You Need SCOPE

I am in the backseat of my mom’s 65 Mustang with my brother Andy, pretending to take a trip to Arizona. We’re bouncing around on the tan seat, talking about what we see on the way. Sometimes we sit in the front seats, one of turning the wheel and leaning into the turn, the other one leaning along as we pass each roadrunner and saguaro cactus on our way to the exotic land of extended family, people we see only every couple of years, but with whom we instantly fall into comfortable synchronicity. These people always have Popsicles in their freezers.

But Andy and I have wearied of the front seat, and have decamped to the back, when we realize that this is the perfect vantage point from which to observe and critique the neighborhood. Conveniently, our neighbor across the street pulls up, parks and exits his car and stoops to reach in and remove items from his trunk. Andy, recognizing the possibilities of our anonymity, yells out the window,

“You need SCOPE in your BUTT!”

We fall to the floor of the car to hide, giggling madly at the wit, buoyed by the heady danger of saying such a shocking and hilarious thing to not only a grown-up, but a neighbor. We lie there for a long time after he has gone inside, laughing on those tan seats, pleased and proud.

What've You Got in that Bag?

Years ago, I went to see a play "The Curse of the Starving Class" at Sac State with my boyfriend Mez. I was quite ill with bronchitis, but I really wanted to go, because my dear friend Dan was in it and so was my former drama teacher, George Roth. Rather than stay home and recuperate from a respiratory illness that was bordering on walking pneumonia, I took a bottle of codeine cough syrup to sip from quietly, so I wouldn't disturb the audience by coughing. These were the types of decisions I made in my twenties. 

Anyway, when we got there, Mez said, "Uh-oh." A friend of his sister's, let's call her Cynthia, was at the play. She hated me, because she asked Mez out on a date about seven minutes after he and I started going out, so she felt like I had stolen him from her. She also hated me because I had been in a class with her in junior college, and I guess I was annoying, according to what she told Mez's sister, who told Mez, who then told me. This stressed me out. I couldn't even remember her, so I couldn't judge if maybe I had done something awful, which would make me terrible, or if I wasn't so bad, in which case she was unreasonable and maybe I wasn't so terrible. These were the types of things that bothered me in my twenties. 

The play started and all I remember about it is that George and Dan were really good and that I was desperately suppressing coughs and swilling opiate cough syrup. Also, there was full frontal nudity by a guy in the cast (not George or Dan) and there was simulated pissing. Bet you haven't seen that. 

So, after the play, I ran up to Dan and hugged him because I wanted to get away from Cynthia's dislike, and after chatting briefly, he said there was a girl in the audience who hated him, because she had asked out his boyfriend Joe, and Joe had told her he was gay and dating Dan. Of course, it was Cynthia. So, now I was the person who had stolen Mez and I was happily hugging the man she had just found out had stolen Prospect #2 from her, like, the night before. 

I fled outside. George Roth was out there, talking to people. He had an opaque white paper bag, the size of a lunch bag, in his hands. Rather desperately, I said, jokingly, "What've got in that ba-a-a-ag? TOOTSIE POPS?" 

George looked at me with a pleased expression. He reached into the bag and withdrew...a Tootsie Pop. He unwrapped it deliberately, showed it to me pointedly, put it in his mouth, nodded, and walked slowly away. 

A Bad Interview

Years ago, I said jokingly to my boyfriend, "I'm going to get a job, working in a Victorian on the corner of 25th and K." Like an HOUR later, I got a call from my recruiter to interview for a job at...25th and K.
When I went in, I was convinced it was fate and that I would get the job. The receptionist said, "So...you're here for the job?" and I nodded. She gave me MEANINGFUL EYES OF DEATH and an almost imperceptible shake of the head. There was no way to misinterpret it.
I stared at her, but I had no chance to ask her what she meant, as a man came out immediately from his office and called me in. He started describing the job, but I was busy trying to figure out WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT OUT THERE when, possibly sensing my inattention, he stopped suddenly and said, "What do you think?" I rallied. I said, gamely, "Well, that sounds very similar to my last job. There, I was responsible for..." and I started rattling off my own list of job duties, reeling inside, because I was quickly concluding that he was a dick.
I let my eyes drift over to the fireplace. As I continued to speak, the words he had been saying began to sink in, and I realized that nothing I was currently saying had any connection to the things he had said. I doubled my efforts, trying to find a way to give some relevance to what I was saying, to connect the skills I had just listed to the requirements he had rattled off, but I couldn't bring it around. I couldn't overcome the centrifugal force; I had been thrown too far afield to make my way back. Eventually, I just......stopped talking. In the middle of a sentence. Something like "I was responsible for curating articles on..." And then just...nothing.
I looked up from the fireplace and sighed, and we both said, "Well!" and we both pushed back from the desk and stood up at the same time. It was AWESOME. On my way out, I gave the receptionist my NO FUCKING WAY face with a heaping helping of "Phew!" She beamed. A couple days later, I interviewed for and got a fantastic job, working for a woman-owned ad agency. It was great. It was kitty-corner, on the corner of 25th and K.
THIS IS ALL TRUE.

Talking to mom

My mom died December 7, 2015. I haven't written about losing her yet, and I won't be able to do it today.

Mom, I love you, and I miss you so much.

Ronnie and Oregon 

August 28-31, 2015

Friday

Ronnie, Kordt's brother and my dear friend, was sick up in Medford, so Kordt and I jumped into the car with Lottie and Paul and headed north. It's a measure of how concerned we were that we were able to pack and pull things together so quickly; we were on the road less than an hour after I got home.

Just as a reminder, Kordt is my lifelong friend; my husband, Scott, stayed home to tend to the pets and get his fantasy football picks. If this sound snarky, let me assure you, it is not - it's just a better situation all around if Kordt and I can do things in our haphazard Darcy/Kordt way, especially when under stress, rather than trying to fit into the Scott way. So, anyway, off we went.

As we drove, we assured ourselves that we didn't have all the information, yet. The little we had heard had been filtered through Susan (Ronnie's ex, and the mother of his grown child) and distilled down into tense phone messages or texts. Susan has been known to be on the dramatic side; perhaps,we said, this depiction of Ronnie as gravely ill was just "a case of the Susies."

We passed the airport, and looked over to see a stretch of grasses that were soft and green - inexplicably so, in this third year of harsh drought, with its ubiquitous sepia tones of the dead, brown lawns. We marveled at the lush green meadow.

My ten-year-old son Paul said, matter-of-factly,"I want to frolic in that."

We laughed and he continued, "I could totally frolic in that shit. I want to run through that with flowers in my hands."

We forged on toward Oregon, tired, concerned, but laughing...

Saturday

We got to Medford in the middle of the night, made our way into one of the nicer hospitals I've been in, and found ICU. Susan came out, exhaustion and dread blunting her normal effusive manner. We left the kids with her and went in to see Ronnie. He was out, on Fentonyl, and he looked bad, but we expected him to look bad. They were checking him for pneumonia, of course - he smoked forever, having been handed a cigarette by Uncle Bob when he was 7 years old.

We went back to Susan's farmhouse, slept, ate, made more attempts to visit Ronnie, but whenever he was brought up out of the Fentonyl haze, his heartbeat went crazy - he was experiencing anxiety, they said. They were waiting on blood gasses and tests, but he seemed to be responding to the antibiotics. I know this road, I thought. If he can just get a leg up on that pneumonia, things will be a lot easier.

Sunday

Kordt and I took the twins and Susan's son Ian to Fun Center. It should be named something else, maybe Loud Center or Ripoff Center or Oh Dear God, I Just Gave You Tokens Center. The kids had fun, though. We were stumbling through Sunday; we were going to have to leave soon, and we still hadn't been able to make sure Ronnie was okay.

Then Susan left a message at about 2:00, just as we were thinking of checking in one last time and hitting the road for Sacramento. Come to the hospital now, she said. Ronnie's dying.

Ronnie didn't have pneumonia. His COPD was just to the point where there was no function left in his lungs. They put him on care measures and he just...started slowing down.

We were finally able to talk to him. I told him Bevvy, my mom, wanted to bring him Whitman chocolates, just as he had done for her when she had pneumonia. When Ronnie heard Bevvy's name, he figured out I was there, fought his way up to look over at me, and he said, "DOR-rie!" He had a nickname for everyone. When he heard Kordt's voice, he stirred and said, "Carlyle! When did you get here?" We told him he had given us a scare. We told him we were going to bring him back to his farm soon.

Ronnie and Susan have been broken up forever. It didn’t matter. Whatever side she sat on, he slowly edged his way that way, like the tide following the moon, until he could breathe her breath. She held him as his respirations slowed and her voice, as she told stories of their good days, held the tone of a lullaby.

His daughter Mira was heartbroken and strong, surprisingly calm, but deeply sad. She had forged the bond with her father after he had let her down, repeatedly, with his drug use and irresponsibility. She had urged her mom to bring him to Oregon years ago and had begun doing the work with him that led to their renewed relationship. She was supported by her friends, young people who blundered in and tried to do all the right things, so painfully inexperienced in the world of dying, so awkward and well-meaning. Ron, if he could have stirred himself, would have been pleased by how well they cared for his daughter, and he would have been touched by their sadness.

His breathing slowed, but he hung on hours longer than I would have expected, from my experience of watching people die. Finally, Kordt and I looked at each other.

“Ronnie. We’re leaving,” Kordt said. “We’ll see you at the farm tomorrow. See you there.” We left the room.

Monday, just after midnight

Later, Susan, who couldn’t bring herself to leave the room, who couldn’t take her eyes off Ronnie, finally said, “Ronnie, I’m getting some sleep,” and she set her head on his chest. He stopped breathing.

And ever after

Ronnie didn't get the support he needed or the breaks he deserved. His stupid uncle gave him cigarettes and then booze at a young age. His father and his mother, wrapped up with their own turmoil, somehow didn’t see or didn’t know what to do. Kordt, now one of the kindest people I know, bullied his younger brother, and nobody stopped him, nobody protected Ronnie. They didn’t teach him enough about being something besides a kid, a kid who used substances – alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs.

But Ronnie knew how to grow and build things. He knew how to make things better for people. He worked hard and kept going, even as his body suffered, from untreated hernias, or a hurt back, or arthritis. He made people laugh, he forged friendships, with Darrell and the Ball Droppers and the Markowskis and Max Fitzpatrick and Bradley, with Todd and Maggie, Sabine and Charles. He fell in love, with Susan, and later with Daisy, and he became a father whose little girl worshiped him. He pleased all the people for whom he worked, Candace and Sister Libby and Mrs. Hazen and Mrs. Hebert. He delighted my mother; she loved him so.

When we lose someone important, there are always things we regret. There are so many, many things I wish I had done for Ronnie. But even as that thought crosses my mind, there is a part of me that rebels. After the death of his father, Ronnie packed up his belongings, including Pickles, his chicken, and Wendell the turtle, and he moved up to the farm to live the last few years of his life. He was where he wanted to be. He was living the life he wanted to live. He had his beautiful daughter and grand-daughter, and the love of his life, Susan, who had changed into a friend, but who knew the full content of his heart.

When my own father had cancer, he said to me that it sucked to be dying at 59 years old – better to be 79 or 89, he said – but he told me that he had had something few people ever had. He had married the love of his life - and many people, he said, go their whole lives without ever experiencing the joy that he had experienced, as a husband and as a father to my siblings and me.

In that vein, I say, yeah, it sucks that Ronnie died so young, at 53. And it sucks that his life could have been extended if someone, anyone, could have been able to influence him make better choices along the way. But I also know that he experienced true love, and the joy of bringing a beautiful girl into the world, and the fulfillment of being a mentor for Susan’s son Ian and Daisy’s son Christian, and the deep satisfaction of seeing the happiness continue down through the years in ethereal presence of the lovely Alice, his granddaughter.

And all of that, while tending his animals, and growing his pot and picking tomatoes and huge zucchini squashes. The sun has set on Ronnie’s farm in this dimension, but in another place, a golden light bathes the vegetables and the waving grasses, a sweet breeze stirs the leaves against a blue sky and Ronnie is breathing it all in. And he is free.

Riders

Sometimes I invite dead loved ones to ride along with me as I drive somewhere alone.

"Hey, Daddy," I'll say out loud and he's there with me. "Folsom," I'll say to him, "It's built up. I'm not going by the lake, but it's really low from the drought."

I tell him how mom is doing, and my brother and sister. I tell him about my wonderful kids and my husband, and my friends. I tell him the Giants won another World Series. I work my way into telling him how much I miss him, and how much I love him. I bring up stories of times we all had as a family and tell him how important that was to me, and that I know how hard he worked, and I know he was shy and that he always tried so hard.

When my dad was dying, he and mom talked about their first kiss, and, although he was almost too weak to talk, he said to her, "We'll go on kissing in the shade..." I tell him that mom is fine, everyone loves her and we all move around her like she's at the center of our universe, a beautiful silvery moon instead of a garish sun. I tell him how scared I am of losing her, so scared I think I sometimes distance myself from her even now, even while she's still here to laugh with and hug.

When I finish talking, I tell my dad that any time he wants to come back and look at the world, or find out about the family, he can come ride with me. I always let him know that if this is disruptive to him, that he doesn't have to come. But he can come when he wants to and I'll invite him when I think of it. 

And I don't believe any of it. Not even for a second. Unless maybe it's true. 

The Costco Fambly

My people are big on Costco. We all have cards. If you don't have one, I should tell you that as part of the membership process, they take your picture and insert a small, crappy, black-and-white version of your face on the back side of the card so they can verify that you are the one with the membership.

We'd hate for people to be sneaking in and buying 7-pound cans of nacho cheese sauce without paying their fair share.

Plus, there are all the free samples to consider. Without a system in place, the stations could get overrun by outside people seeking tidbits and morsels. And then there might not be meatballs right when I expect there to be meatballs.

So, they put your picture on your Costco card. A crappy one. 

I tend to lose cards, so I'll start this next section out by saying "A couple cards ago..." A couple cards ago, something happened to my picture, so it pixilated or something across my teeth, (or perhaps I should say, "teef") making it look like there were just big spaces there. Of course, I found this highly fabulous. I bragged about this fact and shared it with my family (or perhaps I should say, "kin") and they responded by producing equally impressive pictures.

I wouldn't be the person you know me to be if I didn't take this chance to share those photos. Some people have a sense of history even while it is being made, and fortunately one of those people is my brother Andy. He demonstrated his sensitivity to the importance of this event by compiling this commemorative montage. Please enjoy.

You have to work pretty hard to get a picture this bad of my mom, Bev. Most of the time she's quite cheerful and sunny; she has sparkly eyes. Here, she says she looks like Ma Barker. "You killed mah son." 

Andy said that, as bad as his is, he looks like a freaking Kennedy compared to mom and me. He's right.