I slept the type of interesting—if not quite restful—border sleep where you’re aware that you’re sleeping, aware you’re in a bed. In place of dreaming, I looked forward to waking, to chatting up the afghan, and maybe the pillow, possibly the nightstand, potentially every inan in the room, then explaining to my mother and my father how I did it, teaching them how to do it themselves. When I woke, however, a little while later, I possessed just as little gate-control as always; the image of the garage door was far less crisp once I’d opened my eyes, and I couldn’t recall the particular way I was supposed to tense my body to get the gate to lift, and I lay there, bleary, sweaty, and cold, trying to rediscover the proper tension, but instead found access I hadn’t ever sought to muscles I’d never really thought about having: I wiggled my ears, got my scrotum to jump, induced my pectorals to shift up and down, right one left one right one left, like a trash-talking wrestler at a ringside interview. This was interesting enough to keep me from getting too pissed at myself to fall back asleep, but it wasn’t—obviously—what I’d been after, and I determined that the problem was I’d been too anxious, woken too soon, before I’d finished learning the afghan’s lesson, and again I closed my eyes, hoping to return to my previous state, and it seemed, actually, that I was starting to succeed—the image of my gate was regaining definition—but then I was shaking, something was shaking me, and I sat up, wired, angry, confused.
The clock on the nightstand said 3:17. My father was sitting beside me on the bed. He turned on the reading lamp, held out some paper—yellow sheets of paper, my mother’s handwriting.
“Is she okay?” I said.
“She’s alive,” he said.
“What the hell kind of answer is that?” I said.
“You have to read these, right now.” He flapped the yellow stack. A bright, white envelope flashed from beneath it.
“I don’t want to,” I said. “Get out of my way.”
He held me by the arm. “She said you have to read these before you go down. You read the yellow letter first. Then the typed one in the envelope.”
“Fine,” I said. “So go away. Let me read them.”
He let go of my arm, said, “She said I had to stay with you until you were done.”
“What? Why?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “She wouldn’t let me read them. Said they’re just for you. I’ve got my own letters here to read,” he said. He patted his shirt pocket.
“I don’t like this,” I said.
“I don’t see how you could,” he said. “But I don’t really give a fuck. Read the goddamn letters, Bill.”
He dropped them on the blanket and went to my desk. He lit up a Quill. I asked if I could have one.
“Shut up,” he said, “and read the yellow one first. And look, I didn’t mean shut up, like, ‘You’re worthless, shut up.’ I just—did you really just ask me for a Quill?” he said.
“Not really,” I said. “It was just a bad joke.”
“Not that bad,” he said. “I mean, in a different moment. I mean, I don’t know, son. Just.”
I said, “I’m sorry I walked away from you before, when you were crying.”
“I understand, Belt. I would’ve done the same, I bet. I mean, not, you know—I mean I would have done the same if you were my dad and that’s what you did, I think.”
“I’ll read these, now,” I said.
“Yeah. Okay. Good, then. Read them. I’ll read mine, too.”
1/31/88, 1:07 AM–2:49 AM
Living Room Couch
Dearest Belt,
Just after you went upstairs to bed, I tried to ask your father for a bowl of ice cream, but I wasn’t able to form the words. Instead of saying, “Clyde, could you bring me some ice cream?” I hummed and clicked and moaned and shushed. It seemed like I was crying. I wasn’t crying.
I took a couple breaths and cleared my throat (which sounded the way it’s always sounded) and I tried again to ask for ice cream. “Could you bring me some ice cream, Clyde?” I tried to say, but all that came out were those crying sounds.
Only ten minutes earlier, I’d said to your father, “I’m still too hot. Would you turn down the thermostat?” That I could no longer speak was too hard to believe. I didn’t believe it. I didn’t even start to til after having failed another ten or twelve times to ask for ice cream. Even then I resisted, held out some, denied some, accepting that, yes, I could not ask for ice cream without sounding like I was crying, but telling myself that maybe, somehow, my incapacity to speak was only partial—an incapacity, for example, to form a certain kind of utterance (a question or request), or even perhaps an incapacity to speak about certain subjects (ice cream, say, or maybe all desserts, maybe all desires). And so I tried to make other, random statements. “I love you,” I tried, and, “Promise you won’t marry a stupid woman,” and, “Let’s watch Star Wars,” and, “I’m afraid,” and, “You’re an awfully handsome man.” Not a single word was I able to shape. Nothing but crying sounds.
The whole time, your dad had his arm around me, and he’d held me tighter while I was making the crying sounds, and once I’d ceased attempting to speak, the crying sounds stopped, and he asked me if there was something he could do to help me feel better—which, you should know (one last important lesson from your dying mother, here) is really the best way to deal with crying people you love (assuming they’re really crying): you hold them tight and wait til they’re quiet before offering any kind of practical help (you want them to feel free to cry, unrushed; you want to avoid giving the impression that their crying’s a strain on your ability to comfort them)—and when, forgetting myself, I tried to explain to him all I’ve just described, of course all that came out was the moaning and clicking, the humming, the shushing. And again, of course, your father held me tighter.
And, yes, I really did start to cry then. I cried for a while. I listened to me crying. And yes, it really did sound the same. A little wetter, maybe, but otherwise the same.
So I can no longer speak, Belt. That’s what I’m telling you. I’ll never speak again. And I know, I know: never say never. But it’s been a few hours, and nothing has changed, and, believe it or not, I’m already used to it. Which isn’t to say the experience isn’t strange to me, but the fact that I’ll never speak again…I’ve accepted that. To experience this symptom, or whatever it is (maybe it’s the drugs, perhaps a combination of drugs and symptoms, mild seizures or so-called “mini-strokes”) is very strange. Here I am, writing this letter, a letter composed of sentences that—I think, I hope—are clear, yet if I open my mouth to speak what I’ve written (in a double-checking spirit, I did so just now, tried to speak the words “to speak what I’ve written”), all that comes out are those crying sounds.