Harold’s Room
Chapter fourteen
Stayed up too late last night watching a show about director George Romero’s series of films about various Pittsburgh Steelers players from the Steel Curtain days. Yes, THAT George Romero: The Night Of The Living Dead. He and the Steelers go way back. FYI: Franco still won’t say whether or not he caught “The Immaculate Reception.” He just grins. I like it. I need a few more mysteries in my life. I highly recommend that program.
Because of the referenced late night video fascination I had to take a nap this morning after Lisa left, so I have been playing catch up since then trying to get some things done in case Clark wants to take the boats out. Our days are numbered. Harold didn’t want to stay in his bath earlier. Not like the other day when he took one of his nice, leisurely hour-and-a-quarter or so kick backs. He wanted out after a most disappointing poop, so I obliged him and he’s sitting in his courtyard. I just hung up some laundry that I left lying on a living room chair yesterday, and then came out to sit with him for a minute. He looks a little depressed. Now that I’m seeing things from his perspective I understand. The leaves started to fall a few weeks ago, though they have not changed color yet, and there are certainly a lot falling today. Watching them fall depresses me, too. This is 2016, not 1816, and I will not be paddling my canoe across the big lake dodging the ice chunks to get to the trading post. The canoes will be hanging from their pulleys, Harold will be getting sleepy, the days getting shorter, and Terry more and more depressed.
At some point in the near future Lisa will be getting a new right hip. We found out she is running on sheer courage. She made it through The Race For The Cure and her last fishing trip with bone on bone in that joint. The x-ray showed no cartilage left. Harold’s Darling Mommy will not be going on the last few paddles we can squeak in this year after finding out how much she enjoys gliding across a mirror slick surface, or cutting through the wind ripples and boat wakes. Next year, however, once all of the muscles and ligaments have healed, she should be good to go. Unfortunately her doctor also advises the x-rays and range of motion indicate the left one will be following shortly, and she will have to go through the whole process again in maybe one to two years, possibly sooner. It all depends on how much pain she can withstand and still continue to function. Harold worries about her when she breaks out in a cold sweat and has to come out to his room to take a break. On several recent occasions he has walked over and stood in front of her with his head cocked at an inquisitive angle, and then has gone over and sat by her feet. Once he even walked across her bare tootsies, and she did not kick him across the room, which surprised me greatly. She does not like to have her feet touched, and if I or anyone else had touched them with our nasty little hands she would have kicked us in the face, but not her “Little Punky,” as she has taken to calling him recently. Harold is allowed. The little fart has never walked across mine, bare or otherwise. Eye-ball and sniff them in boots, sandals, moccasins and bare, yes. Walk across them? No freaking way. I told you he has a thing about Mommy’s feet.
Harold and I are watching the leaves fall and moping again. I just got done pulling the hummingbird feeders, cleaning and storing them. Last Friday there were aerial dogfights all over the place; out front, between the houses and out back, just like there have been for weeks. We have not seen one hummingbird since. The feeders were so low Friday I thought I would surely have to fill them one more time Saturday. It is Thursday and the levels are exactly where they were last Friday evening, so I discussed it with Harold, and though it further saddens us, down they came. I emptied, cleaned and refilled one of the two-cake vertical suet feeders and moved it to the hanger under the eave where the hot air balloon hummingbird feeder hangs in the summer, as I always do. It looks nice, all clean and filled with pure, white, beef suet, no fillers. Did I mention starlings do not care for pure suet with no seeds, berries or nuts in it? They want the fillers. The pure suet eaters will tune in to the move in a day or two, and we’ll have woodpeckers and nuthatches and such at the window. We love it when Jack and Jill the pileated woodpeckers come to the corner feeder. They are truly impressive birds, and when they are that close, even more so. If I am repeating myself again I am sorry. I am getting older by the day, more forgetful, and too, thinking about Jack and Jill at the window helps kill the pain (somewhat) of the hummingbirds leaving, and the leaves falling, and Harold getting sleepy, and Lisa not being able to canoe, or walk without pain, and… You get the idea.
Harold is feeling a little better now. After his bath today I put on his Halloween cape. I was playing Lisa and Terry’s Wedding Disc when he got back to his room. When Don Henley started singing Everything Is Different Now he walked over by his crocheted “Harold” to the little black box and stood there with his head up and his chin nearly touching it, then started turning his head slowly back and forth as he listened. When the song ended he looked back at me over his left shoulder, looked back at the box, then back at me again and just stood there staring at me. I asked if he wanted me to play it again, and he turned back to the box, so I started the song over. Same reaction, head up, chin to the box, slowly angling his head left and right. The song ended, and he looked at me again, so I started it over. He listened to it five times before he finally moved away from the box and we let the next song play. I think we know Harold’s favorite song now. He has never done that before, ever. When the wedding disc is over we’ll start playing our Halloween playlists now that he is dressed the part. He always enjoys those. We’ll play them most of the time now since Halloween is only five days away.
Time has passed again. Halloween has come and gone. No trick-or-treaters in the retirement village again this year. Go figure. A community full of old folks and grandparents who remember quite fondly the Halloweens of yore and the freedom we had, all of us with candy bowls at the ready, and about as safe an area as you could find, but no one comes. I have been begging Lisa to take the unclaimed candy to work and put it in the jar she keeps on her desk for “visitors” to her office. Especially the little boxes of Milk Duds. I have been trying very hard to stay away from those. I get addicted to them very quickly, so they have been spared. The Three Musketeers and York Peppermint Patties have not been so fortunate and have been disappearing at a steady pace. Harold does not care for sweets, so I can’t blame him, and in fact his food intake has declined markedly, and he is spending more and more time watching the leaves fall and snoozing. I got out The Fortress of Solitude and the paper shredder yesterday, retired the hut to my closet and prepped the fortress. When I brought Harold back out after his bath he surprised me. I expected him to go straight to his enclave to see what kind of mischief I had been up to while he bathed, but I happened to be listening to Crosby, Stills and Nash doing Southern Cross at the time, and he had to stop to listen to that, and make me play it over again from the beginning. Once he was satisfied he of course had to proceed to his courtyard to critique the redecorating job and make sure his accessories (turtles, rocks, coral chunks, food bowl and hot tub etc) were all still there and properly situated. Then he eyed the fortress a while, turned his back on it, slid up to Dunbar’s belly, tucked in and spent the night there.
This morning he stared at Lisa’s chair for three hours after she left for work, wondering where she was, I am sure, since she took Saturday as a personal day and was with him frequently off and on for three days in a row. That is highly unusual and he is having a bit of trouble adjusting to her absence again. After giving up on her expected return he reviewed the winter redecorating placements again for a while, seems to be okay with everything so far, and is currently lying on his belly with his head stuck inside the fortress doorway leisurely inspecting his dampened shredded newspaper bedding. He has made no attempt to enter yet. He’s just looking. And you know how patient he can be when he’s just looking. We both know what’s coming. Last week we saw one turtle. Three weeks ago there were four of them out there at once. It’s time for everyone to find a suitable place to dig in for a nice, long winter’s nap. Harold’s choices are limited, so he can inspect his one option all he wants. This is it, buddy, and we’ve played this game before. We both know that sooner or later you’re going to crawl in there and snuggle into that nice, damp mattress. Until then, it’s going to be a bath every day to keep you hydrated since the heat has been running off and on for several weeks now, and hiding in the corner or behind the coconut is not going to save you. I’ll get on my hands and knees and move whatever I have to in order to get to you. I doubt seriously you intend to retire to the fortress today, so there IS a bath in your immediate future, no buts about it. And don’t give me that “over the shoulder stank eye” business. It will do you no good and will only solidify my resolve.
True to my word, when His Majesty turned away from the fortress he was promptly snatched up. Well, truthfully, I let him peruse his winterized domain one more time, and when he appeared satisfied he was then not quite so promptly snatched up, and escorted (carried) to the bath. He has been either totally submerged soaking, or languishing with his head thrown back and his legs stretched at various angles to take full advantage of the warm luxuriance of his tub time. Did I mention it’s Election Day? He’s probably the only intelligent being I know who is so relaxed today.
His Majesty has departed his bath and is debating whether he should remain ensconced by his stereo listening to Jimi Hendrix play an instrumental version of Sunshine Of Your Love, or retreat to his enclave. Looks like the enclave wins out, but no, he has stopped and is splitting the distance, listening from his window while he peers out into the dusk. But wait! He has come charging out from under the right hand hickory chair to stand in the middle of the room and stare at me, and now he has moved to less than a foot from Lisa’s chair looking for her. Now he’s looking back at me. Now her chair. Now me. “I’m sorry buddy. She’s not here, and we have the much belated “girls’ birthday party” at The Kennel Club this evening (which was originally scheduled for September), so I’m afraid you’re not going to see mommy tonight.” Harold retreats to his courtyard and starts peering into The Fortress of Solitude again. Ten or fifteen minutes is all he gives it this go ’round. It is not time. Back to the window he goes in his herky-jerky march to Peter Gabriel’s Don’t Give Up, which pretty much says it all. And now I must make myself presentable for the girls’ party, or as presentable as I care to be. I must maintain my image, so it will be my carpenter’s jeans, my short-sleeved blue denim work shirt, my blue suspenders, my pretty brown Dockers oxfords, my dark brown corduroy sports jacket Lisa bought for me, and my dark brown Indiana Jones wide brimmed fedora. No, it is not a cowboy hat, people. It is a wide brimmed fedora. I have a Stetson, and THAT is a cowboy hat. My grandfather, Raymond Renner Bates, wore a standard brim fedora without fail any time he left the house, usually a gray one, but I prefer the wide brimmed brown. Every time I place that or my FDR off-white cotton twill hat on my head, I think of him, and consequently of propriety, which he exemplified, and which is sorely lacking in the world today. I hope the conversation at dinner this evening with his daughter (my mother), her husband, my sisters, my brother-in-law, my wife and myself does not lack propriety. I’m sure it will be fine because we love one another, but I hate Election Day, and it would have been my last choice as a night for a care-free celebration of life, but then again, maybe it is exactly what is called for. I’ll get back in touch tomorrow.
It’s tomorrow. We came home last night after a very pleasant evening with the family. Lisa retired to her den to watch some shows she had recorded. I checked on Harold, who was sleeping under the cat planter and nowhere near The Fortress of Solitude, still disdaining that option for now. Then I checked on our diner patrons who were having quite a party of their own since we had some four cheese rigatoni and two small containers of basil pesto sauce in the fridge which had expired, and which I had prepared earlier for their dining pleasure. I believe they were pleased. They appeared to be. I then retired to my couch and left the TV off since I had absolutely no desire to prolong what I had a feeling could be an all out onslaught by the American people on all I hold in my heart to be that which makes us human. I decided rather to lie on my back with my hands over my heart with my talismans, or armor as I prefer to call them, clutched through my shirt (I don’t display them) in my meditative position (I can’t do Full Lotus or stand on my head anymore so I now prefer to lie like a corpse in a casket), and I floated into meditation for an hour or so, considering our future, or lack there-of, and then away to dreamland. Around two-thirty I woke up, took a quick potty break and joined Lisa in the bedroom. This morning when the alarm went off I hit the potty again, went out and got the paper which had a huge headline, “Down to the wire!”, and came in to sit with Harold and sip my coffee, and then went online. My worst fears of the previous evening were realized, and that is all I care to say about the outcome of the election, other than that like the political analysts, I was stunned. Lisa joined us, was likewise dumbfounded, and we made our plans to take Harold into the bedroom with us, snuggle together and reaffirm how much we all love each other when we find out the missiles are coming in. I understand three more states voted to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. I suggest the rest of us do the same. We are all going to want to get really, really stoned when we find out about the inbound missiles, that is if our government thinks we need to know about them of course, and now I am done with that train of thought.
And it’s a brand new day. Have to go get my blood sucked for my quarterly lipid test today, and on the way back pick up a hundred and sixty pounds of black oil sunflower seeds for our dear friends outside. Counting those, and the forty-eight pounds of shelled raw peanuts and twenty pounds of dog biscuits I picked up last week, we’re looking at around a hundred and thirty dollars to keep the children happy for about one month. Plus of course they’ll get whatever might be in the fridge that has expired or is cooked, but a week old. No way will Lisa eat it if it has been in the fridge a week, and last week’s bread goes too. Moldy bread has almost the same effect on her as do snakes. “Don’t show me! I don’t want to see it! Untouchable! Untouchable!” Since our household consists of Lisa, myself and Harold, who eats virtually nothing out of the fridge other than an occasional bit of tomato or some other variety of fruit, the children outside make out like the masked bandits they are, however in this instance they do not have to steal it, it is freely offered, so they are not bandits after all, but instead are honored and welcome guests. We don’t clog the garbage disposal, the trash can doesn’t smell like something died in it, and our guests are most appreciative and usually polite, though there are occasional disagreements over who should get how much of what. Win-win situation for all of us. I see Eddie Munster has come early this evening. That’s a good thing. He’ll get some of the best stuff and not be stuck with the raccoons’ leavings.
I let my writing slip for a couple of days again while I was bringing all of the outside plants in, pruned and leached them, and rearranged Harold’s room again for the winter. It got down into the high thirties this weekend, and if it gets down a few degrees lower I will have nothing but composting materials in those pots. Quite a few of them are cacti that Lisa I have raised from wee nubs to substantial and quite painful examples of their kind. I had a three foot tall prickly pear with lobes bigger than my hand and inch-and-a-half long yellow spines fall off of a plant shelf and impale me in my bare back once upon a time. Fran had to peel it off of me, so I know a little bit about how painful cacti can be beyond just having a finger or two pricked while handling them. The six individual pots are lined up along the floor level north facing windows, and the large concrete planter with four cacti and some succulents sits next to the fake ficus tree by the interior door. Harold of course had to approve everything, but the only change from last year is the fact the six cacti on the floor were then in two long planters they were outgrowing. He actually likes these individual pots better because he can peek between them and see out. We’re both very sad today, though. Leon Russell has passed. If you don’t know Leon, you should, and you have likely heard him whether you knew it or not. Leon goes way, way back. He was a session musician, a keyboard player, though possibly I should say pianist since I personally never saw or heard him play anything else, but that’s just me. You heard him with Frank Sinatra, The Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, Gary Lewis and the Playboys etc etc etc if you go way back like me. He was a musicians’ musician, songwriter, producer, the hottest act in rock in the mid-seventies, and made several country albums as “Hank Wilson.” Elton John and Joe Cocker owe a lot to Leon. Leon asked Elton to open for him on one of his tours, and Elton said he was greatly influenced by Leon’s playing styles and could not begin to thank him enough for all Leon had done for him. They made an album together in 2010, The Union, that was nominated for a Grammy. I recommend it highly. Leon organized Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour, which really set Joe’s career in motion. He was the stage manager, played, sang, wrote Delta Lady, and Bonnie Bramlett and he wrote several of the other songs on the album that resulted from the tour and sped promptly up the charts. I could go on for quite a while about who he worked with and what he did, but it would be a whole lot better if you just took a listen and look him up yourself. You might love him, or you might hate him, but you have to respect him. Leon Russell was the real deal. He had talent, style and class, and other musicians loved him, as did we. Get my drift Kanye?
Thanksgiving is sneaking up on us quickly. The leaves, instead of just falling, are turning as the nights get colder. In our gully most are yellow tones, a few large oaks with reddish umber coloring, a few purples. Harold is still up and still watching but is moving around less and less, sometimes hardly at all from the time he gets out of the bath one day and finds his resting spot until I pluck him from it for his bath the next day. The same worms have been in his bowl for three days now, so I have to rotate them back to the farm and replace them with fresh ones. I doubt he’ll eat hardly any at all. He hasn’t eaten any of his bread nor anything else for several weeks, just a worm or two now and then if he sees one wiggle as he walks by and gets the urge, but as I said, he’s not doing much walking other than from the door to his chosen spot of the day. Sometimes it’s by the coconut next to the window, sometimes behind the bamboo pot or under the cat in the potted jungle, and sometimes next to the warm transformers and “his” stereo.
Thanksgiving has passed and the mystery is over. Harold has been trying to stick it out. Thanksgiving morning I stuck him in the tub. He stayed for maybe ninety minutes or so, and when he got back to his room he checked everything out as usual, just a quick walk around, and then he went straight to The Fortress Of Solitude and crawled halfway in. That’s where he sat for the rest of the day. Lisa and I sort of watched football and sort of cooked and sort of talked. Mostly cooked and talked, though we did run a few plays back to see what all the cheering or booing was about. While the games were of interest given the resurgence of the traditional Thanksgiving teams, it was the new kid on the block, Thursday Night Football, that mattered to us. The Steelers were playing! AJ was coming to join us for dinner. Ham, not turkey. Retired guys don’t get turkeys, and since Lisa eats so much poultry it is never her first choice for holidays. We all agreed ham would do the trick for us. And it is SO much easier to cut up than a blasted turkey, especially if it’s a boneless ham. BIG smiley-face here if this were a text message. Our old friend Joe Brown was joining us for the Steelers game and to nibble on leftovers. And Harold remained half in The Fortress of Solitude, head up and alert throughout the afternoon, but he advised us that he was not sure he would make it for the Steelers game. Night game kick-offs are around two hours past his bedtime, so no cape today, especially since he was halfway in the fortress. At half-time Joe and I went out in Harold’s room to smoke some fine Stokeby pipe tobacco, and I knelt to check on him. Drama Queen that he is, he had decided to enter The Fortress of Solitude for the first time this year at the fall of darkness on Thanksgiving evening. There he was tucked snugly into his damp shredded paper mattress. Not even the Steelers can mess with Mother Nature. She had told him he had made it to Thanksgiving as he wished, and it was time for his nap.