For One More Day
Mitch Albom
Mitch Albom
NOW, WHEN I SAY I SAW MY DEAD MOTHER, I mean just that. I saw her. She was standing by the dugout, wearing a lavender jacket, holding her pocketbook. She didn't say a word. She just looked at me.
[That's too bad. She should have shot you in the head when she realized you'd grow up to write terrible sentimental schlock.]
I tried to lift myself in her direction then fell back, a bolt of pain shooting through my muscles. My brain wanted to shout her name, but there was no sound from my throat. I lowered my head and put my palms together. I pushed hard again, and this time I lifted myself halfway off the ground. I looked up.
[A bolt of pain? Wow. How about this bolt from my crossbow, casually decapitating your sorry ass. Why was there no sound from your throat? Oh, right, because I just kicked you in the trachea.]
She was gone.
[Aw. My heart's breaking.]
I don't expect you to go with me here. It's crazy, I know. You don't see dead people. You don't get visits. You don't fall off of a water tower, miraculously alive despite your best attempt to kill yourself, and see your dearly departed mother holding her pocketbook on the third-base line.
[Good. I'm not planning on going with you 'here'. Dumbfuck. It's a shame you didn't try a little harder.]
I have given it all the thought that you are probably giving it right now; a hallucination, a fantasy, a drunken dream, the mixed-up brain on its mixed-up way. As I say, I don't expect you to go with me here.
[Hey, thanks for giving me about a million jumping off points here, Mitchy. The more times you tell me you don't expect me to go with you, the more inclined I am to send you on your happy way to Hack Hell all by your lonesome. And seriously, "mixed-up brain on its mixed-up way"? What kind of bullshit lame ass description is that? Oh, right. I forgot. Your reader base consists of the barely literate female rhesus monkeys that think Jesus is coming back for the faithful as soon as President Bush starts nuking the planet.]
But this is what happened. She had been there. I had seen her. I lay on the field for an indeterminate amount of time, then I rose to my feet and I got myself walking. I brushed the sand and debris from my knees and forearms. I was bleeding from dozens of cuts, most of them small, a few bigger. I could taste blood in my mouth.
[I don't care how long you were laying in the field, dumbass. Just tell me you were laying there, I get the point. This is an insubstantial sequence, don't fuck it up with a timeline.]
I cut across a familiar patch of grass. A morning wind shook the trees and brought a sweep of yellow leaves, like a small, fluttering rainstorm. I had twice failed to kill myself. How pathetic was that?
[You know, Mitch. I've walked on some patches of grass in my time. Not a single one has been familiar. I like to think I'm an observant, fairly astute guy, but if you held two blades of grass up to my face and asked me which one rang a bell, I couldn't fucking tell you. Know why? BECAUSE THERE ARE LITERALLY MILLIONS OF ACRES OF FUCKING GRASS OUT THERE, AND IT'S ALL THE SAME SHIT. Oh yeah, and the best part, your suicide attempts: Totally pathetic. Don't ask a rhetorical question if you can't handle the answer. At this point it just pisses me off that you screwed up the first time.]
I headed toward my old house, determined to finish the job…
[My Hacksense tells me, because you're Mitch fucking Albom, you'll screw the pooch, manage to live, then drone on for another couple hundred pages in truly pathetic fashion. Asshole. Use a gun next time.]
***
MY FATHER ONCE TOLD ME, "You can be a mama's boy or a daddy's boy. But you can't be both."
[Sounds like a dick.]
So I was a daddy's boy. I mimicked his walk. I mimicked his deep, smoky laugh. I carried a baseball glove because he loved baseball, and I took every hardball he threw, even the ones that stung my hands so badly I thought I would scream.
[Mitch, buddy. You're telling us about completely banal facets of our every day life like they're some deep insight. Your protagonist here is clearly male, and guess what? We all try to impress our fucking fathers when we're kids, you hooker.]
When school was out, I would run to his liquor store on Kraft Avenue and stay until dinnertime, playing with empty boxes in the storeroom, waiting for him to finish. We would ride home together in his sky blue Buick sedan, and sometimes we would sit in the driveway as he smoked his Chesterfields and listened to the radio news.
[Finally. A decent chunk of description. Know why? Because you aren't bothering to pollute it with any of these 'deep, penetrating' cardboard explorations of yours. You're just telling the fucking story.]
I have a younger sister named Roberta, and back then she wore pink ballerina slippers almost everywhere. When we ate at the local diner, my mother would yank her to the "ladies'" room her pink feet sliding across the tile while my father took me to the "gents'." In my young mind I figured this was life's assignment: me with him, her with her. Ladies'. Gents'. Mama's. Daddy's.
[That's because you were a stupid kid who probably rode the short bus.]
A daddy's boy.
[Yes. We covered that.]
I was a daddy's boy, and I remained a daddy's boy right up to a hot, cloudless Saturday morning in the spring of my fifth grade year. We had a doubleheader scheduled that day against the Cardinals, who wore red wool uniforms and were sponsored by Connor's Plumbing Supply.
[Sweet Jesus Christ, Mitch. How many different times are you going to tell us you were a daddy's boy? Fuck. We get it. Great. Did your daddy do something to you when you were a kid? Is that what all this is about? You seem to be dancing around some deep, hidden abuse. Let it out, Mitch. C'mon. Entertain us.]
The sun was already warming the kitchen when I entered in my long socks, carrying my glove, and saw my mother at the table smoking a cigarette. My mother was a beautiful woman, but she didn't look beautiful that morning. She bit her lip and looked away from me. I remember the smell of burnt toast and I thought she was upset because she messed up breakfast.
[Yeah. Because a career mom A) Screws breakfast up that bad, B) Bothers to get upset if she burned your eggs a little. Now I know why this protagonist is such a pussy: his parents are histrionic wrecks who can't even handle a couple chicken fetuses over easy, and for some reason, this is a well-known enough scenario so that Our Hero here already expects his mother to be a broken down wreck in the morning.]
"I'll eat cereal," I said.
[Whatever. When my mom was in a bad mood, I just grabbed the fucking cereal. I didn't bother opening dialog with her over my breakfast decisions. Asshole.]
I took a bowl from the cupboard.
She cleared her throat. "What time is your game, honey?"
["Fuck you, you lousy bitch."]
"Do you have a cold?" I asked.
["No, your father and I just had anal sex for the first time though, and I'm a little uncomfortable."]
She shook her head and put a hand to her cheek. "What time is your game?"
["Whatever, walk it off you slut. My game? Fuck, I don't know. Whenever I feel like showing up. The bastards are lucky to have me."]
"I dunno." I shrugged. This was before I wore a watch.
[Uh. In what universe does not wearing a watch mean you don't know the time of your game? Do you now have one of those atomic wrist watches that keep perfect time, and give periodic updates, "Mitch, your baseball game is at 3:00. Mitch, your baseball game is at 3:00," in a robotic voice? You know, when I played baseball? THEY TOLD US THE FUCKING TIME OF THE NEXT GAME AT THE END OF THE LAST ONE. I NEVER GOT THE TIME FOR A GAME FROM MY FUCKING WATCH, I JUST USED IT TO MAKE SURE I SHOWED UP ON TIME.]
I got the glass bottle of milk and the big box of corn puffs. I poured the corn puffs too fast and some bounced out of the bowl and onto the table. My mother picked them up, one at a time, and put them in her palm.
[How touching.]
Excerpted from FOR ONE MORE DAY by Mitch Albom. Copyright © 2006 Mitch Albom. All rights reserved. Available wherever books are sold.
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This excerpt goes on for another two pages, but I can't take any more of this. Ugh. What a piece of shit.
Need advice? Sure you do. E-mail Dr. Hack and he'll set you straight.
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