| |
Bluto and Lucinda
I cannot any longer remember where and when I first encountered Bluto -- a statement that seems incredible considering what an elemental force he is. It's like asking, "Do you remember when you first heard about the hurricane?" Of course I would have, especially if it had swept me and my house away!
Bluto, of course, has not had that kind of personal effect on me. Nevertheless, he remains the nearest thing that we have to an elemental force here at the Institution -- that is, something of incredible strength whose behavior seems at times to be decidedly irrational.
I gather that he was tempered by a violent upbringing: I have heard him describe physical fights with his father; so he was reared in a boiling cauldron. When he was a young man, he was often getting into trouble with the police, including physical fights with them (he told me that his mother was perpetually in court with him or bailing him out of jail.) I once heard someone here ask him whether he had ever committed a felony. His half-humorous reply: "Which one do you want to know about first?"
I heard that he had been married and had a couple of kids; but he was estranged from the wife as well as at least one of the kids. But I gather he is not cut off from everyone, for just yesterday I saw a young woman with him here; and I assumed that she was his daughter, because when she went to leave, she kissed him and said "I love you." (His response was to look away and growl.)
So someone out there at least tries to love Bluto. But, as you can see, in general he is one troubled fellow who is wound up with seething hatreds tighter than a constipated mule with a burr up its butt. (That's not a folk saying, but it should be!) So it's not totally surprising when, at the still-young age of 33 (that is, thirteen years ago), he had a serious stroke which left him paralyzed on his left side.
Bluto was physically left a man of extremes. On the left side, he was helpless to move either extremity. But the right side more than made up for that: he was left with an arm of extraordinary strength -- really, one that had the strength of two normal arms. And he retained a barrel chest which harbored a vocal apparatus which had been left undimmed by the stroke. In short, he could (usually) move anything or anyone that he wanted moved -- either by wrenching the heavy object (such as a large indoor planter) from its moorings by sheer arm strength and forcing it across the floor; or by bellowing at another resident who displeased him. By contrast, he was one of the few residents who could lean forward from his wheelchair and pick up something from off the floor -- an action requiring great delicacy and finesse. In fact, he could do so much that I sometimes forgot that he had had a stroke. But I noticed he was always careful to pull up so that whatever he wanted to move or change was on his right side.
I have written elsewhere (in "Our Little Academy") about Sibyl ("The sweetest person at the Institution"), including the fact that she had a boyfriend named Michael with whom she hung out most of every day; and my disgust with big bruiser Bluto's attentions to her (I said that it would be "like giving a Stradivarius to a gorilla.") Bluto once confided to me: "If she weren't 'with' Michael, I'd move right in on her in a second!" In this brief statement, I noted two opposite tendencies in Bluto: one was the obvious feeling of entitlement, the assumption that he could move right in without taking into account the women's feelings; the other was the gesture of deference toward Michael, no doubt undertaken under some code of chivalry which he believed in. So perhaps the 'gorilla' had nobler feelings underneath the gruff exterior!
(After Bluto's statement had become irrelevant, I told Sibyl what he had said. She grimaced, shook her head and said in understatement, "No, no, no -- not my type!" So much for entitlement!)
What I didn't know was how literally Bluto was speaking in his statement "If she weren't 'with' Michael..." That is, if Michael is not there physically by her side (due to being ill or otherwise indisposed), then that gives him (Bluto) the implicit right to "move right in."
And so at those times before supper when Michael was in bed or in the hospital (for awhile these were a frequent occurrence), Bluto would arrive at our gathering and, with no hesitation whatsoever, glide as smooth as butter into Michael's place on Sibyl's left. When he did this, I was reminded of A.E. Housman's poem "Is my team ploughing", in which a dead man is asking questions (in the third person) to his friend (who is very much alive): "Is my friend hearty, now I am thin and pine, and has he found to sleep in a better bed than mine?" The friend replies:
"Yes lad, I lie easy,
I lie as lads would choose;
I cheer a dead man's sweetheart,
Never ask me whose."
(Of course, Michael was not dead, merely ailing -- and only that at times.)
So Bluto "moved right in" on little Sibyl's left; and by doing this, he achieved two things simultaneously: first, he symbolically supplanted Michael (at least for that day); and second, he was seated so that his one good arm was next to Sibyl. And as he chatted with her (or rather at her: his talk did not seem to interest her at all [I even saw her yawn once or twice]), that right hand would at times begin to creep over toward her hand, until he could summon some excuse or other to touch her (he was making a point about something; or he was pointing out the delicate veins in her hand.) At such moments we were treated not only to a kind and gentle side of Bluto, but to a sly and calculating side as well. (The irony here is that Michael, who was actually Sibyl's boyfriend, never touched her at all -- at least not in public.)
I am afraid, however, that all too often we see the Bluto who prefers to dominate people and order them about. For example:
Every evening after supper, we have Jokes Night where we sit in a rough circle. Usually there are one or two residents who are either confused or find it hard to control their wheelchairs or both. They will stop in the middle of the circle, facing some direction or other. Well, this drives Bluto bananas! "You've got to get out of there! You can't sit out there in the middle! Back your wheelchair over into the space over there -- no, not that space, the other one!" And so on. The combination traffic cop/dictator who feels that he has the right to tell other people what to do.
It must have become clear to Bluto that he wasn't going to be getting anywhere with little Sibyl, for he eventually began paying attention to a new resident here named Rolanda. This woman was as pencil-thin as Sibyl, and she could be sweet as well; but she was also witty and acerbic -- and, unlike Sibyl, she was not afraid to be blunt. One day when Bluto was bellowing orders at someone, Rolanda spoke up immediately (to a man she didn't even know yet) with righteous indignation: "Hey, now wait a minute, who do you think you are, ordering people around like that?" Bluto's mouth flew open: he was stunned that anyone -- especially the woman he had picked out for himself -- would question his behavior. Was he attracted to Rolanda all the more because of her potential to "civilize" him? Are you kidding? He dropped her like a hot potato!
And so he waited -- until another woman entered the Institution. This woman's name was Lucinda (soon everyone was calling her "Lu".) Unlike Rolanda, Lu was not forword and articulate; in fact, she could hardly be understood at all, for she talked in a high rapid breathless sort of little-girl voice. So it was unlikely that she would be able to criticize anyone. As well, it appeared that she was utterly passive when it came to being touched; and she seemed perfectly willing to follow anyone's directions to the best of her ability.
In short, Lu was exactly what Bluto had been looking for.
And so Bluto could be seen sitting next to Lu (of course she was always to his right), ministering to her in ways that he did not dare try with Sibyl. For example, Lu had an exquisite ivory-colored shawl which she used to keep her legs warm. But one day Bluto thought she needed to have her upper body covered as well; so he patiently proceeded to daintily lift up corners of the shawl between two fingers so as to gradually cover her shoulders and arms. In doing all of this, Bluto became the very model of a cultivated manservant and a dedicated caregiver. As for Lu, she did not move at all; the only thing I noticed was that around her mouth was the faintest trace of a smile.
But do you know what this reminded me of? A grown man dressing and playing with a life-size doll.
There are two sides to that sort of make-believe play. One side is the hyper-indulgence of the doll's every "need"; the other side is determining what those "needs" are, and then making sure they are implemented to the letter. Of course these mesh seamlessly when one is playing with a real doll, for there the player is determining the "needs". But when one is dealing with a live human being, all bets are off. For the problem is, the real person has feelings and desires of her own. Since this is unacceptable to the man who would make her his own private plaything, his other side must inevitably emerge: the martinet. And so he would begin giving her orders in the attempt to micromanage her every move. One way this would manifest itself is in his attempts to change her position:
I think that, in Lu, Bluto found someone that he could quite literally "herd" like an errant calf that tends to wander away from the rest of the herd. This he did by a combination of the physical and the verbal -- much as the cowboy would nudge the calf with his horse, all the while yelling "Git along little doggies!" Most often he would try the verbal method first: this usually involved directing her on how to back up precisely into a spot that just happened to be right next to his right side. But that was usually a comedy of errors, as either Lu would turn in a direction opposite to the one he told her to turn in, or she would follow his incorrect orders to the letter. Often she would somehow "accidentally" wind up (horrors!) at his left side. On top of that, she did everything with excruciating slowness. In such situations, Bluto would get more and more irritated with her (not to speak of himself) and gradually lose his temper; while she, in utter contrast, did not lose her cool one iota, the faint little smile continuing to play on her lips.
Bluto's fallback option for "herding" Lu was to physically drive her wheelchair himself -- a formidable task, it would seem, since he had to drive his own wheelchair as well and he only had one good hand. But for Bluto, no task was too Herculean if it got him what he wanted (although, after watching him for a good bit, I had to conclude that some of the tasks he set for himself were more Sisyphusian in outcome.) To drive her, he maneuvered his wheelchair so that it was to her right but facing the opposite direction; thus was his good arm next to her joystick as well as his own. Then he would move her back as far as his arm would reach; and then move himself up beside her again. This her/him pattern he would repeat several times -- actually more than he wanted to, since a few times he made the common error people tend to make when they attempt to steer something backwards: they go in the direction opposite to the one they intended.
All in all, "herding" was very stressful for poor Bluto!
But the situation with the gloves opened all our eyes (if they hadn't been opened already by some pretty obvious indicators) to the real nature of the relationship between Bluto and Lu. It was the middle of the summer, but often times Lu could be seen wearing a pair of beautiful gloves: these were made of kidskin and were a deep Victorian red in hue. Most times these gloves would clash with her wardrobe; but no one cared, for the simple reason that the gloves were so elegant, they were all that you really looked at when you saw Lu. Yes, a touch of real elegance.
But for some reason, Bluto took an intense dislike to the gloves. I could often hear him try to talk her out of wearing them but to no avail. Then one morning Lu came down early -- that is, before Bluto arrived -- to Coffee & News. She was wearing the gloves, of course; for apparently her hands got cold very easily. After awhile Bluto showed up and wheeled up to our table on her left -- that is, so that his right (the "persuader") side was next to her. When he saw that she had the gloves on, he blew his stack: "What are you doing with those gloves on? I told you not to wear them! Take them off right now!"
But Lu did not take them off -- why? Well, something I noticed in observing her at that precise moment was her utter lack of distress: not only was she not upset, she did not seem bothered in the least; in fact, that same strange little smile that she usually wore on her lips was still there. So why didn't she take off the gloves? One reason, incredible as it may seem, was that maybe she really didn't understand what he was telling her to do, direct as it was; after all, he bellowed most of the time. So maybe she had just tuned him out as an acoustical bother. But a better reason could be that she viewed his attempts at dominance as a sort of grown up cat-and-mouse game, wherein her response to his little tantrums ("Do this!") was to offer a placidly passive resistance ("Let's see what happens when I don't do what he tells me to do -- that would seem like great fun!")
Whatever her reason (if indeed she even had one), Lu did not remove the gloves. Bluto erupted, boiled over: with a scream of "God dammit!" he reached over and, with one clean brutal yank, ripped the glove off Lu's left hand.
How did Lu respond? She gave no perceptible response at all, just the little smile. And suddenly I realized that Bluto, for all his physical and verbal violence and intimidation, was not the one running the show here at all. She was pushing all his buttons and had him tied up in knots. Lu had Bluto wrapped around her little finger.
Most of us have had the experience growing up where a guest came to the house, and one of our family members did or said something in front of the guest which embarrassed us deeply. Here at the Institution, my fellow residents and I loosely live as a sort of "family" having its own networks of support for one another; a group mostly insular from the "outside world." But I have that old pang of remembrance whenever a visitor appears on the periphery of our little group before supper, and Bluto begins to hold forth either by bringing up some calamity from his past, or by creating one in the present by bellowing at people. At such times as those, I say fervently (to myself but directed at the visitor): "Please don't think that we are all like that!"
On the other hand, I have said to my friend Dwight on more than one occasion: "You know, Bluto is sometimes an embarrassment and often a huge pain in the ass to several people. But do you know something (and I never thought that I'd be saying this)? Life is more interesting because of Bluto's presence at the Institution. I'm glad he's here!"
(23 August 2009)
Back to top
|
|
|
|
