Of course as with all things good in life, this budding relationship is not without it's setbacks. My initial plans of relocation to San Diego have gone the way of the dodo, reasonable political discourse in America, and Crystal Pepsi. So naturally I fought this tooth and nail, but in the end no amount of reason, adversity, or drama can sway my mind once it has been commandeered by my heart. So how did this all happen? And why couldn't I foresee it? Well my dear non-existent reader, I am glad you asked.
Let us rewind one month and start where most life altering news starts, with a ringing phone. I received the call from my aunt informing me of my grandfather's heart attack at approximately 0900: "The doctor is saying this is it, so you'd better get down here as soon as possible." With my RV sold and all my possessions removed from my sister's house, I was all but a train ride away from leaving the Inland Empire for good, but with the advent of losing the one true father figure in my life, my plans of escape would have to wait.
I spent the following week with my grandfather in hospice. While he was conscious I made sure that people who were close to me like my nephew and my friends knew it was time to say good bye. Among his visitors was a former co-worker turned friend, his wife, and his sister... the girl who would ultimately be my salvation through these dark times.
Sleeping in a convalescent home is not easy and it physically manifested itself in the form of bags under my eyes. Both my aunt and my mother kept telling me to go home and get some sleep, but I refused because I knew that when he finally realized that he was dying that he would call out for me... And should I not be there when he did, I would never be able to forgive myself.
The hour came and he called out as I had expected. I didn't expect for him to abruptly lean forward and pull me to him for one last hug. For a man who was dying, he was still surprisingly strong. He was in a lot of pain and tears flowed from his eyes as he told me he loved me and was going to miss me. His words were rudely interrupted by a spasming pain. He was in the final stages of renal failure, which despite his efforts to hide, looked excruciating. He stared past me. "What do you see grandpa?" "Nothing."
I instructed the hospice nurse to increase his Roxanol and he eventually went under. He would come out once more to see an old friend, but ultimately spent the next two days in a drug induced coma. Friday morning my family and I were in the lobby waiting for the attendants to turn my grandfather over to help drain the sputum from his lungs when the hospice nurse called us in to tell us he was about to pass. Although my family thought he was still alive, I believe he waited until we were out of the room to die.
With my mother on the way and the rest of my family out in the hall, I helped the hospice nurse dress the body of the man I once saw as a god. After crossing his arms on his chest, I felt a strange need for some sort of ritual to say goodbye. I lacked the silver dollars for the ferryman, so I decided on placing one last Hershey's bar in his front pocket, and then wrote his obituary for those who were following his status online:
At 12:55 pm September 23rd 2011, a marvelous expression of the universe in the form of a man passed away. He was my grandfather in name and my father in heart. He was a god amongst men and my best friend. The tears that I weep are tears of joy because I know he is no longer in pain. I am proud of you grandpa, I love you, miss you, and will never forget you.The following weeks I periodically stayed in his house trying to determine what I was taking to be stored at my friend's house, what was to be given to loved ones, and what I had to walk away from. It was during this time when I was preparing to leave that I found myself very lonely. I walked to bars to drink the pain away. I reached out to friends and acquaintances telling them that our time to hang out was narrowing, but almost everyone was too involved with their own lives and had no time.
To make matters worse, I couldn't see my nephews whenever I wanted to anymore because they had moved into the bungalow behind my sister's boyfriend's house. And to put it frankly, he is a cock-sucker. I have a dream that one day I will say hi and he will do the adult thing, and say hi back. Then my step father came back and I could no longer stay at my mother's because he has a problem with anyone staying in their four bedroom house. So I had no choice but to stay at my deceased grandfather's house, which by this time had been readied for the upcoming estate sale. All the cupboards were emptied: plates, cups and glasses were all laid out on tables. All the furniture was pushed into the front room, books stacked against the walls, and several of my childhood toys and memories were all on display.
I stayed there a week knowing that it was all going to be scavenged by vultures at the estate sale. And since the cable was disconnected the very day after he died, I had nothing but these relics of our past to occupy my time with. I did a lot of staring at walls when I wasn't going through old photographs or deciding what things I was going to have to leave behind. And during that time I thought a lot about my grandpa, who he was and why. But being alone in a time like this is unhealthy, so I turned to someone who had recently expressed an interest in hanging out before I left: my friend's little sister.
We had hung out together in the company of my buddy and his wife. On the weekends as my time in Banning would have been ending, we all hung out during the weekends. But during the week I was lonely and we started texting each other and hanging out on our own time. Unfortunately she had a boyfriend, who was pretty much obsessed with her and would want to tag along when we hung out. I had no intention of doing anything other than the usual video games, drinking, and smoking so it wasn't a big deal except for the fact that he would almost always get drunk, start an argument with her and just ruin the mood. For this I named him Emo Care Bear, and other than his drunk outbursts and the fact that he would to try to push hugs on me, I liked him.
Emo Care Bear, or ECB for short was even invited to party with me and my buddy's sister when I was house sitting Nash's house. We drank together but I noticed ECB was on a mission to get drunk. I tried to get him to slow down but ECB was hell-bent on making an ass out of himself. And he didn't disappoint. First he managed to wander into my friend's bedroom. I told him to get out, and he didn't listen. The bouncer in me was about to come out, but then he finally listened to reason and thankfully I didn't have to escort him out in an arm bar. He spent the rest of the evening and the following day projectile vomiting. Two days later when I wanted company and drinks again, I didn't invite him back. Instead Chip joined us and we drank the night away listening to Stan Getz.
Back at my grandfather's house she continued to text me everyday. She suggested we could hang out in the graveyard. That day I couldn't do it but said maybe tomorrow. We decided we would dress up as goths, get a bottle of wine and read poetry in the cemetery the following day. When I went to pick her up at her father's I was stunned. She looked beautiful, like a model. She was in some sort of black bodice, with a black tutu like skirt. Long black leather boots laced up to her knees, while black feathers dangled from her ears stood in stark contrast to her alabaster skin. Her eyes were a piercing green as she chastised me for not having my outfit on. It was almost too to much take in.
We hopped the stone wall near the gates and stuck to the shadows. She wasn't wearing her glasses so I was especially vigilant for both our sakes. I laid my coat down for us to sit on and poured us our wine. We talked and joked about how goth we were until the bottle ran out and as we left I felt rather satisfied that done all this without being detected by the night watch. Later at the house she would ask me to smell her new scented lotions. This of course made me very nervous. Prior to seeing her all dressed up, I liked her, but only as a friend who I liked to box with and play video games. Now I realized what should have been obvious, she was a beautiful woman who was making time to get to know me.
"Smells like it's edible. Like peaches."
"It's mango passion. Now smell this one" she said as she rubbed it on her other arm.
"Smells like some sort of bread."
"It's cupcakes" she said. She started to rub the next lotion on her right leg. Now I was really nervous. I smelled it and recognized it as a very familiar smell, but couldn't place it.
"I know this one..." I drifted off to my eleventh grade summer when I spent two weeks in Minnesota visiting a friend who had moved there. "It reminds me of a girl I once knew."
"Is that good or bad?"
"Neither. Just a memory." I think she sensed my apprehension because she chose to wash off the other lotions and put the final one on her hand instead of her other leg.
"What's it smell like to you?" she asked. I hadn't the faintest, I was afraid to answer incorrectly.
"Tacos?"
"What?!?"
"Johnny's Sport Tacos in Mentone... I don't know, maybe a waitress there wore it?" I was too tired to even defend myself.
The next day my buddy woke me up to move my car and I couldn't find my keys. I ended up walking back to the tombstone where I knew I left them only to find they weren't there. This prompted one the best statuses I have posted on Facebook:
Scaling the walls of a cemetery to drink wine, read Spoon Rivers Anthology, and listen to Joy Division = So goth.
Walking back the next day to get your car keys from the grounds keeper = Not so much.
From that point on I knew I was in trouble, because I become clumsy, forgetful, and awkward when I really like a girl. And I was rapidly becoming all of these. We kept hanging out and as I figured it drew the suspicion of our friend the Emo Care Bear. ECB wrote me a letter about the Halloween Party I wanted to take her to, and he stated he wanted to go. This was not going to happen. I reassured him that nothing would happen to her there and that I would keep an eye on her at all times due to what my own brother had to done to the last girl I really liked. I debated telling her about ECB's letter, but in the end thought she should know. She said they had already hashed it out and things were all good, but I knew they weren't.
I told her that ECB's concern that I might encroach upon his territory were valid, that I did indeed like her, and that I had tried to fight it because it put a monkey wrench in my plans for relocation. She told me that has happened with a lot of her male friends, and I left feeling awkward and stupid for being just another who misread her. Once I got to my mother's I sent my buddy's sister a text because I just had to know if she saw me like I saw her. Her body language told me she liked me, but because I liked her, my analysis was compromised. I had to know or I would never sleep. After ten minutes of waiting she confessed that when I told her I was going to leave she felt physical pain in her chest...
This was all I needed to hear. Perhaps I won't be leaving for San Diego after all.
- Mildly Brilliant
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