Diana Darby ** "I V" ** Intravenous

Your Neighborhood 'Y'

What falls on my head isn’t the soft rapping
of problems unsolved
but the hard thwacking of
the trip not taken.
The pill not swallowed.
The broken bottle left in the kitchen sink to cut me later.
The promise of showers and vegetables.
The midnight phone calls of heart attacks and pneumonia.
The Social Security check lost or forgotten.
The gripe of constipation.
The flood of diarrhea.
It isn’t glamorous,
or sexy,
or collagen producing.
To say the least,
it is beyond trying.
All this worry,
this desire to fight the flood of impossibility.
I wait for phone calls form attorneys and doctors,
and bus drivers,
and organizations.
I sit on edge for phone call after fucking phone call
and do my best to keep my head.
Yesterday,
my new plan for them,
the one I was positive would work,
was shot to Hell.
Seems my father is too political,
too atheistic,
too radical,
for the seniors at the ‘Y’.
According to the program director,
he’s offended some people there.
Like I give a damn.
Those Martha White Bread women need to loosen up
and get a sense of humor.
They say they know God,
but all they know is their tiny little world.
Better not shake it up,
better not let someone come and break bread at their table who has different ideas,
like atheism.
Things must be gentile.
Southern.
Proper.
But underneath, the belly writhes with pettiness and gossip.
Underneath, any one who is not like one of them is shunned.
“We’re not set-up for someone with his needs.”
“What needs are those, I asked.”
“Well, someone with Alzheimer’s.”
“It’s not like he defecated on the floor,” I said.
“What exactly did he do?” I pressed.
“He spoke against God.”
Spoke against God.
Wow.
That surely must be grounds for removal.
I thought this country was founded on free speech.
I guess not.
The ‘Y’ promotes itself as being for “everyone,”
but they don’t mean “everyone.”
Only those that watch the Fox news channel
and wave a flag and support the moron we have in office are ‘Y’ worthy.
Only those that eat mayonnaise on their turkey sandwiches are acceptable.
Saying there isn’t a God is tantamount to burning the flag,
or denouncing apple pie,
or believing in Communism.
My father told me he didn’t want to go to the ‘Y’.
He said he wasn’t comfortable around Christians.
Turns out he was right.
Just when I had gotten him to finally let go of his prejudices,
he got slapped in the face with theirs.