Nicholas Montemarano - If There Are Any Heavens: A Memoir

Also by Nicholas Montemarano The Senators Children The Book of Why If the Sky Falls A Fine Place A Memoir Nicholas Montemarano A Karen & Michael Braziller Book PERSEA BOOKS / NEW YORK (Page numbers refer to the position of the quotations in If There Are any Heavens .) Listen / with the night falling we are saying thank you () is quoted from Thanks, from Migration: New and Selected Poems by W. S. Merwin (Copper Canyon Press, 2005). Naomi underneath this grass (p.150) and Lord Lord Lord caw caw caw Lord () are quoted from Kaddish, from The Essential Ginsberg by Allen Ginsberg (HarperCollins 2015). If there are any heavens, my mother will(all by herself)have/one () are quoted from If there are any heavens, my mother will(all be herself)have from Complete Poems 19041962 by E. E.

Cummings (Liveright, 2016). Copyright 2022 by Nicholas Montemarano All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopy, recording, digital, electronic, mixed media, or any information storage and retrieval system without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission to reprint or to make copies and for any other information, should be addressed to the publisher: Permissions Department Persea Books 90 Broad Street New York, NY 10004 Email: permissions@perseabooks.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request. Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-89255-557-4 E-book ISBN: 978-0-89255-561-1 Design and composition by Rita Lascaro Typeset in Adobe Jenson Pro First Edition if there are any heavens my mother will(all by herself)have one. E. E.

CUMMINGS

this is not a poem though why should a poem frighten you words can be oxygen if that werent a metaphor I would inject this not-poem into my mother I tell you be not afraid now will you tell me the same. / I told my parents how many times be careful be safe keep being safe wear a mask wash your hands please be safe I know the kids in the neighborhood love to hug you but a hug could kill save the hugs for next year and they stayed home didnt attend Mass for a year rare trip to CVS grocery store my mother to get her hair done post office to mail Christmas gifts and they washed their hands and wore masks but / that traveled over the phone from Indiana to Pennsylvania on Christmas Eve Eve near the end of the year people called the worst just one cough about which I asked what was that because I didnt like its rattle to which my mother replied just a cold even though in the worst year there was no such thing as just a cold. / how where who my sister and I wracked our brains trying to figure out how maybe a hug from one of the kids maybe my mothers mask was too loose but the truth is well never know well never know well never know and though we wanted desperately to know wanted to point to this or that moment and say there right there and then thats when and how we found no answers that made sense no who or when or where or how and we will never know and at a certain point it no longer mattered. / just a cold even with more coughing and wheezing we spoke on Christmas and she sounded fine maybe not fine but okay but later that day a fever my sister said shit a word she rarely says shit and the panic in that word came through the phone from her to me and now we knew what it was what it had to be in the year everyone knew was the worst what we had feared would find us had found us rather had found our mother and so a rapid test (positive) and chest X-ray (pneumonia) and our mother was sent home with steroids and Z-Pak the way the very sick but not yet critical are sent home to get better on their own or not and what about our father (heart disease / diabetes / obesity) should he move in with my sister (surely he already had it) but we couldnt leave our mother alone so maybe one could live on one side of the house the other on the other side though they used the same bathroom the same kitchen breathed the same air and sure enough the next day our father felt gunky and exhausted no interest in food congested and coughing had a fever ( shit ) his muscles so weak he had trouble standing from a chair and my sister (a nurse) bought them a pulse oximeter and said anything below 90 call me immediately I dont care if its the middle of the night Ill sleep with my phone by my ear and that night or maybe it was the next I remember those first days as one long day our father couldnt get up from the couch and called to our mother for help and she pushed and pulled but he kept falling back and she said hold on hold on and hurried to the bathroom to vomit then back to our father to push and pull some more until finally he was up on his feet hurrying to the bathroom himself and these were the final days of the year people called the worst. / If I get corona I get corona at the end of the day Im not gonna let it stop me from partying. / We need a refund this virus aint that serious theres more serious things out there. / Whatever happens happens. / I just turned 21 this year so Im here to party I mean it sucks but were going to make the best of it Im from New Orleans so this really sucks were just trying to roll with it were just living for the moment were just going to let what happens happen. / You literally cannot mandate somebody to wear a mask knowing that mask is literally killing people we the people are waking up and every single one of you that are obeying the devils laws is going to be arrested for crimes against humanity. / Are you gonna be a Chinese slave for the rest of your life when are you gonna take the mask off you look like a Chinese slave when are you gonna take the mask off. / Its against the law to make you wear a mask its against the law you cannot make people wear a mask this is just made up by Bill Gates and them and by you wearing that seriously think about it you breathe out your toxic air then breathe it back in and you kill your antibodies you make yourself sick breathe no baby go look on the package and it will tell you it will not protect you from Covid-19 you are hurting yourself I believe theres a virus but its not what they say we all have viruses we all get colds youre being lied to. / Im perfectly healthy and I dont want to wear a mask Im 100% healthy you just wanna wear a mask for the rest of your fucking life. / People wont learn these people wont learn youre a bunch of idiots wearing masks you know its not real look at you fools you got a fucking doily on your face you retard you look like you fucking got it off your moms countertop you look like an idiot look at you what are you gonna do come outside come outside and show me how tough you are Ill beat that fucking mask off your face fucking pussy youre all a bunch of pussies with your masks. / Dont tell me what the fuck to do hows that pal use your fucking head if you know how you little pimply little shit you little pimp Ill leave the store ok. / Fuck you where you breathe. / one of four ways 1my mother and father alive 2my mother alive but my father dead 3my father alive but my mother dead 4both my mother and father but I focused on hoped for prayed for outcome one both alive feeling awful for a few weeks then recovering just as my sister and her family had felt awful but recovered first my younger niece who caught Covid we assume at her high school then my sister fever and vomiting aches and chills headaches and dizziness chest tightness then her husband coughing fatigue chills lightheadedness shortness of breath then my older niece just home from college for winter break fever congestion dizziness days and nights sleeping the virus away that was November that was Thanksgiving now it was December Christmas then the week after my parents sick then sicker one of four outcomes as the world counted down the final days of the year. /