How I Got Here

May 31, 1961

People in this world work way too much! I get so bored with them griping about WORK and BILLS. It's like nobody past thirty has any fun. Lousy jerks. They SUCK! And they all think I should care about MONEY like they do. I HATE money! And Dad's always shutting me up when I say that in public, like at the airport last summer and at church yesterday! What's the big deal- I though he went to work to worship God, not MONEY! Money is why people fight- because some people have it and some people don't.

I ought to join some hippie gang. They'd feel my hangup. I don't wanna be part of that money bullshit. I hate it. I hate material things. And I flat said so to Clair on Friday and she had to have a smart-ass comeback- she was like, 'You don't hate things. You've got more things than I do. Our family's poor compared to y'all!'

So what if I got things. I never buy these things- my parents do. I'd personally rather live in a tent with an ice chest and my radio. I don't even want a house, not if I have to slave for it!

June 10th, 1971

Twenty-five years old and finally I got admitted to college. Dad's proud of me. He makes a big deal out of it, though. I don't really want all the attention. I just wanna get this degree so I can buy a house for Kate and me, and the baby. I wish she'd abort the kid but it's her body and she wants to keep it. I mean I'd drive her to DC. New York. Whatever I had to do but no. She likes babies I guess.

She asked me if I can love it, since I didn't really want it. I lied. I said sure. But honestly right now I only care about getting through college so I can become somebody. I kinda like it that my Dad's proud of me for once. And I'm glad to be buying this house instead of living pointlessly from rent day to rent day as a bartender downtown, working late every night for peanuts practically. I don't know what made me judge myself as a looser but that was how I was starting to feel- especially after Brian just graduated from med school. I know I shouldn't compare myself to him but he's always been the achiever. He's just a little bit hard not to notice. So yes, part of this new motivation of mine comes from that, and part of it comes from feeling like I was living a dead-end life. A lot of it's about the baby on the way. I mean, I can be a dad but it's just not my life's goal to be the best dad in the world. Money is all I'll be able to scrounge up for the kid. Don't think we'll be close. Not unless it's a boy. And still that's a maybe.

January 27th, 1984

How did I get myself into this mess! I just keep making more and more money but we keep ending up more and more in debt! I just had my Cadillac repossessed in front of all the neighbors! Christmas killed us financially. Kate refuses to get a real job. We got into it last night. She yelled for an hour about how she and I were soulmates in the beginning. She said our relationship had nothing to do with money, 'We both despised consumerism! Yet you sit here today, thirteen years later, and tell me that you're drinking because you're depressed over your stupid car! Really.'

I don't know what happened to us. She settled on being a seamstress, working from home. I'll never tell her not to do what she loves but honestly it sometimes costs more than it makes, her little business. I keep having to bail her out, at least once a year. Her expensive machine breaks. Or her customer can't pay. One thing after another.

Bella's sick of being around our miserable asses, frankly. She takes off on her bike everyday after school. We caught her at the park with some much older guy a few months ago. Looked to be in his mid-twenties. And now, well, Kate's buying Bella her monthly supplies every month as always. But she's not using them.

She told me that Bella has three full, unopened boxes in her bathroom, as of last week. Kate's gonna get her to the doctor next week, without warning, have her pregnancy tested PLUS drug tested and... Oh God! I sound just like my dad!

I just don't want anything horrible to happen to Bella. We had become really close over the years then last summer, after I changed jobs, it all went to hell. I love my little girl. She's a good girl. She really is.

It's my job that makes her this way. I never thought job choice could destroy domestic harmony- until now. Working for the city is a lot more demanding than working for the county. And the toll it takes on a person mentally, especially in this line of work. I became a mortician for the money but sometimes I just want to see green grass and blue skies- not grey skin and white tissues. For the people. Tissues for the close loved ones who have to identify the dead.

I just want our little girl to have the best. To succeed at her every soul-wish in life. I don't know how the hell to do that right now. I feel I'm failing as a father. And a husband. And a man.

March 15th, 1990

I started keeping this old journal- or this volume of journals, I should say,- when I was fifteen. I never once stopped to question why. Oh well. Guess I won't try to break the habit now just because Rita Jane dragged them all out this morning. She read the page where my father and I got into a fist fight by the pool and he had to jump in and save me. She told Kate about it at breakfast. For a six year old she can get into some stuff!

She reported to her grandmother like a good little loyal reporter. Yep- she was like a little journalist telling Kate practically every word she read from memory. We laughed. Now Kate wants to read my old journals. I told her that she could do that only if the groundhog sees its shadow this year. So the bet is on. I'll have to hurry up and plant some of those big shady Green Giant trees, the fast-growing ones, try to shadow-proof the yard.

Just kidding.

No big deal if she reads them. It's better than her reading Bella's- like she use to do. I never agreed with her on doing that. I knew it would only cause strife or secrecy- or both, since one leads to the other. I thought they'd never get along again.

Thank god Bella's finally straightened herself out. I'm so proud of her- top of her class, a year away from graduation. I can't believe my baby's got a six year old daughter. So young. But she's a good mom. And Dave's a pretty decent guy for Bella. College kid. I know they'll make it.

September 22, 2005

Man am I glad to retire! Kate and I are going to tour Europe this year, all year. We're gonna stay in the best hotels, go to the best restaurants. Buy the best European clothes. Rita's about to graduate. Already! I said, hey come with us! She says that she can't because of her college entrance exam. No boyfriend. So straight laced that I sometimes think she's my grandma reincarnated. It's just weird, seeing her all growing up, listening to her talk like she's so grown up. Usually the only child is spoiled. Not her. She likes to use her brain. I'm very proud of my grandaughter. I wanted to show off my smart granddaughter overseas, give her exposure to another culture.

But I understand. She has her priorities. As long as I get to be with my favorite person I'll be fine. I almost lost a teardrop, held it in- when Kate broke down and cried about going to Europe. It was a surprise for her. And I love my wife very much. She deserves this more than anyone I know. God, we were so young when we met.

I'm so glad I danced with her at prom and not Molly Sax the black widow. She's gonna spend the rest of her life in prison for killing her husband over insurance money- which we just found out like three months ago. It was on the news. Everybody was shocked! She always was more about money than anyone I knew. Beautiful but deadly. Glad I passed on that. Kate's five times prettier and has the capacity to reason with my caveman mentality. Without her I'd be wobbling around with a stick and a stone, trying to defend myself from Molly.

I have another surprise for my beloved wife. It's waiting for her in England. We're gonna go see Elton John. Live at Caesars Palace. Man I can't wait to have some fun again. Priorities first, though- putting some money into a new IRA account BEFORE WE SPEND A DIME! House is paid! Not that we'll be here much from now on. Ha- but it's paid. God that was hell.

April 5th, 2019

I am now faced with my own mortality. I'm not sick, but I won't last forever. I know that more certainly now than I ever have- I just came back from the lawyer's office- finalized my last will and testament.

You know, you come into this world just as wild and eager as a bamboo stalk and as innocent as a carnation, the barefoot flower, as Kate used to call them. You come into this world naked and goddammit, you resist the red tape and the serious, hard, heavy talk about money with all you got. I was just sitting here alone remembering that.

Why does everything have to end up being about money. I just wish I had Kate back. I don't even know how I got here- and from there of all places. But here I was last week looking at that Great Exodus, and I realized that my life felt like one big bank account, and that I'd better leave it all to our baby girl and her family while I still had the chance.

But it's no shock to me in the end. I always knew my time would come. You don't spend fifty years cleaning up dead bodies without sometimes seeing your own features on their faces, your own identifying marks on their knee or shoulder. You have to wonder who's gonna be cleaning you up on that table.

Not that I care at all. I doubt I'll be paying attention.

I know now why money must become such a great burden with age, whyyour favorite person in the world has to cross over eventually, and why aging itself weakens the body until you feel absolutely defeated by the pull of gravity: it's because without all that disappointment all the optimists and rebels would all still want live forever, like we did in youth. And that's not a problem for me. But it's a problem for God- a problem for Death himself- for how could they ever pry us out of warm, comfortable bodies while we are immersed in the best of circumstances, happier than in youth? No. Life MUST degrade as we age, if even mildly. It loosens our grip on life just enough so all the Higher Powers can do one of their hardest jobs more easily- the grim and detested job of plucking us out of our loosened bodies right when we are ripe.

And that's how I got here. By that natural process I always thought I'd resist somehow. So. I'll just let go. I won't fight it when mt day comes. It'll be like that time my father dragged me up out of the pool water after we fought. I fight against Fate and in the end Fate saves me from itself while I let it. That's irony.

Death is always ironic because it contradicts the thing that gives it meaning, which is life.

And life seems to make money matter. Though it is a necessary, sneaky, and creeping evil, I still hate money. In the deepest safe room of my heart money will never matter. In fact I always secretly wished Kate and I could live barefoot in the grass among the carnations.

Well that's funny, because that's exactly where I'm headed.

But not today.

Today Bella's coming by to take me back home. It's Easter in three days. We're gonna have a big celebration. I live for these days now. And she handles all the money for me. I'm fine with that. I told her to stuff a bunch of it into those plastic Easter eggs before hiding them all over the lawn. There's gonna be about sixty people, including Clay- who hates money too, and I'm not about to talk him out of it just because he's a youngster.

I hear everyone’s expecting Bella to do that. She really turned out to have quite a grin for the green- her mom and I secretly call her Leprechaun behind her back. She’ll never know it till I’m dead cause she gets to keep all my journals- hear that, Bella. Well, you might love that evil old money but at least you’re a smart cookie with it. Gosh, if someone had told me back when I was sixteen or so that I was going to father a child who’d mother a child who’d grow up to own one of Atlanta’s top fiduciary firms I would have first asked them what the hell a fiduciary was. Then I would have beat them up and stole their weed. Barefoot.