It wasn’t the cancer that irked Tom the most. It wasn’t the moving into the nursing home. As far as elderly incarceration goes, it was rather nice. Pretty gal to wash your ass, decent grub, a beer on sunday if you behaved.
The old bastard never expected his sons to take care of him. Tom certainly wasn’t the kind of father who deserved their love, and if they’d gone soft and decided to pity the mean old man; well, Tom preferred their indifference and justified hatred to their pity. It wasn’t even the fact that the least favorite of his sons moving into the house Tom’s own grandfather built, nor his tacky wife ripping up the 200 year old roses.
The shitty thing about dying is no one leaves you the fuck alone to die on your own terms, in peace and quiet with no witnesses the way god intended. One day after morning medicine, Tom timed his walk just right and slipped out the kitchen, up the ramp to the street, and back out into the world.
Now if he’d had his way, Tom would have broke into his own house while his asshole kid was at work, left a fat steamy upper-decker in the upstairs toilet tank, put on his best dress blues and hung himself from the dining room fan, corpse twirling around the room, with a dirty joke as a suicide note pinned under his service medal.
Alas, Tom didn’t feel much like exerting that much effort when there was a perfectly obliging river not a half mile down the road.
The old man sauntered with a smile, a newfound purpose and determination in his steps. No more needles. no more forlorn looking doctors, no more roommates shitting their pants and crying for applesauce. Dying was going to be such a relief.
The area around the nursing home used to be all warehouses that served the shipyard, but now they were ugly ass shopping centers. not just any old strip mall either, the bougie kind with the ugly copper fountains and planters stuck in the walls full of weedy looking native plants, and little jerk-off plaques talking about how sustainable and eco-friendly the building was. Buncha hippie losers, whats wrong with a classy row of gallica roses? white is traditional, but red, or even pink? a thousand years of kings and queens cultivating the most ancient of roses not good enough for the soy milk and talkin-bout-feelings crowd, apparently.
Tom cut across the receiving area of one of the big box stores, where some young men were unloading crates from a truck.
“Goddamnit Jerry! Be careful with the merchandise!”
a plastic crate tumbled down from the truck, bounced, flew threw the air trailed by a squirt of liquidy shit and landed at Tom’s feet. the contents were screaming.
“bad downsies bad fo fwuffy! eeeee! nu huwties!!”
It was one of them toy horses. but this one looked strange. and sounded strange. it sounded like a little old lady, if she were stupid and screeching like a tea kettle.
“Sorry, Man, hope that didn’t hit you,” the worker scurried over and collected the crate shouting over his shoulder. “Yeah, Roy, it was just Old Pissflaps, not one of the valuable ones.”
“Piss-fwabs am nyu namesie? wub nyu namesie! nice mistow be Piss-fwabs Daddeh?”
The fluffy seemed miraculously unhurt by her accidental flight, probably because they’re only fragile when it serves the plot, dusty grey, perhaps white in her youth, thin, eyes sunk into her skull, her mane and tail cropped short. golden horn. Eyes still bright tho. a lovely green against her greying white fluff.
“Ive never seen an old fluffy before.” Tom remarked.
“Yeah a big mill across the river shut down. this was a breeding mare. She’s in rough shape, prolly not gonna get adopted when theres all these foals, if she even lives long enough to make it to the sales floor. straight to the incinerator, womp womp.”
The turning fists crying gesture Jerry was making compelled Tom to deck him, but instead, Tom snatched the crate from the young man.
“She is mine. Is this the way to the front? Thanks, Johnny.”
Tom grabbed an “all in one” starter kit, little plastic litter box with kibble and toys and subscription coupons and mustered a smile for the pretty cashier. The young lady was baffled, but took Tom’s money all the same. She’d seen stranger things in her career at fluffmart, but this was a first.
“So on her paperwork i’ll need her new name and we’re all done.”
“Im thinking Gammie, on account she’s a grandma-looking old girl.”
…
upon letting her out of her crate back in his room, Tom discovered why she was called Pissflaps. Above her drooping, deflated teats was the sorriest looking mess of meat curtains Tom had ever seen. and He’d be stationed in France, so, that’s saying something.
Tom reluctantly sought the help of Phil, who lived at the other end of the hall, about how to set up for little Gammie. Phil had a orange and blue pegasus named Denver. Phil was utterly bemused the meanest man on the floor took up such a charity case.
“Hewwo Nyu fwen, am Gammie!”
“Hewwo owd fwuff Gammie am Den…. DERE MUNSTA IN YO BABBEH PWACE!! eeee!”
Denver scurried behind his owner’s wheelchair and hid from Gammie’s utterly wrecked genitalia. The old mare hid her crotch in shame, silent tears forming in her eyes.
“Im so sorry, Tom, fluffies are easily spooked by unusual things. Denver never seen any kind of vaginas before, let alone an old mare’s.”
“outside is a vulva, inside is the vagina. How the fuck do you have 9 kids, Phil?”
Back in Toms room, Gammie whimpered, “Gam am ugwy fwuffy?”
This wouldn’t do at all.
…
The next morning Tom bullied the simpering little mousy nurse into letting him use the computer so he could order a few things for Gammie.
Some of which: Little frilly dresses and little frilly diaper covers. The old, grizzled war veteran gleefully unwrapping little doll-sized clothes a few days later was the talk of the nursing home for weeks.
Gammie had full control over her bladder and bowels, but this was more just to make going to the fluffy park easier.
…
…
With gammie’s cronenburg back-door situation covered by little fluffy clothes, Denver and the other fluffies werent scared of her. They went on walks, and Tom taught her all about how to graft roses from other roses, how to fertilize, how tulips get their color. Gammie didn’t understand a lick of what he said, but she smiled and listened anyways.
Every day after morning medicine, Tom took Gammie down to the playground, where she sat in the shade and gave huggies to every little foal who passed by, singing her own version of the mummah song,
“Gammie wubs babbehs, foweva an eva!”
…
Eventually Tom became too sick to walk more than a couple feet to the toilet. on a particularly lovely summer evening, Tom carefully knelt beside his hospital cot and produced a tin of sketties from underneath. Any good fluffy knows sketties, and Gammie became very excited.
Sadly the tin was full of little shiny green candies, not sketties at all. Tom took each capsule between trembling fingers and snapped each one open over his apple sauce.
“Gammie I think its time I go.”
“Gu whew, Daddeh?”
“Wherever is next, after the forever sleepies.”
“Daddeh gu skettiwand?”
“Heh, not likely.”
“Gammie gu wif Daddeh.”
“Nah, old girl, you still got lots of pep left. you dont need to go with me.”
“Nu. Gammie tuu owd for nyu daddeh. what if meanie? what if scaredies in boxie aww awwone agin? Gammie stae wif Daddeh. wub daddeh.”
“I love you too, Gammie.”
The two elders shared one last applesauce and fell asleep in the evening glow, to never wake again. The night nurse found them cuddled together and still, the confetti of split morphine suflate cellulose capsules scattered across Tom’s lap.
Tom had no funeral, per his request. Cremated with his beloved Gammie. The lawyer thought Gammie’s will, leaving all her toys to Denver, signed with her crayon scribble was hilarous, he kept that framed for when he needed a laugh.
Tom divided up his assets neatly and fairly among his heirs. To Tom’s daughter in law, his least favorite son’s wife, though, he left Gammie’s full litterbox and instructions that the bitch replant the roses, white gallica roses from france, or eat shit.
I’m glad they went on their own terms.