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EL
©2001 Bill Brauer
I have settled in under a hawthorn
bush now, on the boulevard. It's on the same block as the old
douglas fir we built the tree house in, me and the Dowling brothers,
when we were kids. Whizzing by on the street, the traffic sounds
like a butterknife scraping toast. But I can't see it. The hawthorn
hides me pretty good, and the grass patches and the eucalyptus
roots are still but for robins and sparrows hopping about. I
used to play football on this grass with Brent and the Dowling
boys and the others; a running back I was, scoring touchdowns.
Spots of late sunlight filter through leaves onto the ground
- goat, steam iron, sphinx . . . Today, I could play chess on
the sunny spots if I had the men, big men, life-sized men to
move around. We call them men, not people. My men could be Frank
and nurse Murray and Jackie and of course El .... Is the chessboard
queen a "man"? A woman? Oh, I know, she's a "piece."
Like the person who is a "chair."
But I can stay here all day. I don't have to move or go anywhere.
I don't have to go home. They won't find me. Just stay on the
boulevard near the pine tree in the hawthorn bush, and then tonight
I'll go find El.
Frank put me there. "Dad,"
he said, "We're going to take you to a real nice place.
They'll care for you well. You'll have your own room, Dad. It's
bright, and they have a band come in twice a week, you know how
you like music. Your own private concerts."
Mostly he looked down when he talked to me. I turned to El. Forty-two
years we've been married. "It's best, Joe," she said.
But I knew it wasn't best. They called it "home." After
the fall, they told me the hospital wouldn't keep me any longer;
they said they were taking me "home." But it isn't
home. The walls smell of brown gravy, the curtains. High as a
judge's bench, a dark desk guards the entrance. Plop, plop go
shoes on the gray linoleum floor. Nurse Murray, white, widebottomed,
wielding thick red hands, cruises the strip. Rubber wheelchair
wheels squeak when they turn like crying babies.
I wanted to cry. I wanted to put my hands in the spokes of the
chair, to pit my bones against its metal, to make it go back
out, down the stairs, any way, away way. I screamed, I told them
it wasn't me, it wasn't right, wasn't home, I'm too smart, I
said, too alive, I can eat even without my hands, I only need
more time, time to eat, to talk, to move my hands, just give
me more time, don't stick me in here with these human eggplants
and antiseptic and brown gravy, I screamed.
I wanted to go to my real home, the one with a beige couch and
Degas ballet girls on the wall.
I told them, but they didn't
hear me, or maybe they speak another language, maybe they're
all drugged or deranged or communists. Maybe Frank had to save
his life. I knew I could learn to walk, and I did, just with
time. I started in the little garden, with the stone bench and
the pond and the bottlebrush bushes. The fountain in the pond
never worked and the gray stone horse had a lump or a stump on
its forehead, as if it used to be a unicorn, in the days when
the fountain worked and the floors were carpet and there was
a sofa instead of the judge's desk.
I learned to walk and I learned
to use my left hand, and I walked to the little garden with Frank
the day he told me they had lost her. He calls me "Dad,"
Frank does, but I'm not his dad. He married my Jackie, that's
all. That doesn't make me his dad. We sat on the stone bench
behind the pond. My memory is fine, they don't think I remember
anything, but I do. Frank and Jackie both came. Ben must have
been in school, or out playing. They didn't bring El, I noticed
that right away. She wasn't there. Not that I much liked it,
after a while, when they would bring her. Just the way she would
say "Hi, Joe," every time the same way as if she had
to apologize for living. Her little white topknot, always in
place, the cold blue lines in those bony hands, I'd lost patience
with it. It wasn't always that way - once, I had shooed them
all out of the room when she started crying. I stroked her forehead
and dabbed her cheeks. She looked at me out of those glassy dark
eyes, I know she wanted to think of happy times, and I let down
her hair like when she was young - she didn't object - and wrapped
my arms around her body. She felt like a pile of dry knotty wood.
After a while she stopped crying. We just sat. Then they came
back in. They said they really had to go. They would take her
with them. They laughed when Jackie said, "Look at her hair
- oh, Poppy, what have you two been doing?"
But that day in the little garden they didn't bring El. Her real
name is Eleanor, but I called her "El" almost from
the first time I saw her. Woman, a right angle, like G'd. Yellow
pollen and red tufts from the garden's scrawny bottlebrush bushes
littered the gray flagstones. Frank's red tie clashed with the
tufts. The night before had been windy. He had a brown clot on
his chin where he had cut himself shaving. Some of the wheelchair
patients and two nurses - two, I remember there were two of them
- stood and sat around.
"Your shoelace is untied, Poppy." Frank said.
He was right. The white loose
ends of my Nikes were flat against the ground. They looked like
arms on the body of my shoes, like arms on a cross. I picked
up a lace end with the first three fingers of my right hand.
I held it firm and was thinking about how to tie it - thinking
for not very long - when fat nurse Murray stepped over, pulled
it out of my hand and tied both arms in a thick ugly double bow.
Some of the red tufts still stuck to the laces. "He can't
do them himself anymore," she said to Frank, with a shrug.
I looked right at her and told her I could do it myself if she
just gave me the time.
"There, there" she said, patting my head with one rough
red hand, "It's okay." She winked at Frank and then
she turned her wide white bottom at me and walked away.
But it wasn't okay with me. I stamped my foot trying to untie
the laces, crushing the red tufts and yellow pollen on the flagstones.
I remember that day - it was just yesterday, I think - and I
remember how it happened. They don't think I remember things,
but I do. I don't move as fast as I used to, like with the shoelaces,
and sometimes I get so mad that I can only think of how mad I
am, but my memory still works.
The problem isn't with my memory,
it's that they don't understand me. Like I'm speaking a language
and they just don't - or won't - translate. Frank comes in and
he's got his phony smile on and his forehead's wrinkled and he
talks to me like I was in diapers and a high chair and he says
to me "Poppy," he says, and he looks down, "Do
you know who I am?" Well, does he know who he is? Of course
I know he's Frank, he's married to my daughter Jackie, I even
know the word for it, "son-in-law". But when I tell
him, he doesn't understand, like I'm speaking Swahili and he
can't translate. Of course I know how to speak his language,
I've spoken it all my life, but like the shoelaces it takes me
some time between knowing how to do it and doing it. Before I
can say it in his language, the nurse pats him on the shoulder
and whispers "It's hard when they don't recognize you anymore.
You're good to come visit him every month."
What I need is more time. If they'd give me more time I could
tie the laces, I could say it in a way they'd understand. It's
just that things race so in my mind. I need time to settle down,
to form it in a way that they can understand. Like that gray
stone horse rearing up in the fountain. They give it lots of
time-it has days and days to decide how it's going to rear down.
But me they don't give enough time.
That's why I'm hiding in these bushes now, to buy more time.
I didn't like it when they put me there with those nurses in
wheelchairs and the horse. I cried for a whole week. I never
stopped. Jackie came every day. She would knot her hands and
look at me and pat me on the back. She kept saying "Oh Poppy,
if you only knew, if you only knew." I did know. I knew
they wouldn't let me go home until I learned their language and
could tie my shoes and tell them if it was a horse or a unicorn.
And I know I will be able to do that. It's just a matter of time.
It will come back. I've tried to tell them that but they have
no patience, they want to stick me here until I can show them.
I know that I can - it's just getting it out soon enough and
in a way they can understand.
And now I've got to find El
for them. Maybe if I find her that will show them, maybe then
they will let me go home. I thought they would bring her yesterday
like they usually did, but instead Frank told me they'd lost
her. We were there on the stone bench, Frank and me and he told
me, he said "Poppy," then he took my hand, "we've
lost El. It'll be alright. She was old and tired and she wanted
to go. We've lost her, Poppy, do you understand?" Of course
I understood, with me gone she wasn't going to stay around and
let them throw her in that place like they did to me. Of course
they "lost" her. But I know where to find her. And
when I do and bring her back, they'll let me go home.
So now I'm in this clump of
bushes on the boulevard, like the horse or the unicorn.
I should call it a unihorse, because that's what it is - still,
upreared, waiting, with plenty of time. And I've got to find
El. They don't know where to look. I do. If she's not at home
- even they must have known enough to look there - she's probably
at the San Xia having rice and shrimp with snow peas. That's
the first place I'll look. If she's not there she's got to be
up at Ring Mountain, there where we used to camp every year before
the children came. There were ten cabins near the lake and we
always asked for the same one. We fished - well, I did, mostly
- and took the horses out for an hour or two almost every day.
El was so young and fresh, I think it was our second year up
there, we found that place at the bottom of a trail that opens
into a wide flat meadow. The nearest tree must have been at least
a mile away. I remember how hot it was - they don't think I remember
things, but I do, and pretty well at that - because I felt a
trickle of sweat down my neck as I kicked my horse into a lope.
It wasn't until after El passed me at full gallop, her lurching
up on the haunches and back, that I realized she was out of control.
Her hair flew wildly and she called my name in a voice breathless,
ecstatic. I couldn't help her. It seemed she rode around that
meadow for an age before the horse tired and she brought it to
rein. But she didn't fall. I felt so useless during those moments
when she might have been thrown or trampled and her neck broken.
On the way back to the barn she said, "I was afraid, yes,
but oh, that surge of power there, I've never felt anything like
it." She said she didn't remember shouting out my name.
Now I've got to go find her, I'll call out her name - but not
here, where they might find me. I'll go to the San Xia and then
Ring Mountain. This can be my base here, this hawthorn, since
they won't let me go home. I'll live on this boulevard, where
I played football with Pucci and Brent and the Dowlings and then
years later came to walk with Jackie when she could barely toddle.
They call that place a "home,"
with the chindroolers and the nurses and the unihorse, but it's
not. That's why I walked out after the day on the bench with
the bottlebrushes when Frank told me they had lost El. It was
yesterday, I think. I left through the side door, after lunch
when they were cleaning up and wheeling the dribblers around.
The unihorse stayed, but I left. I knew I would come here, it's
not far from the non-home, and I know the way - they think I
don't remember things, but I found my way here.
The sun's going down now. At dusk I will go find El. I can hear
the birds starting to nestle in the trees. They're chattering
less. Now nothing breaks the drone of the traffic, no wind, no
sound - only one thin human voice.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
"What do you mean, he's gone?"
"Well, he seems to have just walked out, sir."
"Just walked out? How? When?"
"We're not certain. But we know he ate lunch here today.
And he was noticed missing around four."
"Jesus, don't you have somebody watching the doors? How
could he have gotten out?"
"Yes, we do. We really don't know right now how he might
have gotten out. Might another relative have taken him for an
outing?"
"No way. And wouldn't they have told you, if they had?"
"Yes, very likely. We're doing everything we can to find
him, I assure you."
"Yeah, well, you'd better.
I don't have time for this. I've got a funeral on Thursday and
arrangements to make for it, and just a lot of stuff on my plate.
How am I going to break this to my wife?"
"We'll do everything we can, Mr. Bennett."
"Have you made a police report?"
"Oh, yes, we've got a bulletin out to look for him, with
a complete description. If he did leave on his own, sir, do you
have any idea where he might have gone?"
"Hell, no, he could be anywhere. He doesn't know where he's
going or what he's doing."
"Still, he might have tried to find a favorite place."
"Well, I think it's absurd, but he might have tried to go
back to his house - although he hasn't lived there for some time."
"Well, that might be one place we could ask the police to
look. Could you give me the location?"
"Not far from where you are, actually, 1365 - 37th Avenue."
"We'll be sure to have someone check there."
"Call me as soon as you hear anything. I want a report every
half hour."
"We're doing everything we can, Mr. Bennett."
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . .
I'm in a different room now.
My nose is sore, where I fell. They wouldn't have caught me if
I didn't fall. Even the Dowling boys couldn't catch me on the
boulevard. I won't let them touch it. They think I don't remember,
but I do: if they touch my nose, it will hurt. And they think
I have forgotten about El and about going home. They're wrong.
I'll never forget. Like the unihorse that never moves. I know
what I want from my life. Find El and go home. There's nothing
new about that; it's what I've always wanted. I just never knew
it as well as I do now. Tomorrow, after lunch, I'm going out
again to look for her.
On
My Fourth Birthday
©2001 Bill Brauer
Coal, wood, lead, oil, silver,
gold,
Black-eyed peas and suet,
Darryl standing on the bridge;
Do it, brother, do it!
Darryl's up so very high
Maybe he can fly.
No, he's heavier than air:
Bye-bye, Darryl,
Bye.
Limericks
©2001 Bill Brauer
An elephant learning to fly
Said, "I can't seem to figure out why,
My front goes up fine
But it seems my behind
Just isn't as agile or spry."
* * * * *
An active young lady from Leicester
Had a sore that continued to feicester
When they said "STD?"
She replied, "No, not me,"
--But the thought of it really depreicester.
* * * * *
A popover hot on the rise
Thought herself unique, wordly and wise;
She smeared herself runny
With butter and honey
---And got bitten, much to her surprise.
* * * * *
Of Peter and Paul, Luke and John,
Mary Magdalen hadn't read one;
But her beauty and charm
Gave them cause for alarm
When she started to warm to the son.
* * * * *
A gamelon stuck on a stage
Cried, "I know that I'm not all the rage,
But the must and the dust
On me's starting to rust"
--Oh I'm dying, and not of old age!"
* * * * *
A resourceful young gal from Van Nuys
Found herself fascinated by flies;
She spent all day among"
Patch of cattle dung
Wearing nothing but brown for disguise.
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Spring 2001