“Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody
really care?”
The lines from the band Chicago’s one great record – Chicago
Transit Authority – played in my head when I was sitting in the tidy dormitory
of dementia room occupied by my longest-tenured friend, Jerry Manley, and by
Milford “Bob” Brown.
Both men were sleeping when I slipped into their Memory Care Ward room in the
late morning, maybe an hour before lunchtime.
I really like Bob, and I didn’t want to wake him up, so I softly nudged
the knee of my friend, Jerry.
“Mr. Jerry’s got a friend?” an incredulous nurse said later
in the day when I was walking with my pal, formerly “Chuckles News Brother,” a
nickname earned in some 42-year-old shenanigans. I was “Flapjacks News
Brother,” Rob Dollar “Death News Brother,” Jim Lindgren “Flash News Brother” in
the main News Brothers planning and execution of merriment and news in
Clarksville, Tennessee.
Others who played roles in what not only was a “Hard Day’s Night”-style movie sendup of the city and pop culture, but which also raised more than two grand for local charities, included John “Street” Staed and Ricky “Dumbo” Moore. Larry McCormack, a good Christian boy who should have known better, did a scene or two typecast as “The Photographer.” His reward was to get smothered by a storm of thrown whipped rotten egg pies as he lay, innocently, in a boxcar. We tried not to hit the movie camera he was using, primarily because it belonged to my dad. (StrawBilly Fields had already sold his body to public relations and corruption-busting by the time we made the movie. He's never seen it.)
And, perhaps the strongest, most-violent scene was the
gunfight on Public Square in which our old friend Harold “The Stranger” Lynch –
a semi-reformed rodeo cowboy who liked his beer cold and his women to be his
wife – was gunned down. In fitting with
the near Biblical preposterousness of our film, Harold was resurrected from the
dead, given a new pair of shades (I always had spares) and sent galloping on
his stick horse while Quicksilver Messenger Service played “Happy Trails.” Harold survived the gunfight, but not
cigarettes. A few years later, it broke
my heart to hug his frail body one last time after we had strawberry pie and
coffee in a “farewell” at a Shoney’s.
“You go ahead and smoke,” he told me, leading the way to the restaurant’s smoking section (back when such things existed). “I’ll be dead soon, anyway.” I offered him one for the road.
Anyway, back to the nurse in demented dormitory who was so
surprised – even though I’ve been to see Jerry once or twice a week for the
last six months – Jerry had a friend.
“You know him long?” she asked.
“We’ve been hanging around with each other, making people
happy, for a half-century,” I told the woman, who shortly would take his blood
sugar (“it’s a little high”) – perhaps because of the two packs of Ritz
crackers – peanut butter and cheddar – that I’d brought into the nursing home
in my shorts. I also had a bottle of Diet SunDrop for him. I sneak this stuff into him, because he can’t
get junk food “inside.” Also, it seems like I’m getting a wink and a nudge from
the nurses, who come into the room while Jerry is snacking and divert their
attention to my crotch, as is the case with most women. Then they fill his gut with shots of insulin
and his mouth on this day with eight pills.
“He’s a little high today,” the nurse repeats when I ask
about the huge amount of diabetic medication. When he gulps down the pills, it reminds
me of our occasionally refueling in the newsroom on a Saturday morning after
the night before a half-century ago. I tell her that if she thinks "he’s a
little high today," she should have been around us on our 30th
birthday weekend celebration, 42½ years ago.
Jerry and I laughed about that party – many of the
substances were street legal – and how we tapped the keg I bought at Pal’s six
hours before the party started.
“We had to make sure it was good beer,” I remind Jerry. He
laughs. We drank several Solo cups worth, washing down a bag or two of chips,
and took naps on the party room couches, preparing for the onslaught by Rob
Dollar, John Staed, Tony Durr, Ricky G. Moore, Greg Kuhl, Wendell Wilson and
several semi-nude women. Kidding about the women, but even so, I didn’t see my
apartment for a couple of days. Couldn’t.
I look him squarely in his ever-fading eyes and say: “I
think we should begin planning our 73rd birthday party for November.”
Our birthdays are the 9th and 18th, so Jerry is older and
should know better than to hang around with me.
He starts laughing at the notion. “We’ll get all these old
people drunk,” he says, as he laughs.
“Be good for them. Those who survive,” I counter.
“Yeah, might be a bad morning here,” he says, gazing at the
semi-lucid and the less-so.
This conversation is held in the lunchroom/social room,
where I went with Jerry after we’d viewed some old News Brothers movie footage
on my telephone down in his room, while he ate the snacks.
“You gonna drink all that?” asks a man at the lunch table
where I sit with Jerry. “I’ll drink it.”
The man – I don’t know his name – has been babbling a bit
incoherently at the end of our table, and it seems liked he wants to take part
in the conversation. He’s simply unable to form most words.
“Marijuana. Weed. Marijuana,” he says, or so it seems, following
up on one of our discussion points.
“Man, I haven’t smoked pot in a long time,” says Jerry. He’s
not sad. It’s just a grim realization that time has passed. Believe it or not,
he’s been in this nursing home for six months.
His pot-smoking days were 40 years before that, by my
reckoning. Or maybe five.
The befuddled old man is trying to bum what is the second
half of Jerry’s cranberry juice. Jerry is slow in drinking it. The nurse says it’s
good for Jerry’s kidneys. My long-time pal does not mind helping his kidneys.
And, he says, the cranberry juice is the best thing they give him to drink
there.
“But I am glad you bring the Diet SunDrop.”
The old man down the table does not get any of Jerry’s
juice, though the nurse does bring him some unsweetened iced tea. No
replacement, but at least it gives him enough strength to click his teeth and add,
incomprehensively, to the conversation I’m having with Jerry. “WEEEEED.”
The lunch on this day – I stay for the hour it takes for it
to be consumed – is roasted chicken, broccoli, rice, fruit, cole slaw and a
nice piece of carrot cake.
Jerry eats most of the plate, but can't get down the
broccoli and fruit. “I’m so full,” he says.
The nurse hears this and looks at me, a visual
tongue-lashing for the fact I sneak “good stuff” into the building. (Earlier,
back in the room, she scolded me, even though I wasn’t caught red-handed. “He says he’s not hungry now. You must be
bringing him stuff.” I admit to nothing, though Jerry, unaware of the
conversation around him, picks up his Diet SunDrop and drains it.)
“Man, I could use some dessert,” says Jerry after he
demolishes the carrot cake.
“You already had some,” I say. “Looked pretty good.”
He says he doesn’t remember that, hoping for another chunk
that never arrives.
Then he looks to one
of the windows, where the last of the 2024 cicada invasion is evident in the
secret, fenced garden, where folks like Jerry are allowed to roam free. It’s
kind of like the prison yard in Shawshank Redemption, except there are
butterflies and daylilies. And most of the residents – like Jerry – have no
idea of how to get out of this place. Maybe I should put a Raquel Welch poster
on Jerry’s wall, so he can scrape away the sheet rock and escape to Zihuatanejo,
where we can work on some shabby, old boat.
Jerry’s been in the joint for a half-year, and he has yet to
venture outside. He didn’t know such a possibility existed until I asked the
nurse if I can get him some fresh air, and she tells me we ought to get
ourselves back to the garden. Jerry adds “Only if the weather is nice.”
He tells me the last time he’s been outside the joint was
“When John Staed came to see me. He took me out for a drive. All through the
country.”
That thought – a false memory, as John hasn’t been here nor
is Jerry allowed to pass through the security checks to get outside – makes him
smile. Staed, who was a good reporter, horrible sports editor (he thought
“strikes” were only in bowling and “spares” were backup offensive tackles) and
an excellent editor later in his career, seems to occupy some of Jerry’s
considerable daydreaming time.
“Cicadas come every 17 years, don’t they?” Jerry says, as
one of the red-eyed beasts bumps against the window outside the dining hall. Of
course, I’m not sure if this is the one, seven, 13 or 17-year breed, but I
agree with him.
“Must be something to be buried for 17 years and then come
out to the daylight,” Jerry muses.
“I wish we could come back 17 years after we are buried,” I
say and Jerry bursts into laughter. “But it’s not going to happen.’’
“What year did you say this is?”
I tell him it’s 2024, and he begins the count from his
birthday to come up with how many years have passed. “Almost 73,” he says.
“What year did you say this was?” he asks almost
immediately. “Is it 2023?”
I’ve been answering that “what year is this?” question since
about 10:30 this morning. It’s the first thing he says to me when I wake him up.
Then, despite the clock by his bed, he asks me the time.
“I’m really tired,” he says, rolling his head back onto a
fluffy pillow, while Bob springs from his queen-size bed and goes skipping down
the hall like a magic leprechaun. Nah. He’s pretty slow, but I really like the
guy. Today, it seems, he’s wearing his teeth, so it must be lunch time.
It’s about that time Jerry asks me the year again -- adding
“Man, it doesn’t seem like it’s been that long” -- that the old CTA song plays
in my head, getting stuck there for the day. (Author’s note, today I pulled
that old album out and thought about how good Chicago was before Terry Kath,
like Richard Cory, went home one night and put a bullet in his head.)
“Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody
really care?” I semi-sing to Jerry, my gritty, old-Dylan-on-Freon voice likely
tickling all the loose screws.
He laughs.
“We’ve been friends for about 50 years. A half-century,” I
say to him.
“It just doesn’t seem that long,” he near-repeats. “It’s not
fair. We were young. And then I can’t
remember anything. I do remember working a little bit at a newspaper.”
Actually, my friend was a great newspaperman. All he wanted
to be. And he was great at it. But other than “I was on the copy desk a little
while,” he doesn’t remember.
Apparently, the only constant in his life, these days, is
me. When I describe to him his 40-year newspaper stint, he shakes his head. “How could it have been that long? I don’t
remember anything.
“What year did you say it is now?” he asks.
He looks around his room. “I don’t have any idea how long
I’ve been here. Seems like yesterday. I don’t know where I am or why they put
me in here.”
For a few minutes, he looks at a bit of News Brothers video
on my phone. This one includes our meeting with Great American Hero John Glenn.
Simply put, “The Stranger” was dispatched by me (the associate/Sunday editor) to go out to Outlaw Field, the curiously named Clarksville airport, and interview John Glenn when he landed. He would only have a few minutes, as John Glenn – pondering a presidential bid – was headed to a Democratic fund-raiser in Clarksville.
Top shot is of John Glenn orbiting the Earth in a NASA photo. Second is a screen grab from Flapjacks: The Motion Picture of Glenn, me, Rob Dollar, John Staed, Jerry Manley, Harold Lynch and Mayor Ted Crozier holding off Secret Service gunmen.
Jerry, Rob and John Staed (in one of his cameos in the heralded film, Flapjacks: The Motion Picture) climbed into the backseat of my old Duster, and we drove out to the airport, determined to meet him.
Glenn’s plane landed and a beige limo showed up to transport
him to town. “The Stranger,” in coat and tie, wandered through the unlocked runway
gate behind the limo.
And the other four of us all ran in behind.
Secret Service agents were about to shoot me and Rob, when I
stepped into the doorframe of Glenn’s limo, blocking him from getting in the
car.
“Leave them alone,” the first American to orbit the globe
barked at his crew of white, gun-toting hooligans. “I want to talk to these
young fellows.”
That’s a shortened version of the story that also included
Clarksville’s Mayor Ted “Wild Turkey” Crozier – a retired colonel who flew
helicopters in Vietnam – endorsing me for his job.
“Tim Ghianni for Mayor” read his lapel pin. If there is one
political figure I loved in my life, it is Wild Turkey, who was propelled by
vodka and lemonade and loved the News Brothers and who I regarded as a dear
friend. I left Clarksville, basically in silence after 14 years, back in
1988. Wild Turkey and Chief Sheriff’s
Deputy Eddy Patterson both called to lament my departure, ask me to stay and
wish me well. I guess everyone else in Clarksville didn’t care.
Patterson, I should note, saved my life one day. An unidentified briefcase was found in the
courthouse across the street from the newspaper, and Eddy led the bomb squad in
dragging it safely outside to the middle of Commerce Street, where they were
going to detonate it with explosives.
Curious about the activity outside my window, I walked out
onto the street just before detonation – “Tim, get out of there, quick,” Eddy
yelled. By the time the empty suitcase was blown up, I was tucked behind a fire
department pumper truck.
I told Jerry that story – I believe the random briefcase was
found in the courtroom where Kathy Jane Nishiyama’s kidnapper, rapist and
murderer Eddie Hartman, who had been a Dickson County Jail Trusty when he went
on his bloody stalking and killing mission – was being sentenced to death. He
died of lung cancer on Death Row, where he had been training a pet mouse. Well,
that’s half-true. The mouse was in The
Green Mile, filmed at the old Tennessee State Prison’s Death Row.
“So who are you?” the nurse asked me, early in the day, when
Jerry was swallowing his SunDrop and dreaming of phantom visitors.
“I’m Jerry’s friend. We’ve been close for a half-century.
Started out in newspapers together.”
She shook her head.
“Mr. Manley doesn’t have any friends. People will try to
talk to him, and he’ll ignore him. Even when his roommate reaches his hand out
to shake, Mr. Manley just pushes the hand away.”
“Well, I’m his friend,” I say, proudly, but growing mentally
weary.
“What year did you say this is?” Jerry asks me again. It’s
question 67 or 68 for the day.
“I don’t know why I’m here. How I got here. Where I am," Jerry says. "I don’t see anybody but you, and I’m glad you come by to talk to me. I know I don’t talk, but it’s good to listen to you. I appreciate it.”
“Do you know why you are here?” I ask, again.
“Mental illness, I reckon.”
We talk about his family to see if anyone else shares this malady.
“Maybe my Mom, some.”
He looks again out the window. “I guess I’m never getting out of here. I’d
love to go home.”
That thought seems to cheer him, so I talk a bit about his
nice house in Lewisburg and “I’ll bet you’d love to see that white dog you
named ‘Snow,’” I say.
He sits upright. “I thought that was your dog.”
I get outside of the secure facility and to my 41-year-old
car, and I find on my phone that old Chicago song that has been haunting me for
several hours.
“We’ve all got time enough to die,” I sing along as I begin driving away, dreading leaving Jerry inside the confines where he is spending his life.
