Warrior Pose (36 page)

It's an honor to see so many friends here. I want to walk around and thank every one of them, but when I try to stand up, I realize I'm stoned to the gills. I've had medications in my system for so many years that I wake up high. As I take my usual doses every few hours, I get higher throughout the day. With three or four stout beers during the party, I'm totally gone. In another universe.

The morphine has the strongest effect, especially with the alcohol. I still feel the pain in my back and throat, but there's a sense of physical pleasure in all the places where I'm not hurting. It makes me understand how the villagers we filmed smoking opium in northern Thailand must have felt, and why they laid around all day with
glazed eyes, doing nothing with their lives and having no concern for what the future might hold.

The party has ended and I'm in bed. Alone. Pamela often sleeps in her office guest bed these days, wisely avoiding me when I'm too stoned. Reviewing the party in my mind, I have more visions of the vibrant man I once was juxtaposed with the pitiful person I've become. They never seem to stop. I'm obese, bloated, swollen all over, and ghostly white with dark black circles under my eyes. I can't sit up for a meal or walk without a cane. I have stage IV cancer. My throat is bleeding and I can barely speak. The obvious suddenly dawns on me. My friends came to celebrate my fiftieth birthday, but it wasn't the main reason they were here. They were here to say good-bye.

It's Friday evening, December 4, and only three short blocks to our favorite spot to watch Coronado's annual Christmas Parade. This time it's even more special because it's the final parade of the twentieth century. Even though it's a short distance, getting to our favorite spot takes almost everything I have. The last four months since my birthday have been a deeper descent into darkness and pain. My medications have deranged my mind. Add the endless stout beers and I'm fuzzy all the time. Sometimes I wake up and see seven or eight bottles in my bedside trash can. I swear I only remember drinking two or three. The only clarity I have is when I'm with Morgan. He remains the one thing in my life that makes it worth living.

Thousands of people are lining our main street for this kickoff to the holidays. Despite how early it is, I pop the cap off a bottle of stout to celebrate with them. Not because I want the alcohol, of course. It's just to soothe my throat. The High School marching band is playing Christmas tunes. Colorful homemade floats roll by.
Kids in karate uniforms kick at the sky. Cheerleaders shake their pom-poms. The Pop Warner baseball team struts along with bats on their shoulders. Little ones dressed like elves and angels wander back and forth as their parents guide them in the proper direction. Even our city garbage trucks are in the act, rolling down the parade route, their huge Dumpsters strewn with colored lights.

Morgan has climbed out of his stroller and is curled up on my lap. He'll be two years old in a few days and is talking up a storm, giving me the full narrative on all the action. He goes crazy at the end of the parade when our city's largest fire truck rolls past with sirens wailing and Santa Claus on the top chanting
“
Ho, Ho, Ho!” He wraps his arms around my neck, hugs me closely, and says, “Next year, Da-eee, let's march in the parade together. Okay?”

I might as well promise to hike a mountain, but I hug him back and whisper, “Okay, sweetheart, we'll do it.”

I read him the story of Pinocchio just this morning and now, as I make this promise, it feels like my nose is growing. It's more than the discomfort of telling a white lie to a small child. I feel like I'm betraying him.

Morgan's second birthday is on December 13. We throw him a party with all his little friends. Soon thereafter, we celebrate the first Christmas he's been old enough to understand what's going on. The living room is filled with gifts and, like all children, it makes him ecstatic. As I watch him tear open his presents with glee, tossing the ribbons and wrapping into the air with complete abandon, I'm filled with joy and grief. The sense that I'm slipping away from him is more palpable every day as I realize I have no control over my destiny.

With the new year coming soon, and with it, the dawning of 2000, my resolution is to spend what little energy I have each day with Morgan, but as we've grown ever closer, I've become more distant from the rest of the world. I can feel myself worsening daily. I'm always in pain, deeply depressed, combative and unkind to everyone
but my boy. I'm tired of being the miserable, drugged, and often drunken person I've become and don't think I can take a slow death with Morgan watching me waste away. So I've begun having serious thoughts of how to end it all.

I've stashed a large box of my heaviest drugs in the closet, thinking that when the time arrives I can make my exit on my own terms. It's a dark vision, and a coward's exit. I imagine leaving a letter for Pamela and flying off to some lavish hotel suite in San Francisco or Las Vegas, even if I need to be pushed everywhere in a wheelchair. I'll check in, order the finest meal on the menu, request a bottle or two of the most expensive wines from their cellar, no matter how much the acidic taste burns my throat. I'll have my “last supper” and then slip into a hot Jacuzzi bath, drink down all the medications I can, and drift off to sleep forever.

Suddenly, Morgan can say
daddy
instead of
da-eee
, and he's growing more aware that his daddy is different. Always on the couch, the recliner, the portable lounge chair. Other daddies don't need canes, body braces, or voice boxes. They can always talk. Sing little lullabies. Get on the swings at the park. Carry their children on their shoulders. Toss them in the air. Kick a soccer ball back and forth. Take walks on the beach.

The doorbell rings. A playmate is here with his father for a day in the park. Morgan scurries to answer the door, then scrambles back down the hallway to find me flat on my back on the couch. He desperately wants me to come with him, to be fully involved. I'm in such bad shape that I can't even get up and walk him to the door.

“Daddy!” His voice is trembling, he's wiggling all over, on the verge of tears. “Get up, Daddy!”

His three little words hit me in the center of my chest like a bomb. I wish so badly that I could get up, but it's another ice pick episode and I'm stuck on the couch.

“You go have a good time, sweetheart,” I say, pulling him in for a kiss. “Daddy can't get up right now.”

Morgan stands still for a moment and gazes at me, trying to process his emotions. He's feeling something deeper than I think he's ever felt before.

“Please, get up, Daddy!” He pleads again as he reaches out and tugs at my hand.

“I'm sorry, honey,” I whisper as my chest throbs. “Daddy just can't get up right now, his back hurts too much.”

He starts to plead again but suddenly stops and stares at me. In this moment, he has come to a realization. Somewhere deep inside, he knows I'm breaking the covenant we made during the Christmas parade, that I'm not long for this world. Watching him disappear down the hall for his playdate, I free-fall into despair.

Get up, Daddy
.
All night it plays in my head like a loop.
Get up, Daddy
.

But how? How can I get up from this nightmare? I have no idea.
Get up, Daddy
.

The next day, Morgan's little voice continues to loop in my mind and pound in my heart. It's still there the next day, and then the next, like an endless mantra.
Get up, Daddy
.

This morning I wonder why Morgan hasn't come in to crawl on my lap in bed. When I finally get up, I check his room. It's empty. Pamela's office is also empty. I limp downstairs. There's a note on the kitchen table. Pamela and Morgan have gone to spend the night at her mother's home in San Diego. Pamela and I have been more estranged these days, and she's received the brunt of my late-night tirades one too many times. I can understand how much she needs a break. We can talk about it tomorrow. But she and Morgan don't come home. I only get the message machine at her mother's home and can't find out where my family is. Another day goes by. Then, in the late evening, Pamela finally calls.