The Glass Castle_ A Memoir - Jeannette Walls [128]
“A magnum,” Dad said, his voice choked with gratitude as he eased the big bottle from the bag. He unscrewed the cap and took a long, deep pull. “Thank you, my darling,” he said. “You are so good to your old man.”
Mom wore a heavy cable-knit sweater. The skin of her hands was deeply cracked, and her hair was tangled, but her face had a healthy pink glow, and her eyes were clear and bright. Beside her, Dad looked gaunt. His hair, still coal black except for touches of gray at his temples, was combed back, but his cheeks were sunken, and he had a thin beard. He’d always been clean-shaven, even during those days on the streets.
“Why are you growing a beard, Dad?” I asked.
“Every man should grow one once.”
“But why now?”
“It’s now or never,” Dad said. “The fact is, I’m dying.”
I laughed nervously, then looked at Mom, who had reached for her sketch pad without saying anything.
Dad was watching me carefully. He passed me the vodka bottle. Although I almost never drank, I took a sip and felt the burn as the liquor slid down my throat.
“This stuff could grow on you,” I said.
“Don’t let it,” Dad said.
He started telling me how he’d acquired a rare tropical disease after getting into a bloody fistfight with some Nigerian drug dealers. The doctors had examined him, pronounced the rare disease incurable, and told him he had anywhere from a few weeks to a few months to live.
It was a ridiculous yarn. The fact was that, although Dad was only fifty-nine, he had been smoking four packs of cigarettes a day since he was thirteen, and by this time he was also putting away a good two quarts of booze daily. He was, as he had put it many a time, completely pickled.
But despite all the hell-raising and destruction and chaos he had created in our lives, I could not imagine what my life would be like—what the world would be like—without him in it. As awful as he could be, I always knew he loved me in a way no one else ever had. I looked out the window.
“Now, no snot-slinging or boohooing about ‘poor ol’Rex,’” Dad said. “I don’t want any of that, either now or when I’m gone.”
I nodded.
“But you always loved your old man, didn’t you?”
“I did, Dad,” I said. “And you loved me.”
“Now, that’s the God’s honest truth.” Dad chuckled. “We had some times, didn’t we?”
“We did.”
“Never did build that Glass Castle.”
“No. But we had fun planning it.”
“Those were some damn fine plans.”
Mom stayed out of the conversation, sketching quietly.
“Dad,” I said, “I’m sorry, I really should have asked you to my graduation.”
“To hell with that.” He laughed. “Ceremonies never did mean diddly to me.” He took another long pull on his magnum. “I got a lot to regret about my life,” he said. “But I’m goddamn proud of you, Mountain Goat, the way you turned out. Whenever I think of you, I figure I must have done something right.”
“’Course you did.”
“Well, all right then.”
We talked about the old days some and, finally, it was time to go. I kissed them both, and at the door, I turned to look at Dad one more time.
“Hey,” he said. He winked and pointed his finger at me. “Have I ever let you down?”
He started chuckling because he knew there was only one way I could ever answer that question. I just smiled. And then I closed the door.
T WO WEEKS LATER, Dad had a heart attack. When I got to the hospital, he was in a bed in the emergency room, his eyes closed. Mom and Lori were standing next to him. “It’s just the machines keeping him alive at his point,” Mom said.
I knew Dad would have hated that, spending his final moments in a hospital hooked up to machines. He’d have wanted to be out in the wild somewhere. He always said that when he died, we should put him on a mountaintop and let the buzzards and coyotes tear his body apart. I had this crazy urge to scoop him up in my arms and charge through the doors—to check out Rex Walls–style one last time.
Instead, I took his hand. It was warm and heavy. An hour later, they turned the machines off.
In the months that followed, I found myself always wanting to be