Surviving Santiago by Lyn Miller-Lachmann Page A

can’t help being flip when my mind is somewhere else—especially somewhere happier than this scene.
    The man laughs and holds out a pudgy hand. “Ernesto Moya. I’m your father’s producer.” After shaking my hand, he slaps Papá on the back. “See you tomorrow, Nino.” He walks to the door in a straight line and lets himself out, leading me to wonder if Papá finished off all ten cans of piscola by himself.
    â€œHow was your date?” my father asks as soon as the front door clicks shut. His head is still propped on his arm. He stares open-mouthed at the cushion in frontof him as if it were about to roll toward him and swat him in the face.
    â€œI had a good time.”
    â€œWha’cha do?”
    â€œWe saw a movie. Gorilas en la niebla. ”
    â€œGreat film. I had someone on my show to talk about it when it first opened.” In slow motion, he struggles to a sitting position, squeezes his eyes shut, and rubs his forehead. “Listen, could you help me to the bathroom? I gotta take a piss.”
    â€œWhere’s Tía Ileana?” Taking care of my wasted father is the last thing I want to do. I almost barfed when I had to brush his teeth last night.
    â€œAt her old place. Staying over with that other one.”
    I lift his bad arm over my shoulders and grab him around the waist. My fingernails dig into his side underneath his rib cage, but I don’t think he feels a thing. He teeters. Without his brace, he can only bear his full weight on one leg, and he’s way past any ability to balance himself. He drapes himself over my shoulder, his wrist splint chafing my neck and his warm pisco breath—bitter and sour with a touch of salt—in my face. I tell him when to step.
    In the kitchen, he reaches blindly toward the wall. “I’m working tomorrow.”
    Another step. “I know.”
    â€œErnesto’s picking me up at nine.”
    â€œI can set your alarm.” Better set two alarm clocks.
    â€œNo worry. Birds’ll wake me.”
    Instead of taking him upstairs or to the downstairs bathroom, I guide Papá down a few steps and through his office to the backyard. The minute he gets out into the clammy night, his body stiffens. “Where am I?” His voice trembles.
    â€œThe yard.”
    â€œWhy am I here?”
    â€œTo pee. Your aim is terrible when you get like this.” I slide him off the patio and onto the dirt. “I’m not stepping around it like I did in Wisconsin.”
    â€œ Puta la güeá , you sound like Vicky.” He tries to imitate me, but trips over his words. He’s right, though. That’s exactly what my mother said. Except in the apartment complex where we used to live, she couldn’t take him outdoors as if he were a dog, so we had months of stepping around and cleaning up disgusting accidents.
    I wedge his body into the corner of the barbecue and the wall separating our garden from the neighbors. While he unzips his jeans and waters the bushes with what’s probably pure poison, I stare into the birds’ cage. I can’t find either of the little parrots; they’re camouflaged in the darkness.
    â€œHey, Pablo and Víctor. How are you?” I murmur in English but get no answer. “Don’t look, okay. Wish I didn’t have to look at him, either.”
    When Papá is done, I help him inside. Figuring his crooked and broken teeth won’t rot out any further fromone night of not being brushed, I move the papers from the daybed in his office, lay him down, and pull a blanket over him. He shivers, so I bring a second blanket from the living room. “Fine, set an alarm for seven thirty,” is the last thing he says to me. After that, he mumbles to himself, but I can’t make out a single word.
    While I pick up the cans and bottle from the living room, I think of Frankie, of the way he held me when I was crying at the movie. Then I remember his