The fork flashed through the air, within inches of the more-than-adequate midsection of the nurse, who was trying to push the fellow – a nameless guy I consider a friend after my months of hanging out in the Memory Care Ward -- up to his spot at the lunch table.
“Don’t!” or something similar the man yelped, first pulling
the fork back toward the table and then pushing it out toward the nurse again, with
as much force as feeble, meatless arms can muster.
I don’t know this fella’s motivation for violence. He may
not, himself. I’m sure he didn’t
remember afterward.
But this is the first time I’ve seen him in a wheelchair, a
part of the continuing descent I see around me every time I visit the nursing home
where men and women, including my half-century pal Jerry Manley, punctuate
mental descent with physical rot.
It bruises my soul when, as a frequent visitor to the
nursing home’s Memory Care Ward, I witness these folks’ disappearance into
themselves… . Some of the faces I grew accustomed to greeting have vanished. Life
here is a guaranteed dead end. Of course, that end awaits us all. It’s just
more poignant here.
Perhaps in what is left of his mind, the fork-slasher
realized that from now on he is going to be pushed in his wheelchair to
wherever the nurses want him and, of course, he must eat what they tell him to
eat, a blandness universal in these diets. That combination may have sparked
the rage.
There is no such thing as freedom of choice in a Memory Care
Ward.
All I know is that the man with the fork is one of the many
folks in this ward who have “adopted” me as their “friend from the outside” in
the eight months since I’ve been paying visits to my longest-tenured newspaper
friend, Jerry “Chuckles News Brother” Manley.
All Jerry did when the guy threatened the nurse with a fork
was shrug. Apparently, this stuff happens a lot among those relegated to this
cuckoo’s nest. Like Jerry, who won’t fess to being a dementia or Alzheimer’s
patient. In fact, he insists he’s neither: “I just can’t remember anything.”
Like things I’ve told him three minutes before.
As I’ve noted in the past, Jerry hates the “Chuckles”
nickname, but when my friend Rob Dollar and I were coming up with nicknames for
The News Brothers 42 years ago, Jerry just seemed like a “Chuckles.” His appearances on the screen – I’ve noted
our 1982 film made for charity –just made anyone smile. How can you resist a
guy who spends his main closeup showing that his tongue is as flexible and
expressive as KISS tongue-man Gene Simmons? Neither of us were big KISS fans,
but we did like to rock ‘n’ roll all night and party every day. Perhaps the
reluctant “Chuckles” is paying for it now?
Ah, those names. I am “Flapjacks.” Rob Dollar is “Death.”
Jim Lindgren is “Flash.” The three of us
and Jerry were the three main News Brothers back when we were almost fab and
truly benevolent, making movies, healing hearts, aiding charities and,
especially putting out Damn Nice Newspapers.
Back then, the 24,000-circulation Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle
regularly pounded The Tennessean, Nashville Banner, the Memphis newspapers and
Knoxville and Chattanooga as well in “contests” for best newspaper in the
state, best special section, best columnist, best sports section, etc. We even
were dubbed Best Paper in the Southeast.
And all that acclaim came because we put our real lives on hold and
dedicated waking hours to committing great journalism. And drinking about it
after.
Our professional lives were our personal lives, and some –
like me and Jerry – pay for it in loneliness because we never spent time
developing “social” friends. Instead of social graces, we developed nasty habits.
Newspapers were everything. Now they are nothing. And those of us who were newspaper-ink-bleeding
castoffs, well … we’re old, dead or in The Memory Care Ward.
I believe The Tennessean, a now insignificant newspaper in
Nashville, now wins most of the awards for newspapers with 5,000 circulation or
less. I do cheer for my old friends who work there still.
Seventeen years ago they dared not cheer for me, when the
lousy bastards made me give my regards to 1100 Broadway by taking a meager
buyout package or wait for the layoffs in six weeks. The guards – the same ones
who had protected me from Lee “Tennessee” Williams, a skateboard-riding scion
of Clarksville society who spent his free time living in the streets of
Nashville – helped me carry my professional remnants, pica poles, scale wheels
and pictures of The News Brothers and my kids out to the parking lot.
Old Tennessee Williams stalked me from our days at The
Camelot in Clarksville and from the day he took part in what should have been
my fatal fall from the Leaf-Chronicle roof for one day’s filming of the sequel
to “Flapjacks: The Motion Picture,” our “Hard Day’s Night”-like movie that we
made to raise money for charity. That sequel footage never has been seen and
the 8 mm film has faded into memory or not. “Flapjacks II: The Revenge of the
Big Guy” was never finished. Too many firings and deaths left me with faded-out-film
and devastated memories in a yellow Kodak box.
Getting a little
afield here, but I should say that one day Tennessee Williams came to the front
of the old newspaper building on Broadway. He had painted his body red, wore an
Indian headdress and was pointing a feathered spear at the guards, who tried to
calm him down. The guards, steel-guitar Hall of Famer Johnny Sibert and his
pals, would not let me out of the building to try to calm Lee down. They told me he’d been there many nights,
sometimes sleeping inside the back door of the newspaper when Johnny took pity
on him on a cold night. Lee always was looking for me. Johnny Sibert worried I had my own Mark David
Chapman and always warned me to be careful when I left the building.
The day of his Indian attack, old Tennessee was hauled off
by a police car. I believe they took him
to Cloverbottom, the state’s beloved looney bin. The last time I saw him, though, came when I
rear-ended a car at an Interstate exit when I sped to a hospital because my mom
was dying. The car I hit took off. Lee stood there with a “World is Ending”
type of sign and applauded. My mom died.
Johnny Sibert, the protective
guard, had settled into that line of business after a long career as a steel
player with another now-deceased buddy, the great Carl “Hey Joe” Smith.
I was the last person ever to interview Carl, the first one
in a few decades. That story can be found in my book Pilgrims, Pickers and
Honky-Tonk Heroes. The world had forgotten Carl, who basically invented the
concept of country music television.
As far as I know, Jerry is the only News Brother in the
cuckoo’s nest. “Flash” has some ailments, I can’t walk well, “Death” is tired and
sore and sporting a seriously repaired ticker. “Badger” – radio newsman Scott Shelton, who
took over for “Flash” when George Martin said he wasn’t a good-enough drummer –
died pushing 13 years ago. Fucking cancer. Actually, Scott had always been
affiliated with us, but joined up full-time when “Flash” moved to Indianapolis
to breed race cars.
It’s been a long, strange trip and, on this day, it finds me
looking maybe nine feet to see the old fellow with the fork, again aiming it to
the nurse’s belly as she tried to work his wheelchair close enough to the table
so that he could eat without getting the Hungarian goulash on his nicely
pressed khaki trousers.
She backed away, going to get her supervisor. One of them took a picture of the poor guy,
fork extended, I suppose to show to family or psychiatrist. I’m sure there likely is a penalty for errant
behavior in the cuckoo’s nest. But I’m not sure. Hot electric wire on his balls?
He put his fork down and then took a full-fisted swing at the
nurse who hollered: “Don’t you hit me, you crazy mother-fucker” and slammed his
head down into his plateful of food.
The guy just laughed, and used his fingers to eat the
goulash that was on his face. The
face-in-food incident is of my imagination.
Up until that it was all true.
As was the long, low howling of one of the diners – I think
she was the one who calls me and whoever gets in her way “knucklehead.’’ Jerry frowned at her, even though the fork
attack didn’t bother him. Likely made perfect sense.
An hour earlier, this psychedelic nursing home visit began
when I pulled my old Saab into one of the handicapped parking spots out front.
As I’ve noted before, I have a hard time walking upright, so I asked my doctor,
finally, to fill out my application for one of those crippled placards. One
thing you can’t hide is when you’re crippled inside or outside. In either case,
I had put off getting that placard until a couple of months ago, about the time
my brother, Eric, who died recently, gave me the hand-carved cane he made for
me. He had one himself. I thought he and I could hang around together, playing dueling swords with our canes and drinking his favorite Irish whisky. But God, or whoever is in charge of deadly injustices in
the holy pecking order, took him.
Nothing sadder than a cane-wielding swordsman dueling into
the empty air on the back deck while holding an empty glass, so I quit doing that last week, as my neighbors were beginning
to notice.
As I parked, I saw a woman, really disheveled and witchlike
in appearance, downing a glass of lemonade – that’s what the nursing home had
on its porch for those who can go outside – and start walking around the long,
circular sidewalk. Her crinkled and evil eyes were fixed on me as she walked
past benches, lawn chairs and landscaping. Her evil demeanor reminded me of a
legless gypsy I encountered on a sidewalk in Arad, Romania. She was a beggar,
and, when my son, Joe, gave her a piece of candy, she tossed it away and
laughed at him.
Course, this old lady had legs. When she stopped right in
front of the Saab and stared at me, my first notion was to put my car in drive
and run her over.
Finally, I shut off the car and got out. “Can I help you,
ma’am?” I asked, a bit timidly. She began whistling and muttering a song of
sorts and stood there staring at me.
Now, the most troubled of the folks at this nursing home are
not supposed to be in the front section where they have access to the yard. She
perhaps was just visiting somebody. Or perhaps she’s near the point where
she’ll graduate to the Memory Care Ward. Or she’s an escapee.
“She said ‘I know what it’s like to be dead,’” I sang to myself.
as she walked away from me. I may not be able to walk well, but I took the very
long way around the front yard, so I could avoid her when I went in. “She’s
making me feel like I’ve never been born.”
After I signed in –
the warden, Nurse Ratched, eyed my sack, but said nothing. I always bring Jerry
food contraband that I get at my friend, Quincy’s, Shell Station. Generally, I pull
into Pump No. 8 and top off my gas. Inside, I pick up two packs of Ritz peanut
butter crackers and … there’s no Diet SunDrop in the cooler.
Quincy started stocking that beverage at my request, because
Jerry said it was one of the things he missed “inside.” On this day, I settled for a sugar-free
Mountain Dew instead.
Quincy, who was outside emptying the trash containers
between Pumps 7 and 8 told me he’d get the Diet SunDrop when his vendor comes
in. “It’s a real good thing you’re doing,” he always tells me, adding that
nursing homes “are worse than prisons.”
Anyway, I used to sneak the contraband in my clothing, but it was uncomfortable, especially in the summer, so I just carry it in in a sack. No one seems to notice or care. When people are dying or slipping into oblivion, why not allow them a few snacks to brighten their limited days?
In fact, once I got to the Memory Care Ward, I remembered
that Quincy hadn’t loosened the top on the bottle, and it was impossible for me
to open with my arthritic hands.
So, I asked a nurse – the one who later was attacked with a fork – to open it for me. “I’ll just open it and then put the top back on far enough, so it doesn’t leak,” she said, handing it back to me to take to Jerry, no questions asked.
Bob/Milford, Jerry’s roommate, is in a sitting room, a
couple doors down, a place where patients and families can gather. Even go out
through a door into an enclosed courtyard. Bob/Milford was sitting, quietly,
staring at a black TV screen.
“I know what it’s like to be sad,” I said to Bob, who I
consider a friend. “Why don’t you come back to the room?”
He clicked his false teeth and said “No. No. No. No.”
I patted his shoulder, and went on to the room where Jerry
sat in his recliner, watching a music station on television. It’s just one of
those cable stations, where they play music while a photo and facts about the
artists are displayed on the screen.
“Indian Lake is a scene you should make with your little one
Keep it in mind if you're lookin' to find a place in the summer sun….”
I sang along with the second line. Before telling him “I
went to see the Cowsills in 1969. They were on a triple bill with The
Grassroots --“In my midnight confessions, when I tell all the world that I love
you,” I sang.
“The top of the bill that night was, Guess Who, Canadians just
then breaking in America,” I said before launching into the grunting prelude to
“American Woman, stay away from me….”
I don’t think Jerry even noticed my miniconcert. Perhaps he used his decline as an excuse to
ignore it.
“I’ve just got it on this music channel because that’s where
it was, and I don’t know how to change the channel,” was his sole response to
my little performance. “Volume, either.”
The remote control sat by his bed, but after so many months,
I no longer give forgotten-in-five-minutes remote control lessons.
“It’s better for you to listen to music than watch the news,
like when Harrison Ford was trying out spacecraft,” I say, referring to a day a
couple of weeks ago when Milford/Bob and Jerry both thought a sci-fi movie was
real-life news.
The TV switches to Frank Sinatra singing “Something,” the
George Harrison song that Ol’ Blue Eyes thought was the best love song of all
time.
The sight of Old Blue Eyes triggered me to tell Jerry that
it was 50 years to the day that Frank’s pal, Dick Nixon, climbed aboard Marine
One after resigning as president.
“It doesn’t seem that long, but it does,” Jerry responded as
he finished off the crackers and pint of Diet Mountain Dew. “This is really
good for a change,” he said, adding he’d prefer the Diet SunDrop, but my
replacement pick satisfied his soda-educated palate.
Brian Wilson, brothers Dennis and Carl, Mike Love and Al
Jardine were singing “God Only Knows” on the TV, when the nurse came in and
gave Jerry his blood sugar test – “254,” she said, looking at me and smiling.
It’s supposed to be around 180, and perhaps my treats are to blame. She gives
him a quadruple dose of insulin.
The nurse sees the empty cracker wrappers and Diet Dew
bottle, but she doesn’t say anything about it.
Jerry’s smiling, at least, which I’m told is uncommon.
“Lunchtime,” she reminded him, so I wandered down the
hallway with Jerry. Milford/Bob hadn’t moved from his spot in front of the
black TV, so I called out and asked if wanted to join us. He just looked at me
and nodded, but obviously his answer was “No. No.
No. No.”
“I wish I could remember something, so I’d have something to
say,” said Jerry, as I sat at his lunch table, where we listened to the woman
howl and watched the fork man do his work.
“That’s’ OK, Jerry. They are going to need my chair now for
lunch, so I’d better leave.”
He nodded. “Hey, how old am I?”
I told him he was 72, nine days older than me. “We always
celebrated our birthdays together. Remember the 30th? It was the
best party ever.”
He looked blankly at me, then slowly smiled and nodded. “You
be careful.” I think he was telling me to take care driving home. But he also
may have been warning me of the fork man, as there was no way to leave this
room without passing right by him. Easy fork range.
This normally gentle
man held his fork high, in his right hand, then put it down on the table when I
neared.
“You are a lot more
friendly than your friend,” he said – something he’s told me many times, always
punctuating by nodding toward Jerry.
“Jerry’s an acquired taste,” I said, smiling. “It’s taken me
50 years to get used to him.”
The crazy old lady was not out on the front grass or by the
lemonade table when I got outside, after stopping to chat briefly with
Stockton, the guy who always wears Vols clothes and who is trying to talk me
into moving here.
“Have a great day,” he said. “Good to see you, my friend.
Where are you from?”
“Same as last time,” I tell him. “Nashville.”
I climb into my old Saab, maybe shaken more than usual,
realizing that these visits are darkening my soul.
“I know what it’s like to be dead,” I sing to myself. ‘’What
it’s like to be sad….”
Copyright August 12, 2024, Tim Ghianni, all rights reserved
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