More of the You that You Already Are
The Situation: The narrator works in a theme park called (self thinks) PresidentLand, and his job is to pretend to be Chester A. Arthur, which as we all know is not as fun as pretending to be FDR or even Jimmy Carter. Anyhoo, the narrator’s sister is also dying of cancer. And he needs to work because that is how he pays for her medical insurance. One day, his mother calls:
Your sister is going into surgery and she is very scared.
And I’m like, You want to get a job? Cause if not, who is going to pay for this surgery?
And she’s like, You know I can’t work on account of my shaky hands.
And I go, I know, Mom. Could you put Ramona on, please?
I wander into the midway and linger by the McKinley Shooting Gallery.
Ramona takes the phone and goes, I wish you were here. Mom is being so crazy.
And I go, I wish I was there too. How are you doing? Mom says you’re scared?
And right there is when self’s heart breaks into a million little pieces.
Self’s Dear Departed Dad said, before he died, I’m scared.
And self’s Dear Departed sister looked at self with such fear, and then she died (She was 34, she got streptococcal pneumonia)
And then self’s DEAREST Sister-in-Law Ying, who was more like self’s sister, got leukemia Stage IV and told self, I’m scared. And then SHE died.
SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT
The narrator manages to sneak out of the theme park (first stashing the head of his President, Chester A. Arthur, behind some bushes) and rushes to the hospital and he’s really upset and asks a doctor if his sister’s dead. The doctor says, “No, not dead, no! She’s just comatose.”
Self really feels for this story because when she was a lowly adjunct professor in Foothill Community College, her Dear Departed Sister-in-Law, Ying, was dying in Tel Aviv. And out of a feeling of terrible desperation, self took one week off and gave her class make-up assignments and flew to Tel Aviv. And when she returned to her class, the Dean was extremely extremely irate. And self never did recover her footing after that. Because Ying died. She died a few days after self had returned to teaching. So that was a really bad time. The worst. Also because the Dean cut her no slack. That was so long ago now that self hardly feels any anger at the Dean when she writes this.
Stay tuned.
