The final application, her signature, placed a smidgen of Campho-Phenique behind each ear as if it were Macy’s perfume. Everyone knew when Violet was near. There was a stringent medical aroma that had stuck around long after she left the room. The vapors had stuck to the walls and to my nasal passages for years. To this day, when I think of my morning-mother, the hairs in my nose quiver.
*
"Mrs. Violet?”
A tall figure, a heavenly vision backlit in shimmering white filled the bathroom door’s frame. Violet was startled and silent. She read of such visions but never thought... Violet dropped out of her body like a little doll. Looking up, her mouth opened but it was empty. In the supple light there flashed an image of Saint Michael.
Violet was much shorter than her sainted visitor. If she wanted to, if she could, if the angels would help her, she would let him hold her close, allowing his saintly chin to rest virtuously on her head.
The silhouette moved closer into his body. His head blessed with glassy black curls, his face was clean of hair and angled. He was pressed and ironed and carried a sword leathered at his waist. He wore the uniform of the city, a shiny dark gabardine. A metal flash of light came from his chest that made Violet blink. The metal was gold and reflected his number, 434.
"Mrs. Violet, are you ok?" He repeated the question. The strange voice slapped everything holy out of Violet. The angels flapped their silken wings and flew away taking with them all thoughts of Saint Michael.
"Oh yes. Yes. I'm ok." Violet backed up a bit and clutched her bathrobe’s collar against her chest making it impossible for her breasts to see what was going on. Meanwhile, the fumes from the Aqua Net hairspray and her C-P perfume were fighting for air rights.
"Violet, the girls at Life Alert have been calling you on your speaker box but you hadn't answered. They called our police department to check on you. We rang the doorbell and knocked a number of times. We had no choice but to break in. We're glad to see you're not hurt."
Getting into the house could not have been an easy task. The wood-n-chain concoction prevented anyone on the outside from opening the door; a heavy metal chain looped several times around the doorknobs and a twoby-four butted between the door and a stair railing six feet away.
"Oh my God, I didn't hear a thing.”
The policeman removed the cap from his head and
rubbed the hard red line it sliced into his forehead. He smiled widely; his white teeth filled his face, his skin was golden dark
"You had everyone pretty worried. When we received no response, we had no choice but to break in.” For some reason, he needed to repeat the break-in part. Perhaps she didn’t hear it the first time.
“Unfortunately, your door is in pieces."
Violet covered herself and tightened her robe.
“Come, come... let's go into the kitchen, I will make you something to eat."
"We can't Miss Violet, we have a full day of work ahead of us."
Saint Michael put his policeman's cap back on his head and moved aside making room for this tiny woman to pass. Four thick policemen in heavy uniforms and leathered pouched guns stood just outside her room waiting for direction.
"Oh my dear. There are so many of you. And you all came to rescue me. Come. Follow me." She waved her hand in the air and moved into action.
They fell like dominoes into her easiness as she passed by swinging her arms and talking.
"I have cream puffs in the freezer. But if you don't have time, let me at least give you some bags of candy?"
Violet turns and looks up at Michael.
"You count them. I want to make sure they all get a bag. Are any of you policemen diabetic? I have sugarless."
[ The image of the St. Michael’s visit wore off the next day but the notion of the door’s reckless destruction, stuck with my mother for months. Duck-tape covered the evidence.
* My body pushed on the door that easily released its duct-taped closure.
The house was empty of real life but warm. The sounds and lights were working hard as if someone was there. A flickering glow from the television filled the ceiling. I walked up the dark stairs and moved toward the kitchen. Muffled conversations from the TV and radio didn't stop talking at my arrival. They have been warning prospective burglars not to come into the house since Violet left to go to church two days ago.
It was too early to go to the hospital. It was still the tail-wagging end of yesterday. My phone said 4:40am. The fresh white snow looking through the windows dimly lit the counter and created a suitable amount of light for moving around. A clipped-closed bag of pretzels was stuffed in the corner. I love pretzels. In one rhythmic sweep, I turned off the radio, snapped up the bag and grabbed a beer out of the fridge.
Exhausted but not quite ready to officially collapse into sleep, I plopped down on the sofa, covered myself with a blanket and turned my head toward the TV. Matlock was on.
* I slept deeply on the sofa until my body shook me into waking. The jolt rattled all dreams out of my head. In my hand the remote control was stuck. Matlock left the box hours ago. I rolled on the sofa to face its back and hide from the morning. Its tiny pink flowers and green leaves lay flat on my eyes wallpapering my sight. The smell of paint, the weight of my splotched blankets, the cinder-block darkness was missing.
The room was yellow bright. The night found a few places to hide but for the most part, it was packing up ready to leave soon. California suns were never quite as rude. The sun out west would wait outside until I cranked up the roll-up door and allowed their light to start my day.
I slid my feet onto the floor, sat up and looked around. It was loudly quiet, a silence that screamed and pulled at my hair. Half my face felt dented, filled with bed wrinkles, my eyes were glazed. I put my hand to the top of my head for reassurance - a deflated bungeed mass of blond-red-black hair fountained loosely, sliding off the side of my head. I could have easily been compared to the portraits painted by Georg Baselitz or Francis Bacon, which I found awkwardly interesting.
The sun and its overbearing brightness took over the room. I released the latch for a window blind closest to me, which made it slam down hard onto the windowsill.
Where were my sunglasses? Questions were wrinkled in yesterday. The morning waited for the coffee to stop perking before it would explain everything to me.
I showered, brushed and peed; then, dressed, layered and sunglass'd myself in record time, a practiced accomplishment. The morning’s mission came in sight as I skipped down the steps, claw-clipping my hair to an upsweep ponytail.
At the stairs’ landing, I got a pull from under my feet that knocked me over. The bottoms of my boots got stuck in its steps. My body flipped forward, bounced, then tumbled and eventually hit the floor hard.
I was ambushed. As if I was attacked by a pod of extremely strong and sticky octopi. The more I moved the more their tentacles tightened their grip, sucking and pulling me down. I was lying in a pile of duct-tape, tape that had ripped away from the door, the same door I pushed open to get into the house the night before.
"Fuckin' Duct Tape. Fuckin' stupid tape…
I tried to rip off the trappings but it only tightened its grip. My hands turned and twisted, my legs were stuck in place.
"...and what in the hell kind of protection is this? Any maniac in the middle of the frickin' night, could have broken-in easily and rob me. They could have knocked me out cold, tied my hands and feet with all this frickin' duct tape... and ransacked the house."
My body contorted like a gymnast. Strips of the tape fixed itself to my hair and hung loosely down my shoulders looking for more of me to capture. With all my force I crunched some of the tape into a ball as if I were fighting for my life and slap-slammed other pieces back onto the door.
"Horrible hellacious people could have slit my throat, ripped off my cloths, ravaged my body and left me for dead... blood everywhere. ...I hate this fuckin' tape. I swear I hate this frickin' fuckin' tape."
&nbs
p; After my release, I rubbed the bumped parts my head to prevent any bruising and continued walking down the side steps toward the basement door to exit. Outside my mother’s car sat under a pile of snow.
[ The church ladies previously drove the car to the house. No butt, other than my father’s (occasionally) sat in the driver’s seat before that day. ]
6.
A BOTTICELLI MOMENT Patient Room #404: "Tay took your mother dow'nastairs for somma tests." The voice came from a bed closest to the door.
The occupant of the bed was a perky woman who appeared to be good at camouflaging her health. She raised her blanket and repositioned its landing over her legs, then ran her hands over the creases to smooth out the surface. A curtain separated the two beds for cottoned privacy.
"Dow'na-stairs... Tay took her toda elevator and lowered her to doz blood suckers on ta ground level."
She confidently snickered to herself, amused at her own comic sense of humor.
The lady of the voice looked at me with all her eyes and ears. Obviously, this was a versed woman who had accumulated a number of hospital experiences. She was a bit older, in her seventies, the very late seventies perhaps. Her hair was short, curly, salt and pepper in color, more salt than pepper. Her cheeks were her most prominent feature. Round and puffy, stuffed with outspoken jabberwocky nonsense as well as tiny bits of wisdom stuck far back around her molars. With absolutely no control on her part, her words fell out randomly whenever she opened her mouth
"My name is a Josephine." The little lady looked up, raised her brows and opened her eyes wide.
"Gull bladder." Spoken as if they were her rank and serial number.
Josephine went back to folding and shook her head. She pushed out her lips and melodically slipped in a diagnostic opinion.
"She deaden' look very happy." "What... what did you say? Your name is Josephine? Hello Josephine, I'm... How did you know she was my mother?"
"Honey, l knowz those things."
"That's nice. Well... where did you say they took my mother?" "Dow'na-stairs. Ask one of ta nurses outside to give you directions, but make sure they don't point you toda wrong elevator."
Josephine waved her finger in the air adding credibility and weight to her words. "You canna get lost in dis place if you take ta wrong elevator. One of doz elevators canna take youz directly toda morgue - not ta any stops."
As Josephine nodded her head and fiddled with the top hem of her blanket creating a neat fold-over edge, she added under her breath,
"They donna tell anybody dat. You just end up dare. The morgue. And ya don’t want to go dare."
"Thanks... Josephine, and thanks for the information." “Shez be ok honey. While youz out dare, tell the nurz I need my medzine.”
* The elevator's sliding doors opened into a long corridor. The light was strikingly different, dim. All the sounds whispered. Directly in front of me was a line of cushioned chairs filled with people dressed in partially opened hospital gowns - some wore bandages and surgical masks, others coughed, snored in wheelchairs or read old magazines with torn out pages. All of them had paper wristbands.
At the far end were double doors with head sized windows for viewing. A hand- sanitizing dispenser was respectfully walled next to the doors. I pushed on the dispenser's tail and spread the goop of white foam around my hands and then elbowed the two doors open.
The room inside was large and fluorescent bright with long metal tables in sheeted cubicles that corralled the room. Doctors in scrubs and white coats rushed through the area. Nurses hovered over patients, some stood by monitors, others tap-slapped wrists to wake up sleeping veins.
I looked around. My head followed the moaning sounds and voices from behind the curtained cubicles.
"Is anyone out there who could help me? Could someone please help me." ...while another screamed "Jackasses. They're all a bunch of jackasses!"
Groaning and whimpering, intercoms paging doctors, static noises from police radios stuffed my head. Buzzing alarms went off telling the nurses that transparent bags filled with medication were done. Pop, fizz from a soda can being opened came from around the corner where an older man sat slouched in a chair next to his bandaged wife. They shared a lemon soda.
In the center of the room computers, monitors and files were lined on counter tops and manned by the commanding nurses - nurses who ordered the airborne illnesses and contagious diseases to stay in their curtained cubicles. Everything was recorded.
I stopped the first blue, cotton-starched young man that walked passed me.
"I'm looking for my mother... Violet... a sweet little old lady about this high." The orderly looked at me. He didn't have to say a word. Thoughts running in his head exposed themselves like a flasher at a train station. His body told me, No one with that description or sweet disposition is here but there is a 'Violet' in cubicle four.
The nice young orderly said nothing. His face did all the talking. He pointed to one of the curtained cubicles on the opposite side of the room.
I dragged my body past the nurses’ station and stopped in front of the only cubical on that side of the room. The smell of antiseptic and hygiene products irritated my nose. Slowly I parted the cubicle's curtain and slid my head inside.
“Oh my God.” The woman in front of me was stark naked, sitting on a metal table covered partially with butcher-like paper, clutching a black purse under her breasts.
"Oh my God.... what in the hell...?" I scooted my entire body further into the cubical and made sure the curtain was closed behind me.
"Mom… what ... “
I could barely talk.
“Where in the hell are your clothes? Didn’t they give you something to wear? They must have given you a hospital gown."
My mother sat straight, proper-like but bare-assed and suctioned to the un-papered part of the table. Her leather purse was sweat-stuck to her belly; her knuckles were white from gripping its straps. The purse was the last thing she would let anyone take from her. The purse covered her tabernacle’d privates.
"Suzka, thank God and all the crazy saints you're here."
My mother raised the volume of her voice high enough for the entire ER to hear.
"These jackasses took my clothes. I want my clothes! I want to go home! Nobody will listen to me!"
She caught her breath and lowered her volume.
"Find my blue blouse; the one with the pearl buttons and my black skirt (pause) and my girdle. Find my girdle. They stole my girdle. I bet they stole my girdle. Jackasses."
Her hands were tempted to raise themselves in protest but her purse straps and religious fervor wouldn't let them go.
I was dumbfounded.
The image of my mother naked stuck in my eyes and had no intention on moving. I should have been upset, but at who? ...my mother? the doctors? myself? I waited outside my head for a reaction, a sensible reaction. But my only thought was... how pretty my mother looked, how extraordinary beautiful.
The woman in front of me, inside my mother’s skin looked as if she were the long lost queen of the seas – an image not like an illustration in a magazine but more like a Botticelli painting, 'The Birth of Venus'.
[ Botticelli's Birth of Venus is one of the most treasured artworks of the Renaissance. In it the goddess Venus, known as Aphrodite emerges from the sea upon a shell aligned with the myth that explains her birth. Her shell is pushed to the shore from winds being produced by the wind-gods in amongst a shower of roses. As Venus is about to step onto the shore, a Nymph reaches out to cover her with a cloak. ]
"Why are you looking like that? Snap out of it. I need you to find my clothes."
I wanted to get to a doctor but I couldn't get myself to leave. There was this disheveled, almost distorted beauty about my mother. She dove again into more airy chatter that I heard at a distance. I stood there leaning back against the current, watching the waters where the Venus in my mother sat.
"And what are you wearing? Is that paint on your skirt? Don't
you have any clean clothes? I didn't raise you like this. I always made sure you and your sisters had clean nice cloths. You girls were so cute."
She went away, somewhere for a bit. I dare ask.
"Where's that cute pleated skirt I got you for Christmas?" It was at the Salvation Army; a routine drop my little sister and I had made after every gifted holiday.
"Mom this skirt is perfectly clean. It just has a little paint on it."
"Oh forget it for now. Let's just get out of here. My clothes must be somewhere. Hurry. You're here now. Go… go tell them we're going home."
"Mom, calm down. You’re here for good reason. You're here because you fell. Do you remember that you fell?"
I removed the Botticelli and Venus images from my eyes and paid closer attention to my mother's bruises. The skin around her right eye was black and purple. Her iris was moist and blood red. A large bandage covered a large bulge on her forehead. A few blood spots made their way through the gauze. She looked like she'd been mugged. The bruise made me lightheaded.
"What fall? All I know is somebody stole my clothes." Screaming louder and more agitated, she continued. "and they won't give them back to me."
Wonders In Dementialand: Dementialand Page 4