GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #976: A NEW HOME

 About a month or so ago I was tearing my hair out over a water leak in my house, and the City of Elmhurst was charging us out the ass on the bill. I finally figured it out and got a plumber to look at it. He replaced a pump and flapper in the upstairs toilet and advised that I would need to change my toilet handle out, which he could do for an extra two hundred. I didn't have the money, so he told me how to do it myself. I went to the hardware store, got what I needed and went to work.

I promptly cracked the porcelain of the tank, and a giant chip fell out of it. I thought, of course I fucked it up. This is fucking great. Now what? And then I saw that the crack, a hairline, went all the way to the bottom of the tank, and water leaked out from under there onto the floor.

I had some Flextape left over from another goddam crisis and put it over the long crack. It did not work as advertised and continued to drip. I realized then that I had to stop the tank from filling up again and put a bucket under the leak.

Except when I turned the knob to turn off the water to the toilet, it didn't work. So I now I had to get creative. I flushed the toilet, emptied the tank, and pulled back on the lever at the top of the pump, stopping any water from flowing in. Then I used a wrench to hold that lever up and braced it against the edge of the tank. The water stopped flowing.

As I worked to get the plumber back out, my brother arrived home and notified me of a letter taped to our door. He thought our time was finally up, and I had a suspicion he was right. We read it to discover that the house that we'd both grown up in was going to be sold at auction at the DuPage County courthouse on March 27. As of that date, anything in the house will now belong to the new owners, specifically the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, for the wondrous grand total of $231,772.15.

My grandparents got a reverse mortgage on the house to survive, but the deal was, when they died, the house would go to the bank. Gramps passed in 2017, Grandma in 2022. We managed to stay in that house since then. We could have bought the house back for ourselves, but that would require having that money mentioned in the previous paragraph. I am certain I will never see that much money in one place in my entire life, so that was out of the question. We were kind of hoping that the bank had forgotten about us, and that we could live there rent free indefinitely while we saved enough money to get out. Except my mystery illness returned and hit so hard that I lost my life savings to it.

So I found myself facing the prospect of homelessness, but the foremost thought in my head was, "Fuck the toilet. It's not my problem anymore."

A lot of stuff isn't my problem anymore. The shower was falling apart. So many tiles had fallen down that we had a plastic trash bag over where they used to go. Many tiles were duct taped in place. Speaking of the shower, the ceiling just under it was so water damaged that every time I stepped into the shower and heard a crack, I thought I was going to go through the floor. There are so many electrical issues in that house. Heat and AC kind of suck. Honestly, if the Secretary paid that much? They overpaid by at least five figures.

That's my solace. If the new owners planned to rent that place to someone else while they waited for the City of Elmhurst to clear out everyone else in the townhouses (so they can be torn down to build new McMansions), then they're shit out of luck, or SOL, as Gramps used to say. The only money they will ever make off that property is when they tear it down, build something new and hand it off to the next sucker who wants to live in Elmhurst at exorbitant prices.

My brother went his own way, but I spent the month desperately trying to find an apartment for myself. In that time I discovered that the only place I can really afford to live around here is Dekalb, and that's a hike for my morning commute, which is currently three minutes. I took a test drive out there to see some apartments, and I discovered that when it's not rush hour, it takes 45 minutes.

But the biggest thing I learned is that it doesn't matter how much money you have. If your credit score is in the toilet, then you won't find a place to live. Which is fucking stupid. Imagine me having a ton of money, and you not taking any of it in exchange for an apartment. I called in everything I've got pending and made use of any and all refinancing options available to me, so I was able to come up with a significant amount of money. But no one cares because my credit score sucks.

It was OK when I started this nightmare. Not great but barely good enough. Then all these landlords started running their checks, and guess what happened. Yeah, my score got worse and worse until it actually *is* bad now.

I didn't want to live in a room in someone's house. That's not a life. There was an option for a room in a house, but it was more like a boarding house instead of a regular house. But I didn't really want to go there because it reminded me too much of the room I stayed in when I was in detox. I'm still trying to find a place, but for the time being I'm living in a hotel. I'm not a fan of this. This does not feel like home. It feels like I'm on a vacation now, and I can't wait to get home. Except I don't have a home anymore.

So yeah, I've gone around the bend quite a bit since the last time we've had a chat. It's not fun being me. But at least I'm not a frantic mess moving all of my belongings to a hotel or Public Storage. I can relax at least a little bit for now. Because I royally fucked up my back doing that. I'm back to painkillers every morning and every night. To say nothing of my bad foot. I have two holes in it, and the wound care docs recently told me that you can see bone through one of them.

But my favorite thing to do in hotel rooms is to drink. Booze has been screaming in my face ever since I moved into the hotel. I long for it. I even lust for it. I'm pretty sure I'm going to drink if I don't find an actual place soon. I've already discovered that it's a hassle to put your pants back on, especially if you wear a brace on your leg, so you can go back out and smoke more weed. You know what's *not* a hassle? Filling a glass with ice and whiskey. That's pretty easy, and it's looking all the more appetizing every day.

But we'll discuss booze a little more some other night. Maybe tomorrow I'll describe my first night here. Although I have gone back to my house a few times. I was there earlier today to pick a few things up for my brother when I saw some stuff I almost left behind. It was weird being in there again, like walking into a tomb that had just been sealed with a new resident, and I wanted to stay so badly it hurt, but I knew I was technically trespassing, so I didn't stick around all that long.

Some of you might be aware of my attempt to save my mom's beloved piano. I lost that struggle. I had to leave it behind. But I did not leave my mom behind. So yes, I have a roommate of sorts. Mom's urn is on one of the shelves in this room.

I also found myself saying goodbye to my grandparents, as if they were ghosts. Gramps actually did die in my living room. My *old* living room. He'd left behind one half-smoked cigar, so I took it down from on top of the fridge and put it down on the floor where his hospital bed had been, where he'd died. Right where his heart would have been.

It irks me that they're going to tear down that building, forever taking away the place where Gramps died.

I think I've left that place for the final time, now. This hotel will never feel like home, but I'm going to make the best of it for the time being. I got some good news over the weekend about a possible place to live. Nothing's certain yet, but I hope it comes to pass. The one thing is, I can't live in this hotel for very long. One month is a breeze. Two would be difficult. Three might be impossible.

If you live in the Chicago area, and you have a good line on an inexpensive apartment where no one cares about a credit score, let me know.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #936: SOMETHING TO RESEARCH

 As I've been cleaning out my house, I've been making discoveries here and there. Finding artifacts from 100+ years ago, for instance. Discovering that Grandma, who I have never seen read anything other than a newspaper, not only had a subscription to Woman's Day in the 'Eighties, she also had a few books! And it seems that she had authors she liked! The things I found most were pictures of people I did not recognize. I was able to surmise who some of them were (and confirmed I was right 75% of the time via my aunt, the only person older than me on my mom's side), but a lot of them are a mystery to me. I put these pictures aside, planning one day to find out who they were. If they were my ancestors, it would be useful information to have. I know what my great-grandparents looked like, and there are a few pictures in there that might be of my great-great-grandparents. I've been scouring their faces, trying to find a trace of something that would eventually become one of my features.

But yesterday I unearthed a box that said it was full of unused Christmas cards. Sure enough, that's what comprised the top layer. But as I dug deeper I discovered the receiving end of a correspondence my grandmother had with someone named Bessie. I have a sneaking suspicion it's her sister. I found further evidence of another Bessie, who I believe to be my grandma's aunt. But that's just me glancing through these letters. There are other letters, and it's helpful when they are addressed to, say, Aunt Shirley and Uncle John. I can easily figure out who they are. But the ones from the prolific Bessie are addressed to Shirley and John. Never John and Shirley, so I have to think she's a blood relative of Grandma's, or a close friend. But if she's named after the other Bessie, that's probably an indication of relation. And then there's another letter from someone named Barb simply addressed to Shirl. I only ever heard Gramps call her that. He also called her Squirrley when he was feeling playful.

I love a good mystery, and this one is pretty tantalizing for me. I've been gathering pieces of the puzzle and putting them with the pictures. One day, when I actually have leisure time (hahahahaha), I'm going to go through the mountain of evidence and solve this mystery (or series of mysteries, more like).

I know my dad's side of the family pretty well. I can't tell you how many aunts and uncles I have on that side, much less how many legions of cousins I have. My mom's side is shrouded with mystery. I have never met anyone from Gramps's family or Grandma's family. Never. I know the two of them. I know my mom and my aunt. I know my three brothers on this side, and I know my two cousins and their families. Nothing beyond that. I just know what my grandparents told me, and I recall them talking about their siblings occasionally, and when I was a kid they even traveled to visit said siblings. Every once in a while one of them would die, and they'd go to a funeral, but I was never along for these trips. I wonder why.

I know a few things about Gramps's family, but I know virtually nothing about Grandma's. I know her mom is buried next to her, that she died shortly before I was born. I know her family history is a mishmash of a bunch of stuff, but she was mostly English and German. I know Grandma's maiden name was Cota, and that her mom's maiden name was Friend (this last part gleaned from her birth certificate, another of my interesting finds). And that's it.

You all know how much I love to research, but it's a rarity that I'm doing research on, well, myself. The Bruni family has tons of lore, but the Cota and Kopoulos families? I didn't find out until two years ago that Gramps's name was Americanized. The actual name is Kyreakopoulos. That changed when his parents and uncle came to America.

(Funny side note. On Gramps's birth certificate, it says his dad's name was Nicholas Kyriakopoulos. I thought that was the actual name until I came upon his uncle's work ID and saw, in his handwriting, Kyreakopoulos. I've decided, Watson, what with my superhuman and brilliant sense of deduction (powered, I assure you, by a seven-per-cent solution), that I should trust Gramps's Uncle George over whoever filled out the birth certificate at the hospital.)

It suddenly occurs to me that I probably have two vast families related to me, and I have no idea who any of them are. Then again, how much do I know about my Grandma Laurette's parents? Or my Grandpa Lon's? My stepmom is big into genealogy, or at least she used to be. It was a hobby of hers at least the last time I was in Vegas, but that was almost a decade ago. I'll bet she has some info. Come to think of it, she's my second stepmom. I wonder whatever happened to my first. I know why she and Dad got divorced, but I only knew her when I was a child. It's possible she's still alive. I'd be curious to track her down sometime.

It's something to research, and I'm always happy when I have something to research.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #739: 1 YEAR, 47 DAYS

 It's been one year and forty-seven days since my last drink.

Today I decided to visit Gramps and Grandma, so I stopped by Williams Liquors for his usual airplane bottle of Jim Beam. Williams was my go-to liquor store. My second favorite was Corner Cottage on the other side of town, which had the distinction of being on the way home from work. Also, it was open super late on weekends. But Williams was my favorite.

Whenever I get Gramps's airplane bottle I go to Williams mostly because Corner Cottage doesn't always have them. The last twenty times I went there, they didn't. So even though it's on the way to the cemetery and Williams is not, I go to Williams for it.

Every time I've done this since I quit drinking I have only seen new people working there, but today was different. I saw my usual guy there for a change. He went above and beyond to help me. For example, when I broke my foot and couldn't really get around all that well, he would bring my booze out to the car for me. It was usually a handle of Flesichmann's back then, so I'd give him a twenty. He'd already have my change with him when he came out.

He was very surprised to see me. I can only assume he thought I'd died. I wouldn't blame him, either. Things got pretty rough near the end. If I hadn't stopped when I did, I probably would have died. I might not still be around to write GF #739 as I am doing now.

We talked for a bit, and when I told him I'd quit the booze, he didn't seem too surprised. He knew how much I drank back then. He had to. I came in every other day for a handle of cheap whiskey. Well, almost. When I wasn't going there, I was stopping by Corner Cottage.

Which makes me wonder if maybe the guys there think I died, too. Maybe I should stop by some time. They might think they've seen a ghost.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #700: WALTER BISHOP IN CHINATOWN

 There's an episode of Fringe in which Walter Bishop gets lost in Chinatown. Remember, when we first met him, he was on a psych ward and had been for almost two decades. Now he's been out for a while, but people have to keep a close watch on him because, well, he's an old man with the sensibilities of a child. He yearns for more freedom, but he just can't have it. So in this episode he defiantly goes to Chinatown on his own, and sure enough, he gets lost. He's stranded without any hopes of contacting his son Peter or the rest of his Fringe Division team. He's a brilliant scientist who figured out how to go to a parallel universe, but when it comes to more mundane things? He doesn't have a good grip on things. He's practically helpless.

It reminded me of Gramps from a long time ago. Back then he worked at Dulles Cleaners in Elmhurst. The store he used to work at is no longer there. I think the flagship still is, but I'm too lazy to look it up now. Regardless, from my house to Dulles is a five minute drive, and that's allowing for a lot to go wrong. It's about a mile and would take me--in my prime--about 30-45 minutes to get there by foot.

Gramps needed a ride to work, and I told him I would give it to him when I got back from running errands. He expressed some concern that I would not be back in time, and I told him that would be no problem. I'm usually very punctual. When I'm hanging out with friends, I usually arrive to the minute I say I'm going to be there. When it's something else, like work or a signing or some kind of event, I'm almost always early (except for Printers Row, but that's a story for another day).

I ran my errands, but I did run a little later than I expected. I told Gramps I would be there at 4:50 pm, and he had to be at work by 5. I said this expecting to be done with everything by 4:30, but like I said, I ran a little late. I still made it back at 4:49. I honked the horn. Gramps didn't come out. The clock switched to 4:51, and I went inside to find out what's going on.

Gramps wasn't there. I searched around until I found Grandma in the basement with the laundry. She said that Gramps left a half an hour ago ON FOOT to go to work. That stubborn old man guessed I wouldn't be there on time. I asked her why she didn't stop him, but I needn't have.

Angry, I got back in my car and sped down the road, keeping an eye out. I found Gramps about three-quarters of the way, and he was looking rough. By that point in life he was already bowlegged, and he struggled to keep moving forward. It was more of a hobble than a walk. There was no way he would have made it.

I pulled over and unlocked the door, pushing it open and shouted to get his attention. When he saw it was me, he got in the car, and I drove him the rest of the way. I was so fucking angry with him that I let him have it with both barrels. Not a second went by without me yelling at him, not even when I pulled into the lot by the side of Dulles. I sat there for a little while longer, because I had another couple of minutes to rant at him. I forget how much time has passed, but he was probably in his early eighties at the time. How could he think that he could have walked all that distance when he had difficulty going up and down stairs? He could have been hurt. What if I didn't see him? What if he fell down and had to be brought to a hospital? What if . . . and so on. I can still feel the heat of my anger right now as I type this out.

And he sat there and took it without a single fucking word. Finally, when I ran out of steam and it was 4:58, he said, "I'm sorry, Dodge. I am. But I have to go into work now."

And so he went. I was his ride home that night, and I spent a lot of my time thinking about other angry things to say to him, but when I picked him up we didn't say anything.

And now here I am, a few weeks from turning 45, and I understand why he did it. No one ever wants to admit that their best days are behind them. Someone who used to walk miles and miles all the time doesn't want to get used to the fact that they can't do that anymore. No one wants to admit to themselves that age is getting the better of them. That they can't do the things they used to. That youth is gone and all that remains is the time you have left with your own ever-increasing decrepitude and how long that takes to wear you down to the pencil nub they'll put in the ground at the end of your life.

Because I feel that now, and I'm only half the age Gramps was when he went out for his walk. I, too, used to walk a lot. At least a mile a night. Just for the fun of it. I can't do that anymore because of my bad foot. My joints are going bad on me. Not too long ago I thought I had rheumatoid arthritis, but it turned out to be trigger finger instead. Still, it's pretty debilitating. I'm going under the knife for one of my hands soon, and I've been advised that it will be out of commission for a while so it can heal. My right hand. The one I write with. One of the hands I need to type with. I thought about just ignoring the doctor's warning, but then I thought of Gramps on his way to Dulles. Walter Bishop lost in Chinatown.

And I thought about the years ahead of me. What happens if my bad foot needs to be amputated? What if I lose the other one, too? What if my hands go so bad on me that I can't just charge forward, doing whatever I want to do anyway? Who is going to do these things for me?

I don't want to admit that one day, if I live long enough, I'm going to need someone to take care of me because this getting old thing doesn't show any signs of stopping. And I don't want to give up and sit in bed and wait for the end to come. I want to walk to fucking Dulles, for Christ's sake!

But I can't. The world has moved on and will always move on. I, too, have moved on.

O Discordia!

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #697: HAPPY 4TH

 Since I dropped two GFs heavy on politics last week, I promised myself that I would stay away from politics this week. Give you all a rest. So there won't be anything political about me wishing you a Happy Fourth.

I've said elsewhere that holidays don't mean much to me anymore. I thought perhaps it was just a matter of me getting old and not caring anymore, but I think I figured it out over the weekend.

When I was a kid, Gramps was all about the Fourth. Since actual fireworks are illegal in my state, and Elmhurst cops will arrest you for setting them off in the town limits, he'd get all those smoke bombs and snakes and shit, and we'd have a grand ol' time. As I got older, I realized that since fireworks were illegal here, then setting fires should be OK. I used to cut the heads off matches and then use the wood part as kindling with some liberal amounts of lighter fluid to create majestic fires as the denouement to our holiday celebrations.

(Although one year I did get my hands on a set of bottle rockets. I forgot how this happened. I was probably drunk at the time. But that was fun, and I didn't get caught.)

(One other aside. One Fourth, when I was a kid, my dad had me. Usually Mom had me for holidays, but this one time Dad picked me up. We went to his parents' place, where they used actual fireworks. It was unusual for me because I'd never seen anything like it before. I find it kind of funny that most people involved in that fireworks display are now law-n-order people.)

But I don't care about the Fourth anymore. Or any holiday except for Christmas, and I care less and less about that one every year, too. My epiphany over the weekend was this: Gramps was the driving force behind holiday celebrations. Grandma only cared about Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's, but every once in a while she watched Gramps set off the "safe" fireworks that IL endorses. But Gramps died in 2017. Possibly 2016 if I'm right about being from an alternate universe. Regardless, that's when I started noticing my lack of caring about holidays. Without Gramps around, it just wasn't the same. And I think maybe that's the real cause behind my holiday apathy.

I had today off from work, and I'm grateful for that, but in all honesty I couldn't care less about the Fourth of July. If you celebrate, I hope you enjoyed it. I just made hotdogs, got high and watched The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which felt pretty good. It's good enough for me.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #692: 347

Shortly after Gramps died I decided that my new Christmas or New Year ritual would be smoking a cigar and drinking scotch in commemoration of his ritual. On Christmas and/or New Year's Eve, he would sit in the front room, smoke a cigar and drink while looking at the Christmas tree. We haven't put up the tree in many years, and right now there's no place for it, but starting with the last cigar I bought for him, the one he never smoked, I started this ritual a few years back. I don't smoke, so it's a bit odd for me, but I felt it was important for Gramps.

Over the weekend I found the cigar I was supposed to smoke last Christmas, bought before I quit drinking. I had a lot on my mind back then, so it's not surprising that the ritual slipped through the cracks. Today is my 347th day without booze, so when I discovered the cigar I realized that was a ritual I'd never be able to do again. The cigar was on the brink of going stale. The wrapping probably helped it survive this long, but the cigar itself was almost hard as a rock. When I used the cutter on it, it almost fell apart. But I lit it up because if I didn't, then I was going to throw it out, and I hate wasting money.

While I smoked it I thought about how it's a shame that the ritual had to go. I'm not sure how many of you are alcoholics or know any, but the lizard part of the alcoholic's brain never goes away. I've talked to people sober for almost their entire lives, and they still think about drinking sometimes.

So *my* lizard brain said, why not? When Christmas comes around, maybe get a cigar. Get a pint of the Glenlivet. Nothing more than that. If it's just a pint, then you can't have anymore when you're finished with it, right? So things can't get crazy.

"And who knows?" I said to my lizard brain. "Maybe if it goes well, I'll do it all over again on New Year's Eve."

My lizard brain can't understand sarcasm, so it enthusiastically advised me that this would be a great idea.

And I thought about it for a moment. Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea, after all. I mean, it was a lack of moderation that got me into this mess, right? Maybe if I exercised moderation, then I wouldn't run into any problems. I thought about a woman in my IOP group from way back when, and she said she met her husband at AA, and he somehow drinks in moderation now. Just one glass of wine every once in a while.

So why couldn't it work for me?

And then I thought about my conduct when I was drinking all the time. Did running out of booze ever stop me from going out to get more? No. In fact, to avoid going out to get more, I always made sure I had plenty of booze in the first place. Just in case, I kept a couple of emergency pint bottles around, and I stashed airplane bottles in various nooks and crannies. I'm kind of surprised I never found any forgotten pints or airplane bottles during my time going through all my shit. I must have drank it all. Good for me. Because if I don't smoke, and I decided to smoke a cigar to avoid throwing it out, would I have poured out such a bottle?

So I guess I'm not doing that. Although don't get me wrong. I have a list of things that could make me drink again. So far I've been lucky. But who knows?  As a wise man once said, "The future's uncertain and the end is always near . . ."

PS: It never occurred to me until this weekend to smoke the cigar using Gramps's old ashtray, so I cleaned it up and used it for the first time since he stopped using it about a year before his death. It was oddly a good feeling.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #690: WHO ARE THEY?

 If you follow my social media, you've seen all the pictures I posted from my youth as well as a bunch from my parents' and grandparents' youths. But you can only go so far back before you see pictures of people they knew well but you have no idea who they are. Of my relatives, the farthest back I can go is my grandparents on both sides. Their parents were long dead before I showed up except for Grandma's mom, who died a couple of months before I was born. So here are a couple of pictures I found. I know Gramps, Grandma, Mom and my Aunt Sue, but the others? I had to wonder who they were.

I puzzled over it until I came to the realization that I am very stupid. Why am I stupid? Because there is one person these pictures who is still alive: my Aunt Sue. So I sent them to her to see if she could remember.

And she remembered very well. In the first picture we have my great-grandmother on the left. I kind of thought it might be Gramps's mom because I saw older pictures of her, and she looked like a woman version of Gramps near the end of his life. Gramps is next to her followed by my great-grand uncle Theo, who I'd heard about quite a bit when I was a kid. I just didn't know what he looked like. At the end is my great-grandfather, Gramps's dad. The little girl at the bottom is my Aunt Sue, and she even remembered about her favorite teddy bear.

Knowing that, you can figure out the next picture. To the right of my great-grandmother is Mom, and there's Aunt Sue in Grandma's lap.

Longtime readers know I'm a firm believer in the idea that history is never as far behind you as you think, but sometimes it is. Maybe a lot farther. I do these columns not just to entertain the rest of you (although I certainly try to do that), but mostly as a journal of my life so if I find myself getting forgetful in my old age, I can read these and remember. And it'll be good to know some of the generation before the generation I met and knew.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #662: ALTERNATE UNIVERSE

 Remember how, back when I lost my second toe, when I got out of the hospital I had this weird feeling that I'd accidentally been sent to an alternate universe? That feeling came back last week when it was my grandfather's death anniversary.

When I got out of the hospital I saw a lot of new stuff had been built since I'd gone into the hospital. Is it possible to put up an entire building in a couple of weeks? It might be. And where did all these gyms come from? They weren't there before, but here they were. And it made me think that everything was so similar to what I remembered, but it was just different enough, that I might be in the alternate universe next door.

I could have sworn Gramps died in 2016. I have a memory of sitting at his gravestone before Grandma died and looking at the 2016 engraving and thinking, holy shit, Gramps missed a lot of crazy shit. He was around for the beginning, but he had no idea how fucked up things would get.

So my aunt told me she was coming to visit for Grandma's death day, which is Friday, and we discussed Gramps being gone for six years. Six? No, it was seven. He'd been gone since 2016. No, she said, he died in 2017. I was so certain she was wrong that I prepared myself to take a picture of the grave and send it to her.

When I got there, the stone said 2017. How could that be?

Unless I'm in a universe I wasn't born in. Perhaps the one next door. That period of my life was pretty fucked up, after all. I was in the last months of being an alcoholic, and a heavily self-medicated one at that. I'd just lost my second toe. Grandma had just passed. Homelessness loomed in my near future. I also had some painkillers that I washed down with booze on a regular basis. Was it possible that this shit just piled up on top of me and phased me into an alternate universe?

It sounds stupid, but I feel that deep down inside I actually am in another universe right now. It would explain a lot. Then again, for a long time I thought I'd died in January 2020 while going through alcohol withdrawals, and that this world was just a living hell, and I was wrong about that. I mean, I was wrong, right? Right?

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #595: THE SMORGASBORD

 Tomorrow would have been Gramps's 96th birthday. It's hard to believe he's been gone almost seven years. I always used to think that if he died, I would completely lose it. I wouldn't be able to function. And while times have been pretty rough since his passing, and I've gone crazy a couple of times, I didn't completely lose it.

Since I don't do these things on weekends, I thought that this one should be about Gramps. I've told you all about him quite often, so I had to struggle to think of something. Maybe it's not all that glamorous, but here we go.

I remember when I was a kid Gramps had a very strict diet he adhered to. A veritable smorgasbord, if you will, of sandwiches. Every night he would make these towering sandwiches that would make Jughead drool. And he'd eat four or five of these giant things. I have no idea how he did it or even why, but he took great pleasure in his giant sandwiches.

And then after he finished eating he would pour one (1) shot of Jim Beam and take it down. "For digestion," he always told me.

I figured that's what adults did for dinner. Ate a bunch of absurdly big sandwiches and then have one shot of whiskey after. In imitation I would make a sandwich for myself (no more than that, I was still a skinny kid back then) and take one of his shotglasses so I could drink apple juice from it, thinking that when I grew up I'd switch from Mott's to Jim Beam.

I got the Jim Beam part right. A little too right, some might say. But I don't eat all that many sandwiches. Except for at lunch. And never more than one in a sitting.

It's too bad they never had sandwich eating competitions. Gramps would have been a stone cold killer at those.

Happy birthday, Gramps.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #594: A BOY SHOULD HAVE A KNIFE

 

Not too long ago I found my childhood knife, pictured above. I don't remember when Gramps gave it to me, but I'm pretty sure it was in first grade. Maybe third at the latest, but I think first. I remember he showed it to me, and I got excited because I was a child in the 'Eighties, and this is the kind of thing that did it for boys back then. That and Hot Wheels and boobs in horror movies and baseball. He told me that this had been his knife when he was a kid. He said, "A boy should have a knife." And so the boyhood knife was passed down.

I carried that thing with me everywhere. School, Cub Scout meetings, baseball games, you name it. I played in the woods a lot, and a knife could be pretty handy.

My cousin was there that day, and Gramps gave him one, too. It looked a lot different. I know it wasn't brand new, but it looked a lot more recent than the one he gave me. I think I got this one because I was the first grandson. My cousin was the second.

So my cousin's sister gave birth a while ago. I think that means her son is my second cousin. Not sure. I'm not big on categorization, in case you haven't noticed, so I don't really care to find out for sure. I think I have my cousin's knife somewhere, and it occurred to me that maybe my second cousin should have it if I find it. "A boy should have a knife," Gramps said to me.

But then I stopped and thought about all the mischief I got up to with that knife, and then I thought about how much time has passed since then. I'm talking decades. DECADES. The world has moved on. Some think that's a good thing, others a bad thing. I consider it a thing, nothing more. It's as inevitable as Thanos.

I thought about how different school probably is now. How if a boy carried a knife to school today, he would probably be arrested by noon and on the news by six. It wouldn't matter his intentions. Some things are forbidden now. That's probably a good thing.

So is it psychotic for a boy, who I think is in middle school now, to have a knife like the one pictured above?

(I almost typed junior high, but there is another thing that the sands of time has changed. And I'm not sure if he's in middle school. He probably is. But when I hit the age of 40 it started getting difficult for me to judge a young person's age. College kids look like they should be in middle school to me. High school kids look like they're ten to me. I don't know what it is. I wonder if that's the same way with others my age.)

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #560: 115

 The other day I could smell blood. That's a precursor of my seasonal nose bleeds. It happens every time we get a drastic change in weather. So I figured that since winter is coming, it might be time to visit my grandparents one last time before it starts to snow.

Today is my 115th day from booze, so yesterday was 114. Whenever I visit Gramps I take an airplane bottle of Jim Beam with me. I usually have one for myself, too, but times change. I went to the liquor store and bought one (1) of them. I asked for an airplane bottle. I was told that they're called shooters. The clerk wondered why I said airplane bottles, but after she thought about it, she figured it out.

I went out to the cemetery and visited with my grandparents. It was a nice day. Possibly the last nice day we'll have for a while. I sat cross-legged on the cold ground, and after maybe ten minutes I pulled out the Beam.

This time I remembered that I wanted to smell it before pouring it out on Gramps's side of the grave. I'd heard that recovering alcoholics can't stand the smell after a while, and I had my doubts because I always loved the smell of whiskey, bourbon in particular. So I took a whiff and nearly recoiled. Huh. So it *is* true.

I'm honestly surprised that I haven't had a drink since detox. I planned on drinking for my 44th birthday and then just . . . didn't. I also had plans to drink for Christmas, but the closer we get to the day, the more I realize I don't want to do it. Here's the kicker: I'm kind of scared to. Fear doesn't come easily to me, so it very much surprised me. I've felt pretty confident that I could just have one drink and be fine. Hell, maybe two, right? Three, tops.

But what if I decide, hey, I've come this far, why not four? I've always liked fives, so maybe I should bring it up another level. But I also like even numbers, so why not six? Did I have six already? Maybe I should take one more for good measure. Wow, I'm fucked up. Hell with it. I'm already this far gone. Might as well finish the bottle.

But it's good to know that I don't like the smell anymore. I can only imagine how horrible the taste would be now.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #529: TALK TO ME

 To be read to this song. Although it will be difficult because that song is fucking hilarious, and you probably won't be able to concentrate on what I've written.

A while back, and this was while I was still drinking between my second amputation and the death of my grandmother, I watched Steve Lemme and Kevin Heffernan's stand up special. If you don't know who they are, they are two of the Broken Lizard guys. You know, Super Troopers. The two guys who went on to Tacoma FD. I'm not surprised to discover that Heffernan is probably not acting very much in that movie, but Lemme has this bit about the shame of getting caught jerking off. I tried to find it on YouTube so you could see what I mean, but I laughed my ass off because I knew how true that is. I'm not going to repeat what he said because there is no way I could do it justice, but I'd like to talk about that feeling of shame.

For the most part I am shameless. Many of you already knew that, but I am very sincere when I say that it's hard for me to feel ashamed. These days it's because I live my life in a way that I try not to do anything that would make me feel that way. But also, I don't care who knows that I jerk off. Everyone masturbates except perhaps for people who are asexual. Although there was a period of my life that I went years without roughing up the suspect. I lost my virginity at an early age, and my first time out I got the clap. (I'd tell that story, but one of the two people involved in making that happen has passed, and he had kids since this event, so I don't want them to have that image of him. The other is very much alive and could possibly face criminal charges, so I'm keeping my mouth shut.) That put a damper on any and all sexual feelings I had at the time. But once I started having sex again, I returned to beating the one-eyed wonder weasel with gusto.

But before I lost my virginity was the Golden Era of Jerking Off for me. I'd do it four or five times a day at minimum. I should mention that this was when I was in junior high. The summer between then and high school was when I, in the Beavis and Butt-Head parlance, scored.

I've only ever gotten caught with Rosy Palm and her five sisters once. There were a few close calls, but as Lemme says in the standup routine, when you hear someone at the door you have time to do one thing and one thing only. I always made sure that I only had one action I needed to take.

Except that once. I was home from school sick, and I was in the basement watching TV. Even as ill as I felt, I still got a hard on because, well, I was thirteen. When you're a thirteen year old boy, it's easier to count the times you *don't* have a hard on. So under the blanket I started to pound my meat. I didn't hear Gramps coming down the stairs until I saw him from the corner of my eye. I hoped that he hadn't noticed, so I crossed my legs under the blanket and pretended to be watching TV with great interest.

"I saw what you were doing," Gramps said. "That's a very bad thing. Don't ever do that again."

Way to shame me, Gramps. But I felt it. I felt that shame Lemme mentioned like a rotten fruit in the deepest pit of my guts. I didn't like it. No sir. Not one bit. Which is probably why I have since gone to great lengths to never feel it again.

But as a great man once said, I'm too old to go jumping into lockers. So fuck it. You catch me, you catch me. I'm sure I'll feel that shame again, but who knows? Maybe by now I won't feel it quite so bad.

This is part of that standup special I was talking about. If memory serves, he started talking about jerking off after this bit.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #428: AL CALAVICCI

 

Dean Stockwell recently died. I thoroughly enjoyed just about every role I saw him in. It's hard to believe now, but back when he was in stuff like Night Gallery, he was considered a sex symbol and was touted to be the new James Dean. Weird, right? But that's how it went.

Of course my favorite character of his was Al Calavicci, Sam's best friend and holographic partner on Quantum Leap. The things that I always dug were the ridiculous outfits he would wear in the long distant time of the 'Nineties. Goddam, look at that picture above. Al would wear any crazy shit he could think of, and sometimes his outfits blinked. The most normal thing he ever wore was his Navy uniform.

And it reminded me and my brothers of Gramps. Whenever there was an important event--like a graduation, funeral, etc.--he would dress up in this ridiculous suit that hurt the eyes. He was either fucking with us or he really loved that fucking outfit. He was a vain main when it came to clothes, so I think it was the latter. It was so crazy we called it his Al Calavicci suit. Al would have worn something like that.

I didn't have much to do with the final arrangements for Gramps, but I had a sneaking suspicion that turned out to be true for his own funeral. I went up to the coffin and saw that, yes, he was wearing that suit even in death. It made me smile.

Then I sat with my family while we waited for my brothers in Crystal Lake to show up. When they did, they both laughed and pointed. One of them said, "He's wearing the Calavicci suit!"

I wish I had a picture of him in that get up. You wouldn't believe the lunacy of it. But when we get down to it, the littlest things sometimes bring us the greatest joys. Yeah, I know, I'm not the first to say that, and I won't be the last, but conversely the littlest things can anger us the most. It's a testament to their power.

Enjoy the little things. They'll help you get through life.

Bonus Al!

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #416: THE FIRST TIME I EVER DROVE

This is probably how Gramps saw me at the time

 

I remember the first time I got behind the wheel of a car and drove. I terrified everyone involved. I was about five years old.

Gramps had a boat of a Chevy in those days. I watched The Dukes of Hazzard religiously as a child, so it should come as no surprise that I didn't open the door of the car to get in. No, I jumped through the window feet first like them Duke boys. It irritated the shit out of Mom and Grandma, but Gramps thought it was fine. I remember long night drives while laying on the shelf just below the back glass of this car. The car had seatbelts, but we never wore them. Sometimes I marvel at how I survived my childhood.

Anyway, the day in question, Gramps was supposed to take me to preschool to drop me off. He'd already started the car, but he forgot something inside, so he went back in the house. At the time, I used to pretend to drive every chance I got. Usually the car wasn't on, so I didn't expect anything to happen when I grabbed the shifter and put the car into reverse.

The car slowly moved backwards down the driveway toward the street. For a second I panicked, but then I realized I was driving, and that was pretty cool. My feet couldn't reach the pedal, thankfully, so the car continued to crawl backwards. I steered the car pretty well, if I don't say so myself, looking back just like Gramps always did when in reverse. Well, I had to boost myself up a bit. Gramps always put his arm over the top of the bench seat when doing this. I grabbed the top and pulled myself up so I could see.

I reached the street, where I was supposed to turn the wheel, but I realized that I was supposed to hit the brake while doing this. Like I said, my foot couldn't reach, and that's when true panic set in. I realized I had no idea what the fuck I was doing, and I was powerless to stop the vehicle as it backed up into the neighbor's driveway across the street from home. Very slowly the back of the car approached their garage door, and I figured that I was just going to crash into it. I braced for impact.

Gramps suddenly appeared next to the car, and he reached into the window and threw the car into park. I was going slow enough that it didn't throw out the transmission or anything, but he looked scared as all shit. He caught his breath, and then fear turned to anger, and he yelled at me for a while. As he should have, I think.

Guess who stopped playing driving games after that. This guy, right here. *hooks thumbs back*

Gramps had to run pretty quickly to catch up with me. I wish I'd seen it because he was never much of a runner. I don't think I've ever seen him run in his entire life. I'm sure it would have been a scene to behold.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #298: A MOST BEAUTIFUL MOMENT.

 To be read to this song.

Every year, on the anniversary of his death, my family gets together to visit my grandfather's grave. Due to the plague this year, we didn't get to go. I try to visit him as often as I can. I promised myself that if I was ever in the neighborhood, for whatever reason, I would stop and visit. I usually bring two airplane bottles of Jim Beam. That was his favorite drink. At the conclusion of each visit I would pour one into the ground on his side of the grave while drinking the other for myself. (On the left side is my grandmother's mom, and Gramps is on the far right side. Between them is my grandmother. She has recently changed her mind and wants to be cremated instead, like her daughter, my mom.)

When I got off the psych ward I wanted to see him again. But my liquor store didn't have Jim Beam. I got Old Forrester, which I like, but it still felt like a betrayal. I went to see him regardless. I told him about the psych ward. I also told him that he picked the right time to check out. He would not have liked this world now one bit. Sadly, he would have voted for Trump, and I think he would have refused to wear a mask during this plague. But I loved him more than I have loved anyone else in the world. Everything good in me is because of him. I sat there next to him. Or maybe above him. I apologized for the Old Forrester and imagined he forgave me. I poured his shot and drank mine. I told him goodbye until next time and threw the empty airplane bottles into the garbage next to the hill that forbade people from sledding on it in the winter. I started my way out of the cemetery when I saw something that made me stop.

I saw a man on a camping chair next to a grave. He looked maybe ten years older than me. He had a guitar in his lap, and he belted out the most sorrowful song I have ever heard. I stopped my car and lowered the window for the full effect. Normally I would leave the grieving to themselves, but I couldn't help myself. I looked at the grave and saw it was a woman who died in 2020. Two days ago. Born in 1969. The guitar sounded great, but it was the mournful sound of his voice that nailed me to my drivers seat like a butterfly on a display board. I don't know if you know Terry Reid, but his song sounded a lot like this. I don't cry often. It was beaten out of me at an early age. But I couldn't help but weep my eyes out as I listened to this man's ode to his dead lover. Tears streamed down my cheeks, but I tried to be quiet so as not to disturb him and his grief. His song built higher and higher until his own voice cracked. He couldn't continue as he screamed her name and wept into his hands. He gave out honking tears into his palms until he realized he was being watched. He turned back to look at me. Our eyes locked, and we saw how much we were each crying. He nodded, still shaking with grief, and I nodded back, my own grief wetting my face. He turned back to his love and fell to his knees, touching the grass just outside the dirt outline from where she had been buried. I thought I should drive away then, and I couldn't stop crying until I got home.

I hate humanity. I have several friends who have apocalypse theories, and I hope at least one of them is right. We don't deserve this wonderful planet we somehow live on. None of them like it when I say that we need to fast track this shit.

But I'm not a monster. Not at heart. I find these moments in life and revel in them, no matter how hard it might be for me. There is great beauty in this world if you're looking. Fuck. You're going to think I'm a good person if I continue along these lines, but take my word for this. Sorrow brings out the best in us. Sorrow kills the worst in us. Sorrow reminds us that love is real and can move us to great moments.

If you love someone, and in this world I don't take that for granted, tell them so. I told my grandfather often. My mom, too. I wish I'd told my dad, but he was very emotionally shut off, which I suppose I inherited from him despite not knowing him for many years. And I never imagined he would die so young.

Love is the answer. I weep as I write this. Don't worry. I'm not getting soft on you. My regularly scheduled misanthropy will continue shortly. But I mean it. Find someone you love and let them know you love them.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #270: GRAMPS

For all my life, I thought that Gramps dying would be the worst thing to happen to me. When he actually started dying, I went kind of crazy. Some of you were there for that, and I'm ever grateful for the help you offered.


I'm still not over it. There are days when I don't think about him, but they aren't often. I dream about him a lot, like he's still alive. Sometimes I even wake up thinking I'll see him when I go downstairs. But I'm much better now. The worst I could imagine is done, and I think I'm stronger for it.


Sometimes I go out to visit his grave. I bring an airplane bottle of Jim Beam for both of us. I remember when I was a kid that he had a couple of shots after each dinner to aid with digestion. The first hard alcohol I ever drank was Jim Beam because I trusted his judgment, and I was right to do so.


I'd sit at the grave and visit with him. I'd pop the tops off of each bottle, and I would pour his onto his side of the grave while I drank my own.


Those who know me very well know that I hold alcohol to be sacred. This should tell you how much I valued Gramps in my life. I poured perfectly good whiskey onto the ground in honor of him.


God, I miss him. I miss him so much.

HEY FUCKERS #21: HOW TO MAKE A MANHATTAN

To commemorate the return of MAD MEN (and the return of me drinking Manhattans), I thought I'd post my grandfather's recipe, which I posted a while ago in GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS and before that, on my MySpace blog.

Gramps taught me how to make a real Manhattan. Mixologists get it wrong all the time. If there's ice in your Manhattan, the guy who made it fucked up. A long time ago, I posted Gramps's recipe on MySpace, but since that's no more, I'll post it here for posterity: Take two shots of whiskey (it can be rye, but it's better if it's regular whiskey) and one shot of sweet vermouth. Stir it together over ice. DO NOT SHAKE. Then, pour it into a martini glass, but make sure none of the ice gets in there. Put a cherry into the glass (I skip that part, because I'm an asshole and I hate fruits and veggies), and you're done. Gramps told me that he knew a guy back in the 'Fifties who would drink about 10 of these things and then drive home to his family. Do that math: three shots (two of which are whiskey) times ten. I asked my grandfather if this guy died young, and he didn't. His heart gave out about twenty years ago, which placed the guy in his seventies.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #107: MOUNTAINS OF DOGSHIT

[Or perhaps I should say GOOD MORNING, FUCKERS. I was going to post this last night, but I had a technical issue with my computer, which I will probably talk/complain about for tonight's GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS. I didn't change anything from the post, so it's still composed of thoughts from the top of my head before going to bed. I only added this preface to let you know that I DO have a reason for not posting last night, and it wasn't because I was drunk in a ditch or anything like that. Without further ado . . .]


I was, for the most part, raised by my mother's parents. My mother's side of the family were always dog people, except I showed up at the end of that era. I remember as a child having a cocker spaniel named Brandy around my grandparents' home. I loved that dog, but I was pretty young when she got sick and had to be put to sleep. I don't think I was even five at the time. By that point, I think my grandparents' hearts had been broken by a long line of sick dogs needing to be put to sleep, so they vowed to never get another pet again.


When I was a kid and was told that Brandy had been put down, I cried. I hated my grandparents because I was a kid and didn't understand the world yet.


I'm not a pet person, and I don't think I ever will be. I like cats and dogs and fish, but I don't want to be responsible for another creature's life. If I could have the kind of relationship John Wayne had with the dog in HONDO, that would be fine. I don't like the idea of buying my friends. It makes me feel cheap and needy. I don't have anything against people who do have pets, it's just not my thing. I think the idea was cemented into my head by the death of Brandy, and that's fine. I can barely take care of myself, anyway.


But I remember from my youth that Gramps would always take Brandy out into the backyard for her shits. Back then, we had a huge backyard that bordered along the interstate. I remember I would sit back there with my cousin and watch the trucks blaze by. Then, they put up a wall, which I hated back then because it took away my truck-watching fun. Now? I understand that they built it because the people who lived on that block actually wanted to sleep at night.


But my grandfather would take the dog out into the backyard, and Brandy would shit. Gramps would then bring the dog in, and he'd take a shovel--which still hangs in his garage to this day--and he'd scoop up the shit and fling it over the fence at the rear of the backyard.


Whenever my cousin and I played ball back there, and the ball went over the fence, I never wanted to get it because I imagined mountains and mountains of dogshit from Brandy just waiting to be stepped in. Obviously, only a kid would think that. But still, even now I think about those towering piles of shit, and I wonder if maybe we could have grown for-real crops, like farmers.


Drifters would sometimes walk back there. Hitchhikers and people who were looking for help. (Before the wall went up, that is.)  I wonder how many of them cursed out Brandy and the other dogs in the neighborhood. Gramps wasn't alone. All of our neighbors threw our dogshit back there.


That's probably illegal now, like leaf-burning, which I also enjoyed to do as a kid. I don't exactly miss the old days, but it's still kind of weird thinking about the things that were normal back then. Maybe I'll write more about that in a future GF. Until then, goodnight fuckers.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #100: MY GRANDFATHER, A MAD MAN

Tonight was spent in an unexpected fashion: I was in the hospital with my grandfather, who had slipped and fallen outside. He scraped his noggin pretty badly, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been. It's OK, he didn't even need stitches. The VA took a CT scan and saw there was nothing wrong. They just put a bandage on and told him to put ice on it for 20-minute intervals.


Still, it's kind of fucked up that this happened today when I told you all I was going to talk about him in tonight's GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS.


First, I should give a great deal of thanks to him. All of the times you've heard about me being in the hospital, dying from pancreatitis or suffering from a mystery illness or trying to live with an abscess or fighting through dental problems, he drove me to the ER. For a change, I got to drive him. I rolled him around in a wheelchair. I stayed by his side while the hospital ran a variety of tests on him. And then, as I left with Gramps in the wheelchair, bringing him out to my car, I brought the wheelchair back to the lobby. On my way, I saw the guy who collected wheelchairs from the parking lot. He was in his own wheelchair, and he thanked me profusely to the point where I started wondering if I was the first person to ever bring a wheelchair back to the lobby to save the poor guy from having to go out and bring it back. It's not like this is a shopping cart you can just leave in the parking lot. It's a frigging wheelchair. I couldn't imagine someone NOT bringing one back to the lobby.


But that's not what I'm here to talk about. I want to discuss my grandfather's youth as a mad man. No, he wasn't in advertising. However, he led the kind of MAD MEN lifestyle you see in Jon Hamm & Co. He went to martini lunches and smoked in the office and all the other things you see on that particular show.


Truth is, he was in men's clothing. He worked in sales at Bonds until it went under. Then, he worked locally at Leonard's until that was sold. All told, he worked in the business for more years than I've been alive, even now. But back in the day? That was something different.


Gramps taught me how to make a real Manhattan. Mixologists get it wrong all the time. If there's ice in your Manhattan, the guy who made it fucked up. A long time ago, I posted Gramps's recipe on MySpace, but since that's no more, I'll post it here for posterity: Take two shots of whiskey (it can be rye, but it's better if it's regular whiskey) and one shot of sweet vermouth. Stir it together over ice. DO NOT SHAKE. Then, pour it into a martini glass, but make sure none of the ice gets in there. Put a cherry into the glass (I skip that part, because I'm an asshole and I hate fruits and veggies), and you're done. Gramps told me that he knew a guy back in the 'Fifties who would drink about 10 of these things and then drive home to his family. Do that math: three shots (two of which are whiskey) times ten. I asked my grandfather if this guy died young, and he didn't. His heart gave out about twenty years ago, which placed the guy in his seventies.


My grandfather told me about the time he was driving home with the woman who would become my grandmother, and they hit a guy in a shady part of town. They looked in the rear view mirror, and they saw a guy back there in the street, but they were certain the guy was pretending, so they drove on. This, of course, shocked me when I heard about it. However, he told me that people who didn't have so much money back then had a habit of jumping in front of cars just to get a payday when they get hit.


And then there were the stag parties. Gramps would get all of his work buddies together, and while their wives played bridge in the living room or parlor, the guys would watch stag films while smoking cigars and drinking scotch.


Surprisingly, these are all things I learned as an adult. You'd think that knowing these things as a child would have informed my career as a writer of fiction. Not so. The world has always been fucked up, it's just that most people don't think about it.


I grew up in a house that was next to a whorehouse. Of course, I never knew that when I was a kid. However, my mom and aunt went to school with the daughter of the woman who whored herself out next door. Johns would drive through the neighborhood, looking for the house, and they would sometimes see my grandmother, who was only forty back then, and think she was the woman they were looking for.


They eventually arrested that poor woman. The family that moved in after her bore a daughter of their own, who would eventually become the first girl I ever played doctor with.


There are certain things you don't expect of suburbia . . .


You never think your neighbor is selling her body to stay afloat.


You never think of your coworkers as guys who would gather together to watch porn while their wives played cards downstairs, and that something like that would be a socially acceptable practice.


You never think of your grandfather as a guy who drank and partied and fucked and generally had a good time.


You never see Gramps as Don Draper, but let's face it. He probably was. I know, in my case, that my grandfather lived up to those kinds of things.


It's not always a good thing. He's sexist, even though he doesn't mean harm. My grandmother once told me that he said, on their first night together back from the honeymoon, that he swore to never do the dishes because that was women's work. He's racist and refers to the mail woman as a Negress, but he means no harm to her. He would actually step in and do his best to stop harm from coming to a woman or a person whose race was different from his own. He's not a hateful guy. He knows that the world has moved on, and he's trying to be better about it. He's not there yet, and he might never be. But he's trying,


I don't know about his feelings on gays. I've never asked him or seen anything from him on the subject. My guess is that he doesn't like them, but he would not want them to be hurt because of their sexual inclinations. If he saw someone being hurt for such a thing, I'm certain he would step in and do his best to help them out of the situation.


My grandfather is not perfect, but he raised me with as much love as anyone could ever bestow upon another person. For all of his flaws, I love him more than I've ever loved another man.


Tonight, I washed blood out of his hair. I treated the wound as best as I could, and I bandaged it with what I had at hand. I looked up the symptoms of a concussion, and I asked him about his experience. Thankfully, he was in the Army, and treatment for him at the VA was free. I drove him there, and the VA checked him out, tested him and made sure he was OK for release. Thankfully, I was right about my diagnosis: there was no concussion, and he didn't need stitches. They let him go after three hours.


In three years, he will be 90. He's got a lot of my medical issues: the 'Beetus, high cholesterol and hypertension. He's had all of these without losing limbs, losing sight, having a heart attack or having a stroke. He gives me hope.


I'm an atheist, so I don't do prayer. He's Greek orthodox, even though he hasn't practiced since he was a boy living in a household that demanded he reject English for Greek in ordinary conversation. As far as I know, he only prayed once as an adult, and that was when he had skin cancer. It was cut off of him, and it was benign, so he was fine afterward.


If you pray, I'm sure he'd be grateful for anything you would say to any Lord that might exist. I even hedged my bets a little. I don't believe in God--or any god at all--but I offered my prayer to whoever might be listening, not because I think anyone's listening, but just in case. I would never ask anything for myself, but for Gramps? I'd ask the world.


Thank you, John Kopoulos, for everything you've done for me. I hope for . . . well. I just HOPE.


Thanks for reading this GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS. It's the most important one I've ever written, and I love you all for making it this far. Hugs and kisses for you all. Goodnight.