CRY UNCLE

Chauncey lays in bed enduring yet another unwanted free-fall through the muddle of faded memories and vanquished hope. Sparse remnants of his radically brilliant father evaporate into the dark shadows of his dreams. He blinks at his dingy, yellowed ceiling, hoping to spot the first traces of random intervention arriving to rescue him from the day’s impending obligation.

He staggers from bed and glimpses a younger image of his father as he passes the vanity mirror, then continues unsteadily to the toilet and the day’s first piss. He aims into the water and senses his hunger for the simple diversions of life’s innate functions. As the last few drops fall he feels his despair and loathing return.

A forty-something version of his father stares back as he brushes his teeth. Chauncey automatically counts thirty strokes for each surface as he carefully maintains the proper angle of attack, just like dad had taught him in that other lifetime.

It’s funny, he thinks, how things become gospel, as if there’s only one correct way to brush teeth.

He spits into the sink, still weary from the night’s unrest.

Chauncey pulls on his pants, then sits numbly on the edge of his bed to slip on his socks and shoes. He contemplates the collective weight of each seventy-five minute drive to his father’s new residence, the ‘Gentle Estates Senior Care Center.' And for the umpteenth time he replays the lies he and his sister had shared, that “it’ll be best for dad,” that “one visit per week is doable,” that somehow “things will be okay.”

And he also remembers this…That last Sunday morning the head nurse had called to say, “Your father was found naked except for one white sock, fetal and sobbing beneath the word “Uncle” smudged on the wall with his own feces.”

Chauncey bends to tie his shoes, silently wishing he could cry “Uncle” too.