November 22: Montana Wildhack, Thanksgiving Eve, Meltdown

Another clerk came up to Billy and asked him if he was going to buy the book or not, and Billy said that he wanted to buy it, please.  He had his back to a rack of paperback books about oral-genital contacts from ancient Egypt to the present and so on, and the clerk supposed Billy was reading one of these.  So he was startled when he saw what Billy's book was.  He said, "Jesus Christ, where did you find this thing?" and so on, and he had to tell the other clerks about the pervert who wanted to buy the window dressing.  The other clerks already knew about Billy.  They had been watching him, too.

The cash register where Billy waited for his change was near a bin of old girly magazines.  Billy looked at one out of the corner of his eye, and he saw this question on its cover.  What really became of Montana Wildhack?

Billy's strange life has brought him to this point, standing in a dirty bookstore in New York City, trying to buy a Kilgore Trout novel about Jesus Christ, reading about the porn star he's mated with on Tralfamadore on the cover of a girly magazine.  Again, Billy's life seems to be a series of circles that keep intersecting, or Russian nesting dolls, one experience swallowed and mirrored by the next.

Welcome to Thanksgiving Eve.  I am currently sitting at home, alone.  Earlier this evening, I underwent a little meltdown of sorts.  It had to do with my family and Thanksgiving and my crazy, bifurcated life.  Like Billy, I am sort of bombarded at times with different versions of myself--husband, son, sibling, father, teacher, poet, friend.  Each one of these selves compete for my attention at times.  Tonight, it became a little too much.  I simply packed up my book bag and computer, said to my wife, "I need to be alone," and came home to my empty house.

For a while, I just sat on the floor in the dark kitchen, trying to calm my racing mind.  Too many things to think about at once.  My 90-year-old father is in the hospital with pneumonia.  The social worker is attempting to find a bed for him at a local nursing home.  He won't be coming home again.  He's too fragile, and his Alzheimer's has progressed fairly quickly.

So there's that.

My brother has been down in a hospital in Grand Rapids for evaluation of his heart this week.  The news wasn't great.  His heart is working at about 25% capacity.  The doctors wanted to implant an assistive device, but my brother refused.  Instead, he now has an external defibrillator.  He and my sister are coming home on Friday.

So there's that.

And I have papers to grade, a Christmas essay to write, some poetry readings to plan, and Christmas music to learn.  In about a week, I have five or six days of insanity--my daughter's birthday parties, a benefit reading for a local Canathon, a poetry workshop, and teaching.

So there's that.

All of these different parts of my life sort of battling for attention, like little kids.  I felt my brain shutting down earlier, and I had to get away.

Saint Marty is thankful tonight.  He's not sure what he's thankful for, but he's thankful.  Maybe for an empty house.  A warm blanket.  Peanut butter and a banana.  And silence.