“I always thought you were a bit of an ass.” Pops looked cheery, almost completely alert.

I hadn’t expected him to be so alive; he hadn’t said a word the last time I came to visit. “Just a bit of an ass.”

“You can’t mind me saying that. You’ve had it coming with all of your nonsense.”

“Well, it’s better to hear you say that than you being dead.”

“You know what my Gramps would have called you, yeah? A real son of a bitch.”

“He did call me that.”

Pops slid down in his bed and looked off to the side. “Get me that bottle, will you?”

I looked around for a bottle of rye – that was his drink of choice – but couldn’t find anything. “I don’t see it.”

“It’s right in front of you, you idiot.”

There was only a plastic pee bottle by the sink.

“This?”

“I have to pee.” He shook his hand at me. “Can’t you see that?”

I gave it to him, but he just held it absently and then lay on his side.

“Want me to help?”

“A bit of an ass.” He closed his eyes. “More than a bit.”

He died a few weeks after that.