My father died of stomach cancer when he was thirty-nine years old. It was tragic because he had a family. His father died of cancer, of what kind I can’t recall, and he was well into his seventies anyway. My cousin died of AIDS, and he was very young, young enough not to have a family. My great-uncle died of a stroke, and I never met him. My dog died of spleen cancer. I loved that dog. I didn’t even know dogs could get cancer. My grandparents all lost their minds before they died, save my Grandpa, who is still quite alive and builds things in a single-car garage somewhere in Ohio. He built my sister a doll house, and he built me an electric train set, which I never used.
I have no idea what I will die of, when I will die, or if I am dying already. The doctors say no, that I am very healthy. I worry about my lungs and my heart the most. Whenever I think about them, I become overwhelmed with feelings of atrophy and dilapidation. I love to worry about my health, and I love to smoke cigarettes. It doesn’t make much sense, I know, but it’s beyond my control. Also, I love to write.
I’d love to write a collection of short stories about the evils of technological consumer society. It would take place in New York and California, and maybe make a brief stop in Tokyo. The star would be twenty-eight year old Gavin de Sade, and he would treat his PDA like a beautiful woman. He would tell his superiors he was related to the Marquis de Sade. No one would know what that was.
I’d love to write a book of unrequited love letters to girls whose names all end in the letter ‘A’. Most of it would be trite and repetitive, but there would be a couple of good lines or stanzas here and there. It would not be very long. Someone from the New York Times would write a very harsh criticism of it, and I would cut out the article and hang it on my refrigerator as a joke.
Lastly, I will write a novel over one thousand pages long, but I will die before it is completed. The same New York Times critic would try to read it but he would not be able to finish it because of an eye-infection. It would be made into a big-budget motion picture, where millions would see it, but the whole point would be lost in the film. I would not get any recognition and it would not bother me. My sister would say that I must be rolling in my grave over it, but actually I’d be quite still, atroiphied and dilapidated.
This piece originally appeared in Volume II of The Little Jackie Paper, published in 2005-2006.