<p>I hope you like it but some constructive criticism would be awesome! Also, revealing to much about myself?</p>
<p>My father had his stroke in the spring of 2004. This was the time when John Kerry had locked up the Democratic nomination, this was the time when Green Day, Linkin Park, and "Stacy's Mom Has Got it Going On" were all the rage, this was the time when I was an awkward sixth grader who had just discovered masturbation... And it was awesome. This was the time when Dad ceased to be my father, when his life and mine were fundamentally redefined, turned upside down and would never be the same again. This was the time when our roles in the patriarchal relationship were swapped; I became Daddy's primary caregiver.
If you had gone just a year back, you would have called us the perfect family unit. We lived in a three-story brownstone in Park Slope, Brooklyn. My mother was a nurse, and my father was a journalist specializing in the history of labor unions, undoubtedly a career choice driven by his Marxist youth. There were three of us kids, all of whom had turned out "perfectly:" my brother was a straight A student at Stuyvesant High School, my sister was a cute little girl and I was the young "prodigy" who had just gotten accepted in to the middle school of my choice. We all had friends, and we were all living the life of which we had no complaints.
But all good things must come to an end. Daddy was reading the New York Times one Sunday morning, when he stumbled upon an ad for a mansion in Binghamton, NY: a dream house with an indoor pool, gym, and even an air hockey table. Dad had grown tired of New York City; he had lived here his entire life. The monotonous F train ride into Manhattan every morning had gotten to him: he frequently complained to my mother about the "Jews who insist on reading their <strong><em>ing books out loud, and those smelly *</em></strong>ing Russians. Am I really asking so much? Just take a *<strong><em>ing shower, people!"
The housing bubble had done wonders for my parents. A house that my parents bought for four hundred thousand dollars in 1995 was put on the market for near a million in 2003. Everyone in the family pleaded with my father to let us stay in Brooklyn-- we were all happy where we were and the idea of upstate NY was not appealing in the slightest. But Dad was just that kind of guy; he had his eye on that mansion and he wasn't going to budge. I remember lying with him on the couch, crying into his fat stomach, begging him to let me stay with my friends. In retrospect, I want to think he was being an *</em></strong><strong><em>: he wrecked my life on some unilateral whim. But at the time, he was so comforting. I don't remember him saying anything substantive; the warmth of his belly on my tear drenched, red puffy face was enough.
In no time, some young, bourgeois couple purchased our home; the exact kind of yuppie that just a year before, my father would have railed upon as ruining the neighborhood and exactly how the capitalist system was ruining Brooklyn and New York City as a whole. Yuppie is just one of those terms like poser, that exists only for a poser or a yuppie to call someone else to cover up the fact that they, indeed, are the guilty party. But I guess that's irrelevant, because Papa had found his dream house, in the middle of Bum</em></strong><em>, Nowhere.
Enter Binghamton, NY; or better yet, "Chenango Valley," the subset our house was located in. I know they like to say that Binghamton's a "college town!" ...It's not. They're wrong. Binghamton University is located right off a *</em><strong>ty road, across the street from a *</strong>ty movie theatre, half a <strong><em>ty mile away from my *</em></strong>ty street. One of the first things I recall is a sign that said "Hot Air Balloon Capital of the World!" How does a place even get that title? Do all the hot air balloonists in the world get together and go: "This place kicks ass!" But it didn't matter whether the title was legitimate or not, because I had gone from the cultural, financial and political capital of the world to... hot mother *<strong><em>ing air balloons.
As if moving to Binghamton was not enough, the timing was also explicitly bad. We moved at the beginning of summer vacation, which not only deprived the family of one last vacation with our friends, but also stranded us upstate with no friends and no school to meet them at. I *</em></strong>ed away that summer; my sleeping schedule had lapsed in to literally nocturnal habits. I went to sleep at 10 am, woke up at 7 pm, watched movies, masturbated, or went for a swim, anything that would keep me occupied. In no time, the school year had arrived.
If I thought I hated school while still in New York, I was in for a real treat in Binghamton. First of all, I was under the impression that I was going to middle school- apparently not. In Chenango Valley school system, elementary school lasts K-6, and high school lasted 7-12. Apparently middle school just didn't exist. I thought I had moved on past elementary school, past sitting on a rug and being taught how to divide and how to finger-paint, but nope, I was in for another year of it. At least "Chenango Bridges" had the decency to place me in to their advanced placement program. Though, to my surprise, 'advanced placement' was actually just an hour a day playing Trivial Pursuit. What is the longest river in Asia? ...It's the Yangtze. Thanks, advanced placement programs! If I ever end up on Jeopardy, you may very well be my savior!
This was about the time when I started to act out, and slowly mutate into the ****** you see today. School was the most depressing place I had ever been. I slept during class every day, and when I was finally awake, all I really did was clown around. During lunch and recess, I paced back and forth and role-played various scenarios from Japanese anime by myself. Yeah... I was that kid. I wanted to stay home every day, but Dad forced me out of bed by pulling off the covers and calling my new dog Milly to jump onto my bed and lick my face.
There's one day that's been burned into my memory. I had stayed up very late the night before, and as such when Pops came to wake me up in the morning, I was resistant to say the least. I had figured out the technique to stay home, so I told him I was sick. But Dad was smarter than that, he saw through my <strong><em>, and forced me into the shower. He was jolly about it the whole time. I started crying: "Dad! I'm actually *</em></strong>ing sick and you won't let me stay home?!" I was lying through my teeth, and yet somehow I felt he had wronged me in not letting get back in to bed. I was able to stall him long enough to miss the bus, but then my mom drove me to school. So when I was in the car with mom, I laid down the same line. I was getting hysterical, hiccupping, crying, and because of what? I wanted to stay home from school. I remember sitting in the car, thinking: "I hope something bad happens to Dad... I don't want him to die or anything!" Like that little clause of the deal somehow salvaged my humanity: "Just something bad." Mom let me stay home. A few weeks later, Dad had his stroke.
One night, as was the case with all school nights, I was awake watching TV at 11:30. I was feeling kind of hungry, so I went downstairs to fix myself a bowl of cereal or something along those lines. When I walked by the living room, I saw my Dad lying on the ground, face down. Of course, my first thought was: "Just sleeping on the floor, Daddy? Cool! I do that too." I was so *<strong><em>ing stupid. He looked up at me with fiery, blood shot, desperate eyes, his hair was like a jungle and his face was beat red, as if he had just had a stroke. He did just have a stroke. He lifted up his head, looked up at me, and I thought he was just tired, that he wanted me to leave and turn off the light. So I did. I left. I left him to lay there, with his brain hemorrhaging. Mom came home for the late shift probably about two hours later, and rushed him to the hospital. But the damage had been done; Dad was crippled and maybe if I had just done the smart thing he wouldn't be. He's debilitated for the rest of his life, and it's my fault.
The next day, I woke up at 10:30, the sunlight shining past my curtains, into my eyes, as if God was saying: "Get up, you *</em></strong>ing moron!" Of course, the first thing I felt was happiness, that by some miracle my Dad had decided to not wake me up this morning and he let me stay home. I went downstairs, where my fabulous alcoholic uncle, Joe, greeted me. Uncle Joe had been given instructions from Mom to let my sister and I sleep, and for him to tell us what had happened and then take us to the hospital. I remember when he told us, I asked how long it would be before my Dad would be okay again; to me, this "stroke" seemed like just a temporary ailment, like the flu. Joe told me that he may never get better, but I still didn't understand the full extent of the stroke--I thought that maybe his ability to speak would be impaired, and his ability to walk, but he would inherently be the same person.
At first, Dad's stroke had no real profound effect on my life, besides occasional trips to the hospital, and when he came home having to tip toe around so I didn't wake him up during his naps. But I never realized how dependent my family was on my Dad until we lost him. After Dad had his stroke, my Mom slowly started to crack, my grades plummeted to their current status and Uncle Joe was arrested for exposing himself to a teenage girl at a minor league baseball game... really.
With Mom in charge of things, the house upstate was sold in no time. It was bought by two doctors from the city, and I remembered thinking at the time that even though we needed to get out of there--the fact that we were condemning another family to the same mistake we had made did not sit well with me. We packed up the mansion, and as we drove down the long driveway, I began to miss the place a little. Bum<strong><em>, Nowhere had grown on me, I guess.
The first year back in New York meant an increased responsibility for me. My brother was a senior, and he had things he needed to do, things he wanted to do. I was willing to pick up the slack, because I wanted my brother to be happy. So while he *</em></strong>ed his girlfriend in his room, I was down the hall giving Dad a shower. It took a while to adjust; as soon as I got home from school, the first thing I had to do was make my dad something to eat, or walk the dog, or whatever whim Dad was currently on. Gone were my carefree days, but I didn't even notice. The transition from "Wes who does nothing" to "Wes who does everything" happened without any major event or catharsis, that's just how it went.
I sometimes wonder what effect this has had on me. Maybe the reason my school attendance is so abysmal is because the man who I depended on to wake me up, just can't do it anymore. Maybe the reason I don't do homework is because there's only a certain amount of time in the day, and instead of letting Dad cut in to my R&R, I let him cut in to my school time instead. I like to think I took the bullet for my siblings on this one; my brother went away to college before the going got really bad, and my sister was so young when it happened, that the good money says she hardly remembers pre-stroke Daddy. I've always wanted to go to college outside of the city, but I don't think that's a real option, because from what it looks like: without me, this family will crumble. But the thing is, I don't even care about the effect it's had on my life, when I think about my Dad as a person.
I know that no matter how hard this has been on me, it has been a thousand times harder for my father. He was a man, a philosopher, a thinker, and a writer--and of all things to take away, God took away his ability to think. The one thing that was a temple for him, that he would never want to give up, was snatched away. Now he's forced to rely on his family to survive, and that's just not fair. Sometimes it's hard to separate the man from the burden he places on me; it's hard to equate the ass that I'm wiping every day with the tummy I cried on as a child. I love my father so much, and that's what makes this so hard.</p>