Fighting in the Shade

"Why does he have to do that?" Frowning, my father turned from the window where he had a view of our driveway.

Mother set the table. "He said it's good for the engine."

"My ass." Dad sank into his chair and began separating the sections of the paper.

"You told your father he couldn't  drive anymore." Mother placed a knife next to Dad's elbow. "He's not driving, he's idling."

Dad lowered the front page and glared. "He's fighting me every step of the way."

"I don't know what else you could do after he backed into the tractor.  It was time." Mother returned to the stove.

"Tell him that. " Dad shook his head, his glasses sliding down from the crease over his nose. "And after that nonsense about the electricity. Ten days of carrying water from the well because he's too bullheaded to call and say the power's out."

I hunched over my art homework listening to the exchange. Dad forced Granddad to move in with us after the water hauling incident.

"He's fighting old age, Joe. Not you."

"Getting senile. And crotchety. Hell to live with." Dad rose and grabbed the poker to stir the fire.

"I don't know. His mind's pretty sharp. Know what he told Dr. Guyther yesterday?"

"That his son is mistreating him?" Dad jabbed at a log.

"He told Roy he was worried because he'd been dreaming in French."

"And what did Doc make of that?"

"After he stopped laughing, Roy told your father that most people should be so lucky, and to dream in French at eighty-five was remarkable."

"Hump." Dad straightened and headed for the archway. "I'm going to go pay a few bills before dinner."

"You've got ten minutes tops." Mother's voice bounced off the interior of the oven as she gauged the doneness of  the roast. "Kathy, go tell your grandfather to come in."

I shut my sketchbook and rose to grab my jacket. "Mom, what's senile?"

"Oh, it means that a person can't reason and remember as well as they did when they were young."

"Do you think Grandfather is senile?"

"I think your grandfather can out think most people half his age."

"Yeah, like that Thermopylae thing.  Nobody else's granddad does that."

"Exactly, now get."

I slammed the kitchen door and ran across the frosted gravel toward the rear lights of the '49 Chevy. A billow of exhaust wreathed my knees as I reached the vehicle.  Warm air infused with the smell of Grandfather's Bay Rum aftershave and the musty aroma of his wool vest greeted me as I settled in the cabin. "Mom says ten minutes."

"Fine.  This engine's running just dandy now." He stroked the dashboard with one arthritic finger.

"Grandfather, why do you and Auntie Agnes argue about dead Greeks? "

"My sister believes the Spartans were decisive. My view is that the Athenian navy mattered more."

"But how are you going to settle it? You two have been arguing forever. " I figured the people on our party line were mystified.

Been at it for over sixty years." He switched off the engine, his stubbled cheeks dimpling .

"And you aren't any closer to a solution?"

"As a matter of fact, we are." His cloudy eyes glinted from the moonlight. "One of us is bound to meet Themistocles pretty soon."

"Ah, Granddad!" I slid from the passenger side and skipped around to his.

He eased himself out of the car testing his legs and leaning heavily on his cane.

I put his other arm around my shoulders and we started our slow walk back.

"Mom says you've taken to dreaming in French. What about?"

"Actually, I was dreaming about Dieneces. He was one of the Spartan 300. When they told Dieneces there were so many Persian archers the arrows would blot out the sun, you know what he said?"

"What?"

"He said, good, then we'll fight them in the shade."

"But why not dream about the guy in Greek? Why French." I helped grandfather up on  the stoop.

He turned to me and the porch bulb backlit his whiskers and unruly eyebrows  like a halo. "Because I still can."

--

Alone at Christmas

Despite all the televised merriment, the Christmas season proves to be rocky emotional terrain for the elderly and for singles and survivors of just about any age.  Many such people have more friends and family members who have passed on than they can count among the living. Even for religious people, belief in an afterlife as a safe harbor and reward for loved ones cannot quell the overwhelming feelings of loss and longing that swell unbidden with every Christmas carol in the heart of the person left behind.

Every tree ornament is imbued with the memory of someone long gone. Every cherished cookie recipe.  Every worn Christmas stocking. The songs on the radio recall a happier holiday dinner or a trip home to a warm decorated house, now bulldozed or burned.

If you are young rushing from store to store, it is hard to imagine that a time will come when there is no one left for whom you need to buy a gift. I shop for nameless children for a local charity so I don't feel left out. In the department store, I stop at the men's counter, sniff the masculine colognes, close my eyes and remember better days. No point in buying any. All the men in my family are dead.

The holiday itself is a minefield of memories. There was the bone-chilling Christmas Eve we buried my uncle after he died of liver cancer. He wanted to go in the ground before Christmas Day because he didn't want to be a burden to anyone on Christ's birthday, so we stood on the hard ground in a stiff wind and said goodbye to him in accordance with his wishes. Or how about that first Christmas, Dad spent in the Alzheimer's facility locked ward where we were allowed to visit him ten minutes every hour.

So to many of us, the holidays are a time when it is not only difficult to find something about which to be cheerful, it is a period when it takes all your fortitude to stay on the rails of sanity and not go flying off into a snow bank of despair.

I find it helpful to avoid commercial Christmas as much as possible and concentrate on the bare facts of the Christmas Story. I remember an old barn on the farm where I grew up and imagine it as the manger. I stabled my horse in that barn and some of our chickens were kept there. My father also had his homing pigeons on the second level. Of course, there were mice and rats and hornets nests high in the rafters. If you were in the barn at dusk or after dark, the contented sounds of the old place would assert themselves. Rustlings in the straw, the gentle swish of my horse's tail, a pigeon's coo, creaking wood, a hen scratching her nest into shape, chortling as she worked, the flap of a barn owl's wing as he rose into the night. Simple, comforting sounds. Joseph and Mary would feel right at home.

The scene out the barn door is still. Black trees slumber beneath a quilt of stars. The moon bathes the field in a wan light that turns the dead grass silver. The wind provides the only animation, lifting the tree bows and tossing the leaves, which settle in its wake, as if it had never come their way. The stars are sharp in the velvet night. To contemplate them framed by the humble barn door is to be in perfect tune with the universe.

I am sure there were noisy places in Bethlehem. The interior of the Inn that turned Mary and Joseph away was packed with travelers who had been lucky enough to score a place to stay. Inside there would have been much merriment, raucous and strident as muzak at the mall. Loads of fleshy bodies too close together. Breath smelling of stale wine. Strangers rudely jingling coins and demanding refills. Altogether an awful place to give birth.

Far better the manger with its soft murmurings and the yeasty aroma of oats and corn. If you come into a world in a place like that, you can believe in peace and hope. Become their champion.

I go to the barn in my imagination to experience the real Christmas. It was not cheery in the manger. It was earthy and domestic, the only music, the noises of living things turning in for the night. The smells, not of potpourri, mulled wine and fruitcake, but of damp soil, warm fur and gently decaying straw.

In this plain atmosphere, I can feel my heartbeat join the subtle rhythm of the sounds and the silences, until I am one with this eternally recurring drama and, therefore, united with all the hearts that have gone before or will come after me.  In the calm of the barn night, the pain of loss and fear of loneliness slip into the earth and seep away. I know my place. And the stars don't seem so far away.

 

My Boston Standup Stapler #2

My rail is empty, empty, empty,

a void in the pit of me, hollowed out,

cored like a cooking apple.

A silo without a missile.

A chamber without a cartridge.

A cannon without a circus clown.

 

I cannot fulfill my purpose, purpose, purpose,

the only function I am true for, made for.

Like a retired steel worker I stand

on the ground, shoulders eroded,

squinting up at the unfinished skyscraper.

He and I need work to be. He. Me.

 

I burn to be of use, use, use,

to bite the wind with steel incisors,

to pincer like a horseman with iron thighs,

to stamp, fold and mutilate. Volumes.

To embrace the neat typed innocent pages

like an editor, sanguine stylus poised.

 

I want you to fill me, fill me, fill me

up to the gills where I breathe the air of action.

Feed me the blind rapture of accomplishment,

twine your pulsing fingers round me and squeeze!

Lift me high and use me hard. Oh, yes!

I am ready. Take me. Make me. Stake me.

My Boston Standup Stapler

Still and sleek you wait at attention,

Glistening black as a whale gone deep,

Common as beans.

 

But amid the paper clips, you tower, Rhodes Colossus,

Or Emma's. Legs arched, a Gateway to tidiness.

Head on, a Dubai skyscraper.

 

Your spine beckons with caterpillar segments,

My fingers caress your torso, then squeeze.

Inch worm motion.

 

You bite. Ka Cha. Ka Cha.

Paper-punching bureaucrat. Spring-loaded toady.

Tasting the pulp of Shakespeare. IRS forms.

 

Yet your narrow metallic threads unite in ordinary design,

Declaration, gospel, play, symphony, and oration. Poem.

Clasping the universe.

A Writer's Sonnet

Left Brain Right Brain

My office is a hideaway of sorts.
I go there to create lit when I can.
To steal a chunk of time from pending chores,
Crossing to left brain, twists of plot to plan.
But interruptions follow me inside,
Which make it hard to hunker down and work,
And when the day is done I can't abide
The paltry pile of output for my book.
I tell myself I had to pay that bill,
I toss and turn and wonder why I pro-
Crastinate? Failed procedure, quill or will?
But should I write by night like E. A. Poe?
Dawn comes. I rise and, fresh, seek out my muse.
My right brain grasps the fact 'tis I who chose.

Come Back

Come Back (after Dorothy Parker)

A mild and most bewildered little shade

Paces my darkened office all alone,

Stares in disbelief at the rug where he

Died, oh so suddenly last Tuesday morn,

Gone with one exhale as I composed with

My back to him, his head fell on his paws.

I typed away as he ebbed away. Soft.

Praying was my first thought when I turned. Spoke

Buddy? Buddy. Buddy! Then I knelt down,

The first mourning tears already falling

Touching the already heavy form. Eyes

Sinking back away from me. Please don't go!

I held him close. Done it a thousand times.

The loving heart that beat, "I'll never leave

You. Ever." Was still. Still, I hoped we'd be

Together years from now. Assumption dashed.

Opened myself to grief and pain. Only

Through this sad journey did I come to terms,

Accepting. Then I found that I could see

Him. His lanky silhouette in the night.

Buddy you kept your word! You have not left.

Earthy angel, soiled paws and frowzy ears

No Standard Poodle you, my dear. Noble

Friend. You must go, you know. To claim your wings.

All dogs go to heaven it is said. But

Before you fly, please promise that you'll come

Back. For me. When it is time. Okay?

Back. To lead bewildered, weary me. Home.

Roadrunner, Road Kill

I found that while grieving for Buddy Boutts, it was helpful to keep busy, and as part of my campaign to be occupied at all times, I did a lot of exercising. I didn’t just GO to the gym, I WALKED to the gym. Unfortunately, on the second day of this fitness marathon, I turned the corner and came upon the body of one of our neighborhood’s roadrunners. If you don’t live in this part of the country, you don’t know how pleasant it is to share your space with these handsome, industrious creatures. Their distinctive gait makes them look as if they are always in a hurry. I love to see them dashing along with a lizard draped in their beak. They sun themselves on the big landscaping rocks, bobbing and flicking their generous tails in a rich, but incomprehensible language only other roadies can fathom.  Their feathers look as if they are etched, so perfect, so chiseled out of desert colors.

 

Somebody ran my feathered neighbor down. The bird was lying at an intersection, a place where a driver should have been moving very, very slowly to honor the stop sign and round the corner safely. From the look of things, I think this driver accelerated to hit the bird. Gives a whole new meaning to the term, bad driver. May the curse of the roadrunner be on you, mister. May you run around in circles, never finding any rest. May all your meals taste like the desert sand. May your tongue feel like the skin of a lizard. May a demolition derby truck with those really enormous tires roll over you until your innards go splat.

 

I tried to condole with the roadrunner that lives near my house. I’ve been feeding him Vienna sausages because I understand he is a carnivore. He likes the way they roll down the driveway. Gives him a fitting chase, so he can feel the thrill of victory. When he gets one, he looks like he’s smoking a stogie. When I told him how sorry I was for his loss, he studied me for a moment and then gave me a slow tail flick. I think he understood and will pass along my sympathies to the others of his kind who grace our community.