Okay, I said I might explain my parents’ demise one day, but then I started writing and out it came. All of it. And I’m glad. I feel better for having written this.
Jonathan and Polly Wardell were both scientists. Some might say they were Nobel-caliber scientists. Both of them had very interesting lives. Dad was the second of three sons, and all three of them were tremendously successful in their fields; Uncles Robert and Samuel are a Texas oilman and a Wall Street stock broker and are both stinking rich. My dad was the least wealthy of the brothers, but I want to believe–I do believe–that he was fulfilled in his life. He was very much in love with mom and me, and he still got excited about his work every single day.
Mom’s family’s a little different. You could say that dad and his siblings are tycoons and geniuses. My mom’s siblings are geniuses all as well, but they all function in a more right-brained way. Aunt Margaret lives in a home in Washington. She’s an autistic savant; she can memorize a phone book in a couple of hours, but she can’t tie her shoes or operate a television remote. Aunt Betty is a poet who’s written books of the stuff; I never particularly liked poetry, but I can read hers because it’s hers, and she’s always been nice to me. She always gave me lollipops when we would visit her at her home in Long Island. Of all my uncles’ and aunts’ talents and gifts, it’s hers I’ve always appreciated the most, because I always wanted to be a writer myself. Mom’s dad, my grandfather, had been a ranked grandmaster chess player before he died when I was six. So everyone in my family is pretty much either fundamentally challenged or ridiculously gifted in some way. At least as far as I know, I am the only legitimate child of any of them. There are rumors though that Uncle Robert the oilman has a whole family tucked away somewhere near Houston. That’s unconfirmed, of course, and he would never claim them, because rumor also has it that they’re somewhat ethnic (Mexican). Me, I wouldn’t care; I would have loved to have a cousin (or cousins!) to play with when we visited Uncle Robert. His big old mansion had all the warmth and charm of the Kremlin in 1984. (I’ve never been there, but it seems from what I’ve heard to be a particularly cold place and without much in the way of charm.)
Mom and Dad were both mathematicians–dad a chemist and mom a physicist. When they died, they had been working together in the field of Green Energy (a passion they seem to have passed on to me). That’s one of the many things that makes their passing so tough, aside from all the emotional toll, they were also on the verge of a discovery that could have revolutionized the way we power our lives. They’d theorized a way to harness energy from a certain type of bacteria that grows in stagnant freshwater. One such bacteria was insubstantial, but the million or so that resided in a drop of water could, based on their model, power a light bulb for ten long minutes. A bucketful of the stuff could power the whole house for a day. The best part of it was that the bacteria could be grown in the back yard. It was pure, renewable, clean energy. But even as they were gathering all their research theories into a formal proposal they were killed. Without their influence, the idea fell by the wayside and soon was lost in a tide of propaganda and bureaucracy. Conspiracy theorists came out of the woodwork, suggesting that Big Oil had had a hand in the scheme, they not wanting as yet to relinquish their hold on energy in America. This prompted an official investigation, but the claims were never substantiated. If it was a conspiracy, it was covered up remarkably well. Still, I wouldn’t put it past Uncle Robert to snuff is lil’ brother and his widdle wifey just to make sure his pockets stay lined with gold. Yeah, I think that much of him.
So how were they killed? It was a foiled bank robbery. Three people died that day, one of the robbers and my mom and dad, who had gone to the bank on their lunch break together to…well, I like to think they were putting some money into a fund for me or something, but I was twenty eight then, and had my own job, so I don’t really know why they were there. I still lived at home, though, and I’ll never forget that feeling as I sat there waiting for them to come home from work that day, for dad to start telling me about all the progress they’d made while he opened a bottle of wine. He’d kick off his shoes and sit barefoot at the kitchen table while mom made sandwiches, and he’d pour us all a glass of wine and scratch his scruffy hair and smile. And I’d sit there and listen, just like I did when I was five, ten, fifteen and twenty. I loved them. So much.
In some ways, I’m still waiting for them to come home. I didn’t have any friends when they died. I’ve never been very outgoing, and I don’t meet people well. But I never really needed friends, because mom and dad were my friends. They entertained me in a way no one else ever could. So when they didn’t come home I just sat and waited. When the phone rang and it was my mom’s lawyer, Don Billup, I knew something awful had happened. I would never have left the apartment if Aunt Betty hadn’t come to get me and made me go to the funeral home. She made me help with all the preparations, choosing the caskets, etc. And I’m glad she did. I was glad then to have her shoulder to cry on. She still calls me every now and then to check on me. She’s the only one of my uncles or aunts who does. But after the funeral, when it was all over, I went home and Aunt Betty did, too. And I never left again. I quit my job with a phone call to my boss. I started reading a lot, watching movies, eating delivery. There was some insurance money that made sure I wouldn’t lose the apartment, even if I couldn’t live in the lap of luxury. They’d made sure before they died that I would be taken care of.
And here it is just over a year later, and I’m still here in the apartment. Don’t get me wrong, I do leave sometimes. When I need something I go get it. I’m not a total recluse. I just don’t meet people well, so I don’t have anyone really to go and see. Sometimes I go to the movies alone, or to a restaurant, but I hate doing that so usually I just order in and watch pay-per-view. I am writing, which is good. I have one novel completed and one in the works, but I doubt they’ll ever get published. And now I have this Macbook and WiFi and a blog, and I just read Jack Kerouac’s On The Road, and I’m thinking to myself that maybe it’s time to get on the road myself. Maybe it’s time for a change. Problem is, I’m a creature of habit, and right now my habit is to sit here and drive myself crazy waiting for something to happen.
Happen, something.
