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And I realized how much I did need her, like I loved her, she was my best friend. And so what I did was I went home, and I brought some of my work shirts back to the hospice. And I brought them into her room, and I said, “Franny, my shirts are a freakin’ mess, and I need you to iron them for me.” She got all: “Screw you. I’m in the hospice.” So I left. I come back, 20 minutes later, all the shirts are ironed. You know, she got up.And then she’s like, “Where’s the motorcycle?” Now she’s excited about it.And that guy was right. She just wanted to know that I still needed her, like I loved her, you know what I mean? [Dying] people, they feel “I’m alive.” They pass away at one moment. Until that moment, they are alive, and they want to be loved, and they want to give and share, you know.So now she wants to see [the Harley]. I take her out; she wants to sit on it. I put her on it. She wants to start it up. Now she’s wearing a paper dress, she’s got her freakin’ morphine pole next to her, and she’s sitting on this Harley, and I’m worried about her burning her freakin’ leg off. So she says (pleading voice), “Can you just take me for a little ride around the parking lot?” And I’m like, no, I can’t — I’m thinking, get the hell —Maron: You’ve got a drip IV —DeStefano: Yeah! And then it just hit me: I’m like, no, you have to, you’re in this moment, you have to do this motorcycle ride. You know? And it’s dangerous, and what if she falls? And what if one day I’m telling this story: “Yeah, my wife, she almost died of AIDS, but then I killed her on my Harley. She fell off and banged her freakin’ head.” That’s a messed-up story.And that’s when I realized, you know, screw it. Of course I’ll — yeah. So I’m riding around the hospice parking lot, and then my friend who’s a cripple in a wheelchair comes barreling over in his van, laughing, “What are you doing?” I said, “I’m riding Franny around.” Franny’s like, “Can we just go out on the street a little bit?”Maron: Where’s the morphine drip? She’s holding it?DeStefano: She’s holding the pole! Marc, it was a pole with four wheels on the bottom, and we’re riding around this hospice, and you could hear the goddamn wheels jangling and banging; it was insane.And then I pass the front door, and all these nurses are standing out front, and they’re all crying. They’re watching us, and they’re crying. And I didn’t know why they were crying. I was like, Why are they crying? I didn’t get what they were seeing. I didn’t know. Because I was just in it; I was living it. I knew my wife who had suffered, she was a prostitute, she was a freakin’ heroin addict, she was beaten by pimps — this was her past — and then she ends up with AIDS, and she’s dying, and all she wants is a goddamn ride on my motorcycle.
It wasn't me, really; I just followed Kevin Baker's lead.Good and touching story though, isn't it.
