When Charles Bukowski is Your Mom

And it never really ends.  

My mom kept calling and texting from the hospital, telling me she wanted to go home.  The hospital kept calling, saying the same things I had heard in November.  We think she needs physical therapy rehab.  Wait, no she doesn't.  We'll send home health care.  Fine, I kept saying, fine.  I already knew how all of this goes.  I started looking up alcohol rehabs, private ones this time, expensive ones, since my mom had balked at going to the free, state-run one in December.  My mom was really harassing me to pick her up.

"Mom, I have COVID."  I told her.  Don't think it's a great idea to pick you up.  
She didn't even blink and kept demanding I pick her up.  She sent me "Betsy's" number, saying she had discharge orders, demanding I call her.   Betsy said she had no discharge orders.  I was laying on the couch, trying to keep the dogs apart, feeling pretty COVID-y.  A couple of days into my COVID extravaganza, the hospital people decided to discharge her.  I told them I had COVID and they just told me to mask up and come and get her.   

"I'm coming to get you, mom, but the only place I am taking you is to rehab."  I texted.

"Do you have your hearing aids?"  

"No."  she answered.

The hearing aids my sister and I went through hell and back to get for her in December.  The ones she doesn't bother using.  My mom texted over and over that night, telling me to turn off the light in her hospital room, telling me to help her out of bed.  

"You are in a hospital, mom.  Make them do it."  I responded.  

"When are we going to rehab?"  she asked over and over.  She even sent a message to her brother in the night, asking him when she was going to rehab.  She was addressing my brother, who wasn't even on the text.  

"Tomorrow, when you are discharged."  I told her.  

"You better call your brokerage account and get some money moved around.  It's 18k for the month and I don't have it."

"That's expensive!"  she replied.

"Yes it is, but the state-run was too ghetto for you.  Or, we can go to the 24k a month one, you pick."

She said she called about he money.

I double masked and went to CVS to buy toiletries for my mom.  Then, I went to her house and packed a bag of clothes for rehab.  The rehab intake people knew we were coming.  After, I drove to Emory.  Like most hospitals, the pickup area was like the Indianapolis 500 with wheelchairs thrown in the mix.  Someone rolled my mom out, she looked like a zombie.  She was wearing a hospital gown.  She got in the back seat and wouldn't put on her seatbelt until the valet did it for her.  I handed her a mask.  

"That's right," she said in a mocking tone.

"You have COVID."

Then, she rolled up the window in the car.  I rolled it back down and drove toward her house.  She had to put clothes on and get those hearing aids before I could take her to rehab.  When we arrived at her house, she said she could not stand up to get out of our car.  I waited.  She had to be able to do basic life things to go to rehab, stand up, use her walker, put clothes on.  In December, the at-home physical therapist said she didn't even need physical therapy, that the more she moved around, the stronger she would get.  And, the longer she stayed off of booze.  She had to start now.  If they saw her like this, they wouldn't take her.  We were in the driveway for at least fifteen minutes.

"How did you get out of your bed at the hospital?"  

"People HELPED me."  she said, her tone nasty.  

Yeah, because I never help you with anything, do I mom?   Never.  

I grabbed her arm and got her to stand up and use the walker.  I heard a shitting noise and realized my mom probably just took a shit on the seat of Alec's car.  She went inside and I waited outside, mainly because I was still worried about giving her COVID.   After waiting for a while, I finally looked in.  She was sitting on a chair in her living room, looking at her phone.

"Are we going to rehab or not?"  I asked her, even though I knew the answer.  

"Just put me to bed."  she responded.  

I was furious.  I was having fever spikes and started sweating.  She stood up and started rolling toward her bedroom.  I could see her whole ass hanging out from the hospital gown and blood on the sleeves of the sweatshirt she wore underneath.  A fucking turd hung from the side of the gown.  I turned around and left.

As I walked across her front porch, I heard a thud from inside.  I stood out there and called the rehab.

"I'm sorry."  I said.

"She's refusing to come."

"This is where she really needs to be, with us."  the counselor responded.

"I know."  I said, starting to cry.

"I can't make her go." 

I almost left, but that thudding noise I heard worried me.  I walked back inside.  She was laying on the floor of her bedroom.

"I fell."  she said.

"I hit my head."  

She was curled up on a nest of blankets.

I handed her her phone.

"Call 911."  I said and left.   

I went home.  I sat there for a while, trying to get my head together.  Finally, I texted her.
"Call 911 or I will."

"I got hold of Patty and she lifted me up."  she responded.

"WHO THE FUCK IS PATTY???"  I answered.  

"WHEN ARE YOU READY TO GO TO REHAB?"

The next morning, on my birthday, she answered.

"Today.  Help me get out of bed."

Yeah mom.  I'm still sick and it's my birthday, but today is the day, right?

She put some more unintelligible things in the text and then told me the fire department was on the way.  

"Are you back at the hospital?"  I asked.

It turned out that they gave her an assisted lift and also, left.  

"Today was my birthday."  I texted.

"If you can get out of bed tomorrow and get dressed, I will call the rehab for another intake appointment."  

"Okay."  she responded.

"I only have the clothes on my back."

"Thanks for wishing me a happy birthday, mom.  And for asking how I'm feeling.  And for asking about how my foot is healing.  And for asking about your dog."

And for packing your bag for you.  Buying you toiletries.  Arranging everything.  Play hobo all you want.  You've had more than any of us have ever had, clothes on your back bullshit.  

"P"  she responded.

I have no fucking idea what that means.  

This Land is Your Land

How many times can a person die? I've asked myself this question so many times, it just sort of shoots into my head.  

I'm not even sure where to start in describing the last month.  A few days after I returned to work I had to begin giving a standardized test to my students.  I have forty-one kids right now and it is a four part test.  It is all I have done at work.

My mom was drinking again.  She stopped for about a week and then I started seeing liquor store delivery on her credit cards.  
"This is crazy, mom."  I texted.  
"Those bottles are arriving left and right, all the time."

She blew me off.

I went by her house one Friday after school, I don't remember why.  When I walked in, it was all dark in the living room.  The place was a disaster, there were dirty dishes everywhere, blankets all over the floor, it was indescribable.  My mom was laying on the floor, wrapped up in a blanket like a mummy.

"Hi!"  she said casually, as if the whole thing was completely normal.  

"What the fuck, mom?"  I responded.  Or something like that.  

She said that she "fell".  That she couldn't get up.  She only "falls" when she's been knee deep in a bucket of booze.

I felt a rage forming in me.

"Where is your phone?"

"In the bedroom."  she responded.

I climbed over all the shit in the path to her bedroom.  And, when I say shit, I mean that literally.  My mother wears diapers and never takes her trash out.  Her dog gets into the trash and strews shit filled diapers all over the house.  I got to her bedroom, grabbed her phone and climbed back to the living room.  I plugged her phone into the charger and handed it to her.

"Call 911."  I said and turned to leave.

"I'm sorry you're not feeling well..." she called out, her tone both clueless and condescending at the same time.

I left.  

I tracked her movements over the next few hours.  I saw her dot travelling toward Emory.  Interesting, I thought.  Afraid that Grady knows your story too well?  New hospital?

The next morning, I went back to her house to check on her dog.  I have a phobia about her house.  One, people keep trying to break in and I am afraid of walking in on a burglar.  Second, it smells terrible, a combination of piss and shit.  I closed the door to several rooms that were strewn with her shit.  There was a box of wine ripped open and several bottles were missing.  A huge handle of rum, nearly empty, sat on the counter.  I started dumping glasses and putting them in the dishwasher.  The smell of old liquor was so strong I nearly vomited.  I threw away everything that could be thrown away.  I filled her herbie with trash bags and the recycling with broken down boxes.  I had to make that place at least safe for her dog.  

"I saw you cleaning up the up the porch!  Thank you!"  my mom texted, all cheerful.  

She was watching me on her doorbell cam.  I felt that rage coming up again.  Feeling pretty cheerful, right mom?  I picked up a stick in her driveway and scraped the human shit out of the bottoms of my special post-surgery shoes, then got in the car and drove away.  

My mom kept sending me random messages all day, demanding that I tell her nurse to do things for her.  Crazy messages, claiming she was being held "against her will".  Telling me that she shit her pants and wanted me to help her.  Saying that she wanted to be home.  She even posted on Facebook, calling for her nurse.  I told her to click her fucking button.  That she was in a hospital.  That she clearly needed help.  That the only place I would take her was to rehab or assisted living.  That I couldn't keep doing this.  

A good friend almost intuitively came to my aid.  I knew I had to do something with my mom's dog.  Permanently.  My heart stung thinking of him living that way, in that house, with and without my mom.  My friend offered to let him sleep over at her house that Saturday night and help me introduce him to my Temple on Sunday.  I couldn't believe how kind that was.  Hunter is a little old and funky and she welcomed him right in to her house.  After the introductions, Hunter moved in with us that Sunday.  My heart rate was literally through the roof.  We kept the dogs seperate most of the time, trying to avoid any sort of fight.  Temple is only three and has a lot of energy.  She plays hard and is not too fond of other dogs, especially in her house.  

Alec was off the next three days in a row.  He and our dog walker walked the dogs together every afternoon, slowly acclimating them to each other.  I fielded my mom's crazy texts and worked.  Everyday, even before noon, I felt exhausted.  I was congested and my throat was sore, my eyes bloodshot.  My whole body ached.  I thought my foot recovery was causing the pain and I questioned if I would ever be physically normal again.  That Wednesday afternoon, we had a really long faculty meeting.  My school was back on the bad list, the list indicating that we are one of the worst schools in the state.  I felt enormous pressure, the principal kept talking about how many of my students count disproportionately toward our school's score - they are counted for being Title I, ESOL, Hispanic, some even Special Ed.  Four times.  Some of my kids' scores are counted four times.  It wasn't ESOL scores that put us back on the bad list, but they seemed to think my kids could get them off the bad list.  At the end of the meeting one of the instructional coaches snapped at me.  I looked down and realized I was about to cry.  I felt so tired, so much physical pain, I just stared at the ground trying not to cry in front of everyone.  

I cried all of the way home.  I cried while I dragged my mom's herbies to the curb.  I cried while walking from the car and into my house.  I couldn't stop.  Hunter was in Lola's old crate in the middle of the living room so that Temple wouldn't attack him.  Randomly, I decided to do a COVID test.  I was shocked when the thing lit up like a fucking Christmas tree.  

I texted my sister.

"Happy birthday, to me."  I said, sending her a picture with the positive test.  

"Shit, I'm going to take one too."  she responded.  We had been together a lot of the weekend, dealing with the dog situation. Twenty minutes later, she texted that she was positive, too.  I thought of my friend that took care of Hunter.  She was leaving on a really awesome trip in a matter of days.  What if I gave it to her, too?

I laid on the floor in our front room on a roll out futon.  Alec had tested negative and he and the dogs were sleeping in the bedroom, Hunter in the crate and Temple on the bed with him.  He tried to get me to let him sleep on the floor but I insisted that I would do it.  I wasn't going to work so it didn't matter if I didn't sleep well.  I texted my assistant principal.

"Hey, I wanted to let you know that I have COVID.  We have been together in your really small office dealing with the testing stuff and I just really hope that I didn't give it to you."  

"Thank you for letting me know."  she responded.

"Please get some rest.  Drink a lot of fluids.  Take care of yourself."

"Thank you."  I responded.  And I really meant it.  Thank you for just being nice, for caring.  

*Title, Woody