Grace

He punched on the television. There she was his girlfriend, Katie Couric. Blond now, svelte, no more of that cute little short brown hair. Too old to be cute now—what, 42 or 43? Sad thing about her husband. Hey, sad thing about me, too. I wonder what Gina will do when I die to get rid of her sorrow. She’ll be relieved, though. I mean, she’ll miss me, but what a load to get rid of. Of course, I’m not going to die today. I’m going to lie here and watch old Katie and Matt. And I’m not too hard to handle yet. I can still wash myself and go to the john. Most of the time. Except for when I have the setbacks or when I had that flu last year. We all thought the flu was more cancer—that cough—in the lungs. But apparently even terminally ill, correction: chronically ill people get normal, piddling little diseases too. Although I was pretty sick with that flu. Had to have the nurse for a few days. Gina doesn’t like doing that stuff. I don’t blame her. I’d rather pay someone than expect someone to take care of me out of some kind of love or loyalty. Love and loyalty end at the bedpan, you better believe it. He thought maybe his father might have said that. His father did not take long to die. He had discovered the cancer too late, way too late for those days, in the 70s. All they had then was surgery and cobalt. Not too many people lasted more than six-eight months. But his mother never got a nurse. She wasn’t the type. Real martyr, his mother. Women were in those days; expected to be. Now it’s all manicures and facials and luncheons, cuts and blow dries, golf and tennis, gardens and decorating. Different world. Jobs, too. Gina didn’t want to work, but half of them did, all liberated and employed. They looked good, too. He just thought: His grandmother wore black dresses and black cotton stockings at fifty. His mother wore house dresses and only changed in the later afternoon before Dad came home from the office. Gina wore designer clothes all the time. Even to bed. No gray hair, no funny little permanents. Smooth. Thin. That’s what women were now. Still desirable. No end to sexual desire. Still fuck when you’re eighty, they say. Well, he’d never see eighty. Moment. Moment. What’s Katie up to? He remembered that time she went on TV having a colonoscopy. He really couldn’t believe she took the thing that far—I mean, millions of people looking inside her colon. Was that really necessary? Maybe it wasn’t her colon, really. She seemed awfully relaxed for someone who had a hose up her ass. I remember a guy having one of those tests when I was in the same-day surgery ward and he was out cold for about an hour—and very groggy when he came to. How come he needed all that anesthetic and Katie didn’t need any? You know, the more you think about it. And there’s Matt, all cute and nice and happy now with his new little wife and do they have babies? I can’t remember. I never really focus on this show any more, just have it on in the mornings, company in the room, like here. But it bugs me about Matt getting married to that cute girl. I never really thought about Matt as anything but a guy for Katie to talk to until I realized that he is rich and famous and has the world enough by the balls to marry whomever he pleases and have this great life—while I. . . well, never mind. I just don’t like the guy all that much. So they’re talking about another school shooting out in California. Two dead. When do we wise up in this country and get rid of guns. In England they have no guns and no murders with guns. NRA. What the hell is the NRA that it can run this country and let people get killed? Guns don’t kill people. People kill people. My ass. People with guns kill people. So California has this really strict gun law prohibiting minors from owning a gun (wow, is that strict) so this dude just borrows his Dad’s gun: Fifteen years old, a killer of two. And he’s not crazy, can we get over that, just pissed. Beware of anger. Anger kills. Anger with a gun handy kills. God bless America. So what is old Matt saying? Penalize the father for not locking up his gun. O-K, now two people would be in jail and two are dead; even Steven. Where do we derive our theories of justice from in this country? Dr. Seuss? The code of Hammurabi? Isn’t that the one that says an eye for an eye? Isn’t that supposed to be primitive? Aren’t we supposed to be the civilization that developed a higher system of justice based on something other than simple revenge? Maybe we should just chuck it all and go back to revenge. Tell you what; if one of those dead kids in California were Tommy or Willie, I’d be the next proud owner of a brand new gun. What do I have to lose, anyway? Moment! So now it’s commercials. Enough. I need to sleep. Eight AM and one hour of America has already exhausted me. Tommy pushes the little button that lowers his bed. He scrunches the pillow under his head, adjusts the various wires from the little heart things pasted to his chest, pants like a dog to help relieve some of the pain from his lesions that come to him when he moves, and lowers his eye lids. He will just doze for a minute or two. He doesn’t like to spend too much time sleeping. After all, he can sleep all he wants when he’s dead.