Chaca, When The Walls Fell

 Still no completed ghost story, but I found something you might like that I wrote February 4th, 2018, when I was trying to see myself as something more than a broken down old man. 

I'm still a broken old man, even more so, but I do have some focus of will left. With that thought came this bit from almost four years ago:

                        This Old Man (2018-02-04)

            I’m not sure how it happened.

            Usually I’m very aware of my surroundings when I’m out. Especially when I’m with my little girl. My ’little girl’ is in junior high, and nearly the height of her mother; not so little.

            Maybe that was it; she was not a ‘little’ girl at all, anymore.

             Minding our own business at a table in the park, eating a Mickey-Dee’s lunch, a group of - no a gang of boys came up and casually surrounded our table. The boys were not much older than my granddaughter.

            One of the bolder youths came closer, saying, “Hello, little chicky, leave this old man and come with me, I show you some fun!”

            “He’s not an old man! He’s my grandpa!” she shouted back.

            “Even better! You come with me and my boys will keep your old grandpa busy.”

            The gang had us circled. As casually as I could I move my legs over the bench so I was half-facing away from the table. One of the other boys came close to me and leaned in. I could smell the cigarette odor, and the smell of marijuana, on his breath. “Don’ get up, ole man, Rickie – he take goooood care of your girl for you.” He leered a half-focused grin at me.

            Someone behind me poked my shoulder, “An’ we gonna take gooood care of you, too. Don’ worry about nothin’.”

            The first boy reached his right hand out and placed it on my left shoulder, the shoulder nearest the table, “You jus’ sit right there, an’ ev’ry thing will be fine.”

            “Pa-paw?”

            One of the circling boys said, “Maybe we can take turns.” The rest of the boys chuckled, their laughter low in the throat. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the first boy (“Ricky?”) take my girl’s arm to pull her away from the picnic table.

            The voice in my ear said: This is the moment.

            Leaning back against the hand behind me; the boy behind me, irritated, shoved me forward. Grabbing my cane from the table with my left hand, and leaning forward (unwittingly assisted by the boy behind me), I punched the boy in front of me’s solar plexus, putting as much of my weight behind the blow as I could. This boy’s leer disappeared as his eyes and his mouth went wide, gasping for a breath that would not come.       

            Standing and stepping away, and twisting to face the boy behind me, I got both hands on my cane, spaced wide, pushing it at the boy’s chest, stepping in to shove as hard as I could to knock him down. He couldn’t back-pedal fast enough to stay standing and went down.

            Stepping on his chest to the most direct path around the end of the table I saw Ricky dragging my little girl away from the table. Two more boys were between Ricky and me, the one on my left waved a knife. I think he meant to scare me.

            I stepped left, putting the other boy slightly behind the knife wielder. I swung my cane hard down on the wrist with the knife, and he screamed. He also dropped the knife.

            I brought the cane back up, and grabbing it with both hands as I had before, I shoved it into this boy’s chest and he went down. I stepped on him and went at the fourth boy. He came at me like a defensive line-man, ready to push me back. I met his charge, shoving him with the cane held as a bar in front of me, then twisting to the right, I stepped left, and let him slide past me. As he went by, I kicked him in his rear and he went down on his nose.

            That was four of the .. five? six? boys in the bunch. One of whom was standing to my left, holding on to my little girl … holding a knife to her throat.

            “Stay back!” he said. He spoke through clenched teeth, his own breathing as ragged as mine was; I was near the end of my effort.

            I have to wrap this up.

            “Baby Girl,” I said, using a name from her childhood, “Baby Girl, do you trust me?”

            Her eyes flickered to a long-ago memory, and she nodded.

            As the boy was saying ‘Shut UP, Old Man’, I said, “Ess-Dee-Are.”

            She blinked, widening her eyes. I gave a slight nod in reply.

            She became dead weight on the boy’s arm. The boy, not expecting it, let her fall. Finishing the ‘Stop-Drop-Roll’ she rolled as fast as she could away from the boy. The boy stood watching.

            As soon as she was clear, I stepped in and raised my cane, still gripped in both hands by its ends, knocking his knife hand up.

            “Run to the car, child! Call the police!”

            Letting go of one end of the cane, and reaching into my left front pocket I grabbed my keys and started tossing them to her. The boy took advantage of my distraction and slashed downward with his knife. It missed my face but cut open my shirt. I felt the slash like an electric jolt through my chest as the blade bit me.

            I dropped the keys as I focused on the face of the boy. His eyes were wide, his mouth open. I growled, like bear or a jungle cat, ready to pounce on my prey. This boy-predator didn't think he was so big any more without his friends. He was back-pedaling, as if he no longer wanted this fight. 

            I certainly didn’t want this fight, but I couldn’t let the matter rest and have him regain his courage when his friends recovered. I was sure boy #2 and boy #4 were already doing so. The cane was still in my right hand; I swung it at his knife hand, intent on breaking his wrist, breaking what was left of his spirit for this fight of his own making, my own vision tunneling.

            The fight would be over in a moment, one way or the other. The shock I was feeling from the cut was combining with my shortness of breath from my exertions. I felt like a puppet whose strings were being cut, one at a time.

            I saw the rubber tip of my cane hit his knife hand. It was the last thing I saw: my tunnel vision narrowed to nothing, the roaring in my ears became a roaring silence.

            Except, I seemed to be someplace. I was talking to someone. Or they were talking to me. It was dark, and largely noiseless, apart from the conversation. It was one of those ‘what-to-do-next’ conversations.

            I found myself saying, “For myself, I don’t care, but please make sure my wife and granddaughter are taken care of.”

            The reply: “Your family will be taken care of – you’ll take care of them.”

            I expressed my doubts in wordless thought, that none-the-less was answered, “You just need to rest a while. Then you will be strong enough to continue.”

            My wordless thought continued to the shortness of breath, the pain in my chest that had nothing to do with the cut, and the general feeling of exhaustion I felt. I mentally tried to raise my arms – and could not.

            The voice, if it was a voice, returned with the sentence, “My strength is made perfect in weakness – you know that.”

            And with that, the dream, or whatever it was, ended.

            Oddly enough, the next thing was noise, the roaring in my ears was back, and pains all over were telling me I was still interfaced with my body, and the world at large was starting to make its presence known: shrill sirens, accelerations and decelerations, not to mention the ‘come-over-darlings’ of sharp turns, and things rattling with each bump. Unfocused light was sneaking in under my eyelids, and on the next bump I heard a groan. My next thought was that person sounds like he’s hurting.

            The following thought: that groaning person was me!

            The pains, instead of just nebulous ideas, started coming in from my chest, my hands and wrists, and an ouchy spot on my left pectoral.

            As I wondered what this was all about, dribs and drabs of ‘the last things I remember’ slowly snuck into my mind.

            Then I thought, “Oh. Yeah.” 

            And decided to go back to sleep.

And there you go. Fiction is as fiction does, but if it ever comes down to cases, I hope I do as well as my dream self in this story, and end up finishing the fight before I run out of steam.

I don't have a lot of steam left. 

But I do what I can. 

Yes, I Can.

Yes, You CAN!

 

What Do You Say When You Don't Have Anything To Say?

Garrison Keillor described it as 'The ability to say things while you're thinking of something to say."

Some people do this better than I do, Mr. Keillor, notably.

I was going to write about personal tragedies, but certain folk would prefer that
I don't share 'family business' ( I suppose even saying that much is saying 'too much'). So, let me just say that it's been a tough couple of years, and let it go at that.

Now that that is done, how are all of you folks? Keeping on? Still keeping the New Years' Resolutions?

I have only one this year: 

"Survive" 

That one will be tough enough, I expect. If that word is a contract, then there are a lot of subordinate clauses that will need to be met as well.

Like:

'Stay healthy'
'Make more money'
'Have more fun'
'Keep loving the family'

And:

"Non Illegitimi Carborundum"*

And, if I can, you can, too.

Yes, You Can!


* You'd best 'Google' it

Go Not Gentle Into That Good Night

There's a lot you can learn from your pets.

Take our last dog and current cat, for instances:

Our dog, Missy, was the outdoors dog's outdoors dog. She gloried in snow storms, rejoiced in rainstorms, and whenever the occasion arose, revelled in running free with the steers on the in-laws' ranch.

She was never trained as a hunting dog, but she knew how to hunt: she did so to survive and feed her pups. That's how she came to us in the first place; somebody had dumped her, either pregnant or with her puppies, out in the middle Weld County. They lived a semi-feral existence until a farmer family found them. The farmer was able to find homes for the pups easily enough, but with the uncertain history of the mother was unable to find a home for her. Until my wife came along.

Our family at the time (specifically the two girls) wanted a dog. I'm not a dog person, and my wife, due to childhood traumas, detested dogs in general. But, the girls wanted a dog for Christmas, so my wife set out to look for one.

Missy saw my wife, knew that she had to win her over if she was to find a new home, and did her level best to do so. My wife took the dog home, and while we brought her home for "the kids", she remained forever my wife's dog.

Mike the Tomcat was the only one to have any real misgivings. Eventually they settled there differences and agreed to disagree, staying on opposite sides of whichever room. Since Mike was my cat, this made for some interesting moments when my wife and I sat side-by-side on the sofa: we would cuddle a bit, the dog and cat would growl, we would have to break up an alley fight in the living room, then go back to trying to get some time together again. Sometimes the dog went outside, sometimes the cat was sent to the basement. Sometimes we just sat on opposite sides of the room. (In compromise, nobody wins, everyone is merely equally unhappy.)

I guess I'll have to include Mike, though that was not my original thought. Mike died sometime before Missy did, being quite old when Missy came to us. Even though he had cataracts, he still wanted to go out, especially at night, to 'cat around' a bit. At this point, he'd stay out most of the night (except for bad weather) and be waiting at the door in the morning.

One morning he wasn't there.

I won't go into detail as to what went through my heart and mind. We called and whistled for him every day for the next three days. Our kids had given up on him and were beginning to think I was a little nuts to continue to whistle for him, especially since the weather had turned cold. I knew he couldn't see well enough to find his way back from where ever. But I knew, if he could hear me whistle, he would follow the whistle home.

On the evening of the fourth day, while I was whistling for him, I heard a plaintive "meow." And there he was, cold and bedraggled, but generally healthy. I was never so glad that I had taught him to come to a whistle than that night. After getting a good supper, he alternately shivered and purred himself to sleep on my lap, Missy notwithstanding.

After that, his catabout times were restricted to about ten-minutes' time in the evening. I think he understood, a little, that it was for his own good. But he always drug his heels (unless it was raining) on his way back in.

He died a couple of years later when he was seventeen years old, his old cat body finally wearing out on him, just after Easter that year. We buried him under the peach tree. For what it's worth, that was the first year that tree put on fruit.

Missy, as I said, threw herself into enjoying life, protecting the family from steers at the ranch, and even a bear, once, while on a camping trip. She never walked when she could run. The squirrels were never safe in our yard as she leaped to catch them. They generally gained the height of a tree or the top of our privacy fence in time. but they were certainly a good deal slimmer than they would have liked.

What laid her low was a stroke early one Sunday morning. By this time the kids had moved out, and Missy was very much 'our' dog now. I say 'our', but really, she liked me, but she loved my wife. She was too big to be a lap dog, but she tried to be one anyway.

I awoke early that morning, and walking into the kitchen to find Missy lying on the floor, staring sightlessly, her legs making scrabbling motions as if she were running (like dogs sometimes do when they're dreaming). She yipped occasionally as if in fear, running as fast as she could from the darkness overtaking her, as if she could out run death itself. With a final shake, she stopped.

I put my ear to her side, and listened as her heart ran down from it's racing to nothing at all, like an old wind-up clock ticking it's last tick. I told my wife, who had joined me by that time in trying to comfort Missy, that it was over.

Uncharacteristically, she started to cry (I'm more likely to, and I hadn't), berating herself for crying over a "... Damn, Dumb dog!" There was not much left to do but hold my wife and cry with her.

I've written Missy's elegy some time ago, so I won't repeat it here. I'll try to post a link to it later.

The last two lines of Dylan Thomas' poem reads: "Go not gentle into that good night./Rage, rage against the dying of the light." I think that just about sums up Missy.

Snuggles, our current cat, is on her way out. I can say that in full certainty. She has developed a cancer on her abdomen that would surely qualify her for euthanasia if I took her to a vet. Yet she still lives her life as best she can as an old lady kitty, not quite up to her kitten name of "Fizz Kit" any longer, except when the three-year-old comes careening through the house.

I ask her, not really expecting a reply, whether it's time to be put down, to end it. The only reply I get is her steady cat stare, and her steady purr.

I take that as a "Let's keep it going a while longer." We can learn a lesson from that cat.

"Go not gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Yes, You Can