The Corrections

I hurt was my dignity”

    Nice try, but no, sorry, I insist that you come for Christmas.

    I’ve been talking to Axon, and the plan is to give Dad six months of Corecktall beginning right after New Year’s,and to let him and Mom stay with me while that’s going on. (Helpfully, my life is in ruins, so it’s easy to make myself available.) The only way this scenario won’t happen is if Axon’s medical staff decides that Dad has non-drug-related dementia. He admittedly seemed pretty shaky when he was in New York, but he’s been sounding good on the phone. “All I hurt when I fell was my dignity,” etc. They took the cast off his arm a week early.

    Anyway, he’s probably going to be with me in Philly for his birthday, and for the rest of the winter and spring too, and so Christmas is the time for you to come to St. Jude, and so please don’t argue with me anymore, just do it.

    I eagerly (but with confidence) await confirmation that you will be there.
    P.S. Caroline, Aaron, and Caleb are not coming. Gary’s coming with Jonah and flying back to Philly at noon on the 25th.

    P.P.S. Don’t worry, I say NO to drugs.
    FROM: [email protected]
TO: [email protected]
SUBJECT: Re: “The only thing I hurt was my dignity”

    I saw a man shot six times in the stomach last night. A paid hit in a club called Musmiryte. It had nothing to do with us, but I wasn’t happy to see it.

    It’s not clear to me why I’m required to come to St. Jude on some specific date. If Mom and Dad were my children,whom I’d created out of nothing without asking their permission, I could understand being responsible for them. Parents have an overwhelming Darwinian hardwired genetic stake in their children’s welfare. But children, it seems to me, have no corresponding debt to their parents.

    Basically, I have very little to say to these people. And I don’t think they want to hear what I do have to say.

    Why don’t I plan to see them when they’re in Philadelphia? That sounds more fun anyway. That way all nine of us can get together, instead of just six of us.
    FROM: [email protected]
TO: [email protected]
SUBJECT: A serious flaming from your pissed-off sister

    My god you sound self-pitying.

    I’m saying come for MY sake. For MY sake. And also for YOUR OWN sake, because I’m sure it’s very cool and interesting and adult-feeling to watch somebody get shot in the stomach, but you only have two parents, and if you miss your time with them now you won’t get another chance.

    I’ll admit it: I’m a mess.

    I will tell you—because I want to tell someone—even though you never told me why YOU got fired—that I was fired for sleeping with my boss’s wife.

    So, what do you think *I* have to say to “these people”? What do you think my little Sunday chats with Mom are like these days?

    You owe me $20,500. How’s THAT for a debt?

    Buy the fucking ticket. I’ll reimburse you.

    I love you and I miss you. Don’t ask me why.
    FROM: [email protected]
TO: [email protected]
SUBJECT: Remorse

    I’m sorry I flamed you. The last line is the only one I meant. I don’t have the right temperament for e-mail. Please write back. Please come for Christmas.
    FROM: [email protected]
TO: [email protected]
SUBJECT: Worry

    Please, please, please don’t talk about people getting shot and then do the silence thing to me.
    FROM: [email protected]
TO: [email protected]
SUBJECT: Only six more shopping days before Christmas!

    Chip? Are you there? Please write or call.
    Global Warming Enhances Value
of Lithuania Incorporated

    VILNIUS, OCTOBER 30. With world ocean levels rising by more than an inch per year and millions of cubic meters of ocean beach eroded daily, the European Council on Natural Resources this week warned that Europe could face “catastrophic” shortages of sand and gravel by the end of the decade.
    “Throughout history, mankind has regarded sand and gravel as inexhaustible resources,” said ECNR chairman Jacques Dormand. “Sadly, our overreliance on greenhouse-gas-producing fossil fuels will leave many central European countries, including Germany, at the mercy of sand-and-gravel cartel states, particularly sand-rich Lithuania, if they wish to continue with basic road-building and construction.”
    Gitanas R. Misevičius, founder and CEO of Lithuania’s Free Market Party Company, compared the impending European sand-and-gravel crisis to the oil crisis of 1973. “Back then,”