More tuna.
December 26, 2007
Christmas Day is over, by a little over two hours. The house is quiet. Chloe sleeps at my feet, and Stascha is curled up on the other end of the couch. Joy went to bed some time ago, and most, if not all the rest of the cats are on the bed asleep beside her. In the quiet of the night, I have time to reflect a little. Okay, I have time to reflect once I’ve turned the TV off and stopped snickering at people on the History channel who believe in Bigfoot, Dire Wolves, and Mysterious Beasts (truly, does no one in Maine and Minnesota know anything of their own history? It’s a wolverine, you morons! Do you think they’re only a football team in Michigan, for pity’s sake?!?) But I digress…
This was not the most festive of Christmas seasons for me. I was kind of quiet at my sister-in-law’s home this evening, as we swapped presents, and the nephews showed off their new Guitar Hero game. I am on vacation until next week, but the pleasure of that got soured a bit when I was forced to log in from home on Friday evening and fix a problem with one of the catalogs at work. Don’t get me wrong, my job is to support the company’s purchasing catalogs, but I never signed up to be a twenty-four hour help-line. Of course, with no backup, who else are they going to call? But, again, I digress…
The Spirit of Christmas just wasn’t in me this year. I made a couple of halfhearted efforts, but I just couldn’t summon the enthusiasm. My greatest regret is that I found no time to shop, and never got Joy a gift. I had asked if there was anything she wanted for Christmas; she, of course, didn’t have anything in mind. Ah, well, I’ve never been very good at giving gifts, or giving at all, but…Again, digressing.
My lab results from last week indicated that I am in Third Stage chronic kidney disease…again. This is not unexpected, but, well, it’s pretty much bummed me out. I guess I hadn’t looked so closely at that particular indicator on my previous labs, or maybe I was just in Denial (it’s such a familiar, comfortable place, after all; warm, tropical; haven’t the Sandals people built a resort there?), but I’ve become aware of it at last, and while I was never promised eternal good health from the transplant (eating Wheaties and voting Republican, maybe, but not the transplant), I had hoped to avoid having to go down this particular road again. No such luck.
I had prepared myself for this; I knew that things could turn, well, if not South, then Southward, at sometime…at anytime, during my post-transplant life. Unfortunately, being prepared intellectually is not the same as being prepared emotionally. I am depressed, the situation has effected my life here in the fag end of December, and it has pretty much ruined Christmas for me.
Maybe it’s just Seasonal Affective Disorder. I suffer from year-round depression, partly from predisposition (pre-in-disposition?), partly from the steroids and other medications, but the early winter nights, the lack of sunlight, all the other attributed causes of SAD are obviously in evidence, and I’ve certainly been feeling the “affective” part.
I’m already on a maximum dose of Bupropion (generic welbutrin). Medical science may not have more to offer. I will see my psychiatrist in a week or two, perhaps he can offer some further advice. There are other options, I believe, but, well, I don’t know how safe they might be.
As to my ailing kidney, I see Dr. Hill on the 2nd. She will give me a prognosis if I ask for one. And she will give me a program to follow so maybe I can fight off dysfunction for as long as possible. The news won’t be all rosy and bright, but at least it will be news. News I can act on. I’ve had nearly thirteen years of wonderful life, ten of it without daily insulin injections and eating pretty much as I please; I’ve no room to complain…damn it. I do so love to complain.
Charlemagne has come to sit by me as I write. He is purring, and awaiting his turn on my lap, which should come soon, he’s not had too much attention today. His medical problems seem to be under better control at the moment. I’ve no lab work to base it on, but he seems to be eating better, and, maybe, putting on a little weight. We’ve been trying to increase the health and quantity of his diet. I think he’s doing better. He and I will have to face these medical trials together. I hope I can do so with the grace and dignity he has.
Maybe I need to eat more tuna….
Hard road.
December 18, 2007
1975
It was a hard-edged day, every object limned and tinted in fragile brilliance. Clear and sunny, a good traveling day.
It was to be a long day, first to Tuscaloosa to meet Lyle and Stella for lunch, and then on to Water Valley, and thence to Memphis to see my grandfather in his illness. Eight hours, given “pit stops”, as Dad put it. We would travel with few enough of them; Dad always liked to cover ground when we traveled.
Dad was quiet on the way; we didn’t talk much. I read, or listened to the radio, when Dad played it. We drove up 280 to Opelika, and then took I-75 to Montgomery.
The miles rolled by, and I watched the flat coastal plain roll by on a Chevy-powered diorama, saw it fall into the valley of the Alabama, and then rise up the bluff beyond the old bridge at Prattville, the one on US 82 that always scared my sister, where the road began climbing through Autauga county.
I knew this road very well, every turn and every roadside sign and tumbledown barn. We had traveled it many times on the way to my grandparents’ house in Mississippi. We had traveled with more heightened anticipation to see Crimson Tide football games when my brother was considering his college options, and later when he had attended the University. Mom had spent two years at the University, and Lyle and I neither one had a chance: we were born to go to school in Tuscaloosa.
The road climbed on through Chilton county, passed the peach stands and ambled on through the little town of Bruce, still battered by the tornado that had ripped through it a couple of years before. There was the obligatory pulpwood truck, the ramshackle contraption of beat up tractor and skeletal trailer stacked way too high with pine trunks that I always thought threatened to tumble out on top of us, as we swept around them with the big V8 roaring on the two-lane road.
“That guy sped up on purpose”, Dad said with a little heat, as we pulled back into the righthand lane.
It was almost a tradition, that comment. I hadn’t noticed the truck speeding up so much, though it did pick up speed as we went around it on the downslope of the hill, where the solid double yellow line gave way to a straight stretch where passing was allowed. Dad often said that when he passed one of these ugly old trucks.
“Probably didn’t have brakes!” I volunteered, quoting another of my Dad’s common observations about the hulking trucks.
“Maybe, but he did that on purpose”, said Dad. “I could tell.”
I nodded, noncommittally, and watched the countryside roll by once more. We drove over the high hill and down into Centerville, and I looked forward to our stop in Tuscaloosa, well, Northport, actually, just across the Black Warrior, where we’d meet Lyle and Stella at the Shoney’s, another traditional family stop on the Way to Grandmomma’s.
The road widened to four lanes with a median as we crossed the Tuscaloosa county line, and Dad was able to pass a couple of cars more easily, and then saw a State Trooper, and slowed way down, under the speed limit. That seemed a little strange to me. Dad liked to drive on the upper side of the speed limit, especially on this long trip. Not so today.
We came down the long hill, and underneath the I-59 overpass onto McFarland Boulevard, Tuscaloosa’s main drag, past all the motels at the interstate exit, most of which we had stayed in on our football trips, and on up McFarland towards the Black Warrior.
“Another police car”, Dad said, as we passed the Hackberry intersection by the old Naval Reserve training center.
“Yeah”, I said, distracted, my attention on the tall smoke stack on the Naval property; I always thought it was a cool thing, close to the street and a hundred feet high…or so it seemed to me. (This was the smokestack that was knocked down by Burt Reynolds film crew in “Hooper” a few years later.)
We stopped at the light, and Dad looked over at the police car, and then straight ahead. When the light changed, we moved on, crossing the river on the big four lane highway bridge and heading up the hill on the opposite bank.
Lyle and Stella stood by Stella’s green Monte Carlo as we pulled into the Shoney’s parking lot.
“Hi, Dad!” Lyle said, and gave me a pat on the shoulder as I smiled my greeting to my sister-in-law.
“Did you have a good trip?” Stella asked.
“Yeah”, Dad said, and moved towards the restaurant door.
We were seated by the greeter, and after the waiter had taken our orders, spaghetti for me, a hamburger for Dad, the special for Lyle and Stella, I headed for the restroom to see to a pressing need. It had been a four hour drive, after all.
My stay in the restroom didn’t take long. I washed up and came out. I noticed the waiter cleaning up a broken plate and spilled food on the floor. Moving by him, carefully avoiding the splashed sauce because Dad was a bit touchy about clean shoes in the car, I made my way back to my chair and sat down.
Something was wrong.
Dad handed me a folded twenty-doller bill, and said abruptly “You eat and pay for everyone’s meal. I’ll be in the car.” Then he got up from the table without another word, or even a look back, and left the restaurant.
I looked at my brother, and then at Stella, and the expressions of confusion on their faces frightened me.
“What happened?”
They looked at each other for a moment, and then Lyle said, “I don’t know.”
Days later, I would learn from my mother that the broken plate and spilled food on the floor were evidence of an accident, the kind that happens all the time in restaurants; a waiter losing his grip on a loaded plate, and dropping it, in this case directly behind my Dad’s chair. The clatter on the tiled floor had startled him severely, and made him jump, and drawn attention to him, something my Dad had always hated.
We ate our meal, and tried to make smalltalk, but it dwindled quickly to a tense silence. When we finished, I took the check and with great care I passed the twenty to the lady at the register, received the change, and carefully folding it into a neat little bundle in my hand, followed Lyle and Stella outside.
I could see Dad in the car smoking a cigarette, as we walked up.
“Get in the car” , he said tersely. My jaw dropped, but I didn’t hesitate. I could tell he was upset. I went around the car, opened the passenger door and climbed in, instinctively reaching down to pull my seatbelt around my waist.
“I don’t know why you’re doing this, son” said my Dad’s voice, choking with emotion, and I looked up to see my Dad looking up at my brother as he stood by the car, “I don’t know why you’re oing this, but I want you to know, I love you.”
With that he started the car, and quickly but carefully backed the car out of the parking place, as I stared at him, and then through the windshield at my brother’s stunned face. Our eyes met, and I could see that he was desperately trying to decide if he should ask Dad to stop, and get me out of the car, but before he could come to a decision, Dad had pulled out and left him and Stella standing there, they’re mouths hanging open in shock.
That was the first time I’d ever heard Dad actually tell Lyle that he loved him.
Dad pulled the car back out on the highway, and headed back across the river to towards Tuscaloosa.
“Dad?” I said, “aren’t we going to Mississippi?”
“No!”, he choked, and I realized that he was trying very hard not to cry. “He’s not sick. It was all a trick to get us here.”
My gut went cold. Dad wasn’t making sense. What was he talking about?
“But…”
“Your granddaddy isn’t sick.” The certainty in his voice, the conviction, was more frightening than his behavior.
I sat silently, looking away from him, my mind racing, not quite panicking but scared and trying to figure out what to do. Maybe I should ask him to stop and let me out. Maybe I should ask him what he meant. I didn’t know what to do.
Dad drove back down McFarland, and spied the police car, now further down the street at a shopping center. He said nothing, but I could see him watching the policeman in his car, and then looking away when the policeman’s face turned our way.
We headed south and east. retracing our route back down US 82, through Centerville, and Bruce. As we ran down a long straight stretch south of Bruce, we were passed by a red Buick with a CB antenna.
“There, you see?”
I looked over at Dad, and saw that he was pointing ahead at the red car as it pulled away ahead of us. “What?” I said.
“You see him? He’s keeping tabs on us with his CB radio. Do you see it?”
“Yes” I said, in a small voice. I had seen the CB antenna. I had seen dozens of them. They were everywhere; it was the mid-seventies, and “Smokey and the Bandit” was the biggest hit in theaters, and C.W. McCall was telling the story of the “Rubber Duck” on every radio station. This was crazy.
Crazy.
The miles crawled by, every mile that I knew so well. Dad was doing the speed limit, or a little under, and if a car came up behind, he slowed down on the straightaways to let them pass. He now wrapped a silence about him, and I was relieved at first, but at each opportunity that came up for us to go in a direction away from home, I would ready myself to ask him to let me out, if he didn’t want to go home.
The miles crawled by, every mile that we had traced that morning. We were on interstate 85 now, passing the outskirts of Montgomery, and the exit to the dog track at Shorter, and the Tuskegee exit. As we passed into Lee County, and passed the last Auburn exit, I clenched my fist beside my right leg, where Dad wouldn’t see it, screwing myself up to ask him to let me out if I had to. I couldn’t let him take me somewhere. I wanted to go home. Mom would know what to do, if Dad would just go there.
We reached the 280 exit. I held my breath.
Dad eased the car off onto the ramp approach, and angled the car up the slope of the exit. I looked around as we came to the top of the overpass, at the gas stations, and the Denny’s, and the Holiday Inn there at the exit. Where was there a phone? Did I have a quarter? I felt my pocket; I had twenty-five cents, I thought, but I dared not take it out and check. Could I call collect on a payphone?
The car stopped at the top off the ramp. I stared down the road towards home, saying nothing, praying, hoping, wishing.
The car moved forward, turning right, into the roadway. It accelerated, heading towards Phenix City, and home, and Mom. I dared take a breath.
I watched for all the mileposts, and all the waymarks. We passed Bleaker’s Crossing, where the view to the east from the highway on the crown of the hill was always a green pleasure. I took no comfort from it today, though the sun was still shining in the clear sky as the sun declined in the west. We weren’t home yet.
We came down through Smith’s Station, and on down towards the county line. Next waypoint was the Summerville Road turnoff. Now we were in familiar territory. We passed the Summerville Road turn off, the one way up towards Smith Station.
I tensed again. If he went straight past the Stadium Drive turnoff, I’d know he wasn’t going home, and I would have to ask him to drop me off.
The car approached Stadium Drive. My right fist tightened beside my leg. I began counting; I don’t know why.
Dad pulled the car to a stop in the left turn lane. He pressed the pedal and we turned onto Stadium Drive, and went down the hil, passing the high school, and stopping at the light on Railroad Street.
Counting. Counting. Counting seconds. The light turned green.
We went up and over the railroad tracks, and drove up Stadium, past Carriage Hill and the nursing home. We rolled up to the stop sign on Summerville Road, and I was almost home. I could walk from here.
Dad turned right onto Summerville, and we came down past Municipal Stadium, and the Parkview Superette where I bought by Cokes after school, and past Summerville Baptist Church, where my best friend went to church, and past 34th Street, a street I’d ridden my bicycle on a thousand times. 33rd Street went past as we topped the hill and swept around the curve, and there was home.
Home.
Dad slowed the big Chevy and turned on the blinker. Would he come in, or just drop me off?
He turned the car into the driveway, and never had the crunch of gravel under the tires sounded so good. Mom stood at the glass storm door, and stepped out onto the front porch as we pulled into the turn out in front of her. Dad turned the key, and the engine died, and I already had my seatbelt off, and got out with barely controlled relief.
Dad got out, too, and went into the house, silent, after a few short words with Mom.
I came up the steps to the door, and Mom hugged me briefly, and said “Why don’t you go freshen up, and then go call Karen and tell her you’re home.” And then she stepped into the bedroom, and as I stepped into the hall bathroom and closed the door, I heard their voices: urgent, sibilant, subdued. I closed the door.
And I cried.
