WISDOM OUT

My dad, with the medically confirmed shrunken brain, calls about a “tooth distraction.” He no longer drives, and my mother stopped in ‘92, so getting him to the appointment falls to me. On the way, he complains about my motor vehicle skills, farting at every red light. He’s always been a drinker, and besides deflating his thoughts, the booze has mangled his innards so that he regularly plays suites in the key of ass.

I hear my dad bellowing down the hall. In the waiting room, other patients hide behind their phones, conveniently ignoring his cries. The reason I sit there in frozen guilt is that I’m a useless mutt from my inherited combination—I get my cowardice from him, begrudging love from my mother.

When I came to pick him up, she said, “I hope they pull out his tongue while they’re in there so I can stop listening to all his foolishness.”

He is calling out again for someone to save him. I imagine a SWAT team, black uniforms, helmets with dark visors, shooting fingers full of code as they secure the room. I can’t recall ever calling out to my father—what would be the point? It would have been like using sign language with a blind man.

I pick up another magazine with the mailing address torn off, a corner of the cover missing. My father and I are fucking strangers to each other. Knowing this stings like the needle, but then the familiar numbness kicks in.