Talking the walk.

The night before and last night. 
 
 Last night I set the alarm because too many mornings these days I am having trouble getting up. And this morning I was picking up Uncle Albert for the Cardiff City - Brighton-Hove-Albion match that started at 7:25. “Let’s see what’s going on in the bottom half of the table,” he said. The Cardiff-Brighton match was the next-to-the-bottom team going against the team 12th in the standings. Then Leicester City (10th) at Burnley (15th). I asked him if he was going to stay through the final game, 14th-place Crystal Palace against 4th-place Tottenham. He was, he said, because he thought Palace had a good chance of knocking off the Spurs. He hates the Spurs.

He asked about the trip to New York. I told him about lunch at the Korean place near the church. “The church has always been better at talking than listening,” he said. “That church in particular.” He’d been there more than once, he said, though it had been thirty years since he was there last, back in the sixties sometime. I didn't say the sixties were fifty years since. “But they’ve always hired the best talkers,” he said.

linocut by Bob Hodgell

     “Mmmm,” I said.

     “I’m reading Tolstoy’s Resurrection,” Uncle Albert said. “Do you know it?” I had to admit that I didn’t.

     “I don’t know that I’ve even heard of it,” I said.

     “Well, I’m not very far along,” he said, “but there’s a trial scene early on; and as the trial is coming to an end . . . . The matter is about to go the jury,” Uncle Albert said, “but first the president, the presiding judge, has to give them his instructions. The testimony has taken longer than he had hoped; he is anxious to get away because he has a sweet young thing waiting for him, but she can wait only so long. If things go on much longer, he’ll be late; he’ll miss what he desires more than anything he can imagine. But now he has launched into his speech to the jury, about the case, about the law, about their responsibilities, he can’t stop. He is mesmerized by the sound of his own voice, his own eloquence; he can’t abbreviate, he can only elaborate. In short, he can’t shut up. Tolstoy's omniscient narrator remarks more than once that he can't help himself. He can’t shut up even though he is aware that the jury has reached the point they are only admiring the stream of words, they’re no longer listening: they can’t admire and listen at the same time. He knows all of this, that he is only piling up words, that his talk is for nothing, that he may miss his appointment. Yet, he cannot help himself, he goes on. He cannot stop.

     “Talkers are like that.”

“Tolstoy,” I said, letting out a breath. “Boy! When do you read?”

     “Between naps,” Uncle Albert said.

     “I don’t read anymore,” I said.

     “Why not?”

     “It’s too daunting. Or books are anyway. They’re too big. There are too many words,” I said.

11.10.18

“Where are you going?” Roz said.

     “I need to call Uncle Albert,” I said.

     She rolled over to look at her clock. “It’s four o’clock in the morning,” she said.

     “I know. He won’t mind.”

“It’s four o’clock in the morning,” Uncle Albert said.

     “I know. But look: I can’t take you to church today.”

     “Why not?”

     “I wanted you to know before you got ready.”

     “Why can’t you take me to church?”

     “I lost my faith.”

     “Where? When?”

     “I don’t know where. I just woke up.”

     “When, then?”

     “During the night sometime. I woke up, it was gone.”

     “Oh,” he said.

 11.11.18