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mallorys_cameraESP or coincidence? First phone call of the day was from the afore-dreamed Jeanna.
She sounded high-pitched and scattered.
“How’s business been?” I asked and she sighed. I imagined her raking her fingers through thick, curly hair. “Drive-in had its worst year ever,” she said. “I don’t know what that’s all about. People just aren’t spending money, I guess.”
But that wasn’t why she’d called.
“Patty, Dad’s in the hospital,” she said.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“I don’t know. He called me yesterday and he could barely talk. He said his legs were all swollen –“
“Congestive heart failure,” I said.
“Yeah, that would make sense. He’s in the cardiac unit. You know Deneene flew down so he didn’t call for a week –“
“Deneene flew down?” I said. “What about her legal situation? Where’d she get the money?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care,” said Jeanna. “They partied pretty hard for a week. And then when she left, he could barely talk. He could barely breath. Patty, I had the weirdest thought. What do you do when your torturer’s dying?”
“You should be so lucky,” I said. “He’ll live to be 90.”
But off the record, I wasn’t quite so sure.
The hospital in Bakersfield hooked me up with the case manager. I heard her shuffling papers on her desk. “There are privacy issues,” she said, “But I can give you the general diagnosis, the general facts. You’re not exactly a close family, are you? CHF, pancreatitis, cirrhosis. What you’d expect given his lifestyle.”
Apparently Ted – when I’m not on the phone with Jeanna, I can’t bring myself to call him “Dad” – has been pooling his SSI (about $900 a month) with another buddy. Ted had a truck; the buddy had a driver’s license. Thus is boon companionship born. Somehow they scraped together the rent on a miserable apartment. They lived on a diet of Parliaments, candy bars and vodka.
“If he’s going to be a frequent flyer,” said the case manager, “then he really needs to sign up for MediCal. He has Medicare but no MediCal. Medicare won’t cover the costs of this hospitalization. We’re going to bill him for 20% of the costs – “
“Well, you can kiss that money good-bye,” I said. “You won’t ever see a cent of it. Don’t you have a medical social worker who handles that kind of thing?”
“You’ve heard of ‘lay-offs,’ haven’t you?” said the case manager. She sounded cheerful. “There’s not a thing we can do for him except patch him up and throw him back on the street. Of course if he had MediCal, you could get him into a skilled nursing care facility.”
“Skilled nursing care facility” is a euphemism for the kind of institution where you park hard-core cases like my father till they die and stop bothering you.
I called Jimmy in Alaska. I haven’t seen or talked to Jimmy in 40 years though I keep up with his life through Jeanna. He lied about his age and joined the army at 17. He was stationed in Alaska, married a full-blooded Eskimo girl, stayed in Anchorage. Got a job as a postal clerk. Sired many kids who, in turn, sired many grandkids. Recently retired.
What I wasn’t prepared for was his voice.
In the otherwise forgettable Larry McMurtry novel THE EVENING STAR, a young man attends a concert at Carnegie Hall. I forget what the fictional musical program consisted of. Let’s just substitute one of my own personal faves – the Brahms Violin Concerto in D (Opus 77.) Upon hearing the music, a terrible sorrow and longing and sense of regret wells up in this young man which careful readers of the narrative are aware is due to the fact that this is the music his grandmother – the novel’s protagonist, long-dead now but the only human being who ever truly loved him – used to play for him when he was a very young child.
Jimmy’s voice had something of the same resonance for me.
Very deep, very caressing. Sam Elliott’s voice. My father’s voice.
This Pavlov dog stuff can be very hard to control.
Jimmy was very surprised to hear from me. I could hear it in his voice – he was shuffling through what little he knew about this totally irrelevant person. “You live up near San Francisco, don’t you?”
“No. Actually I live in central California. Maybe two and a half hours away from Bakersfield. The point is, Jimmy, even though the man literally makes me sick to my stomach, I am willing to go down there and spend a couple of days ushering him through the system, getting him all signed up. Isn’t he a veteran? He should be eligible for all sorts of services through that. Was he honorably discharged?”
“I think so,” Jimmy said cautiously.
Later that night I called Jeanna back.
“It’s awfully nice of you to volunteer to do all this,” she said. “It takes an enormous load off my mind. But, I mean, why? You don’t like the guy.”
“It’s an experience,” I said. “I’m a writer, Jeanna. That makes me a voyeur, you know, a connoisseur of peculiar experiences, a social anthropologist from the planet Mars.”
“If you say so,” she said.
She sounded high-pitched and scattered.
“How’s business been?” I asked and she sighed. I imagined her raking her fingers through thick, curly hair. “Drive-in had its worst year ever,” she said. “I don’t know what that’s all about. People just aren’t spending money, I guess.”
But that wasn’t why she’d called.
“Patty, Dad’s in the hospital,” she said.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“I don’t know. He called me yesterday and he could barely talk. He said his legs were all swollen –“
“Congestive heart failure,” I said.
“Yeah, that would make sense. He’s in the cardiac unit. You know Deneene flew down so he didn’t call for a week –“
“Deneene flew down?” I said. “What about her legal situation? Where’d she get the money?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care,” said Jeanna. “They partied pretty hard for a week. And then when she left, he could barely talk. He could barely breath. Patty, I had the weirdest thought. What do you do when your torturer’s dying?”
“You should be so lucky,” I said. “He’ll live to be 90.”
But off the record, I wasn’t quite so sure.
The hospital in Bakersfield hooked me up with the case manager. I heard her shuffling papers on her desk. “There are privacy issues,” she said, “But I can give you the general diagnosis, the general facts. You’re not exactly a close family, are you? CHF, pancreatitis, cirrhosis. What you’d expect given his lifestyle.”
Apparently Ted – when I’m not on the phone with Jeanna, I can’t bring myself to call him “Dad” – has been pooling his SSI (about $900 a month) with another buddy. Ted had a truck; the buddy had a driver’s license. Thus is boon companionship born. Somehow they scraped together the rent on a miserable apartment. They lived on a diet of Parliaments, candy bars and vodka.
“If he’s going to be a frequent flyer,” said the case manager, “then he really needs to sign up for MediCal. He has Medicare but no MediCal. Medicare won’t cover the costs of this hospitalization. We’re going to bill him for 20% of the costs – “
“Well, you can kiss that money good-bye,” I said. “You won’t ever see a cent of it. Don’t you have a medical social worker who handles that kind of thing?”
“You’ve heard of ‘lay-offs,’ haven’t you?” said the case manager. She sounded cheerful. “There’s not a thing we can do for him except patch him up and throw him back on the street. Of course if he had MediCal, you could get him into a skilled nursing care facility.”
“Skilled nursing care facility” is a euphemism for the kind of institution where you park hard-core cases like my father till they die and stop bothering you.
I called Jimmy in Alaska. I haven’t seen or talked to Jimmy in 40 years though I keep up with his life through Jeanna. He lied about his age and joined the army at 17. He was stationed in Alaska, married a full-blooded Eskimo girl, stayed in Anchorage. Got a job as a postal clerk. Sired many kids who, in turn, sired many grandkids. Recently retired.
What I wasn’t prepared for was his voice.
In the otherwise forgettable Larry McMurtry novel THE EVENING STAR, a young man attends a concert at Carnegie Hall. I forget what the fictional musical program consisted of. Let’s just substitute one of my own personal faves – the Brahms Violin Concerto in D (Opus 77.) Upon hearing the music, a terrible sorrow and longing and sense of regret wells up in this young man which careful readers of the narrative are aware is due to the fact that this is the music his grandmother – the novel’s protagonist, long-dead now but the only human being who ever truly loved him – used to play for him when he was a very young child.
Jimmy’s voice had something of the same resonance for me.
Very deep, very caressing. Sam Elliott’s voice. My father’s voice.
This Pavlov dog stuff can be very hard to control.
Jimmy was very surprised to hear from me. I could hear it in his voice – he was shuffling through what little he knew about this totally irrelevant person. “You live up near San Francisco, don’t you?”
“No. Actually I live in central California. Maybe two and a half hours away from Bakersfield. The point is, Jimmy, even though the man literally makes me sick to my stomach, I am willing to go down there and spend a couple of days ushering him through the system, getting him all signed up. Isn’t he a veteran? He should be eligible for all sorts of services through that. Was he honorably discharged?”
“I think so,” Jimmy said cautiously.
Later that night I called Jeanna back.
“It’s awfully nice of you to volunteer to do all this,” she said. “It takes an enormous load off my mind. But, I mean, why? You don’t like the guy.”
“It’s an experience,” I said. “I’m a writer, Jeanna. That makes me a voyeur, you know, a connoisseur of peculiar experiences, a social anthropologist from the planet Mars.”
“If you say so,” she said.
