by Breuer, Jim
“What?” he said crankily. “I’m holding it. I’m holding it, jerk.”
“No, you’re not,” I said. “Unless you count holding it in your underwear as holding it.”
Miraculously, there was a baby two rows behind us, and my immediate reaction was to look back at the family repeatedly, raising my eyebrows in a way that put the blame squarely on them.
Dad had crapped himself before, but never in a confined environment. My plan was to let everyone else get off the plane before we made our move. All I could think about was people stuck behind us, looking at the giant crap stains on Dad’s pants and getting a good whiff of it, too. I didn’t want to put the other passengers through that. And I didn’t want to put Dad through it. I had a horrible vision of something nasty rolling out of Dad’s pant leg onto the aisle and then getting tracked all over the place by those little suitcase wheels and people’s shoes. It would have been a nightmare. It could have potentially polluted all of Newark airport as people fanned out in different directions.
So when the plane emptied, I went down the aisle first. Dad waited in his seat. I pulled a wheelchair right up to the doorway, went back onto the plane, and walked him gingerly right to that wheelchair, and once he was in it, we made a beeline for the Continental Presidents Club.
Once we were in the bathroom, I pulled Dad’s pants down. It looked like someone had stuffed pudding all up and down his back. The smell was so foul I started dry heaving immediately. As I sat retching loudly, travelers flocked in and out. I was extremely lucky that I’d had the foresight to pack an extra outfit for Dad in my carry-on bag just in case anything happened. I cleaned him up and threw his old clothes right in the garbage. I feel bad about doing that to the Continental Presidents Club, but I figure I’ve racked up enough miles with them that we’re square. When I was done, Dad was sitting, in clean clothes, in his wheelchair. He looked down at the floor sheepishly and said, “I didn’t mean to do this. I didn’t mean it.”
“Of course you didn’t mean it,” I said. No one puts that in their planner: Wake up. Have breakfast. Drink OJ. Read the paper. Get dressed. Get on the plane. Crap myself. Have my son bring me into the bathroom stall, wipe my ass, clean me up.
“I guess you’re not taking me on any more trips,” he said, looking up at me.
“I’m taking you on more trips, Dad,” I said. “I’m just going to make sure you don’t eat for two days before we go.”
The best compliment I hear after a show nowadays is when someone comes up to me and says, “I started watching your videos and I reconnected with my dad.”
If I can be a player in this game and bring humor to it, I want to do it. I want to use it as a forum. Is it tragic my dad craps his pants in a crowded airport when we have fourteen minutes to make our connecting flight? Yes. Definitely. It’s also funny.
There are a lot of people in my predicament, and we’ve been brought up not knowing how to take care of our parents as they get older. No one wants to face it. My generation and even the baby boomers have traditionally been like: “I’m really smart and I make lots of money and that money will buy my health and my parents’ health. When they slow down, I’ll stick them in a nice nursing home.” To me, senior citizens are just like kids. They don’t want to be stuck in a facility. They want to socialize and feel valuable, not degraded. They want human contact. Which is how I got to where I am with my parents today.
Growing up, I was close with my dad, but he wasn’t a huge communicator. He was always just there, like a tree. My attitude was: “I’m safe as long as that tree is there.” My mom was way more conversational and direct with me, asking about school and girlfriends. I bet my dad would have a hard time naming even one of my friends. But he was always there, which was more than enough. I knew what he felt for me.
When I first started doing stand-up and was traveling all over and I still lived with him, he’d show his love by making sure my car was fit to drive long distances. I’d be out doing something and come home and instead of Dad saying, “I love you,” he’d say, “The oil’s changed and the car is all clean.”
Once in Florida we were out at a comedy club and I went outside to talk to a chick, and when I came back in, there was a crowd around him. I thought, “Oh my God, here we go. Something happened.”
As I got closer, people were all staring at him and laughing their asses off. One guy turned around and said to me, “Can I hire him for a night? He’s killing right now.” So every once in a while, he knows how to rip apart a room. He wouldn’t always show that off though.
He’s a hard guy to get to understand, but overall, I know his behavior. And when Dad turned eighty, I knew he wasn’t doing well, not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually to boot. He’d experienced some small strokes, which definitely did not help things, and as a result, he wasn’t allowed to drive his car anymore. But it was parked in his garage in Florida and he was fine with that. And whenever we came to visit him, he’d always say, “Hey, use our car. It’s got no miles on it.” And I’d drive him around in it, but after a while, without even asking him, my mom gave his car away to one of her kids. And I think that triggered something right there, and he shut the whole world off. We moved them up near us, and by and large he still wasn’t participating in the world. He liked to do jigsaw puzzles or read the newspaper and do the Jumble, or take a walk, or just go outside and get some fresh air. Now he wouldn’t do any of it, and he wouldn’t shower or shave. He’d just sleep for hours.
And my mom isn’t so helpful with him. Her idea of tenderness is “Here, let me get you breakfast, and I’ll also get you a napkin because you’re a slob.” They wear on each other. She’s great with her grand-kids but really bizarre when it comes to dealing with him. I think it’s partly because she’s still very mobile and he slows her down. She’s the same age as him. She must look at him and fear that’s where she’s headed. At her age, a lot of the care he needs is beyond what she can do. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
So I started bringing Dad on the road with me. He did six straight weeks on the bus with me on a tour of colleges called the Breuniversity Tour. The schedule, the pace of it, and all the new faces every day stimulated him, and some of his old wit and personality returned. On that tour I filmed a documentary about me, my dad, and aging called More Than Me, which ended up getting the attention of the Elder Aging Services of California. They had me out to screen the film at one of their seminars to a room full of the elderly and their caregivers.
Once the Breuniversity Tour ended, and I was doing one-off gigs, I couldn’t always bring Dad because it just wasn’t cost-effective. I have to pay for his flight, his hotel room, and all of his meals. So I’d take him about half the time. When I’d leave him, I’d come back and see that he was further behind. Withdrawing. Sleeping all day.
So with Dee’s blessing, over the past year, we started having Dad stay with us for a couple of weeks at a time. When he was first staying with us, he’d come in a room, look at me, and ask, “Should I sit here?”
“Sit where you want,” I’d say.
“Should I go in the kitchen?”
“Go where you want, Dad,” I’d say, laughing. “I’m not going to tell you where to go.”
I think my mom had some stern rules for him. But being around the kids and a house full of activity helps keep him fresh, and it actually takes some stress off of my mom. He still doesn’t ever want to get too deep with me. Everything is an Abbot and Costello routine. He prefers not to make sense much of the time anymore. On the road, when I’d check with him to see if he had any money, he’d often respond, “No, but I think I know a plan to make some.”
“Really?” I’d ask. “How?”
“I’m going to buy some pigs,” he’d say confidently.
“Oh, then we can have a petting farm?” I’d ask. “What are we going to feed them?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, how much do we charge, Dad?”
“Fift
y bucks a head.”
“Wow!” I’d say. “Do you think people will come?”
Then we’d be off for twenty minutes of gibberish. He’d tell me he walked to a flea market in Paris to buy scarves.
There are times when Dad’s staying with us, and I’ll pull up to see an ambulance in front of our house. They’re there all the time, because Dad will have episodes where he has trouble breathing or just completely zones out. If I’m around, I usually don’t call them, because I’ve just been around the symptoms long enough that I’ve got a pretty good hunch if we really need medical help. But I wonder what I’ll do when he needs more help than the paramedics can provide. What if he needs to be put in a hospital? Do I want that? He’s had a full life. Maybe it would be better to just let him die in my arms.
Every time Dad passes out they want to ship him to the hospital. I did it enough times; they stick him full of needles and tests and keep him there for observation. Hospitals are overrated. They’re great if you have to have surgery. They’re great if you need that emergency care. But if you’re old, do they really need to keep you there for two weeks? Here’s what’s wrong with him: He’s eighty-seven years old. He’s going.
But in the meantime, the kids get to play with him. He gets to sit out on the back deck and watch me mow the lawn. If I’m cooking, I’ll make him chop up some basil. I don’t have to tell the guy I love him because I’m sure he knows it.
Epilogue
RV Tour
Last summer, I was going to be touring a lot, and I decided to try something different. If I was going to go on the road, doing family comedy, I was going to take my family with me. Not for some puny little weekend jaunt. For the whole thing. And we weren’t going to fly. We were going to spend a real American summer together. In an RV. My kids are growing up way too fast to be apart from them for such long stretches. Little milestones go by—something simple like the fact that even my littlest, Dorianne, who’s five, can swim now—and you step back and hope you’re not taking any of it for granted. Also there’s this: My oldest, Gabrielle, is eleven and on the verge of entering that whole texting and IM-ing universe, and that really freaks me out.
So the tour dates were all in place, and my plan was to rent the smallest, most navigable RV ever, get them all to pile in it, and along the way we’d hit campsites, barbecues, water slides, amusement parks, and truck stops. I would have even brought my parents, but my mom is so wedded to her routine that she’d have driven us crazy on the road. I’d get a baseball hat that says CAPTAIN or ADMIRAL on it and those little sunglasses things that people attach to the front of their regular glasses—and I don’t even wear regular glasses. This was going to be the best summer ever, filled with Breuer-style togetherness.
My wife and kids bought into the idea immediately. After a few clicks on the RV rental Web site I wound up looking at one I thought I could handle.
“You’ve gotta be crazy,” my wife said, looking over my shoulder. “We’ll smother each other in there. We’ve got to get a bigger one.”
I clicked another. To be honest, I was petrified of driving a really huge RV, but I didn’t want anyone to know.
“That one’s also way too small, Jim,” Dee said. “It’ll get so claustrophobic in there, we’ll kill each other.”
“We may not have to rent an RV for that to happen,” I said, starting to lose my cool.
I clicked on another. A beautiful, manageable twenty-five-footer. Nice sandalwood interior. Entertainment console. Kitchenette. GPS. Seat coverings that were resistant to pudding, glue, finger paint, nacho cheese, and marker stains.
“Let’s pick this,” I said. It was settled. This was the RV in which we’d see the country and bond.
The first hour we were on the road, I realized I just loved the thing. I loved the idea of never having to stop to pee or eat. With all the females in this vehicle, it could have taken three days to travel 108 miles. Having an RV meant we wouldn’t be stopping. It sank in that we were really going to be traveling the USA in an RV.
Dee was in a great mood. Happy to be taking her family on a journey. I wondered how long it would last when the reality that the girls were seated just three feet behind her kicked in. They were doing their best to open every bag of chips on board, along with all the rest of the groceries we’d purchased, then spilling them onto the floor, where they’d get crunched to tiny pieces and slide all over the place. They’d also begun their chorus: “She’s sitting next to me.” “She’s against me.” “Don’t touch me.” “She called me poopy.” “She’s staring at me.” “Can I have some chips?” “I can’t find them.” “She ate a chip out of my bag.” “That’s my water!” “She took my seat.”
A glance at the GPS told me that we’d made it only about forty miles from home. We were still in New Jersey, and our first campsite was all the way across Pennsylvania, located about an hour from Pittsburgh, the site of my first show.
But as the day wore on, a quiet calm settled over the RV, the kids napped, and looking out at the open road—I was now camped in the passing lane, getting cocky, flashing my brights and blowing past slowpokes—I fleetingly wondered why I’d ever chosen to travel any other way.
Until I realized that Western Pennsylvania was a long ways away. I was bored out of my mind, looking at the speedometer, the GPS, and the clock over and over again. I just wanted to set up camp and unwind. By the time we pulled off of I-80 onto the bumpy little county highway that we thought would lead us to the campground, it was dusk. It was getting a lot harder to see anything and we didn’t have any backup instructions; we were just going on full-blown GPS.
“Does it matter that the GPS keeps saying to turn right, Dee?” I asked.
“The GPS knows what it’s doing, Jim,” she said.
“Then how come there’s nowhere to turn right?” I said.
“I have no clue,” Dee said. “Maybe I’ll try using my cell phone, we’ve gotta be really close by now.
“I have no bars,” Dee said, holding up her cell phone.
Concern was now spreading slowly across my face. “Oh, man,” I said. “The GPS isn’t working either. Without the GPS, we really don’t know where the campsite is,” I said through gritted teeth. “Didn’t you have, like, a paper map of the area? And,” I said, continuing to freak out, “I guess it’s not like we can call anyone for directions!” I scowled, Dee scowled.
But a quick glance back at the kids confirmed that they weren’t concerned with being just a little bit lost. They’d woken fully from their naps and were playing their Nintendo DS games, happily and obliviously eating Cheetos and Doritos. The road became bumpier and more winding, and with every pothole we hit all of the pans and the oven rattled like the whole RV was going to fall apart.
And it was getting darker outside.
That was probably for the best at this point. Because, outside of the RV windows, we didn’t see many houses, and the ones we did see were not ones where you’d stop for directions. The residents were either missing teeth, not wearing shirts, or hanging out with pit bulls who were chewing on old tires—probably from RVs that had run out of gas nearby and been ritually dismantled. Then the road twisted more and driving became more stressful, because I didn’t know how much leeway I had if another car was coming at me.
If we kept driving in one direction, I figured, we had to hit a main road where someone could offer us directions. I was pretty confident that there were people in Pennsylvania who have teeth, who live in cities, and who get to them by driving on a main road. We kept driving for twenty more minutes. There were no main roads.
“I’m just going to pull over,” I said finally. I’m not one of those guys who won’t ask for help. Even when the neighborhood is sketchy. “Next person I see, we’ll stop.”
“Oh, man,” Dee said, sighing. “Don’t ask any of these people. Don’t let them know we’re lost!” The kids kept munching their snacks.
At that point, just turning around and going back to the interstate
wasn’t even an option. We’d deviated from the straight-line plan and made a bunch of turns, and it’s not like we could just turn the GPS on and make our way back.
“I’m serious,” I explained. “The next reasonable-looking place I see, I’m going to stop in and ask for directions. And just maybe, I will make it back to this RV without an axe in my head.”
Finally, we happened upon what I think was a motel or gas station or wood shop. The lights were on, and I thought I saw an old woman in the doorway, and I thought I saw an office. The Bates Motel had an office, too, but I was willing to take my chances.
I pulled in on the mystery business’s gravel driveway. There was no sound but the engine of the RV and the slow, gentle churn of rubber tires across the pebbles. Oh, and also the clanging of all those pots, pans, dishes, forks, knives, spoons, Crock-Pots, melon ballers, ice cream scoops, and pie tins that my family members had packed, all stacked in the RV’s kitchen. I broke the silence.
“They’re closed!” I exclaimed, pointing at the rickety houselike structure. “No one here is going to help us.”
“I see an old lady there!” Dee said. “Grow a pair and ask her the way outta here.”
I saw her move, shuffling slowly toward our headlights.
I threw the RV into park. The GPS had safely brought us hundreds of miles. And now this wise old woman was going to take us the last furlongs. I hopped out of the cab. The old woman approached. I looked back and saw my family’s faces huddled under the dome light, still chewing their snacks.
“Ma’am,” I said politely, “I’m looking for a campsite....”
I could see from her body language—a scratch at the crotch region of her tattered housecoat—that she’d obviously fielded this one before. “Make a left out of the parking lot,” she explained politely. “And it’s three and a half miles down the road, on your left ...”
I could hear cheers now coming from the RV. The old woman looked at me and nodded at the RV. We were going to go camping! Or RVing. You know what I mean.