don't think you can hear me old man, but it doesn't matter, really. I can't spend my time with these thoughts. Time is money after all, wasn't that what you used to tell me? Remember when you gave me that little golden wristwatch, looked at me squarely in the eyes saying "you're a man now"? I was so proud then. Of course, things change.
Remember when Charlie Chaplin had you roaring with laughter? «Funny little jew», that's what you called him. But those were the good days. The days before the monkey on your back had gotten too heavy for you, before the chip on your shoulder had pulled you down for good.

The good days never last though, do they?. And when the bad days came, they hit us as hard as you used to hit mom. At her burial I remembered an old photography of you and her, you were both smiling and had an arm around her.
I realized then everything you had robbed her off. The gleam in her eyes that had faded with the years. Her large smile she openly shared you had sworn so many times «to wipe from her face». The way she'd sing and dance across the room with an invisible stranger until she would only be sitting in the living room, a pale shadow of the lively woman she once was. The woman you had sworn to love forever, remember her?

In the end she was just a shell of her former self, a lifeless robot drained of spirit and life.

Let me let you in on something, old man
It's something that I'm sure must have been nagging on you for a long time now. You must have wondered: Why didn't she fight back when I screamed and spat at her? Why didn't she slap me back when I hit her like she used to in the beginning? Let me tell you, now that it doesn't matter anymore: She refused to play your game.

You were just waiting for her to hit you back, weren't you? You needed her to try and scratch your eyes out, cause then she'd have given you the reason to make her body crash just that harder.
But she was cleverer than that, she knew better than indulging in these games of yours. And let me tell you something else: She drew the deepest satisfaction out of the fact that she could get under your skin that easily.

She knew you just wouldn't understand that she wouldn't answer violence with violence, cause that's exactly what you'd have done, isn't it?. When she'd be just like a puppet in your hands I'm sure it must have freaked you out, didn't it? Eventually the games had to end, and when you had enough of her lack of reaction, you just pushed her. I wonder what your face must have looked like as you you were on top the stairs looking at her dead body?

Frustration? Loathing? Disgust? Anger?

And your buddies keep on telling me 'he's gonna make it, he's tougher than the rest that old SOB'

Ain't life grand?

Remember how at her funeral you put your hand on my shoulder and told me «life's frail son, gotta get over it» and you spat on the ground. Funny you'd say that, cause it's just what your cop buddy said before he added 'just an accident'.

God knows lies were one thing that always came easy off your tongue. Remember the one where you told yourself you could handle drugs? That was a good one. Except it turned out, you couldn't really, could you now?

You thought you could try morphine and get off the trip. Sister Morphine proved to be a mean old bitch though, didn't she, old man? I'm not going to blame the drugs on your behaviour though.
Nah, I'd be letting you off way too easy. You were just mean to the core, and I don't really care about explanations for your behaviour.

I remember mum shutting off, piece by piece. Mum who used to sing with me. Mum who used to laugh with me. Mum who loved me in ways you're probably too afraid to consider.

You see, unlike you, I'm not afraid to face the truth. I've done my fair deal of them, but I try to avoid them when I can. Unlike you, who made lying an art. In all fairness though, you weren't the only one.
You know who I mean, your cop buddy who told me it was «just an accident». Your friends who chose to ignore screams and shouts late at night. The neighbors who ignored the scarves, the shades, the smiles. I mean, how could they have known, after all she kept on repeating everything was ok, right?

Let them remember all that while I'll be driving you around old man. Cause I gotta tell you something. I look at you, victim of a stroke, bound to a bed, unable to do anything without the help of a nurse. Tubes hanging from your arms, tubes hanging from your nose, machines keeping you alive.

I look at you, and I remember mum's face when
you'd drag her up the stairs by her hair, her head hitting each stair. I'm sitting here by your bed and I try to come up with a reason not to pull the plug.
But I won't. Again, that'd be letting you off way to easy. I rather drive you around in a wheelchair. I rather let all those good people try and sleep knowing what they did. Knowing what they failed to do.

I'll make sure mum's memory won't fade away, I won't let her death become 'just another accident'... It may be too late to do anything for her, but for someone else it might not.

Don't worry dad, you'll get what you deserve. Eventually we all do. Your beloved son is gonna treat you like the hero you are.

A hero.

That's what everybody calls you, you know. Your poker buddies, the cops, the nurses. Wars you fought. People you saved. I keep hearing about that, even though everybody knows the truth.

Don't worry dad, the day you croak, you'll get the burial a valuable member of our little town deserves.

After all, it's not like I would have any other reason to stay behind.

When you've finally breathed out for the last time, sending you to a place where hopefully mum isn't, I'll put you six feet down with all the respect I could muster.

And when I put the last shovel of dirt on your corpse I'll throw your little golden wristwatch in it, the only memory of you will be that old photography of you and mum. You see, I got my own family now. Got a wife. Got a girl. And I need this picture so I can remember who not to be when they see what mum saw in your eyes.

A monster.

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