{"id":6930,"date":"2015-11-04T18:14:16","date_gmt":"2015-11-05T01:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=6930"},"modified":"2015-11-04T18:14:16","modified_gmt":"2015-11-05T01:14:16","slug":"we-cannot-become-what-we-need-to-be-by-remaining-what-we-are","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=6930","title":{"rendered":"We Cannot Become What We Need to Be by Remaining What We Are"},"content":{"rendered":"

C. B. Auder<\/strong><\/p>\n

“I need a transplant,” Dad said, and before I could even back up my spreadsheet, the old man had tripped over the coffee table and windmilled into my lap.<\/p>\n

I’d always thought of my father as a person only in the abstract, of course. But once that cruller-loving flesh bag was slumped across my chair, pinching my carpal-tunnel arm? Well.<\/p>\n

Then the spark left his eyes and it hit: I was alone in the world. Just me and the family’s creeping ficus.<\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying the idea of losing my parents ever bothered me. But at that moment, with everything seeming so — what’s the word, real? — and his elbow crushing my esophagus? Yeah, I felt sheepish I hadn’t thought to offer a parting wheeze.<\/p>\n

What kills me is that I could so easily have slipped something in. That moment right after he’d clutched his chest, just before high-fiving the choir invisible. His hairy ear so close to mine I could smell those funny little balls of wax. . . .<\/p>\n

I could have murmured, “When’s dinner?” or “Whoopsie-daisy!” or “What kind of transplant?”<\/p>\n

What do they say? That when you’re in the middle of it, that last moment always feels so penultimate?<\/p>\n

Luckily, I’d learned the fireman’s carry as a kid. I heaved Dad over to the dining room and rolled him onto the buffet table just seconds before the surgeon steamed out of the kitchen, clutching her sterile tray.<\/p>\n

She fussed and clacked her shiny silver utensils, and then hacked a panel out of Dad’s sternum.<\/p>\n

Seeing that cross-section of ribs, that was a weensy bit too CSI for my blood, so I averted my gaze to the Gauguin. Which I never take the time to appreciate because it’s always hanging over my head, and — don’t tell my boss, but — I prefer Van Gogh.<\/p>\n

After the organ harvesting, the doctor disappeared again, and I peeked over.<\/p>\n

Dad lay there, like a giant napping open-faced sandwich, and I had to smile. He’d always been such a quiet person. And he loved mustard!<\/p>\n

Well, I figured there wasn’t anything more I could do — the embalming machine was making its little gloopy noises — and by then that goddamned sunbeam had arced onto my computer screen. All four of Gauguin’s Tahitian buttocks went peachy-cheeked in the light as though to say, “Hello? This project is on a double-deadline.”<\/p>\n

I don’t know, for some reason I was drawn back to Dad instead. Maybe I was curious to see if I’d get any feelings from glimpsing his lifeless corpse? I didn’t expect any miracles, but they say death changes people.<\/p>\n

It was a good thing I turned. Dad had risen and was rolling over, mumbling something about having to get back to the office — his hair a bird’s nest as usual — and I lunged in (making sure to bend at the knees, not the waist) and grabbed his wrists.<\/p>\n

“You’re semi-retired, remember? You need to relax,” I said — probably too loudly, now that I think back.<\/p>\n

I hoped he wouldn’t see my attempt at a casual smile as patronizing, the way the neighbor’s asshole Akita always did. But Dad was so drained by that point, he didn’t even notice the embalmer in the room.<\/p>\n

Then again, when had he ever? I took heart in that normalcy and had to chuckle even as I leveraged my leg against the wall to press his earnest cadaver back down.<\/p>\n

“Stop flopping around,” I grunted. “You have to stay still or all the tubes will pop out.” (Whether or not this was true, I confess I don’t know, but I wasn’t going to spend the next six months eating my meals above a formaldehyde-soaked rug.)<\/p>\n

Then things got weird. An urge came over me: to rock Dad into a slumber with little chuffing noises. I was like, what the hell? Just creepy.<\/p>\n

When the doctor returned, I asked, “What kind of transplant had he needed?”<\/p>\n

“Brain.” She scowled at a vial of some bubbling purple liquid.<\/p>\n

“Ah, of course. That makes sense,” I murmured. Soothingly, I hoped. I mean, people don’t go into the healing professions because they’re well adjusted and happy with their own lives, right?<\/p>\n

But the doctor had already forgotten me. Which was a comfort, because it reminded me of Dad.<\/p>\n

Funny. It was all so long ago. Two years, now? Three? I think I don’t even own that buffet table anymore.<\/p>\n

C. B. AUDER<\/strong> is the Associate Editor at freezeframefiction.com and has had work published in Asinine Poetry<\/em> and A cappella Zoo<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

C. B. Auder “I need a transplant,” Dad said, and before I could even back up my spreadsheet, the old man had tripped over the coffee table and windmilled into my lap. I’d always thought of my father as a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":6925,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-6930","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P15duy-1NM","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6930"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6937,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6930\/revisions\/6937"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}