Poem I Wrote While Babysitting Grandson

Grandpa’s Sitting

Hundreds of cascading TV channels
Blinking their best same old, same old;
Sitcom stories splash with eternal ennui;
Pundits pound home the depressing political impasse;

What happened to Howdy Doody? He asks.

The mirror watching the couch where he sits
Annuls his reverie, shining its spotlight on
The reality of a wasting medicare  social security self.

So many forgotten dreams replaced
With angry choruses of debt collectors,
liars,  and charlatans while formerly consoling friends
are silenced dead  to Realms no longer defined
to his satisfaction by science or religion.

Switched off babysitter
Surfing the sounds of silence
Wondering which wave will
crush him.

There is a darkness late at night when the
Media sleeps and all human contact is absent
And even memories have retreated to
The graveyard of burned synapses.

It is to that darkness to which now drawn
He davens in drunken prayer to the fates,
Yet again to be interrupted by the cry of a little one:

“GRANDPA!”

YouTube to Learn

Just time for a quickie.

About a week ago I decided that I wanted to learn how to paint.  I also heard that acrylics was the most forgiving medium.  I did not march off to the book store or night school for lessons.  All I did was watch about 20 youtube videos and then took off.  I have lots to learn but I am having fun.  Try it!  It's free.  Here's my collection of so so art so far: http://picasaweb.google.com/rschwach/MyArt?feat=directlink

Learning Irie

There are times when my memory takes me places I thought I would never revisit. Now seems to be the best time to relearn old lessons. I wrote this in an effort to remind myself of what was important.


Learning Irie


He learned that if you held your thumb parallel to the horizon and counted the number of stacked thumbs it took to the falling sun, times twenty minutes, that was exactly how long he had until sunset. This was useful, on the beach of Negril in 1978, if you needed to walk eight miles to the Rock House for cocktails before it was dark. Not Cleveland Ohio dark where there were street lights and neon signs to mark your path, but Jamaican Negril dark where only the stars and whispers from  shadowed faces were there to guide you.


He points to a sky so graphically exact that it could be an observatory: “Delonn, isn’t that the constellation Orion.”  The young Jamaican with the body of a Greek god( if Greek gods had black bodies) responds:


“Sir Richard, in Jamaica we call that a bunch of stars.”


 ****
He wondered how much it showed. He hadn’t had a date since sixth grade and was freshly divorced from a 13 year marriage that produced two children. He had his “space” and not a clue how to fill it. Thursday night, he was told, was the night to meet and greet in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. He thought he was ready. He had the new designer jeans, soft contact lenses and a clean apartment. An open mind.


On his way into the restaurant/bar he noticed a very tall blonde girl who he thought he had seen before. Was her name Sue Anne? She was saying something he could not hear to some of her friends and then looked his way. When she saw him returning her stare she said:


“Wait right there, Richard. Don’t take another step.” A little dumbfounded he responded:
 “OK fine but do I know you”?
“Not that well yet but you will know me much better by the end of the night. You’re not going in there. You are coming with me”.


****


He didn’t like beer so he pretended he liked scotch. No refrigerator or ice required. Sue-Anne liked beer but preferred sex. She said they could go to her apartment but then they wouldn’t have the privacy she required (“If you know what I mean”.  “Not really,” he thought.)


 “Lets go to your pad.”
“But you don’t even know me.”
“I know enough”. “You’re single, smell good and haven’t been with anybody but Wifey in many years. “
“Like A virgin”.


She was doing a reverse Andrew Marvell on him:


Had we world enough and time, This coyness lady were no crime.  We would sit down and think which way to walk and pass our long love's day. ...


There would be no conversations with this strange girl. What followed was copulation not love. He was learning a new sport that he discovered he was surprisingly good at. Lacking any emotion he could approach the new contest much like a dance. Lacking any concern for the emotional status of his partner, he found his new passivity liberating. If not satisfying in the complete sense of an emotional release, it was more like the feeling he had after he ran ten miles. He was in tune with his body and had a good sweat. Oh and she was there too. A beautiful body but a mouth like an ash tray. Were you permitted to ask them to brush? He’d learn that rule later.


 ****
Delonn did his cliff diving thing and collected six Jamaican (3 bucks USA) from the bartender and several rum drinks from the spectators before returning to Richard. He smoked his first spleef, which he had earlier retrieved from a plastic bag he had buried off the main road. He was aware Richard knew where he kept his stash but wasn’t worried. Richard was the only US guy he knew who didn’t smoke ganja.


 “Who is that very large woman selling pills to the new arrivals?” Richard asks.


 “That’s May. She and her husband are bad news.”


****


When Sue Anne asked him if he wanted to meet her in Jamaica this actually created quite a dilemma for him. First of al,l he was used to defining relationships and he certainly couldn’t define theirs. Did sex buddies qualify? Was that relationship enough to go on a vacation together? And where was Jamaica? He had never been out of the country except for Canada. Did you need a passport? His decision to meet Sue Anne was finally decided for him by a high school kid with a prank gone wrong. Richard had just put a deal together to buy a strip center in a west side neighborhood. The day after the celebratory closing, one of the two anchor tenants, the drug store had a major fire from a “stink bomb“. After an initial panic, Richard was informed by his partner that “this is great we will make money on the insurance adjustment and we can terminate the lousy one sided tenant lease now if we want”.


“Get out of here Richard. Take some time off.”


*****
“That’s great, Richard. You will love Jamaica. I will be there a week before you get there so I will take care of everything. Just meet me at the Yacht Club in Negril Sunday. Sue Anne adds: “Negril will blow your mind.”


 *******
All the government of Jamaica required was his birth certificate and twenty dollars. He hoped he packed enough clothes and that he had the proper look for the Yacht Club. He grew up a country club boy with valet and dinner dances. Surviving the minimal customs in Montego Bay, Richard exited the airport to a field of mules and dogs. Among the many cab driver solicitations he chose the driver standing next to the ‘54 Buick Roadmaster that reminded him of the family car as a boy. “Irie then, Master Richard” shouts his new driver friend Rashard.


“Welcome to Jamaica and the beautiful drive to Negril.  Is this your first time?”
“It is Rashard.”
“Do you know the Yacht Club in Negril?”
“Yah Man”.
“Are there many boats there”?
Rashard lights a joint that would have made Cheech and Chong gag.
“No boats Man”. What your friend tell you?


 *****
The Northcoast Highway from Montego Bay to Negril travels around the coast for 50 miles and takes even the most aggressive cabbie two hours. Rashard got Richard to the Yacht Club in just under 2.5. As he dropped Richard’s two large bags on a pitch dark road after sunset, Richard assumed that a golf cart or something would take him the rest of the way to the Club House where he would find Sue Anne and a Dewars. Instead after Rashard had been gone for at least a few minutes and Richard’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw a sign on a shack not more than twenty steps from where he stood that said by way of a twisted rope: “Yacht Club.” Outside of the door stood some locals with yellow eyes who must have noticed his bewilderment and said: “You’ll need a Red Stripe“? And he had several of the local beers before he saw Sue Anne walking down the road to greet him.


“Shit what did you bring? I hope you remembered the Bic lighters”.


 ****
No electricity also means no telephone or hot water. Hot water was obtained for short periods through the  pipes exposed to the sun next to the shower but that rarely lasted more than 30 seconds. To see in the dark you employed lanterns and so matches were at a premium. A Bic lighter was a gift from God. Long distance phone calls? Very difficult. He was worried about the status of the shopping center deal and had planned on calling his partner. Now he was told to essentially forget it. A call to the States was an all day process. Only one hotel on the beach had an operator willing to tackle the hurdles and if you could afford it you still had to wait in the lobby most of the day to accomplish the call.


There were no visible hotels by any standard Richard knew. Sue Anne had arranged their lodging at a cottage owned by Cyril Connell, a local builder known as tough but fair. What she had not told Richard was that their lodging was essentially a two bedroom apartment that they would share with another couple from Rennison Island, British Columbia.. The roommates Janice and Edmond were fisherman who when they were not fishing drank beer. When they were not drinking beer they were sleeping.


While drinking beer in Negril they were mostly drunk and incomprehensible. Their inability to converse in a manner that could be comprehended was now being practiced and perfected by Sue Anne who was also now rarely sober. She mostly smiled and said: “How ya doin.” After two days of this the final blow to Richard’s sense of calm occurred when Edmond allowed two of his friends to sleep on the hammocks on the porch of the cottage. Cyril Connell did not think well of this and hit both “freeloaders” with a broom to wake them in the middle of the night. He reminded the two that he didn’t allow anyone to stay for free and although he himself had black skin this did not grant any special status for an American Negro.


Sue Anne laughed it all off but Richard decided that although Negril deserved a second chance, Sue Anne did not. He told her he was too preoccupied with things occurring stateside to properly let his hair down and was not going to wreck her good time. He only had a few days left and would find somewhere else to stay.


 *****
Richard had been staying at Ten Sing Pinn for three days before he met Delonn one day after his epiphany. Ten Sing Pinn was run by a Brit who owned an oversized ancient gas-guzzling Jaguar  that seemed totally out of place in Negril. His cottages were for those who were “short of funds”. In other words there were lots of very young people lodged in rooms about the size of Richard’s stall shower.


The Brit’s name was Nigel. He shared Richard’s love, if not skill, at backgammon. If Richard had not been humble he could have stayed at Ten Sing for free for the rest of his life on his backgammon bounty or rather on Nigel’s failure to master the doubling cube. After one particularly bloody backgammon massacre, Nigel offered Richard some magic mushrooms as payment. “You know they grow right on top of shit. Very powerful”. The non-pot-smoking, Richard a little off course from his split with Sue Anne and recent life adventures in general, decided to try something new.


Why someone dares to drive with their hands off the steering wheel is a mystery. Richard never lost control. Ever. Until that night. Timothy Leary’s arguments not withstanding, this was not a good experience for Richard. It is one thing to see the world warped into bizarre distortions in the USA and quite another in Jamaica where its often difficult to not float into an altered consciousness merely from the presence of a less filtered nature. Stumbling down the road, commencing with the first person remarking to him: “Good mushrooms, eh?” he knew he was in trouble. As he became more and more uncomfortable in his skin, he thought that food might help. But Negril was shut down for food and actually even the bars were closed. In a full panic, he looked for Sue Anne. They were no longer a couple but he needed a familiar voice to steady him.


Suddenly finding Sue Anne became the most important thing in his life. After what seemed like hours to him, he could not find her.  He  felt more alone than ever before in his life. Exhausted, with no idea where she was, Ten Sing Pinn or in fact where he was standing, he sat on the side of the road and laughed hysterically and then finally collapsed into a heap. He awoke with the sun to the bug-eyed stare of a very young girl.


“You alright, Richard”?
 “Uh, huh.” How do you know my name?”
 “All the kids know Richard”
 But why, he asks?
“You the white Rahsta man. All that blond curly hair. The only USA guy who play with us. Let me get my Dad to help you. He’s just inside. You know my Daddie Delonn?”


No he had not found Jesus but to Richard his epiphany was that he could survive and maybe even thrive just by being himself. He needed little help and certainly not a Sue Anne. Just being Richard unaided by drugs or super powers was enough to warrant an audience with the world. Everything would be IRIE.


 ****


Delonn had many jobs. As an entertainer he was a cliff diver nightly at the Negril version of Rick’s Café and by day he walked on hot coals at the Hedonism Club. To his community he was the chief herbalist, keeper of ancient healing recipes and consultant to scientists from London working on new drugs from old Jamaican wisdom. He was the father of two beautiful little girls and potentially Richard’s first Jamaican friend.


“So Richard besides entertaining the children and being an excellent example of the dangers of drugs to amateurs, what do you do in the USA”?
“I put investment groups together to buy real estate.”
“Excellent…would you like to see the site for my new home? I have some real estate skills as well”.


 ***
Delonn took Richard to the site for his new home, which he had staked out carefully to accommodate the pattern of the rising and setting sun and the drainage from the potentially very heavy summer rains. He taught Richard how to taste the trees to determine which ones would successfully deter insects. Before they left he spread butter around the perimeter of the site and put his cat in the center.


“She will mark this territory and keep all the varmints out”.


 ****
Richard stayed with Delonn and his family for several weeks. He had managed the telephone struggle and learned that all was okay. His kids were with his parents on vacation so he was free. He learned that he had brought unintentionally some precious cargo. His Miles Davis tapes were good as gold and his fifty Bic lighters a treasure. But mostly what he offered the Delonn family was a baby sitter. He read to the girls and told them stories about the USA and reminded them that their Country had treasures as great as his.


 ****


About a month after Delonn had told Richard about May and her husband,  Richard learned that while May was selling drugs at Rick’s Café to visitors who had been told to meet her there, her husband was busy robbing their lodging with the knowledge that they would be with May and maybe high on drugs. This profitable and successful scheme was finally halted by a tall Indian man name Asher who had discovered May’s husband doing his deed and reported it to the authorities. Richard knew Asher from a long evening’s introduction to the sitar starring Asher and a friend.


May’s husband was arrested.


Two evenings before Richard’s return to the States on the walk to Rick’s, an enormous naked May wielding a golf club came out of the bush to attack Richard. Able to duck in time his one push drove the inebriated May into a collapsed heap. Richard learned later that she was certain Richard was Asher. All white guys look alike.


*****


Many years later Richard returned to Negril, rented a car and saw the rest of Jamaica. Fake Rahstas, satellite dishes, disco music, hamburgers, cocaine and vodka had altered the chemistry. Even Delonn and his family had moved to London. A tour bus took tourists from Hedonism to Rick’s Café ignoring all the mystery and adventure along the way. There were more than 50 hotels along the beach that bragged about MTV and French fries. The Negril he knew no longer existed except in his memories, where it was locked in a safe place nurturing his soul and coloring the world IRIE.

********

Trying to Stay on the Board

Some days it seems more difficult to stay in the game.  Remember that great toy we had as kids where you turned the knobs and tried to keep the ball on the top without falling in a hole.  It inspired this:

Roll Boy

I’m the tilt ball in the labyrinth game

Moving this way

NO STOP!

THAT WAY!;

Avoiding holes that end it.

I thought I was the crank turner

But others do that for me;

My role is to roll.

Staying on the board is winning I’m told;

Don’t even think about “holing out”!

I think:

The crank turners are having all the fun.

The Tamma Story

Grief from the death of a loved one goes with the "Senior Territory". So many of my friends have asked about Tamma that I have decided to share this.  If you lose someone one of the few positives is that after a time your memories can be selective and you can choose to remember only the good.  A few years ago I wrote this when things were raw.  My memories now are more selective of this very special sweet loving person who is no longer with us.

Say Goodnight Gracie

“The Heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of”. 

Blaise Pascal

She had the windows closed and the air conditioner off.

“Those damn sirens!”

“I know it’s stuffy in here.  But if I open the windows you can hear them”.

 You know, the “Delray Beach Ambulance Club. The free Medicaid ride to the hospital”.

“Please… tell them I’m trying to sleep”.

He has heard it before.

This rant barks from a mouth parked parallel to a king sized Westin Hotel pillow attached to a slender t-shirted female frame reclined on a king sized Sealy. It’s not the W but her apartment in Delray Beach, Florida. Actually his apartment. Their sixth in seven years.  He moved out.

Her bedroom looks like a hotel room at Circus Circus Vegas after a week of gambling and drinking.  There are multiple ash trays that are no longer “cleanable”; doggie bags that may or may not contain edible substances; folded aluminum foil balls that contain either the remnants of ash from her precious crack pipe or just plain cigarette ash.  Somehow she knows the difference.  And then there are slippers and robes that may be for warm or cold weather or more likely for pre or post hangover and of course Vodka bottles.  When she was a beginner they were classy bottles and brands like Ciroc, Grey Goose and Belvedere.  Now they were store brands or worse like a jug bottle of Costco.

Nothing was hung but rather arranged in piles based on utility. A pile for stepping out of the shower.  A pile for having to go downstairs to the kitchen.  A pile for vehicle travel without leaving the vehicle and a pile for vehicle travel when you have to leave the vehicle.  This last pile essentially just added a jacket.

There were things to make her nails look less like the ruined cracked remnants they were.  Not as bad as “Lee Press On’s” but borderline. And then there were the bed toys.  The things you see advertised on late night TV.  The newest is some kind of vibrating back rest so you can sit up in bed and watch TV until you die from cigarette smoke.  Her cigarette smoke is winning its battle over the new heavy duty Sharper Image Air Cleaner.  A four hundred dollar lie.  And of course along with the smoke comes the ubiquitous cigarette burns. These marked yellow and brown trails randomly spot the cheap but new carpet and even test the rubber backed mattress cover. He thinks: “Is there a more fragrant violation of my lease terms than these burn marks in my smoke free apartment”?

She seems to be corresponding with someone. There are small legal pads everywhere with notes and lists and still larger pads with block letters reminiscent of a serial killer’s note to the newspaper announcing its next victim.

Pill bottles are everywhere.  Some with names ending in “azapam” for fun and others supposed to help her bi polar condition. So says Doctor “New Black Lexus convertible” who would write a nun a prescription for heroin if asked.

And there he stands, the poster boy for codependency barely taking it all in because it now is so familiar:

It’s still her turn:

So, did they get the sushi right?”

“Toro, Ikura, Inari.”

I hope you didn’t tip those assholes?

“You’d think after all the money I’ve given them that they wouldn’t give me a hard time. 

Big deal so I slurred a little in their precious restaurant.  Screw them! 

I didn’t try to order a drink.  I was just waiting for their overpriced sushi.

If they don’t want me in the place they should deliver”.

“Anyway, THANK YOU”.

“You didn’t have to drive over to pick it up. But I wasn’t going to wait there and let them continue to humiliate me.”

SCREW THEM.

Have you eaten?

Finally he speaks: “Yes dear its 10.  I ate at 6.”

“It’s 10”?

PM? Or AM?

PM

Ok then”.

II

It had started in a restaurant.  Not what you would think. Not late at night. Not “the place to be”, just a restaurant that served a great burger and fries and a good pour after a hard game of racquet ball. A place that had a long bar and draft beer. A place that had trail mix.

He was a divorced father who had moved back to his home town. No one does that. Once escaped you remain on the lam. But here he was moved back with a house in the woods, a little more money than the average home town boy and the social maturity of an eighteen year old, at least when it came to dating.  And lots of time since he had not yet discovered what the next business engagement would be. He said to his friends “he was for then committed to reestablishing a close relationship with his boys”. And frankly he would add: “I already met and discarded the one love of my life and am not likely to find another”.

He was alone at a table.  Not even sitting at the bar. There were only two girls at the bar and they were laughing and looked as if they had been friends since nursery school. The taller girl was very angular and quite attractive.  The smaller girl was at first glance your typical Jewish yenta.  He used to call them “tits on sticks”.  Large breasts, no ass and skinny legs. And of course no “verbal holdback.”

It went something like this: The smaller girl walks over to the table.  Much cuter than he had noticed at first glance.   Skin like a little china doll. He guessed mid twenties (she was 32).

“My girl friend would like to meet you.”

He responds: “That’s it. 

No “Hello my name is ____, he gestures to her.“ My girl friend would like to meet you. “

She shrugs: “OK, I’m Tamma.

 “What about Tamma.  Doesn’t Tamma want to meet me.” He inquires.

“Tamma is already taken.”

“OK I’ll meet your friend, but when “Tamma is no longer taken”, here is my card.  Call me and we can have dinner”.

Seven days later, about 7 in the evening on a Saturday night, while he was getting ready for a date with a friend of a friend from out of town, he gets a call. 

“Hi. Tamma is no longer taken.  I’ll be over at 9.”

 And she was.

She wore the same dress she had on at the bar, drove some yellow car he had never seen before (a Pontiac Arrow) told him to tell his date “something came up”. She never left his side until he moved out fourteen years later.

III

Downstairs in Delray Beach, the kitchen was Spartan, well organized and spotless.  Clearly he no longer lived there. The disarray in her mind had not transferred to the one place still sacred to her. She was a quality self taught cook who had raised her brothers and sister while her schizophrenic mother raved on.  She followed the Michael Pollan rules and ate: “real food, mostly plants, not too much”.

She would eat steamed vegetables and drink herbal tea, because “eating right was the thing to do” but at the same time self medicate with drugs and alcohol.

“I thought you ate already.” The muffled voice whispers as she descends from the staircase. “If you’re hungry, I’ll cook you something.”

She wears a K Mart robe and slippers his granddaughter likes, with a bear at the end by the toes. She is naked under the robe with her skinny legs exposed and black and blue marks everywhere.  As if her liver were screaming: “Notice me, I’m dying!”

The downstairs of the condo apartment is untouched except for the couch which now has a large burn hole in the leather where she fell asleep with a lit cigarette. The art he left behind is still not on the walls.  He barely remembers the name of the last four apartment buildings where it hung before the couple was nicely asked to leave or pleaded with to leave, because of frequent police visits. But for now there was no cop at the door asking him “sotto voce” to please commit her.

OK he says: Do you have any eggs?

“But of course”. She smiles

She perches on one leg with the other foot firmly on her other thigh.  How or rather why does she do that he thinks.  And then it starts:

“I don’t know why you have to move out and pay two rents. You know you’ll never divorce me.  And besides if you leave me “who will have a girl such as myself”.

“Someone with lots of money who likes to do drugs”.  He responds.

“And you never did drugs when you were my age? What a hypocrite. Cocaine, pot, quaaludes.  You did it all”.

He wants to battle back but he had given up these contests. And contestant number one was in her bathrobe with a distended stomach, jaundiced eyes and a belly retaining fluids and a failing liver.

OK you win. I’ll eat my egg and go but remember the doctor appointment is tomorrow at 4 o’clock.  It’s been over four months. You missed the last two and this time its in the afternoon so no excuses.  I’ll pick you up at 3:30.

She says: No. 3:45

Bye Tamma. 


He shouldn’t but he holds her while her yellow eyes tear and she moves her head almost to his lips to kiss him, but stops just short.

“How come you won’t make love to me. You won’t even go to a marriage counselor. You won’t even give me another chance.”

He kisses each of her moist eyes and says: Bye Tamma.

With his exit he notices a new dent in the garage door and more scratches on what is left of her BMW Z3. He can’t report another accident.  She is still on his insurance. “Who would have a girl such as herself”.  Not Progressive or Allstate. Not with two DUI’s. 

He remembered beating the rap for her once years ago without the need of his lawyer skills.

IV

She usually drove under the influence of something or other. If not illegal drugs or alcohol, then prescribed drugs that impair your ability to drive.  She was also a very bad driver on her best day.

It was two years ago. He was at home wondering where the hell she was since she was only going to the drug store to buy something related to her nails. All she needed was polish and some kind of number something file. But over two hours had passed. For anyone else this would be cause for concern but for Tamma every turn of the aisle was another adventure that could delay her. She was always shamelessly late.

She could have called him on her cell phone or returned his calls to her cell phone but that would require her hearing the ring of the phone which was usually swallowed underneath her seat along with diet soda cans and mystery tissues.  So when she finally answered his fifth or sixth call he was relieved until she responded by saying: “I’m lost.” This was a surprise since the Walgreen was less than three quarters of a mile from the house. She said she was near the car wash so he immediately knew where she was and started to tell her she was only a few blocks away. But then the only response was “Oh Shit” and then the cell phone played a “capture and arrest” scene as she was pulled over.

He could hear the officer ask for her license and registration and her slurred response: “I don’t know where the hell it is”.  That was the signal to turn off the TV and throw on the jeans and drive over to the intersection where he suspected she was being stopped. Approximately 8 minutes later his suspicions were confirmed as he watched her stand on the corner of the street with her hands behind her back tied with the new plastic restraints that have replaced handcuffs.

Seeing her on the corner in handcuffs was not the shock for him it would have been for a normal husband. It was just another adventure in the world of aberrant behavior. So his response was not: “Hey I’m an attorney let me speak to my client.” It was instead:

“Officer, that’s my wife. Can I speak to you for a moment?

“Listen sir”, the officer responds, “She’s gone. You’ll have to talk to her tomorrow.” We can hold her 12 hours before we have to book her for DUI.”

Now feigning innocence he ignores the lawyer crap which he knows won’t work and responds: “Oh no you misunderstand. I don’t know anything about that. I just want to make sure she has her medicine.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I’d like not to shout at you. Can you come a little closer? It’s a bit embarrassing.”

He approaches.

“Listen, you can take her in and have her blow that thing you use all day but she isn’t drunk she’s just on some crazy prescription drugs.

“What do you mean? If she’s impaired SHE SHOULDN’T BE DRIVING.”

“I cannot argue with that. I don’t know if she’s legally impaired. Her drugs are legally prescribed and she forgot them earlier and so if you are taking her in she MUST have them. I only live around the corner. Just please let me get them for her.”

She is now sitting down on the sidewalk looking like she couldn’t care less and in fact is trying to scratch her nose with her shoulder with her arms behind her back and finding her failed attempts amusing.

The cop says: What do you mean she MUST have them. What happens when she doesn’t take her meds?

“The truth, officer, which I didn’t want to shout, is: SHE IS SEVERLY MENTALLY ILL and those drugs keep her from flying out of control.”

He looks at her again, now even more involved in the nose scratch attempt.

“What exactly do you mean by flying out of control?”

“Well for openers” he says “she may try to bite you.

Later he’d say in his defense, “I don’t like to lie to police, although they of course lie all the time, but actually she was nuts and didn’t people do that kind of thing if they were crazy enough. So I exaggerated a little”.

The officer who he was talking to was obviously the older senior guy, and he shouted to his younger partner.  


“Henry: Cut her loose.”

“Alright, he began,” here’s the deal. Get her out of here. Take her home. And then get her car out of here within the hour. If I see her in the car in the next 12 hours she goes to jail meds or not.

And so she gets in the car and looks at me and says: “Walgreen didn’t have the proper nail files. Can you take me to CVS? 

V

Was he George Burns to her Gracie Allen or was he as crazy as she?  George would say:”Bottoms Up.” Gracie would then ask “Isn’t that an awfully awkward position.” 

He remembered the episode when the officer came to the house to arrest Gracie for multiply unpaid parking tickets but meeting George the officer felt so sorry for him for being married to her that he ripped up the tickets.

At the end of some shows George would say to Gracie: Say goodnight Gracie” and she would respond “Goodnight Gracie.”

What was the hold? Was it all about codependency?  He had started to go to Al-Anon meetings but they were a nasty crew these Al-an-on-ers. Throw the baby out with the bath water. Basically wash your hands of the drunk. Maybe his problem was that he believed mental illness was actually a physical disease.  Not a popular view in the United States. She needed both a real doctor and real therapist.  And then maybe spiritual help. He tried both for her. Nothing works if you’re not willing to get well.

But that was history.  Now the issue was: should she get the death penalty for being a drunken self medicating bi polar daughter of a schizophrenic? Maybe he’d find out tomorrow.

VI

The real blood had hit the fan four months ago.

He was asleep in the other bedroom.  Actually on the floor, on a Futon, while she was on her king size throne.  Their relationship war was on a hold pattern because of his procrastination and lack of energy and her deliberate attempt to tone it down; the rhetoric if not the drugs and alcohol.  But then the dam broke.

He heard her vomit and then yell to him. He saw a toilet bowl full of blood.  It was 3 am.

“I’m OK”. She says.

“I’m not going to the emergency room and your health insurance stinks. 

I promise if I bleed again I’ll go in the morning. 

Go back to bed.”

Minutes later, it happens again.  This time she does not make it to the bathroom and does the exorcist thing on the floor.  He picks her up and throws her in the car and speeds to the hospital emergency room. The waiting room is packed, and the normally polite restrained husband is now screaming “bleeder.” Where did he hear this: a TV rerun of ER?

She is immediately wheeled away from the stunned waiting room sufferers while he signs papers answering legal questions as to whether or not he is empowered in various ways and of course whether or not the hospital has any hope of payment.

Once in the small internal waiting room she vomits blood into the sink in huge globs of red congealed matter.  In his shock he uses his hand to force these unwanted discharges down the sink hole. Not a wise move.

Now all she wants is water and clonazepam; two things she definitely cannot have.

He discovers from her own confession that she swallowed four pills before she was admitted to calm herself.

Enter the resident, who has branded her one more drug infected alcoholic who has ruined herself and treats her accordingly. Maybe a true assessment but you want more for your loved ones and expect more from the hired help.

And then since Tamma has uttered obscenities at a decibel level that could annoy even deeply sedated people, she is suddenly visited by Dr. Harvey Cohen chief gastroenterologist of the hospital who essentially breaks it all down for the happy couple. 

She needs surgery (the endoscope procedure) which he would normally do immediately but he needs a little more history on her so she will remain in the hospital overnight with of course no water (so he can do the tests he needs) and no fun drugs.

Tamma can live without food or drink for several days but not without drugs or alcohol which (without another entire long narrative description) ultimately results in her being physically restrained and “Baker Acted” by her psychiatrist also on the staff of the hospital.  She is treated against her will.

She does get scoped, banded up and ultimately sent home after much screaming mostly at him for being such a wimp. The follow up is scheduled for four months later.

VII

After the first hospital visit, when he saw her take another drink, he moved out. She really didn’t protest.  She must have understood that even a sick codependent had his limits.

VIII

The morning of the follow-up with Dr. Harvey Cohen, the weather man surprised everyone by announcing the hurricane’s trajectory was now moved west to destroy other people’s lives instead of theirs.  Was this a good omen. He knew she was still drinking. The drugs were probably still in her life as well. Yet the horrible consequences of alcoholism were not within the range of possibilities he considered for her on the 30 minute drive to her apartment. People with hopelessly damaged livers didn’t look like her and they were not in their forties.  Or ?

She was on time and dressed and actually waiting outside for him.  She was as alert as he had seen her in the last several months.  She had on sun glasses so he couldn’t really tell how jaundiced her eyes were but her belly was not swollen nor did she look like she was hung over. Could she be getting better?

He was there to make sure she showed up but also for moral support, but as the car pulled into the medical building he lost it and was in tears.

“What are you worried about big boy?”

“If I die look at all the alimony you’ll save. And besides remember how short my life line is.  Remember the palm reading. This was never supposed to be a happy ending”.

In the lobby he noticed the elderly patients he used to find amusing.  The geriatric army that seemed to live there.  Pushing their walkers and staring into space with vacant eyes. They were old.  They were supposed to die. Not a kid.  Not her.  Never me.

She signed in at Dr. Harvey’s office and then he told her he would wait for her in the hall.  He really did not want to see the doctor.  They were no longer living together and although they were not yet divorced he intended that they be soon.  He would listen to Harvey’s instructions for her rehab and cure but she was on her own.  If she wanted to get better, she had to do this herself. This lie sounded good to him and he marched outside.

Twenty minutes later he poked his head back in the lobby and didn’t see her.  The receptionist said she was in with Harvey.  He went back outside looking for a restroom.

When he returned she was smoking a cigarette sitting on the ground outside Harvey’s office in the open air hall. 

“Well I’m dead”.

“What do you mean”.  No more drinking, of course. 

Did he say no smoking either?”.

“No.  He told me I only have six months at most to live”.

“What!”

He went charging back into Dr. Harvey Cohen’s office, ignored the receptionist and banged on Harvey’s door.

“Did you tell her she has six months left to live?”

“I did”, he says, if she keeps drinking which she obviously is doing.

“If she’s living alone she will also probably bleed out in her sleep, too weak to call for help.”

“Well what if she has a nurse and does everything she is supposed to.  Then what is her prognosis.”

 “Maybe a couple of years. Her liver is very damaged.  I’m sorry.”

Out on the office deck where the smoker sits, apparently without an apparent care in the world, all he can muster is : “no he did not say you would be dead in six months”.  “Only if you keep drinking”.  He ignored the rest of the conversation with Harvey about the two years.  He was sure she never entertained that polemic. Hell he could be dead in two years he rationalized.  So he hugged her and drove her home with a promise of dinner in a few days. Like no big deal.

Once alone, he accepted the obvious, that she would not stop drinking and could die. So beautiful, so young yet so damaged.  If she were to die what would die within him, or would the converse occur. Would he reawaken from the dead.

Epilogue:

It was a paper box that could have held a new router or portable clock radio.  There was a wall of these boxes all the same size as if one size fits all: a sumo wrestler or ballerina.   On the cover of his box was an envelope addressed to the Memorial Company (Levitt-Weinstein) and the Certificate of Cremation for Tamma, done up like a prize.  Inside the envelope another card Permit No. 422 signed by the Crematory.

He didn’t want to open the box and didn’t want to deal with the contents until he had thought it through but then it was Tamma and he could imagine her saying: “what the hell is your problem…do this now I’m not staying on the floor in your shitty filthy car. Put me in the ocean.”

So he thought about where.  Was there a board walk so the ashes wouldn’t blow back on the beach? Did it matter? Were there rules about this stuff? Should he wait until it was dark? Say a special prayer?

He ended up on the beach in Delray by a restaurant called Luna Rosa because she loved to go there and we had spent most of our Florida time in Delray. It was raining now and so he just grabbed the box and dashed to the water and sat down on the sand and opened the box. He pulled out the clear heavy plastic bag and dropped it in the sand between his legs.

The stuff inside (Tamma stuff) looked just like the sand but not as fine.  It didn’t look like ashes.

And then there was this plastic brad holding the bag together that clearly required a tool to safely remove. He could imagine a frustrated mourner just heaving the bag directly in the water or tearing the bag and having the ashes blow everywhere. So he worked the tab up the bag using my fingers like a needle nose pliers and somehow got it off.

He put his hand in the bag and let the ashes fall through my fingers. Inside the bag was a metal coin stamped ABCO Crematory 30336. With the bag open he walked into the ocean up to about his waste. He forgot his wallet was still in his jeans.  He let the ashes fall into kind of a milky cover like creamer in your coffee. He was alone with her.  


No rabbi, no body in a box, no family and only one mourner.

Goodbye to Mom and the Grand Marquis

We are seniors but many of us are still children of living parents.  One of our most difficult senior tasks is often saying our final goodbye to our very elderly parents.  This story is about my goodbyes to my Mom.

Grand Marquis

His Mother explained it many times. They bought the Grand Marquis because of it’s bench seats:

“Of course, honey. Only the Lincoln and Ford have the big bench seat.”

That way your father and I could fit three couples comfortably in the Car.”

The dealership never mentioned that a burned out headlight for the car would cost three hundred and fifty dollars to replace or that the beast averaged 12 miles a gallon.  Nor did they mention that the resale (salvage value) of the car would or could never equal the unpaid associated secured debt.  

All of these facts were now relevant since he owned, if not the car, the car loan. A car that drove level on the road, but to the bank was “upside down.” A car representing for him a new monetary black hole that so far even his craigslist hyperbole was not able to ameliorate.

This danced in his mind as he started the odyssey from West Palm Beach to Westin Florida; his condo to the Cleveland Clinic where his Mother now resided.  Exactly fifty seven miles and four tenths away (22 dollars in gas) unless you took the Sawgrass Expressway which added 9 more miles and two dollars to the toll but subtracted eight minutes. Timed, the trip was exactly one “This American Life” podcast and one quarter “Fresh Air podcast” away.  With traffic add a few of Bach’s English Suites.  His mother’s apartment was “Love Me Tender” away from the Hospital.

Last week the trip to the condo had been about the new microwave and oversized toaster oven he had purchased to replace it.  Since his father had died twice he was now in control of his mother’s affairs.  His older brother, his only other sibling, had died from bad doctoring and cancer about nine years earlier. 

His Dad’s first death occurred shortly after he believed he had become a lawn mower.  Al’s in Heimer can do that to you.  In the new Heimer world his normal response to any question was the lawn mower noise and then, if he felt particularly frisky, repeated pinches to your belly.  The second death, (you might say the more conventional one) involved a massive stroke that occurred within twenty-four hours of the traveler announcing to his father (who then sat locked in a highchair in an isolated floor for people who had lost their minds from any of the entire catalogue of extreme mental ailments), that he would not be coming home soon.  That was three years ago and a few other deaths away.

The four hundred dollar microwave he had purchased for his mom had many options but if you just wanted to keep it easy only three buttons at the bottom needed to be activated.  And they were all in a row.  Reset/Quick-Min/Start. 

 “Mom, you push the first one to clear it.  The second one for the cook time.  Push it once for each minute.  And then just push start.”

“But what if I only need a ½ minute?”

“Just open the door early.”

After a lot of practice, she actually got it.  He put tape over all the other controls so she would go directly to clear/reset.  For someone who lived on frozen food, the bounty could now continue, led by Stouffers Chicken Pot Pies. 

The new problem was she was not strong enough to activate the buttons.  She had become push-less.  Ever enterprising, he had bought the giant toaster oven thing because it had a simple twist on knob which was also the timer which turned the mini oven off solving the problem of the “big boy” oven which lacked this feature and consequently had almost burned the condo down.

The “I love Lucy” show could have been shot in his mother’s apartment.  All that was missing was Fred and Ethel living downstairs.  The place was frozen in 1954. The walls were painted peach to better explore the coming color- TV  phenomenon.  The drop ceilings in the kitchen and bathrooms celebrated the amazing new plastic technology.  The eclectic lamps all shared one common theme:  prodigious.  (You needed a crane to lift them). Her famous chotchkies took two forms: those that were silver plated and those that were pottery.  The silver plated items would take an army of 1954 negro maids to polish properly.  As to the pottery lets just say if you have seen one “Balloon Lady” you have seen them all.  Royal Dolton to the traveler was not regal and clearly dull. And then there was the kitchen.  She was not a baleboste.  There were no signs of a former if ever home cooked meal.

But Lucy did reign on her throne.  His mother at 91 still knew how to crack Dentyne gum and multi-task. The TV was on loud enough for the neighbors to enjoy and the “clicker” remote stood ready.  She wore her peignoir in the classic way (sans underwear) and rarely left the bed.  Vanity on display, she made sure her shapely legs remained visible at all times.  Wasn’t Lucy a dancer before she met Ricky?

So his mother in her Ruth Gordon style begins, Midwestern but more formal:

“I know you think I’m stupid. 

I Don’t.” he says

“But I am.  I can’t remember how to work anything. The truth is I don’t like food anymore except peanut butter”.

“OK Mom, so my truth is I only like pizza and black coffee and I am not even sure coffee is food”.

“But you can work a microwave”.

“You can Knit”.

“I just feel awful that you have to come over here to feed me.”

“STOP BEING SO NICE TO ME?  I was a shitty mother”.

“What are you talking about.”  He kisses her,” you were the hottest mom on our street.  “That counts too”.

Next to her bed was a hands free phone with an alarm that sounded like an Eisenhower “duck and cover” air raid with a flashing light built in.  His mother couldn’t hear that well but refused a hearing aid.  “Go ahead and get me one if you must” she’d say “ but the second you walk out the door it will be out of my ear.”

“Look Mom, get dressed and let’s go get dinner, hit the grocery store and the drug store.  And we need to talk about getting you a little more help.”

“OK but I’m fine.”

“Humor me, mother.”  He notices her smile is not “full flash” anymore.  He thinks its because she had some teeth pulled and no longer liked her smile aesthetic.  To her if it didn’t look good it wasn’t of value.  But it was probably because in truth she was not fine.  She was in heart failure.  But the doctor said it was the good kind.  Right side or left?  He couldn’t remember.  Was there really a good kind?

For now the heart problem was merely a wardrobe problem.  She had a belly for the first non-pregnant time in her life and worst of all her ankles were swollen.  Refusing to associate this with a heart issue she was now dieting as a solution.  Fortunately pork ribs were on her diet (as was Chinese and pizza.) And then there was the issue of the nasty sore on her arm which was, to even his generous grading, unsightly.  This meant long sleeves even if it was 83 outside. 

“I can’t understand why this thing won’t heal?”

“The doctor is lousy, I’ve been there three times and it just gets worse.”

He knew, as she probably also understood, that it got worse because it was not your every day sore.  At first he guessed the fair skin beauty had skin cancer.  He was wrong it was a “sea monster cancer” that had sought the surface for air.  Probably she had lung cancer.  But whatever the cancer’s name, it had now metastasized.  He’d talked to the oncologist.  After a review of all the options the plan was to do nothing.  Eat ribs.

He watched her walk down the hall aimed in the direction of the maroon monster.

“These damn shoes stick.  I can’t find comfortable shoes. Nobody has my size 7.5 quad.  My arch is supreme.”

So was her ram-rod posture.

“Mom, why not wear tennis shoes like everyone else?”

“I’m not like everyone else.”  “I will drive.  She goes for the keys.

You’re too busy on the phone or playing with the CD player.  I’m scared to death driving with you.” She says.

Like many seniors she can’t remember her last accident but many anonymous drivers have been witness to accidents her driving has caused.

“Mom, how did I possibly get here without your help.” He won’t give them up.

 “We’re just going a few blocks.  I’ll drive.  Besides your license has expired and your uninsured not that any of that would stop you.”

“Fine but go to Walgreen first.  That’s where my real business is.”

When he walked with her the whole world slowed down.  If he walked behind her she would stop and get distracted.  If you walked ahead of her you were rude. 
So it was kind of a buddy date walk into the drug store directly to the cosmetics department.  Why a woman 91 who rarely left her bed cared about anti-wrinkle was a mystery to him.  But there they were with adjectives like replenishing, restructuring, correction line repair, cellular, re-moisturizing, lift firming, interventioning all for only $150 USD per ounce.  Ouch! And of course none of them were effective and she needed one with the most sun protection although she never left the house.  Of course he got it for her.  It was called “FREEZE 24/7”.  He’d think about that name.

“Can we eat? Please.  I’m hungry and have a long ride home.

Lunch at the rib joint required parking temporarily in a wheel chair spot, without the proper credentials, while he got his mom out of the car and walked her to the door and hopefully found a place to park her while he parked the Mercury.  This had to be done quickly so he didn’t get a ticket.  His now deceased wife who had committed suicide by alcohol had once decided if she parked her small foreign car in the space between two handicapped spaces that was somehow ok and did not warrant a ticket.  The 250 dollar fine he had paid for her was not a lessen to her but kept him ever diligent about respecting the few benefits afforded to the disabled.

After he watched her very slowly eat an entire slab of ribs but no salad, potato or drink a single sip of liquid she was ready to listen.  She began:

“Ok, so what’s up”.  She smiles at him and bats her eyelashes just for fun.

Are you getting married again?  Did you knock someone up?

I should never have told you that sex was great.  Where’s your father when I need him?

Mom, your 91!  He is embarrassed.

So!

Did I ever tell you how gentle your father was with me?  You know he was very big and I was very small.

MOM…just stop now please! You need more help.  We paid for home health care so please can we use it.

Sure.  The last wonderful lady you had over for me probably stole the few valuable pieces of jewelry I still have.

We can’t prove that Mom.  I though you told me your ring just fell off.

I can tell you anything I want!  You were always a little gullible.”

Come on, you like Miss Jeannine.  I am just going to ask her to come on the weekends now as well.

Fine.  She concedes.  She is my new black daughter.

On the way out of the restaurant he gets appreciative stares from the older women. Such a good son!

Ironically the Sunday Jeannine began her first weekend Mother duty, she found his Mom on the floor with her head wedged between the nightstand and the frame of the bed.  She was breathing but not responsive. Her job began and ended with a 911 call.

It had been two weeks since she moved into the Cleveland Clinic. After the 911 call he had raced there, even paid for the valet, and found her silent and paralyzed on the left side. Now just a few days later, she could talk but sounded like she’d had a few but could still not move her left side.  This seemed to his mother a mere inconvenience.

Just get me home.

He knew that would not be possible.  Even with home health care, she would need 24/7 attention.  A few weeks ago he had taken her to the oncologist to try and learn a little more about her cancer.  He told the young doctor to waive the preliminaries and just tell him the bottom line.  Was she going to be around for Christmas. 

“We have no way of knowing.”  Actually I am not sure what kind of cancer she has.  But at 91 I can guess it will be slow growing.”

So in other words, there was not much guidance for future planning.

While he was pondering his lack of options a young Asian doctor entered.  Curiously his name tag read “Dr. Herschel Cohen”.  Noticing the reaction the young doctor began:

YUP, its my name.  Surprised?

Stammering:   Oh no.  I guess….”

Yah.  Well its worked well for me. 

Now here’s the deal rehab needs to start immediately if she is to get her functioning back. 

The doctor picks her up until she is standing next to him but supported by his arms and starts letting herself support her own weight.

Ha.  You are one hell of a dancer.  slurs Mom.

Ok, your in good hands, Mom, I’ve got to talk to someone be right back.  He leaves her with the doctor.

Racing to the front desk, he assumes that a hospital that has valet parking must have some kind of a patient ombudsman.  Finding her on the floor beneath his mother he starts:

“Help.”

“My 91 year old mom is here with a stroke and I don’t have a clue what happens next.”

Her name tag red “Ms. Rodriguez”.  Frankly he was hoping for Ms. Schwartz.

Three months later, he would stand in this same room and argue with Annette and his mother’s doctor whether his mom should be transferred to hospice.  By then he was on a first name basis with Ms. Rodriguez.

But that first meeting when she was Ms. Rodriguez proved to be a font of information.  A proper rehab place was selected aka nursing home and all the financial rules were explained including how he might cleverly qualify for Medicaid. This was followed by his mother’s transfer to the nursing home, the many interesting lessons he learned visiting her there, the experience of a completely dedicated and caring underpaid staff who seemed to love her as he did.  But then the inevitable return to the hospital.

When he got the call from the nursing home that she had taken “a turn for the worse” he asked that they take her back to The Cleveland Clinic as opposed to the hospital across the street.  They humored him and agreed. 

The Clinic staff only knew that her vitals were very bad and that she did not have too much longer.  The operative word to him was what is “longer.” A day? A few hours?

She was in room 709 looking less regal.  He knew there was grey hair hiding there somewhere and now you could see it: surprisingly little.  She felt warm to his hug and she spoke to him only with her eyes.

Mom, do you know where you are?

Almost a whisper responds:  Hospital!

Yes, but we will get you out of her soon as we can.  He lied.

His Mom seemed to be fading. Her skin was opaque almost translucent.

Wasn’t there a movie where the character started to fade if you ceased to believe?  A children’s story?  He grabbed her again and said:

I love you Mom.

Was that enough to keep her here?

Did she respond:  He wasn’t sure.

I will be right back Mom.  I have to talk to Ms. Rodriguez.

That talk began:

Look Annette, I don’t care if they want the room or not, she is too sick to move to hospice.  I’m not sure she will make it another night.

Her doctor thinks so:  Let me get her. Annette has that very concerned professional look that probably was sincere.

The floor doctor appears who is not discourteous but also not in the mood to counsel a 91 year old patient’s son.

He echoes Rodriguez: 

I’m sorry its time for hospice.  We can’t do much more now.

He responds: You might be right but she is too sick to move.  Come look at her.

As they entered 709 and he approached the bed, he knew that she died while he was briefly out of the room. The form in the bed was no longer his mother.  Her eyes were fixed open looking empty or maybe at the heaven he now wished existed.  He tries to close her eyes.  They do not close.

He stared at the empty form.   A life size doll without a battery. He hoped her soul had flown into him where he could protect it and safely pass it to his children and grand.

As she had wished he cremated her.  He placed the notice in the paper, said the appropriate prayers and then was alone with only his memories.

His brother, mother and father were now all dead. 

He was the last one standing. 

The Grand Marquis’s radio was playing an oldie station. The great songs never disappear.  He’d keep the car a while longer.

The End