Wonders In Dementialand: Dementialand

by Suzka Collins

  My father swung his wet hand in the air re-enacting the capture. Bubbles from the sink followed him and flew off his hand into the air. Splats of suds and water hit the wall, spilled over the counter and dripped down to the floor. I loved the theatrics and the mess that I knew would make my mother mad.

  "The winning fly was so shocked and excited he was picked that he would lay in my hand speechless. Then I would gently pick him up with my pocket tweezers and put his belly on the sticky end of the paper strip."

  The first time I heard the story I would cry for the flies. Papa assured me that the thin paper napkin strip fell off their bellies after a time. They were never hurt or in pain. He told me it was fun for the flies. Riverview fun and I knew about Riverview. It was the largest amusement park in Chicago and probably in the world. There was 'The Bobs.’ the most terrifying rollercoaster that went 87 feet in the air, plus it had 20 rollercoasters, a water carousel, 'Shoot-the-Chutes', and a parachute splash. No one I knew died at Riverview or left there unhappy. I felt better about the flies and pushed away the tears from my eyes.

  He continued with his story. "It would take my little fly a couple a minutes to come out of being shocked. I watched him very carefully, waiting for him to give me the sign that he was ready."

  I never heard the part about the fly giving my father any sign. I heard this story again and again and never had Papa mentioned 'the sign'. Sometimes he changed things around or added a little more information. My mouth felt glued shut to asking questions.

  "Big Mike and some of the other guys moved their stools over to my table to get closer. Leo had already turned on his transistor radio to playing good fly-diving music. The whole department got quiet. Duke Ellington was getting ready to play ‘The Mooche’.

  Papa stopped and looked straight into my eyes. "I looked at Leo, Leo looked and me, then we both looked at the fly."

  I saw it all in my head even though I never met Leo or the fly.

  Papa continued, "I watched the fly. He looked good. I swear Suzka, I never told this to anyone but that little fly winked at me. He was ready."

  My eyes were stone-stuck on my father - my head was thinking Holy Shit! I learned Holy Shit from Stacey.

  No matter how many times I heard this story my head thought it new every time.

  "I tightly held on to the edges of the paper and tossed the fly to the sky. It was the most beautiful thing. The fly flew up in the air higher and higher then plummeted down and circled back up. His paper tail followed every turn and dip. He flew above our heads, orbiting the room like a shooting star."

  For a second I saw stars in my father's eyes. He was so happy.

  "Sometimes I would catch five or six flies and have them all flying around at one time. We'd sit there eating our sandwiches and drinking our sodas under a galaxy of shooting stars, dancing comets and Duke Ellington. No one said a word. It was a beautiful thing."

  Our eyes turned inward to watching the comet flies in our heads.

  My father lifted me out of the sink and set me down on the linoleum. I turned around and leaned my back against his legs for balance and kicked up each leg for the towel wipe-down.

  "The end. Now go put on your pajamas. I'll make popcorn for you and your sisters."

  I loved footbaths and Flying Comets.

  Lil'Vi, my baby sister, loved popcorn more.

  Mira, my taller sister was too big and too cool for footbaths and fly stories but she did love popcorn. 19.

  D M V

  "Over there." A man with a dark face pointed to a ticket dispenser that spit out numbers. He was an oddly suspicious looking character pointing as if he were giving me insider information not available to others. "You gotta take a number. Everybody's gotta take a number."

  My mother moved in closer as if she were getting access to non-public information. It all sounded illegal and naughty which piqued my mother’s attention.

  "Hurry. Listen to the man. Go get a number Suzka. Get two numbers."

  "Mom it doesn't make difference if I take two. They're

  calling the numbers in numerical order."

  "Listen to me. Just take two numbers. Why must you

  always argue with me?" My mother must have fought

  with her dementia, her old ways won.

  "Ok. Ok. I'll take three."

  "You’re being a sassy smart-aleck, a wisenheimer.

  Well, go get me four then."

  Our number was 424, 425, 426 and 427. I looked up at

  the 'Now Serving' box, digitally flashing 277.

  This was my mother's birthday month and the month

  her driver's license would expire. She was more confused

  these days. Sometimes she couldn’t remember my name

  or how many children she had. But she knew the

  expiration date on her driver license and it had all the

  signs of being its last and permanent expiration.

  It was bitter sweet. This could change everything. But she was exceptionally alert this day as if she studied her sanity all night long. Her wits were to be tested. The stakes were high.

  [ The contents of my mother’s voice regarding driving and the DMV had three classic themes: # 1. “I’ve been driving since I was twelve.” # 2. “I’ll give the man one, no two bags of candy. He might need convincing. My eyes aren’t that good.” # 3. “I don’t need the photo so maybe he can just add all that savings onto my score. I plan on cuttin’ the face from my old license and super glue it right on top of the new one. It is such a good picture of me.”]

  My mother loved driving but she drove like a maniac for as long as I can remember. Her specialty was expressways with high traffic volume and mazes of overlapping ramps. But she had that touch, like Picasso with a brush, to switch lanes with swift energy, speed and daring excitement.

  "And when they call me to.... well, just move away from me, go over there and read or draw or do whatever you do.... And don't call me ‘mother’. If you need to speak, call me by my name, Violet.” Looking closer she added, “Is that paint on those pants?"

  I am not all sure of how to interpret her request. It was hard to be sufficiently objective. I didn't know by what manner I learned to interpret the difference in Violet's attitude, which she verbally expressed by the omission of 'mother' when I was to speak of her. But slowly and profoundly I became aware she was different.

  "Yes ‘Violet’, it is paint on my pants." I looked around. The room was huge. The floored linoleum was taped with lines, directional lines; a complex puzzle of paths for the numbered to follow. The tape ended at counters where everyone needed to go eventually. No one followed the linoleum's advice. Everyone moved around willy-nilly.

  The room echoed every sound, every chair that scraped the floor, every shuffling shoe and dragging walkers as well as all the windowed conversations. Some people trembled and made wheezing sounds. Old people alarmed at being banned from driving forever sat quietly afraid to think of it too loudly.

  "What-cha-say? I can't hear you." A muffled tone-less voice came from an intercom set in the walls. "Now serving 333 at Window A12." The overhead box flashed the neon numbers 4 times and then stuck in place.

  "Let me go tell them I'm a senior citizen." My mother, who I refer to as Violet from here on, leaned up from the chair, " I’m gonna go and talk to them. You go get more candy from the car. Don't forget, one bag of the sugarless."

  "Sit down… Violet."

  "Oh Lord, look at that poor dear."

  A man wobbled to the window like a bulldog. He had no neck and wore thick glasses. His frame was round, his toes turned out. He looked like an old dog with worms. When he got to the window he was nervously excited and could barely see straight.

  His wife next to him said "Come on now. Pull yourself together. You can't read it correctly if you're in a frenzy. You got to do some hard brainwork. You got to concentrate on that chart. You got to think with your eyes, all your limbs and any young boy brains you have left over." Her tiny h
and clutched the bulldog's hand.

  "Lady step back. You are not supposed to help him. He has to do this on his own." The voice came from a thick black woman with large breasts smashed into her DMV's vest. She had noticeably layered lashes heavily glued in place and wore perfume that traveled around as if it was on tour.

  "I'm not giving him the answers." The little wife said. "Just move back."

  The man took another extended squint at the chart and uttered a cockeyed screwed up sound. "Ffff-pee. Toz le-ped. Pec-fed."

  The DMV agent said "English, sir. Just speak English and read the chart." She spoke sharply with a distaste for foreigners, old or new.

  "I'm trying to but I don't speak this DMV crap. Give me an English chart."

  "This is the chart you need to read sir. Don't get sassy with me. Just read the letters one by one."

  "Ffff-pee. Toz..." "Letters! They're letters not words! Read each letter separately."

  "F-in P...

  "Just spell out the word sir. Spell the words for me." On the other side of the room a uniformed man

  walked in with a clipboard. He had German features. A striking man astonishingly like what you call 'modern art' in many respects; distorted features, not proportioned but viciously honest. All his parts appeared to be middle-aged. Following him was an older man talking to his wife who met him at the door.

  "It was awful." he said. "That guy confused the hell out of me every chance he got; turn right, turn left, park here, watch out, don't hit that kid. I didn't see no kid. He made it up to make me crazy. He's not working for our side." His wife listened and didn't say a word. "That guy's a communist. It was awful, Betty. This country's going to hell in a hand basket."

  He had failed his test for sure. His nose was as red as a dried beet and his voice sounded like a frantic dog locked in a car. This was an irreparable loss. "Common let's go home. I'm driving." Betty could only follow her angry husband.

  Violet and I watched the man and his wife walk into the horizon.

  The German inspector separated the crowd as he moved closer into the room. When he felt his presence was noticed he stopped. From his back pocket he took out a sparkling white handkerchief and wiped over his dark mirrored glasses.

  I felt cold hands down my back, hands of the inevitable.

  "Mrs. Violet! Is there a Mrs. Violet here?" His words loudly cut through all the other noises moving around in the room.

  Violet pinched her cheeks and ran her hand over a few loose hairs around her ears before she raised her hand like a little girl in school. "I'm here. You hooo! …over here. I'm Violet." Waving her entire arm in the air drawing attention to her location. She was ready.

  In one sweep she ripped the canvas bag of candies off my arm and innocently moved quickly to her executioner.

  "I'm Violet officer."

  "I'm not an officer ma’am, I am your examiner, George."

  "Yes... but I don't need to be examined." She shook

  her body and rolled her shoulders. "I feel great. I've been

  driving since I was twelve."

  "Are you ready to drive for me today?"

  "Oh yes indeed.” They slowly started to walk together

  out the building to the testing area. “And how are you

  today, George?”

  She paused herself. "You look so much like my son."

  [ I have no brothers.] She used her old woman's voice, a gay voice with endings dripping in honey. As she spoke she wrinkled her forehead and animated her cleverness.

  "I'm fine Violet, thank you. It's a beautiful clear day. Let's start." George smiled exemplifying his authority. He turned toward me, "Is she your mother?" "Yes."

  "We'll be back in twenty minutes."

  I thought my mother at that moment was moving away from this life. She appeared smaller and seemly more frail than this morning. I thought the proportions in her face were all wrong. Her nose and her ears were bigger. And as she walked away from me I noticed she had a bit of a hump on her back. I never noticed that before.

  "Are you diabetic?" Violet asked George.

  George bent his body and disappeared into the car. As they drove away they left me a sky of blue, a sooty

  blue like an over-painted watercolor. Clouds hung down like cobwebs and drifted slowly as not to be noticed by any gusts. A few knobs of trees and framed houses popped up close together which made everything seem flatter.

  I stepped back and leaned against the building. The sun covered my body and made everything sweet and warm as the inside of a dish cover. But I was still worried. It's dangerous to be compassionate when you need to be sensible.

  [ She Passed !#@% ] Who said that? I looked around and saw George talking to me. What did he say? Did I hear him correctly?

  "She passed." I looked at Violet and noticed a similar surprised look on her face, but she wouldn't let on. She kept her secret well hidden.

  George continued talking as he signed and stamped the necessary paperwork

  "Well, she drove better when she used her purse to sit on. You'll need to make sure she sits on a couple of cushions when she drives. I'm gonna pass her this time but…"

  I heard nothing else after his ‘but’.

  How did this happen? How could they issue her a license? Well let's just drop licenses out of the sky for everyone. Blank licenses. Let people fill in their names with crayon and draw a happy face in the picture box. Let everyone drive, little babies, blind people, dogs and cats, elephants... I was dumbstruck.

  Violet broke my stupor and started talking.

  "Common now let's go home. I'm driving. You know, George is really a very nice man. He’s Jewish. Married. You want to go to Crystal's for lunch?"

  “I don’t know mom. I think I… I just don’t know anything anymore.” < UNITED AIRLINES > FLIGHT: #6296 Tues Feb 28 DEPART: Chicago at 1:49 PM ARRIVE: California at 11:55 AM CANCELED

  Rebook return flight.

  20.

  SETTLING IN DEMENTIALAND™ Violet walked about the house gathering things prudently as if she were an archeologist collecting fragile bones from the past. Carefully she bagged what she thought important and moved them into a back room with the tall windows. Daily unexplainably part of her routine.

  In one of her early gathering noticed she had in her bag a collection of toiletries, a postcard from my older sister with Winslow-Homer-like palm trees on its face, a few rolls of duck tape and a cigar box filled with pennies. Inconspicuously, she then took the collection into the back room and hid them in the freezer, buried a few pieces under cushions and stuffed others in corners previously sworn to secrecy.

  I watched her discretely and found myself confused and at times moved by her foresight. It was as if she was moving cross-country, leaving the details of her past excavations were

  expeditions, I had behind and relocating to the one room that I respectfully called Dementialand.

  I never questioned her doings nor returned any of her collectables to their proper place. I thought her ‘brilliant’ but had no understanding to why.

  [The idea of disassociating from one’s surrounding was rather clever on my mother’s part without her notice.]

  The new surroundings kept my mother detached from the outside world as though she was sitting in a moving train looking out at a passing world with flashbacks to places she once lived and visited from a time she can't remember.

  She was growing outside herself, outside the fit of her opinions and beliefs. Her head's collection of facts, dates, faces and fading black and white memories were disappearing. Complete thoughts were cut into pieces. A tiny mosquito armed with the game changer, shot my mother with meningitis-encephalitis. The surface of her life crumbled but in its rapture uncovered the person my mother inherited eighty years ago.

  [ The following eight hundred words, gives a more forensic description of Dementialand. ] Dementialand was located in the back corner of my mother's house - a room about 15 x 25 feet with tall windows that stood shoulder-to-shoulde
r and extended from corner-to-corner-to-corner. The windows gave a panoramic view of an outside world - a world that my mother Violet was becoming more and more the least bit interested in, except for the birds that would sit on branches and chat with her about their day. Lace curtains covered parts of the windowed blinds. The curtains and blinds worked together to soften the bold intrusion of an outside world. When the windows were open and the blinds were raised, the outside blew the visiting ghosts of dead relatives into the curtains.

  My mother owned the house. Everything belonged to her; the building, the furniture, the 47 Jesuses (one church-like sized) and the garden with plastic planted begonias. She bought it with my father years before death moved him out. Now she was alone. Noises from their bickering had peeled themselves off the walls and left slowly; they had been replaced with the radio weather announcers and game show hosts who argued less with my mother. My sisters and I called her daily, almost, but never at 6:30 on weekdays.

  There were very few remaining signs that Pavel, my father once lived there. In a back room, under a glass top of an old dresser, there was a rather impressive but unconnected collection of cards and clippings that he saved for some unknown reason. The collection included three or four photos taken of family members he actually liked, old newspaper articles on unrelated topics, and a number of scattered holy cards back side up showing the stats of a family member that passed away. Everything was pressed, preserved and squeezed under glass like specimens of a scientific study on display: a carefully acquired collection that was telling Pavel's story to no one listening. The gathered group made the glass lay 'drunkerdly' on the top of the bureau.

  And there was the photo of his mother Agnes who was living secretly in the top drawer of an old nightstand. No one opened that drawer. Her loving son was her only visitor. After living there for nearly sixty years, the photo aged like any mother would. It grew wrinkled and frayed at the edges. The woman inside the top drawer would eventually disappear forever and no one would ever know. On her back, odd-looking letters were scribbled. Maybe it was a note for my father, her youngest son. I always believed it was. My father showed the photo only once to me when I was young. I walked in the room with the nightstand and saw him weeping. No words were spoken. The air barely took a breath. I remember being too frightened to ask questions or touch the picture. I was little then with big thoughts of finding places to explore and stake a claim for my latest creative dig.