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Birthday
Christmas Party
Thanksgiving
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Birthday
The Perils of Affection
When I awoke today, I remembered immediately that it was my 63rd birthday. I knew that I would have a low-key day: my friend Phil wasn't able to come as he usually did on Tuesdays. So there would be phone calls at the beginning and at the end of the day (from my brother and my wife, respectively) and that would be it. And that was how I preferred it.
Once I'm dressed and up, I write (as I do each morning) on my computer. At 8:30 by pre-arrangement, my brother Bob and his wife called. We talk our usual cant. They will bring my favorite snack, frozen cherries (he and I call them 'cherwies'), when they come from Hartford to celebrate my birthday on Saturday.
I eat breakfast. Then around 9:15 I venture down to the Physical Therapy Room to work out on the bike with my arms. I've been doing this every weekday since I came here to The Boston Home almost a year and a half ago. The 'Motomed' is sitting in the front windows and as such affords the user a wonderful panoramic view of the spacious grounds of the building. This is one of my favorite spots here, and the pleasure is only lessened by the sad fact that my arms are growing progressively weaker despite my best efforts. So, whereas I was able to work out in gear 3 for half an hour when I first came (riding around 3.50 km.), now I am reduced to gear 1 for fifteen minutes (and averaging around 0.83 km.)
Today I passed Mary Jo coming out of the elevator on her way to the same place. Mary Jo is a relatively new arrival here, and has been the only other person using the bike this early in the day. I kid her that I have beaten her today. Actually, though, we have agreed on an arrangement whereby I use the bike for my fifteen minutes, and then she uses it for a half hour or more (she is in gear 2.)
What has happened in the past few days is that I do my pitiful fifteen minutes while Mary Jo sits beside me and cheers me on in her raucously sardonic voice - a voice which, whether due to medication or the effects of the disease, makes her sound like she is slightly drunk. 'Come on Ted, you can do it, give it the old try!' she enjoins me.
Today I am wearing a right shoulder strap devised by the wheelchair seating specialist. This allows me to sit up and not slump so much. Unfortunately, it restricts my reach on that side, so that my hand keeps falling off the handle of the bike. And I am too weak there to get it back on the moving bar. So Mary Jo sits beside me and, with her uncertain and shaking hands, helps get my hand back on the bar.
She had told me she is 49, but she could pass for 29, her face is so smooth and free of wrinkle and blemish. It is tanned, and there is a flush to her cheeks. It is the face, one might surmise, of someone who has had a stress-free life. But of course as an MS patient she hasn't. Today, as we struggle with my hands, I ask her more questions about herself: is she married, etc. She tells me no, that she has never been married. I tell her I find that hard to believe, that she is an attractive woman. She then reveals the fact that she brought up a child by herself (he is now 23.)
At some point I casually tell her that it is my birthday. 'Ted, that's great!' When I complain about my regress with the bike, she replies, 'Ted, you're 63! I don't want to imagine what I'll be like at that age!'
I curtail my pitiful workout before the fifteen minutes is up, and Mary Jo takes over. She has a languid style which seems almost effortless. I watch her for a bit (she does not seem to need cheering on) and then thank her for her help and leave. I go to the Computer Room next door and read my newspapers online. Then I go downstairs to Coffee & News in the Activity Room.
There are four young woman who work in Activities. All are excellent at the work they do for us the Residents. Today it is Rolanda, a Cape Verdean girl, who serves us coffee and reads us the news from the Globe. I know that Rolanda (who looks 19) is almost 29 (her birthday is in a few days) with a husband and two small children. She has a humorous-ironic view of herself which is greatly entertaining. For example, although she cannot match a pitch, she will often mock-serenade us with excruciating renditions of whatever tune happens to fit the occasion. She is attractive, but her irony extends to her looks, as announcements like 'At two o'clock there will be cribbage in the Activity Room with the lovely Rolanda' show. She appreciates jokes of all sorts, which she responds to with her deep horsy laugh.
One thing that is featured each day at Coffee & News is a section of the Globe called 'This Day In History.' The event is read to us and we try to guess the year. Rolanda sees from the board that it is my birthday today, and so she adroitly interpolates my birth year '1943' in with the others.
After lunch my sister-in-law Carol comes unexpectedly. Like all my sisters-in-law, she greets me with a frank kiss on the mouth. She has brought ten little jars of cranberry sauce which she has made herself and which she knows I like. Soon we are in the Solarium and she is feeding me the contents of one of those jars.
She leaves (with a farewell kiss), and I venture back down to the Activity Room to hear Mark (Director of Human Resources) read. Today his selection is 'My Platonic Sweetheart' by Mark Twain. In this, the narrator describes a recurring dream he's had through his adult life of a chaste 16-year-old girl. By a strange coincidence, the last time he has the dream he is 63-years old.
In the half hour or so before dinner, it has become my custom to go to the Garden Room and wait for dinner with a few others: these include Linda and Jim (the only 'item' here at The Boston Home) who have become my friends. We all complain humorously about the food we are about to eat.
I was approaching my room after dinner when I met Rolanda near my door. She was carrying a large black sheet of paper, and when she saw me she exclaimed, 'Aawgh - busted!' and gave her deep laugh. She followed me into my room, where above the bed she had pasted a large black poster with white writing. No doubt it was meant to be a take-off on the blackboard in a math classroom, for it was covered with all sorts of arithmetical equations such as 3 x 4 = 12. Written in large outlined letters was:
'HAPPY 83RD BIRTHDAY TED. LOVE, ROLANDA'.
There was even an equation involving my 'age' (100 - 17 = 83); and a 'HAHAHA' under that '83' indicating that she knew it to be a joke. I gave her a big hug in gratitude.
I brushed my teeth, and then went down for Jokes. On the wall of the area where we meet was another math blackboard-type poster by Rolanda. This one said, 'HAPPY 63RD BIRTHDAY TED'. Inside each letter was a calculation; all the answers were circled, and they added to 63.
While mulling over that numerology, I suddenly realized that my age of 63 is one less than a power of 2, and that therefore it reads (111111) in binary. When David Hatch (who had been an engineer) shows up and I point this out, he adds, 'Yes. Which is (77) in octal!'
After the jokes are over, I go up to my room as usual. Tonight I planned to rest and wait for my wife to call me around 7:00. But just before that time arrives, my roommate Stephen comes in to tell me that Mary Jo has something for me downstairs. I try to get myself excused, but he insists I really need to go. So I take myself downstairs to the first floor Solarium.
Mary Jo is seated there, along with another resident Ann (an ex-bus driver.) A dutiful gentleman is standing nearby, whom Mary Jo introduces as one of her brothers.
There is a cake on the table there. When I get closer I see that it is inscribed: 'HAPPY 63RD BIRTHDAY TED!' There are three candles on the cake which Mary Jo's brother lights. (I decline to tell him that he could have had my age with six lit candles.) I can get to within a foot of the candles, but my blowing hardly produces a breeze (Mary Jo tries to cheer me on with 'C'mon Ted - you can do it!') Finally the brother helps me blow them out.
I eat some of the cake. Then Mary Jo hands me a thick envelope. Inside it is a large Dove Bar, a small bag of salted peanuts, and a card. The card says 'Happy Birthday'. Inside, it reads, 'Hope it's as special as you are!' The word 'special' is underlined twice. There are a handful of names signed: Linda and Jim, Steve, and Ann. And 'Love, Mary Jo' at the bottom. All are written in crude block letters in pencil. I had little doubt that Mary Jo had written these, and it must have cost her a great deal of effort.
I am greatly touched by all this, and I tell Mary Jo so. More than that even, I am moved. For here is this good man her brother, who had clearly gone out of his way in time and effort and expense to do something for his sister who is in a nursing home with MS.
And yet - shall I confess to a slight discomfort, even embarrassment at all this? Perhaps it was the intensity of her feelings, juxtaposed with the obvious fact that I had a wedding ring. Whatever the reason, I was anxious to leave as soon as I properly could. In a few minutes I excused myself, even as I was the guest of honor.
I fled back up to my room. As I approached the door, I heard my phone ringing. I picked it up in time to hear the sweet voice of my dear wife intoning, 'Is this the Birthday Boy?' And my happiness and relief at hearing her speak were only tempered by a slight feeling of guilt that, with all the outpouring of affection for me, somewhere, somehow on this otherwise happy day, and unknown even to myself, I must have betrayed her.
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Christmas Party
Two Songs, Two Gifts, and an Ensemble
Every year The Boston Home throws a lavish Christmas party for the residents. There is food and drink and a musical group. And each resident receives a present bought just for them.
One particular resident came down to the Activity Room at the last minute, as he always did at gatherings like this. That way he was seated nearest the door in case he needed to make a hasty escape in his wheelchair.
Today there was a plate of homemade cookies in the middle of the table, including pizzelles (his favorite.) He ordered a cup of eggnog laced with ginger brandy - a delicious combination (even if he was drinking it through a straw from an opaque plastic cup.)
The ensemble today consisted of a short young Asian woman playing an electronic keyboard, and a tall young black fellow playing an electric bass guitar. One or the other sang, depending on the song.
One of the first pieces the ensemble played was 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas' with the woman singing.
By some coincidence, he had been thinking about this song recently. As he did at times with other songs he admired, he had traced the melody of this one in his mind over the past few nights while lying in bed waiting to fall asleep. He did this in part hoping to discover the secret(s) of why it is such a wonderful song. (At the same time, he knew that any such search would be fruitless: for every 'formula' he came up with for a song's success, he knew he could devise a mediocre song containing all those properties.)
Nevertheless, he had traced. So he noted that, in the first part (there are four parts altogether), the notes rise on a triad like a sort of fanfare, but fall stepwise by the notes of the scale. The second part is an almost-repeat of the first part, wherein the falling notes encounter a sharped note and turn back into the relative minor key. In the third part, the notes meander both down and up (though as a whole they are falling) by steps. The fourth part is a sort of reprise of the first part but extended, with the highest note and an extra line.
It was a melancholy song, and he decided that, melodically, this is due to both the rising triadic fanfares and the falling stepwise melody. (For each 'hopeful' fanfare which said in effect 'Buck up! Be cheerful!', there was a falling melody which countered 'But I feel so sad and melancholy!')
As the song began, he remembered that its melody was written during the War (in 1943 - by coincidence, the year of his birth) by a man named Hugh Martin, who at 92 was still living.
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,
Let your heart be light
From now on our troubles will be out of sight
And suddenly, the combination of that knowledge about the War and those words about troubles ending caused him to almost break down. (I say 'almost' because he nearly always held a tight rein on his emotions. [The singing of the Marseillaise in 'Casablanca' was a notable exception.])
But he was not smitten so badly that he wasn't able to listen to the harmonies: this, he knew, would be one of his major tests as to the quality of this little ensemble. He tended to classify song harmonies into three categories: exquisite (for those unexpectedly rare ones such as someone like Henry Mancini might concoct on occasion); decent serviceable ones such as he himself could come up with [now, sadly, only in his mind]); and those slapdash harmonies-on-the-cheap that he'd heard from care-less performers (especially guitarists) who visited The Home periodically.
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Make the yuletide gay
From now on our troubles will be miles away
He was not disappointed in the harmonies here. In particular, the group had the four chords (really a circle of fifths) which he thought were essential in the segue to that second part. This sort of harmonic sophistication continued with the casually intricate series of heartbreaking downward-creeping suspensions in the next part:
Here we are as in olden days,
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who were dear to us
Gather near to us once more
He visualized each chord on the piano in his mind, right down to the very fingers that would play each individual note - all this despite the fact that he'd never played this piece in his life. He played a little mental game with the group as he tried to anticipate each chord. The group didn't disappoint him: this was a truly professional ensemble, he thought.
When she sang the next two lines, he almost broke down a second time:
Through the years we all will be together
If the fates allow.
No hopes here for some sort of benevolent deity, such as 'If the Lord allows.' No - here it is 'the fates' with all their arbitrariness and caprice. (And no, he didn't almost break down because it was bleak, but rather because it was so - daring in a Christmas song.)
When she sang the penultimate line, he almost broke down again:
Until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow
These were the original gritty words, shorn of any false gaiety. None of that happy-crap like "Hang a shining star upon the highest bough" (as was substituted later in the song's life.) He then heard the last line for what it was: one laden with layers of irony:
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now.
It was a wonderful song, a magnificent song - and one which he wished he'd written!
He was drained, exhausted. But he felt like he'd been given something precious; and, by some lovely coincidence, at the very time when he could most appreciate it. (And apparently only him: no other resident seemed to have even been aware that this piece had been performed.)
The song was scarcely over when it was time for the gifts to be distributed. He knew that every year each staff member bought presents specifically for six residents. As last year, Rolanda (a spritely young member of the Activity staff) had chosen him as one of her six. She unwrapped the present for him: it was a gorgeous deep chocolate brown shirt. As he stroked its soft subtle wale, she said with pride, "It's a Perry Ellis! I saw it at Marshall's for a really good price, and I said, 'That's for Ted!'" He was touched by this, even if he hadn't ever heard of that designer label. Unfortunately, the size was too small for him; the shirt would have to be exchanged. But he gave Rolanda a warm hug anyway.
The ensemble was starting another song: it was 'White Christmas', sung by (as he noted with ironic humor) the black fellow:
I'm dreaming of a white Christmas,
Just like the ones I used to know
(Was there, he wondered, global warming already in 1942 when the song was written?)
It didn't take him long to realize that this perennial chestnut was all sentimental fluff; it could not hold a candle to the other song. Nevertheless, he listened - and looked.
The singing wasn't bad (none of those Crosby-esque scoops up to the notes, thankfully); and, as with the last song, the playing was right on too. Then he had been too emotionally wrought up to notice; but now he deliberately watched the guitarist's hands to afford himself the visual gourmet treat of seeing the chords he was using.
The 'guitarist' wasn't moving his hands at all. The chords and the bass notes were continuing, but he had nothing to do with them. Apparently the guitar (and the keyboard) were just for show: this ensemble was using a karaoke machine.
And so, even as the strains of that song were still sounding ('May your days be merry and bright...'), our resident was beating a hasty retreat from the party.
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Thanksgiving
The looming threat of a family gathering
1. Word was filtering in to T. at the Institution that a record number of relatives--including the ones from Wilmington and the Midwest--would be coming to see him on Thanksgiving. More, they said they were coming "particularly" to see him.
He was not looking forward to it; in fact, to tell the truth, he was dreading it. And a good part of his dread had to do with what had apparently happened at the wedding in Kansas City the week before.
Everyone but he had attended that supposedly happy event. But from the reports that were brought back to T., he gathered two things: first, that there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth during the course of the weekend; and second, that there had been much religious fervor in evidence.
The weeping had apparently occurred as a result of the precarious health of two of his relatives. One was a sister-in-law (one of his wife's sisters) named Carlotta; the other was a brother-in-law named Dove.
About a month before, Carlotta (who lived not too far from T.) had gone to her doctor because she was having difficulty speaking and swallowing. T. did not know about the swallowing; but he had long been aware of her slow, slightly slurred speech. His assumption had been that this had been due to the effect of medications for pain occasioned by a head injury that she had incurred many years before.
But the doctor made a somewhat disturbing diagnosis: he said that it could be a muscular disease. The good news (he hastened to add) was that, first, it was not a fatal disorder; and second, it was potentially treatable. Nevertheless, Carlotta was a bit disturbed by this diagnosis and thus sought a second opinion. But the next doctor posited something far more ominous: a strange type of palsy. This disease would not only bring with it increasing difficulty with swallowing and speech, but as a result of the loss of her gag reflex, she could choke to death. The doctor added: "I suggest you start learning sign language."
Carlotta was understandably devastated by this news. She had planned that the later years of her life would be spent helping her grandson grow up. Now all this would be taken from her. At times she would become so upset that any attempt to speak about what she was feeling caused her to literally choke on her words.
(What had impressed T. about Carlotta, however, was the fact that, even with all the concerns about her own health, she still had found the time and the fortitude to bring him a treat on his birthday a couple of weeks before.)
Then there was the case of Dove (pronounced like "mauve"): this man was married to Madge, another of T.'s wife's sisters. A few short years before, Dove had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. This had progressed to the point where not only was he going through physical horrors similar to what T. had had to endure with his disease; but this good and intelligent man -- an aeronautical engineer by profession -- had become mentally confused and disoriented.
It was those two sisters who had been weeping and wailing at the wedding of Madge and Dove's son Jacques and his bride Miranda out in Kansas City. Given what the sisters were going through, such weeping would seem natural at such a solemn family event. Thanksgiving, though on a much lesser scale, qualified as that sort of event as well. And that was one thing that T. was dreading (although he had heard that Carlotta might not appear at all, or at most just for the dessert.)
(From this information, one might be led to conclude that T. was heartless. But this was not the case -- he felt deeply for his sisters-in-law. What he was dreading, rather, was his own helplessness in the face of their emotion.)
And then there was the wedding itself. From what he gathered (and here he had to rely on reports), it was a more or less typical Protestant wedding service, though imbued with the emphasis of a Southern synod. So there was much exhortation, through use of biblical scripture, for the bride to do such things as "submit to her husband". (T. was wont to ask, "Was the sainted Paul married? I don't think there is any record that he was. And yet there he is, dispensing all that bad advice to couples!") The bride's family, of course, was responsible for the service.
That was the other thing that T. was dreading for Thanksgiving: the specter of overt religiosity -- especially on the part of the bride Miranda.
Was it praying that bothered T.? Yes. He used to say that he found grace -- thanks given to a deity that is uttered before meals and that, found in the very name itself, is particularly prevalent at Thanksgiving -- to be "abhorrent, an execration. For what kind of selfish and blind egotist is it who believes that, in a world of acute hunger, God has somehow singled him or her out and provided them with a bounty of delicious food while millions of others go wanting?" He would then add, "And, quite frankly, what kind of God would that be, to crave such thanks?"
Did he have a bone to pick with prayer in general? Not if it is done for oneself as a sort of inner dialogue, or with a sympathetic other. It was the public form that he abhorred, "the kind that commands everyone's attention and silence, that asks each person, whether they be a believer or not, to defer to its will." When a gathering was told to bow their heads, T. would deliberately raise his "in order to make sure that a pickpocket wasn't wandering through the gathering."
So that was to be his Thanksgiving -- the twin bugaboos of weeping and praying. And then, as if those weren't bad enough, there was also his subsidiary apprehension about Jacques.
As a young boy, Jacques had been a handful, to say the least. For no discernible reason he would fly into rages -- sometimes after being taunted by his cousins. Later, it would be surmised that very likely he had been mistreated when he was little (though not, I hasten to add, by his gentle and loving parents.) As an adult, he had gone to a world-renowned university in engineering (now he was in graduate school.) T. had not really seen Jacques since he was a boy, and so he was unsure as to what to expect. It was just one more apprehension on his part.
2. Their private family Thanksgiving celebration was to be held in the large and ornate living room at the Institution. When T. got there, a number of his relatives had already arrived and were standing about chatting with one another. T. took a deep breath and entered the room. He was greeted warmly by various nephews and in-laws, including Madge and Dove (T. gathered that the latter knew who T. was and that it was Thanksgiving, but wasn't really sure where he was.) Madge seemed happy even though Dove required so much care on her part; but T. knew that she craved and loved family gatherings like this more than anyone else in the room.
And then, suddenly, Carlotta was standing in front of T.
She was her naturally happy self, fun-loving and ebullient. She gave him a hug and kissed him and effused about how great it was that everyone could be there and that sort of thing. She spoke glowingly about an e-mail he had written her recently telling her that he "thought of her often" (he hadn't known what else to say.) There was not one iota of sadness or self-pity or any of that sort of emotion that T. had expected. T. was so taken aback that he was all but paralyzed to react. All he could think was, "I do not know what she is on, but I most certainly want some for myself!"
But now a group of his relatives were clamoring for him to greet Miranda. T. steeled himself and, as she approached him, he raised his left hand (it was quasi-palsied, but the other hand was useless) to shake hers.
She was not particularly striking in looks or bearing, and did not appear to be particularly intelligent. Beyond welcoming her to his "home" and telling her, somewhat disingenuously, that he was sorry to have missed her wedding, he did not know what else to say: clearly, they had absolutely nothing in common. The conversation died almost before it began. It was a relief when new husband Jacques, now a smiling bespectacled intellectual, stepped forward from her side and shook his hand.
Jacques began by telling T. that Miranda had been particularly interested in meeting him -- that, in fact, they have both come East on this trip especially to see T.
T. did not know what to think of such a statement. He was, so to speak, of two minds (he sometimes used the word "schizophrenic"] about his own desirability. On the one hand, he thought of himself as one who is utterly irresistible: witty, charming, devil-may-care. So of course the nephew and his wife would want to fly hundreds of miles to see him -- what could be more natural?
On the other hand, there was his physical self. When he began using a wheelchair, he still felt physically fit: his arms were still strong; moreover, he could stretch his legs out straight and admire the muscles which rippled in his thighs. But now, ten years later, his arms and legs are all but useless appendages. As Chopin said in the film Impromptu, "I think that I have bid farewell to my body; I feel as though I am no longer 'in' it." Just so T.: he did not indulge in self pity; he just simply felt himself to be, in one melodramatic word, grotesque -- a bit like (and here he could not help but smile at the absurd romantic reference) "Quasimodo without the backdrop of Notre Dame". Given this, it can well be understood that he might exclaim, "Why in heaven's name would they want to come and see me?"
But Jacques was only warming up. He said, "I've been reading your paper on clock geometry, and I find it very interesting!" This was extremely flattering to T. -- that someone would take the time and trouble to read what had turned out to be a somewhat abstruse work replete with numerous theorems and the like.
Jacques was quite serious, in a playful sort of way, about wanting to talk about T.'s paper. In fact, he invited T. to concoct problems for him. So T. spontaneously threw at him such brain teasers as "What is the angle between the hands at exactly 2:11?" Jacques would wrinkle up his forehead in a fit of concentration (T. was almost sure he could see great beads of sweat forming there!) and then reply within a few seconds with the correct answer (in this case: "One-half degree".) Clearly T.'s nephew was very bright.
Then Jacques mentioned some mathematics he was teaching as a graduate assistant: it was finding the inverse of a matrix by hand using the so-called Gaussian Elimination Method. It turned out that T. himself had taught that method several times, back before the use of handheld calculators rendered it effectively obsolete. So he and Jacques mused for awhile on the subject of finding delight in anachronistic pursuits. "You know the hardest thing about that method?" T. asked. "Yes", grinned Jacques, "Adding fractions: strictly fifth grade math!"
T. found his nephew to be delightful, a great conversationalist with no traces of his boyhood foibles. But soon Jacques was excusing himself to go talk with his cousins. T. turned in his wheelchair, and saw Carlotta's husband Dyle (pronounced like "aisle") standing nearby. T. wheeled up to him and immediately asked, soto voce, "So what is the story with Carlotta? I expected her to be fragile and falling apart, and here she is her old self. I'm relieved to see that, but I'm mystified -- what gives?"
Dyle smiled his usual sardonic smile and replied, "Well you see T., yesterday, as if in answer to a prayer (all this may make me into a Believer yet!), there came a deus ex machine of sorts." He explained that a few days previously, the doctor had taken Carlotta off of a generic medication mandated by the insurance company, and put her on the name brand. Yesterday she had her gag reflex in good part back and with that a much more hopeful prognosis. "Of course she is not totally out of the woods -- we must still take care with what and how she eats; and she needs speech therapy for dysphagia. But, all in all, we are very relieved!"
So was T. -- not only for Carlotta's sake, but as well because it seemed like this gathering might be able to avoid the weeping after all. He was not so optimistic about the praying.
3. The announcement was made that dinner was about to be served. The various food items were laid out on a separate table, and people lined up to help themselves. T.'s wife would bring him his plate, while Dove's wife Madge would bring him his. T. had had a full turkey dinner at noon in the dining hall; so he asked his wife to only bring him pies: pumpkin pie, apple pie, and mince pie. After all (so he reasoned), he had never had the appetite for dessert in previous years because he had eaten too much turkey and assorted goodies; so why not use this time to have the best of both worlds?
Finally, everyone had their food and had taken their seat. T. thought: "This is it, the time of the most potential danger. If it's going to happen, it'll happen now!" He almost stopped breathing...
And then, suddenly and spontaneously, everyone joined hands and, led by his wife and Carlotta, they all began to sing:
"We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing
He chastens and hastens His will to make known;
The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing:
Sing praises to His name He forgets not His own."
T. particularly liked this hymn because of its wonderful archaic-sounding words. They had a delicious 17th-century resonance, a remoteness, and he could well believe that they were uttered during the first Thanksgiving in 1621. (For a long time he thought the last line referred to the seemingly obvious fact that the Creator does not forget His own name.)
And T. liked the singing too, even though his own voice, with which he could once sing all the parts in his own operas, had become a coarse growl. Best of all, the praying had been avoided. Everyone but T. (for he had to be fed by his wife) lifted their forks to begin eating...
Someone was tapping a glass with their spoon to get the attention of the gathering. ('Are we at a Rotary Club luncheon?' T. wondered.) It was the elderly widowed father of one of his other brothers-in-law. He was impeccably dressed in carefully tailored deep burgundy pants and a matching plaid dinner jacket of the most gorgeous hues; in this way did he set himself off as a member of an older generation which knew how to dress for special occasions. He said he'd like to read something before they began eating. He took a piece of paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and began:
"I recommend to you that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for singular deliverances and blessings..."
(Uh oh thought T., here it comes -- prayer being slipped in the back door after I'd let down my guard!)
"... that you also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation..."
[T. had the horrible feeling that he was about to hear a plea by this elderly Republican for tolerance of the policies of President Bush!]
"... and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, and tranquillity."
Everyone waited with bated breath to hear what the patriarch might speak forth next. T. himself was not optimistic: this was the man's first time at one of their Thanksgiving gatherings; he was obviously a loose cannon run amok who might say anything, a self-appointed dandified Jeremiah attempting to exhort the faithless!
Then: "This was part of the original Proclamation for Thanksgiving given by President Lincoln."
You could hear everyone breathe an audible sigh of relief. Lincoln, of all people -- how utterly harmless! There would be no lecture on the more arcane meanings of the holiday; we would all be able to eat in good time. What a lovely old gentleman he was! And such nice clothes! Some genuine heartfelt applause rippled through the gathering for a second or two; and then, subito, the sound of forks striking plates to spear turkey was heard.
As he was fed, T. would gaze slyly over in Miranda's direction from time to time in order to verify for himself that she was in fact as dull and prosaic as he assumed her to be. But what he saw gave him pause: for there before him was a spirited and animated young woman, conversing and laughing as an equal with her tablemates. As a result, he found that she had become considerably more attractive than he had thought her to be when they have first met an hour before. She was becoming of interest to him.
And so, with an air of studied casualness, T. began to question his wife about Miranda. For example, was she working while Jacques was in school? "Yes. I believe she teaches high school English." Aha -- another teacher! He asked her what had attracted Jacques to Miranda? "Oh I think they have a lot in common. For example, they are both crazy about crossword puzzles. In fact, he proposed to her by means of a crossword puzzle he had made up." What a uniquely romantic thing to do! T. found that he was developing a newfound respect for Miranda.
Meanwhile, he tried to maintain his reputation for being witty.
For example, when a nephew spontaneously said for the benefit of the gathering: "You know, I used to think that Thanksgiving gatherings should consist of weighty and -- let's face it -- guilt-ridden ruminations on the plight of the homeless and other marginalized members of our society. But when I tried to win Uncle T. over to this viewpoint, he said to me: 'In my opinion, the purpose of a Thanksgiving gathering is to be a Thanksgiving gathering (I think he called this 'self-referential' or some other mathematical mumbo-jumbo) -- that is, for a group of people to get together for the sheer pleasure of getting together, in order to delight in one another's company.' And I myself now believe that he is right!"
While everyone was nodding at this bit of folk wisdom, T. interjected, "Oh dear me, I renounced that point of view ages ago!" That riposte received much laughter.
A bit later T.'s wife, perhaps in a bid to bolster her husband's (flagging?) reputation, stated to the gathering out of the blue: "You know, T. wrote a really humorous piece called 'Confessions of a Basketball Timer'." (In that dubious work, T. admitted to 'fudging' the timing so as to benefit the home team.) While everyone nodded uneasily (is it kosher to trumpet your own husband's accomplishments, especially when they are of questionable morality?), T. deadpanned humorously, "Yes darling, you always did have a fascination with the criminal side of my character!" That made for more hearty laughter.
As all that was going on, T. continued to take sneak peeks over in Miranda's direction. At times he would catch her eye. Her look was quizzical, questioning...
Suddenly he realized that he was utterly smitten with her.
(This sort of thing had happened only once before to T. A few short years ago while he was teaching in his wheelchair, he had a sophomore homeroom in which there was a girl who was obviously a sad sack. For one thing, she looked slovenly, with long stringy dirty blonde hair. Then too, she was always throwing herself desperately at a certain Latin Romeo in the school who was obviously not interested in her at all.
(And she was always in trouble with the authorities. Almost every day she would get a disciplinary slip of one sort or another: a library overdue notice (often several times for the same book), a summons to see her housemaster (usually an ominous sign), or a detention slip.
(In short, she was the very opposite of the kind of student that T. had been in high school. As a result, he found her to be pathetic, one to be pitied. In truth, he felt a bit of contempt for her.
(On one such typical day, T. called the girl up front to pick up a discipline slip. As she leaned over him to see what the notice pertained to, some perfume she was wearing wafted over to T. And suddenly, without warning, he was madly and passionately in love with her.
(Of course, after she had gone back to her seat, the fragrance dispersed and soon T. was his old self again. But he never regarded that girl -- or for that matter, perfumes -- quite the same way again!)
So now it had happened to T. again -- not by smell this time, but rather by sight. (He wondered whether he had enough time left in his life to experience this sensation with each of the other three senses: "He bit into the exotic cheese she had handed him, and instantly...")
But then, as if on cue, someone humorously and loudly inquired, "So, T., do you approve of Miranda?" He looked up and caught her dark glance once again and was struck dumb. It was a perfect time for him to show off with one of his jocular bon mots; but at that exact moment, balanced as he was on the knife edge between the sublime and the absurd (the image of the buffoon Falstaff came to mind), the last thing he was able to be was funny. He managed to choke out a response: "Very much." The words almost stuck in his throat. The air seemed charged with energy.
Then, subito, someone else yelled out, "But the question is, does Miranda approve of T.?" At that, Miranda gave the person a knowing wink, and pointed her index finger at the questioner as if to say "touché!
It was a classy response, all the more eloquent because of its humorous silence. Approve of him? How could she possibly care a whit for him when she had come all that way to meet him, only to have him cut her when she tried to talk with him? So T. felt a great deal of regret in his behavior toward her, not least because he had missed out on having a perfectly good conversation with a young woman of wit and intelligence.
4. The dinner was ending. Some people were standing up and stretching, while others began packing things up for the trip home. T. was hatching a desperate resolve. He saw Miranda lingering about, edging nearer him (in fact, T. was blocking the only available exit from her table) but looking about, as if he were the last person on her mind. When she was near enough, T. smiled and asked her, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, "So Miranda, I understand you're a teacher."
Immediately she was before him, ready and willing to converse with him.
Miranda: "Yes. I teach English in a Catholic high school. It was the only teaching job I could get."
T.: "I once had an interview to teach in a girls Catholic high school. The job would have included teaching cataclysm -- whoops, catechism, whatever that is -- in homeroom."
(T. had an amusing anecdote about that interview; but for once he was able to rein in his propensity to entertain.)
Miranda: "Mine is a coed school. And no, we don't have to teach about earthquakes in homeroom!"
(T. had heard that Miranda taught freshmen and juniors.)
T.: "So what are your juniors reading?"
Miranda: "Well, among other things, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."
T.: "Wow -- that's still able to incite controversy after more than a century, isn't it! Do you run into many people who want to ban the book because of the n-word?"
Miranda: "Not really. But I've found that book banners come from both ends of the political spectrum."
T.: "How would you defend the book if someone did try to prevent its use?"
Miranda: I'd simply point out that Huck treats Jim as an equal, with absolute respect. Even when he keeps him hidden, he does so in order to protect him. So Jim is in no way degraded."
T.: "Until the end that is."
Miranda: "Yes -- there is that very strange business with Tom Sawyer..."
T.: "He nearly destroys the novel!"
Miranda: "He should have stayed put in his own book!"
T.: "I agree -- though I must admit that I read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer multiple times when I was a kid, partly because I was fascinated with the idea of being lost in a cave with a girl."
Miranda: "I can see that. I read it multiple times because I had fantasies about being chased down by Injun Joe."
T.(surprised): "Really?"
Miranda (laughing): "I'm just joking. But I did read Huckleberry Finn multiple times and fantasized about that.
T.: "That sounds romantic!"
Miranda: "Not in the way that you're thinking. I fantasized about the romance of running away from the strictures of school and family to a life of adventure and freedom and, yes, exciting uncertainties on and off that great river."
T.: "Would you be Huck's Girl Friday?"
Miranda: "Who said anything about Huck?"
T. (surprised): "You mean that you would be by yourself...?"
Miranda: "Well, I'd be with Jim."
T.: "But a young female on that river essentially alone at night and all those threatening places with those unsavory characters..."
Miranda (smiles): "Well, apparently I thought I could handle it!"
T.: "Do you have your students write about that sort of thing?"
Miranda: "Sure. A typical assignment would be to write a chapter set in contemporary times wherein they put themselves in the place of Huck."
T.: "And how do the girls do?"
Miranda: "Very well. You know, girls don't just fantasize about being with boys; they also fantasize about doing things that are traditionally the province of boys. And you know something? Sometimes those fantasies are better, more true to life, than those of some of the boys!"
T.: "I know that well from my math classes: more often than not the girls did slightly better than the boys."
Miranda: "That would seem to defy Conventional Wisdom, wouldn't it!"
T.: "It would appear so. By the way, a friend of mine whom I trust when it comes to things literary thinks that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the greatest American novel ever written."
Miranda: "I suppose it's okay -- it's basically On the Road, except the road is a river."
T (a bit alarmed): "Are you serious?"
Miranda (laughing): "Of course not!"
T.: "Have you been able to distinguish between the purported four dialects? I never could."
Miranda: "I can't really either -- and I'm from Missouri!"
T.: "By the way, I happen to have at home a facsimile of the original edition of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. You might find it interesting to see how the book was first presented to the public. You can have it if you're willing to clamber up to the top of my bookshelf and retrieve it. As they say, it ain't much, but it ain't nuthin'!"
Miranda: "I'd love it -- thank you very much!"
(People were almost all packed up. T. knew he had time for one more exchange. He motioned to Jacques, who was standing discreetly out of the way just behind Miranda, to join them. T. knew he was about to do something very Tom Sawyer-ish, but he couldn't help himself.)
T.: "I have something which I call 'a crossover joke' because it contains aspects of both Science and English; so it applies to both of you. Here it is:
"What is another name for 2000 mockingbirds?"
Miranda, after a moment's thought: "Two kilo mockingbirds?"
When T. nodded, she and Jacques high-fived one another.
And that was it: things had been packed up, people were clamoring to go. T. raised his palsied left-hand and shook Miranda's and Jacques' left-hands warmly and told them both how grateful he was that they should come all that way to see him and how pleasant it was for him to converse with each of them. They reciprocated. There were goodbyes and goodbye kisses from his various other relatives. And then everyone except T. left the Institution.
5. T.'s infatuation with Miranda lasted for the next two hours. It might have lasted longer, except for the fact that he was put to bed that night by a very kind and sweet Puerto Rican girl named Iris.
(22 February 2008)
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