It’s Blake’s birthday.

I think he was born on the day I got engaged.  We drove to Tarzana Medical Center and looked at him through the window, trying to pick him out amongst the newborns.  I remember exiting the hospital and feeling that I was beginning a new life.  But that was half a decade before my wife moved out, my father died and Wendy’s child expired.

Funny how the death of the patriarch fucks up the family.  My father was the correction factor.  He was the arbitrator, the judge.  If the balance was upset, he cried foul.  I need him now.

I’m in a snit with my sister.  She sent me an e-mail that I thought was out of line and I responded.  With vehemence.  It’s hard to grow up in a female-dominated family.  Oh, my father earned the money, but my mother called the shots.  I’m sick of worrying about having my dick cut off.  But with enough psychotherapy under my belt, I can finally stand up for myself.  But it’s still a surprise to the remaining members of the family.  They expect me to still go along.  The same way they bought me a ticket for the ballet, as if I’d be interested.

Oh, I finally stood up and said I wouldn’t go.  But when my father took me somewhere else for those two and a half hours, I felt guilty.  Like I’d upset the apple cart, like I’d done something wrong.  And whenever I got that horrible feeling thereafter, I caved.  But it got to the point where this solution no longer worked.  And after just about falling off the edge, I started to make a stand.  And that’s when the trouble really began.  I’m trying to act like a man, where there’s no room for someone playing that role.

I have sympathy for my sister.  Her husband lost his job.  She always seems to be married to men with work issues.  Not that my job history is so stellar.  If I was depending on my family to be supportive of my journey, my search, I was sorely mistaken.  It was only when I stopped worrying what they thought that I started to break through.  And now that I’ve got some status, it’s got them wondering.  How did this HAPPEN?  I didn’t play by their rules, I should be under their thumb.

But I’m not.

And in order to stay free, I’ve got to continue to make stand.

Which is why I haven’t caved.  Because I have to be a man.

We got to Moun of Tunis early.  And walked over to Guitar Center and looked at the prints in the concrete.  Nobody else was looking, but to think that all of these stars had appeared there got my heart a-thumping.  After all, this is my religion.

And even though the entrance was shrouded in darkness, the store was open.  So we went in.  And eventually found ourselves in the back room, where the rare guitars reside.

Behind a pane of glass was a Stratocaster worth $65,000.  Turns out it was the color that made it so valuable.  A kind of reddish-orange that hasn’t been employed in over forty years.

And there was a Gibson SJ, just like mine, but a decade older, worth over $2,000.  But mine…  The finish is imperfect.  Because my mother left it in the crawl space, on the dirt, in the moistness, because it was taking up space.  Mold crept in.  Turns out it’s worth $1,700 in pristine condition.  But it’s not.

And in discussion with the clerk we found out Eric Clapton’s Blackie was out front.

And there it was.  In a twirling plastic tube.  The placard said it was the only guitar Eric used from 1970 until some time in the eighties.  It was all worn down.  It was a modern relic.  Something akin to what they find underground in Jerusalem.  I looked at it and started hearing music.  All the notes that had been played not only on "Layla", but when I’d seen Clapton live.

That music had kept me alive.  It was my solace.  The only thing that got me through.  When the four walls were closing in.

But I couldn’t stand and admire this museum piece forever, for now it was time for the assignation, for dinner, up the block.

It was a large party.  Not only the birthday boy, freshly twenty, but his mother and stepfather.  And his stepsister.  And stepgrandmother.  And his Aunt Wendy and Uncle Fred and their two children.  And me and Felice.  And my mother, his grandmother.  We took up two tables.  The Hatfields and the McCoys.

When Wendy found herself at my table, she got up and left.

My father would have blown a gasket.  Would have flipped out.  Would have employed his legendary scorched earth policy that would leave my mother and Wendy, the youngest, in tears.  Jill would run off.  And I’d sit there, shell-shocked.

I’m trying to no longer be shell-shocked.  I tried to act like nothing was wrong.  I conversed with the younger generation.

And ultimately, Wendy warmed up.  But my older sister, she sat far away, she was ice-cold.

I’d give an inch.  But my family wants blood.  They not only don’t want excuses, they want to pull up the chart of my behavior in the coming years.  I need to be held accountable.  Why?

Part of me wants to balance it out.  Compare my maladies to theirs.  Proving that however bad they think THEY’VE had it, what I’ve been through, what I’m saddled with, is MUCH worse.  But that’s what landed me in therapy to begin with.  Trying to prove to the shrink why I was different, why my life just couldn’t work.

But now it DOES work.  And, like I said, THAT’S my problem.  How DARE I go gallivanting all over the world?  That’s just not fair.  I must pay.  Literally.

Finally the evening drew to a close.  The bill was paid, the assembled multitude arose, and started walking towards the exit.

I brought up the rear.  With my mother.

My mother can barely walk.

Oh, her mind is fine, barely two weeks from her eightieth birthday, but her body, it’s failing her.  Not on the inside.  Her vital signs are good, but her balance, her legs, they’re off.

She says it’s like walking with two wooden legs.  And it looks like it.  She holds her cane in her hand and swings her limbs forward, stiffly, tentatively.  And slowly makes progress.

And in the hallway, the ten foot long carpeted entryway, my mother fell.

She didn’t collapse.  And she didn’t slip.  She kind of just tipped over.  As if her left foot had slid on some grease on the floor.

She was face down in the darkness.  Protesting her completeness, her health.

She started saying it was the carpet.  But the carpet was perfectly flat, it had no bubbles, it hadn’t moved an inch.

And she couldn’t get up.

Her legs were limp.  Finally, I believe it was my nephew Andrew, or maybe Jill’s husband Tom,  who lifted her up from under her arms and stood her up.  And held onto her jacket as she ambled the last few steps out into the air.

I haven’t recovered.

The last time my mother fell, she said she was fine, she just needed ice.  But a trip to the hospital and x-rays detailed a broken foot.

That was August.

At that time Wendy told me she’d slipped in Minnesota and had told no one.  Only the sound and the hole in the wall revealed her crumbling descent.

I kept on asking my mother to check, to MAKE SURE she was okay.  After all, her father, while getting out of the family car after his seventieth birthday party, had fallen on his head and died.

I’d seen the whole thing.  Not that episode back in the sixties, but tonight’s event.  Just a slight twist, and my mother’s cabeza would have hit first.  And THEN what?

And what’s going on in her home in Connecticut?

Is it a matter of getting a walker?  Or a wheelchair?

She’s not too proud, just a stoic.  She believes she’s fine, that such measures are unnecessary.

I’ve learned that it’s a badge of maturity to ask for help.  Unfortunately, I’m missing a body part as a result of living the life of my mother, the stoic.  If only I’d gone to the hospital sooner, within twenty four hours, the outcome would have been different.  But sheer will should get you through.  No malady is too much.  Mind over matter.  You’ve got to be tough.

And that’s what my family is.  Tough.

So I’ve got to be tough too.

And that doesn’t feel good.

And after we all parted ways, I’m driving Felice’s Lexus down La Brea, in a state.  SOMETIME my mother is gonna die, but hopefully not sooner rather than later.  And if it’s sooner, it’s two against one.  My father had me as executor of the estate, figuring I was the only one who knew what was right, what to do.  He told me, face to face, a week before he died, to NEVER sell any real property.

In the ensuing year, my mother made the three kids co-executors and blew out pieces of land my father had owned for decades, waiting for them to appreciate, and was then stunned that the taxes were such that she would have been better off holding on to them.

All is gone except this strip center, in Branford, Connecticut, that my mother lives on.  I know as soon as she goes, my younger sister is going to want to liquidate it, get her cash.

But cash slips through your fingers.  Managing a property from thousands of miles away isn’t easy, but it’s worth it.  Real property doesn’t disappear.

My mother told me she’d spoken to my older sister, that she was on my team, that worst case scenario, we’d buy Wendy out.

But if all this came down today, I’m on a team of one.

And when that property goes, so does my father.  It will be the end of an era.  Everything he slaved for, his desire to provide for the family, all remnants will be gone.  It’s like his lessons will evaporate.

Thank god he’s dead.

But if he were alive, all of this would never be going on.

He’d set it straight between Jill and me.  He wouldn’t put up with my mother’s cavalier attitude towards her condition.

I want to make it right, but the deeper I get, the worse off I am.

Happy Thanksgiving.