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| The color of Manhattan, KS, just before dawn when we arrive. |
June 2, 2014
Sam and Patsy
I’m still
driving when we get to Manhattan, where Roz puts away the map, returns to
earth, and directs me through the dark. Her parents’ house is like Tom’s in this
sense: I know where it is; I’ve been there a dozen times; I can never find it.
Whatever time it is, and however
quietly we slink in, Patsy wakes up; then, she has to get up to see we know
where we’re going and we have everything we need. It’s not Southern
hospitality, though Patsy grew up in New Orleans. (But then, New Orleans is not in the
South.) It’s Midwestern efficiency from all the years she and Sam, who was born
to it in Vermillion, South Dakota, have been living in the plains states. I like Patsy whatever you may (soon) think. And I like Sam, who can’t get up so quickly but yells out, “Glad you’re
here. Glad safe” from the bedroom.
Sam is
very much like Roz . . . or she is very much like him, a peacemaker above
almost all else, therefore willing to go to some lengths to please or appease. Some lengths but
not any length, "some" being clearly finite and "any" less so. And the older one
gets, Sam testifies, the closer is the end of one’s tether.
It’s an odd metaphor, for the older we
become the slower and weaker we are. We can’t dash to the end of our rope the
way we once could, yanking it, leaning and leaping until our front paws leave
the ground, barking and twisting at the same time. And the rope must age as
well — like our muscles, bones, brains, bowels — shrivel, harden, become more
brittle. Yet, we can no more break the rope, raveled as it’s become — we can no more
snap it than we could when we were young and strong but it was stronger — we can no
more break it than those years ago; but we can get to the end of it quicker, and the
end is more irritating when we get there. Now, it tugs at us and scrapes where the fur has worn away, leaving old, fragile skin; and we yawp and rasp like a toy with a bad cold.
Sam’s
stroke has left him with a limp in leg and voice. He can register his
complaint, bark it out; but he can no longer follow it up. His mind continues,
but his speech lags behind. He can speak, clearly, articulately; but he can no longer
argue.
Part of me wonders whether that
matters. Patsy has never been susceptible to reason in any case. Like Pascal’s
heart, she has her own reasons. But, if it doesn’t matter to her, it does to
him. He no longer has the satisfaction of advancing an argument — of framing it
in his mind, organizing it, and
laying it out. He can no longer quash the inevitable interjections with “I’m not done yet” or
“Hear me out.”(You may not listen, but ti
stille and pretend to. I am listening, and I will hear myself out from
start to finish. I’ll have that satisfaction
if no other.)
Now, he can only start whatever he was
going to say. He cannot continue through the interruption. The tether is not
only taut and the collar is not only rubbing his naked neck, the two together are
choking him. He can only retreat two squeaking steps and lie down.
And she can win the day and her way, crowing like a rooster, on
the same three harsh, shrill notes. The old dog and the rooster.
“It’s
not a pretty picture,” as people like to say — certainly unflattering and
probably not fair to Patsy, who ends up the "distaff rooster," loud and determined, Napoleonic however tall, even willowy, she
remains.
She is not at all like Roz; or Roz does not resemble her. And this is
physical as well as temperamental. Fair Patsy is, even at her age — and she was
thirty when Roz was born, a late, lone child — Patsy is still tall, straight, graceful, lissome.
Sam and Roz are short, dark and somehow simultaneously plump and wiry. Patsy looks like a
former model now a duchess. They look like mathematicians, who decided to leave
equations behind and open a pizza house, if only because only the law of truly large
numbers could account for that.
And as
much as I sympathize with Sam and love poor, peacemaking Roz, I don’t want to excoriate
Patsy. She is sweet and funny as hell. In addition, she and I are alike. At least: we both have opinions, largely
unfounded, about nearly everything, yet we can only keep one thing in mind at a
time. So we have to keep crowing on the same three notes until the thought in our
head at that moment is exhausted — and lies down itself like a poor old dog
come to the end of his rope; only then can another idea come in.
* * *
The Beecher Bible and
Rifle Church: Apologia pro torpedine sua. I
admit it: I’m no more Royko than Gabe Harvey. (See yesterday's post.) If Gabe lacked Royko's sense of humor, I don't have his demon.* This is a way of saying I’m reneging on my intention to write more about the
Bible and Rifle Church by referring you to more
knowledgeable sources. (See here and here. The first is a Kansas State web
site. The second — an even more complete history of the church, worth reading — is a reproduction of the
brochure I found in the mailbox. I'll have to say it's sideways when I view it; so if any of you know how to rotate it, let this technological fool know.)
I recommend the story, incidentally, to
my friends that teach American history, noting that Wabaunsee is less than 45
miles west of the “home” of Brown vs. the Board of Education . . . of Topeka.
j
* Studs Terkel, who explained
Royko’s ability to write five days a week from 1964 to 1992, when he cut back
to a mere four, that simply: “He is possessed by a demon.” I’m not saying I don’t
have my demons; they’re just not as productive as Royko’s.
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