Read Online Home Is Burning by Dan Marshall - Free Book Online

was. Hotel water never seems to struggle to get hot. I helped him step into the tub and grabbed the soap.
    â€œLet’s get the balls out of the way first,” I joked as I slowly made my way down there. I had used a vacation day from work to come to Boston for the marathon. Weird to think I was using my vacation to wash my dad’s dick. “How was your trip?” I imagined a co-worker asking. “It was great. Washed my dad’s dirty dick,” I would casually reply.
    As soon as the soap touched his privates, he changed the subject to something we used to talk about before this mess. “So, you think the Jazz will make the playoffs this year?”
    â€œIt’s looking good,” I said, rubbing the soap over the place where my life had started with a triumphant orgasm some twenty-four years earlier. “Seems like the combination of Williams, Boozer, Okur, and Kirilenko is finally working out.”
    â€œWould be fun if you came back for a playoff game,” he said. I had finished with the privates, but continued to look away as I soaped up his legs.
    â€œYeah, it’d be nice to get back for another game. I’ll see about getting another day off work.” His body was now covered in soap from head to toe, from balls to butthole. I aimed the showerhead at him and washed all the suds off his brittle body. They ran down the drain as if they, too, were trying to get away from this horrific situation.
    As I wrapped him in towels, he said, “First ball wash. Not bad.”
    â€œYeah, I didn’t vomit or anything. I feel like I could be one of those ball-cleaning machines on a golf course if the whole PR thing doesn’t work out.”
    â€œYou should look into that,” he said. “And seriously, thanks.”
    â€œIt honestly wasn’t bad at all.” And it wasn’t. It was just different. We got him dressed. He looked good as new. Well, he looked like shit because he had just run a marathon and he had Lou Gehrig’s disease. But he looked clean and refreshed, the best he could be. It was the first taste of how intense shit was going to get, the first sign that our relationship wasn’t going to just be talking about basketball.
    We left the bathroom. My dad took a nap. I went to the hotel bar for a strong one.
    *   *   *
    As May rolled around, my dad was still in good spirits. He and my mom walked the dogs up Millcreek Canyon every day—a stretch of national forest a few minutes from our house. My mom thought if he stayed active and kept his legs strong that maybe that son of a bitch Lou Gehrig’s disease would have a tougher time with him. My mom was doing her best to keep his spirits up. She’d pin an inspirational quote on his pillow every night so he could dream inspiring dreams about kicking Lou Gehrig’s disease in the nuts. He was going to live a long, long time with this disease. Hell, maybe he’d be the first person to beat Lou Gehrig’s disease. He’d be like Magic Johnson and HIV. Maybe he’d even be the first person to live forever.
    During this stretch, my mom was feeling pretty good, so she provided most of the care for him. They spent every second together and looked more in love than I’d ever seen them. They were happily designing the renovations to the house like they were planning their second wedding. They were holding hands and kissing all the time. It was sort of disgusting, really—a couple of dying fucks making out and shit.
    Mid-May, my dad was out in the Bay Area to run the Golden Gate Relay, which started in Calistoga and went to Santa Cruz—a span of 199 miles. He had two legs of the race, one through Napa and one over the Golden Gate Bridge. His team members gave him the coveted Golden Gate Bridge leg because he was dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease and they would’ve been dicks if they hadn’t.
    I decided to fly up to visit Abby and run the legs with