chapter one....(part 2)

Lithium is just a kind of salt, I thought, as I tipped the shaker upside down and watched the salt crystals coat the the steaming potatoes. I glanced over at my dad as he sifted through the mail picking up each envelope and tossing it aside like a card dealer. He'd come home and tossed his mesh baseball cap, the one he was required to wear for his security job at the Los Gatos Inn, onto the chair. He'd sat down, then got up. I tried to look efficient in the kitchen, useful and handy to have around the house -- his house -- basically because I was sensing my presence was upsetting him. He turned on the radio in the living room. The volumn was up high from the last time he'd listened, when he had been in a happier mood perhaps. "Capitol Expressway Ford! Your number one sales team in South San -" He switched it off. I heard the weight of him, which wasn't much, maybe one-sixty, fall and sink into his leather armchair, the one that matched the couch that I'd been warming. I could hear the air puffing out as he hit the cushions. I couldn't see him from the kitchen but I imagined him sitting there, with his arms resting on the armrests, staring straight ahead, looking like the Lincoln memorial in Washington. I wondered if he'd been messing with his dose again. My mother said he had, the other day when I called to ask if she still needed me to take her to her eye appointment.

"He shouldn't mess with that stuff," my mother had said. "He should listen to his doctors. Do what they tell him," she'd said.

I thought this was funny coming from her. She was always bitching and moaning about the doctors she was seeing. The last time she went to Dr. Sadesh about the blinking in her right eye that she couldn't control, she said said they'd "gone at it" and when I'd asked her what exactly she'd meant by that, she'd said he'd walked out of the examining room in the middle of something she'd been telling him, "without even saying goodbye," she said as if they'd been lovers.

"Maybe the doctors are giving daddy too much," I'd suggested. "Maybe he knows better than them."
"You know you're starting to sound just like him," she'd said. "He always knew better than everyone. Look where it's got him," she add.

And just where are you, I wanted to respond but didn't.

The last time he fiddled with his dosage, he messed up his balance and tripped on the bottom step outside his front door. He complained to Home Owner's Association about the rickety bottom step which he claimed was the reason for his fall. "Yo see this," he showed me the step, prodding it with his foot, pushing at it repeatedly with the rubber tip of his tennis shoes to prove his point. I really I couldn't see any movement in the bottom step and I told him so, but i did wonder where he'd been walking in those shoes to get them covered in mud.

I heard him sigh several times so I knew something inside of him had shifted from the day before. I knew I would have to stay out of his way, try not to bug him, be quiet and let this thing rumble inside him and move on, which it always did in time.

"Daddy's taking Lithium, you know," Rachel had told me when I arrived in Los Gatos. "I was looking for nail clippers and found the medicine bottle."
"Don't you have your own nail clippers?" I'd resonded cooly.
"What sort of question is that?" she'd asked. "Did you hear what I just told you?"
I had heard what she'd said but I wanted to deprive her of the thrill of breaking the news, since she'd uncovered it during one of her frequent investigative snoops through other people's belongings.

"Daddy, dinner's ready," I said. I set the bowl of potatoes on the table, then placed the steamed green beans in a bowl next to the potatoes. I opened up the two foil-wrapped salmon steaks and put them onto our plates. How had my mother done it, cooking every night for a family of six. And she had not just simply steamed everything. She'd used spices and recipes, timers and measuring utensils. Still, I allowed myself a small degree of pride as I looked upon the meal I had layed out before us. I could steam food with the best of them, I thought, and then threw open the kitchen window as I'd fogged up the place like a sauna.

When I didn't hear him get up, I poked my head around the wall to see what he was doing, but he wasn't there. I walked down the hall to the spare room that he'd made into his study, the kind he'd always wanted, but never had with four kids. His back was toward me as he stood holding a magazine and stared down at the pages. On his desk was a stack of Semiconductor Manufacturing magazines. My brother's floor lamp in the corner, with the shade still singed like a toasted marshmallow. On the desk was a photo of him and Epi in Mexico. His arm around her, on his head a straw hat like the locals wore.

"Daddy? Dinner's ready."
"Yes, yes," he said but he didn't look up immediately, then he tossed the magazine aside and followed me into the kitchen.

“Watch out for bones,” I said, sounding like my mother as I handed him his plate, even though I was pretty certain that if he were to suck down the salmon filet like an oyster he would survive; these were, afterall, Lunardi filets. He was seated to my right and didn’t turn toward me when I spoke so I had to look for meaning in the slightest facial twitch on the one side of his face. He was eating the potatoes which i discovered were a little undercooked in the center, so I was cautious not to interpret any excessive movement in his jaw to anything more than applied pressure.

I sensed from the way he held his fork aloft in front of his mouth a few moments before eating that he was thinking about something keenly. What was it, I wondered. Something about semiconductors he'd just read in his magazine? Or, maybe Epi. Did he miss her I wondered. I certainly did. She was a calming influence in the condo, sitting in her spot on the couch embroidering, writing letters to her sister in Mexico.

“That Susan next door,” I said to fill the silence. “She questioned me about the hose,” I said. His right nostril, I thought, flared slightly at the mention of "hose," making me immediately regret this line of conversation. Why did I simply not shut up, let him eat in silence? I had an awful self-sabotaging streak that revealed itself like some kind of reverse darwin effect: making myself standout when I should really curl up and quietly play dead.

"They're building a case. That's what they're doing," he said. "They want me out of here."

I was completely on his side regarding the home owner’s association. Their relentless postings wore on one's nerves. No swimsuits, towels or other items shall be hung over balconies. No bird feeders or windchimes on balconies. No Alcholic beverages by the pool. No walking in swimsuits outside of the pool area. No car repairs in parking areas. Do NOT remove books, magazine or other items from the game room -- as if anyone really wanted to remove ten-year old copies of Ladies Home Journal magazines.

"I think they just want their hose back, Daddy," I said affecting a light and breezy non-Oliver Stone-ish tone, that I hope would nip this paranoia in the bud.

I mean it wasn't as if he broke their rules intentionally; he simply lost track of them in the business of living his life spontaneously. "Yes," my mother would say to this, "and with not a thought to anyone else but himself."

So on his way to the pool wearing just his trunks with a towel slung over his shoulder, he might fancy a glass of wine and go and get himself one. And perhaps after bathing, he might toss his wet suit and towel over the balcony to dry, and consider it a good time to replace the side panel on his Toyota. And he might leave his tools scattered across his parking space while he went upstairs to make himself a sandwich only to become distracted by the sight of the birds flitting in and out of his birdfeeder and the peaceful sound of the wind through his windchimes.

He had other things on his mind, and the HOA rules, like weeds under his feet, simply got trampled upon as he set out to smell the roses


"Have you been looking for work?" He said apropos of nothing. He grabbed the loaf of bread i had placed in the center of the table and instead of using the knife layed upon the cutting board -- very french, very Gormet magazine, i thought -- to cut a slice, he tore off a hunk wringing the neck of that poor loaf like a doomed farm chicken.

"Work?" I said. Had he not seen me walking in the front door on a Sunday afternoon, after the morning rush, wearing an apron splattered like a Jackson Pollock with ketchup, mustard and grease? Had he even wondered where I was going early in the morning on a Saturday with a kerchief on my head and comfortable shoes on my feet? Had he not noticed the new spray of acne across my chin and forehead that were clearly work-related, last appearing in the summer of 79 during my Der Wienerschnitzel employment period.

“Why Daddy,” I said, “I have a job at the Broken Egg. You know that.”

“Yes, Yes, that's right,” he said. “Indeed you do.” The corner of his right lip turned up for a moment and then dropped. I had hoped that my waitressing job at the Broken Egg would prove that I was not just a bum on his couch, mooching off him. I was earning my way in the world, learning to play with others. Clearly, he thought I was wasting my time there.

“Editing,” he said after a moment's silence. “Can’t you do something like that? Use your brain a bit, eh?"

“I suppose, “ I said although I found I wasn't so fond of using my brain at work. It got me into trouble and messed me up. I overthought simply tasks. After three weeks at the Broken Egg, I still had yet to figure out how to ring up a half-order of country fries so was handing them out for free left and right. I found I worked best when I worked on on auto-pilot, behind the scenes, like at Der Weinerschnitzels wrapping Chili cheese dogs: bun, weiner, cheese, chili. To be quite honest, I would have prefered to be one of the bus boys or the dishwashers at the Broken Egg, in the background, unseen -- clear, wipe, set.