Swing Low (7 page)

When my father was alive and my mother had been drinking (she began at the age of seventeen), he would cry. He didn’t know what to do or where to turn. Mrs. I.Q. Unger, before she died, told me my father would sit at her kitchen table and cry like a baby, sick with grief over my mother’s drinking. Perhaps she should have been confronted
by the manager, by the police, thrown in jail and publicly shamed. But that’s not how it was done. Over the years Elvira tried to get her to talk about her drinking. She tried to pinpoint some underlying problems that may have caused it. She tried to exorcise her demons. I, of course, said nothing. Elvira encouraged her to attend the local Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. But my mother refused to admit she drank. How many times did I let myself into her apartment to find her stumbling about, bruised and rambling? I’ve lost count.

As I clean her up, wash the floor, fetch a new housedress from the closet, throw away the bottles, and disinfect her fresh cuts, I listen to her talk about my brother, Reg, who is very busy in the United States establishing a reputation that will, some day, give him the credentials he needs to take charge of mental health care in the province and, finally, to manage hospitals, like this one.

And I listen to her talk about Diana, who is a missionary in Central America. My mother misses her children. And what will you do with your life, Melvin? she asks me as I gather up her soiled clothes and put them in a plastic bag, which I will give to Elvira to launder. I don’t talk about it. We don’t talk about it. Elvira talks about it, but I don’t talk about it.

W
e are worried, my daughter said, we are worried about him. He is becoming more agitated, more confused, manic. Will you make sure he isn’t discharged? There’s nobody at the house. Mom is in the city, she can’t … she needs to rest. It’s very important that he stays here, although he will tell you he is fine and he will be convincing. Please don’t let him leave.

You have our word.

Words again. More words. I told them I would be fine and they believed me. I said the words and they believed me. They let me leave.

Reg? Are you there? Aren’t you going to tell me it’s time to stop running and come home?

December 28, 1956. Our wedding day, and night, but what a personal fiasco that was on my part. Too nervous, suffice to say, and Elvira as calm as you can please, eventually falling fast asleep while I fidgeted next to her, not believing my luck in one second and in the next furious with myself for my inability to perform. My wedding-night grade? A resounding F! But here’s a historic point of interest: our wedding night cost me eleven dollars. Naturally I have kept the receipt. And the room in the hotel in which our wedding photographs were taken is now a beautiful round cocktail lounge with a high marble ceiling and a live piano player.

And now a leap: Elvira’s pregnancy. (You can rightly assume that I finally adjusted to my newfound marital status and became more assured of my conjugal responsibilities, of myself as husband.) Elvira became pregnant with our first daughter sometime — she would remember exactly when — in September, and it doesn’t surprise me that conception occurred in that month. I would have been feeling happiest and most relaxed, of course, because I would have only just embarked upon a new school year, and that was traditionally a time when my hopes and my energy level were high. Come to think of it, Elvira might have been feeling most relaxed at that time as well, with me safely out from underfoot as I had been all summer.

When, at Christmastime, Elvira felt enough time had passed and the “danger period” was over, she decided she would share our happy news with the neighbours. The reaction of our next-door neighbour lady (“neighbour lady” is a term I’ve always been fond of) was: I’ve known you were pregnant for ages, Elvira, because you haven’t been opening
your curtains first thing in the morning. Now that’s smalltown living! Elvira, of course, was vomiting first thing in the morning, while the curtains stayed shut for an extra ten minutes.

When my second daughter, also conceived in that fresh, exciting month of September when real work resumed, was born, the neighbour ladies, this time all of them — not to mention the men and women I taught school with — knew almost immediately that Elvira had had her baby. How? Marjorie, a mere six-year-old, had gone to school resplendent in white knee socks and a white cotton dress, but missing the red and blue sash that was meant to go around the waist and be tied in a big festive bow at the back. Now who but a novice, somebody who had never dressed a child in his life, would forget an accessory as vital to an ensemble as a sash? And why was that incompetent fumbler dressing this child in the first place? Obviously the child’s mother was away, and where would she be? That’s right, in the hospital having another.

It’s nearly impossible to break news in a small town. Some might say that’s part of a small town’s charm, and some might not.

Just remembered something that might explain why, on top of everything else, I was so nervous on my wedding night. It has to do with the small fire that occurred earlier in the day at the church, during the part of the wedding ceremony where Elvira and I signed our names in the registry.

As Elvira leaned over, next to a burning candelabra, pen in hand and all smiles, her veil, carelessly flung back by yours truly when the minister allowed us to kiss, grazed the tip of the candle and burst into flame.

Before you could say Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Elvira’s friend Kathy had leapt from her position as maid of honour, yanked the fiery veil from Elvira’s head, flung it to the floor, and, as though participating in some tribal wedding ritual known only to Russian Mennonites, hiked up her skirts and lace roundabouts and stomped on the fire until every living ember had seen its last.

Then — and at this point I was still scarcely aware of the events taking place — her sister Wilma turned and lit right out of the church, hightailing it all the way to her house on Ash Street (that’s not a joke), where she grabbed her own wedding veil from its storage box in the basement. Then, with seconds to go before the organist was scheduled to begin the “Wedding March” and Elvira and I were to parade jubilantly down the aisle to our waiting hansom, she flew into the church, rammed the lacy thing onto Elvira’s bare head, and, as demurely as she could, stepped back into line, next to the best man, who looked like he was about to faint, and nodded at Elvira as if to say, Carry on, little sister, everything’s under control.

Elvira thought it was a terribly funny thing to have happen at a wedding, but I did not. I was of the school that believed weddings were not a time for terribly funny things, and I blamed myself for not taking better care of my new bride. If I had known better, I would have arranged the registry and the candelabra differently. For years after I would
imagine safer arrangements of these items and conjure up in my mind more appropriate endings to the wedding we had rehearsed, at my insistence, so many times. Elvira, after only ten minutes or so into our first rehearsal, clapped her hands together, grabbed her coat, and said, Well, that’ll be great, let’s go!

That fire bothered me more than I ever let on, and as Elvira recounted the tale, in all its hilarious detail, to whoever would listen, I would sit quietly, smiling at intervals and waiting for it to be over. I couldn’t quite stop believing that somehow it was my failure, even though Elvira would have thought it was ridiculous for me to think so.

H
ave just eaten lunch while listening to a conversation two nurses were having in the hallway outside my room re Hercules. He will soon be going home is the gist of it. I will miss him. Nurse asked me casually, What are you writing? My answer: What am I writing? Almost made the mistake of drinking a container of tube-feeding liquid left out on my tray, bound for another room. Thought it was a box of Boost.

Have read in the paper about a postal worker who was fired for homelessness. He refused to give up his government-issued uniform because as long as he wore it he could ride the bus at no cost, according to policy. He carried the mailbag with him at all times too, stuffed full with his belongings. And so, because he lived on the streets, he became scruffier and scruffier, until finally his uniform became so soiled and tattered that it was unrecognizable
as a letter carrier’s outfit and the bus drivers stopped letting him ride for free. Now he walks along his former mail route every day, dressed in rags. The letter carrier currently delivering the mail in that area doesn’t mind if this chap joins him as long as he doesn’t step onto private property or handle any of the mail.

I mentioned this story to a nurse a while ago and she informed me that the world is full of oddballs.

Perhaps I should go for a little walk. Though a little walk, or should I say a short walk, may be next to impossible considering my propensity for marathon hikes, but we shall see. Naturally I don’t want to miss my call, but I must weigh the urgency of receiving the call with the urgency of my need for fresh air, and hope for the best.

I’m back after having gotten as far as the front doors. I forgot to factor in the urgency of the nurses’ need to know where I’m going. I had no answer. I’ve been foiled. Makes me want to scream. I never scream. Must relax.

Now I am recalling Marj’s youthful face at fifteen, how she so resembled Elvira, and now a hotel room where we all spent the night, the family on vacation, a few tiffs perhaps between the girls, my snoring, of course, a problem, some engine trouble in South Dakota, but otherwise thoroughly enjoyable. And Elvira so very happy to be away from town for a while, never wanting to return. I remember holidays more clearly than home life. I was happy too, it would seem, away from the town. And yet always relieved to have
returned, unlike Elvira, who’d rather travel forever … another road trip, piles of Wrigley’s chewing gum wrappers beside me on the car seat, the girls dividing them up to make necklaces, Elvira reading a whodunit, bare feet on the dashboard … Judy Garland’s real name is Frances Gumm, the girls tell me. What would you change your name to if you could, Dad? Hank Aaron, I tell them.

Those days of misplaced shaving kits were happy times. If my shaving kit was lost, it meant we were together as a family, away somewhere, either at the cottage or on a road trip. Perhaps I intentionally misplaced my shaving kit, a brown leather zippered deal with a looped strap, as a sort of guaranteed shtick that would make the girls laugh.

Even now my shaving habits are big news with all sorts of people. Today he shaved! No, he hasn’t shaved in weeks. Has he shaved this morning? Encourage him to shave. He won’t shave. He shaved!

Which reminds me of a recent visit to the doctor. I was, of course, how couldn’t I be, aware of the profound significance of my shaven or unshaven face. I knew that the occasion of a doctor’s appointment necessitated the act of shaving. (Have you shaved? Have you washed? Have you eaten? Have you run the Boston Marathon?) It was only after the appointment, as I stood at the bathroom sink, razor in hand, gazing sadly at my foamy reflection, that Elvira gently reminded me of the sequence. Mel, she said in a soft whisper all empty of hope, you might have shaved before the appointment.