My Little Family

Dad is in the back, in his room, there are piles everywhere and no furniture here other than the kitchen table, which wont stay, and the LazyBoy Sean and mom and I pitched in and bought him the winter Richard died and Chuck was so sick and about to die, too. Other than the table, and LazyBoy, it is just piles everywhere. Mostly paper piles, but a corner of the floor is all liquor, and another soda, and if bottles could be piled all that glass and plastic would be stacked on top the other, too. That is something I've learned about us, my little family. We make piles, and live on cheese and crackers and microwaved tea.

I am eager to see what will become of this place. I helped dad take down the tree today, the artificial plastic dark green bows with the white twinkle lights built in. The steel frame. We ducked taped the box all together to fit it up the attic stairs. The attic is crammed tight with boxes, also I am imagining of papers. And cots disassembled, which were Pop's, my dad's dad which I am guessing were saved because they are a visceral reminder of Pop's legacy: the Army. Also up there is a chest with all the McMullen heirlooms our family has claim to. What was left of Church Street, Grammy and Pop's place in Brooklyn, South Baltimore, after we sold it in 1997 in the fall the summer after Gram died. There are about three boxes up there that belong to me: one for the kitchen, two randoms but not full of papers. Just my bauble trinkety magyc stuff I couldn't bare to part with after I left the farm. I also have my first computer up there, and a chest I filled with 32 years of momentos, the stuff important enough to save. Dad bought me the chest from the Five and Dime on the corner of Broadway in Fells the spring I turned 18, when mom demanded he move home from California to make peace with me. She's always had that power over him.

Last night I took him out to dinner, my dad. It is MLK weekend which is always the weekend I come down here to work for my mom at this scrapbooking convention in OC. Mom goes away most of the month of January she saves all year for it it is what she does. And I come down and do foot therapy on these women and spend the weekend with my dad, under the guise that it is his birthday on the 22cnd. The first year, 07, I came down here with all these expectations, thinking we would spend time together and make up for so many lost years. He went golfing the whole weekend instead, and it took me a little bit to understand: it is not personal, it is just what he does. We did go out to eat that night tho, which is what we have in common dad and I, with his mom: our great, great love of food. And over dinner that night I told him: I dont know if my relationship with Brandon is going to work. I am having my doubts, I am so numb and unhappy, and I dont know what to do. It was January, 2007. He, my dad, away all those years to make money which he lost to credit debt and depression that broke him when his two best friends died at mid-life, was the first person I ever told. Today we undecorated the house, the piles on the floor all around. Last night I took him out for birthday dinner with the money I made working for mom. Then we went out and watched the miserable miserable home-team game. It is mellow, and happy, this time together, this place and time we now have to just call ours.

Beds, two chairs, and lots of piles. A TV. Papers, some momentos. Gram and Pop's memories of home. Plants, lots of plants. Out here in the living room Bagger Vance is on TV. Dad's fave. He is in his room, watching the same thing on his TV, sorting through piles and folding clothes, periodically calling out about the movie. My parents, married but only contractually. The modern day partnership: minus the romance but learning to be friends. The kitchen table is full of papers of my own. I had plans to get so much done today but instead I am so content to, on the LazyBoy we years ago bought for my hardassworking dad, just lay around.