I so wanted to tell her... Listen, what do you got here, 50 rooms tops, I'm bi-numeral and fluent in both roman and English numbers, one through fifty. I can do this.
"Just one minute, you wait right here honey." The little Czar walked into another room behind her desk; the room that contained the A.O.P. pamphlets and the paid office staff.
I looked around the lobby carefully as to not arouse and suspicion and checked if anyone was watching. A choice was made. I would risk being reported to the home's authorities of my linoleum’ed side. Quickly I succulent and scooted my way around the desk and into the hallway. I was now considered one of the A.O.P.’s undocumented immigrant visitors.
crossing over to the grabbed my bags, the
12.
THE LINOLEUM’ED SIDE OF THE A.O.P. The other side was where residents lived in little rooms they shared with strangers. Muffled music came from small black boxes nailed to the wall's corners playing 'Spanish Eyes' - a popular selection from a musical soirée of institutional tunes. The music slid down the wall-to-wall linoleum sideways.
At first sight was an enormous ornate bird aviary. It was about ten feet wide and towering up to a sizable bubbled skylight at the ceiling. In the center of the aviary was a tree, a living tree filled with canaries, finches, button quails and twinspots. The tree was packed with multi-level perches, bird sized ladders, resting shelves with living flowers and vine’d plants. Wild vegetation mixed around the ripened debris making it a suitable home for the tiny creatures. Tree leaves provided little vistas. You lost sight of where you were for a moment. It was a birdcage sanctuary like no other I had ever seen.
The hall appeared empty except for a large dark man who was wheeling an empty wheelchair toward me. He was wearing the institutional whites and walked with a lisp. A Philippine gentleman with a wide moon face and big teeth that spread themselves far apart like the islands of his home. When he got closer, I noticed a silver nameplate pinned on his jacket. It read Horny.
"Excuse me, uhhh... Horny…Mr. Horny I am..." My thoughts ran outside of my control.
"Oh no, zat's my firz name. My baptize name is Horrrr-ace Nacapuy. Everyone here shorts it to Horny."
"Wow. That’s…interesting. Well… Horny, I'm looking for my mother. She’s a short sweet lady about this height, sitting down of course. Her name is Violet. Do you know what room she's in?"
"I juz took her to room numbrrr eight. Right in dahh." Horny pointed to a room just a few steps back. He shook his head from side to side expanding his smile even wider.
"Your mahDa is a berry sweet lady and very exzayted. She oppered me many bahgz of cahndy if I would keep on going and tak her out da door, down da street and to her home dat chee said was not far from here. She told me not to worry cuz she would reward me well she said."
He laughed, a full and genuine belly laugh that pushed everything up into his chest. His laugh opened his mouth showing all the pearled islands.
"She went to beggin', promising me many zings." His eyes disappeared in a squeeze. "Cheez'a funny lady." "Yes, she's a funny lady. Thanks Horny."
I watched Horny bobble down the hall, laughing in
rhythm to the institution’s 'Spanish Eyes' – an image that was soon interrupted by the climate around me. My eyes started to burn a bit. My nose desperately tried to close down entry to all foreign odors from entering. Old urines embarrassingly apologized for their accidents. They tried to cover up their piddle odors with bouquets of Pine Sol and lavender. The linoleum just shined it away.
*
My mother was already sitting on her bed, dressed. She did not look happy. “Don’t leave me here!” She bladed her stare, the sharpest point laid at the center of my daughter-ness. She spat out those words clearly in spite of her clamped down dentures.
"When are we going home?” she repeated every twenty minutes or when there was a dent in the present conversation.
The room had two beds. My mother’s bed was closest to the door. A woman younger than her occupied the bed by the window. She looked to be about in her late 60’s; a vanilla woman, Protestant looking, large in stature and compacted. Even in bed, you knew this woman had no curves or angles. Her hair was short bobbed and boxed to her head. She complimented the room's decor as if she were a piece of its furniture.
The room ate up all the sound. My mother sat on her bed with her back to the window side. She was fully dressed, bus-ready.
I directed my attention to the woman on the other side of the room. "Hello. My name is Suzka. I don't know if you have met my mother, her name is Violet. She'll be your roommate for a couple of days."
My head was stuck. It refused to turn and give my mother all of my face. I made her ten-day stay at the home sound like an overnight Tupperware party.
She heard me. I felt her stare at the back of my head calling me a liar.
“Don’t leave me here. When are we going home?”
The lady roommate said very little and chopped off the better parts of her story. "My name was Beulah but everyone calls me Bea." – that was all the information she offered.
The room was stagnantly quiet except for the rain. It lasted all day, harder and consistent like the ringing of a telephone with no one to answer on the other end. Its sound slammed against the window and kept ringing and slamming and ringing and slamming.
I tried to help my mother get settled into her new space. Bea paid us no attention and guarded herself from falling into any conversation by staring into a book. Her eyes were watering but not with tears, just naturally watering. They never moved like they should have if they were reading in honesty. She must have found the goings on in her head to be more interesting than the book she held in her hand and more entertaining than my mother or myself.
“Don’t leave me here. When are we going home?” I laid out the listed items my mother requested on the bed and hung her black suit in a side tall metal closet. On top of the closet I placed the succulent.
My mother defiantly remained sitting on the edge of her bed. Her eyes closed themselves but remained staring at me from the inside - the gift God gave mothers.
"Where's the Campho?" Her focused anger broke. "It's here, it's here someplace."
I couldn't help but notice that lying on her bed was a
remote control of familiarity, the remote control from home. "And why do you have this remote with you? Where did it come from? You know it won't work here in your room, mom. This remote is for the TV back home and will ONLY work on the TV back at the house."
"Never you mind." Violet grabbed it out of my hand and threw it up in the air, over her head and screamed when she missed catching it on its way down.
She looked at me with waxed eyes. I brushed it off. Then with both her fists she grabbed the rain bonnets, her gloves, her hairnet, and tubes of her vitamin skin lotions and tossed them all in the air as if it were confetti.
“When are we going home?”
I was paralyzed to respond.
“Don’t you leave me here.”
At this point, I could only watch.
She continued her outburst and propelled her girdle, her brassieres, the cough drops, the bananas, bottles of Ensure and a pope-blessed rosary, each time tossing them harder and with more force and in each shot her aim got closer to the ceiling.
The tossed Ensure came down first and torpedoed into a spin missing me by barely an inch. I jumped back in fear of getting hit. That’s when I fell against the metal closet behind me, slamming its door shut. If it weren't for my rubber’d bottom boots, I would have slid down hitting the floor hard. She then grabbed her shoes, the Italian heels, her Sergio Rossi for God sake, and propelled them in the air with both hands as hard as she could. They went fast and high, hit the ceiling and crashed broken on the linoleum floor. The sound triggered something inside of her. Her face changed. My mother surprised herself and smirked.
It was euphoric and distorted all at the same time. My mother appeared elated at first and at the same time despera
tely determined. She frantically grabbed anything remaining that was not grounded. Looking up and using more force than she thought she had, she threw things high and hard as if she was trying to break through the ceiling's plaster, to crack an opening wide for the sun to come in and rescue her, pulling her out of some underground prison.
In slow motion, in the final desperate toss to the merciful gods, my mother's eyes fell on the sole surviving object saved from her rampage - a pitcher half filled of water sitting on a side table. Before I could get to her, she gripped the pitcher with both hands, lowered it between her knees and hurled it to the ceiling. The pitcher hit the ceiling. Its water met my mother on the way down.
The rain outside kept ringing. I couldn't help but notice that Bea remained motionless. She barely blinked during the madness that just swept through the room. She remained cemented in holding her book through the entire storm. How could anyone fake reading in the middle of such bedlam? My head's concerns bounced back and forth visiting both sides of the room. Jesus, could anyone be that drugged? Maybe she's in a coma... or, or maybe she's... dead! Oh my God, I hope we didn't kill her.
Suddenly my mother began to hiccup. Her wet hair jumped with every bout and spasm. Her face was shiny wet. I put a towel around her shoulders and absorbed most of the water. She looked up at me as if she wanted to slap me silly and I wasn't sure why. Maybe she wasn't sure either.
Then she did the strangest thing. She scooted off the bed, got on her hands and knees and delicately picked up every piece of clothing and every tiny bead from the floor. She collected the crystals and placed them in her pocket and carefully folded all her clothes on to the bed as if she were a new bride.
I looked at my mother, but she turned away. A few minutes later, she looked at me and raised her fingers in the air and motioned for me to come close.
"Come here. Come closer." My mother's eyes were as big as baby onions. I leaned in closer to hear the little bride's words.
"Suzka, I want you to talk to your father. He's driving me crazy."
* Horny walked in shortly after hearing the commotion and immediately began mopping up the water on the floor with a towel he grabbed from the bathroom. Behind him a small crowd of curious residents stood close like a bunch of bananas on an animated spy mission.
A little man clothed in oversized flannel was the first to enter the room. His face was like a cod, his color like a new potato. He was completely bald and had no hair whatsoever except for the back of his hands.
"Is she ok? He asked. "Yes, of course. She's fine. My mother is fine. We're just airing out a few things."
The little bald man looked down and stared strangely at my boots. I said quickly, "Oh no, no, that's paint. I’m a painter (pause) an artist. I get a little messy when I paint sometimes (pause and looking for some understanding). “Believe me. It's red paint." I knew where he was going with his thoughts. "Really, it's not blood. It's just dried paint."
The entire group as well as my mother seemed to be spending an unfavorable amount of time looking down at my boots, except for Bea of course, "...red paint with a little bit of orange paint specs on the sides. See, right here.” The home’s residents showed no signs of believing anything I said.
No one said a word for the longest time.
“Oh for God’s sake, if it were blood it would be a
much darker red and purplish… and maroon around the edges. Come on now, I seriously don't see how any normal person can think that would be blood."
I don't know why I continued talking. I told myself… Stop talking. For God’s sake, stop talking. The little bald man kept looking at me. I didn't notice that I was noticing until he looked back up at me and said, "Pitiful." Was he talking to me?
Behind him, a lady wearing a chenille robe and bunny slippers burst into tears with no accompanying sound. I smiled at her out of pure benevolence.
"Everything is just fine. I am so sorry we disturbed you. This is my mother Violet. She is just moving in." The lady's face shrunk to a shelled walnut except for a tiny button nose that was pink. The bald man turned his head around and reported his evaluation of the situation to the small crowd behind him.
"She's a new one". The air circling the group changed. The crowd began chanting in choir’d whispers.
"Ohhh... she’z new."
The little man could not sustain his interest.
"Time to go. It's Wheel of Fortune night in the dining room. Move. Show’s over, I gotta go.” The man turned abruptly bumping and pushing aside the other curious residents. “Move, move over, let me through." The crowd turned around and followed.
13.
WHEEL OF FORTUNE Violet went to church twice a day; once in the morning for 7:00 mass and again at 6:30 at night. It was not that she a religious zealot. She never pushed her beliefs on anyone or solicited lost souls. She was Catholic. Her life was wrapped in the mesmerizing rituals of the Catholic magic and mystery. She talked to all the blessed ghosts in her heart; the Jesuses, all the Marys and the Abrahams. She told God what she needed.
"I ask God to help and give me a sign. If God is home, He answers. If God is not home, he tells me to handle things on my own. God knows He has enough to do. It's ok with God."
But at 6:30 pm Violet was religiously devoted to a nighttime televangelist. His followers called him SayJack. Bishop SayJack was a small, suited, unassuming man who read from the Holy Wheel and talked of bankruptcy, wild cards and trips to a promise-land, a winning resort in Cabo, all expenses paid. Sista' Vanna was his assistant, an attractive blonde woman with a wide, fixed, billboard smile. She wore soft chiffon gowns and floated across an altar staged with neon green boxed squares. The Bishop's sacred message was hidden in letters found behind the chosen boxes.
At 6:30 everything stopped. Violet would sit on the edge of the sofa, push her knees up against the cluttered end table that was only a few feet from the television and turned on SayJack. She then made the sign of attention and wiggled her glasses, readjusting their position. On her lap she had a spiral ring tablet filled with scribbled information lost in its importance. She pressed up the volume button on the remote and tucked it under her arm.
The televangelist just finished the preliminary introductions and was about to address his congregation and contestants. He spoke in letters to all his devoted followers everywhere. Contestants called out consonants and bought vowels hoping to make the Bishop's squares light up. Chosen squares illuminated themselves in Windex blue. Sista' Vanna gently tapped on the chosen square's shoulder, asking the square to reveal itself. Bells would ring and the skies would open up. The chosen square would silently scream, exposing its letter. I'm a D, I'm a D. Yes, I'm a glorious D.
With just a few letters revealing themselves, nervous believers everywhere tried desperately to guess the Bishop’s message. Sounds a bit weird but most religious cults are weird.
cult (kəlt) noun
– a system of misplaced excessive admiration directed toward a particular person or object;
synonyms: obsession, (game) mania, movement The service finished at 6:58. I'd call her at 7:03. "Mom, ya got'em?" A game we played.
"Yes, yes. Let me see here. There was Fly Me To The
Moonshine, that was the first one, and then there was Venetian Blinds, then Leave Your Baggage at the Door, and then Kick It and Make It Better. I think the next one was Naked Potatoes but I can't read it clearly. My pen got stuck on the paper and stopped my writing. You know, maybe it was Laked Potatoes. The bonus one was Genocide. That I know for sure. Do you want me to repeat them?"
"No. Thanks mom. I'll call you later."
"Call me tomorrow. My number is 312-555-6..." "I gotta go mom. I'm painting. Good night." Click.
* I was living in California during those days. Life was good. Mother was acting like the mother I was familiar with and mosquitos carrying diseases minded their own business. I had my own life with a small circle of likeminded friends. Greg was part of that circle. He was a friend and a collea
gue; a picture framer by day and musician by night. His money gig was framing.
Greg was a physically large well-rounded guy who always wore short-sleeved, buttoned-down, blue cotton shirts. He was an incredible musician, an off-the-wall percussionist who slammed his drums with jaw dropping rhythms. We worked together on a number of musical dance performances in the past.
[ Remembering a time before mosquitoes bit innocent mothers on hot summer days and the Fly Me To The Moonshine sting ]
The bell rang in the back workroom; a huge room packed with frames, frame parts, pressing machines and lawn chairs. In the center was a large table, waist high, where Greg matted and framed local art pieces, yellowed photos, war metals and other memorabilia his customers wanted held down under glass.
Greg was wiping finger smudges off a sheet of glass he had just cut. Around the table were the regulars, the local odd balls off the street, homies that spoke in puns on a variety of unrelated subjects.
"Hi guys." I took off my shades and leaned on the large working table in the center of the room. "Just checking in."
Greg would have said hello but he already put a pun in motion and there was no way to stop its speed.
"...and he asked the bartender, Ya got any special drinks today? ..and the bartender said, Yes, we have a new drink that was invented by a Gynecologist. It’s a mix of Pabst Blue Ribbon and Smirnoff Vodka. We call it the Pabst Smir.”
Uncle Pete who was not an uncle to anyone, ‘upped’ Greg’s quip with..."That must be the same bar where a jumper cable walked in and the bartender says, I'll serve you, but don't start anything."
Just then Bob jumped out of a sitting sleep and made a face like a man who had ice drop down his back. "How much time do I got on my parking. Anybody remember when I walked in here?"
Bob lived in his van. His days rotated around avoiding meter maids ticketing violators. No one answered Bob. Everyone was mindfully occupied arming themselves with pun comebacks. Bob had strong opinions.
Wonders In Dementialand: Dementialand Page 8