I Was There the Night He Died Read Online Free

giving them away.”
    I stick the toothbrushes back in my pocket, in the process notice for the first time that Uncle Donny is wearing a cell phone on his belt. Aside from him being cheap enough that he’d be using a tin can and a piece of string at home if he could get away with it, there’s no one for him to call and no one to call him.
    â€œWhat’s with that?” I say, tapping the phone with a forefinger.
    â€œIt’s a phone.”
    â€œYeah, I know what it is. Why do you have one?”
    â€œSo I can talk to people. Why the hell else would I have one?”
    We’re almost at the front door when an old woman inching down the connecting corridor with the aid of an aluminum cane smiles at us like we’re arriving relatives and not exiting strangers. She’s wearing the standard Thames View Gardens old lady uniform—loose-fitting, matching floral blouse and pants; spotlight-white running shoes; big brown plastic glasses; freshly cut, hairspray-hardened hairdo—but her warm, welcoming face is the energizing upper that I didn’t take this morning when I sat down at the kitchen table to work. Maybe caffeine and positive visualization are enough to get one through the day. And who knows? Maybe somewhere way back there in his decomposing brain Dad is just as happy as her, we just can’t see it. After all, aside from watching the Red Wings and doing lawn work, eating and sleeping were his favourite things to do anyway. Twenty-four hours of both now, and a full-time staff to make sure he never misses a single meal or afternoon nap.
    I grin the old lady as good as she gave—I was a dog owner long enough to know that wagging tails beget wagging tails—and while Uncle Donny steps ahead to open the door, the old lady shuffles past; although not before catching me hard across my right shin with a whack of her cane.
    â€œFuck,” I say, hopping on one leg, rubbing my burning shin.
    â€œHey,” Uncle Donny snaps, spinning around at the door. “Watch your mouth.” He nods in the direction of the escaping old lady. “These people in here, they don’t want to hear language like that.” He finally notices me massaging my leg. “What the hell’s the matter with you?”
    â€œThat woman,” I say, pointing. “She … ” I stop rubbing, stand up straight, watch her snail away behind one of the hallway doors.
    â€œYeah? That woman what?”
    â€œNothing.” I must have imagined it. I must have been the one who knocked into her. “Let’s just get going.”
    In the parking lot, on the way to the car, “You’ve got to remember you’re not in Toronto anymore,” Uncle Donny says. “This is just a small town, for God’s sake. People down here, they don’t act the same way as they do up there.”
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    A cup of tea and an extra sweater and mind over matter just doesn’t matter—I need more heat. By keeping a small space heater going full-blast full-time in the basement, I’ve gotten the water turned back on without the risk of bursting pipes, but my fingers are stuck underneath my armpits for warmth more than they’re on the keyboard of my laptop, and instead of the next sentence, my mind is focused on how much warmer it would be if only I wrote in bed where the heating blanket is. Having determined to forsake my customary morning bennie, however, for the sake of a long list of deeply desirable nots —not being itchy irritable all of the time; not suffering tear-inducing insomnia; not having perpetual dry mouth, nausea, and for-no-good-reason nervousness; not, in other words, being a pill-poisoned drug addict—there’s no chance of my changing my work habits from the vertical to the horizontal for fear of falling straight asleep. Because being clean also means not feeling instantly energetic and extra-mentally alert and even faintly exhilarated,