“Oh, boy,” said the skeleton.  

Heh, yes, I’m afraid so.    This is a fundamental question for all humans, what we fucking want from each other.  I think about this now, in the context of your life, and your challenging, pointed question which, inevitably posed when I was most vulnerable, always made me feel like a needy neurotic whiningly asking for something unreasonable.  I was actually forced to ask for something that should have been naturally given between people who love and respect each other, instead of withheld.  

“Well, love and respect do not always go together,” the skeleton said, shifting, ready to rumble.  

Don’t be like fucking insane Andy, dad.  That pusillanimous turd, when I gave him the chance to offer me any version of the apology he owed me, pugnaciously challenged me about my use of the word reconciliation.   Reminded me of your old technique.  Were we talking about whether love and respect always go together?  Does that have anything to do with what we are talking about?  

“You never showed me very much respect,” said the skeleton.  

Well, take consolation in the kind of mature man you produced, then.  Twenty years ago I could not have resisted a smiling “fuck you…” in answer to that.  We’re not talking about respect, except to the extent that we’re talking about what we need from our loved ones.  Mutual respect is inherent in a fair give and take of what each of us needs, but any arguable distinction between love and respect is far from the point here.

“Bear in mind that my loved ones growing up were incapable of anything but bare survival.  My parents were in an arranged, loveless marriage.  My mother, in fact, despised my father.  She literally loathed him.  He was, as Eli described him, two eyes, a nose and a mouth.  His entire existence was devoted to not getting smacked in the head with a heavy piece of wood.  He did not always succeed in this.  Where was I supposed to learn what people give to people they love?”  the skeleton was getting a bit worked up.

Don’t you find it a bit ironic, if not also sad, that you, now dead more than eleven years, are still blaming your parents for your own failings?

“Touché, momzer.  Look,  I’m not blaming them, I’m explaining that I had no role model for giving and taking what is needed between people…”  

And therefore you are not responsible for the fact that you never took the trouble to learn how this indispensable human thing was done?   I was kind to you as you were dying, where did I learn to do that?  

“Was I never kind to you?” asked the skeleton, almost tearful, in a dry eye socketed kind of way.  

There’s the horror of it, dad.  You were kind, and showed it often, and it made the many times you mercilessly raged, and coldly refused to give what was needed, that much worse.  You were the skillful facilitator of sensitivity sessions between warring ethnic groups.  You were a longtime advocate for what was then called intergroup relations, having people listen carefully to each other, hearing what came through beyond the idioms.  You recognized how crucial it was for peace to have your concerns heard, to hear others.  Is it an unnatural thing for a child to show his parents something he’s created?  To expect some kind of sensitive reception and helpful feedback?  

“Well, you were always the little genius, you didn’t need my input.  I told you in high school that your drawings reminded me of George Grosz.  You came to admire Grosz when you were older.  What, was I remiss in not telling you that you drew like Albrecht Durer?  I don’t know what you expected.  I wasn’t a fucking art critic.  I don’t even know why you would expect me to know what to say about any of it…”  The skeleton, I saw, was truly at a loss.  

It’s a much more fundamental question and it has nothing to do with knowledge. Mom used to ask me what she was supposed to talk about with her grandchildren.  Like it was a mystery.   Ask them about their lives, I used to tell her.  Ask them to tell you what’s new and exciting, let it remind you about things from your childhood, tell them about those.  She assumed she’d be hearing about things she could never relate to, the new Game Boy, musical groups that made sounds she found hideous, the mindless fads of an incomprehensible, materialistic generation.  I always assume that a conversation goes where it goes and that two people who like each other will generally find something mutually interesting to talk about.  The back and forth, being listened to by someone who shows an interest in what you’re saying, is where most of the action is, it seems to me.  

“Well, that’s a quaint idea,” said the skeleton.  “Look, you’ve always been that way, very verbal and interactive.  You have a genuine interest in other people, that’s one of your attributes.  Not everybody has that.  Not everybody gives a dead rat’s ass.”  The skeleton pointed to a dead rat that was waiting for a hungry scavenger.  

In answer to your exasperated question “what is it you fucking want?” I offer you this.  I want to speak, and be heard, and have a reply from the other person that’s actually responsive to what I said.   I want to hear what you’re saying, and get clarification when I need it, and understand the point you are trying to make.   I want a catch, basically, a back and forth where we each throw the ball directly to each other and don’t turn it into some kind of competition to see who can catch the high heat and who is too much of a pussy to handle the hard stuff.  

“Well, you’re an idiot doomed to a lot of disappointment then,” said the skeleton.  “That’s not what life is like.  You expect the impossible.  People don’t give a fuck.  Look at the situation of the American Negro, to take just one example.”  

With respect, I’m not going to take a look at the example of the American Negro.  

“I don’t know what you fucking want me to say,” said the skeleton, petulant as a child.  

Well, you can always tell me how sad it is that I’ve propped the bones of my dead father on my knee and am using the poor pater as a ventriloquist’s dummy.  

The skeleton looked at me with dead eyes, and a grin that clearly did not match his mood.  

I’m painting your portrait, dad.  I’m showing you from as many angles as I can, making you as three-dimensionally lifelike as possible.  This is a maddening and characteristic feature of yours, this need to fight over things that reasonable people would admit are just wrong to fight about.  

“You were a very difficult child,” said the skeleton.  

There you go, way to do it, pop.   You remind me of Dubya when you act like that.  Smart as you are you remind me of the dumbest, or at least most speech challenged and idiotic looking, president we’ve ever had.  

“History has given us equally moronic presidents.  Dubya was bad, but he wasn’t the most stupid.  Apparently he had a genius for remembering people’s names and charming them,” said the skeleton.  

This is a beautiful thing I always admired about you, you could have been the producer of Hollywood Squares:  Wally Cox to block.  

“I think you missed your calling too.  I think you could have created and syndicated a show called ‘I’m Still A Snide Little Shit.’  It would be a great hit in the Age of Trump, don’t you think?”

I do.  If only my father had left me the millions presidential candidate Trump was left when he found himself on third base thinking he’d hit a scorching triple when all he’s ever… ah, what is the fucking use?  I’m talking to a dead man, after all.

 “On the other hand, Elie, these are some of the best conversations we ever had,” said the skeleton.   “Ironic, eh?”