I On Friday I woke up at Grandma's and wondered what life was like here thirty-five years ago. It was so easy to see Annette, Randy and Mom as kids; sneaking out, running off to California and getting married. Ray tells a story about how the neighbors thought that Grandma had hired him to rake her leaves. "How much you charge?" He mimics them with the same voice he uses for all of the pushy, larger than life characters in his stories, which always last longer than they should. "I'm not for hire," he says, and chuckles it off. "They thought I was just some Mexican boy you hired" I was in the downstairs bathroom spreading the bubble gum scented soap across my face, wishing I had brought my electric. It is the same soap that was here when we were little, and it now strikes me as a terrible scent for soap meant to be used by children who are already inclined to put inappropriate things in their mouths. I remeber Granddad sitting me up on the sink, teaching me how to shave for the first time. Showing me how to spread the Bermashave across my smooth face and explaining that you have to shave everyday to look good for the ladies. It is the first time I can remember noticing that other people may want different things than me. "Why would I want to look younger." It removed some of the lure of shaving; I thought you just did it because you were a man, and that's what men do. It didn't occur to me that vanity would have anything to do with it. I hear Mom on the phone with Anne. They plan to go visit her in Kansas City later in the day and my mother explains that she will be bringing her mother along. I wonder how the conversation would have sounded when they were sixteen and Cathy had just announced that her mother was going to come hang out with them. Based and Anne's reaction, which is loud enough to hear across the room, it would have gone about the same. II It is funny how easily we fall into roles that we left behind. In Wichita I plan on going to Dylan's reunion party. Jason calls me at about 10:30 and begs me to come over before my usual 11:00/11:15 late arrival. Apparently no one is drinking but him and Jason feels out of place. He needs me as his partner in crime, and begs for the stories that always draw a crowd to whatever corner of the party we have drifted towards. Within half an hour of my arrival, everyone is in the kitchen taking a shot with us. We can barely fit. Even those who were allegedly waiting to drink at another party toast with us. Nick and I will leave early and I will not know if they stay. I am bad with names so I usually give people nick names determined by whatever they were doing when I first saw them. Nora was easy. I was talking about Dear Nora when she arrived, so she was Nora dear. We don't have enough shot glasses so I pour some in plastic cups for those at the back and Dylan finally gets to give the toast that he has been sitting on all night. He is a charming host. Nick and I disappear as quickly and quietly as we arrived. We had accidentally parked a block away and went to the wrong house when we were first looking for the party, loaded down with expensive ales stuffed into every pocket. Now, the distance seems like a good idea. You can avoid awkward goodbyes, which I have always had a hard time with--mostly because my mother is so good at them I can’t compete. I convince Nick to stay at moms and not drive to derby. I did not, however, make him call his girlfriend. Apparently this is a mortal sin. III I wake up on the sofa the next day. My parents let the pets sleep in the futon that uses to be my bed. I pick up my father and take him to the bank where he deposits several things into a lock box. I don't know what to expect when I open the metal lid. He has taken to keeping some strange things. Once he almost threw away a picture of Rebekah and now he saves everything. "What’s this" is the most popular conversation piece. "Well Dad, that is part of the box that your headphones came in," or "that's just an old recite." I always offer to throw it away and he always insists on putting it in a manila file with a label and laying it on the desk someplace, where it will stay until the next time I come over and he asks, "Hey, what’s this?" When I was down over the summer I came across two hairballs in a zip lock bag. "Jesus," I think, "I wonder what he thought these might be." I am genuinely embarrassed for him and don't want to sound as disgusted as I feel when I tell him what he must have mistaken for a napkin that went through the wash. "Oh, those are Lacy's last two hairballs." Lacy was a cat of his that died recently. I have never seen my father cry, but heard him when he called to tell me about Lacy. I did not expect him to know what they were, and the sentimentality of "last two" suggested that he meant to keep them. A development which absolutely terrified me. "Well, do you know which was the last one, like the last last one. Maybe I can throw the other away." He barks, "Give me that." And he does not say it in a tone that recognizes his own pathology, not in a way that suggests that he is embarrassed or ashamed of a baggy filled with the final bodily secretions of a dead cat. He says it as if I am just acting crazy again and trying to toss good stuff; stuff we need, like part of a box that he 9.99 headphone came in. I had not been over to see him since, even though I had been in town. This time I see that he has moved the bed into the living room. It is a new bed. The waterbed that my mother bought for him while he was in the hospital has a hole and sits useless in his bedroom, where he now does nothing but smoke. I check the room for suspect baggies, expecting to find a final bowl movement or plaque covered incisor delicately wrapped and set aside. In the car we listen to Johny Cash and he tells me about the story that he is writing as a brail exercise. He makes me feel guilty for not wanting to go to medical school, so I sigh and light another cigarette. He asks if we can go to Bed Bath and Beyond to pick up some window treatments for his kitchen. He likes spending money on aesthetic details for his crap hole apartment. It is the height of decadence; pretty things he will never look at. I spend several minutes debating the relative merits of brushed nickel and brass finish with Dee, the woman in the kitchen dept. We drive by Starbucks and he asks for a frappachino--and it is funny to hear him say it, or even think that he knows the word. He remains pretty well unaware of most things that came out after he became blind. Cell phones baffle him, and he has no idea how people use them. I used to think that insanity was something that just happened one day. A trigger would set you off and bam! your crazy. Seeing my father's slow decline into the ranks of the 19th Century syphilis patient makes me think otherwise. People didn't stare at me and my father in public as much when I was a little kid. Maybe they were more considerate of the feelings of a child. Maybe having a six year old around lent my father an air of authority and respect. Now they stare all of the time. The lady who helps us is visibly uncomfortable and I try to calm her by letting her do her job and leave. I wonder if they are looking because he is blind, or because they know. Because they know that somewhere in his apartment, this man has a manila envelope and inside it plastic baggy with the last two hairballs of his dead cat. | 
