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Another Night In Suburbia before/after For a few tense minutes tonight, maybe longer, I thought my father was going to kill himself. I was waiting for the sound of a gunshot. I did not move. It was a night like any other, really. Mom came in, as is her fashion, on the edge of tears. There is something weird in the family dynamic in that, after years and years of being the scapegoat, and feeling it whenever something has gone wrong in their lives, I can feel their pain, read their anxiety from miniscule clues, even from a distance. "Is everything ok?" I asked. "Its your father. He's gone way off." she replied. I paused, knowing that I didn't have to say anything more. "His mood, its just...everything's awful, life is shit, you know? On and on and on. Nothing I can do. Nothing I can say." Dad's been on prozac for awhile now. He takes the weekly dose. Sometimes I wonder if he skips doses. Usually I can tell. I can tell by his affect and demeanor. Monday through Wednsday, nothing seems to bother him. Water off of a duck's back. Thursday through Saturday he gets progressively more touchy, defensive and paranoid. I tend to leave him alone then. I love my parents, really, but as I've gotten older, so have they, and with my life's experience, the cynical detatchment sometimes rules. The objectivity of an intelligence forced to hide, which still watches people as if they were a bug underneath a magnifying glass, as a sadistic child works his way through burning an insect and becoming a serial killer. The analytical side of me will always be there. And I think they're crazy. Not certifiable, no. But put another way, sometimes I really wonder about the sugary sweet memories my brother clings to of his youth. I was there, it wasn't that great. Its good that dad's on prozac, I guess. He's needed it for years. I only saw him cry once, and it was an ordinary day, much like today. Its just the breaks kept coming, and breaking against him. It was at dinner time. We were silent, the heaviness hung in the air. It was like sitting with a violent ape, or a burgeoning volcano, ready to burst, and no one was talking about it. His eyes were black, like pits of darkness. I don't remember much of what was said, I pretty much sat and quietly ate, glancing at Dad every once in a while. Mom and my brother tried to make some sort of small talk, that my brother ate up and tried to make funny, but it wasn't. And I almost laughed at the situation. We could all feel the tension. That much was obvious. And dad was staring like a freak at nothing, somewhere between a scowl and blankness. And nobody said anything. I felt like saying, "If you're gonna' blow, blow so I can get some of my meal in peace!" And I looked into the pale blue junk jewlery eyes that all my family seems to have, and I wondered, what the hell was going on inside there. I had no idea, really. He saw me looking into his eyes, and he looked away. And I thought maybe he wouldn't blow. Mom directed some of the conversation then towards dad, asking him a question, seemingly knowing what would happen, and he wound up like a motherfucker. All his body language contracted, and his eyes went dark again. Again, I don't remember what exactly what he said, other than, "I get my brains beat out every day out there, and I come home, to sanctuary, to the one person I love and trust, and you turn on me. How could you do that to me? How?" And he started crying, expressing some embarassment at crying in front of his sons. Mom slowly helped him unwind. Patiently. Rather directly. She hadn't done anything other than set him off. Theirs is a long, deep understanding. I got the sense that she's done this before, although not to such a degree. I never saw my father cry again. When I was living away, after he'd been diagnosed with MS and was refusing treatment I sent him an email, reading him the riot act for not doing all he could to fight it. Mom said he cried, but then, I didn't see it. Sometimes I wonder if he sowed the seeds of depression in my brain. Even though I know its chemical, and I've really only gone through it once, per se', I have to wonder. One day I was helping him at work, reading and justifying bills of lading or something like that. And he turned to me. "Arg, do you enjoy life?" he asked. I thought for a moment, and gave an honest answer. "Sometimes." I said. I left the sometimes not implied. "Good," he said, "Because I've never enjoyed life much." And for some reason, that hit my brain like a sledgehammer at twelve years old. Later on in college, when I hit true depression, I would think of this many times, even the expression on his face, a mix of concern and pain. I blame no one. Anyway, mom was crying, and I gave her a hug, trying to calm her down, of course, to no avail. (Later, she would take her frustrations out on me, by nagging for no reason. I hate that shit. How they don't recognize their own behavioral patterns sometimes is beyond me.) I sat and ate. The door opened and closed. Dad skulked in heavily. I didn't look. I knew what to expect, mostly. I know him well enough, that now, at this late of a date, if you stay out of the way, things will work out, eventually. "How's it going, dad?" He paused. In a ragged voice he said, "Not well." I left it at that. He's got MS, a virtual walking death sentence. I really can't argue, although I could. Something tells me that perhaps I would be self-indulgent should I do so. After all, I don't have to take injections of a drug every morning. He takes copaxone in injectable form, with these needles that aren't like the diabetic needles. These are large, no foolin' around needles. I thought about it yesterday, as I pondered what it was like, sticking yourself, day after day, every day. I truly felt sorry for him. His words from a month or two ago rung in my ears. My mother had asked him why he left a full syringe on the table, unused in the morning. "Well, I sat and I sat. And I looked at the needle, and I looked over at the drawer with the gun in it. And I couldn't decide what to do, so I just went to work." Dad trudged off to his room and shut the door. A corner of my mind recalled psychology classes, where the protocols, indications, side-effects and contraindications of prozac were debated. It was considered negligent that the incidence of homicides and suicides were not indicated on the possible side effects of this drug, considering the small yet significant results. And I waited. Some hypothesize that prozac just jerked depressives out of the dark and gave them enough energy to do what they wanted to do. What they'd been obsessively thinking about the whole time. And I waited. I'm certainly not the one to tell someone to live a life they don't want to live. I do not wish anyone to suffer more than they can bear. I hate seeing my dad, such a strong man, succumb to this disease. Seeing him limp, when he used to be so graceful. And I waited. I really don't want this to happen, but I can't tell him to stop. And I waited. I should be ashamed of my inaction. And I waited. And nothing happened. Another night in suburbia.
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