My Paper, My Words is a collection of essays, stories, and poems that reflect the challenges of a middle-class husband and father trying to navigate a rapidly changing political, religious, and technological landscape of post-911 America.
I make my way through a dimly lit hall of walkers, wheelchairs, and medical carts to find him where I always find him – in a threadbare recliner, lightly coated with dried skin cells and broken hair follicles – hunched over the New York Times crossword in his flannel robe, pee-stained underwear, and perfectly fitted Red Sox cap – his lips moving silently to the clues:
“1 Across – Act of saving or being saved – 1 down – Environmentally friendly material.”
Dad never used to move his lips – they were always tightly creased, well-mannered, and coolly detached from the finely humming machine in his head as he attacked the puzzle on all fronts.
To Dad, the Times crossword was a trusted friend, a worthy opponent, and an intellectual fencing partner who, for years, prepared him mentally for the start of his day. It felt grossly unfair that Dad was aging so inelegantly while his opponent remained unscathed by time.
I stand invisible at the entrance of his room, just staring, not wanting to disrupt his endeavor.
When he finally looks up, he shoots me a broad smile and tips his cap in my direction before returning to the puzzle.
I enter the room, clear my throat, and get to the point of my visit.
“Dad, do you have a will?”
Without lifting his eyes or halting the motion of his pencil, he responds, “You can have it all. Just burn me down to a fine ash, then bury me in the desert. There – that’s my will. Cross it off your list.”
I sigh heavily.
With his head still bowed, he holds up his mechanical pencil and points it sharply in my direction before continuing.
“But not too deep. A few inches below the topsoil will do just fine. I want the rain to be able to get to me — muddy me up a bit.”
He lifts his head. A thin dusting of skin cells and hair follicles fall – it’s wintertime in Flannel Ville. He gives me a wink and a smile before returning to the puzzle.
“What about the family plot where Mom is?”
“What about it?”
He goes on, “In the words of the best Beatle by far, Let. It. Be. When she was alive, your mother nagged me about hogging the bed and disturbing her sleep. Trust me, she’d be fine with my desert plan.”
He returns to the puzzle, mumbling under his breath.
“6 across – Breaking down organic matter” – 2 Down – To accept without protest”
“Is any of this written down, Dad?”
He slams the folded Times on his lap, and an unwelcome whiff of urine fills my nostrils.
“Why do I need to write it down? I just told you with actual words from my mouth – Put me in the goddamn desert, a few inches deep – Easy-Peasy. You want to bring nurse Jackie in as a witness?”
There’s no Nurse Jackie, but Dad loved that show so much that he referred to all his nurses as Nurse Jackie—even the males.
“Sorry, Dad.”
He softens immediately and smiles.
“It’s OK. No worries from the weary.”
“The Times is kicking my ass today.” He tosses the newspaper onto his bed – a school of dad-DNA swims in a stream of sunlight above the bedding.
“How are things at home? How are Emma and the boys?”
“They’re good – I’ve been wanting to get the boys in for a visit – -they’ve been busy with basketball and homework.”
“Don’t worry about visits. Honestly, I don’t want them to see me like this.”
A silence settles in the room. I can hear the paint peeling and a clock ticking.
“Can you do me a favor?”
“Sure, Dad, whatever you need.”
He points to the wall behind his bed.
“Get rid of that goddamn cross. It’s from the poor soul who was here before me.”
I lift the lacquered black Christless cross from its nail. The unfaded paint beneath it leaves a crucifix shroud of Turin.
In a deadpan voice, Dad stares at the wall and quotes Luke 24:6-7, “He is not there; he has risen,” and smiles sarcastically.
“Thanks, son.”
I stand Pope-like in the middle of his room, holding the crucifix, “What should I do with this?”
“Burn and bury it in the desert – he chuckles and starts to cough – a mosh pit of Dad-dust bounces enthusiastically on his shuddering shoulders. I can almost hear Cobain screaming.
Suddenly, there’s a discharge of electricity around Dad’s recliner. I look up to an intense blueish-white light pushing through the crevices on his forehead—a halo of electrified dandruff swirls above his head. A look of relief falls upon him. He winks and says warmly, “I’m just saving you the effort. Goodbye, son.”
There’s a loud pop—like a fluorescent light bulb dropped from a great height—as Dad bursts into flames like a human Hindenburg. Thin flakes of ash float in the air. Their fiery orange edges burn bright for a few seconds before self-extinguishing into dissipating wisps of smoke and settling all around me.
I drop the crucifix in stunned silence.
A nurse (followed by an elderly gentleman with a Dustbuster) enters the room. The nurse tilts her head towards her left shoulder and speaks into a small black microphone, “Mr. Smith in 103 has transitioned.” She nods sharply to the gentleman, who retrieves the crucifix and vacuums up every remnant of my father. He even vacuums Dad from my shoulders and shoes. When he finishes, the nurse checks her watch and makes a notation on her clipboard.
She hands me a piece of paper. “Your father left us these coordinates. We’re sorry for your loss. Please collect your father’s remains at the nurse’s station.” She and the orderly exit the room along the same path they entered.
I unfold the paper. Scrawled in my dad’s handwriting are the coordinates 40°40′N 117°40′W.
After a few minutes, I head to the Nurse’s Station. Dad’s been packaged neatly in a small cardboard box with the Crestwood Nursing Home logo. Someone thoughtfully taped the crucifix onto it. I pull it off and toss it in the trash on my way out the door.
I place Dad in the glove compartment and drive west to the desert.
My Paper, My Words is a collection of essays, stories, and poems that reflect the challenges of a middle-class husband and father trying to navigate a rapidly changing political, religious, and technological landscape of post-9/11 America.
When Bill sees Natalie parking across the street, he opens his car door to the cold backhanded slap of winter. “Fucking freezing“ he mumbles to himself. He steps onto the asphalt of the parking lot, pulls a pack of Marlboros from his coat pocket, and smacks it against his palm like he’s in a Tarantino flick.
Through the smoke, he studies the gathering mourners in long black coats and winter scarves, their low conversations demonstrated only by bursts of breath that quickly dissipate in the crisp January air.
He looks up at the sky. “Solid turnout, Matty … respectable for sure.”
Strategically hovering on the outskirts of the steadily growing crowd, Bill plots his entrance to coincide with Natalie’s. It’s been three years since he left her un-kissed on her parent’s doorstep, clutching that night’s carnival winnings, a plush multi-colored parrot, sobbing uncontrollably.
Several months later, Bill understood the horrible mistake he had made. He tried to win Natalie back for the next year and a half, but she refused to let him back into her life.
Matt’s death shook Bill to his core, and yet, almost immediately, his thoughts turned to Natalie. Ashamed, he wondered what it would be like to see her at the wake. Matt would have found his chagrin darkly amusing, the type of reaction that would have led to an entire afternoon of delving into the complexities of the human condition and intricacies of love, death, opportunity, and loss.
Bill imagined how that scenario would have unfolded. He would have said, that’s what love does to a person and Matt would have nodded, lit cigarette in hand, a wry smile on his face, and replied with one of his Mattyisms:
Love is a fork in the garbage disposal.
Bill takes one last drag, tosses the half-smoked Marlboro to the ground, and grinds it out with the toe of his shoe. He heads slowly towards the line forming at the funeral home entrance while watching Natalie cross the street in his peripheral vision.
Nat steps onto the sidewalk gracefully, and Bill falls into step alongside.
“Hey,“ he says, slowing in hopes of an embrace.
“Hey,“ Natalie says, her voice cool.
“Hey,” he says again, dumbly mesmerized by the combination of her bright beauty and profound sadness.
Natalie catches Bill in mid-stare. “Are you okay?”
Bill sputters. “Huh? Oh. Sorry. Yeah, I’m okay. You?“
“Actually, I’m the opposite of okay,” she says quietly.
“That’s true, you’re a knockout,”Bill says and almost immediately regrets his attempt to lighten the mood.
“Excuse me?” Now she stops, rounding on him.
Bill holds up his hands defensively.“The opposite of OK – KO – Knock Out.”
“Seriously? You’re hitting on me right now? Here?”Natalie shakes her head, but there’s a hint of amusement beneath her veneer of sadness.
They fall into the line of mourners, shuffling along a few steps at a time.
“How are your folks?” Bill asks sheepishly, hoping to at least get back to an informal conversation.
“They’re fine; I’ll tell them you asked.” Her sarcasm shatters Bill’s hope like a bullet through candied glass.
By the time Bill and Natalie step into the funeral home, an awkward silence has set up camp. For the next 30 minutes, it’s mostly just quiet nods to other attendees until they find themselves next in line to pay their respects.
As the couple in front of Bill finishes their prayers, Bill quietly panics. Should he accompany Nat to the coffin or hang back and respect her privacy? The couple stands, and the man and woman each briefly place a hand on Matt’s casket before proceeding to the receiving line.
Natalie looks at Bill, but he’s unsure what it means. He offers his hand, which she takes gently, and they approach Matt’s casket together.
They can feel the stares from around the room. Their break-up three years ago was big news to their small community, so this public reconciliation (if that’s what it is) generated some buzz.
Though Bill had imagined Matt’s wake as an opportunity to reconnect with Nat, he hadn’t envisioned what would happen afterwards. It would all depend on how Natalie responded, and up to this point, it had been primarily awkward silence. He didn’t know how to get a beat on what she was feeling.
As soon as they kneel, Bill bows his head and whispers, “Listen, I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am. I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking about that night.”
“Suzy,” Natalie mutters flatly, head also bowed.
“What?”Full of confusion, he risks a sidelong glance.
“You said you didn’t know what you were thinking about. Fucking Suzy is what you were thinking about – literally. I figured it out when you started dating her the week after you dumped me.”
Bill swallows, another Mattyism springing into his mind like a jack in the box: The truth has a way of shooting you down and shutting you up.
Matt would have enjoyed this exchange for several reasons: He would have loved that instead of praying at his casket (Matt was a devout atheist) they were trying to work out their shit. And he would have reveled in knowing his wake provided Bill and Nat a venue for reconciliation (if that’s what this is). As he’d been fond of saying, Wakes are for the living.
“You’re right, Nat, and I’m sorry I ambushed you today. I’m lost without you. I’m just stumbling through this.”
After a few more quiet seconds, they both turn to look at a framed picture on the table behind Matt’s casket. Taken at a high school graduation party, Matt is center in the picture. But just over Matt’s right shoulder: Bill and Natalie. They’re holding hands, Nat is smiling at Bill, and they all look at ease and happy.
“That was us,” Nat says, pointing to the picture. Tears fall down Bill’s cheeks as he registers everything he’s lost.
Matt was right; wakes are for the living.
Bill and Natalie stand up together. Bill’s hand brushes the back Natalie’s hand, and she pulls away reflexively, looking at him deeply and shaking her head.
They move through the receiving line of hugs, tears, and warm laughter before going their separate ways.
Maggie discovered her husband at the bottom of the basement stairs – his body contorted, eyes wide open and empty of light.
She remembered hearing a tumble and thud in the middle of the night, waking momentarily before dismissing the sound as a fleeting element of a fading dream.
So, Maggie went back to sleep.
She was so startled by her early morning discovery she almost fell down the stairs herself. Now she stood frozen in the doorframe, unsure what to do.
She nervously fumbled around the pockets of her bathrobe for her phone while staring down at the strangely twisted body of the man she had spent 30 (mostly good) years with.
The gravity of her loss rose from the soles of her feet, and she felt rubber-legged and lightheaded – she wretched suddenly and grabbed the railing to steady herself.
After a few deep breaths, she swiped the security code into her cell, opened the phone app, and stared absently at the number pad.
“Fuck” she whispered to herself.
Who to call?
If there had been any signs of life, this wouldn’t be a question. But the 911 emergency had passed — her husband was dead.
She dialed her son – but with no idea what she would say when he picked up, she panicked and hung up the phone on the third ring.
“FUUUUCK!” she screamed, her voice so loud she reflexively looked down at her husband to see if the sheer amplification had snapped him out of death. It hadn’t. However, her scream woke her dog, Molly, who she heard hopping off the bed upstairs.
Her phone rings.
It’s her son.
The confluence of Molly making her way down the stairs, her dead husband in the basement, and her son on the end of her ringing phone cause Maggie to burst out crying.
“Come on, Maggie, pull yourself together,” she says tersely before answering the phone.
“Mom, is everything OK?”
“No, it’s not.”
“I’m sorry I hung up on you!” now sobbing uncontrollably.
“Mom, what’s wrong!!??”
“Your father fell down the stairs. I think he’s dead.”
She knew he was dead.
She wasn’t sure why she said, “I think he’s dead” – maybe she was trying to protect her son from what she was feeling – alone and adrift.
Was a fifteen-minute drive with false hope better than one with the hard truth?
There was a prolonged silence, followed by “I’m on my way.”
She still hasn’t found the courage to go to him. She’s still at the top of the stairs, and he’s on the cold basement floor.
Dotingly, Molly sits at her feet, wagging her tail softly, looking up at her and seemingly wondering, “Why are we standing in the doorway?”
She pats Molly gently and says sadly, “Daddy’s gone.”
Her moment with Molly evaporates in the sudden crunch of car tires on a gravel driveway – a car door slams, followed by an urgent knock on the front door.
She glances again at her husband before heading to the living room with Molly in tow.
“He’s never going to leave her,” she whispers into the mirror before peeking from the bathroom to the bed, the rise and fall of tangled bedsheets, and the messy truth of her life.
Three years of skulking around hotels and motels in towns miles from where she and her dirty little secret lived their other life.
The sex was great. There was no denying that. But three years in, Maggie wonders, “Would it be so great without all the secrecy – without the element of danger”?
“Probably not,” she says to herself.
“Fuck it – I’m done.”
She packs her overnight bag, gets in her car, and drives.
She never spoke to her married lover, landlord, best friend, or roommate. She drove west for three days – before settling in Jacksboro, New Mexico.
A fresh start.
A few months later, she landed a job as a technical writer at zDeck, a fast-growing company specializing in patio design and architecture.
John graduated in 1987 with a Bachelor’s degree from New Mexico State.
He floundered in the sciences for a few years before settling on an English major – primarily because he enjoyed the classes. From American Short Stories to British Romanticism, he connected with the content – it prodded him to think and broadened his perspective on life and human nature.
Maybe all those stories and poems (and the characters that inhabited them) were a welcome distraction from his life.
“A degree in the humanities isn’t skills-based,” he recollects the words from his bemoaning father.
“It doesn’t give you the tools you need to make money!”
“You’re right, Dad, it doesn’t,” John remembers cavalierly responding to his father’s concern.
“But it’ll help me understand the human condition and navigate life’s absurdities- and I think that’s what I need right now.”
John rarely thought ahead. Not because he didn’t see the value, but because he never acquired that skill – he never observed his parent’s “planning” when he was growing up, the consequence of a disengaged alcoholic father and a mother struggling to keep herself and her family afloat.
In John’s childhood, there was no long view. Growing up was day-to-day.
After graduating, John fell into technical writing, “like a blind man into a quicksand pit,” he warned his son years later when counseling him on the importance of “having a plan.”
In the late 80s and early 90s, technical writing wasn’t specialized (or all that technical)– if you could write, you were a candidate – and John could write.
He was bright, creative, quick-witted, and had an innate way with words.
Everyone who came to know John liked him – almost immediately, it seemed.
Maggie remembers when she met John at zDeck in 1989.
It was John’s second day on the job. Maggie sat at the breakroom table, daydreaming over a cup of coffee and playing with a sugar packet, when he walked in – lunch bag in hand – a nervous smile on a handsome face.
“Hey,” she nodded at him.
He responded kindly with a “Good morning,” opened the refrigerator, and deposited his lunch.
“I’m Maggie, by the way.”
“Hi Maggie-by-the-way, I’m John.”
She smiled, bit her lower lip playfully, and thought, “Hmm, this could be fun.”
Maggie, casting the sugar packet aside, “So, how do you like zDeck so far?”
John, happy to engage:
“So far so good. I’m still learning the ropes. They have me in training this week and next.”
Maggie, smiling: “Ahh… Inkslinger training . . . I remember it well.”
John, somewhat surprised:
“You’re a writer? Tell me – and be honest – what am I in for?”
Maggie, without missing a beat:
“Humiliation, mostly.”
“Ha!” John responded with delight at both Maggie’s response and the natural rhythm of their conversation.
Maggie pushes up from her chair and starts towards the breakroom door. She feels his gaze on her back, looks over her shoulder, and says, “Good luck with training; I’ll see you around.”
“See you around, Maggie-by-the-Way.”
In 3 years, they were married.
Thirty years later, John still referred to his wife endearingly as Maggie-By-the-Way.
Maggie opens the door. Her son stands and stares for a second.
“Where is he?”
Maggie turns towards the open door leading to the basement.
Her son brushes past her and walks tentatively towards the lit doorway – slowing his pace considerably as he gets closer.
When he reaches the doorway, he leans in, bends, turns his shoulders slightly, and peers down the stairs.
Molly remains at Maggie’s feet, quizzically looking across the room at the son and then back up at Maggie, wondering what was happening.
“Did you call 911?” the son asks solemnly – never looking back towards his mother, eyes red and fixed on his dead father.
“No, I haven’t.”
The son takes the cell phone from his coat pocket and taps the screen.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“My father fell down the stairs – I think he’s dead.”
“Is he breathing?”
“No.
It looks like he broke his neck” – the son begins to cry.
“He’s dead. Can you please send someone.”
John feels the pervasive drop in temperature. It envelops him and pries him from his sleep.
The pilot light’s out again, he thinks to himself.
He sits up and looks over at Maggie – dead to the world. John muses to himself, “She could sleep through a hurricane (and an ice age, apparently),” and smiles in her direction.
He slowly swings his legs over the side of the bed, puts his feet on the cold hardwood floor, and stands.
Molly is tucked cozily in the crook of Maggie’s legs. Sleepy-eyed and content, she raises her head slightly, looks at him and wags her tail quietly.
“I got this girl; you go back to sleep,” John says to her as he heads downstairs.
The light above the stove dimly lights the kitchen. John opens the junk drawer and pushes aside pens and pencils, loose batteries, and an opened pack of note cards before finally finding the matches. He suddenly feels lightheaded and grabs onto the kitchen counter.
“Christ,” he says to himself.
He’s been having these spells for a few weeks now but puts off calling his doctor.
The dizziness passes; John stuffs the matches in his pajama pocket, walks to the door that leads to the basement, opens it, and takes a step.
John’s second dizzy spell inhabits his last vestige of conscious thought. It’s followed by the sensation of twisting and falling, momentary weightlessness, and a sharp crack of pain when the base of his neck meets the unforgiving edge of the fifth step on the basement stairs.
A bright burst of white light and a buzzing electric sound is followed immediately by complete blackness.
And just like that, John, sixty-two years old and newly retired, was gone.
The paramedics – a young man and a woman – arrive 5 minutes after the 911 call.
Maggie meets them at the front door.
“Hello, mam. Did you call 911?”
“My son called – but it’s my husband – he’s fallen – he’s at the bottom of the basement stairs.”
Maggie becomes lightheaded at the words, “he’s at the bottom of the basement stairs,” – and the paramedic reaches out to prevent her from falling.
Years later, Maggie would look back and wonder how eight words strung together could illicit such a strong physiological response.
“OK, mam, come sit with me.”
The woman paramedic slow-walks Maggie to the sofa while the other heads across the living room to the basement stairs, stopping suddenly at the doorway (like there’s an invisible forcefield) before proceeding to the basement.
About 30 seconds later, he’s on his phone – his words float up to the living room:
“Yeah, it’s Bill – we need the coroner at 77 Merton – yeah, looks like a fall – yes – male, about sixty, I think – Yes, his wife and son. Got it – OK – Thanks.”
Maggie and her son are still on the sofa when the paramedic comes up from the basement – they look at him, and he meets their eyes – he’s tight-lipped and pale. Maggie almost feels sorry for him – she wants to tell him, “It’s OK, you don’t need to say the words – we know he’s dead,” but she lets him speak.
“I’m sorry, mam, your husband is deceased. The coroner is being notified. He should be here shortly.” – this time, Maggie does not become lightheaded at the words – she feels her spine stiffen, and a sustained pulse of energy courses through her – emanating from the center of her chest to her limbs.
Maggie turns to her son, who suddenly seems wrecked and catatonic – like he’s been hit by the “everything-all-at-once” train. She slides towards her son, puts her arm around him, and pulls him close – he melts into her – he feels both heavy and empty on her chest.
The coroner arrives at 7:00 AM. By now, neighbors are waking to the flashing lights of the rescue squad and several official-looking vehicles parked haphazardly in front of 77 Merton Road.
Maggie gazes out her living room window towards her best friend Gail Green’s house.
Gail stands on her front porch, swaying while holding her coffee mug with both hands, worry draped on her face. Maggie wants to text her, but she’s unsure if that would be a breach of protocol.
After several minutes, Gail turns slowly and heads back into her house.
The coroner has been with John for nearly 20 minutes, and Maggie starts to feel anxious – then the male paramedic, who has been with the coroner, comes up the stairs.
“Mam, the coroner wants to know if you want a few minutes with your husband before we take him to County General.”
Maggie isn’t sure how to respond. She looks to her son for advice, and he nods approvingly.
“Can my son come with me?”
Maggie and her son walk down to the basement – John’s body is no longer on the floor. Instead, he’s tucked into a thick plastic body bag on a gurney, with only his chest and head exposed.
Maggie leans over and kisses John. His forehead feels like a cold stone on her lips. Maggie’s son stands behind her – head bowed – tears streaming down his cheeks.
Maggie turns to the coroner and asks if she can have the wedding band from her husband’s finger before they take him away.
“Of course. Can you give me a minute alone with your husband?”
Maggie and her son walk to the other side of the basement where John kept his workshop.
There’s an unfinished project – a repair to the rocking chair that John gave Maggie before the birth of their son – the entire workshop is infused with the comforting smell of wood shavings and varnish, which feels inherently nostalgic in John’s absence.
Maggie takes her index finger and traces the floral engraving on the rocking chair’s headpiece – the day’s events wash over her as she slips between a daydream and a trance engulfed in sepia-toned memories of her and John, young and vibrant, asleep in their bed, arguing across the kitchen table, crying while holding one another and laughing hysterically, at what she’s not sure. The memories play like a tattered and jittery home movie in her head.
With Maggie and her son distracted, the coroner reaches into the body bag and carefully extracts John’s arm, resting it respectfully across his chest. He proceeds to remove the wedding band. It takes some effort, as rigor has set in. With the ring off, the coroner gently twists John’s wrist so that his palm is facing upward – his arm still resting on his chest. He places the wedding band on John’s palm so that it looks like John is presenting it as an offering.
“Mam, you can come back now.”
Maggie and her son stand over John silently.
Maggie looks at the coroner with deep appreciation for his kindness – he nods and steps away from the gurney, disappearing ghostlike from the grieving wife and son.
Maggie gently takes the band from her husband’s hand, holds it close to her face, and reads the inscription.
Enjoying every day with Maggie-By-The-Way – 1992
She closes her hand tightly around the ring and smiles.
bendingtheneedle 