Home Is Burning

by Dan Marshall

  I had spent more time with my dad over the last year than any of the rest of my siblings, so I sort of felt like we had done everything already. But we’d go on a walk a day, and at night, I’d bring a bottle of wine up to his room and pour us both a glass. I set his on the stand next to his bed.

  “You don’t want any of yours?” I asked.

  “I still can’t drink,” he said.

  “Well, more for me,” I said, swooping up his glass and gulping down the contents like a fat alcoholic. My dad and I didn’t really need to talk. We just liked being around each other. It was as if we had crammed all the hanging out we were supposed to do over the next twenty-five years into this single year. I’m sure he got sick of me always being there, always being a smart-ass. But maybe not. Who knows?

  As I was hanging with my dad one afternoon, my mom stumbled in and sat in the chair next to the bed. Her eyes were half closed, meaning she was in Fentanyl Land. She looked as if she was about to drop into a grave.

  “Mom, so everyone’s doing their special little activity with dad before he dies in thirty-four days. Why aren’t you?” I asked.

  “I am,” she said.

  “Sitting next to him eating yogurt and almost dying isn’t much of an activity.”

  “For your information, I’m giving him a blow job a day until he’s dead,” she proudly said, like she was donating to charity or feeding the homeless.

  “A blow job a day? That’s a lot of blow jobs,” I said. “Good thing you’re such a blow job machine.”

  “Oh, shut up, you little shit-eater. One day you’re not going to have a mother to treat like shit,” she said. “And for the record, I’m really good at them. He loves them.”

  I looked to my dad to see his reaction to all this. “This true, Dad?” I asked. “Are you getting a blow job a day?” He raised his eyebrows and attempted a smile, his version of it’s none of your business, but yes, I am!

  It was a little weird—my mom blowing my dad until the end of his life—but also really compassionate. I never liked to picture my parents fucking, believe it or not, but I assumed they had a regular sex life. My dad, more than my mom, liked to joke about sex. With any joke comes a little bit of truth and desire. But once my dad got sick, I figured the sex-related activities had slowed down, then disappeared completely. But I guess they hadn’t.

  “That’s cool. I just hope I never walk in on that,” I said. “Be horrific to see my mom’s mouth full of my dad’s cock and cum.”

  “DANNY,” my dad managed to say in as angry a tone as he could muster. “Let’s not be so disgusting all the time.”

  “I’m not the one getting my dick sucked by a cancer patient,” I said.

  My mom was beyond proud of the blow-job-a-day goal she had set for herself. I don’t know if it was because she was all fucked up on Fentanyl or what, but she seemed to bring it up any chance she got, and to anyone who would listen.

  “A blow job a day. Not a bad deal,” I heard her explain to a visitor. “You wouldn’t think it, but his penis is still strong,” I heard her explain to another.

  * * *

  “God, that rich-bitch sister of his is finally coming,” my mom told me toward the end of August. My dad’s family had been a little reluctant to visit because of the mutual hatred between them and my mom. They simply couldn’t stand each other. Of everyone in my dad’s family, my mom disliked Aunt Sarah the most. They used to be friends. In fact, Aunt Sarah actually introduced my mom and dad to each other. Sarah and my mom grew apart over the years, and eventually they started absolutely hating each other. Getting them together was like putting two betta fish in the same bowl.

  “The best part of him dying is that I’ll never have to see any of those assholes ever again.”

  “They probably feel the same way about you. And, this is about Dad, not you,” I told her. I would defend my dad’s family. I liked them, even if my mom didn’t, and I knew my dad wanted to spend time with them. So I’d try to play peacemaker.

  “When she’s here, just sit quietly and let Dad have some time with her. She was his sister before you were his wife,” I said.

  “I won’t say a word for Dad’s sake,” she said. “But still, fuck her.”

  My mom was true to her promise. She mostly got out of the way, but one afternoon, the two betta fish found their way into my dad’s room. Aunt Sarah sat bedside, holding her brother’s bony hand as they talked about their childhood, while Mom sat off in the corner like a kid on time-out, silently spooning yogurt into her face.

  “So, we’ve all decided a few things we’re going to do with my dad before he dies in twenty-nine days,” I told my aunt. “Greg is interviewing him. Chelsea is dancing for him. Tiffany is reading him the morning paper. Jessica’s watching old episodes of Friends with him. I’m having a glass, or bottle, of wine a night with him. I was thinking that you should come up with something as well.”

  “Oh, that’s a great idea,” said Aunt Sarah. She thought for a minute. “Oh, how about I call every day I’m not here with a memory or a story?”

  “Great idea,” I said. “He’ll love that. Won’t you, Dad?”

  “Yeah, that’ll be nice,” he said. We all exchanged smiles. What a nice family moment.

  Then my mom interjected from her corner. “I’m giving him a blow job a day for the rest of his life,” she proudly said.

  Sarah looked at my mom and said, “Boy, I didn’t need to hear that.”

  “But your story thing is good, too,” she said with a smirk.

  “It’s not a competition,” Aunt Sarah said.

  “No. It’s not. But if it was, I’d win.” My mom finished off her yogurt and dropped the empty in the trash as she left.

  * * *

  I’m not entirely sure if the blow-job-a-day thing actually happened. Who knows. My mom says it did, and my dad seemed awfully happy during this stretch. Maybe because he was finally going to die. Or maybe because he was getting a blow job a day for the rest of his life. What was important was that he was getting to spend time with everyone he loved. Oh, and we did take him to Snowbird.

  FUNERAL PLANNING WITH CHELSEA

  Funerals are uncomfortable—and not just because you have to sit on a hard bench in a cold church with snot and tears pouring out of you. Planning a funeral for a person who’s still alive is even more uncomfortable. A lot of times people put words in the dead person’s dead mouth, saying things like “Well, Grandpa would have wanted us to have a cocktail party,” or a former friend might say, “He would have wanted me to fuck his widowed wife just after his funeral.”

  If there was one silver lining in my dad’s situation, it was that he had the ability to sit in on the planning, which gave him some control over something—though my mom basically monopolized all the decision making. We had one such planning session as the September 22 date approached, attended by everyone in my family: Tiffany, Greg, Jessica, Chelsea, my mom, my dad, me, and our two panting golden retrievers, who I wanted to slam over the head with a shovel for being so happy in the middle of this Greek tragedy. Even a couple of our horrible cats lounged around the room.

  My mom was in charge of the meeting, the old red notebook she’d had from the beginning sitting on her lap. She had a list of everything she wanted to plan: who would speak, what songs would be played, where we’d do the reception.

  My mom suggested that we each do a speech. I had delivered a speech at Grandma Rosie’s funeral a few years back that got a few chuckles, so I figured I could do the same at my dad’s funeral. I didn’t want to turn it into a stand-up comedy routine—“What’s the deal with my dad dying twenty-five years earlier than I thought he would?”—but I had already scribbled down a few jokes and anecdotes for it. I figured all the other speeches would be sad and sentimental, so I wanted to make one that focused on how great my dad’s life was before he got Lou Gehrig’s. I wanted to try to get people to remember him without the disease. I wanted them to think of him as the happy guy who made every
situation better through his mere presence—not as a crippled mess lying around shitting into diapers while hooked to a breathing machine.

  “Do I have to do a speech?” asked Jessica.

  “Only if you love Dad. If not, don’t worry about it,” I said. Jessica would hardly talk during a one-on-one conversation, so I was sort of excited to see her speak in front of a giant collection of people. I wondered what the fuck she would even say.

  “I don’t want to speak,” she said.

  “Then I guess you don’t love Dad,” I said.

  “Todd will speak for me,” she said.

  “Creepy Todd isn’t speaking at Dad’s fucking funeral,” Greg said.

  “Yeah, Jess, that’s insane. Family only,” I said.

  “That fucker shouldn’t even be allowed at the funeral,” Tiffany said. “I wish I’d cut his dick off before he got you pregnant.”

  “Bob, what do you think?” my mom asked. He just shrugged. He didn’t care. He wasn’t even going to be there. Well, I guess he’d be there, but he’d be sitting in the blue, cloud-covered urn we had purchased for his ashes a couple of weeks earlier.

  “Okay, so Todd will speak for Jessica,” my mom said, scribbling down a note. The rest of us shook our heads in disbelief. Not only had this weirdo infiltrated our family and impregnated our defenseless, emotionally fragile little sister, but now he was speaking at my dad’s funeral? Fuck that. Fuck that hard.

  For music, my mom was getting her friends Craig and Janet to sing. Janet had sung and played the guitar at Jessica’s wedding. She was like our hired musician for all our tragic events. I bet when she got into music she was hoping for better gigs. My mom kept insisting that she perform “Over the Rainbow” instead of something my dad actually liked.

  “Okay, so we’re going to have Janet sing ‘Over the Rainbow,’” my mom said.

  “Why? Dad doesn’t even like that song,” Greg said.

  “Yes, he does. There’s a new version out,” my mom said.

  “We’re not fucking playing ‘Over the Rainbow.’ Let’s have her play something he likes by the Beatles or James Taylor or Paul Simon,” said Greg.

  “I agree with Greg. We’re not playing ‘Over the Rainbow,’” I said. “Dad doesn’t even like rainbows, probably hates them since his life has become the opposite of one.”

  “This is really about Dad,” said Tiffany. “What do you think, Dad?” He just shrugged again.

  “Okay, I’ll think about it,” my mom said.

  My mom mentioned that the pastor would be a woman named Erin, and that she would give a brief introduction. Chelsea, who had been a silent observer, picking fur balls off our cat Pierre, finally interjected.

  “No, Mom. We’re not having Erin do it,” said Chelsea.

  “Why?” asked my mom.

  “Because Erin is a slut,” Chelsea said.

  “She’s a pastor. How is she a slut? Please explain,” I said with a smirk. Chelsea’s weird comments always amused me. Part of me thought she’d say weird shit just for my entertainment.

  “She thinks she knows God personally and talks to him and we don’t know if there is a God,” said Chelsea.

  “So that makes her a slut?” I asked, trying to see where this logic was coming from.

  “Yeah, that makes her a slut,” Chelsea explained. She then began laughing uncontrollably, so I’m not sure how serious she was, but I was proud of her for being skeptical of God and for blindly attaching the word slut to a near stranger—it was a very Marshall thing to do. Chelsea’s handling of the whole Lou Gehrig’s shitshow had been really bizarre. She’d cry without warning sometimes, and then at others she’d just make these odd jokes. Whenever I’d ask her what she thought of anything related to Lou Gehrig’s disease and what our dad was going through, she would just pinch my arm, say, “He’ll be fine,” and change the subject. I think she was just trying to block everything out. Made sense.

  We started discussing what to do after the funeral. I suggested that we all stand out in the parking lot smoking cigarettes and kicking the gravel while talking about how dark and horrible life had gotten. My dad finally piped in with a suggestion.

  “It shouldn’t be sad, but rather a celebration,” he said.

  “I think it’s going to be pretty fucking sad, Bob,” my mom said.

  “No, everyone should get drunk and be happy,” my dad said. He was tired of his disease bumming everyone out. He wanted his death and his funeral to be a turning point back toward the good life. He didn’t want to pull us through any more shit.

  I was all for a celebration after the funeral. This had been a hard year. The thought of getting shit-faced while friends and family comforted me and told me how great my dad was sounded like a dream. No one can judge you if you’re in mourning. You have the ultimate trump card. So I could get as drunk as I wanted to.

  “You probably shouldn’t have any more,” a guest might tell me after my tenth drink.

  “Fuck you, my dad just died,” I’d tell them as I chugged from a jug of wine like some sort of drunken pirate.

  Chelsea offered her own suggestion on what we should do after the funeral. “How about we do a campout?” she said.

  There was a long pause in the room, the in-out of the respirator the only noise. “A fucking campout, Chelsea?” I said, finally breaking the silence.

  “Yeah, up Millcreek Canyon,” she said.

  “That’s about as weird as calling a pastor you’ve never met a slut,” I said.

  “Erin is a slut. She thinks she can talk to God,” she said.

  “Chelsea, now’s not the time to act weird,” Tiffany said.

  “Yeah, Chelsea, shut up,” Jessica said.

  “At least I’m not pregnant like a loser,” Chelsea said.

  “So we’re going to play ‘Over the Rainbow,’ right?” my mom said.

  “Mom, we’re not playing ‘Over the fucking Rainbow,’ so just drop it,” Greg said.

  “But there’s a new version out. Have you even heard it?” my mom said.

  “Don’t you think a campout would be fun?” Chelsea said.

  I thought about the campout for a minute—us going up into a canyon and grilling hot dogs after celebrating my father’s life. It might be fun. Janet could strum on her guitar and sing songs, and everyone could drink cheap beer, and piss in the river, and make s’mores. It might be worth doing just so we could see the expressions on everyone’s faces. I pictured a husband slapping a mosquito on his arm and saying, “This is fucking weird. A campout after a funeral?”

  “Yeah, really bizarre. But they’ve been through a lot, so maybe they just weren’t thinking,” his wife would say.

  Then I’d approach and say, “Hey, thanks for coming. Did you guys get enough s’mores?” Then I’d look around and take a deep breath of mountain air. “This is great, isn’t it? What a dream. My dad would love it up here. Sure wish he wasn’t dead.”

  When night approached—just before taking off to our separate tents—we could tell ghost stories and spook one funeral-goer so bad her parents would decide it was best that they not spend the night, that they better get little Katie home to bed.

  “Fuck little Katie. We don’t need her anyway,” someone might say. “We got a funeral/campout to enjoy.”

  We could wake with the sun and fish in the river. I hope there aren’t any bears up there, but if a bear did eat one of us, the headline in the morning paper would be pretty classic: “Funeral-goer Eaten by Bear.” A big “ha ha” would fill the world.

  We’d need insect repellent.

  I loved the idea. The whole thing would be close to priceless. “I think we should do the campout,” I said.

  “Okay, so Todd’s going to speak for Jessica, we’ll play ‘Over the Rainbow,’ and we’ll think about the campout idea,” my mom said as she scribbled a note into her notebook, presumably about the campout. My dad rolled his eyes, probably wishing he were already in that cloud-covered urn.

  THE GOOD-BYE PAR
ADE

  My dad’s death was very unusual because he had a set date for it. It wasn’t a fatal car crash. Everyone knew exactly when he was going to go, right down to the hour (4 p.m. on September 22). Consequently, family, friends, neighbors, and total strangers all wanted to see him before he was to be unhooked from his respirator—an event that I started calling “The Big Unhook.” In fact, so many people wanted to say good-bye to my dad that there was actually a line in front of our house. He was like a celebrity.

  “Wow, Dad, you’re super popular,” Tiffany said as she looked out the window at the line of people waiting to say good-bye.

  “God, I wish all these fuckers would just leave us alone,” Greg said.

  “Every person is lovin’ Daddy,” Stana said.

  Chelsea asked me what all these people were doing at her house. “They’re saying good-bye to Dad,” I told her.

  “I know, but can’t they just, like, send him an e-mail or something?” she joked. “I mean, I’m trying to study here.” Chelsea was starting her junior year of high school and was taking several AP classes. She had a near 4.0 GPA and didn’t want to fuck that up. And, though she was book smart, socializing was very difficult for her. So suddenly having a house full of people made her feel really uncomfortable.

  “Go into his room and fart. Bet that’d scare everyone away,” I joked. She giggled and ran off to her room. Poor Chelsea. I spent my junior year of high school taking Accutane, masturbating, and trying to feel comfortable enough with my body to talk to a girl. I couldn’t imagine losing my dad at the same time.

  We set Saturday, September 20, as the last day for visitors, so that we would have a little time to say good-bye to the dying fucker, too, but the days before the twentieth were a seemingly endless parade of good-byes.

  The visitors ranged from really good friends and close family members to absolute strangers. A few Mormon neighbors and religious nuts also wandered in so they could preach to my dad. The religious people would say their “You’re going to a better place” or “Everything happens for a reason” bullshit. After they left, my dad would look at me and say, “Who was that?” and I’d tell him that I didn’t know. “Probably just some asshole who used you to feel like they did their good deed of the day.”