Hunter S. Thompson, �Hey Rube�
I don�t know how many people noticed the removal of templates and images, as it seems the readership and comments has fallen by the wayside as my posts become fewer and farther between. That�s all right. In fact it�s to be expected. There are dozens of great blogs I�ve seen that have fallen by the wayside as time and life gets in the way. And when the membership ran out (hence the removal of the images), it happened at the same time that I took my car in for a tune up and ended up paying two thousand dollars in repairs. I figured I�d let the site languish just a bit longer.
Hell, I thought about letting it die a well-deserved death. But therein lies a problem. The entire project was set up with the idea that people don�t finish what they start, and I was going to change that. I was going to change that with a promise that I would someday catch up on the books I had laying around, waiting for me to read. I still haven�t caught up, hence I can�t abandon the blog.
Only problem is, I don�t think I�ve finished a book this year, and we�re now into July.
Wait a minute, I just looked it up, and that�s wrong. But in any case, I�ve been carting around the same three books for months now, and none of them are close to being finished. Fortunately, I also have about ten books that I did finish, so giving the law of averages on how often I post, I should be able to finish one of them before I run out of backstock.
Anyway.
So it was back in March that I last mentioned my Dad. New stuff has happened, obviously. First, a recap:
My father, after getting out of the hospital, was transferred into a Amistad-style housing unit and of course, was miserable. Enter his friends who visited, and wanted to help, offering to take him into their ranch house on the big island.
Well, that lasted about two months. Now, on to the new stuff. Obviously, this isn�t going to be a fun entry. Though I kind of feel like Daniel Day-Lewis, slowly and with malice intoning that There Will Be Jokes.
The transfer was done in such a rush, none of us had any time to do the preparations necessary-things such as setting up a change of address or social security benefits. I was cleaning out his apartment, and noticed his SS check hadn�t come. I called the new wards, who said they got the check and that they would take care of the money, which of course, meant keeping it for themselves, which my sister and I were more than fine with.
But after a month, the calls started to come. They hadn�t received any money from us, which was understandable, since the check had gone straight to them. I finally got a hold of them to try and straighten it all out. As it happened, instead of taking him to the bank and depositing or cashing the check, as was previously agreed upon, (more on this later) they had deposited the check in his account, and wanted me to take the money out and send them a check. Not a problem, as his bank was right next to my newspaper job.
OK, there was one problem: the check hadn�t been deposited.
I called back to see what was going on. She explained that the bank wasn�t in the near vicinity (the Big Island is, like its namesake, big. And there is a lot of areas that isn�t developed), so when she finally got around to depositing the check, she put it in the night deposit slot at his bank. So I dutifully called the bank on the Big Island to see if we could track down his missing Social Security check.
�We don�t have a night deposit slot,� said the bank teller.
Fuck.
But the Big Island, despite being big, is one of those small communities, so the teller was more willing to help than say, your average bank teller. �There�s a mortgage center next to us,� she said, �and they do have a night deposit slot. Maybe you should call your friend back and make sure she didn�t get confused.�
Good advice, and so I did call, but was cut off almost immediately. �No, no,� said the my father�s new ward. �I know what they�re talking about and that�s not where I went to. I used their cash machine-thingy, directly in front of their bank.�
�Wellllllllllll,� I said delicately, �Those things, they�re called automatic teller machines. And to activate them, you need an ATM card, which my dad didn�t have. So I�m not sure how you could have used it.�
�Well, that�s exactly what I did,� she said, sounding slightly annoyed. �I put his check in the envelope and stuck it in the slot.�
�But that�s kind of my point,� I said. �They�re electronic machines. Most of them don�t even turn on until you swipe a card, which you didn�t have.�
�I didn�t need a card,� she said. �I just found the area that said deposit, put his check in an envelope, and stuck it in the slot.�
Visions of that scene with George Bush Senior came to mind, the image that many say cost him his re-election, when he went to a supermarket, and almost accused the clerk of sorcery when witnessing the barcode scanning system.
�Well, see,� I tried to explain, �that�s what I�m talking about. To make a deposit into one of those machines, you need to activate it with a card, which you didn�t have. So what I�m worried about is that you put that envelope into the waste receptacle slot��
�No,� she said, sounding incensed and offended. �I didn�t put it into the trash receptacle. I put it into the slot that said �deposits.��
�OK,� I conceded, �but how?�
Before I give her answer, I just want to repeat: these were the people who were now in charge of my father�s health and welfare.
�Well,� she said, �I had to push a little.�
Hey Rube indeed. Ho, ho.
I called back the bank on the Big Island, and they sent someone out with a key to unlock the front of the machine. And there it was, a compacted envelope containing my father�s Social Security check stuck within the inner workings of the ATM. I asked the teller how she could of managed to get it in there.
�From what I can tell,� came the answer, �she was pretty intent on getting it in there.�
�OK,� said my sister, when I explained what had just happened. �But her being an idiot doesn�t mean she doesn�t have the right to be not be angry because she hasn�t been paid.�
And she was right, so I got the check sent off. By that time, however, it was too late. She had already decided that this new situation wasn�t going to work out, and she told us as such.
I think my sister and I both tried to ignore this at first. There was now an understanding how they would get paid. They said they wanted him there with them, as part of their family, until he died. They pushed us to make it happen. Now, however, they were pushing again � to get him out of there.
Of course, that�s easier said than done. Since she had pulled him out of the State-mandated home, the state was no longer obligated to help. She knew that I was too busy to restart the process (particularly after seeing that I couldn�t cash a check that had been jammed up into a machine without my knowledge). My sister, on the other hand, had a husband, and a family. Who wouldn�t like to be around grandchildren? (You can ignore the fact that I have my arm raised at this moment.) So she got it into her head that it would be best for him to be around family.
Never mind that my sister�s family involves her, her husband and a baby, with another on the way, in a small two bedroom house in Sacramento. Never mind indeed, because the inquires never stopped, despite my sister�s protestations. Even the fact that the final cut off date, dictated by the new wards coincided with the same period that my sister was ready to drop her second child. The messages never stopped, however, and my sister finally acquiesced, though not before writing a well-deserved assessment of the situation, reminding the new wards of what was promised and that the decision to move him once again came from them and them alone.
I had never been to the Big Island before, but bought a ticket to visit him on his birthday. That�s when I realized it might not be so easy taking him to his bank. They lived 2,000 miles up from sea level (on an island, which is more impressive). We drove for nearly an hour passing nothing of interest or commerce before turning up a road toward the coffee farm that they ran.
Every been to a coffee farm? They�re huge. And their coffee farm was a place that you reached only after passing about five other coffee farms. We went for so far and so long, that even the department of transportation gave up on roads and we bounced along the road with such velocity that I literally fell onto the floor because I was laying down on the backseat.
Really, that trip explained a lot. I would take my dad out for two hours, and the walking around would exhaust him until he was miserable and cranky. After all the surgeries on his shoulder, hip and wrist, I could see how he didn�t want to go anywhere, especially after seeing that the drive rattled my bones, and I�ve only shattered my collarbone and fractured my ribs. These people, friends from a different era, thought they were going to get the active, friendly and always up for a good time Bill, not the bitter, tired and resigned to stay at home and stare out the window Bill that he had become.
In short, they were expecting a sitcom with an eccentric old man, and instead, they got a drama of somebody who is in pain.
That imposed deadline on switching him back �to be with family� came up today. I�ve made comments about how we (and they) are shipping him off to the mainland. But really, a better analogy is tag team wrestling. I was fighting the fight until I was nearly beaten. At the last minute, my hand got slapped, and it wasn�t my job to win the fight any longer. But they can�t carry the fight either, and expected somebody else to come up swinging a folding chair. Well, real life isn�t like wrestling, which is just one of the reasons why I�m so bitter. Tag team or no, they�re ready to leave the stadium, and there�s not a lot we can do about it. After all, as my sister told them at the beginning, he isn�t their family.
He�s disposable.
I went to work early today trying to get stuff done before having to go to the airport. Later, I met him at the airport, and brought him to the next gate that would take him to California. This is a guy who nearly 30 years ago decided he was really to abandon his profession and family in order to live in Hawaii. Now, he was about to live the last few remaining years in Sacramento. I asked what he felt about this new chapter in his life.
�I�m ready for the book to be over,� he said in a matter of fact manner. �Then I can start a new book.�
That statement, of course, could be taken as starting a new life. His inflection, however, made it sound like he just wanted to finish the life he was involved with now. Then he could find out if there was any truth to this Buddhist crap that he had studied.
There were two hours between flights, and we stopped in an airport bar/restaurant to talk, where I ordered Bloody Marys. I brought up the time that he came to California, to take my sister and I to visit his mother one last time. I�m sure I�ve written about this, but to recap, his mother was seriously in the depth of dementia � she couldn�t even form words any longer, leaving only a shell of a body that spent her time screeching and clawing at people.
He said he didn�t remember the trip, but when I outlined specific instances, like when she grabbed onto his beard and howled, to which he responded calmly, �yes, you never liked the beard,� he had a bit of recollection. I explained how he had presented the trip to us. He wanted to show her that he was doing fine, her grandchildren were doing fine, and she could let go. She wasn�t needed any longer.
�She died a few weeks after that visit,� I told him.
�Did she?� my dad responded. �Well, good. That�s nice.�
�Well,� I continued, �the situation is similar. I think that you deserve to hear that if you�re unhappy with your situation, we�re� that is, my sister and I� we�re doing well. We both have good jobs and steady income and people who love and care for us��
Ever try to tell your parent that it�s OK if they die while you�re sitting in a restaurant? It�s not easy. I did it, but not without breaking down and crying.
I don�t know if he noticed. I do know, however, that the bartender noticed, and we were making him uncomfortable. I�m fine with that, as he made the worst Bloody Mary I�ve ever tasted. Fuck him.
The entire time that we talked I was trying to test his mental capabilities. Did he know where he was, where he�d been and where he was going? He didn�t score on specifics, even forgetting about the terrible Amistad senior housing project. But he knew that he was going to the mainland, and that he was going to see his daughter and granddaughter. Sometimes he even remembered where that was. For the most part, he did pretty well. So much so, that a new wave of guilt washed over me as I brought him to the line for his flight. We sat and waited for the flight to get ready for boarding. When they brought up people with special needs, I brought him up to the line.
�Just make sure you watch over him,� I told the flight attendant.
�You�re not going with him?� she asked, surprised. �What�s wrong with him?�
�Nothing�s wrong with him,� I said. �He�s just a little forgetful.�
As if on cue, despite the two hours of conversation, my father, being led down the tarmac turned around suddenly. �Where am I going?� he asked.
And suddenly, I was crying again. I told him his destination, and that my sister would be there to meet him. The flight attendant took his arm and led him away. I made my way through the group of people who were upset that we cut in front of, but suddenly seemed to form a path for me to escape. I moved past the waiting crowd and stared at the plane that he had just boarded.
That�s when I realized that I was still carrying his backpack, which had his identification, his medication and pretty much everything that he didn�t throw away when he moved, which wasn�t much. I made my way back through the line.
�Remember how I said that he�s forgetful?� I asked, holding out the backpack. �Well, it�s genetic.�
They took the bag. At this point, I can only assume that he got it. I went back to my car, and then back to work. All the time, I had feelings of guilt, sadness and a sense of relief, which brought everything back to guilt again.
I know I did him some good by being here. I also know that I was so concentrated on surviving, which wasn�t easy, that he sometimes fell by the wayside.
And now that it�s over, I feel that I haven�t applied the same standards to him that I�ve done with other things. Like this blog, for instance.
And that makes me feel pretty terrible.
