Mostly Anecdotal

“Did you see that Lorus,” she said.

I didn’t hear her because I was standing 150 feet away at home plate.

There was glass all over the floor, and there were bits of glass nestled in the African violets on the window sill. One violet, a shy blue, was on the floor, tethered to its pot by a single root, and there was a baseball next to it.

The game stopped, each of us, my cousins and some neighborhood kids, stood at our positions and looked at one another like nine and ten-year olds do when they know there is going to be trouble.

“Who is going to get the ball?” said the pitcher.

Everyone was looking at me.

“You’re closer,” I said.

“Yeah but you hit it,” he said, and the others nodded.

I dropped the bat and started the long walk to the house. The field was Grandma and Grandpa’s front yard. The yard was longer than it was wide, and the house was set back a considerable distance from the road. Home plate was near the road, Grandma had insisted; she didn’t want us running into the road for a long ball. On the third base side was a row of lilacs, they had been growing for years and were more like trees than bushes and a ball that rolled into them was always good for an extra base. On the first base side a row of roses that would, in a few years, be destroyed by a flood from a nearby creek. And in deep right field just to the side of the house, a willow tree that I would fall out of the very next summer.

I walked through the front door, Grandma was standing in the living room, and she was smiling. I didn’t understand. I was expecting the worst. There was glass all over the floor, and her plant, the precious violet, roots dangling, was sitting next to the baseball I had been sent to retrieve. She said, get the dustpan and a broom and I’ll help you clean up. And then, as I left the room, she said it again, “Did you see that Lorus, he knocked the dickens out of that ball.”

She said, “Have you heard about the Belcher Norman?”

I asked her if there was a comma after belcher.

“It’s a vacuum cleaner,” she said.

I said, “There’s a vacuum called the Belcher Norman?”

“Listen to this,” she said, “When you first turn it on, this bag-less upright burps like your Uncle Morty on Thanksgiving.”

“We don’t have an Uncle Morty,” I said.

She ignored me and continued, “The review says it’s no bargain, save your money, it says.”

“So there was a comma,” I said.

“Yes, a comma,” she said. “You don’t belch that much. Now if I’d said have you heard about the farter Norman …”

“I won’t last much longer,” he said. “It’s the gravity that’s getting me.” He leaned forward just a bit at the waist and said, “See how it’s pulling me down?”

It’s the gravity that gets us all in the end, and then keeps us in place. Gravity is an argument against there being an afterlife, as much trouble as we have with it while were alive, tugging at us constantly, being dead we have no way to fight back. It holds us in place while the critters pick at our bones.

“Gravity has spoiled my golf game too,” he said. “I give the ball a whack and gravity pulls it back to earth a lot sooner than it used too. I think gravity is getting stronger,” he said. “You probably don’t notice it since you’re younger, but I do.”

The gravity theme was repeated several times during the evening and all in reference to being ninety years old, and how it was killing him.

“Food tastes like crap,” he said. I don’t really give a damn what I eat anymore, and with the gravity tugging at me all the time the food just forms a lump in my stomach.”

“I feel like Sisyphus,” he said, “I’ve been pushing that rock up the hill for ninety years now, not as long as Sisyphus, but a long time, and sometimes I feel like just letting it go. Like the bumper sticker says, ‘Obey Gravity, It’s the Law’.”

On a recent visit my son parked his car behind my wife’s, and so, unless we wanted to do a butterfly we’d have to take my car to the movie. My car is more comfortable than my wife’s, but I use the space behind the drivers seat as a temporary trash bin.

“You parked behind Gail’s car,” I said.

“And,” he said.

“Well, unless you want to do a butterfly we’ll have to take my car to the movie,” I said.

The butterfly is the name we gave to a frequent maneuver on the British comedy Butterflies. The car someone wants to take is always the one blocked in by the other cars. In the show it is usually Adam’s and Russel’s job to perform the maneuver. The maneuver is what rights the situation. The butterfly, is the alpha and omega of driveway management.

That’ll teach you to throw trash back there,” he said.

I grabbed a garbage bag and while handing it to him said, “Why should I care, I don’t sit back there.

He reached as if to take the bag, smiled, and then let it fall to the floor.

I hear a beep. Something’s battery needs recharging, but what? Is it the alarm that goes off at noon each day? The alarm is a problem I should fix, but I’d have to figure out how it works all over again. It is the type of thing that you deal with so seldom that you forget how it’s done. There are other things like that I suffer from, but it’s not noon, and so it couldn’t be the alarm and so I expand my search.

First, I look to see whether the phone is in its cradle. It is, but a visual check is not enough and I rise to examine it and then reseat it just in case. I return to my desk, but a few moments later I hear the beep again. It sounds like the beep a phone makes when its battery is low. It must be a cell phone. I look at my phone sitting on the desk next to me. It can’t be my cell phone, can it? The sound seems like it’s coming from the right, or maybe behind me. I plug my phone into a charger anyway. Moments pass and the beep returns. I’m sure now, it’s behind me, but where exactly and what. Then I remember, my iPod is in the book bag directly behind me. My analytical mind triumphs—I take it out of the bag and plug it in.

The phone rings, a ring not a beep, it’s the Power Company. “What the hell,” the man says, “are you recharging your world again.”

I assure him I’m not, “just a few small items,” I say “I’m surprised you noticed.”

“Be sure to unplug them when you’re finished,” he says, “not only will it help with your power bill but we won’t have to build another coal-fired plant as soon as we would otherwise, and we know how you’re opposed to coal-fired plants.”

“How do you know I’m opposed to coal-fired plants,” I ask.

“Google,” he says.

He’s on the phone, but I’m sure I sense a conspiratorial wink at the other end of the line. I hang up. I’m pleased that the disturbing beeps have ended.

What, another beep. I look at my iPod just to make sure I didn’t dream I plugged it in, and then I yell, “Gail there is beeping in our room and I can’t find it.”

“It’s probably my phone,” she replies, “it’s in my purse.”

I turnaround, there is her purse, a few inches from my book bag. She arrives removes the phone and plugs it in to recharge. “I sure hope the Power Company guy doesn’t notice,” I say.

She looks puzzled, but she knows me well. “I hope not,” she says and leaves.