UNREMITTING FAILURE

Twenty Lines

"The only means which is granted us to express our contempt for life is to accept it."  Jacques Rigaut

I wasn't there when my house burned down.  I was in Toledo, Ohio, trying to get my mother into a mental hospital.  She hadn't left her bed for a month, and had some pretty nasty bed sores.  My older brother who lives with her and does nothing for a living finally called me and told me he didn't know what to do with her.  So I go to Toledo and call around and while I'm doing that my house burns down.  In the middle of the night.  Who knows, I might not have gotten out alive.  My cat survived, it went out the cat door and hunkered down in the backyard to watch. 

Meanwhile, my mother is saying the craziest things, Hitler's legs are in the closet, and she doesn't even recognize me half the time.  She's taking forty valium a day and there are prescription bottles all over the place, on the tables by the bed, under the bed, in the bed, under her pillow.  She has always been the nervous sort. 

Meanwhile my brother is taking almost as many valium as she is, which explains his colossal uselessness when it comees to handling the practical side of anything.  He sits in front of the television, watching cooking shows and reruns of Mr. Ed.  So I've got to try to talk him into a rehab, which is so much wasted breath, the two of them have been doctor shopping and ordering valium via online pharmacies and the house is like a pill factory. 

I finally get my mom into a regular hospital, where hopefully they'll begin to detox her and treat the bed sores.  My brother is relieved she's out of the house because her craziness was beginning to bum him out.  The yard is a mess, the house is a sty, there are twelve count them twelve empty pizza boxes stacked on an easy chair in the living room.  My whole family is crazy.  I'm crazy.  I stay in Toledo an extra two days, to handle chores and clean up a little, despite the fact that I've got to get home to handle my wife's funeral arrangements. 

  

Twenty Lines (The Murder)

I decide to murder my spouse.  He's a real jerk.  I could always get a divorce, but that sounds like a lot of work.  The question was, how to do it.  At first I planned to club him over the head with frozen leg of lamb, and then eat the leg of lamb, thus disposing of the evidence like in that Roald Dahl story.  But who knows how many cops are readers of Roald Dahl stories.  Then I decided to shoot him, and make it look like a robbery gone bad.  But that would involve buying a gun, which could be conceivably be traced back to me.  There was always poisoning, but it would have to be some kind of sophisticated poison that couldn't be detected during an autopsy.  I could always search the internet, but dollars to donuts the police would seize my computer and find evidence that I was doing research on sophisticated poisons that couldn't be detected during an autopsy.  Then I decided,  who cares if I go to prison, I'll strangle him with my bare hands.  Or drug him heavily some night, and smother him with a pillow.  Here he comes now.  He is carrying a wrapped frozen leg of lamb.  Obviously we are thinking along the same lines.  I say to him, "How do you know your average homicide detective isn't a reader of Roald Dahl stories?"  He says, "I didn't think of that." I say, "There's probably a lot you haven't thought about."  And he says, "You have a real jump on me, don't you?"  

The Party

One wrecked car and many adventures later, Richard found himself back at the party.  In the music room, Benny and Sara were even drunker than before, and a fat man in a seersucker suit and panama hat was sitting at the piano. 

"I served under General Eddie Collins," he said to no one in particular, then banged out the opening notes of Dizzy Gillespie's Salt Peanuts.  His face was a florid hue not generally found in nature, and he was barefoot.  "Mad Eddie, as he was known."  He smiled at the memory.  "He led us into many a fine fiasco, Mad Eddie."  He played a little more of Salt Peanuts, said, "This song is making me thirsty." 

He picked an open bottle of champagne off the floor, said, "Jazz lost a great talent the day I woke up to the fact that I've no talent." 

"Where's Melody?" called Richard.  "Has anybody seen my wife?"