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I
Am Beautiful
©2001 Karen N. Finlay
I am beautiful. I am encased in sea-green tile and lustrous dark,
veined marble. I am four stories high with tall windows, and
in between every row are Art Deco carvings in an Egyptian lotus
motif. Above my doors that once welcomed the well-to-do shoppers
and the less than wealthy lookers are the words "I. MAGNIN
& CO." in classic gold letters.
I am beautiful. I am haughty.
I stand next to the Paramount Theatre and I hold my own. The
Paramount has to proclaim "THE PARAMOUNT GREETS YOU"
because its Art Deco gaudiness is overwhelming and intimidating.
I have a more quiet beauty. One may gasp at the Paramount's ornate
mosaics, its brightly-lit marquee. But one appreciates my loveliness,
the calm green, the opulent marble. I do not need to shout.
I am beautiful. Now I am a landmark,
a symbol of an era long gone. But once I housed silks and furs,
leathers and wools, crystal and porcelain. Jewels sparkled behind
bright glass, the rich smell of perfumes wafted throughout the
floor. Soft music played, and chimes sounded for attention, not
loudspeakers and intercoms. People had respect for my name and
me they wore their nicest clothes and spoke in hushed,
polite tones. I was a charming place to visit.
I am beautiful. When the company
went under and the last of the stock, people, and paperwork marched
sadly through my doors for the last time, I stood empty for many
years. My once fashionable neighborhood slowed down and grew
quiet, almost desolate. Yet I have dignity, and did not fall
into ruin. Many of my peers, especially the old Fox Theatre,
are in desperate need of salvation. But I have stood tall and
proud. Homeless people may camp out in the doorway where a doorman
once stood, and no matter how much trash, graffiti, and broken
glass blemish me, I still look glamorous and regal.
I am beautiful. Because of this, I am being restored. The old
Capwells building was redone and made into a Sears, and the old
candy factory down the street became a car dealership. But I
will be the one to retain my gorgeous façade, even though
my insides have been gutted and are now being made into offices.
A scientific company is moving in. Perhaps I will never house
fine merchandise again, but now I will be a host to the future.
I am beautiful. I represent
the past, present, and future of Oakland. Once booming, then
neglected, and now on the upswing once again. Just like me.
Let
It Be: An excerpt
©2001 Karen N. Finlay
I remember pretty much everybody
from my childhood. I went to school with a lot of the same kids
from first grade on, because I had lived in the same town since
I was six. I left when I was eighteen, but of course I went home
for the holidays and special occasions every once in a while.
Even though I moved only about twenty minutes away, I didn't
visit very often. I love my parents very much, but I found that
I got along much better with them over the phone. Christmas,
birthdays, and weekly calls were the extent of contact, and that
was fine with me. I missed my folks, and felt bad that I didn't
see them very often, but it seemed as though every time I went
out there I was getting "the lecture"-I was wasting
my life, they had expected so much more from me, etc. etc., and
I would always leave feeling guilty and depressed, and pretty
sure that they weren't exactly proud of me. I couldn't blame
them.
So when my dad got sick and I found out that I would have to
take him to dialysis every single Tuesday, my day off, I was
a bit-unhappy and ashamed to say-resentful. I didn't want to
have to go out there; I wanted it to be the way it was. I didn't
want the lectures, I didn't want the fights, and I didn't want
to be in the house I grew up in where I felt wistful and
nostalgic and sad because I didn't amount to much of anything,
and when I used to sleep there, I was certain that I would.
And I was scared scared of all these things, scared that
my father was dying, and scared of the fact that instead of him
taking care of me, I would be the one taking care of him. I hated
the thought. All of a sudden I was supposed to be a mature adult?
NO WAY.
Luckily, my friend had just given me a junky old car (I always
seem to have only junky old cars, but they've all been free!)
and so I was able to make the trip out to the suburbs. I figured
out the routine pretty fast drive out there (on a wing
and a prayer and ignoring the funny smells and sounds coming
from the engine), throw my laundry in the washer (a perk), and
pull their nice, shiny, non-smelly and non-noisy car up to the
curb and help my father get from the front door to the front
seat.
I was shocked at my father's condition. Just three months before,
he had been my dad. Commanding, smart, and angry. Old, yes
disabled, no. But now he seemed about one hundred years old instead
of seventy-eight, and he needed a walker. He had lost about fifty
pounds, which was drastic. He had always seemed big and intimidating
he was the father that all my friends were terrified of
now he seemed so small. And my mom still little and
cute and spunky now she seemed exhausted. Since my dad
couldn't sleep and when he did it was fitful, she didn't get
any rest either. That's why I had to be there she was too
tired to drive, and even though this word hardly describes my
mother, too frail to get him in and out of the car.
After we get my dad into the car, and load up his supplies and
oxygen tank, I drive him to his dialysis appointment. My mom
usually gives me family updates from the backseat about
my niece and nephew and my aunts and uncles. My father usually
feels too uncomfortable and nervous about his procedure to say
much of anything except if I'm driving too fast. When we get
to the dialysis center (on a lucky day we get the handicapped
space it's in hot demand in this parking lot), I run upstairs
to fetch a wheelchair. We then have to get my father into the
wheelchair from the car, which is no easy task. Even though he
has lost so much weight, he is still very heavy. We've had to
learn to be careful the first few weeks we pulled him by
his hand so hard that we strained the muscles in his side. Once
he's in the wheelchair, I wheel him to the elevator and up to
the center while my mom carries his pillow and his bag.
All the dialysis patients have pillows and bags. The pillows
are for the chairs that become uncomfortable after four hours
of treatment, and the bags are filled with books and headphones
and hard candy brought in an attempt to get their minds off of
the deafening machines pumping away the toxins in their kidneys
and bloodstream. Most of the patients are old, but some still
get around better than others. My dad is one of the ones who
can't get around, and I have to wheel him directly on the scale
and make sure his pillow is on his seat before we wrestle him
out of the wheelchair. Sometimes he can do it easily, but a lot
of the time it takes a few attempts to even stand up for a second.
Luckily each chair has a TV, because to add insult to injury,
my dad lost his sight in one eye in July and can no longer read
without feeling dizzy. Yet one more thing he loved, along with
driving and sitting under the giant oak tree in the back yard
and going out for hamburgers at his favorite diner, he is now
deprived of. Not to mention breathing, sleeping soundly, the
ability to get out of bed every morning, and having all of his
days free of the physical exertion of dialysis. He hates it.
I hate it, too. I hate the smell of the place, and how it is
so cold, and how all the patients are so worn and tired. I especially
hate the way the staff talks to my father as if he were
a four-year-old. "Oh hellllll-o Mr. Finlay! And how are
we today? Don't you look nice? Did we take all our medicine?
That's a good patient!" I know they are just trying to be
nice, but it makes my skin crawl. This is a man who was in charge
of the entire west coast of A.C. Delco, who still has the reverence
and respect of hundreds of people, a man who has a street named
after him for his community service, and the definite head of
the family. This is my Dad, whom I have loved and feared and
admired my entire life, and now he is being patronized by people
who have only seen him hooked up to a machine. I cannot stand
it, and I know he can't either. (My mom told me that at night,
he yells at himself in his sleep "Some big shot you
turned out to be! Mr. Executive, look at you now!" and other
things, the most terrifying being "God? Why are you so mad
at me?") After I drop him off in his chair, I always kiss
him on the forehead (I can't hug him because he has a catheter
in his neck for his treatment) and practically run out of the
place down to the car, because I can't stand being in there.
While I wait for my mom to get him settled and talk to the nurses,
I usually cry for a while, read and listen to the radio, and
fix my eye makeup so my mom won't know I've been crying.
When his appointments are over, he is silent on the drive home;
except when we go get ice cream he tells me what he wants. The
drives home make me desperate I feel that I only have so
much time left with him. At first when I started to take him
to his appointments, I would try to engage him in conversation.
The first or second week I was trying to break the silence by
joking around. "Hey Dad!" I chirped. "So who're
you gonna vote for?" Knowing fully well that he would vote
Republican.
"I DON'T want to talk about politics right now!" he
snapped.
Taken aback I said, "Geez, dad, you don't have to get so
grumpy!"
"I am grumpy!" he cried. "I hurt all the time!"
His voice broke and so did my heart. I learned how to keep quiet
and let it be.
I'm not sure what my mom does when my sisters (Cassie and Chris,
ten and fourteen years older than me) drive them on Thursdays
and Saturdays, but Tuesdays with me are usually errand days.
First off we stop and get a lottery ticket, in hopes that something
great will come out of this tragedy. We use all of our birthdays
as the numbers. (Secretly I hope that we will win not only so
that we'll be rich, but also because it would make a great human-interest
story in People magazine.) Then we go get lunch, which has become
my favorite part of this whole experience. Getting to know my
mom better has truly been the fabled silver lining. My parents
are the age I envy in their late seventies, and they have
done and seen the most extraordinary things in the twentieth
century. Okay, maybe they've never been to the moon, but they
saw Frank Sinatra in his prime, dined and danced at the Stork
Club, and remember times that were kinder and gentler. These
are the things I love hearing about, and my mom has shared her
stories with me. She finds it funny that I think what she has
done is so incredible, and I find it funny that she thinks that
what she has done is normal. She was a good Lutheran girl with
a huge Swedish family, a career girl in the forties with many
soldier beaux, and met my father on a blind date (and he was
an hour late!) She has told me stories about my grandparents
whom I never got to meet, and our family pets and what really
happened to them. Every week I find out something else wonderful
about my mother; I regret that I never did this before and that
I don't have a tape recorder going at all times.
After lunch we sometimes go shopping, and even though I am in
my thirties, she still buys me things. It's like our old "back-to
school" shopping trips, only now I can't believe I ever
hated to go shopping with her in my teens. Rotten kid that I
was, I would weasel out of being seen with her at the mall, but
now I have to fight the urge to hold her hand. I feel bad that
she pays for things, and I don't want her to think that I am
expecting a reward for going out there, but I think she enjoys
our shopping trips as much as I do. She doesn't get to leave
the house because she can't leave my dad alone, so these Tuesdays
are her outlets as well. Up until my dad's decline, she was actively
involved with Church and her volunteer group, and I know she
misses them. But we try to get all her errands done while she
has the chance.
So, on one particular Tuesday in August, we got my dad to his
appointment and my mom wanted to go to her hairdresser (the same
woman she's gone to forever Flo even gave me my "Lady
Diana" haircut in eighth grade), which is a true luxury.
She told me that I could take the car and do whatever I wanted
by myself, just as long as I was back by five to pick her up.
On that day, I ran into my worst
nightmare - a girl named Joanne who had made my junior high and
high school years a living hell. I left the bookstore where
she worked in tears and humiliation. Even though I was
now in my thirties, that little episode sent me reeling back
to the long ago days of crippling insecurity with pimples (well,
that's still happening) and braces. I was still upset when
I picked up my mother with her refreshed hairdo.
"I feel so much better!"
my mom announced. "How are you?"
"Okay I guess," I said, unenthusiastically.
"What's wrong?" she asked. "Did something
happen?"
I told her about seeing Joanne. "It was sooo bad,
Mom," I said. "I felt like such an idiot! She
was so mean to me when we were kids, and she was still mean to
me now! I feel so lame! I couldn't even say anything
to her! And you know she's right! I am a loser!
I have a crummy job, I am so single, my car's gonna blow
up and I can't even afford to put gas in it, much less fix it
I didn't even buy it, it's a pile of junk that was someone
else's garbage, I mean, God Mom, you and Dad must think that
I am such a nothing!" By this time, I was crying.
"You even buy me my groceries because I'm too retarded
to buy them myself! Dad won't even talk to me when I'm
here and I don't know what to say or do! I bet Cassie and
Chris talk to him just fine because they are just fine! You
must look at me and think that I am the biggest disappointment-"
"Oh Karen, stop it," she sighed. "We do
not think that you're a disappointment. We just worry about
you! We don't care if you make a lot of money, we just
wish you made enough to feel secure."
I sniffled.
"And boy, let me tell you, I am so glad you are single instead
of marrying any of the ones you've brought home so far. I
would be more worried about you if you had married any of them!
I can't tell you how often I used to worry about you marrying
Joe or Ron. It used to keep me awake at night! Ugh!"
She shuddered.
"Yeah, me too," I said, and laughed a little. "Ugh."
"Your father and I just want you to be happy, that's all.
We don't want you to get married because you think we want
you to, or because your sisters are married. We want you
to find the right person who will take care of you and love you.
We do worry about you, and we wish you had done some things
differently, but all parents worry. We just want you to
be all right. That's all."
"I know but I always come out here and I feel like
I failed you somehow. I look at all these cars and houses
and kids and I think that I will never have any of it, and you
think I should."
"Do you really want it? It is so much responsibility,
and it is so much harder now than when we were first starting
out. I don't even want our house now! It is so much
trouble, and I just want to get rid of it. I want an apartment,
where I don't have to take care of anything. I don't want
a yard, I don't want stairs, and I don't want any of it anymore.
I've had it. When you're ready, you'll find a house
if you want it. Even Cassie and Chris have so many problems,
believe it or not, and we talk about how lucky you are."
"ME?" I was shocked. "Lucky?"
"Well, sure! You're not as bad off as you think you are.
You have a lot more freedom than any of us!"
"But I always feel like Dad is so unhappy with me
he won't even talk to me! And when I do try to say something,
he shuts me up! I feel like Cassie knows exactly what to
say to him, and Chris just goes along with all of it, and I feel
like he doesn't even want to say anything to me!"
"It's not you," she said. "The dialysis
makes him feel like he's been beaten up. He can't hear
afterwards because of the machines in his ear and he's just so
drained and worried about what will happen to all of us. He
doesn't talk to any of us. But he wakes up around ten at
night and he wants to talk. And do you know what he says?"
"No"
"He says, 'Ruthie?'" she imitated his gruff voice.
"'This may be bad, but it is such a nice excuse to
see the girls every week.'"
"Really?" I said in a small voice, starting to
cry again.
"Oh yes! We both think that's the nicest thing to
have come out of all of this. We never got to see you,
and now we see you every Tuesday! I tell all my brothers
and sisters and the neighbors how wonderful it is to be with
my girls again. You're all so different! And do you
know what your father said last week?"
"Noooooo" The tears were really pouring by that time.
"He said, "I like that Karen. She's a really
good kid.'"
"He said that?"
"Yep! And he said that you're a good driver."
I laughed and pulled (expertly) into the dialysis parking lot.
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Spring 2001