DIED 2007
MY SON HAD A friend, a redheaded wraith on a skateboard, who lived with his mother and grandparents. All had the same translucent skin, horsey jaw, and brown dot eyes, and all were medicated beyond belief: the boy for ADHD and oppositional defiance disorder; the older generation for chronic pain, migraines, and depression. Ma and Grandma staggered around the house in their fuzzy pink bathrobes and curlers while Grandpa snoozed in the rocker, waking only when lured by the boy into driving him somewhere. No one said no to the boy; he was the light of their lives. They went to war with the school authorities and the neighbors, they filed suit against the local police. One day they showed up at my door with their crazy eyes and bony hands to tell me to keep my son at home, he was walking the five miles to their house in the middle of the night. My boy is on medication, Ma told me, if he drinks alcohol there will be trouble.
Well, she was right. She called me over there one night to pick up my drunken son. I don’t know when this happened, I checked their eyes earlier this evening, she said, whipping her penlight out of her pocket. She was a nurse, she explained. It would be weeks before we found out the full extent of the mayhem, and the only time I ever saw her in real clothes was when we all went to court. Afterward I took her advice and kept my boy out of there. How is your old friend? I asked my boy a year later. Oh, he said, it’s sad. His grandpa died, his grandma died, and then last month he found his mom facedown in her cereal bowl. I stared at him. Is it possible he is better off now? my son wondered. He is living with his karate teacher. It seems okay.