We're all up and at 'em this morning by 9a.m. I pop my 12-hour decongestant, give each nostril two shots of spray, and I'm good to go.
Down in the kitchen, my mother is making French toast and bacon (the lovely, salty, thin, streaky, part-crispy, part-fatty American kind; oh, how I adore this stuff) and I am soon almost literally in hog heaven. We eat the French toast with butter and a sprinkling of icing sugar. I follow up with an apple, for I have not had a shit in three days. Not even two strong cups of coffee can sort me out. I consider smoking, but I can't breathe as it is.
Today is my niece's commencement ceremony. She is graduating cum laude from Kent State University with a BS in early childhood development. We're all proud to bursting, and I'm happy to be home for a visit to see her complete the arduous task, which has occurred in the face of great adversity - the death of her father and an ensuing bout of depression. She came out the other side with honours and without missing a beat.
The ceremony goes well. We head out of the auditorium to find a couple good inches of snow covering everything. Immediately, there's panic in the ranks. Everyone goes mad in the snow, despite the fact that it is completely expected and very common in December in the Midwest. We're in three cars, and my mother can't manage everyone, which she seems to need to do or perhaps the world as she knows it will end. We all become separated but end up back home in good time and in one piece.
We're all back in the cars an hour later to head to the graduation party. The disparate factions of my niece's history surround her at tables on all sides: her father's dire and always dour-looking family, only one of which, mother Billie, has shown any joyful emotion since 1978; her boyfriend's mates, none of whom seem interested in Tiffany and vice versa; Uncles, aunts, grandmothers - just about everyone who could drive in snow and walk from the car to the restaurant (a constantly shrinking list of kinfolk) attended.
We're all merry, except for the Rose family, of course, and head off into the night. Back at my mother's the call comes in from disaster central. Gary's at Tiffany with shouting and verbal abuse. Suddenly, my mother, brother, brother-in-law and I are all in the car at midnight hurtling like an ambulance towards Tiffany's apartment, where Gary also lives, for another hour, it seems, at most.
Nowhere it seems to me does the philosophical belief that there are no facts, only interpretations of events, occur more soundly than in families. We're like most people: we have our pet delusions; some of us know what they are, and others do not.
My brother Greg is at the throat of anyone who suggests we treat Gary with respect. I'm thinking he wants to lynch to skinny bugger. I can't get the point in edgewise for Greg slapping it back down like he's spiking an emotional volleyball. Or perhaps I'm being too rational in a highly charged situation. Or perhaps I'm tripping over a personal delusion that I didn't know was there. Nothing makes sense suddenly, and arrows a flying everywhere.
We arrive at the apartment to find Tiffany and Gary welling up on the couch. My sister is in the room, as is my nephew, who is a very big fellow these days and rather pissed off. I don't want to take charge, but it seems agendas are all rolled out, personal, and vying for dominance. I don't know what to do, so I do what I always foolishly do: assert myself as calmly and empathetically as I can. This game doesn't play well in the sticks, I am reminded, and soon there's a shouting match and I'm out the door running down the drive towards the road. I don't know how I've gotten there when I come round a few seconds later. This is all going very badly and my brother comes outside to try to reconcile. He suggests making a snow angel, which for some reason seems exactly the right thing to do. I make a snow angel on the asphault car park. We seem to have to revert to childlike behaviour in order to reach each other.
The lesbian next door sticks her head out and asks if we wouldn't mind please putting a sock in it. She has a point: we're all shouting, and it's 1 o'clock in the morning.
Back in the lounge, Billy is in the grip of a choking asthma attack. Kathy and I hop in her ambulance - I mean car - and we're off to hospital. We don't make it there because Bill is, taken away from the disquieting circumstances, fine again in under 10 minutes. We return to Kathy's house.
In the meantime, something constructive has actually happened on the domestic front at Tiffany's. Mom and Greg take Gary to a friend's house (Gary has no car, no money, and I'm not sure how he survives the journey); Greg's partner Lou drives Tiffany to Kathy's house, and we all meet there eventually. The atmosphere is almost weirdly self-congratulatory, but I suppose the object, my niece's safety, has been achieved. I find my brother-in-law Jim's beer supply and have a few.
I suppose my Tiffany's passed two milestones in one day. She's a college graduate and no longer interested in putting up with a man who makes her feel badly about herself. This much, anyway, is encouraging.
We're home in the small hours and I hit the bed at 3. My last thought is that things can only get better. They certainly can't get any more absurd.
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