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

had the patience for cum-on-the-face jokes. Things were getting really serious.
    And Greg was right. It was all so sad. The thought that we might lose a parent before a grandparent would have seemed ludicrous only a few months earlier, but now it seemed like a possibility. I don’t know why I asked my dad this morbid question—probably because I’m an asshole—but it was the first time I’d outwardly acknowledged that my pal was going to actually die at the hands of ALS. My denial was officially beginning to give way to reality.
    *   *   *
    In July, we all went on what was depressingly billed as being our “last family vacation”—a twelve-day Mediterranean cruise that started in Barcelona and went to Cannes, Pisa, Rome, Naples, Pompeii, Capri, Florence, Venice, Corfu, and Dubrovnik, before returning to Barcelona. It was one of those luxury cruises full of a bunch of rich, spoiled assholes. We fit right in. We picked the cruise because it was the easiest way to see Europe. We just had to board the boat, get off to see the sights, then get back on.
    My dad was getting worse by the day. His legs were still strong, but his arms and hands were very weak. Watching him try to give me a hug was like watching a four-year-old child try to lift a hundred-pound weight. The disease had also started a fierce attack on his diaphragm and lungs. He now had to be hooked to a bilevel positive airway pressure (BiPAP) machine while he slept, which essentially helped push air into his lungs. He was having more and more trouble eating, so it was decided that he’d get a gastric feeding tube inserted in his stomach right after the trip. Once that happened, all of his food would be in liquid form. This trip was his last chance to eat and drink whatever he wanted.
    To top it off, my mom’s cancer had flared back up like a bad case of herpes. She had been taking great care of my dad and dumping all her energy into him. It burned her out and allowed the cancer to sneak back up on her. This time around, the cancer was deemed more aggressive than her previous bouts had been. She was going to start “big guns chemo” right after the cruise. I wasn’t sure what she meant by “big guns chemo,” but it didn’t sound good.
    The whole mess was starting to sink in for me in a big way. I had told my work about what was happening with my dad so I could try to get the time off for the cruise, even though I was out of vacation days. “It’s our last family vacation,” I told them. “Morbid, I know.” They understood and gave me the time off, with pay. I still wasn’t sure when I would need to come home to help out, but I knew the time was getting closer.
    Thankfully, it was easy to drink on the cruise. They gave you this little plastic card that they’d swipe when you wanted anything. It didn’t seem like real money. And they served a couple bottles of wine at dinner every night. I guess rich people like to be drunk most of the time. My dad and I ended up running up a booze bill of over three thousand dollars.
    I tried to keep the mood light by cracking dark jokes as we saw all the European sights along the way. I thought if I could joke about this serious disease that maybe it wouldn’t seem so serious.
    â€œDon’t get close to that thing or it’ll fall on your unlucky ass,” I said as we looked at the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
    â€œIt could have been worse. They could have had Lou Gehrig’s disease,” I quipped as we inspected the plaster-cast bodies of a couple of Pompeii victims.
    â€œWe should get someone to do a sculpture of you naked in a wheelchair,” I said as we looked at the David in Florence. “Your dick is bigger than his, even with Lou Gehrig’s disease,” I added, reminding my dad that I had recently seen his dick.
    We were all on edge. About two days into the trip Tiffany was acting like a