The phone hasn’t rung yet, but it will. I hope it does. I want to tell them about Shoeman this morning. They’ll listen, won’t say anything, and they’ll think I’m crazy. That’s okay. I’ll go on about nothing, bore them, and they’ll just think it was a moment. Tell me they’re on their way.
If that phone doesn’t ring, I’ll dial someone and remind them of what day it is. I just can’t think of who to call right now, but I will. Before the morning’s out, too. Shoeman and I were young once.
It hit me that year you know. Not all at once. No, it built from the first frozen day of January when I awoke to the New Year having fallen asleep well before midnight and did some mental math. That year I’d turn 65. The age of retirement, the age of Medicare, the new 50 or whatever AARP tries to say to make us forget the fact we’re already old.
I hadn’t forgotten, just didn’t think on it. I remember turning 50. 50 was a good one. I could joke that AARP had sent me an invitation to join and mentioned that to my friends for a good laugh. It was a good laugh, too, AARP doing some early recruiting. Then, the kids were still at home, the oldest not even through high school – hell, he wasn’t even driving yet. I got a call from dad that day, early, “Happy Birthday Old man!”
Old man from my old man.
We talked and then he got serious. “Boyo, it goes so quickly. I think about bringing you and Mom home from
the hospital – it feels like it was just last week. The older I get, the faster it goes. Enjoy every day. Happy Birthday.”
He died a few months later. In his bed. Had chest pains, took a nap and never woke
up. Way to go dad. Way to go.
I don’t believe in paranormal mumbo jumbo, but when the phone rang that
day I just knew it was about him dying.
Was it that long ago? Surely not. I still hear his voice. Really. Mom never re-recorded the answering machine and so I sometimes called just to hear him. Mom died a few years back. Sepsis. A week in the ICU, the paper work, DNR, morphine drips. Then drops. Then gushes. I don’t think I killed her. I don’t feel at all, like, guilty, but I was the one who pushed it. I kept on saying ‘give her more.’ They complied. No one said no. There she was, not herself. I could tell she wanted to move on. I could. She knew she was dying and, damn, as she lay in that state, in and out of it, I just wanted it to end. Would not pushing them have made a difference? Her last words that I could understand, fuzzy, slurred, were “who’s taking me home?” She squeezed my hand a bit. “I’ll take you,” I lied. Did I lie?
Was that the phone? Nope. It was one of those NPR stories, with the sound effects; phone ringing. Thought it was mine. I leave the radio on. Keeps me company. I like those Real American Life stories. Or is it a TED talk? I mix ‘em up.
You hear that? They’re talking about longevity. Listen. Ha, in 20 years they’ll be 10 people over 100 for every 10000 people. Do you believe that? Care of a grant from the John D. and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation. I wonder what they did to get all that money? PBS, they give it to PBS, too. All that artsy fartsy stuff. I like it. So did Emily, you know, before.
Why is that guy so excited about people living to 100? Listen to him – sounds a bit gay, doesn’t he? Young too. Most folks I know that old drool on themselves and can’t wipe their own butts. No thank you.
You ever hear that term? Companion dog? That’s just wrong. A dog’s got to move, go for walks. Companion dog to someone that age, why they’d climb the walls. The dog, I mean. That’s a joke.
Jim Russell’s dad died that year too. When I was 65 I mean. Made the New York Times with a picture. We were close Mr. Russell and I. I was 65 and still calling him Mr Russell after, jeez, knowing him for 47 years. It seemed right. Even when he was in his 90s he still called me son. Never got to the drooling stage thank god. My dad never called me son. He called me Boyo. He called all my friends Boyo, too. And strangers. Everyone.
Bezo died this year. Bezo wasn’t his real name. We met in 3rd grade. Went to Sunday school together. We were friends, not best friends, but friends as kids. He was the BMOC and I was jealous– good looking, smart, captain of this team or that, president of the class, went to Bowdoin. We spoke every few years, but if I saw him more than three times at reunions after high school I don’t remember. Then the word got around he was in the hospital and then that was it. He died May 23, a week after his birthday. I remember because it was exactly two weeks after mine. We used to go to each other’s birthday parties. Bowling, I remember. Bowling and pizza. Yes, and in the fall we’d go apple picking, get cider and donuts with girls before I think we knew we were interested in girls. Those are deep waters. And then he ups and dies on me.
I hope that phone rings soon. Maybe I’ll call Mitch. Mitch used to be a doctor. I guess he still is though he gave up his practice. Wait, he moved to Asheville a couple of years ago. Invited me down, but I haven’t made it yet.
Hardly the first of the lot, but when they go back to when you were seven and you remember those days, so clearly, it really strikes a chord. I remember Mrs. Faucett, our third grade teacher, bringing us these ceramic whistles from Mexico. Heather Walker broke hers and she started to cry and I gave her mine, a blue bull. How do I even remember that? What ever happened to Heather Walker?
Our lab died a few years back, 11 he was, and he was just the best, got us to go on long walks, always there greeting us no matter how lousy a day we’d had, and once his deep, and I mean, deep bark scared off someone trying to break into the house. I read somewhere that a dog helps stave off depression, keeps you happy, gets you out walking and is a great companion for retired people which is what I just became. Truth is and I’m not ashamed of it, I talked with our guy, all the time. I figure it was only a concern if he answered back.
After he went my wife and I went dog hunting. Not literally, of course, we went looking for a dog. Wasn’t even sure we wanted one. Emily insisted though. She knew.
While letting one pup lick crumbs that must have accumulated in my beard, I did more of that mental math. If this guy lived a normal lab’s life, say 15 years, I’d be about 85. 85. 50 might have been something to joke about, at 60 I had 65 on my mind as a benchmark. But 85. All that licking couldn’t get rid of that idea. If the next 10 yrs go as fast as the last, I was thinking, I don’t know, I’m halfway there.
We took the dog.
I wanted to name him Rover because I never heard of a dog named Rover, but the missus said RoeVee to piss off the right-to-lifers we might meet and we settled on Shoeman because the first time he pissed on a rug he had one of my good shoes in his mouth. Good shoes. Aldens. Genuine cordovans. They cost me $350 and I must have had them for 20 years. Resoled them twice. You know the type; I’d have shoe trees in and get them all polished at airports. I wore them my last day of work. Hell, I let him chew them up. He needed them more than me.
I had to put him down, Shoeman . He made it to 15 by god. Licked my face when I hugged him at the vet’s. We got closer I suppose after the Emily passed; let him on the couch in her very spot and what not which she would never do. But there was room and I liked his snoring. He was a man’s dog, big old thing, my wife would say, meant to be hunting birds but I was too old to carry a gun in the woods so we just walked and slowed down together.
Vet said he’d call when the ashes came in and bring them over himself. I’ll put them right here. I think he said he said today, and he’d call to make sure I was home. Now where would I go? Of course I’d be home.
There’s still that depression on the couch, you know. I don’t try to fix it. Fact is I pat it every now and again and talk to them. Yep, and I swear they talk back, this very morning too. And anyway, that phone’s going to ring soon. Calling for me, you know.