Resuscitate

Will's ex-partner B. lives under Roy's house. He has cleaned it up gradually. The upstairs bedroom that was entirely given over to becoming a litter box has been cleaned. The floors are cleaned even if the damage from Mick's spilling bladder is too deep to eradicate or disguise. B. lives in fear of warrants and treachery. He talks about moving away. He is sure that Will has called the police. Will visited after Roy's death and saw B. taking cover. The police are interested in a bathtub that B sold to a dealer. It was an antique claw-foot tub that B earned as a payment on work done for someone who stays high, delusional, paranoid and hyperactive. The owner of the tub, after giving to B., called the police. THe police searched the second-hand shops. They recovered the tub and returned it. The shop owner, who had dealt with B., gave the police his info.
This sort of thing used to happen with frequency when we all had shops on Capital Hill. It seems shocking now. He might have made 50 dollars from the tub. It seems the burden of the addict to carry cast-iron down the sidewalk across the street and a mile more for a few dollars and to run from the transaction for the next seven years.
Mick had been an alcoholic. It had been the destruction of him. He had once modelled for Jantzen. When I met him he was hunched, sagging, balding, blind and only semi-ambulatory. Their floor and all their furniture was marked by spilled drinks and burns from dropped cigarettes. You could see where they passed out the most times, Will said.
When it came time to make the final decision, when Mick's family and Roy were around the bed, with the hospital staff, and they discussed the "Do Not Resuscitate" order, Roy was given the power to remove the ventilator or keep it. "Mick?" Roy asked, "If you want me to keep the respirator on, sit up and tell me."
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I wrote what I called a valedictory for L.'s daughter. It was her 18th birthday. I worried that it might be inappropriate. L. seemed to like it. It went as follows:
Nothing would have suited me better at eighteen than to have left home at seventeen. It would have been a symbolic action if I had left home, by the most charitable reading. You see, by the time I had become seventeen years old, my parents had already packed a few sticks of their Early American furniture in a Mayflower van and left me with a woman of dubious morals, while they relocated to the flats of Oklahoma. Under those circumstances, it was harder to run away. I hid under the covers of the bed I had been given, but this woman in whose charge I was left had raised two head-strong children herself, and knew the difference between an empty bed and an occupied one. Indeed that might have been her forte.
I was destined to miss getting everything I needed to nurture my self-esteem by the shortest distance. I was given the editorship of the yearbook, not the newspaper. I was in second band, not first. I was the first runner-up for an exchange program. Everything seemed to have been given away to someone else before I got to it. My path to the future was littered with the shells of the nuts others had eaten. And yet I crunched forward.
Some are determined to make their mark early. Salvador Dali emptied the water supply in his sculpture classroom into the plaster supply, flooding the rooms, halls, and walkways with what became a cast that had to be chipped away. I think he was expelled. There are better examples. Of course you can't forget Mozart.
Others are poised to accompany the exact tenor and drift of their moment, and at any other time, or in any other place they would be passed by. Harry Truman is a good example of this sort of life.
Have you forgotten Mozart yet? Try.
Being young is a currency itself, and those who are richest have the least idea how to spend it wisely. Since you are an attractive young girl, you will find that everyone seems to want to lend you a hand- at least there are lots of hands apparent. At times it will seem like you are the last lifeboat off the Titanic.
A generous nature and a kind disposition must be earned, I believe. In my own experience, you have to be a total bastard for a while, before becoming a saintly figure. Look out for yourself, maybe just for a month. Give it a try. Be snotty to everyone who will not advance you. Snub those who have shown you compassion, and mock those whom you envy. Ignore the needy and shun the powerless.
You will find that you have a spine nearly straining to the breaking point against this manner. You will find that there is something inside of you- surely not the soul- nothing that mystical... something which expires, but which cannot be extinguished during your life... something your Mother and Father gave you. I won't name it. I can't. Goodness. Oh, I could.
Alright maybe do it for just a week. The needy and powerless can hold grudges a long time.