The Wake

The wake will be held later today. I still haven't thought about it, running around, though it hits me at certain moments, bursting in dull animal anguish, a scream that turns into a whimper. What I felt a moment ago, it all turns irrational in a shameful purging of the soul. I am no longer innocent, but cling in a stolen moment to emotions as simple as loss and regret, joy and anticipation. Moments I remember--I just want to be back there--simple and golden, as simple as anticipation. I've been concentrating on getting some sleep, so I won't have to wear sunglasses during the funeral. You're supposed to lay still, putting your body to rest, arising only for necessity. Sometimes you're still on the mattress, but you're neck's propped up, stretched out into the interstice of window shades, the strain trampled underneath the thumping of the uncouth night. I've been carefree, indulging on my own, estranged from everybody.

He doesn't yell at me anymore. None of that roar of violence and disgust without violence. It's hard to ignore things such as tone and countenance, even harder to disguise it. We just stay clear of each other. In the same room, we don't speak to each other. He's grown accustomed to it, it seems. If I could I would; if I did, he'd know. He said don't go and get drunk or do whatever it is you do, I need you this week and will call upon you. I said I'm not going to go anywhere. I felt sentimental and sincere. This lasts for a couple days. When things are normal, and I'm random and restless as though by compulsion,we joke around a lot, about his in-laws and people we know, about my mannerisms at the dinner table, about how I'd never be a good CIA agent. Something happens that neither him nor I understand. It usually happens during the evening or starting from my morning dreams. It usually happens when I drink. I usually get the 200ml of Jack, or individual sized ones. With that foul stench, I can't go home again - I'm at a bar with double shots in tea cups, impressing imaginary audiences, gulping like it's water. After that, things becomes blurry, I lose myself and end up here. After that there's clarity: the fool at the bar swaggering, the passion spent, rapture dulled into baseless energy. I don't dwell upon the burden my old man bears, every restless hour of my nights, footsteps crawling to and fro, a new day dawning with deception, every blank afternoon hiding from view, the lies that cling to one another and comprise my evening story, the days of heavy drinking to finally pass out. I can't feel the disgust, or the hapless frustration - he suffers, but I don't. I think he sees it, what good will yelling do? I remember it when I can feel, then flick it away again.

He said you're late; I said I'm on my way. I moved around a lot, but ended up at the same place. I grabbed a group of ties, put on sunglasses, cleared my throat, and sounded out my words on the way there. When I arrived he was waiting at his car. He grabbed the ties to take to the mortuary and didn't speak to me. I stayed in the same spot, looking at things without any coherent thought of what I was doing. From his car his face flashed back at me and caught me. My mother said move your car so he can back out... Now move up so he can get out.

Earlier that afternoon, I was to pick up the portrait from the photo store and deliver it to the flower shop, so they can make the final preparations. During the exchanges I recoiled under my perceptions, and faltered in step and monotones. I did not take a moment to look at the portrait. As I walked my feet dangled and my upper body felt limp or leaned out of sync with movement. While handling the portrait, I was paranoid and looking around, doing, I'm sure, awkward, sinister, and highly unnecessary fidgety movements with my hands. I didn't know what to do with them; they were clumsy and unsure of themselves, as though stumbling upon the consciousness of involuntary movements. I didn't want to stop and realize the man in the picture was the one I knew when I was a child, the one who lived to work, and everyday after work I would meet him on his route home. His evening routine consisted of tea and sugar cubes, and a cheese, tomato, and kananchi sandwich - he always made them big and left crumbs of lavash at his trail. The face in the portrait would appeal to dignity, to his unwavering belief that a man gets eight hours for sleep, eight for work, and eight for leisure.

He started losing his mind after my grandmother died - abruptly, even to me, as she was all set to check out from hospital care . If it’s called dementia, it grew inside him as he kept her wardrobe in his closet. Things that suited him, he would remember. Other things not so agreeable, it passed his memory. Yet he was just as sincere about his daughter-in-law's mother sneaking in to his home to steal loafs of bread or his slacks. At that point when the cycle of life reverts to its origin, it takes but a short while after, disgruntled ramblings and extravagant suspicions - this tender lion of my earliest days succumbing to nature.

He became increasingly protective of his gold, which he kept in a ziplock bag, usually in his pocket or under him in the couch. Each time he predicted his death, stroke after cigarette and so on, he would take out the ring. I would say hold on to it, it's too early. He survived three strokes and still smoked. Somehow after that it went unnoticed when he stopped smoking. His heart was strong, even if his spirit had broken down: that fear of death and the prospect of his grandchildren's weddings persisted. Had he given me his ring a few years ago, I would probably have pawned it along with my sister's CDs. Now he's gone and my sentimentality always falls empty. His brother also gave me a ring when I was young. I've reserved the guilt and regret for when he passes on, as I so conveniently tossed that hunk of material in exchange for cheap sustenance.

Lately I noticed he no longer recognized me from afar. I'd pull up to him when he would wander around his apartment building or the streets with that crazed look on his face (you can see it in the persistent dark glow of his eyes and the disheveled hair standing upright), I'd honk, waive, pull up, "Papik!" He gives me that mad look...then his voice soars with simple joy: he smiles and cries and raises his arms and begins with the metaphors of sweetness and sunlight. He would go on for a few minutes and I would rush him to finish.

In the hospital he lay with his left arm slumped on a pillow, grotesque, bloated from dialysis, and disproportionate from the rest of his body. He said he could move his fingers still; I hated even thinking about it. I seldom stayed very long, depending on my state of mind. Last time, I decided to lounge in his room, lie on the couch, shuffling my feet, look at the sky and mountains, then the freeway and Warner Bros Studios. I was coming off a binge, I was restless and thirsty for change, counting money a new venture had earned. I would feel like a rich man for that day. I told him about the money I was making and he smiled, whispered something out of his toothless mouth - the last few days of his life, he had no teeth, fought with the nurses but had really nothing to say. I knew he wanted water, his last tool for rebellion. I moistened his mouth and tongue with a wet strangely shaped pink swab.

The physical therapist came in for the broken hip, an Asian man who spoke above the average knowledge of general Armenian. I told him my grandfather only likes you here, and we lifted the old man to where he was sitting upright over the edge of the bed. He had on a tablecloth that covered the entire front of his body, if the legs remain still. I stood behind him. His legs were measly, his skin was pathetic and when the therapist lifted him to his feet, he cried and screamed and I couldn't stand to look. The Asian man held on to my grandfather while I found a nurse to clean the sheets under him. "Me kich el, Papik, me kich el," the therapist told him. But he whimpered he couldn't stand anymore and the nurse cleaned him up. I was running around after an air spray.

He was not a big man, but worked with rocks for years and his body was sturdy. I remember him with one gargantuan iron bell on each arm, his muscles. As the years passed, he made his living in front of an oven, then went into business with his son as a baker. We, too, had the sentimental worn notebook of recipes, that he passed down when he couldn't work anymore. After the mess, the odor still remained. I didn't think about dignity, neither did he. He said it's better to die than live like this. He often spoke of dying before, of the rat poison he had acquired and he knew what he was going to do. Disheveled ramblings again we never took it seriously; we just told my mother to tell her mom to quit stealing his bread.

I fed him some watery soup, my hands shook. I burned his tongue and spilled some on his neck, then stuck a coffee straw in and he quietly sipped his food. Next he enjoyed green jello, a good amount of it. He hadn't eaten for days. After that he tried frozen cherry-flavored ice and cranberry juice. He would eat quietly the whole time and wait for my spoon to reach his mouth.

He started throwing up again. When he realized it was because of eating, he stopped eating, became very agitated. After he puked, I left the tray on his chest and said I'd come back. I needed a break. The room smelled too much like what I had seen. But mainly I think I couldn't stay in one place too long. When I came back from the cafeteria, he was asleep. He had a rough day. I decided to spend longer hours with him, after all the help I was at those particular moments, he requires as much on any day. I could've done more, but not in hopes of changing any outcome. I could've stayed longer like he wanted, like he asked, after all, where else are you going to go? But I didn't dwell upon it, when I left. I promised tomorrow I'd devote more hours. I don't think that was the last time I saw him. I can't really remember, though it was only a few days ago. I remember the next day I said to him, "Yesterday really wore you down." And I think he fell asleep and I went off.

I didn't see him as he died. I was asleep till noon, reluctant to get up and pee, clinging to hopeful dreams that added another chapter to failed relationships. My mother called around 10am and I didn't pick up. Two hours later I called back and I knew. It didn't affect me too much. The last few years have been a countdown waiting.

My grandma died when I was about thirteen. I tried to cry at the funeral, but was joking around with my cousin in the car afterwards, thinking more of fun activities. It took a few years and random late-night or drunken moments to feel what I should've felt. Only I'm older now, getting sicker by the year. I waited for my grandpa to pass on. He suffered much his remaining days and so we're grateful he's relieved of that. It will make things more convenient for our family now, no longer will I have to take dinner over and say I have to run as he sits there smiling ...And the portrait of his golden years at his funeral and the photo of a beaten down man, hunched over, disoriented and tired - that I keep alone with his ring.

...I don't want to see him, not in this state, remembering how his eyes would light up for me. My father standing beside me, in his own struggle questioning whether he did right by the man who raised him, regretting, I'm certain, the smaller things from before. He's on his own. I can't look at him in the face today. Something's taken me away from him. When the time comes and I have to think about that, when to repay you I'll have to cut off my tongue, it'll all come back to me.