nothing about what we said to each other the night beforeâactually, what I said and now regretted. He regretted nothing, except perhaps being my father. For the next few days we pretended it never happened, drank like a pair of old sailors on shore leave, sat up nights watching basketball on television. Pretending was how we got on with our lives without making them any better. I pretended to be trying to pull my life together and make something of myself, and he pretended to believe me. He wore a black armband any time he left the house or had visitors and I pretended to grieve with him, while he took his phone calls in the bedroom with the door closed and I pretended not to notice or care. If I were the suspicious kind, I might have suspected him of tumbling Mom down the stairs. But this was real life, not a movie.
In the end he paid me to go home so he could stop pretending. He was anxious to get on with his widower lifestyle. I drove back to Memphis that afternoon and cashed his check.
His money kept me from sleeping in my car a few more weeks. In the old days, which is to say about a year ago, I would have blown it on a bank of heroin taller than my head. They say it gets easier with time. They lie. It wasnât getting any easier and I was still an addict. I hadnât used in more than a year, yet I still wanted it every day, still thought about it all the time. I used to tell myself I wasnât an addict, that I could quit anytime I wanted. If you can lie to yourself, you can lie to anybody.
Speaking of liars, the preacher had told me it would be three weeks before I could start photographing his plantation house, which was about how long I calculated my dadâs money would last. Three weeks stretched into six and I stretched that money until the threads were showing, adding to it whenever I could, which wasnât often. Times were hard. April and May were hot and dry, which made for fewer car accidents and fewer opportunities to make the pie higher.
I called the preacher occasionally and left messages. He called me back less often and dropped excuses. For some reason, he never asked me why I skipped out that night at Jennyâs and I was happy enough not to offer an explanation. The house he had planned to salvage in New Orleans was on some list of historic homes. Never mind that it had flooded up to the Plimsoll mark during Hurricane Katrina and sat abandoned ever since, crack house and flophouse for every derelict and wretch in the area. He said it was easier to get a visa to North Korea than permits to dismantle and salvage whatever history the house had left in it. Then there were difficulties arranging the trucking, difficulties getting construction equipment. I was starting to think Iâd never see a dime from his collection plate.
Preston called one Tuesday in May and sent me out to Pleasant Acres Hospice to photograph a women who had caught a fifty-five-gallon steel drum with her face after it fell off a truck and smashed through her windshield. They said it was a miracle she hadnât died. People have funny ideas about miracles. Now she was a twenty-seven-year-old potted plant who spent her days staring at whatever potted plant they planted her beside. God only knew if she had a thought in her head at all, or if she was screaming inside all day long. Her family had already collected on the accident. Now they were going after the nursing home for neglect. I hated working nursing homes, but I needed the money.
Pleasant Acres wasnât very pleasant, nor was it situated on any acres. The place was locked up like a maximum-security prison, fences topped with razor wire, mag-locked steel doors, and bulletproof glass around the nursesâ station.
Nurse Ratched buzzed me in and met me in the lobby wearing faded paisley scrubs, white Jasco shoes and a Prozac smile. Her narrow brown eyes flicked across my camera as I told her the patientâs name. She looked for my name on her
In the end he paid me to go home so he could stop pretending. He was anxious to get on with his widower lifestyle. I drove back to Memphis that afternoon and cashed his check.
His money kept me from sleeping in my car a few more weeks. In the old days, which is to say about a year ago, I would have blown it on a bank of heroin taller than my head. They say it gets easier with time. They lie. It wasnât getting any easier and I was still an addict. I hadnât used in more than a year, yet I still wanted it every day, still thought about it all the time. I used to tell myself I wasnât an addict, that I could quit anytime I wanted. If you can lie to yourself, you can lie to anybody.
Speaking of liars, the preacher had told me it would be three weeks before I could start photographing his plantation house, which was about how long I calculated my dadâs money would last. Three weeks stretched into six and I stretched that money until the threads were showing, adding to it whenever I could, which wasnât often. Times were hard. April and May were hot and dry, which made for fewer car accidents and fewer opportunities to make the pie higher.
I called the preacher occasionally and left messages. He called me back less often and dropped excuses. For some reason, he never asked me why I skipped out that night at Jennyâs and I was happy enough not to offer an explanation. The house he had planned to salvage in New Orleans was on some list of historic homes. Never mind that it had flooded up to the Plimsoll mark during Hurricane Katrina and sat abandoned ever since, crack house and flophouse for every derelict and wretch in the area. He said it was easier to get a visa to North Korea than permits to dismantle and salvage whatever history the house had left in it. Then there were difficulties arranging the trucking, difficulties getting construction equipment. I was starting to think Iâd never see a dime from his collection plate.
Preston called one Tuesday in May and sent me out to Pleasant Acres Hospice to photograph a women who had caught a fifty-five-gallon steel drum with her face after it fell off a truck and smashed through her windshield. They said it was a miracle she hadnât died. People have funny ideas about miracles. Now she was a twenty-seven-year-old potted plant who spent her days staring at whatever potted plant they planted her beside. God only knew if she had a thought in her head at all, or if she was screaming inside all day long. Her family had already collected on the accident. Now they were going after the nursing home for neglect. I hated working nursing homes, but I needed the money.
Pleasant Acres wasnât very pleasant, nor was it situated on any acres. The place was locked up like a maximum-security prison, fences topped with razor wire, mag-locked steel doors, and bulletproof glass around the nursesâ station.
Nurse Ratched buzzed me in and met me in the lobby wearing faded paisley scrubs, white Jasco shoes and a Prozac smile. Her narrow brown eyes flicked across my camera as I told her the patientâs name. She looked for my name on her
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