—
Dr. Weiss was on my father’s emergency call list. He rode his bicycle through the streets of Chicago and Evanston all day and all night for two days, calling my father’s name to no avail. No one comes to a junkie wino’s funeral. Cara came, and I was so humiliated that we couldn’t even have it in a church. Men like my father aren’t eulogized by the well-respected ministers in their communities, and now she would know that about me when I’d tried so hard to construct this new self away from home. No one sent flowers. No one stood up to say a few kind words. There were drunks and hobos crowded around the entrance of the funeral home, a cloud of E&J brandy hanging over them as they tipped concealed pints of liquor out onto the sidewalk for their fallen brother. Dr. Weiss shyly introduced himself and I felt another pang of embarrassment knife through my chest. Seeing him in that tiny red room in his bulky safety helmet, imagining him awkwardly questioning the dirtbags who hung out in the parking lots my father frequented and knocking on the doors of houses of ill repute, looking for this dude who kept letting him down again and again so that he could save his life one more time, made my chest constrict with longing. He said a few kind words about his old friend, and then, in a lilting and beautiful tenor, he sang the Lord’s Prayer in Hebrew over my father’s lifeless body. The room fell silent. I hadn’t cried before then. I was too tired, too angry, too overwhelmed by what it meant now to have a Dead Parent, like the exotic new character introduced midseason on a TV show. Dr. Weiss was singing with his eyes closed, and I felt my eyes flood with tears. For myself, for my mother, for Dr. Weiss. Sometimes I feel like I haven’t stopped crying since.
SB’s ashes are tucked away in a box in a Gap bag inside my hall closet. The sheets and duvets within are decidedly unfolded.
A Case for Remaining Indoors
Wouldn’t you rather be dead than hot? I am 100 percent over people pretending that open-mouth breathing in 1,000 percent humidity while being burned to a crisp by the sun is the jam. I prefer winter, when everyone has to be bundled beyond recognition to survive. Or fall, when you can wear something nice without sweating it sheer in the punishing heat. Too bad I can’t afford to pack my one bag and move to the Arctic, because the minute I start seeing bare arms and booty shorts my sad kicks in and my happy doesn’t return until late in September when, thank goodness, I can cover it up with a scarf. You dudes frying under the sun at the beach can’t really expect the rest of us to believe that you enjoy painfully peeling your seared flesh from plastic chairs while everyone in the restaurant is staring at the armpit stubble revealed by your tank tops, can you? I’m not hating, it’s just that I’m baffled when these hot-weather enthusiasts try to convince you how totally awesome it is to be standing around outside in air that’s as thick as soup while trying to pick the char off smoldering ribs and hot dogs. While gingerly clutching a beer that won’t stay cold. Would it be so bad if we ate this inside? At a table that is sturdy? Where no flies can vomit on my plate while I’m trying to balance it on my knees?!
It is a cloudless seventy-two degrees in Chicago today. The sun is blazing in the sky (I closed the blinds when I finally woke up around one thirty in the afternoon), birds are chirping sweetly in the trees (I shut the windows), and people are crowding the streets in droves celebrating this long-awaited break in the dreary gray spring weather (I assume—like I said, I shut the goddamned windows and blinds). I’m going to take a shower and order a grocery delivery, then maybe stare at the wall until it’s time to go back to bed.
If I went outside, I could:
? Walk down the street to the beach, stroll along the lake path, and get bit by a dog.
? Suffer through an awkward conversation with someone who lives in this neighborhood, someone I will now be forced to avoid until the end of time.
? Watch children beating each other with sticks while enjoying the fresh air.
? Soak up some vitamin D and also harmful UVA and UVB rays.
? Get the perfectly-acceptable-to-wear-again-tomorrow clothes I’m wearing all sweaty and gross.
On the flip side, in my apartment I can:
? Eat the rest of this box of cereal, dry, by the fistful.
? Look at people outside without having to smell them or listen to their opinions.
? Organize my ketchups.
? Write song lyrics for my easy-listening band, Queasy Listening.
—
Words like “outdoor music festival” are why I am so glad summer in Chicago lasts approximately seven minutes. I nearly wept tears of seasonal affective disordered joy as I pulled out my North Face boots at the end of last November. As good as the warm air feels on my immobile joints, I can’t help but love winter and fall. Mostly fall, because fuck snow, and that hawk blowing off the lake is enough to make your teeth drop right out of your skull, but winter can be kind of okay if it doesn’t snow a whole lot and no one asks me to go sledding or do some other Hallmark-movie nonsense. The more sweaters and scarves I can wrap around my head the better. Summer can be an exercise in torture (but not an exercise in actual exercise, duh, it’s too humid) if you don’t want to do crazy shit like “wear sleeveless shirts” or “enjoy close proximity to actively sweating strangers.” One summer, I walked by these dirty hipsters at Division Fest—the kind of outdoor food and music festival that sounds like fun in theory until you actually get there and find yourself eating an overcooked hot dog while standing in a curdled pool of someone else’s puke—dancing in a large gray puddle of used tampons and diarrhea and thought miserably, “I hope you guys catch something incurable.” I was instantly burning with hatred for those people, dancing with their mouths open in a shallow pool of urban toxic waste. And the band they were dancing to wasn’t even that jamming. I never have to go outside again because:
1. My boyfriend, the television, is inside.