Alison’s List of Household Guidelines –
#27. Watch out for people looking for volunteers – you don’t have as much time as you think. I restricted myself to two per girl (only one a yearlong commitment) but I have experience so you might want to only do one to start with.
I did not read the list and broke rule number twenty-seven. It started with Emily’s soccer team that needed a coach. I had time and loved soccer, it was perfect. Mellissa needed more social interaction, according to the pre-school teacher. I guessed five and a half days a week with Miss W wasn’t enough. Sooo, Mellissa was in a music interaction class two days a week for an hour which my presence was mandatory. Mrs. K ran that. Do any of these women have a real last names? On it went: PTA needed volunteers to stuff envelopes, Emily’s teacher needed a parent helper – why the shit do I pay tuition? The list was endless from these time sucking organizations. Before I knew it my timetable to make the dinner deadline needed to be revamped and Alison introduced me to the crock pot.
Then there was my dad; most days weren’t bad. We were awkwardly learning how to get along and to run our individual households. Which were previously done by our wives, with quite an efficiency that made it all look so simple. Allison must have had a magic spell which enabled her to get small animals to help. I would never have asked her for the incantation, because that would have made me certifiable – but I wanted to.
Turns out dad was surprisingly good at doing laundry, as long as I didn’t switch the placement of the soap and fabric softener bottles. It was a skill from his bachelor days. He taught me how to sort and I taught him how to run his machine – several times – until I realized he could not see the print over the controls – even after I cleaned his glasses.
Alison and I sat in bed that night talking about Dad’s laundry quandaries and playing backgammon: which I was kickin’ ass in.
“He does it every day – whether he needs to or not.” I moved the backgammon piece on the iPad. “Whites on even days, darks on odd.”
“He must be bored,” she said. Alison landed on my one vulnerable checker. I groaned. “How about we color code his washer and microwave?”
“What green for go, red for stop?” I asked and rolled a double six, damn I can’t go. She nodded. “It is worth a shot.” I watched her make another block – great now I could only get in with a three. “Maybe he will start eating breakfast.”
“I don’t know about that.” She smiled when the dice gave me a five and one. “You need to call your sister; have her hire someone to clean.”
“He can pay for it. I help him with his bills.” I inwardly groaned at the roll she got. “His eyes are so bad he thinks the house is clean.”
“Just call her.”
I was losing the game as well as the debate. Shit.
I waited two days and six hours for my sister to call me back. It was during an absent Alison night while trying to feed the girls. Dinner was under contentions negotiations, because of broccoli – the vegetable of evil. Emily’s words not mine. Was a Catholic School a good idea?
Then the vision of her as a teen with her first love flashed in my mind. Holding hands and kissing on the couch with some hormone laden boy. Instantly brought me to the year I turned sixteen and my first girlfriend, trying to get to third base with the hope of a homerun, in my parent’s Lincoln. Yah, she was never playing baseball as long as I was alive. Evil, guilt and damnation were very good things to teach her.
It was decided – they stayed at St. Mary’s and could deal with the guilt as an adult.
“Em?” I was taken out of my own head by Di’s voice.
“Di. I need you to call dad.” I said. I had no time for pleasantries, straight to the meat of the issue.
“What the hell for?” She asked.
“To help me talk him into a cleaning lady.” I broke down and pulled out the ranch dressing, poured it over the vegetables which were condemned but I had to try. “His house needs a good cleaning.”
“Well, do it.”
“Don’t have time.” I tell her.
I heard a snort, it reminded me of my father. “Why not. You are just playing house.”
“I am not playing house. I am raising children.” I hated defending myself to her – or anyone.
“Yah, while your wife slaves away.” Di said.
“Really, you’re going there. You told her at Mom’s funeral that it was about time she got a ‘real’ job.” I said while I buried the hamburgers in a mound of ketchup. I tried to put it away, but a squeal stopped me. I had to put more red magic on Mellissa’s mashed potatoes, no wonder mom loved condiments.
“What does that have to do with anything? It is about time she had a real job.” She snorted, “This is the twenty-first century.”
“It is about choices Di.” I walked out of the kitchen into the laundry room. “Look, I wanted you to talk him into getting someone in there.” I knew she was rolling her eyes. “Maybe you could persuade him.” I waved my arm to make my point like she could see it. “That’s all.”
“Why do I have to talk to him? He isn’t going to listen to me.” She was whining, but I kept my mouth shut. Good boy Emerson.
“What can it hurt?” I shrug – why was I making body movements she couldn’t see? “Just bring it up the next time you call him.”
“I don’t call him.”
That hurt. “What? Why?” I changed my mind, I didn’t want an answer. “Start. He is seventy-six years old, in poor health and not going to live forever.”
“I can never do anything to please him. He thinks the sun rises and sets on you. I am not a boy – so I lose.” Di groused, slammed down the stale reasons.
“Nice angry teenager, Di.” I grimaced at that statement – crap. I am on the verge of starting a fight. “Just call him; ask him stuff. Things he can’t grunt to.” I heard an exhale of breath, I recognized as her martyr’s sigh. I won this round.
A scream of outrage came from the kitchen. Shit, I was away too long. I found Emily with ketchup sliding down to her cheek, and a hand full of mashed potatoes ready to fly.
“Young lady.” I wanted to laugh, but two semesters of acting classes had just paid off in more than just getting me laid in college. “Got to go.” I told Di.
“What is going on?”
“Call Dad and I will tell you.” I hung up.
Discipline Dad can see no clear winner. Great, I had to punish them both which really translated into all three of us being tortured for the next hour.
I showed up at my dad’s place that evening with Mellissa and colored permanent markers. She ran up with a greeting as warm as sunshine accompanied with a hug. Then asked if he kept any cookies – like grandma did?
“I haven’t been shopping. If there’re still any, you need to look under the sink; behind the dishwashing soap.” A single little eyebrow shoots up in doubt. Dad laughed – a first sense Mom had died. “She used to hide them from me. That was the only place I couldn’t reach.” We both watched her skip off with an Oreo towards the TV.
“You called your sister?” he said as he sat sideways on the kitchen chair, slumped forward an elbows balance on the table and chair back.
“She told you?” I asked as I started marking his microwave.
“I’m old, not senile.” He grunted.
“I needed back up.” I started to blow on the button I have just colored and glanced back at him.
“Fine, hire someone.” He waved his hand in the air, a sign of defeat and looked away. “You do know I was single for almost twenty years before I married your mother.”
I know if Alison still stayed home, she would have not only cleaned but done it in such away he wouldn’t have noticed. I don’t know how she did everything. I suspect it was not sleeping, because she was looking far more rested now.
“I miss your mother.”
“Yah, me too.”
“It’s admitting she is never coming back.” I didn’t know how to respond so we just sat in the kitchen. Him, slumped at the table. I, leaned against the counter with the sound of Grover talking about the letter G floating into the kitchen. The silence between us, for the first time, was comforting. My father straightened up in his chair and said, “Well, there are just some things a man can’t run away from.” He just quoted John Wayne!
My calendar was looking like a married CEO’s with two mistresses, but tomorrow was Saturday, which was when Emily had dance. However, Mrs. Z had to go to a wedding. How hard is it to say Zimmerman? “Hey Dad, do you want to go the Air Museum, tomorrow?”
We spent the next afternoon at the small museum where he told the girls about: how the planes worked, how he flew in the Army, and how he got out just to marry their grandmother. As the girls ran around the exhibits and played with the children activities, he visited with the volunteers who remembered.
We walked out to the car with the girls running ahead of us. “Dad, why didn’t you ever tell me about being in the Army, or flying?”
Dad stopped and looked on me, leaning heavily on his cane. “I flew for too long. I always felt so much guilt for even taking a day off. When I was transferred out – I just didn’t talk about it.” He started to limp forward but stopped and watched the girls as they spread their arms and pretend to fly. His eyes moved up to the Vietnam era Heuy helicopter. I could almost see him step back in time.
. . . . The temperature and humidity matched that day. Captain Beaulieu washed down his aircraft while he felt his uniform stick to him. It was all made worse by the lack of a breeze which in some small way was a blessing because he couldn’t smell the privies that the wind usually brought to the air field. Instead the heat smelled of rotting vegetation, diesel grease and the copper scent of blood. The smell permeated everything in a layer of filth that only this war, this place could.
The hose in hand he was methodically washing the blood from the inside of his work horse of the day. A Heuy, Bell H-1 helicopter. Once he had taken a ride in one, he had been hooked. It fed his adrenaline addiction. He brought men out to the battle field then with luck brought them back in – whole. That day was not a lucky day. The kid was green as the grass in spring. He had brought him back alive but barely. His friends had carried him ten miles to the pickup sight. Not asking what happened was one of his coping skills because everyone no one did if they had been here more than a week. Tonight, he would drink himself blind in hopes of forgetting.
The kid was unforgettable. His bright red hair and freckles which he wore with pride as if they were a king’s robe. His infections laughter and timing of a joke, made him stand out – the ability to make people smile was invaluable. Now it was the left side of his face bloody and his missing arm he couldn’t forget. He tried to wash it away. The bloody water drained out of the bullet holes in the floor, but something was caught on the lip of the door. Putting down the hose he walked over and picked it up.
It was an ear.
It came back – this afternoon like every pickup nothing was sure, there was only the illusion of safety. He landed in the clearing and five of them came out. Running with the kid flung over one of their shoulders and shouting; no one needed to hear the words we all knew why. Santos had given fire over their heads to give them the chance to make it the fifty yards. I hovered and I started to take off as the last one just barely made the jump. Bullets flew up with us and entered from the floor hitting one more.
Washing blood was a good sign he told himself as he held the freckled ear. The ones killed instantly didn’t bleed. It was his single thought as he threw the ear towards the jungle and the cold curtain of indifference closed around him.
He came back to the now he called out, “Let’s get ice-cream,” he called to the girls and then cheers sound up in wavs of glory for their hero of that afternoon.
At the Airport Diner we chowed down on chocolate cones with sprinkles; the girls danced in their seats to a tune only they heard called – sugar rush. “Grampa, how did you meet Grammy?” Emily the family integrator asked.
“Oh, let me see.” Dad leaned back and settled in to his story telling position with his arms crossed; a cone tucked close. “I met your grandmother while she was visiting a family friend at Fort Polk in Louisiana, and who just happen to be my C.O. while I was stationed there. She lived and went to school in Huston, Texas. She was a senior in college and was prettier than a sunset.”
“What’s a see-kow.?” Mellissa asked.
“C.O. is Commanding Officer – my boss.”
“Was it nice at Fort Polk?” Asked Emily.
“Louisiana has some nice places.” My father gracefully hedged.
“How far was Huston from Fort Poke, a lot?” Emily bit into her cone.
“About three hours by car.”
“How far is Disney from here?” the ice-cream dripped down her chin.
“Twenty-seven hours by car.” I said and tried to stop chocolate from dripping onto her shirt. Old me would not have cared, but the new me knew it stained.
“Was Grammy pretty?” Mellissa piped up.
“Yes.” He smiled at Mellissa, “But that is not why I married her.” He leaned back in his chair and finished his ice-cream cone. A barge of whys came at him from little voices. “I married her because she was confident, smart and made me laugh.”
“What is confident?” one of the girls asked.
“It means you know your worth, and won’t except anything less from the world around you.”
“Mommy said she wouldn’t trade me for a million dollars. So, I am worth a million dollars!” Emily declared, as I tried to wipe down their small hands with napkins. Why couldn’t this be a rib place with wet naps? Ah screw it, the back seat will just have to be sticky for a while.
As we headed home everyone napped with their gentle snores, my only company, and then the scent of chocolate floated from the back seat. Crap – Mellissa stuffed her pocket with ice cream again.
