Distributing the Cremains of Gernard and Judith Waugh, First Four Houses, Flint Segment. 16 May 2022
Long before Gernard Waugh died on April 15, 2021, he communicated his corporeal wishes:
To have his body cremated.
To have his ashes sprinkled on all the places he lived.
During Gernard’s 84 earthly years, he lived in eight different houses (not counting college or boot camp), the addresses of which were printed neatly (though arbitrarily-spelled) on sketchy (but dated) lined paper. Throughout his life GC was proud and protective of his homes and his family. His roots. To honor his wishes, Erin, Brennen, Tom, and Diane set out on a Monday afternoon May 16th, 2022 to begin the scatterings. I have called this journey Putting Asses to Ashes, because “Erin, NO!”
GC & Judith Waugh 2014(?) Treasure map. Your Waugh Ash Distributors, Brennen, Tom, Diane, and Erin Tools. How can you know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been?
Now watch this video:
House #1: 227 W. 12th Street, Flint, Michigan, 1936-1937
After Clifford and Margaret Waugh married in 1935, they moved into a duplex at 227 W. 12th Street, Flint, Michigan. This is GC’s first “house.”
Corner of 12th Street and Church. The Painted Rock near Hammerberg Road exit. GC’s first “house” at 227 W. 12th Street. (Probably a duplex?) Ash masters.
Now watch this video:
[I say “1935” in the video, which was when Margaret and Thomas Clifford moved into the house. GC was born in 1936.]
House #2 – 2531 N. Genesee Rd, Flint, 1937 – 1954
The house that sweat built. Clifford built the original house, and when Gernard, Myrna, and Tom were in their teens, they dug a basement UNDER the existing house, at which point they had INDOOR plumbing just like Elon Musk.
Note: Your ash distributors pulled halfway up the long driveway scoping out tactical possibilities. The owner of the house pulled in behind us, not 60 seconds later. He was not outwardly warm, but he did agree to allow us to distribute the ashes as long as we were not “too close to the house.”
The long driveway up to the Apple Orchard House. (The house was green when we were kids.) Margaret Waugh, Erin, Shelley, Tracey when the house was green. GPS, confused.Trespassers, confused.
The front yard:
Gernard’s ashes:
Judith’s ashes:
House #3 – 5125 N. Center Rd. Genesee Villa Trailer Park 1958-1962
After GC and Judith married in 1958, they first lived in a trailer park. Their trailer is likely long gone, but the “park” still stands. Erin and Tracey both lived here.
Genesee Villa! Tom and Diane also lived here. Elon Musk is jealous. Very jealous. Bonus: Buffey Elementary where Erin attended Kindergarten. (We just happened to drive by it.)
Now watch this video:
And this one:
House #4 – 3397 Blue Lake Drive, Flint, Michigan 1962-1967
Erin, Tracey, Brennen, and Curt all lived here for some amount of time. What Erin remembers about this house:
There was a golf course behind the house.
GC built us a very sturdy wooden swing set out back.
One time we found a dead rat by the swing set.
During one storm, lightning exploded the chimney onto the driveway.
One snowstorm blew snowdrifts high enough to block the entire back of the house so that we could (had to) dig igloo tunnels to escape.
This is where I ate my first TV dinner. (Mmmm…. triangle mashed potatoes.)
The neighbors in the dark brick house to the right were the Berta family. I can’t remember one thing about them except their name.
We owned a cat named Sam Pumphrey. (I have no idea. About the name or what happened to him.)
GC worked 2nd shift for most of his stay here. Coneys and milkshakes were occasional treats.
Judith invited one of Erin’s elementary school teachers over to the house. For LUNCH. (Erin was mortified. Teachers weren’t real people!)
We had a fireplace with a hearth. All photos from this area must be staged on said hearth and happiness will be magnified if photo subjects are wearing matching outfits.
3397 Blue Lake Drive, Flint, Michigan. Our house is behind the big tree; Berta’s house is the dark brick to the right.Timing! A Kearsley school bus.
Now watch this video:
And this one:
Asses to Ashes Wrap-up
Made a quick stop at Flint Memorial Park where Elmer Carson (Margaret’s father) and Thomas Clifford and Margaret Gene Carson Waugh are buried.
Flint Memorial
Shaggy.
WAUGH Margaret G. 1915 – 2004, Thomas C. 1903 – 1989Elmer Carlson 1895 – 1962 (Margaret’s father).
Followed by coneys and milkshakes at Gillie’s.
Coneys and milkshakes. How Murica was built.
There are four houses left to scatter: Detroit, Salem, Romeo, and Rochester. Tracey has agreed to distribute ashes in Salem in June. The other “territories” are still unscheduled. Thanks to all who participated in person or in spirit. And we didn’t even get arrested.
I met Kelly only once. It was a long once, and far, and plenty of awkward, but oh so comfort. In the way that a loud thing can be soothing. The blast of an air horn for the team you’re cheering. The pop of a cork, an explosion of glitter, the slam of a coffin lid.
Or when you rage at the trees. Not AT the trees, but toward them. Trees didn’t do anything wrong, but someone did, and you scream at the trees about your injustice. Trees can take it. That’s what trees have taught you.
“Come at me, bro.” – Trees
You might beat a tree about its trunk with a stick. “Why?!”
Trees don’t flinch. “Yeah, WHY?!?”
Bash it again. “Why me!?”
Trees will ramp up your buzz. “Yeah, fucker. Why you!!!”
You focus all of your impotence into one foot and stomp the ground. “What did I do to deserve this?!?”
And you kick that tree, that soldier of the earth. You blast that tree with the sole of your scarred and muddy boot.
“What, indeed.” – Trees
And then you crumple. It is only after you close your eyes that you can hear anything. You sit, you lean against your tree hero and you cry. Snot is everywhere, and tears, and a bit of blood where apparently you bit your tongue, although not enough to keep the swear words in. Everything is hot and salty, including the bits of tree bark in your eyes. Crying is ugly and thirsty. You reach into your left pocket for the last clean tissue, and blow out so much misery liquid that if you bottled it up and stuck it in your suitcase, it would not make it through airport security.
“People are gross.” – The TSA
You wad up the tissue, now bloated with gallons of mystery fluid. “At least my sinuses are losing weight!” you think, with an inappropriate burst of hope. And you toss it on the ground (the tissue, not the hope, although you’re still making up your mind about that.). As it thumps, the tissue blooms open, pretty in the way that an origami crane might be if it were hatching out of a puddle of puke.
“People are gross.” – Trees
But so is cancer.
~~~
I don’t HAVE to tell a ricochet, collaterally damaged story, but I will.
“Naked” is what we dubbed our small group of digital women. Digital women are the playful avatars that front for the healing underneath. Digital women are coarse, brilliant, damaged, and hungry. Until she was real, Kelly was a digital woman. So was I. We met in “Naked.” We didn’t start out naked; we got that way later. (Shees, we’re not hoors.)
Naked was a Facebook group of female-only acquaintances. Politically incorrect, I’m sure, but only a bleeder knows what a tampon feels like. (Sorry, penises. The fluids that fall out of men’s bodies are plenty gross too, but menstruation is a sacred kind of disgusting.) Naked was a safe space to discuss (online) the multi-hued gradations of shit that women live with. Air, water, blood, pain, cars, cash flow, anger, disappointment, weight loss from mystery fluid, cheese, donuts, and meat.
And “Meat Space” is where you finally get up off your ass and go meet people. In the space of their meat. Crying and bitching in the ether, behind a screen spattered with cereal milk and sneeze juice, where no one is fat or broken, even playful avatars can forget that humans are frail, flawed, damp creatures who often smell bad but make a delicious pie. Humans are skin mittens stuffed with burger, gloves of gristle sausage, condoms of cabbage rolls. Meat Space is acne, bad hair, jowls, crooked teeth, hunched backs, and neck bacon. Would you like some ice cream on that pie? Meat Space is kitchens and coffee cans full of cigarette butts. Meat space is hugs. Meat Space is trees.
~~~
Kelly was a regular person, in the way that you are a regular person. (Right?) Whether you leap out of bed with goofy glee waggling your Sword of Accomplishment: “Out of the way, dragons!!” Or if, when your alarm goes off, you snort lines of dread inside your fort of blankets and cats and simmering dark thoughts and curse the pre-existing condition that is waking up ALIVE, again, just like the day before, and the day before that… You’re a regular person. Normal.
The Naked women were regular people. We lived all over the country. In Facebook’s infancy, grass root groups grew (or in our case, dark roots) from the languid musings of bored people. We stared at our screens in dirty pajamas eating Cheez-Its, wondering whether other people had orange stains on their fingers. It was the decade of the 2010s and the internet was young and strong and not fully psychotic yet. Britney before the shearing. Kanye before the Kim. Zuckerberg before the Borg. Normal, regular.
Kelly was 40-something, married, slim, pretty, mother of three: an older daughter who was out on her own, and twins in high school, a boy and a girl. (“Were they identical?”) The twins ran track and made art. The twins graduated from high school and went off to college. Twin Son found a girlfriend. Twin Daughter painted and sang on the internet. Mama Kelly was rightfully proud and effervescent. She posted their pics and their race times, their art and their music, their smiles and their triumphs. Normal, regular. Like we all do.
When Twin Daughter was 20 she killed herself.
And Kelly got cancer.
Normal, regular. Like we all do.
~~~
There are moments that obligate us to action. There are circumstances that mandate that we put on pants. As Kelly’s cancer wriggled and fizzed inside her, digital space became a dick tease, straight longing, a hooker mannequin in a window. It was time for Naked women to point and laugh at each other in Meat Space. I mean, porn is great and all, but it is no substitute for an actual firefighter holding a puppy. Facebook was a kind of Friend Porn, where human adults could post up victories and highlight reels and memes of ejaculating lava cakes. But as the relentless tributaries of grief began drowning Kelly and her family, it was time for a brief island vacation in Meat Space.
It was time to GO PLAY OUTSIDE. Where the trees are.
~~~
The other four Naked women lived in Wisconsin, and I lived in Michigan. Despite the travel limitations of Covid, five Naked ladies met in September 2020 at Kelly’s house in Winneconne. I still don’t know how to pronounce it. (I mean “Winneconne.” I can pronounce “2020.” It rhymes with “Fucking Hell.”)
Kelly and her husband lived in a farmhouse on five acres of… Wisconsin. I don’t know what you call it. The land was arable, but not worked. They didn’t farm, but they lived on land that gave farmers erections. Her husband drove a truck and Kelly worked in an office, but they lived on a flat rural county road. As I drove down the dune-y side of Lake Michigan, past the violence of Chicago (“Duck!”), and up into the woody oxygen of the North Country, I dodged deer, coons, fox, even a bobcat. The only thing I hit were mosquitoes and deer flies, because fuck deer flies. Deer flies are how you train terrorists.
I gave each of the Naked ladies a NAKED 2020 t-shirt that barely concealed our Collective Covid Corpulence. (For anyone still alive in the future, the Covid Dumpster Fire of 2020 shut down gyms at the same time it opened up home delivery of hot wings and ice cream. “Covid 15” referred not just to how much weight we each gained, but also how many dates we didn’t go on. Uber Cheese Thighs.)
We hugged, we ate, we spit coffee out our nose. We dripped sloppy joes and salad on our boobs, spilled canned wine and health tea on our sandals, and stuffed our chirpy maws with cupcakes and penis suckers that we luridly tongue-lashed for Instagram. (Middle-aged white women cackling as they leer into the camera and deep-throat hard candy on a stick is about as erotic as potato salad, but we cannot deprive ourselves, and therefore the world, of this oral indignity.) We giggled, we stained our shirts, belched, picked spinach out of our teeth, and then had seconds. And fourths. It was a mild evening in late September, so we ate on the front porch and swatted the terrorists (deer flies).
The sun set around us, the trees leaned in. As the conversation grew quiet, we could hear leaves rustle, a coyote howl, Kelly’s dogs barking their (not very) believable warning to predators: “We’re safe on this couch!” We breathed in the trees. Somebody smoked, but not hard. Just enough to keep the mosquitoes from becoming athletes. One Naked lady ground her butt out in a coffee can. The mosquitoes sniffed her surrender and bee-lined to the old country buffet that is my ankles. I almost started smoking.
Kelly believed in trees. She was not a whack-job tree-hugger. She was a regular tree-hugger. Sit. Pray. Scream. You might ask a tree what to do about life, about pain, about waking up alive. Or what to do if you don’t. Wake up alive, that is. Tree confessors are mystics. They see inside us. Okay, they don’t really see inside us. What they do is be still and wait for US to tell THEM the truth. A tree will listen all day, waiting for your truth. A tree recognizes your truth at the same time you do. What a coincidence. (It is not.)
Kelly believed in afterlife. She believed she was visited by people gone before her, especially Twin Daughter, who, as Kelly taught us, “died of depression. You don’t commit suicide any more than you COMMIT cancer.” You GET cancer. You GET depression. And sometimes it kills you. Twice.
Twin Daughter had a favorite tree. It was a real tree, an uncomplicated tree. The tree was in their yard, a sentinel protecting their five acres of Wisconsin. A big sunshiny child’s drawing of a tree. Tall branching stem, noble mushroom head. Kelly and Twin Daughter talked to that tree, sat under that tree, drew it, wrote poetry about it. And the tree beamed. Trees do that. Trees wait and listen and they never charge you. Therapists of the forest. After Twin Daughter caught the depression, Kelly spread some of Twin Daughter’s ashes under that tree listener. And sobbed. And cursed. The tree was cool.
“I know.” – Trees
And then Kelly caught the cancer.
“Why her??” – The husband
“Why her??” – The children
“Come ’ere.” – Trees
Trees are a canvas. A sponge. A quiet jury of immutable warriors who never judge. Mr. Rogers told us to “Look for the helpers.” You can pray near a tree, to it, even for it. You can paint a tree. A target on its trunk, or a sketch out of charcoal. You can trace its symmetry, or its off-kilter shape, a crooked combatant, a fat marionette. A pretty tree is a cool tree. An even better tree is an ugly one.
“Can’t we all just get along?” – Trees
In tree society, perfect trees link arms with flawed trees. There are no stuck-up cheerleader trees. Even that willow that whips its hair back and forth is there for you to talk to. Or beg.
“What did I do to deserve this?!?”
Trees can sing. Or hold their tongue. And stand. That’s what trees do. They stand. They witness. They take it.
“Fuck you, tree.”
“I don’t think you will like it much, but okay.” – Trees
~~~
Kelly did not survive her cancer. One day she did not wake up alive. Just a few months after the Naked Ladies brought laughter and hugs and penis candy to their fragile friend, Kelly went back to the trees. All the way back. She was 47.
The sunshiny child’s drawing of a tree is still standing. That’s what trees do. And we are still questioning, because that’s what Naked ladies do. We quiz, we cry, we curse. Not just in front of our computers, not just behind a screen. People are Meat Space. Trees are Meat Space. Trees don’t cure anything, but they almost do. People rarely cure anything, but they sometimes plant trees. And maybe that’s the same thing.
“I don’t know why. I only know how. Talk to me.” – Trees
~~~
“Naked in Meat Space” by Erin Waugh, from “True Stories Told in the Key of E-flat.”
We fumble his pants on. He wears only scrubs pants these days. No need for pockets, or zippers. His clothing requirements have evolved. What once mattered: pressed shirt, pockets, clean drahw’ers. Now, NO TIGHT CLOTHES. Period. Loose and soft are all that matter. The man has the Body Mass Index of a chicken, but he wears only clothing cut for an mountain gorilla. Soft t-shirts, a fleece sweater, and scrubs that tie up. (Or don’t.) I have had to hem up several pairs of scrubs to child length so he doesn’t trip into his future. And by “hem” I mean “cut off with scissors.”
He slides his swollen feet into his hospice slippers. They are Skechers. They are substantial. Thick of sole, and stout of heart. No flippy-floppy, saggy-waggy, drinking coffee in your smoking jacket slippers. No, these slippers are full-coverage, grip bottoms, padded interiors, spill-disguising slippers. Entire nations could be jettisoned out of poverty if we catapulted them in some Skechers. (I mean, as long as they were countries where people still had feet. I’m not an animal.)
I wheel him to the bathroom where he relieves himself. He washes his hands and his face. He is fastidious and hygiene-sensitive even in the eye of this shit-storm. (It’s not literally a shit-storm. At least not yet.) I wheel him out into the living room.
GC: “Hello, cat,” he says as Mango serpentines in front
of us, a leader with no clear concept of the mission.
GC, to me: “Well, did you get some sleep?” Always
pleasant, always interested.
Me: “Some. I just need about three months’ worth tonight. Maybe I should take a cruise on the Corona Virus Life Cutter. I hear it’s quite relaxing.”
One by one I hand him his morning meds. Some are pills,
some are liquid, some are inhalers. One requires a spit bucket. Today I forgot.
GC: “Where’s the spit bucket?”
Me: “Use the cat.”
I rinse out the bucket and sit on the edge of the couch
facing him.
GC: “Why do you sit on the arm of the couch?”
Me: “It artificially elevates my importance. What do you
want for breakfast?”
GC: “What did I have yesterday?”
Me: “Waffles.”
GC: “How about pancakes?”
Me: “Perfect. Those are very different.”
He eats. Cream and brown sugar makes the medicine go
down.
GC: “What are we doing today?”
Me: “Today we go get your eyes examined.”
GC: “How will I get there?”
Me: “I will take you in my car.”
He eats some more, and grows small and quiet. Transitions
are terrifying for the ill. Moving a small, fragile patient from one vehicle to
another is like having sex with a marionette. All these arms and legs flailing
about that might or might not contribute, and might or might not get stuck in a
poky place. The goal is to get the job done and mostly not get hurt. Like in
college.
As before, I bundle him up, get him in the car, roll him in
to the eye place. I transfer him from his wheelchair to the eye exam chair, and
the doc angles the overhead goggles in front of him.
Eye Doctor: “Okay, Mr. Waugh, what do you see?”
GC: “Nothing.”
Eye Doc: “Can you lean forward?”
GC: “Not for long.”
Doc puts a pillow behind his back.
Doc: “Okay, is it better like this, or like this?”
Etc. “One or two?” “Three or four?” Five or six, pick up
the check.
The doctor writes my father a prescription for bi-focals, and I study it. I ask the doc about one of the sets of numbers. The doc pulls out a plastic cornea and squeezes it. He explains that because of his astigmatism, the numbers on the prescription have changed. Goo goo, gah gah.
Me: “Oh. Because his cornea is now it’s no longer a
circle. Both length and width have changed. His cornea becomes more ovoid, more
elliptical.”
The doc turns to GC: “She’s a smart one.”
For some reason, this bothers me. But GC has my back.
GC: “Of course she is.”
We go back out into the main area to pick out some frames and get fitted with Katherine. Katherine fits quite nicely.
Katherine, holding up the one frame we like: “Now these USUALLY cost $359, but today I’m going to give you 50% off.”
I don’t know why. I never know why. Why is there a mystery about the price of things? Why isn’t everything just marked the price it’s supposed to be, like a goddamn French fry?
Me: “Great, thanks. Gernard?”
GC: “It’s fine. I’m not trying to win any beauty
contests.”
Me: “But you would, ya know.”
GC: “You got my credit card?”
Me: “Never leave home without it.”
We pay, we leave. Katherine tells us it usually takes two weeks, but promises to rush the job.
I’m an asshole, so I point at GC and say: “Some jobs are
rushier than others.”
On the drive home, Gernard asks: “Would your mother like
a taco?”
Me: “I’ll bet she would, but I’m going to buy her a doughnut instead.”
Home. I slide him into his Big Chair. The outing has exhausted him. 90 minutes start to finish, 8 chair transfers, and mostly his job was just to look at things. His eyes close.
Me: “How about you take a nap now.”
GC: “Great idea.”
Me: “Well, I AM a smart one, ya know.”
~
Epilogue: The rush job worked. We received the glasses one week later. We take them home. He tries them on.
Me: “Can you see?”
GC: “No, not really.”
Me: “Would you like a malted?”
GC: “That’s not a very good question.”
Long pause.
GC: “Of course I’d like a malted.”
~~~
Eye Exam, Part 2
From the collection “This Gernard” by Erin Waugh, 18 February 2020
GC leaned his head back in his easy chair (“the big
chair”). He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes.
Me: “What?”
GC: “I can’t see.”
Me: “Your hand is in the way. And maybe your eyelids.”
He sat up, methodically unfolded his glasses, slid them onto his face, brushing his fingers along the side piece over each ear. Perfectly right.
GC: “When I put my glasses on correctly and look at the
TV, I can’t see it.”
Me: “It’s just Jim Cramer yelling at you about which
stocks you didn’t buy.”
GC: “So in order to see, I have to slide my glasses way
down my nose and then it hurts and I can’t breathe.”
Me: “Breathing is one of the top 3 or 4 things you need
to do today.”
So I call Pearle Vision. I tell them I have a fragile
patient in a wheelchair who cannot sit in the waiting room for any length of
time, lest there be a scene. And a headline. I talk to a Katherine on the phone.
Katherine at Pearle: “Well, listen, honey. You bring your
daddy in when the doctor is on lunch break. We’re less busy then.”
Me: “What time does the doctor go to lunch?”
Katherine at Pearle: “From 2:30 to 4:00.”
Me: “What is he, a banker??” (Okay, not out loud.)
I wrap up my father in his coat, hat, and gloves, and lift him up into my car. He only weighs 17 pounds, so this is doable for me, although it’s scary for him.
GC: “Momentum,” he reminds me, “is a bitch.”
Me: “I know, GC. I will not let you fall. I have a nearly
100% record of not dropping important people.”
GC mutters: “Nearly.”
Me: “Important.”
We pull up to the strip mall, I jump out the driver’s side, and lift the transport chair out of the hatch of my SUV. It weighs more than my father. I unfold it beside the passenger door. I unbuckle his seat belt and yell at him.
Me: “Don’t you dare fall, old man. Your wife will fire me.”
I wheel him up the sidewalk, his bent, capped head slicing
a chill swath under the awnings of Ulta Beauty and Famous Footwear. I open the heavy,
non-automated door at Pearle, hold it open against the freeze with my
not-famous foot, whisper “Bump” to my patient, and gadump him inside the eye
place.
Katherine at Pearle finally notices us, which is
understandable since we’re so quiet.
Katherine: “You must be Mister Way!” She fawns. She is
lovely.
Me: “Waugh. It’s pronounced ‘Waugh.’ Rhymes with ‘law,’
spelled like ‘laugh.’”
Katherine: “Mister Waugh! I am so delighted you could make it in today.” She is laying it on thick, and I am grateful. Her perfume is a welcome distraction. She turns her kindness towards me. “And you are?”
Me: “Erin. Erin Waugh. His daughter, care-giver, and
comic relief.”
Katherine turns the full force of her makeup and red
sweater on my dad: “And your first name is Bernard?”
Me: “Gernard. His first name is Gernard.”
Katherine squints just a little, not wanting to break
character. But almost nobody can keep a straight face.
Me: “Yeah, I don’t know either.”
My father’s last name is WAUGH. Not special, but not terrible. A solid Irish/Welsh name, one syllable. Rhymes with ‘law,’ spelled like ‘laugh.’ Despite its near absence of consonant punch, it does not clutter up a conversation with any sense of needing to be examined. More complicated to spell than to say. It is only difficult to pronounce when drunk. (So I’ve heard.) “Waugh” packs no poetic thump, but neither does it belabor its room-temperature sense of importance. “Gernard” on the other hand… Yeah, I don’t know either.
His middle name is CARSON. A solid northern European name, it was the surname of my grandmother. His mother’s last name was Carson. Common but proud consonants, the sibilant fricatives bitten off by the teeth of Irish farmers and spit into the soil to grow even prouder potatoes.
But GERNARD… It’s pronounced “Gurr-nerd.” “Gurr” like a growling bear (which he never is), and “nerd” like a geek (which he always is). The name is not difficult to say, it’s just difficult to read off paper. It also lands on the ear like an attack. Or a joke. What I see on people’s faces when he introduces himself is “What? Your mother named you GERNARD?”
She did. My father was born in 1936, when a “ladies swimming costume” cost $6.95. That same year, as my grandmother was walking to and from church, heavy with child, she stopped and stared at a movie poster tacked up in the window of the Moving Picture Shows. It was a stylized photograph of a simmering blonde, blue-eyed actor-man sweating in some kind of uniform. Printed on the poster was the exotic (He was probably German!) name of the actor: GERNARD. My grandmother swears the actor-man’s name was Gernard and that she “just liked it.” (Uh huh.)
Actually, my grandmother swears nothing of the kind. The story of “Where did you get the name ‘Gernard’?” is a complete mystery, yet somewhere in the back of my memories, of grown-ups playing cards downstairs late at night (7:00pm) at my grandparents’ farmhouse, this story bubbled. Somewhere between somebody slapping the cards down and somebody else clapping his dentures: “Gott-DAMN-it, Margaret. Why would you trump my ace??”I heard this story from the attic bedrooms where all the kids “slept” and punched each other.
No matter HOW he got the name, I, as any daughter, could
take as my birthright the opportunity to simply refer to him as “dad.” But I
don’t. I call him Gernard, or, as I tell many of his nurses, especially the “English
is a second or fourth suggestion of a language,’ just call him GC. It’s easier
to spell.
I also call my mother “Judith” because that’s her name.
Sometimes “Jude,” never Judy. I only call her “mom” when I am disappointed in
her behavior and have to send her to her room to put on a nice face. “Mom, we
are out of ice cream. This is bullshit.”
Is it disrespectful to call your parents by their first
names? Jeeze, I hope not. I’ve been doing it for decades. And they haven’t
fired me yet.
Back to the eye place.
Katherine of Pearle: “So, Mister Waugh.”
GC: “You can call me Gernard.”
Katherine: “Not with a straight face.” (She doesn’t say
that.)
Katherine: “What seems to be the trouble?”
As before, my father describes his challenge: “When I put
my glasses on correctly, I can’t see. So in order to see, I have to slide my
glasses way down my nose and then it hurts and I can’t breathe.”
Katherine: “You’re going to need an eye exam.”
Me: “Can we do that today?”
Katherine chirps: “Nope! You’ll have to come back.”
Me: “Cool. We got nothing better to do.”
GC: “I’m retired.”
Me: “Me neither.”
~~~
“Eye Exam, Part 1 – The Name” by Erin Waugh, from the collection “This Gernard.” 4 February 2020
We’ve got breakfast figured out. Swallowing has become a serious challenge for my father. And it turns out that swallowing is one of the more pleasant ways to get food inside you. (There are others, but they are fetish-y and gross unless you’re into that.) Science has proven that if you don’t eat some calories, you will die from malnutrition, if you don’t first kill yourself because your daughter won’t stop talking.
Me: “We have pancakes, French toast, eggs…”
GC: “How about soup?”
Me: “Of course we have soup, but I was kind of saving that
for supper. So, do you want pancakes, eggs, or French toast?”
GC: “Cream of Wheat.”
My father only eats two meals a day: Second Breakfast and O.P.
Supper. First Breakfast is a symphony of meds delivered orally (there is a god)
in pill form, handi-haler, and liquid. This pharmacopeia is followed by rinsing
out the mouth and spitting into a bucket. Him, too.
Me: “Do you want that
with heavy cream and brown sugar, or butter and maple syrup?”
The initial hospice nurse who came to our house to teach us how to live under the yawning awning of hospice regaled us with her well-rehearsed advices. “Sleep well, drink water, stay off the hookers.” When she got to the diet part, she added, “And you should restrict yourself to…” Then she looked at him. Really LOOKED at him. I don’t know what he weighed in the Before Time, but now he was about 42 pounds. He was tiny as a Lollypop Kid. He was barely a lollypop. “You can eat anything you want.”
Me: “What do you want for breakfast?”
Gernard: “Got any cream?”
Me: “Shall I drench something with it?”
Bingo. Substitute maple syrup where applicable. The hookers
love it.
~~~
From “This Gernard” by Erin Waugh, 31 January 2020
Took my father to the bank to cash his check. Actually, we were cashing TWO checks, one for my mom and one for my dad. If you’re reading this, you are a creature of the internet, and you will recall that ATM’s were introduced before Elvis’s passed-out belly had to be peeled off his typewriter, but none of that risky ATM digital tomfoolery for my folks. Checks must be CASHED. At BANKS. In PERSON. The checks had been delivered in the mail, another ancient ritual wherein a government agency hoists up a pony, puts a check in its teeth, and then slaps it on the flank. (“Slapping the flank” has promoted many an intern.)
Now keep in mind that right now my father cannot walk without
great assistance. So cashing checks in person requires a college degree in Old
People Transport. With a properly-aimed squirt of WD-40 and a backhoe, I got
him in my car. I did not let him drive. I’m sensitive like that.
I drove us to the bank. My father DID allow us to drive-through
instead of having to waddle and lurch into the lobby, although drive-through is
only available during banker’s hours (approximately 11:00am – 12:30pm), so we
collected our Go Bags and left the house after Second Breakfast. Both checks
were signed by both my parents, and I had possession of both of my parents’
drivers licenses, one of which they might actually use some day. I pulled into
the open bank lane, unbuckled my seatbelt, performed several yoga poses so I
could reach the container, and popped the checks and the licenses into the
vacuum tube. The tube shot up through a Willy Wonka life’s lesson and into the
hands of a bank teller.
I rolled my window down in the cold to be polite. “Hello!” I
smiled through the distance and the Plexi-glass. The teller smiled back,
examined the documents, verified that she understood what I wanted, and said,
“I’ll have this ready for you in just a minute.” I smiled back, rolled up my
window since my politeness was done, and watched a crow pick Wendy’s fries out
of a dumpster.
“Hello?” I heard the bank talking again. I rolled down my
window, and turned on the charm. “Yes?” The teller looked down and the checks
she was fingering and inquired: “Do you have either of them with you?” She
couldn’t see my father in the passenger seat as he was tiny and cold and
blocked from the teller’s view by my ego. I tapped him on the shoulder.
“Gernard, she needs to know you’re here.”
My dad leaned forward and raised his right hand. It was limited
in its reach by the handcuff that restricted both wrists. He sort of clanked
and waved with both hands because he is polite all the time. He couldn’t really
articulate his presence, as the duct tape over his mouth precluded decent
conversation. The seat belt kept him from leaping out of the car altogether, as
it was additionally secured by padlocks and fire ants.
“Okay, thanks, Gernard. Nice to see you again,” the teller
smiled. Two minutes later I counted the money out loud to him, cursing because
the bills were too clean and I had run out of spit.
True
fact: every paragraph is accurate except one.
Robert hailed me as I jauntily lilted into the Xfinity store. It was the second time in two days. (Not the lilting. I do that a lot. It throws them off the scent.) A good beginning, I thought. Robert remembers me. This will be a superior customer service experience.
My cell phone carrier was AT&T. I wanted to switch. I had been hoping to take advantage of Xfinity’s promotion offer which they so generously mailed to me. (Printed. On paper. Why bother with email just because you’re an internet company?) The promotion claimed that I could have unlimited talk, text, and data for just $45 a month. Plus if I acted now, I would receive a $200 prepaid VISA card. (I know this because they had glued a fake “credit card” to the inside of their tri-fold. NOT REDEEMABLE FOR CASH.) But because I’m an idiot, I got in my car and grinned like a well-fed pig in a greased killing chute. (JUST LIKE RICHARD GERE’S HAMSTER.) Sorry. Cheap joke. Cue gravity.
Yesterday I lilted into the Xfinity store with my full-color brochure and my too-bright smile, and handed the iPhone in question to Robert. He rubbed his fingers over my Otter Box. (Another cheap joke. I’m almost sorry this time.) He stared at it without changing a thing, as if he were new to this sort of Rubik’s Cube.
I asked him all the pertinent questions. “Are there any switching fees? How about unseen costs? Will you do the ass fucking yourself or is that outsourced?” Robert shook his head and smiled crookedly. (No pun intended.)
Robert: “I’m sorry, I can’t switch you today. You have to contact AT&T and have the phone unlocked first.”
Me: “But it’s MY phone!”
Robert laughed. “You’re deluding yourself.”
(Okay, he didn’t really say that. Robert was not that clever. What he DID do was hand me my phone back and tell me to come back tomorrow if I got it unlocked. If. His lack of confidence forced me to write more cheap jokes.)
I promptly drove home and begged AT&T to release me from their proprietary handcuffs. It was a ten-step process of verification and approval, only three of which involved animal sacrifice. (I know it was ten because I ate a Werther’s at every step and now I have the beetus.) AT&T promised they would declare a verdict within two business days. I’m sure it was the best they could do since they were (as one friend put it) so busy hemorrhaging customers. I throat-cut a pygmy goat and a slaughtered a cheese wheel to ensure a bountiful harvest. (There were no virgins available.)
That was yesterday. Today was the tomorrow that Robert promised me yesterday. I’m still sore.
Robert: “Welcome back!” This is where we started. “You ready to switch?”
Me: “I am so ready! Will you buy me dinner first?”
I handed my phone to Robert. He gave it back to me and told me to enter my passcode. I poked it into the phone. He requested my full social security number. I said it out loud. He asked me if this was my real hair color, so I kneed him in the groin. Just kidding! I gave him my child. (WHO IS COMPLETELY A NATURAL BLONDE.)
Fully verified now, Robert scrolled through my settings, and something in the room changed. He blinked hard. His eyes darted left and right. I could see him calculating whether he could beat me to the door.
Robert: “Wait. This an iPhone 8?”
Me: “Um, yes?”
Robert closed his eyes and deflated on his stool. He may have wet himself.
Robert: “Our system is not compatible with anything newer than an iPhone 6.”
Me: “And you knew this yesterday.”
Robert: “Well, only since January.”
This time I blinked hard. And maybe wet myself. Out of my eyes.
I tapped what was now junk mail. “Does it say that anywhere in this brochure?”
Robert: “No. But it doesn’t not say it.”
We stared at each other. I leaned in close and whispered: “How is this fucking possible?”
I really said that. Even though I was using my inside assassin voice, my mother could hear me. “Erin, NO!”
Robert: “This is totally my fault. I should have asked yesterday.”
Inside my head: “YA THINK??” Outside my head: “YA THINK??” I wrote another cheap joke about pushing up his stool.
Wait, it gets better…
I asked Robert to tell me where in the settings it says that it’s an iPhone 8.
Robert: “Oh it doesn’t say that anywhere in the settings.”
(Stay with me… We’re almost done…)
Me: “Then how did you know it was an iPhone 8?”
He flipped the phone over with confidence and tapped the center Apple logo. It was almost a lilt.
Robert: “I can just tell. This phone has a glass backing. The 6’s and 7’s don’t have this backing.”
(Wait for it…)
Me: “Did this same iPhone have that same glass backing YESTERDAY when you fondled it and told me to come back?”
Next time, I will find a virgin. It has to be easier.
I met a starfish yesterday. I mean, she was a girl, but I didn’t know that at the time.
The starfish was behind a hipster bathroom door when I met her. The door was cold and heavy and industrial, and the starfish was a complete mystery. She was also crying. No, she was sobbing. She was a stranger. I guess we both were.
The starfish and I were in the bathroom of a trendy place. I just came in to pee. It’s what I do. I drink a lot of… of everything, and therefore I urinate. Everywhere. Well, not everywhere. I am rather fond of American plumbing where fluids are focused, and bathrooms are where I go, so to speak.
Anyway, I was eating Old People supper in a place I didn’t really belong. Too young, too hip. But, damn, the hummus was killer. These kids can cook. This particular trendy place called this appetizer “Loaded Hummus” and it came with a bunch of those…what do call them…. VEGETABLES. Tri-colored carrots, bi-curious peppers, LGBT celery. Wasted on me. All I want with hummus is bread. And maybe a straw. O.P. Supper is at 5:00 o’clock. Old People eat early. And sometimes they pee.
Fine. They pee a lot.
The waitress’s name was Kelly. It was Saint Patrick’s Day, and everyone around me was Irish. Even if they weren’t. I had walked up some brick stairs in the middle of the afternoon to a sort of restaurant, because that’s what Old People do.
I say “sort of” because the restaurant had a menu, but a very confusing service. I am old. I am used to a Denny’s rhythm. I go in, I sit down, somebody brings me water, somebody takes my order. But that’s not what happens in trendy places. You go in, you sit down, and people ignore you. That’s the new math.
After 10 or a thousand minutes, I finally walked up to the bar, where Kelly told me I could have anything I wanted, as long as it was micro-brewed beer. What I wanted was ice water and vodka. In separate glasses. Kelly dispensed my water from a McDonald’s cooler. (I wish I were making this up.) Vodka was not on the menu. Kelly said, “Do you want food?” I said yes, not knowing that eating would actually get me in trouble.
Kelly the waitress brought me ice water. Kelly the waitress was wearing a green shirt. Kelly the waitress knew I had a wallet. It’s really the only reason I was allowed to be in there. And then I went to the ladies’ room. See above.
A voice from behind the trendy iron door: “I loaned him 50 bucks.”
Me: “Okay.”
The voice: “I’m sorry. Do you need the handicap stall? I’m just in here crying.”
Me: “I’m not THAT old.”
I said some gentle but irrelevant things to the stranger in the confessional. I left the ladies’ room having pissed away an opportunity for kindness, so to speak. I walked back to my table to eat my mac and cheese and drink a glass of boxed wine. I waited for the starfish to come out, knowing that we weren’t done.
The starfish exited the industrial cage. She was young. She was wearing an expensive coat and cheap shoes. Someone had cared for her at one time. The starfish sat at a cold, dark table and poked at her phone. She cried some more, and then she left the trendy brick place.
I ate all the hummus. I did not eat all the mac. I sort of suck at restaurants.
I paid my bill and left. I got in my car and started to drive home. (I have a car. It’s paid for. And insured.) And there she was, the starfish, on a street in front of a dead building, playing with her phone. Trendy places are not always in great parts of towns. This particular brick warehouse with the great hummus and the bad wine was in the center of a shitty dying city. I pulled my car (I have a car) into an abandoned parking lot. I got out of my car. (I have a car.) I walked around to the front of the dead building where the Starfish was thumbing her bloodless phone.
I walked up to her and said “Hey,” because I’m creative like that. The Starfish was frightened. She is, after all, street people. Street people distrust folks like me with haircuts and credit cards. Her eyes got big and she began her escape.
Me: “Don’t run!”
The Starfish turned toward me. She was beautiful, despite the cigarette. Blonde hair, blue eyes, perfect skin. Thin, under a knit cap. Too beautiful for this much sadness.
Me: “I just want you to have a good night.”
I handed her two 20s and a 10. Just like the stupid guy who ruined her day. Her year. Her life.
She cried some more. Her tears were pretty, pretty in the way of young people.
Me: “I heard you in the bathroom.”
Starfish: “Kelly was mean to me.”
Me: “Okay.”
Starfish: “All I wanted was a bowl of soup. Maybe half a bowl of soup. But she wouldn’t do it.”
Me: “Kelly was busy. It wasn’t personal.”
She looked down at the folding money I’d handed her. Her tears fell on the sidewalk. She couldn’t even hit the cash, even though we were trying to write a movie.
Starfish: “What’s your name?”
It didn’t matter what my name was, but it was Saint Patrick’s Day, and this was poetry.
Me: “Erin.”
She nodded. And cried some more.
Me: “What’s yours?”
Starfish: “Meagan. My name is Meagan.”
Me: “Of course it is.”
She leaned in for the hug. It lasted too long.
Me: “I just want you to have a good night.”
And I got in my car and drove home. To my house. Where I have a house.
One day an old man was walking along a beach that was littered with starfish, millions of starfish dying on the sand, washed up by the high tide.
As he walked, the old man came upon a young boy who was bending down and throwing the starfish back into the ocean, one by one.
The old man asked the boy what he was doing. The boy answered, “I’m saving these starfish, sir. They are drowning in the sun.”
The old man scowled, “Son, there are thousands of starfish and only one of you. What difference can you possibly make?”
The boy picked up another starfish, tossed it into the water, and smiled at the man. “I made a difference to that one.”
Erin Waugh, 19 March 2017, “True Stories Told in the Key of E-flat.”
Maybe 15 years ago my son Vince and I were taking a nature walk in the spring time, and I decided that “we” would make ourselves a local-wildlife aquarium. “We” were going to create a teachable moment! Vince said something like, “Okay.”
I scooped up about two gallons of Southeast Michigan pond water and poured it into an aquarium. I set the tank on a ledge in our garage. The pond water contained some green things, some brown things, and some things that looked like rice. (We didn’t have internet then, so I have no idea.) Here is what I’m sure of: there were minnows, tadpoles, and crayfish. (Or “crawfish” if you’re from elsewhere.)
I watched the aquarium every day. The minnows swam, the tadpoles wriggled, and the crayfish… I don’t know what the crayfish were doing. In retrospect, I guess they were lying in wait.
I was enchanted. I pointed out fins and gills and claws to my educationally-hungry child, and he said, “Okay.”
It was springtime, so eventually the tadpoles did what tadpoles do: they sprouted. Here’s what you might not know: tadpoles always pop their back legs out first. And they are so cute! I showed my son. I said, “Isn’t nature beautiful? This here is the meaning of life. Wait ‘til you see what happens next!” He said, “Okay.”
The crayfish began to vibrate and ascend. They ninja-swam their way up from the bottom of the tank, and snapped the back legs off the tadpoles. I blinked. The tadpoles did not. (No eyelids.)
And the tadpoles, being the warriors that they were, kept trying. (To morph, not to blink.) They would think real hard with their eyes open (you remember why), then they would sprout new back legs. Pop! And the crayfish would, you guessed it, not blink either. Oh, snap.
This happened over and over again. The crayfish kept snapping the legs off the tadpoles, then diving to the bottom to eat their nibbles and gloat. (“Nibbles and Gloat” sounds like a band name from the 80s.) The tadpoles never turned into frogs or toads or princes. (I don’t know. No internet, remember?) It was my obligation as an educator to show my baby boy the killing fields, and he said, “HAHAHA!” See? We all learned something.
Anyway, the point of the story is that tadpole nubbins should be eaten fresh. Try them with a side of irony.
Erin Waugh – “True Stories Told in the Key of E-flat”
Her bones barely rattle. Tweak is a matted meatloaf on the couch.
Me: “You’re not feeling too good.”
Tweak: “I’m not feeling too well either.”
No, not a meatloaf — a baby bird. A drooling, anorexic sparrow.
Me: “Really? You’re going to go all ‘Grammar Nazi’ on me in your dying days??”
Tweak: “Am I dying?”
Long silence. In the last two weeks Tweak has lost one-third of her body weight. She has stopped grooming. She no longer eats.
Me: “I don’t know.” I pick at my mac and cheese.
Blood tests show that Tweak is not suffering from organ failure. Yet.
Me: “I bought you some Fancy Feast.”
Tweak: “Fancy Feast can suck my dick.”
A vet has confirmed that something is very wrong with Tweak, but they don’t know what.
Me: “Talking nasty is not going to put the weight on.”
Tweak nods at my hips. “You sure?”
I lean into the barb, take it like a gift. The point twists in my heart and flips my smile over. Caregiver’s schizophrenia.
Me: “You want some cream?”
Tweak: “No. Not right now.”
Me: “Oh, Tweak…”
I stab at my pasta, then throw it in the garbage.
Me: “Where does it hurt?”
Tweak: “Just point.”
A gentle, underpaid veterinarian with a smile as big as her student loans will sedate Tweak in the morning, and then poke around until she finds something she can fix. Or not.
