22. Some things do change, however. A membrane can simply rip off your
life, like a skin of congealed paint torn off the top of a can. I
remember that day very clearly: I had received a phone call. A friend
had been in an accident. Perhaps she would not live. She had very
little face, and her spine was broken in two places. She had not yet
moved; the doctor described her as “a pebble in water.” I walked around
Brooklyn and noticed that the faded periwinkle of the abandoned Mobil
gas station on the corner was suddenly blooming. In the baby-shit yellow
showers at my gym, where snow sometimes fluttered in through the
cracked gated windows, I noticed that the yellow paint was peeling in
spots, and a decent, industrial blue was trying to creep in. At the
bottom of the swimming pool, I watched the white winter light spangle
the cloudy blue and I knew together they made God. When I walked into my
friend’s hospital room, her eyes were a piercing, pale blue and the
only part of her body that could move. I was scared. So was she. The
blue was beating.
--from "Bluets" by Maggie Nelson
My father's eyes are blue. Not an easy blue. More like a hard, cold, steel blue. He's still in the hospital downstate, asking every now and then when he's going to be able to go home. He's too far away for any family member to visit him, and he's too angry at us to accept any phone calls. He refuses to talk to any of us.
That's okay. I understand. I have to believe he's a little frightened. I would be. He's hundreds of miles away, surrounded by strangers, and he has no idea when or if he's going to be able to return home. For all he knows, he may live out the rest of his life in that hospital, and I think that's probably his greatest fear.
As I've said before, my father and I have a complicated relationship. I love him. I think he loves me. That's about the only thing we have in common, aside from a pretty strong work ethic and devotion to family.
Saint Marty is his father's son, and he is not his father's son.
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