ninety-nine cent flowers

I wonder if she’s put flowers on his grave. I’m not so bold as to ask her. I’m not up to the heavy sighs, the tears, or the rhetoric on what a fine man my grandfather was. I don’t celebrate death. Not like she does.

She sits slouched in her chair, wearing three layers of mumus ranging in pattern from floral to plaid. Beside her on a tiny end table sits a stack of Kleenex, a Coke, a barrage of prescription bottles, and a pack of Capris Lights. This chair has been her bed for the past 8 years. Everything she requires sits comfortably beside her, except for a box of donuts and the occasional orange.

“How ya do?” she says to me glancing up only momentarily from the television screen that stands a few feet in front of her.

“Ehh , Fine. You?” I say sitting down on the untouched sofa across from her.

“I’m here…” She sighs, begging me to ask her to elaborate.

My entrance in the room has triggered her manic channel changing. Her arthritic thumb enters in number after number. I can’t tell if this is an attempt to entertain, antagonize, or just fill up the silence. She does hate silence.

I turn the page of my book as Bill O’Reilly screams “THAT’S UNAMERICAN, SIR!!!”

“He always gets ‘em,” she nods to me, pointing the remote to the TV.

“MMhmmm”

She flips back and forth between four different channels. I hear a barrage of information that I can’t contextualize with what I’m reading. ‘There’s a 85% chance of snow tomorrow”, “TYRAAAA MAIL!” and finally, Bruce Willis mumbling something irritably from within a ventilation shaft.

She decides to stop with Bruce Willis, for the moment, anyway. She tells me how she doesn’t trust one of the many thin blonde girls on America’s Next Top Model.

“The one with the crazy eyes,” she explains, “She’s REAL weird. Somethin’s wrong with her. She told Tyra that she loves blood. That she’s jealous of people with nosebleeds”

“Well that is kinda weird,” I admit.

“Whatcha readin’?’ she breaks her gaze from the television to examine the book resting in my hands.

“Nietzsche”

“Who?”

“Friedrich Nietzsche”

“Wait, who?”

“FREE-DRIK NEE-CHEEEE.”

“Oh.” She says finally.

She waits a moment before retorting, “Well, he wasn’t AROUND when I was young.”

“Actually, I think he was.”

“No, he wasn’t”

“I’m fairly sure that—“

“WELL THEY DIDN’T TEACH NEE-CHEE WHEN I WAS IN SCHOOL!”

She turns back to Bill O’Reilly now, as if she’s looking for some kind of reinforcement from him on this matter. But she seems disappointed to find that’s he’s too busy for her, he’s talking to Dennis Miller. He can’t be bothered.

I suddenly hear Sara Mclachlan’s voice, and I know before I look up that’s it’s that goddamned commercial for the humane society. I glance up to see a one eyed cat, followed by a hairless dog, while Sara Mclachlan sings ‘Innn the aaarmms of an AaAAngeeel’

My grandmother is sniffing, grabbing for the Kleenex beside her.

“It’s so sad,” she says, dabbing gently under her thick glasses.

“I know it is,” I say, unsure of how to protect her from the horrors of eye-less cats.

Her crying increases. It goes past the hairless, legless dogs, and the cats that need a bath. She grabs more Kleenex, taking little gasps of breath. Her cheeks break out in large splotches of rouge.

“They’ll find homes,” I tell her.

“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “They’ll never be the same”

“Why don’t we watch that Bruce Willis movie?” I suggest

“What channel was it on?” she says sniffing, “Oh wait, I can press ‘recall.’”

We sit entranced as Bruce Willis walks on glass, shoots terrorists, and rattles off a slew of one-liners. We comment from time to time on the film. “He’s completely bald now, you know?” she tells me.

I’ve decided I’ll put the flowers on his grave. They will be cheap, fake, and from Wal-Mart. He would appreciate that; he was practical. Economical, even. I will drive her by the cemetery, so she can see them. She’ll weep again, at his death, and at the cheap flowers that I’ve chosen. We will both resent the fact that we are trapped in a silent car.

Cigarettes

1. The first one is the best. The second one isn’t bad either. But to tell you the truth, they go down hill from there. Let me explain:

The first one is a revelation., think of it as an early morning prayer. Don’t bother with the monotony of any other early morning rituals; grab a pack, a book of matches, a cup of coffee and go.

Strike. Flame. Puff. Sip.

Eyes still thick with the golden remnants of sleep. Limbs weary from their unconscious travels. Breathe in and out, and you’re on the path to enlightenment.

The second inhalation will make things clearer, the third will bring total clarity. Now you can think and hum along to the warm static thoughts that enter your mind. Now you can consider with a renewed sense of spiritual optimism whether or not you should: Kiss your wife goodbye or leave her curled up on the corner of the bed, blanketless and alone. Revise chapter 13 of your novel, or continue to let it rot under the weight of your hard drive. Take back that golden retriever puppy that you got your son for Christmas, or continue to let it wreck your home, defecating on carpets and pissing on important papers. Weighty questions, but with each meditative breath comes an ephemeral sense of resolution. Each ring of smoke is a divine plea for guidance, and each inhalation brings you one breath closer to the comfort of denouement.

The next eight will be a disappointment. They will not bring the same lucidity of thought, only leave you frantic, and begging on your hands and knees for that seraphic feeling of direction. Like any religious meditation, it is best to practice this one in moderation.

2. Brands are incidental, but the question of company and beverage are essential. I prefer to enjoy mine in solidarity--in the early morning or at night, with a glass of coffee or a teacup of whiskey. Others prefer to relish theirs in the company of others, drunk on vodka, scotch, brandy, beer, or maybe even infatuation. They can be had under street lamps, in alleyways, walking to your car, in your car, in a business meeting, outside a club, in bed, after a quarrel, but always before fight. Remember, religion can be practiced anywhere, and should be.

3. There are warnings, though. On walls, doors, restaurants, airplanes, taxis, hospitals, public restrooms, on the packaging itself. And I should probably warn you too: this religion you’ve devoted yourself to will probably kill you.

It won’t be a pretty death either, if it does. There will be white handkerchiefs dotted with blood and phlegm. There will be your wife in the chair beside you, defeated (didn’t she always tell you to convert?). There will not be your son. He hates you, and everything you represent. He still misses that golden retriever puppy, after all these years. Your grandchildren won’t be there either. They will spend their lives glaring at other members of your religion, and writing papers on how their grandfather destroyed his family with each thoughtful puff that he took.

But there are disadvantages to any religion, aren’t there? And who wouldn’t agree, it’s always a ‘pleasure to burn’?