I’m Fucking Mean by Nancy Kissam

                        ​  a.pasquier CC


​
I’m Fucking Mean

    I’m fucking mean.  I can be so goddamn fucking mean.  Yeah, it’s mostly in my head but it can scare me how fucking downright shitty and mean I can be in my head.  Or not even.  Even real.  I can be scary mean.
    When dad went into the hospital for the last time and mom tried to drink and pill herself to death. When they found her in her room, locked in the house, lying in her own shit.  She went to the hospital and was admitted to the floor above where dad lay dying.  No hope the doctor said to me from a phone in the hospital hallway.  He’s too old and weak.  Mom came down in a wheelchair to see him.  I hated her.  I wanted him to hate her.  But he didn’t.  He wanted to see her.  To be with her.  Nothing changed.  
    Then he died.  We brought him home and in two weeks, he was gone. He said his goodbyes and was gone.  I prayed she’d be okay.  I don’t pray but I did whatever you do when you don’t pray.  I steeled myself when I called her.  Would she answer?  Would she be drunk?  Would she hear me?  
    Then I stayed with her.  To clear out the house.  To get her ready to move.  And I was fucking awful.  I lied in my teenage twin bed in the Long Island grey and heat.  She’d sit on the edge of the bed, patting my leg.  I’d tell her to go away.  Leave me alone.  I’m tired.  Just go away.  But she’d sit and stay and pat and sigh while I seethed under a bedspread I would never buy for myself.  
    I told her to go to AA.  I will leave unless she goes to AA.  We went.  It was in the church basement of the church where I grew up. Where mom and dad went almost every Sunday.  Where dad had been a deacon and offered communion, collected offerings.  Where I attended Sunday School.  And here we were, strange people telling stories of how booze was killing them.  The leader asked if mom was there under duress and I shook my head “no” when the answer was different.  She was supposed to be quiet and listen to their stories but mom is a talker and would ask questions and comment on their bravery.  I wanted to gag her.  I was embarrassed.  Why can’t she follow the rules?!
    She moved and things got worse.  She was found in the basement of the retirement home after taking too many Ambien.  She began undressing in front of her friends who were visiting her, consoling her.  My sister, Jane, called me and told me they found her, lost.  I didn’t speak to her for three weeks.  The longest I’ve ever gone.  I went to Greece and raged but healed, raged and healed.  When I returned home, I still wouldn’t speak to her.  Then while walking in Target one day, I got sad.  I missed my mother.  We loved to shop together.  I called her.  She told me she had wanted to die.  She didn’t want to live without daddy.  So I forgave her.  I forgave her.

​

Nancy’s first feature film, Drool, can be found on Amazon Prime Video.  She won the Ace Hotel screenwriting competition with her short, Shave, produced by Christine Vachon and Killer Films. Her TV Pilot, Georgie Girl, was a finalist at the Austin Film Festival. She is also a writer of short stories and memoir.  She lives with her wife and two dogs, a pug and a chug, in Los Angeles