Snotty Alice Cooper

So earlier I was actually having great conversations with him, and he was being funny. Then all of a sudden his brain went pretty quickly. It made me feel terrible, actually. He thought he was in an apartment. He said he wanted to talk about "establishing residence." I know what he means by that. I used to live with and take care of him in early undergrad before he got addicted to crack and lost everything. I had to send him to live with a friend in Baton Rouge.

I always planned to bring him back here. I would start earning actual income and make it happen. These plans, of course, will never come to fruition. He is staying with his ex-wife and her husband. I live in two places and he can't travel.

"Dad, you can't live with me because you can't travel back and forth with me every week. You have to have your IVs and special bed and everything when and if they let you go home. I don't have any of these things and you would be lonely."

"But what I don't have is time."

He thought he was somewhere else, and when I told him he couldn't live with me, he looked so sad. I wonder if I'll ever be able to forget that look. Probably not. "But right now, we have one room, and that's a start. We don't even know whose name is on it." As if we're going to rebuild our broken home room-by-room, starting with this one. "Dad, you're in the hospital." Then he remembers.

So I look like a snotty Alice Cooper, but only for a second until I wash my face. Now I just look snotty.

I tried, I really did, to get it all done in time. I just wasn't fast enough. I haven't finished. He has to live out the rest of his short life in my mom's house, or exactly where he is right now, because I can't help him. I know it isn't my fault. Of course it isn't my fault. I just want him to be happy, which is something he's never been good at.

"Are you crying? Don't do that. I love my little girl too much for that." Right. I see. Let me just pick back up this Conflicts book and ponder the second restatement for a minute. I'm sure everything will be fine.