Set against the backdrop of the 2020 Covid-19 outbreak, a young woman, Gravely Eaton, is stuck working at the family funeral home with a father she hates. The world is dying around her, but there seems no escape from her boring life with no friend...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I thought Justin's photo evidence of my father would have brought Healy into my realm of thinking. No such luck. His initial amazement at seeing father's image on the Uber screen passed with the gallon of beer in his system and a good night's sleep. While he woke up with a slight hangover, the only other thing in his head that morning was shaving his face and the eggs benedict he intended to prepare for us.
The bathroom door was ajar as I walked in on him. It had been 24 hours since father laid down his threatening message on my answering machine and I burst in on Healy mid-shave, and there he was, doing exactly the same thing and loving it. By then, he knew of my dislike for beards and body hair, so he was very good about keeping his skin smooth for me. I appreciated his thoughtfulness. He was a good guy. Couldn't help but think, he was taking to the domestic rut we were inching into. Me too. Except for the menace posed by my father, life was good. At that point, we could pee in front of each other, so I squatted on the toilet and did my thing while he hummed at the sink.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Just like the day before, my guy's face was half smothered in Barbasol shaving cream, swiping carefully at it with a razor, and listening to the strains of Frank Sinatra's classic "That's Life". Watching a man shave was not something my father let me do, so it was sort of fun to take it in. As I recall, a little gas burped out of me as I peed, which made me a bit self-conscious, should the man have heard me. He didn't because the song was cranked up and he was living the words Old Blue eyes sang back in 1966.
Music is a very personal thing and I've always believed it tells you a lot about people. Hearing the Sinatra lyrics bleed from Healy's earbuds, reminded me what a melancholy meaning the song had. "That's Life" tells the story of a guy beaten down by life, his ups and downs, but who is determined to give it another go. The end of the song also hints the singer could be considering suicide - if things don't get better. I wondered if that was Healy, a hurt and lonely man deep inside a happy-go-lucky façade. By the time I was done on the toilet, I'd concluded that my guy was a little more complex than I'd thought. Made him all the more interesting and mysterious.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
