The old man’s wife had died. At least, he thought she had died. Maybe he was the one who had died. Maybe they had died together. That had been the plan all along, he thought, that they should go together. This life after death stuff can be tricky. I mean, how do you know. Well, that’s what he was wondering about this morning.
He got up every morning and made coffee in the old percolator coffee pot that they had bought back in Ohio, back in the first year they were married. It made four cups of coffee which really was two mugs but that was all he wanted.
He had, stored in the pantry, the drip coffee maker that his wife had bought. It was a nice one, automatic, a little pricey he recalled, that you could set at night to make coffee in the morning. Technology. He wondered a lot about technology too. Anyway it was complicated and he never really liked it, never used it, tried to give it to his children but they insisted he needed it so, he stored it in the pantry. He preferred the old percolator.
After he had the coffee going, he took the dog out to the back yard, watched him as he looked for the absolutely perfect place to ‘do his business’…he wondered at that, a euphimism is what it is.
He wondered about a lot of things now, wondered why people talked in euphimisms, ‘do his business’, for example. Dogs did their business all over the place. Sometimes, he thought, it was good to be a dog. He thought back to when he was a boy, boys and dogs had a lot in common.
He’d used a lot of euphimisms when he’d been young, Gosh Darn and Golly were big, he recalled. So was Gee Whiz. They were acceptable euphemisms for man and boy in those days. He couldn’t remember how old he’d been when he finally figured out what the euphimistic phrases actually meant. Didn’t remember who it was that had explained the word ‘euphimism’ to him. He wondered why he thought about such stupid things.
The seasons do change in California, no matter what anyone thinks. It’s just that it’s such a subtle change. Mark Twain called Sacramento a land of year-round summer. Sometimes, it seems like that. Every morning is the same, sunshine, blue sky until one morning there’s a different feel in the air…and then, so casually, the fog, as Carl Sandberg said, creeps in on little cat’s feet. And then, every morning it would just be grey and rainy, a soft, misty rain that you didn’t need an umbrella for, take the dog to the yard, pick up the paper, the mail. Stand and look at the grey sky and not get really wet.
He watched the little dog do his business this morning under blue skies and sunshine. Another perfect day in Paradise. Together, they walked down the driveway, picked up the paper that he still had delivered every morning although he seldom read it any more. A lot of the time, it got thrown away all rolled up with the rubber band still around it.
When they got back in the house, he put out dry food for the dog and made toast to go with his coffee. He didn’t eat much breakfast any more, but he liked strawberry jelly on his toast. He bought Smuckers Simply Fruit at the Winco Store. He liked going to Winco, went two, sometimes three times a week. He told himself that there was no reason in stocking up at home when it was just as easy to go to the store.
He’d been joking about not buying green bananas for so long he’d forgot when he first began saying it. He bought them for the potassium because the doctor had told him he needed it.
His mother had complained that bananas had never tasted the same after World War II and when he googled it, he found out she’d been right. Anyway, a couple times a week, he’d slice up a banana and have it with his toast. He shared his banana with the little dog but he wasn't sure if the dog needed potassium.
He ate his breakfast, toast and coffee, the little dog at his feet waiting for his share. After breakfast, he rinsed his mug, brushed the crumbs off the paper plate and saved it for lunch. Almost never used a real plate anymore.
He got the leash and the plastic baggies and together they walked down the street and around the corner to the park. The front part of the park faced on Main Street. There were benches and a bandstand and a hill. On the back side of the hill was the rest of the park, a playground and a large open space where people would spread blankets and have picnics while the children ran and ran.
~
He always stood at the same place at the top of the small hill, the little dog at his feet. At the bottom of the hill was a playground. His wife sat there at a picnic table, book in hand. He couldn’t tell if she was reading or just sitting there watching. Actually, he wasn’t at all sure if she was really there or just in his mind. He often thought about walking down to sit with her but he never did.
Children shouted, laughing, running from one side to the other. Children love to run, to feel the wind tugging at them. The old man remembered running, when he was a boy, how good it felt. Every spring, he’d get a new pair of sneakers and he would run, showing his mother how much faster he could run in the new shoes.
Back then, so long ago, he’d got new sneakers every Spring, run ‘em ragged by Fall. In August, before Labor Day, before school started, he got new boots, new jeans, new flannel shirts and, every year, a new heavy jacket. Use’ta call ‘em mackinaws, never did know why. Long time ago and far away.
He stood there, staring down the hill at his wife, wondered if maybe he was dead. Or insane. He could be insane, he guessed. He wondered about that. Maybe he spent his days strapped in a chair in a nursing home somewhere and his life, the days of his life, were playing out only in his mind.
Maybe his wife really was dead and he just didn’t want to acknowledge it. Maybe, both of them were dead and this is what death is like. A groundhog day sort of thing where every day gets played over and over for eternity. He wished he knew for sure.
Every day, he and the little dog went to the park and watched his wife holding her book and every evening, he and the little dog went home. He turned the television on every morning and turned it off every night, but he kept the sound muted because they always said the same things over and over and he just didn’t want to hear it anymore.
Except for the music. He turned up the volume for the music. At least, he thought he did. Wasn’t actually sure about that either.
They had met at a Christmas dance and married in the Spring and he played that summer over and over in his mind. They had gone north in the Fall, newlyweds. Lived in an apartment, walked to the bakery to buy day old bread. Worked at minimum wage jobs, a job, after all, was just something you had to do to get money. Didn’t really count for anything.
It had been a cold winter for him, he wasn’t used to the snow and ice. His wife tried to teach him to ice skate. “Just like roller skating” she said, but it wasn’t the same and he never quite got the hang of it.
After the winter, they had moved all the way across country. Driving. Route 66. The two of them and a little dog named Tiny. A new state, a whole new life ahead of them.
It was a good move for them. They’d both worked, of course, had to, one pay check didn’t go very far. But, they’d done alright, bought a home, had a family. Lot of help from friends and family. Bought another home, larger, in a… what do you call them, a bedroom community. It had been a nice house, a good neighborhood to raise kids, good schools, a park at the end of their street.
It was a good street and they liked the neighbors and he brought his children to the park. Not the park he walked to now, of course. A different house, a different street, a different park. But parks are pretty much parks, different then, of course, but still the same, swings and teeter-totters and stuff to climb on. Kids like to climb. Never see teeter-totters any more. There had been a sliding board and a merry go round, not one with carved horses, but a merry go round just the same, with a metal bar that you could push to make it go faster. The faster you pushed on the bar, the faster it would spin. Kids seem to love it back then but maybe it was too dangerous for todays children. Seems like so much that use’ta be, that kids use’ta do is too dangerous for t’days children. Ah well, things change.
What looks like blacktop under the swings and the slide and the climbing bars today isn’t really blacktop at all, but some kind of rubberized stuff that cushions your fall if you fall down, and of course, all children fall down. The old man supposed that was probably a good thing.
In his own childhood, there had been no parks, no playgrounds. No toys to speak of. There was a war going on.
There hadn’t been a lot of concrete or blacktop when he was young. Lots of grass to roll in and the hills were covered with honeysuckle that cushioned your fall.
When they moved to this old house, they’d brought their kids to this same park. He and his wife. They’d brought grandchildren here as well. Concerts in the park on Thursday evenings. Sitting on a blanket while the kids chased their friends. Everyone laughing. They’d brought the grandchildren also, for a few years. Then, things changed. People moved, chasing new jobs or retiring. It got harder to stay in touch. Holidays, birthdays. His wife was determined to keep the family together no matter what so they drove here and there, he didn’t mind. He was the driver. He carried the packages. But, things change. It was one of those immutable laws of nature and there wasn’t a damn thing to be done about it.
Now, he didn’t really see a lot of them anymore. His choice, to be honest about it. He never knew what to talk with them about anyway, never knew what to say. “Hey, how you doing?” “I’m doing well.” Things always seemed to go downhill after that. His wife had always been able to talk with them, always seemed to have something to say while he, well, mostly he just looked on. His job was to drive, to carry the packages.
He thought of his wife, wished she were standing on the hilltop with him. She always liked watching children at play. He got through the days alright but evenings. In the evenings. Television was boring as hell without her. He hadn’t realized how dumb the shows had been when he sat with her in the evenings, watching television, remembering sitting with his Mother, listening to the radio.
Dad had worked swing shift mostly. Mom would read and listen to the radio and sometimes do other things at the same time. He never could figure out how she managed to do all that.
He found himself reading a lot, reading and listening to music on the television. Not the same as when he had listened to the radio. When he was a boy, no one had television but radios were all the rage. He recalled walking down the street in the little village where they had lived and the radios playing in every house and mostly playing the same program. Hadn’t been the same when the world switched to television.
‘Most every night now, he’d wake, find himself reaching out to her side of the bed . Wished he could just wake up dead ’n find her waiting. He talked to her then, in the night, asked her if she was waiting for him. Never really got an answer though.
All his life, he’d been told about Heaven ’n Hell. He believed it all when he was a kid, but later in life, he’d been dubious. Now, he thought, it was just easier to believe than not.
Beattyville, part 2
