Rolling Stones

Chapter Four

The courtyard was quiet. A squirrel played at the base of the old Cherry Blossom tree. A woman sat in her wheelchair on the patio, a sandwich in her hands. Her gnarled hands were tearing small pieces off, weakly tossing them in the animal’s direction. The squirrel looked up occasionally, but kept his distance.
“Tree rats don’t eat baloney, Martha. They eat nuts.” Walter said quietly, as he pulled his wheelchair up beside her.
“Well, I hate baloney. And I ain’t got no nuts. He’ll have to make due.”
“Here.” He handed her a bag of walnuts.
She tossed the rest of the sandwich in front of her, into the grass, and took the nuts. Her hands shook as she reached into the bag. Her bony fingers fumbled and dropped one walnut, then she managed to grasp one. She gave Walter a look that was devoid of expression, then looped the nuts towards the squirrel. They sat there, watching the rodent perk up and stare suspiciously at the food. He stood up, head darting back and forth like he was about to cross a New York street corner, then darted forth and snatched it up. He sat there and looked at the two septuagenarians, grasping the huge walnut half in his stubby claws, then crammed the whole thing into his cheeks and shot back to the safety of the Cherry Blossom tree. He scampered up to the first limb and began to munch quickly on his prize. They watched him for a few minutes, enjoying being able to provide for someone.
“You got a foul mouth, Walt. You shouldn’t talk to your son like that. He’ll quit comin to see ya. I know. I ain’t seen my daughter in over a week. Don’t be like that no more. You’ll miss him when he don’t come back.” She kept her eyes on the squirrel.
“Martha,” Walter reached over and put his hand on her arm in a kindly way.
“Your daughter died a long time back. You told me about it over a month ago.”
She never took her eyes off the squirrel.
“I know. I ain’t crazy. Just cause she’s dead don’t mean she don’t come and see me. But when I cut loose and act a fool, she stays away.” She paused, waiting for Walt to comment. Nothing.
“Me and Colette were thick as thieves when she was a girl. She married a local boy and they never stayed more’n five miles away from my house. I seen her nearly every day of my life. I put myself in here so’s she wouldn’t have to. I told her “It’s the best thang for me. I love it here. They’s all kinds of people here my age. It’s for the best”. I hate old people. Always have. But I didn’t want to be her burden. She had a good life. A good man, two purdy girls that she loved on all the time. They had a good family. I wanted em to come visit, not spend ten years wipin my ass. Then she up and keels over from a brain aneurysm, whatever the hell that is. Her husband moves two states away, to his sisters, so’s they can help raise the girls. Don’t blame him. Girls need a woman to show em stuff. Do wish they’d come see me more’n once or twice a year, though.” She tossed a handful of walnuts into the grass.
“She still comes to see me all the time. Cept when I act mean and forget I’m a lady n cuss folks out n such. She’s still the only thing that keeps me sane in this place.”
Walter grunted. He reached over and took a walnut from the bag. He had a bite.
“Not too sure that’s working, Martha. You’re nuttier than that bag you’re holding.” He plopped the rest of the walnut into his mouth and chewed through a smile.
Martha smiled a thin line that cracked across her face. She didn’t smile a lot, lately. When she did, though, it looked natural. Honest.
“Maybe you right, Walt. But she does show up. We talk. We member times when she was little. We laugh. I miss playin spades with her. She was a hell of a spades partner.” Her smile broke into a little laugh. Walt thought her face would shatter.
They sat, and watched, as the squirrel made his way back to them. He gathered the nuts, piling them into his arms until he began dropping them. Then he stuffed three of them into his mouth, cramming until both sides were stretched to the limit. His arms, and mouth, full he stood and looked at the two old people. His two front teeth bracing the packed walnuts shoved into his mouth. The three beings shared a look for a second, then the squirrel turned and wobbled comically towards the tree, dropping nuts, stopping to pick them up, determined not to lose any. They watched, patiently, as he struggled across the yard.
“That fuckers got a lotta nuts.” Walt said.
They both busted out into a big belly laugh. Walt nearly sprayed Martha with chewed up walnut, but managed not to. The laughing tapered off as they watched their little buddy hide nuts all around the base of the tree. He busily buried each one, like he was a fuzzy pirate hiding treasure chests.
“You crazy, Walt. Promise me you’ll quit that cussin, though. At least not when you’re boy’s here. If ya won’t do it for yourself, do it for me. Okay?” She actually looked at him, her smile drooping sadly, but not altogether fading. Pleading.
“Okay Martha. I promise. Just for you, though. If it makes you feel better, I’ll do it for you.”
It was Martha’s turn to pat Walter on the arm, as she nodded and smiled a thank you to him.
“But just so’s you know, I ain’t got no kids.” Walt winked at Martha as she looked at him through narrowed eyes.
“But I seen him plenty o times. He brings your cigs and yall sit out front n talk. You even call him Sonny. I heard ya.” She wondered for a second if Sonny was as dead as Colette.
Walter nodded. He slid a hand into his pocket, wrapping his fingers around the small box there.
“Yeah. All true. But I call him that because that’s his name. His name’s Sonny.” He crooked his finger and motioned her closer with a wriggle. She leaned over towards him, one eyebrow raised.
“Martha?”
“Yeah Walt?”
“Can you keep a secret?” The two old people shared a gleam in their weathered eyes.

My dad was in the Army in the 1950’s. He served when we still had a draft, and young men were regularly called upon to enter the service. He was a skinny, country boy from Arkansas who got to see a good bit of the world while in the Army. He was a coxswain (boat driver) and drove landing craft for the 81st Transportation Company. That used to confuse me, until I researched the fact that the U.S. Army used to operate their own landing craft. Nowadays, that’s left to the Marines and Navy. He also operated PT boats out of Portugal, as part of a search and rescue oriented unit. He drove boats on the Rhine River Patrol, while stationed in Germany. This was during the early Cold War days, Dear Reader, when a shooting war with the USSR (Russia) was a very real possibility.

He managed to see the coast of Lebanon in 1958, when President Eisenhower sent troops to that country to help bring about a cease fire to their civil war. They landed some 8,509 Army troops from the 1st Airborne Battle Group and the 24th Infantry Division and 5,670 Marines from the 2nd Provisional Marine Force. The landings weren’t opposed, or fired upon. The Operation, code named Blue Bat, utilized some 70 ships and over 14,000 naval personnel. It included 3 aircraft carriers, two cruisers, and two destroyers squadrons. The plan was to occupy and secure the Beirut International Airport, a few miles south of the city, then secure the port of Beirut and approaches to the city. All of this was to support the pro-Western Lebanese governent of President Camille Chamoun against internal opposition and threats from Syria and Egypt. The operation lasted about three months, then the troops were pulled out. One U.S. soldier had been killed by rebels, and one wounded. Two Marines were also killed by friendly fire. This was America’s first armed intervention into the Middle East. You can read more about it at: http://www.photorientalist.org/enhibitions/operation-blue-bat

I asked my Dad once if he’d ever been shot at, while he was in the Army. He told me a story about when his unit helped land the troops in Lebanon. There were no problems landing the U.S. troops. His unit operated landing craft, and stayed on board the LST’s in the Mediterranean Sea. The three month deployment bored the crap out of he and his buddies. So, when they got the opportunity to deliver supplies ashore, they decided to have a look around. The neighborhood near the beach head seemed quiet. Lebanon had long been considered a tourist magnet for the Middle East, and the beach front was scenic and full of shops and cafes. There was no fighting to be heard, so they strolled down the street and found a cafe. As they enjoyed a beer and tried the local cuisine, a car full of rebels did a 50’s version drive-by and sprayed the plate glass windows of the cafe with submachine gun rounds. Specialist Stone and his fellow soldiers dove for cover and flipped over a wooden table for cover. Luckily, no one was hurt. They all decided to return to the safety of the ship. Boredom didn’t seem quite so bad, compared to being shot at. I’m glad. If not for the crappy shooting of the rebels, I may have never been born.

He also played a lot of baseball. He played for an All-Services European Theater league that played all over Europe. He was a catcher, mainly, but fielded some, too. He even pitched a few games. They won their version of the “World Series” of the Army when he was on the team. Not too shabby. He said it was covered by Stars and Stripes, but the publication is only available on microfilm from that era. I’m still working on finding an article on it. He also lost most of his personal baggage on the return trip to the States, including a lot of his photos and a ring they were all awarded for the championship. I could sense the old dissappointment in the loss when he reminisced about it. He was proud of that team.

He did a lot of TDY work during the off-season. That’s Army for “temporary duty”. He said it mainly involved being an escort back to the states for deceased service personnel. He just stayed with the metal caskets as they flew to the states, then he flew back to Europe. I can imagine he was really happy when baseball season started.

His brother, Cletus, went on to enjoy a long career in the Army. He did two tours in Vietnam, did tours in South Korea, Germany and the Middle East during his twenty plus years in the service. He tried to talk my Dad into re-upping for a second time after his term of service was up. My Dad said he nearly did it. By that time, he had a young wife (Nanny to a lot of you readers) and was just starting a family. Our lives may have been very different had he signed back up. It was not to be. He stayed in the States and went to work on providing for his family. I, for one, am glad he chose the way of life he did. A life in the military is an honorable career. So is being a civilian and staying close to home. While I salute all the Cold War Warriors who served, and especially those who didn’t make it home, I’m so very grateful my Dad made it back, and stayed.

Thanks, Wayne J. Stone, for your service. I love you, Dad.

K.S.

Chapter Three

Greenbriar didn’t actually torture their residents. They had Hermes Therapy and Rehabilitation Services do that for them. A short, glass enclosed corridor connected the Therapy company with the nursing home. The beautiful roses lined either side of the thirty feet of walkway, giving the impression that one was being showered in the red and pink flora. The sunshine and colorful view softened the mood and calmed the mind during the stroll. Unless you knew what to expect when you passed through to the Therapy Department. Walter Odell had been there many times, and he didn’t let the beauty fool his mind into losing his trepidity. He was aware that this short stroll through the rose garden led to a world of pain.

“Hey Walt! How’s it hanging?” Brad, the Physical Therapist, sang out when Walter was rolled into the room. Brad was a nice guy. Too nice for Walter. Too…interested….involved…and talkative. It’s the nature of the job. He had to be able to connect with his patients, to gain their trust. So he could fold, spindle and mutilate him till he felt like a limp noodle. Walter liked how he felt after therapy, but he hated DOING it. He didn’t hate Brad, but he hated what Brad made him do. That was pretty close to the same thing for Walter.

“It’s hanging way too low, limp, and hairy, if you MUST know, ya perv.” Walter shot back.
Brad laughed and took over the wheelchair from Bea. He rolled over to the mat, one of Walter’s least favorite places.
“Well, Walt, I can’t do much about that. Sorry. I can help you down here to your back, and see about stretching out that spine a bit, though.”
Brad locked the chair, put a gait belt around Walter, and assisted him to a standing position. Walter made a face. His back twinged, as it usually did when he stood. His knees dipped slightly, but he caught himself. As he steadied himself, Brad pulled the wheelchair away, gripping the gait belt with his other hand. Brad let him get his balance, then turned him gently, facing away from the raised mat. The mat resembled a low, padded table. It was only a foot and a half from the floor.
“OK. Whenever you’re ready.” Brad said in his gentle lover’s voice.
Walt bent down, and his lumbar protested with a shooting pain that traveled down his leg. With a single low grunt, he sat down. Sometimes even the small things are hard. Brad unhooked the belt and set it aside. He placed a hand on Walters upper back, and the other under his knees.
“Ok. Lay back when you’re ready, Walt.”
“You’re gay, aincha Brad? I’m bettin it’s in the job description, huh?”
Brad was used to Walter’s humor. He had a thick skin. That was in the job description, too.
“On my count. One. Two. Three.” Brad raised Walter’s knees, and lowered him down until his back was flat on the table and his legs in the air. Brad stood facing Walter, holding his legs up for him. Walter was looking at the ceiling, in essentially a sitting position. Walter got the fleeting image in his head of an astronaut, ready for blast off.
“You could at least buy me dinner first, Betty”
“Har har, Walt. Now, I’m going to push your right leg towards your chest slowly. Let me know when it hurts.” Brad began to move the right leg. The pain squeezed into Walter’s brain, and came out in his face.
“It hurts, Betty. Stop.”
“Ok. Now, you press against my hand and push back to our starting position.”
This went on until Brad had worked both legs several times. Walter was beginning to sweat. Brad worked him through many more stretching exercises. Walter’s lower back moaned from the inside. It came out in involuntary animalistic grunts. The old man’s mind went back to a distant time when pain was a regular part of his life. When he welcomed the pain, and sought it out.

Korengal Valley, Afghanistan October 2007

The sun beat down on the twenty marines, cooking them inside their shells of body armor and fatigues. They pared their gear down to the essentials for the patrol. Extra ammo, body armor, camel backs, NVG’s and a couple of MRE’s in a ditty bag, rifles, radio, grenades, and one MAAWS recoilless rifle. The gear still weighed them down, made every step heavier. The Korengal Valley stretched out before them. The mountains to either side looming over a small, un-flat basin, less than a kilometer wide. The slopes were lush and green, interspersed with rocky outcrops and villages that grew from the sides of the mountains themselves. The valley was beautiful. Unless you had to walk two kilometers of goat trails, snaking along it’s slope, working your way to a town of Afghan Hillbillies that will probably take a shot at you at some point. Other than that, it sure was a beautiful, scenic spot.
The corporal had the point. He was on his second tour here. Everyone thought he was a lifer. He spoke little, had few friends, and always walked point. He had a focus on his surroundings that amazed his fellow marines. He spotted things no one else noticed. A broken branch close to the trail. The types of treads left on muddy trails. The wooden plank detonators used by the Taliban that looked so ordinary until you step on one. The corporal may not be the most liked guy in the company, but he didn’t care. When a patrol went out, everyone wanted Walt out in front.
Walt stopped and raised a fist as he took a knee in the middle of the goat trail. The lieutenant made his way to the corporal from the middle of the staggered line of men. Everyone else knelt and watched their sectors for signs of the enemy.
“Whatcha got corp?” the new lieutenant had only been here two weeks, but already had learned to trust the corporals instincts.
“We need to get off of this trail, lieutenant. This is not smart. We need to be at least parallel to it, working in the bush. Not using the trail is slower, I know, but it’s less likely to be booby trapped.” Walt didn’t even look at the officer. They’d had this discussion before leaving the wire.
“We don’t have the time, corp. The captain said we have to be back before dark. There’s no way we can get there and back working through the brush.” Same answer as an hour ago.
“Then we should’ve left the kop this morning, not after lunch. Sir” Delayed respect for the rank. Walt had a way of calling you stupid, without actually using the derogatory terms. Most marines knew how to do that.
“Yes, corporal, I’m aware. Move on. Take it slow, if we have to, but move out.”
“Yes…..sir.” He stood and waved the column forward as he snaked his way carefully down the trail.
You could see the mountain village easily enough from the trail. It jutted out from the slope, timber and slate rock structures that essentially were a part of the mountain range. The range of hills followed a south west bend, then turned dead south, making one of hundreds of spurs that stabbed into the valley. The little village sat astride the spur, looking straight up the valley towards the American combat outpost. Six sniper rounds had peppered the compound this morning from it’s direction. The captain said check it out. So Walt’s platoon went to check it out. They had air over watch in the guise of a pair of Apache helicopters, but with no eyes on target, they couldn’t engage the civilian town. Collateral damage was always a problem. Boots on the ground would always have a job in Afghanistan.
They were within five hundred meters of the village when the trail turned a little south, following the spur. It dipped noticeably too, going down into a wooded gully. Again, Walt took a knee and halted the patrol. Again, the officer came forward.
“Whats up now, corporal?” The man’s agitation was easy to spot.
“ This is where we need to across, sir. One fire team up the slope, then back to the trail. It’ll give us a scout of the trail, and preempt an ambush if they’ve got one set up. We all go into that gully together, we may not come out the other side. Sir.”
The lieutenant looked at his watch, then scanned the northern slope ahead of the trail. It was the perfect ambush spot. Hard to argue that.
“Agreed. Take Hawkin’s team. When you come back out onto the trail, we’ll follow. If there’s trouble, we’ll lay down a base of fire and you back track to us. Then we’ll call in the birds.”
With a nod, Walt headed back to confer with Sargent Hawkins. Minutes later, Walt was leading them up the slope. The way up was steep, wooded with fir trees, and studded with rocks and crags that were treacherous for ankles. The five men followed Walt, spread out, eyes out, watching for signs of the enemy. Fifteen minutes of climbing, then slowly bending towards the trail. Walt stopped occasionally, listening, watching. Nothing but the sound of birds and the wind through the trees. Thirty minutes of trudging through the wooded slopes finally brought them close to the trail, a little further south than Walt had intended, closer to the village than he wanted to be. He stopped the squad, motioned for them to take a knee. They all scanned the trail through the safety of the trees. Then he saw it. A small piece of wood in the trail, buried. Only a glint of it could be seen from where Walt was, but it definitely looked suspicious. Possible IED. He continued to scan. There. Inside the tree line, actually closer to Walt than to the trail, there was movement. A dirty turbaned head. The guy must be in a shallow depression, or dug a spider hole out of the rocky slope. All Walt could make out was the top of his head. He looked over at Hawkins, pointed two fingers at his own eyes, then motioned in the man’s direction. Hawkins followed his gesture, saw the dude, and nodded silently. Walt raised his weapon and sighted the turban with his 3x scope. As much as he’d love to take the shot, he couldn’t make out a weapon, just a dirty headdress. No weapon, no fire. ROE’s were clear. The guy may have just planted the IED. He may have an AK, just waiting to spray the column after they set of the booby trap. He may just enjoying the scenery. Yeah, right. Walt keyed his radio.
“Workhorse Three, this is Workhorse One.”
“Workhorse Three on. Report.” The lieutenant sounded impatient. So, what else is new?
“Got a possible IED in the trail, about six meters past the bend. Also, trail is being observed by at least one local. No weapon in sight, but under cover. Advise you follow my route. Over.”
A long pause. Walt could sense his lieutenant sighing.
“Will do. Stay put, and stay frosty. Workhorse Three, Over and out.”
So Walt and Hawkins settled in to wait on the rest of the platoon to circle through the woods to them. In the meantime, they watched Dirty Turban guy. Ten minutes, then twenty went by. They began to pick up the noises from the fourteen men walking in the trees. Few men could walk these hills in complete silence, but it was impossible for an entire platoon to walk through them without being heard. Then Walt saw them. Not the platoon. The four Taliban just fifty meters to his left and down slope. They heard the lieutenant and his men, too. They were orienting a PDM light machine gun towards them. The gun must’ve been oriented towards the trail, until they’d heard the men in the woods. Walt had only spotted them because they were re-positioning to fire up the slope.
Damn, I’m stupid. Stupid and blind, Walt thought to himself. He motioned to Hawkins, who followed his gaze with widening eyes as Walt used hand signs to tell him to have his squad fire at the machine gun crew on his first shot. Walt brought his rifle back up and sighted on Dirty Turban. Weapon or no, he was going down.
Three, two, one….Bam! Dirty Turban exploded and became Bloody Turban. In the next second, Hawkin’s squad fired down into the enemy machine gun crew. They got off a burst towards the lieutenant’s direction before going down. It was a “mad minute” of heavy firing. The marines pouring deadly lead into the enemy, the enemy disappearing into the mountains brush. The marines stopped firing. Cordite and wisps of smoke permeated the air around the marines. Silence fell. Then a moan carried across the distance, coming from the platoon’s direction. Walt keyed his mic.
“Workhorse Three. Engaged a machine gun emplacement that was deploying your direction. Do you have casualties? Over.”
“One, get over here! Broken Six!” That was the call for “man down”.
“Roger. Out.” he turned to Hawkins. “Take your squad and check that PDM squad, and that observer. I’m going to link up with the platoon and see what’s what.”
As soon as he got close to the platoon, he knew it was bad. There were two guys down, with the medic working on the lieutenant’s mid-section, and a private with a chunk out of his shoulder laying next to them. The officer’s face was pale, the blood from three heavy caliber holes already draining from his body as the medic tried desperately to steam the tide. The medic was losing the battle. Pressure bandage soaking up blood fast, the officer looked up at Walt.
“I … should’ve got off the trail …. you were…” gurgling noises followed by silence told Walt the man was dead.
The patrol came back to the kop with one wounded, and one dead. They’d killed five Taliban, but it didn’t feel much like a victory. It sure wasn’t to the lieutenant. The officers body stowed in a bag and carried the entire two kilometers over Walt’s shoulder in a fireman’s carry. He refused to let anyone else touch him. In Walt’s mind, it was his fault. He should’ve insisted the platoon get off the trail earlier. He owed it to the man to carry him home. It was a long way back. Walt’s back hurt. He didn’t know it would hurt for the rest of his life, but he was still glad it hurt. The pain was his own punishment for still walking and talking. It was Marie all over again.

Greenbriar Nursing Home, The Present Time

“Walt, stop. Hey man, seriously. Stop. You’re going to hurt yourself.”
Brad had a hand on Walt’s back, rubbing circles quickly, trying to get Walt’s attention. The old guy was on the stationary bike, peddling at a pretty good pace. He had been for twenty minutes. Walt opened his eyes. The sweat stung as it poured off his forehead. Brad was both worried and impressed. He assisted Walt off the bike and helped him back into the man’s wheelchair. Walt was exhausted.
“I think you’ve done enough for one day, Walt.” The therapist admitted.
“What, you late for a date with your boyfriend?” The old man was gasping for air, but still had enough oxygen to take a jab at Brad.
“As a matter of fact, yes. And I’m not missing it because you want to have a heart attack on me, Walt.” He responded.
They both got a small laugh from that while Bea wheeled him out of the therapy room, and down the rose-lined corridor back to reality.

Chapter Two

Some people might say that a nursing home is where people go to die. Not entirely untrue. Perhaps things can be put in perspective by the realization that we’re all dying. The place is just a setting. A person in prison can give up on themselves. It only makes life harder and more depressing when we don’t accept our own reality. Even good places can be prisons, if our minds decide that is what they are. Depression can be overwhelming. It washes over a person and takes them under the waters of sadness until there’s no breath left in them. Then try to eat salmon patty every third Friday, and you know how it feels to live in a nursing home.

Walter Franklin Odell had lived at the Greenbriar Nursing Home for three months. He was seventy five years old, a widower, and a veteran. He was diagnosed with dementia, spinal stenosis, and occasional outbursts of violent behavior. The Charge Nurse had a PRN med to help calm him down when he got out of control. They’d used it regularly when he’d first arrived. He “leveled out” after that. If staring at his lap and drooling while dazed and confused could be defined as “leveled out”. Nurse Shelly was sitting at the nurses station, charting, when Mr. Odell was being escorted back to his room by his visitor. She grimaced at every loud curse he shouted at Sonny. She tried to finish her charting, but at the third “ya little shit!” she went to the Med Room to retrieve Mr. Odell’s “leveler”. It gave Nurse Shelly no pleasure to quiet Mr. Odell down. She had a lot of paperwork to do, though, and all that cursing would upset the other residents. For the good of her residents, it was time for Mr. Odell to chill the hell out.

“Get that outta my face, Shirley. I’m warning you…” Walter always called Nurse Shelly Shirley, in spite of her many corrections.
“It’s Shelly, Mr. Odell. My name is Shelly. Now, please take your meds. You need to rest.”
Walter never took his meds easily. He didn’t like being told what to do. Never did.
“I don’t need it. You take it.”
“God only knows, I’d love to. I could use the sleep. It’s for you, though, Mr. Odell. Walter, come on. We both know I’m not going to let this go. You always get this way when Sonny leaves. And you get worse when you don’t get your meds. Do us both a favor and just take it.” Nurse Shelly held the paper cup out for Walter to take. After a long stare down, he took the cup from her hand.
“If you’re gonna be all pissy about it, fine.” He downed the contents in a gulp, then took a swallow of water from the cup she offered him.
“Happy now?” he asked, the resentment steaming from the words.
“I will be when you let me help you to bed, Mr. Odell.”
She called in his aide, Bea. They helped Walter undress and get in the bed. The nurse left. Then Bea cleaned his face with a wash cloth and put an adult diaper on him. He protested the diaper. He rarely wore one.
“Now Walt, you know what happens when they give you that stuff. I know it ain’t your fault, but it always happens. Let’s just be safe, instead of sorry, ok?” Bea sympathized with him, just not enough to change soiled sheets later, for no reason.

Dreams come in all kinds. Medication can certainly prompt some strange ones. The brain tends to pull all kinds of memories together into a mixed bag of a story, sometimes. Sometimes it makes sense. Sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes they pull memories  from the deep, buried place we put them long ago. Sometimes they were as real as the day they were lived.  Those were Walters dreams.

An old gravel road stretched out into the vast bean field, ending in a small clearing where a solitary grain silo stood. A small blue car parked next to it, with a couple inside. A young man and woman made out in the front seat, slightly steaming up the windows. The sunset loomed in the distance. The silos’ shadow stretched across the vehicle, guarding it from the waning light. Inside the car, the couple were oblivious to the beautiful sunset. Warm hands, and hot lips, found destinations anticipated far more than the outside scenery. Walter felt warmth, happiness, joy even. He saw the scene as a whole, hovering above. He was everywhere, and nowhere, all at once. Voices cooed, then moaned, then exclaimed, in ecstasy, from the interior of the car. The car rocked gently for a while, occasionally shuddering as if an actual part of the dance. Eventually it stopped, and became still. The passenger side door opened with a creak. The woman emerged, her raven hair in a wet, tussled mess. It fell past her shoulders and down her back in waves that framed her curves perfectly. Walter felt such a shock of emotion that he nearly awoke. The medication moored him to the spot, like the chain around a circus elephants leg.
The girl walked towards the silo. The young man called to her, a muffled voice from inside the car. Walter knew what he wanted, without hearing the words.
“Don’t go. Come back.”
When she kept walking, with barely a teasing glance over her shoulder at him in response, the man got out of the car and followed. The girl wore a white sundress, unbuttoned down the front. She walked, floated and danced all at the same time. Time stopped as Walter took in the image of her walk. His heart leaped, fluttering like a hummingbird’s wings. Then she reached the metal staircase ladder that wound around the silo. Walter shouted at her, to no avail. She began to climb the stairs, her tiny feet taking the steps lightly at first, making sure to look back to see if the man would follow. Of course he was. Who wouldn’t? Walter felt his heart sinking, tearing into pieces. The girl circled the silo, with her lover giving playful chase. The stairs went round the big bin twice, then terminated at a small platform near the top. The red haired girl made it to the platform twenty steps ahead of her lover. She looked out at the farmland, the beautiful sunset casting light and color across the horizon in panoramic view. She noticed a door. A hatch, really. It was only about two feet above the platform.  It had a metal handle to one side. The young man was a few steps from reaching the platform when she swung the door open. The hatch swung towards him, at eye level with him on the lower steps. Surprised, he put up his hands and caught the hatch, narrowly avoiding getting banged in the face.
“NO!” Walter shouted, but he wasn’t really there. The scream inside his mind went unheard by the couple.
The girl thought she was being playful. She reveled slightly in her suitor’s distress at being almost hit with the hatch. She sat down on the ledge and swung both feet onto the bottom of the doorway. Her light summer dress fell away to expose her shapely legs. When the man dodged around the hatch and stepped onto the platform, she was a vision of beauty, framed like a work of art.
“Marie! No!” Walter shouted, the sound echoed into the silo. No ears but his own hearing the warning. His useless voice was the only thing that existed of his presence here.
The girl smiled, oblivious to anything but the young man. She reached out to him with her long, slender arms. He began to reach for her embrace, when the smile disappeared. In a split second, her hip slid inside the hatch, and she fell inside. The young man lunged at her, in a vain attempt to save her. He succeeded only in touching the top of her foot with the palm of his right hand. He felt it press against his hand, warm and tender, as it slid down his palm, her toes gliding past his fingertips as she plummeted to the bottom of the abyss.
“Marie! Marie! Marie!” Walter heard himself scream and sob. Only his ears registering the pitiful cries.
The young man stared down into the silo. The girl landed with an echoing thud that thundered into his, and Walters’ ears. The terror in his eyes drowned in gathering tears as he looked upon the broken body below. Her long red hair splayed across a back that lay in an unnatural bent. Landing on her stomach, face to one side, eyes wide open but body still as a granite stone. The grain dust settled in a cloud around her white-robed bodice. Walter could hear one long, gasping sob, followed by a single word.
“Walt….Walt…” the whisper traveled upwards with the speed of horror.
“Marie!” Walter screamed, over and over, until he awoke. His scream was barely a whisper in the dark light of his room.  He was drenched in his own sweat. He’d wet himself. His tears still flooded his pillow as he turned his head to look around. The medication still had him in a fog, but he knew he was awake, and was grateful for the dream to be over. He noticed Mr. Crutchers was looking towards him.

“Mind yer own business, old man.” he spat at his roommate.
A sloppy grunt and Crutchers turned his head slightly away, giving Walter at least a vestige of privacy. We all need some privacy when entertaining our innermost demons and fears. Mr. Crutchers understood. A head turn was the best he could do.
Walter Franklin Odell cried himself into a welcomed dreamless sleep.

More to come.

K.S.

It started a long time ago ( so long ago I can’t even narrow it down to a year ) my family developed a game we call the Alzheimers Trivia Game. It’s an addictive little game that can get on your nerves, yet compels you to play nonetheless. It’s quite simple. Whenever we’re watching a tv show, or a movie, we’ll see an actor that we know we’ve seen before. It’s a rarity that we can remember the actual actors name. So we start off with “I know that guy…” and begin recalling what show they’d been on. “He was one of the bad guys on RoboCop…and he played Red on that 70’s Show….” If you could name off at least three things they played in, that pretty much counted as if you’d actually remembered the actors name. After all, who’s going to remember Kurtwood Smith’s actual name?

You’ve got to understand, this was back in the days of Blockbuster Video and desk top computers with AOL dial up. Today, we just pull out our phone (if you don’t already have it in your hand, like usual) and google the dude. You have the internet, and a universe of knowledge at your fingertips right there to tell you every little bit part the guy ever played in, his recent roles, his early life, who his kids are, and every piece of hollywood gossip about him, right there in seconds. I still feel defeated when I have to google the answer. It’s cheating.

When my kids were little, we watched a lot of movies. Renting a movie for the weekend was our big thing. Popcorn and a new movie, everyone together in the living room, laughing and crying together. I miss those days sometimes. Sure, you can get a wider range of stuff on Netflicks than Blockbuster has, but it’s different. We’d all head to town to go to the video store. The kid’s would wander around, looking for a cartoon, and we parents would look for something we wanted to watch. It combined the joys of going to the movie theater with the convenience and affordability of just watching television.  And when you rented a movie for two days you felt the need to watch it at least twice. Gotta get your money’s worth. So, we watched a lot of movies.

When you watch a lot of movies, you tend to recognize familiar faces. TV actors that make the break into “cinema” and movie actors that do voice characterizations for film length cartoons are all fair game for Alzeimers Trivia. In fact, any character seen on the little, or big, screen is subject to a “Hey, I know that guy, he’s off of that show…..”  It sounds simple, and it is. It also trains your brain to do it unconsciously. You can’t help it. It’s almost painful if you don’t point out the connection. Ask my wife. She knows how it hurts my head when I don’t do it when the urge arises. After six plus years of marraige, I take great satisfaction when she blurts out, in the middle of a program “that guy was on ER. He was Izzy’s husband that had the brain tumor, then he died. That’s him on The Walking Dead!” Yes, baby. That’s Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Now you’re playing the game too. I love you so much right now.

It’s like a Stephen King story. It’s a completely innocent kind of game, but it makes watching a show or movie into this erie compulsive thing that you…just…can’t…stop doing. It’s even harder to not do when you actually go to the theater and watch something on the big screen. Try recognizing someone up there on the screen and wondering “do THEY know that’s the guy that played Erin Brokovich’s boss in that Julia Roberts movie? Are THEY aware that he also played the bald dude ( Daddy Warbucks)  in “Annie” in 1982? THAT dude playing LeMarc in Ocean’s Twelve….yeah THAT dude! It’s Albert Finney!” Try whispering that in your spouses ear in the movie theater while she’s trying to watch a movie we paid to get into….. it doesn’t end well.  It’s addictive. And you just…..can’t….stop.

Play on, Dear Reader.

K.S.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter One

Mr. Odell sat in his wheelchair, slightly leaning on his right arm. He was parked in the hallway, across from the Nurses Station, seemingly oblivious to the other residents and employees. He stared straight ahead, eyes unmoving. His five o’clock shadow was from yesterday, and there were crumbs in his lap from dinner’s dessert. The traffic was the normal bustle of aides, slow moving wheelchair-bound residents, and occasional visitors. They passed Mr. Odell with barely a glance. He sat there with a not quite angry, not quite happy look on his face. He had a reputation for “behaviors” that included sudden outbursts and lashing out. A week’s trip to a “behavioral facility” had remedied that. Now he was just an old dog tied to a drug-stake in the back yard. To the people around him, he appeared to be a drugged out old man. Inside, it was not so.

“Here we are again, staring at the fucking nurses station. Every damn night. After every damn supper. Wheel my ass out here till I shit, or piss, myself. Then they’ll stick me in bed, half-ass change my diaper, and leave me in bed. I bet they leave the damn tv on something stupid again. If I have to fall asleep to another episode of Andy Griffith…”

His mind was still present. The fiery temper still smoldered. The drugs only blocked how he expressed himself, or maybe whether he did so. The world around him only saw the shell. Inside, there was a man full of anger and hate. He definitely held a grudge against life for letting him get to this suck of a stage of living. He was once a mountain of a man. Powerful. Feared. Fast. Smart. Trusted with sinister secrets and deeds. He’d killed men, and done worse. All that, to end his days being talked to like a child, drugged, and pushed around like a sack of shit.

“Mr. Odell, It’s time for bingo!” the perkiest girl ever, in the history of perky girls told him. Without waiting for a response she began to wheel his down the hallway. He slowly reached down with both hands and set an iron grip on the wheels. The Perky Girl banged into the back of his wheelchair, not expecting the complete stop.

“Hell no.” he muttered in a deep growl, though calmly. He wheeled the chair slowly, but firmly, in a 180, headed back to his spot across from the nurses station. Perky Girl, nonplussed, followed him.

“But Mr. Odell, you’ll have fun! And you might even win a nice prize! How about we go see what we can win? Ok?”

Odell muttered something under his breath.

“What’s that Mr. Odell? I didn’t hear you?” She leaned over slightly and put her ear closer to his mouth.

“I’ll play bingo if the prize is you, sweet thing.” He said without a smile or any emotion whatsoever.

“Now Mr. Odell, that’s not nice. Ok, maybe we can play next time.” She walked away, slightly blushing and perturbed. She had others to gather for the game.

Odell watched her walk away. Her tight ass swayed like it held a quarter between it’s cheeks. A tiny hint of a smile (more of a smirk) appeared on his lips. Seventy six years old, or not, he got a tingle from watching a pretty girl walk fast. Even if they were annoying as hell. He was old, not dead.

“Hey Pops, whatcha staring at, with that evil grin on your face?”

The voice he immediately recognized. It was one he both loved, and hated.

“Awright sonny. I know you ain’t blind. If you don’t know what a nice piece of ass looks like, that’s damn sad for you. Me, I’d stare at that thing all day, if she’d shut the hell up.”

“Ok Pops. Yeah, she’s nice. You’re getting too old to be chasing tail, ya know?”

The smile got slightly bigger.

“I’ll quit chasin it when I’m dead. That’s when I’ll be too old. What the hell do you want, or did you just stop by to bust my balls for watching babes?”

“It’s Thursday, Pops. I always come by on Thursday. If you’d check your Playmate of the Month calendar you hide in your bedside table, you’d know what day it was. I swear, you’re getting more forgetful every week. It’s sad, Pops. Come on, look at the actual calendar sometimes. You don’t have to stare at titties all the time. You’ve gotta exercise those brain muscles sometimes, if you want em to keep working. Can you even remember my name Pops?” Now he was just being a smart ass.

“That’s easy for you to say, with twenty less years on me. Your name’s Mud if you didn’t bring me a Pall Mall. Let’s go outside and get some contaminated air that don’t smell like old people shit.”

The younger man wheeled Odell down the hall to the lobby. They always went out front to the wrought iron benches by the front door. There was usually less traffic and distractions there, in the late afternoons at least. The courtyard, where most of the employees and residents went to smoke, was often crowded with too many talkative residents and chatty employees. Neither Sonny or Pops liked to interact much with anyone else here. The traffic through the cull-de-sac was light, just a few family members coming and going. Sonny sat on the bench next to Odell, pulled out a pack of menthols and handed one to the old man. They lit up and smoked for a minute in silence, enjoying the quiet fresh air, tainted with tobacco.

“You know, I didn’t want it like this. It wasn’t really my call, Pops.” he said, finally.

Odell didn’t respond. He just sat, slumped forward slightly in the wheelchair, and smoked.

“I would’ve done this a whole lot differently. I know you hate this place. Goddamn, man, I hate this place. It’d be ok if you HAD to be here. Folks taking care of you, feeding you, doing all the …personal things that you need done. They’re good to the people who live here. It’s a nice place, for all that…” his voice trailed off.

“It’s a fucking jail, Sonny. You can’t go nowhere. You’re on a schedule that somebody else makes for you every damn day. You eat what they want you to eat, take pills when they want you to take em, tell you when to go to bed, wake up, and when to smoke. It’s noisy, what with the crazy dementia folks rolling up and down the halls and into your room, along with the aides and nurses yelling at each other and talking shit all day and night. You don’t know, Sonny. You ain’t lived here. I’m in jail. I been to jail before though. I’ll cope. I’ll adapt….improvise…”

“Overcome” Sonny finished the mantra for him. He took another drag off the Pall Mall and looked at the old man.

“Have you found what you’re looking for, after all this? I know it’s hard, but is it worth it?”

“No. Not yet. I will though. I’m not leaving this world till I’m damn good and ready. I’ll find what I’m after. I have to. It’s on me.”

“You’re just as crazy as the rest of these people, you know that? It could be that your mind is going faster than you think….”

“Stow it, Sonny. Don’t start that shit with me. Blow smoke up your own ass. Speaking of that, make sure you give my carton of cigs to the nurse. I can deal with no booze, no beer, and no pussy, but I’ma be damned if I can deal with going through all this shit without a smoke.”

“I already turned them in. And every pack has your name on em. You need to quit. You ain’t getting any younger, Pops. I’d hate to see you go through all this, just to croak from lung cancer. Ain’t a pretty site, I hear. You ready to go back inside? Or do I have to leave you here on the porch and drive off with a tear in my eye, as I watch you sadly waving to me in the rear view? That’d break my heart, ya know?”

“Fuck you, ya little shit!” he yelled.

“Quiet down or you’ll have a damn heart attack!” Sonny yelled back.

The younger man pushed him back into the building, his cheeks just a tad red with embarrassment as he passed the receptionist. Odell continued to harangue Sonny all the way down the hall. His deep voice boomed curse words that would make a sailor blush. The walking residents moved out of their way, and a few passing aides raised eyebrows as they passed. They finally made it to Odell’s room, albeit noisily.

The room would have been small for one person. It was definitely cramped with a second bed and roommate. Old man Crutchers was a bilateral amputee, missing both legs from the upper knees down. He’d been semi-comatose for at least five years of the twelve years he’d been here. He was actually a fairly ideal roomie for Odell, who didn’t enjoy much small talk. Crutchers eyes were open, and he even acknowledged their entry with a slight nod and a low grunt. Or he could have just passed gas. It was a coin toss. The room smelled like an abandoned house. Stale, at best. The housekeepers cleaned six hours ago, but the smell always crept back in.

“Hey, Mr.Crutchers. How’s it goin…?” Sonny never knew what to say to these people.

“You’d be better off talking to the wall. Now that we’ve had our little “fight”, what’ve you got for me, boy?” Odell motioned for him to close the door.

“Well, I DID bring your smokes.” A sly grin.

“Don’t play that shit with me. I know you brought something. Hope it’s worth my while. I may end up with my meds being “upped” again for that little outburst. You know how they deal with that kind of behavior around here.” The anger was gone, but so was the agitation.

The young man sat on the neatly made bed. He reached into his pocket and retrieved a small ring box wrapped in tissue and held it out to Odell. He took it quickly and put it into his pants pocket.

“Ok, then. See you in a week.” The old man sat and stared at him.

“Your welcome” The indignant sarcasm was obvious.

Sonny left Odell’s room and the old man watched out the window as he walked to his car and pulled out of the parking lot. He patted his pocket where the box lay, and sighed.

“This had better work” he said to Mr. Crutchers. The invalid grunted again through the drool and drugs.

Living in a nursing home is hard on a body. You don’t think about the affect it has on people, unless you’re the people it affects. The people who work there only see the effects from the outside, looking in. The residents have every aspect of their lives regulated and ritualized. Medicines, activities, meals, smoking, even bathroom times are all regulated to some degree. It actually helps most of them cope with the menial aspects of every day life. The ones that need help, at least. It’s the most normal of the population that hate it the most. The former free spirits and independent folks that don’t really appreciate that they’ve lived long enough to need professional care. Those are the ones whose minds the schedule grates upon. It was only a few years past that some of them were driving, running errands, going out to eat, and enjoying retirement. Illnesses, conditions and bad breaks may have landed them in a nursing home, but only temporarily. For some, it is an opportunity to recuperate, to heal. Those will eventually go back home. For others it is the beginning of the end.

To be continued…

 

Note: This is the first installment of “The Wooden Horse”. I hope you enjoyed it. More to come very soon.

K.S.

 

I talked to my daughter today. It wasn’t one of our best conversations. As in times past, we didn’t see eye to eye on several points. We are so very much alike that it isn’t odd that we have strong opinions and different outlooks. I’m not exactly on her list of favorite friends right now. It wasn’t always so. We were close, once upon a time. Over the years, she has travelled down many roads that I just couldn’t understand where she was going. I’m sure she felt that way about it herself, at times. There was a time when my words had weight with her, and she listened. Today was not one of those days, unfortunately.

My little girl is my only little girl. She has always had my heart in the palm of her hand. I hurt when she hurts. I cry when she cries. All the clichés about daughters being punishment for fathers having been rowdy young men have a lot of merit. A father of a daughter never looks at young ladies exactly the same way after they realize that the apple of their eye will soon be subjected to a world of young men….who were just like him. It’s an earth shattering revelation. Our daughters give us reasons to be gentlemen, and to teach our sons to treat women with respect, as ladies even. Chivalry is not dead. It should live in every heart of a daughters father.

She’s always been a trail blazer, a tomboy, and a friend to all. She’s also always been mischievous, plotting, and a bit of a ringleader. She’s never been a big follower. She’s a leader. That can be a good trait. Sometimes it’s not. My daughter is beautiful. She’s a friend to everyone she meets.  She’s loyal. She’s helpful. She’s creative and imaginative. She loves children, and has the heart of a child. She still loves to play. She’s both smart and intelligent. You can be one without the other, but she really is both. She has the eyes of an angel and truly cares about people. She carries within her genetic makeup her mothers great attributes and passions. I see within her eyes and heart the woman I fell so deeply in love with so many years ago. Whenever I compare her to her mother, I pay her the ultimate compliment, whether she sees it, or not.

As she grew to adolescence, the normal rebellious teen blossomed. It happens with most people. We grow to resent authority and rebel against the natural order around us. It’s normal. The home around her wasn’t normal, however. Every home has it’s problems, and ours was no exception. I’ll make no excuses, for I have none to give for myself. Between mental illness and alcoholism, parental examples were less than desirable for her, in her teen years. My shoulders, and my soul, are heavy with that burden. The weight of responsibility tends to bend our backs, and  at times it broke me. A rebellious teenager has much to rebel against, in such a house.

Marijuana, alcohol, pills and promiscuity are a parents natural foes. We saw all of them welcomed into my daughters life. She held the door open and ushered them in, just as a lot of young people do. Ditching school, sneaking out of the house at night, and hanging out with friends we didn’t like became battles to fight also. As time went on, it became clear to us that her drug problem was not getting better. A teen rehab became her home for a couple of weeks. It seemed to have no more effect than to make her resent us with renewed fervor. Episodes of outlandish behavior became the norm. Our own behavior wasn’t much better. She probably tired of the perceived “competition” of all of our abnormal, and bad, behavior. To simplify: she had a tough childhood during her formative years.

Even during the bad times, she showed the beauty that lay within her. She worked at a local Subway in the year before our world began to collapse under the combined weight of all our problems. She gave many a check towards keeping the lights on. She helped with the bills, at a time when I was giving up on life. I say that with pride for my daughter, but absolutely no pride in myself for my actions or the lack thereof.

We moved to Tennessee under less than grand circumstances. The lights were off, the rent unpaid, Mom had left, Dad had given up hope. There were still the children to care for, and they were all I cared about. We went to live with my parents, and to start again. I immediately found a job. What a blessing! We found a rental house in town, a couple of blocks away from my parents.  I kept talking to Mom, and she eventually came home. There was hope rekindled. My daughter, still only seventeen, continued her rebellion. She did it with a job, a car and quitting high school in her senior year. I understand why. I didn’t imagine everything would just fall into place like magic. My dreams of normalcy were short lived, an abortion of hope.

My father died of cancer, not even four months after we arrived in Tennessee. Then Mom had a departure from reality that I could no longer find within my power to deal with, and I took her to her mother’s home in Arkansas. Barely a month passed, and she took her own life. Tragedies, in life, often come in bundles. Hope can be crushed under the weight of such tragedies. It was. We moved back in with my mother. She freshly widowed, and myself freshly a widower. Our love for each other kept us both going forward. My love for my children was the one tiny wild flower under the broken bricks of my destroyed house. One child had not finished her rebellious stage in life. In many ways, she still hasn’t.

For the past fourteen years I’ve seen my daughter pass through the gates of hell over and over again. She’s ran the gamut of every parents nightmares. Her exploits would render Dr. Phil himself speechless.  She vanished without a trace for six months. She stole my checks and forged her deceased mother’s signature, also using her mother’s drivers license,  to write bad checks in three separate towns before I shut down the account. Her drug dealer/boyfriend/pimp took her with him to Memphis. Then she was sent to Florida, to be pimped out there. She’s worked the pole as a stripper. No bad thing skipped over her life. She walked down the sidewalk and stepped on every crack she possibly could. The sins of the child now belonged to an adult. The sins of her father haunted him with each and every step she took down the road to perdition.

There were good times in those fourteen years. There were bad times, too. The beautiful girl came home. She got jobs. Many jobs over those years. I had my share, as well. Even though I’d gotten sober when we came to Tennessee, I was still (and will always remain) an alcoholic. Maybe I was sober for two years, possibly three. I slowly began to drink again. Not a lot, at first. Then more. Then always. She passed in, and out, of the shadows and the light during the past decade of my life. Rehabs. Jail. Drugs. Horrible relationships that led to worse relationships. Each mountain climbed hid a valley of tears for her to plummet into. She lived with me, with boyfriends, with her brother, with acquaintances, and with strangers. At times, she simply “stayed with” people. She floated between being self-sufficient and indigent. She stayed on the race track of bad decisions like a nascar pro changing lanes for a better position. Crashes became not just a possibility, but a certainty.

By the time eight years had passed, I had acquired my own pair of DUI’s and lost jobs of my own. Then I met Laura. My life began to quickly change. Not only because of her, but she was the motivation for me wanting to change. She still is the reason I want to be a better man. When we started dating, my daughter was spending six months in a rehab in Memphis. Laura and I actually drove (ok, she drove-my license was revoked) to Memphis once a month to visit her. The trips helped us get to know each other. She was able to be at the wedding only by getting a special pass from there. She had to be back that same night. I’ve been married a little over six years. In that time, my daughter has been in no less than a half dozen rehabs, institutions, and hospitalizations for drugs and emotional problems. She’s lived in shelters and in the street. She’s had jobs by the dozen. She’s lived with me several times. I’d tried it every way I knew how. Heavy on the rules. No rules. I gave time limits, and left it open ended. When she exited her longest jail term, I helped her get employment where I worked. She excelled, and was going into management. Then a public intoxication charge lost her that job. Her lifestyle clashed with my life yet again, as she came home drunk again and again. Or didn’t come home at all. The cycle continued yet again.

In the past I’ve brought my daughter into my home. I only asked that she be sober in my house and not come and go at odd hours. I tried to provide a safe place for her to regain her footing in life. I just asked that she find a job, save her money, and get her act together. The last time I took her off the street, she got a factory job where her brother had been working for a week. Then they both disappeared into the darkness the first night after she’d worked there. No note. No explanation. That was about two months ago. She’s been living with friends, acquaintances and strangers since. I allowed both her and her boyfriend to house sit for us when we went on vacation. I paid her. She took the opportunity to order a food stamp card in that week. I said goodbye to them when we returned. She didn’t ask to stay. She knew how I felt. I had come to the conclusion that I was down to two options: 1. Take complete care of her for life or 2. Send her on her way. I opted for number 2. She and her boyfriend were both arrested breaking into somewhere to sleep after a few weeks. She received a thirty day sentence for that charge. She also violated her probation on drug charges from five years ago. That will see her stay in jail until June of 2019.

When I spoke to my daughter today, it was over a video visitation app on my phone, and she was in the county jail. She’d hoped that it was her boyfriend (whom she’d hoped had gotten out of jail) and was very disappointed that it was me. She still loves me, but let me know that she blames me for her being in jail. “You could’ve done something” she said, with tears in her eyes. She asked me not to visit her again, or call. She didn’t want me to send her any money, either.  She’s right. I could’ve done something. I chose not to. I’ve done my best to help her over the years, so many different ways and times. Not one of them had any long term effect that I can see. I chose not to because it’s not MY choice any longer. It never was, really. Now her plans include doing nine months in jail, after which she plans to go the east coast with her boyfriend. Because that’s where HIS parents live. I hope that whatever choices they make, wherever they go, she has peace, safety and happiness. It’s all I ever wanted for her. I love my baby girl with all my heart. My thirty two year old daughter will always own my heart. She may never want to see me again. I pray that’s not the case, but I will always love her. Maybe one day she will look back upon her life and reflect on her mistakes and choices and find truth that will change her outlook on life. I do that every day of my life. It helps keep me humble.

You can raise your children, Dear Reader, but you cannot live for them. Remember that.

K.S.

 

 

When I was a kid, I loved playing with action figures. Ok, dolls. Call them whatever you want, they were fun. They gave a degree of realism to a kids already active imagination. The earliest one I can remember was the venerable GI Joe. Mine had the “realistic” fuzzy hair and the “kung fu grip”.  I’d play “war” with him. That included setting him up meticulously behind a barricade of tree limbs, or rocks, and then throwing rocks, or dirt clods at him and yelling “incoming!” It was the beginning of a fascination with men at war that would devour many hundreds of hours of reading time in my lifetime.

When I was about seven, we moved to Georgia. The main thing I recall about the trip is being packed in the back seat with boxes all around me, playing with my Sir Lancelot Knight action figure, complete with armored horse. I’d gotten it for Christmas. It was a long trip, I suppose. I didn’t notice. I was too busy slaying dragons.

I’d have to say my favorite action figure growing up had to be Johnny West. His accessories were plentiful. He had all kinds of gear. Six-shooter, rifle, canteen, saddle bags, along with his vest, hat and gun belt. This guy was made of solid plastic that firecrackers would blacken, but never hole. BB guns wouldn’t even make a dent. The only flaw was that the legs, arms and head were held onto the body with an interior rubber band set up. As durable as the material was, he was prone to becoming a paraplegic,  or even decapitated,  with a lucky shot. You could slag him up with matches rather well, also. Not that I played with fire as a kid. That mattress blaze was entirely an unfortunate accident, Mom. Really.

I think one of the reasons I liked Johnny West was that my brother, Joe, had a Sam Cobra figure. He was a “Black Bart” kind of villian for the same toy line, Marx. We had some pretty good adventures playing together with those guys. We’d be in our room, with pillows for mountains, having gunfights and chasing bad guys.  It was in the years before your older brother goes off to have more grown up fun with his older friends. Such are the ways of life. We had fun, though.

The great thing about these toys was that you used your imagination. That’s really what the best toys do. Today’s toys are awesome. There are plenty of action figures, too. I love to cruise the toy isle of stores, just to see what’s out there. The advent of the superhero movie explosion has brought out a plethera of cool action figures. A lot of my favorite Marvel characters are on the world stage now, and I couldn’t be more excited. Yes, I’m fifty three. I dont care.

I have a few action figures even now. I aquired a Captain Kirk from the early seventies from my Mom’s friend, who was getting rid of some of her son’s old toys. He’s in his late fifties, but I can’t imagine why he’d wanted to part with it. I bought a Captain America from the comic book store some years ago, before the movies came out. I’ve always loved the comic book. I grew up loving all of Jack Kirby’s creations. Somewhere tucked away is a figure of Mister Fantastic and the Thing from the Fantastic Four. I’d originally given them to my kids, when they were little, then put them up when they had outgrown them. I’d told them how the four of them were my “Fantastic Four”.  Clearly, I’m not going to outgrow them. Same story with a bag of Lord of the Rings figures. Orcs, Boromir, the Ranger, and others, including weapons and accessories. My kids all grew up hearing me read “The Hobbit” and all three “Lord of the Rings” books. They even played with them for a time. Afterwards, I just couldn’t throw them out.  Ok, I might be a bit of a hoarder, sentimental or not.

I don’t keep them to collect and resale them. I’m not that adult about it. I just like em. If I were just a tad less self-conscious of what other people think, I’d play with them even now.  I’m not sure my wife wouldn’t start the commitment process if she walked in on seeing her hubby in the floor, pitting Captain Kirk against Orcs. I try to exercise a bit of restraint.  As it is, I guess I’ll have to wait till I have a grandchild to pass them to. It’d be awesome to play with another like minded individual that shares my love for adventures in space, the old west, Tolkien’s world, and  the superhero universe. It’d be well worth the knee-creaking hardship of getting down on the floor with a six year old that might just bear a slight resemblance to myself.

Kids today have enough realism, maybe too much, in their play life. Video games, virtual reality, and total immersion into the digital world can take away a child’s best attribute: their own imagination. I’m a fan of video games. One of the original fans, I guess you’d say, since my generation saw the advent of “Pong” and “Space Invaders”. The wide array of stand up, coin operated games that spawned the arcade hang outs of the late seventies and eighties ate my spending money with a passion.  The advances of the last twenty years have brought the medium to level I’d have never imagined possible when I was dropping quarters, back in the day. I just hope parents will remember what really makes a toy great, and great for the kid, is one that lets him play out his own adventures, in their own imagination. Plus, you can go outside with your action figures and they’re even more fun. Be careful to keep the matches and lighters put away, though.

Never stop playing, Dear Reader.

K.S.

 

 

 

Timing is everything. We found each other at a time in our lives that neither of us would describe as the best of our lives. She was seperated from an emotionally abusive, drug addicted husband, and I was an unemployed alcoholic, living with my mother. Yup. Sounds so romantic, doesn’t it? I knew you’d think so. Well, ain’t life just a fairy tale? In our own little world, it was.

I was a floor tech, new to the job. She was a supervisor, over the dietary department of the nursing home we worked for. I passed her office every day, catching glances of her through the small window. My job and hers didn’t have much to do with each other, and I never suspected she’d ever even noticed me. She had. Other than a small argument over a mark on the dining room floor (which we disagree about to this day, stubborn woman that she is) we’d hardly even spoken, other than to say “good morning”. One night I was cruising facebook and “just happened” to find her page. She had several pics of her boys and girls, some older people trimming trees, and a few of herself. Some of her pictures were of her adopted daughters, Dominique and Bubbles. They were obviously mixed race. She had two boys, Jon and Cody. I thought “Bubbles” was a unique name, and decided to break the ice with an “innocent” question about how she got the name, if I got the chance. The next day at work, Laura was sitting at the smoke patio with her friend, Linda, and I decided to mention her facebook page. I asked “what’s the deal with Bubbles?” To which she launched into a rather detailed and informative history of how she’d adopted the girls. They were her second exhusbands nieces, and she’d adopted them after she’d divorced him. That certainly told me she had a big heart. It did not, however, speak to how the girl got the name. I playfully told her, after she’d finished, that that’s cool and all, but I meant “how did she get the name “Bubbles”?  We all got a little laugh out of that, and I got to see a beautiful smile that I wanted to see much more of. For the record, Bubbles real name is Betty Faye (after her two grandmothers) and she liked to blow spit-bubbles all the time when she was little, like kids do. That was my introduction to the cute, chatty blonde I discovered behind the all-business dietary supervisor.

Then, one morning, I’d noticed that she wasn’t at work. I found out from one of the office people that she’d had surgery to remove her gallblader. I missed her.  I was concerned about her. And she was cute. So I sent her a friend request. Just being thoughtful, you know. I’d noticed several posts concerning a distinct distaste for men; disgust, even. I may have commented, on one of them,  something like “there are good men out there, don’t give up”. To which she responded “why, are you applying for the job?” Hmmm. I don’t recall my exact response, but I made it plain that I was up to the challenge. We were definitely flirting. I was enticed. I asked about her surgery. She was convalescing at home, bored. I offered to bring her pizza and rent a movie. She accepted, to my great surprise. I got directions to her home, and we set a date. You’d think I was bold as brass, but I was nervous as hell.

I kinda froze up at the Redbox, trying to pick out a movie. I ended up with two. Rango, Johnny Depp voicing a lizard, and Hall Pass. It was a funny, but raunchy, movie with a public masturbation scene, in a car. That embarrassed me, but I tried not to let it show. Her son, Cody, was there when I arrived and I introduced myself and shook his hand. Good looking kid, seemed nice. I believe he left for town, and we sat on Laura’s couch and watched the movies. We ate pizza and enjoyed the movies. There was some conversation but,  for the life of me, I can’t remember what we talked about. She probably does. I was both nervous and comfortable at the same time. I managed to put my arm around her at some point during the movies.  I didn’t make a move, exactly. I just thought we were very comfortable together, there on the couch.

When the pizza was gone, and the movies over, we both got up and stretched a bit. I knew a two-movie date was a little longer than usual, and I didn’t want to press my luck. As I began to tell her goodbye she stretched her arms upwards, yawning, I slid my arms around her for an embrace. No running, screaming or gnashing of teeth. Cool. So I leaned in to kiss her gently on the mouth. The Eagle has landed. I got a few kisses, and a very nice full body hug before I left. And I left with a warm heart, and not a small amount of repressed desire.

We began texting on a regular basis from then, on. I’d text her from work, or at home. She actually responded, almost as if she really liked me. Sounds so high school, huh? It felt a bit like that, too, but in a good way. I hadn’t felt this way about a woman in a very long time. It was awesome to talk to someone who actually seemed to like me, to care about what I thought. She was honest, but caring. She was a little reserved in some ways, and bold in some ways that really got my motor running in high gear. She had me hooked.

You have to realize where each of us were, in life. We didn’t expect this to happen. We didn’t expect to find each other, but we did. Laura was seperated from her third husband. She’d had a few very bad years, but after they’d parted (she threw him out) she’d found some peace. The summer before our first date was heaven for her. Her daughters were spending the summer away from home. Her son spent most of his time away with friends, or work. She read. She played games on her computer. Luckily for me, she posted and played on facebook. Her chaotic life  had leveled out to a quiet peace that she’d not known in…forever.

I was in a different era of my life, also. I’d been a widower for seven years, freshly off a second DUI and unemployed less than a year before we met. I was living at my mothers. I was still an “active” alcoholic. Getting hired by the nursing home didn’t seem to be a step up, at the time. Floor tech didn’t exactly fit my “dream job” ideal, but it was forty hours a week, and day shift. I soon found that I enjoyed the work, and the people. Things were looking up. Starting a relationship with Laura proved it to me.

We moved fast from there. She came over for dinner and met my Mom. They got along great, and always have since. Laura’s Mom and I got along well, too. She reminded me of MawMaw (Shirley Williams, my first Mother In Law) in that she had no reservations whatsoever. What she thought, she said. I knew that to be a great character trait, even if it could aggravate you at times. She’s honest. She’s a good person. So’s Laura. We went from a first date in August, 2011, to a wedding date of March 25th, 2012. Laura wanted a wedding, with guests, a cake and reception, the works. We’d both been married before, but all at city hall,  by justices of the peace. She deserved to walk down that aisle, and I was proud to be waiting for her at the alter. It was a beautiful day, surrounded by our friends and family. She made a beautiful bride. It was one of the greatest days of my life.

Our marraige has given me hope for the future. I know God gave us both a second chance (fourth? fifth?) for love. I’ve not been the best husband, or man, in the world. I’m learning, though. I’ve discovered a lot about myself in the past six years. Not all of it is good, but I’m more humble today because of who I’ve been in the past. Laura is the most beautiful woman in the world, inside, and out. She’s seen me at my worst, and still loved me. At this stage of our life, we’ve both found that we don’t actually need another person in our life to make us happy. We could be happy alone, if need be. What’s awesome is that we WANT to be together. We’re each others choice. That’s a very important thing. I want her to be with me, through thick and thin. She doesn’t need me, but she wants to be with me, too. It may sound odd to you, but it’s a very important part of our relationship. It’s simple. We lean on each other because we want to, not because we NEED to. She’s good enough, strong enough, and smart enough to live a good life without me. I could deal with things without her. Maybe that doesn’t sound romantic, but to me it is. She’s here, with me, because she wants me. I’m here, with her, because I want her. It’s our bond of love; our brand of romance. Our kind of fairy tale.

And now we’re living happily ever after, Dear Reader.

K.S.

How do people become homeless? It’s not like in the movies, where the big, bad bank forecloses on someone’s house and forces them out. It’s not always the abused wife, with two small, hungry kids, all living in their car. It doesn’t have to be the drug user, hanging out in the alley, shooting up and mugging citizens to get by. All of these things DO happen, to be sure, but people find themselves homeless due to other reasons, too. I’ve seen it. Close up.

Bad decisions, mistakes, and illegal acts have repercussions in life. Those repercussions might be jail, lost jobs, loss of family support, and lost homes. When I say lost homes, that can translate into lost “places to stay” as well. When people continue to stack bad behaviors on top of illegal acts, and then compound it by repeating the same cycles over and over, their life becomes … unbalanced. When there is no balance in life, everything avalanches to the bottom of the hill. It piles up until it buries you. No one can escape the consequences of their actions. You can avoid them for a time, but they WILL catch up to you.

I have four grown children. The oldest is thirty five, the youngest twenty eight. Three boys and one girl. Two have college degrees and good, solid careers. Two do not. One lives eight hours away, one lives at home with me, one’s in jail (and homeless), and the other one is also homeless. I love all four of them. I used to think I’d do anything for them, but I was wrong. I’ve had to learn the hard way that there is a time to say “no more”, even to your own child. Especially when they’re adults. I never understood, until now, how a parent could allow their child to live on the street. Even as adults, they’re your children. A parent can’t help but see them as growing, young individuals, needing your help, your support, and your love. Our hearts filter out the bad, the wrong, and the illegal to be able to see the little ones we raised. We use excuses like “hanging out with the wrong crowd” and “they need time to find themselves” and even “they’ve got such a big heart, everyone takes advantage of them” when stupidity repeats itself over and over.

Yes, I used the “stupid” word. I won’t hide my own behavior behind alcoholism as being “a sickness”, or my own bad behavior under the title of “victim of circumstances”, so why would I continue to keep finding “reasons” for my children’s behavior? If you paint a turd yellow, it doesn’t make it gold. If I can take responsibility for my life, what’s to stop them from doing the same?

My daughter has been to more drug rehabs than I can remember. Literally. Since she was sixteen she’s had a problem with everything, including weed, alcohol and meth. It’s been a roller coaster decade for her as an addict. My son has been a weed user pretty much his entire adult life, along with being a heavy drinker, when he can get it. He doesn’t always see the connection between his addictions and his problems. They’ve both repeated the same exact mistakes over and over again over the past fifteen years. Jobs have been lost over and over and over. Relationships come and go on a sometimes daily basis. Pretty much all of them with toxic people with problems that equal, or exceed, their own. People pass through their lives like crowds at Grand Central Station and yet they somehow feel like each one is a long lost soulmate, closer to them than their family.

Drugs, alcohol, bad relationships and bad friends all combine to make the simple things in life very hard to maintain. Jobs are hard to keep when you’re hung over. They’re even harder to keep when you show up drunk. I know this from personal experience. It’s hard to keep a place to live when you don’t have a job and can’t pay the rent. I know this, also, from personal experience. It’s also hard to buy food, gas and cigarettes when you don’t have money. Money can be very hard to come by without a job. I know all of this sounds simple and silly. I shouldn’t have to point these things out to people in their late twenties and early thirties. It’s sad. Very sad.

There comes a time when adults have to be responsible for themselves. They have to figure out that parents won’t always be there to bail them out. Wrong behavior and actions result in suffering consequences. When do they quit being victims and stop making excuses for why they find themselves in the same horrible circumstances over and over? When?

I love all of my children. I’d sacrifice my life for all of them. I won’t be a part of the destructive cycle they’ve set up for themselves any longer, however. I thought I’d always be there for them, always be able to help them in some way, no matter the circumstances. From birth, through adolescence, and all the way through high school and college, this was the case. I hope I was there for them. After the past ten years of providing a “safe place” for rest and recovery after bad decisions destroy their worlds little by little, I find that I am no longer willing to do the same old trick. If the results are always the same, and my “help” doesn’t help, why continue? To what end?

Love hurts. Saying “no” hurts worse than saying “yes”. I’ve turned away two people that I brought into this world, raised, and loved. All because they can’t find a way to learn the simplest lessons in life. I know that points to my own shortcomings as a parent. I accept that. I won’t allow it to be my excuse for making the same mistakes over and over myself. Call it tough love. Call it refusing to be an enabler. Call it allowing them to really sink or swim. Call it by anything you want, but I call it loving your child. A good parent has to be ready to let their adult child succeed or fail on their own. Success may be just a normal, productive life. Failure could mean death. At some point in a parents life, they have to recognize that success or failure isn’t up to them any longer. It’s up to the child when they’ve grown to adulthood. It’s up to them to learn the lessons, ultimately.

Life is hard. It’s harder when you’re stupid.

Love hurts. Rant over. Thanks for listening, Dear Reader.

K.S.