johnny.  I always will.”

I saw a tear well in my father’s eye.  Before it pooled enough to drip I knew what must happen.  I kissed my father on the forehead.  I turned away.  I wiped away my tears.  I didn’t look back when I opened that door.  I could feel him surrounding me.  I could feel him becoming a greater part of me.  Although his deed was not done, I knew he moved toward immortality. 

I thought about him after I walked out that door.