A Clean, Well-lighted Place

Day Two started before dawn- the darkness lingers this far west in the Eastern Time Zone- and the bright lights from the new fixtures in the kitchen illuminated the pad of paper with The List on it. I worked through it as National Public Radio from Central Michigan University burbled in the background on the radio.

The reconstruction made the kitchen a clean, well-lighted place to hang out. I don’t use much of the rest of the house, where the darkness gathers and I can’t figure out which lamp is connected to what switch.

“Get wine for Thanksgiving dinner.” Those were the words after one of the boxes, and an easy one, I hoped. That will be our little contribution to the feast at Torch Lake. That was another little tick-mark on the action list, right near the top. The first official act was to attend the initial evaluation for Raven at Bay Bluffs.

I don’t know what I expected, and really only thought about it as I turned off US-31 and headed north toward Harbor Springs. Would they recommend the locked ward? Was he OK? He hadn’t seen anyone since I set up his room with the rocking chair, personal television and some mementoes from his office. When I got there, I saw that someone had posted a hand-drawn cartoon of a soldier on his bulletin board, and a ball cap with the Bay Bluffs logo and the words “Proud to be a Veteran” across the bill on the beside table.

I went on down the corridor to the television lounge and snack area where Raven spends most of his time now.

I arrived early enough to spend some time with him before the consult. He was in the recliner chair, fully extended, in the dimness of the lounge. The recliner is turf he has seized as his own. He was out cold. He roused a couple times and recognized me, vaguely, seeming to be in some mild discomfort.

The staff- a slight man in scrubs named Erin and a perky young woman named Andy- informed me that Raven had been bubble bathed that morning and up for breakfast, and that much stimulation might have been what had him both agitated and fatigued.

I hoped, in passing, that he had no been bathed because I was scheduled to be there- one of several mental notes I was making. In one of the moments between nodding, I told him I had a Big Meeting and that I loved him and was directed to the conference room near the glass doors to the outside with the cypher lock on the inside.

Lined up across from me in a row were the Wing Heard Nurse, social worker, activities director and a senior facilities RN. It looked a great deal like a parole board, and I was grateful that I was not the subject of it.

Note to self: avoid this if at all possible. Then the panel gave me an assessment of how The Boy is doing.

The verdict was that “he is settling in nicely” and “there are no major issues with him.”

He also has lost weight, measured on a weekly basis, and if he stabilizes that will transition to monthly monitoring. He was frail, from what I could see.

I asked the Social Worker about Medicaid, since this could come to that before long, and she said they were prohibited from describing the benefits or how to get them. Curious, that a professional in the matter of utilizing public assistance should be prohibited from talking about it. I gathered it is considered a sort of conflict of interest to have them show you the ropes on how to collect benefits and then spend them for you.

There is a Social Services office in town that deals in Medicaid issues, and I imagine I will have to take a number and figure it out, this trip or next.

Second note: “Figure out Medicaid.”

Raven’s physical condition is fairly good, all things considered. He is on a ward with two-bedroom units and motors around with the caregivers when he is not in the recliner. His room was been switched to accommodate a couple- note to self: when will Big Mama need this level of care? But they put everything up nicely, the photos from his office and the Navy Wings and he has the television from the master bedroom at the house.

I sat with him for an hour after the conference, reading mail on my iPad and interacting with him when he roused. He became desirous- no, insistent on the idea that “People’s Court” was not something he wanted to watch, and I got him the Turner Classic Movie where Gary Cooper was strutting his stuff on the Back Lot at Warner Brothers. Raven seemed to relax and went back to sleep.

I realized that quality time with him was going to be a challenge, and glanced at my watch. I saw I had time to get back to Potemkin Village in time for lunch. I walked back to the front door, entered the code and the exited the building to head back around the Bay to the Village. When I got off the elevator on the third floor I stopped at the well-lit beauty parlor to see if Sherri could fit me I for a haircut this week.

“It is going to be tough,” she said. “There is No Thursday, and I have to fit all of the regulars into today and Friday.” She looked over my shoulder said: “There goes your Mom.”

Sure enough, Big Mama had a decorative cloth bag with a bottle of wine in it. I intercepted her and asked if she was headed for Thanksgiving.

“Isn’t it today?”

“No, Mom. It is Thursday. You just came unstuck in time.” She was a little sheepish.

“I can’t tell any more.”

“I know, but it is OK. Doesn’t really matter.” We got her briefly anchored in this time, put the wine back in the apartment and went down to a nice lunch.

She has not been out of the Village in a while, and I asked if she wanted to go to the bookstore and pick out a large-print novel. She allowed as how she did, and I watched her enjoy a pleasant lunch (the egg salad sandwich a hit.) We went Up Town the back way to avoid the hospital complex on the bluff (her house is in back, and who needs the question, you know?) and found a place to park uptown across from Horizon Books.

I dropped some coins in the meter- did you know you get a whole half-hour for a quarter here? And Big Mama was actively engaged as we walked across the street and into the bright bookstore. I directed her to the racks of large-print potboilers, but she settled on an Ernie Hemingway reprint and a large format volume containing and appreciation of the career of movie and TV actor James Garner, one of whose movies Mom had watched last night.

I looked at the Hemingway title she selected: “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place.” The synopsis on the back staid it was about “the pain of old age suffered by a man seated in a cafe late one night.” Apparently, Ernie used light as a motif to demonstrate the contrast between the old man and the young people around him.

The deafness of age- or cognition, as I understand it- is used as the symbol of his alienation from society, along with the artificial light of the café and the profound nature of the darkness outside. I flipped through the back of the book. I saw that Ernie was describing the desperate emptiness of a life near finished without the fruit of its labor, and an old man’s restless mind that cannot find peace.
“Why did you pick this one, Mom?” I asked.
“What?
“Never mind, Mom. Looks like a great book.”

We walked around the corner to see if there was anything in the Momentum discount clothing store to buy, and there wasn’t.

Here is where it got scary. She could not make it back to the corner, and seemed short of breath and wobbly on her feet. We had to go into the Chase Bank lobby for a while and sit down let her catch her breath. She is not much on endurance and this could be a factor of the congestive heart event she had two years ago.

The staff was very helpful and asked if we needed assistance.

“Not right now,” I said. “But we are depositors.”

It is a cautionary tale for future big expeditions- like the one for Thanksgiving. If we keep the walking to a minimum, perhaps it will be all right.

Along that line, I asked her if she wanted to do any shopping for Christmas and she asked me about a budget. I told her it was a couple hundred dollars, since we have to watch every penny these days. She was receptive to that, for as long as we were talking about it, anyway. It won’t matter tomorrow, I thought, and we will start everything over again.

I told her I had a couple meetings in town and buzzed back to the house to take conference call and answer office e-mail. Then a call to badger the Purple Heart people about having the 1959 Rambler hauled away. They were very helpful, and hooked me up with a local towing service that will take the 1959 sedan away on a flatbed trailer at 0900 sharp the next morning.

I smiled. Something accomplished. I was able to check that box off, with the exception of the fact that I need to find the keys to the ignition, sign over the title and move the boxes off the hood and trunk. I started another list, and put it on the island in the kitchen, and drove back over to the Village for dinner.

I walked into the unit after knocking to announce my presence, and Big Mama looked over from a film starring Broderick Crawford in what looked like the pilot for his television show “Highway Patrol.”

I got her a glass of wine and cut it with Perrier and ice and made cheese and crackers. On-screen, Broderick was tough and efficient and no-nonsense. It was black and white, and the contrast in the cinematography emphasized the noir aspect of the film.

The Highway Patrol busted the perp at the bottom of the letter “W” in the Hollywood sign that looms over sundrenched brightness of Tinsel Town.

I envied Mr. Crawford. That guy could really take care of business.

Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com