“You know, sometimes when a person don’t know what to do, the best thing is to just stand still…”
If you didn’t already know, the ticket insurance that Ticketmaster sells is a scam. They get away with it because they don’t expect you to use it. Ticketmaster thrives on an idiot proof, impossible to fail business model– people love going to concerts. For most any latter day Gen-Xer or millennial, popular music has played a significant role in their lives– heavy metal was the sound of adolescence; alternative rock, the soundtrack of wistful teenage love.
Music lives deep in the soul of anyone born in the age of the rock star, and so it follows that business for Ticketmaster is evergreen– the product sells itself, so much that Ticketmaster can exploit their customers and get away with it. People want to see their favorite bands; Ticketmaster can rip you off with tacked on fees until the price of your ticket is well into the hundreds of dollars, and while this may be annoying, you grin and bare it because seeing Metallica, or Guns n’ Roses, or The Misfits is worth it. After all, you don’t know how much longer they’ll be around.
And they get you with the ticket insurance because they know you’ll have a tiny moment of hesitation before committing to the purchase… you’ll think, “I’d love to see my favorite band play live one more time… maybe one last time, but it sure is an awful lot of money… what if something happens? What if I get sick? What if I get hit by a car? What if someone dies? What if I can’t make it to the show and need to cancel?” and in this moment of doubt– the Agony in the Garden– you purchase the modestly priced ticket insurance just in case.
But the ticket insurance is a scam, if you didn’t already know. It isn’t some willy-nilly, I don’t feel like going to the show anymore kind of deal. You don’t click a button on an app and have your money refunded. You need to file a claim. You need proper documentation. Not everything is covered– not terrorist events nor mental health disorders, among other things on a laundry list of shit-out-of-luck life events.
In the face of misery, it’s easier to suck it up for a night, swallow a handful of drugs, and get to the concert.
My father died and two weeks later I was at a Misfits concert.
***
I ran into a coworker at the supermarket. A red hot needle poking discretely into the recess of my underarm– torture that is unseen; leaves no marks, often used so that the tortured can still function at a capacity productive to their employer. I intentionally go to a supermarket on the other side of town as to avoid these interactions. I don’t want to be in work mode when I don’t have to be. I’m not very good at work mode in the social sense, and I disregard this character flaw with the partial excuse that bland social niceties are a feminine construct and there’s no good reason to excel at anything feminine. Leave me alone and let me do my job– which is something that usually works, in the context of the busybody work place, but falls apart in the non-work setting. When you run into a co-worker at the supermarket.
No one wants a real answer when they ask how you’re doing. It’s as boilerplate as reading the small-print warnings on the inside of an instruction booklet for a brand new toaster or the 40,000 word Terms of Service bundled with an iPhone update. “Fine, great, and you?” will usually suffice when we’re at work and we all have our busybody things to do… but it’s in the blackness of the unstructured environment, when we theoretically have a minute to chat without constraint, that one must improvise.
This insidious co-worker, how dare he shop at my supermarket, standing in front of the eggs telling me about his summer– spending more time with his daughter and working on the house; looking forward to the big vacation. And you?
And you… well, me? I’m just hanging out. Low key summer. Spending time at the gym. Getting things in order. My father died last week, so there’s a lot to do.
Met with a prolonged pause, I realized my folly with vicious immediacy. Not only did I provide my poor, unwitting coworker with a regretfully honest answer– I was never one to lie– but I mentioned the death of a parent while standing in front of the eggs at Whole Foods. His discomfort was tangible. I continued: it’s been a lot. You know it’s coming your entire life, but it happens so fast and then it’s over. The paperwork (my father made zero arrangements in the event of his death) and cleaning (nor did he ever throw anything away) is so overwhelming that you don’t have time to process things. You don’t have time to grieve, I told him… Besides, I need to take care of my mother– she only has me, and before that, she only had us. She’s having a hard time with things.
I said these things to my coworker standing in front of the eggs at Whole Foods. I said these things in a dry tone that communicated matters of fact. In a social sense, this was my mistake, but this is what you don’t expect when dealing with the death of a parent. Things you don’t expect when ruminating in horror, on those long sleepless nights. The nightmares you’d have as an only child with abandonment issues. You’ve always feared abandonment but you’ve come to expect the world to fail you– the result of growing up with parents who’ve had profound, life defining problems. You fear their abandonment while you’ve become their protector; guilt and sadness define your relationship. You’re Bruce Wayne picking over the events of that night in obsessive detail.
I said these things in a dry tone that communicated matters of fact because that’s what these things become. It becomes a fact that your father died and you have to grit your teeth and fucking deal with it. I didn’t feel the need for a gentle showing of performative emotion nor did I want to use a euphemism. My father died. He’s my father and he died.
***
The Misfits (1961) was both Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable’s final movie. Gable had a fatal heart attack ten days after filming was complete. The movie, written by playwright Arthur Miller, was considered a Valentine’s Day gift for his then wife Marilyn Monroe. Monroe’s drinking and drug use on the set was said to be out of control, with Monroe needing in-patient psychiatric treatment during filming which shut down production for two weeks. Director John Huston is on record saying he was “absolutely certain” Monroe was “doomed.” On the set of The Misfits, Miller and Monroe’s marriage fell apart– the two would divorce in January, 1961. Marilyn Monroe died of an apparent drug overdose on August 5th, 1962.
Glenn Danzig was born Glenn Allen Anzalone on June 23rd, 1955. After playing in a few local garage bands, Danzig started his first real band, The Misfits, with Gerald Caiafa Jr.– who took on the stage name Jerry Only– in early 1977. They were named after Monroe’s final movie; Marilyn’s end was their beginning.
My father was born on July 25th, 1942. He turned twenty years old in 1962. At this time he was away at university studying chemistry. He wanted to be a dentist.
In a metal box kept in his bedside nightstand were three handwritten letters. Two were written by him, and one by his college girlfriend. The letter written by his college girlfriend was neatly torn in quarters, then folded neatly, and placed at the bottom of the box– presumably for sixty years; the letter was dated 1962.
In this letter, my father’s college girlfriend apologized for not having contacted him for several months. She was doing a study abroad semester in Italy and, she said, didn’t have phone service so she couldn’t call. She had no time to write, she said. Italy was great, though, she told him– she may end up spending the entire year there. Don’t worry about her, she said. She’ll be okay, she reassured him.
He ripped the letter into four neat quarters, to maintain readability, and stored it in a metal box in the nightstand next to his side of my parents’ bed.
My mother found it after he died.
***
The first time I used the words “my father is going to die” was through text, staring at these words before hitting send for what felt like an infinity of moments sitting three feet from his hospital bed… his sedated husk with more tubes than I wanted to count, mouth agape with intubation leaving him with a static expression of horror– the moment of death still and prolonged. Staring at my text window through a blur of tears before hitting send. I didn’t want to use a euphemism because this is my life and this is my father and my father was going to die.
Something that becomes a matter of fact when it’s over. After the priest says his last rites. Encourages you to say goodbye, what you thought was ridiculous five minutes prior, talking to someone who can’t hear you, but with nudging… you tell him that you love him. That you knew about all the problems he had. That you understood. That you forgive him– you know he tried. You know he cared. I’m sorry, too. I’m sorry I didn’t do more. I’m sorry I didn’t do more to protect you from yourself. Maybe if I did, things would have been different for all of us… I promised to take care of Mom, and I will.
Holding my zip-up hoodie balled to my face– no matter how old you are, you’re ten years old watching your father die– the staff instruct us to leave the room. They draw a curtain. They offer a refreshment cart, out of place in an ICU but has got to be some kind of end-of-life grief protocol for families. It’s grounding– a reality check, maybe. Reminds you that you’re alive and life is about to go on. Things are about to get matter of fact.
They invite us back into the room– my father, now relieved of his tubes; mouth closed; quiet expression. We stand by his side. They instruct us to hold his hands. My mother takes his hand. When did I ever hold his hand? Men don’t hold hands. When my dog was sick, my dad knew what had to be done, and he loved that fucking dog. Men know when its time and they do the right thing for each other and now it was my fucking turn, and that’s what this was: “your turn now, my turn later.” A matter of fact because it has to be; a matter of fact because that’s what it is.
My coworker told me that it was nice seeing me after picking out his eggs.
Said he hoped I enjoyed the rest of my summer.
***
Two weeks later, I was at the seat I had purchased in the air-chilled suburbian hockey arena ready to see The Original Misfits– “original,” a terrible, unaesthetic differentiator added to appease both parties of the occasional reunion. Before buying the ticket, I had promised myself I wouldn’t miss another opportunity to see The Misfits live– this felt pressing and urgent in a post-pandemic world. After all, you don’t know how much longer they’ll be around.
I didn’t want to be there, even with the handful of drugs I’d taken before I walked in; even with the autographed show poster safe in its cardboard poster tube and t-shirt rolled and stuffed into one of my cargo shorts’ pockets.
I didn’t want to be there, and while looking at my phone and counting down the minutes until I could walk back out to my car (stopping to purchase a bootleg shirt along the way, of course), while being assaulted with music that has defined large chunks of my life; music I’ve loved with all my heart, like “Astro Zombies” and “Hybrid Moments” and “Who Killed Marilyn?”, I got a text from an editor at Penguin.
We didn’t know each other terribly well, me and the editor. He was interested in my follow up to Welcome to Hell (2021), is how I met him, and I told him that my next project wasn’t close to completion. “Soon isn’t the word,” is what I like to say when people ask, to assuage feelings of immediate anticipation, and the pressure and anxiety I feel that comes with it…
I didn’t think I’d hear from him again, but the text I got while watching The Misfits play the music I’ve loved with all my heart, was from him. It wasn’t about the book but my father. I mentioned on Twitter that my father died. The response was overwhelming and beautiful. He wanted to know how I was doing with everything…if I was taking time to grieve– not for my mother or father; not for anyone else– but taking time to grieve for myself.
“Grieving” is just another part of the to-do list, isn’t it? Another thing to do not unlike cleaning out the basement or selling my dad’s car. Just another event on the timeline of events– my parents married in 1976 and I was born in 1980; my father died in 2023. If grieving is the acceptance of these events as part of the inevitable, inescapable timeline that life presents, grieving is achieved on its face. I am not in denial… my father died and I accept it. My father died. He died, I watched it, and I accept it.
It’s a matter of fact– these events on the timeline of life with their short, clean words used to denote our understanding and acceptance of them. Cold, marble-hard words frozen in time with a workhorse like functionality; a mechanic’s words with extreme utilitarian value. We use these words to make believe that these are just events on a timeline, with hard, blunt, lifeless words to mark their existence– to mark our understanding and acceptance of them. My father died. He fucking died, and I watched it, and I fucking accept it.
If that’s not grieving, what is?
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