haven’t seen me in twenty fuckin’ years. It would be a miracle if any of the bastards still living would actually tell the truth while they’re standing there in front of my casket with me looking like a gray piece of chewing gum spit out on the gotdamn street! ‘Awww, doesn’t he look nice, Madge? Geez, he was a real swell guy! Lent me twenty bucks so I could go shoot up! Oh yeah, he was amazing… raised four kids. One of ’em is a manager at some fancy restaurant; another is a fuckin’ rich lawyer who walks around like his shit doesn’t stink; another is a housewife and married to a guy with the I.Q. of a donut and the face of a retarded turtle; and the second son blames him for everything that goes wrong in his life, even when McDonald’s forgets the extra pickles he’d ordered on his fuckin’ burger or the gotdamn ice cream machine is down for the third time that week! Yeah… he was magnificent… Morons. When are ya comin’ to Rhode Island?”
Nixon wanted to strangle the steering wheel, wishing he were shocked by the conversation but hey, this was dad.
“I have no idea. You know, every time we talk you ask me that, right? Why don’t you just record yourself and replay it?’”
“Why don’t you just fuck yourself, smart ass?” They burst out laughing at the same time, in the same way. “Every time I ask, you say, ‘I have no idea.’ So I’ll just keep askin’. How’s ya mother? How’s my Alice doin’?”
“She’s good… spoke to her a few days ago. She’s been working part-time at that school for the deaf. She knows she doesn’t have to, but you know how Mom is. She likes to keep busy.”
“Good… good. She must’ve gone deaf too, while working there. Won’t take my calls. Ignores me lately.”
“That’s not true. You just get under her skin. You’re an ass, but ya mean well.”
They both expressed amusement at that.
“We were amicable after the divorce, ya know? You guys got along with Sophie, no bad blood, so this just seemed out of the blue to me. Like she doesn’t wanna be bothered.” Nixon knew his dad would always love his mother, no matter what. “Anyway, maybe I should come back to Chicago and see my four ungrateful kids since not one of you bastards will come see about your own father!”
“Did you or did you not fail to answer Maria’s calls? You’re the same man who, when I called you just two weeks ago, slammed the phone down because you were in the middle of watching an old Yankee’s game from 1982 on YouTube and didn’t want to be disturbed.”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t mind me. I’m just the man who brought ya into this world!” his father went on, ignoring what he’d just said. “Without these cojones, you wouldn’t be driving around in that fancy car!”
“I believe Mom had a big part in this, too, but please continue. Tell me all about how you busting a nut, having the best time of your life, should be praised,” Nixon teased.
“Oh I will, buddy boy! If I’d known how you’d turn out, you’d have been in a damn tissue with a Playboy on the nightstand and flushed down the john, where you belonged.”
The old man burst out laughing, causing Nixon to follow suit and shake his head. Dad had moved back to Rhode Island many years prior, the place where he’d been born and raised. His mother was up in age and needed taken care of. Dad being the only living child among his siblings felt it his duty to take up that task. It was supposed to be temporary, but after Grandma passed, he never returned to Chicago. After a while, everybody stopped asking him if he’d ever come back to the Windy City. It was as if he was afraid a ghost from the past would haunt him, memories of his old watering holes where at times he’d come apart and fight the entire staff in a drunken rage. Or maybe, seeing Alice, Nixon’s mom, would make him feel out of place and wiggle those old heart strings he knew would never regain the pleasure of her presence again.
“I’m sober,” the old man stated, as if he’d once again been falsely accused.
“I know, Dad. I could always tell when you were loaded.”
Dad was an odd man, pretty much a functional alcoholic. Until retirement, he’d gone to work every damn