Boredom breeds cruelty; that's something I've always believed. From a child dipping gerbils in kerosene, watching them blaze trails of fire through a backyard field, to a man swerving his car to hit a dog on the road at night to stay awake - it all comes down to boredom.

     Daddy doesn't know I've lost my job. I'm not sure he knows much of anything. He lies in bed all day, all night, never moves, he just lies there breathing gravel through broken lungs. It keeps me awake sometimes. Sometimes I think about that, the two of us, alone in our rooms, both of us lying perfectly still, staring glass-eyed into the pits and fissures of our cracked ceilings, just lying there, doing nothing. Except me. I'm listening to him breathe. And I can't wait for him to stop.

     I test him sometimes, now that I'm home all day, too. I'll go into his room and put on the TV, Santa Barbara, they have the best women. I watch him, waiting for some kind of reaction, a twitch, dilating pupils, but he's too good for me. I never catch him. He must wait for me to blink, or maybe he knows he can get away with it when Cassie's on -he knows I won't watch him then. Even like this I can't beat him.

     I've taken up smoking. It's a bad habit, I know, and expensive, especially on unemployment, but I need to do something to take the edge off all this. I thought about drinking, but what if something happened? What if he showed some sign of real life, what if he moved? What if he died? No, drinking wouldn't work. It had to be smoking. There's something so pacifying about the flame, that slow curl of pale blue smoke, the image of incineration. Cremation.

     I hate feeding him. He dribbles soup all over. His tee shirts are all stained, yellow, brown, splotches of perspiration and chicken broth, lentils, and beans. I have to change his sheets every day. He wears diapers now. Seventy-eight years old and he wears diapers. And I have to change them. I know he never changed mine. He wouldn't have done that. But here I am wiping his shit and spooning his soup, changing his diapers and washing his sheets. Christ, I wonder how much I can take sometimes.

     Doctor Curtis stops in once a month. He looks him over, shaking his head the whole time, listens to him breathe. Tells me to prepare for the worst because Daddy's just about through with us here. Pokes Daddy's feet with a pin. Next time I can tell him not to bother. If he doesn't react to what I've been doing, he's sure as hell not going to get up and dance at the prick of a pin.

     I've been holding cigarettes against his feet. Leaves greyish black, yellowing, pussy holes-like ulcers. Never so much as twitches a toe. They bleed a little from time to time, especially when I pour on the alcohol, but I don't see as how it's hurting him any. It gives me something to do, standing there with one flaring up against his skin, looking him square in those filmy eyes of his and saying, "You bore me boy! You bore me." And I wonder if he remembers. What do I care? It gives me something to do. And I remember. That's all that matters.

     I read to him today. The obituary page. Just in case he was listening, I threw in one for him. Made it up on the spot. I tossed it in between Davey Buchanan, 81, and Bud Kocinski, 72.

     "What do you think of that," I said. "Says here you've been dead for months." I know he doesn't show any reaction, but deep down, I really hope he hears me. Maybe his brain is storing it all up somewhere, all the sights, sounds, feelings. All the pain. Storing it up in one tight little bundle, just waiting for the right moment to let it all go.

     I woke up this morning. Late as usual. I wonder if he notices. I wonder if it matters whether he gets his Cream of Wheat shoved down his throat at 7:30 or 11:30, or if at this point he even needs to eat at all.

     I thought about doing the dishes today, after I fed him. I ended up standing at the sink and throwing bowls at the window. And when the window broke, I threw them through it, outside against the wall of the garage. Great big, exploding crashes of sound. Splinters and fragments of sound and history and porcelain. I suppose later I could clean it up. Be almost like work. Making a job for myself.