NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right.
“Did you know Hank Dumpty has been discharged?”
“So, they put him back together again!”
“He just got out of Prestige U. Hospital’s Rehab Unit.”
“I was thinking of him the other day, a beat-up old blue truck like his was in front of me on Route One.”
Geese feed on the grass in front of the Ashes as we walk past its ruins.
Daisy’s face is hidden by the hood protecting her from cold rain and drips from every bare twig in the white oaks above.
“There goes that fox.”
“Where are you looking? What fox?”
“You know, the one that was stealing newspapers.”
“How do you know it was that one?”
“Thought I saw a plastic shred streaming from its mouth.”
She stops and faces the building.
“Look, there it goes, behind the Ashes.”
“I can’t see through this mist and rain.”
“Fred, why don’t you come along and visit Hank, with me?”
“Well, I was going to the Pie Shop for coffee.”
“So, turn here instead.”
“Sure, I forget, did he fall off a wall? Was it at home?”
“It was that big wall over there.”
Daisy points towards the retaining wall along the side of the Ashes’ driveway.
“I never did find out what he was doing there.”
Helga has the door open as we walk towards it.
“Oh! Such weather! Daisy, so glad you can come.”
Hank’s old Ford F 150 is parked next to the woodpile with a green tarp covering something in the bed.
“Oh, and Fred, so kind of you.”
“How is he?”
We step in past Helga in her yellow jumpsuit and pink ribbon in her thick white hair.
“Are you ready? Fred, are you ready? The only thing that shuts him up is sleep! He has been swearing at the TV.”
Helga goes in the back. Hank sits in a recliner in the living room with his eyes closed and a red blanket over his legs. Drying scabs retreat from around his mouth, on his nose and right cheek and forehead. Two plastic urinals hang from their handles on the rail of a cluttered cart next to him. The TV is at low volume.
“Hanky, how are you? How are you?”
Daisy holds his swollen hand. He doesn’t open his eyes.
“Pull up a chair, if you can find one.”
“There’s a couple right here. You doing okay?”
Hank stares at the TV.
“Too many buttons! Turn that damn thing off, will you?”
He gives Fred the remote with his free hand.
“Jackal news, Canis Propaganda, Jack shit news, Foxy blonds, and priapic maniacs, they’re not going to make a dupe out of this guy!”
“Okay Hank, try to calm down, honey.”
“Kilauea eruption, ah, flowing towards the coast.”
“Right, in Hawaii.”
“Lava, Daisy, hot angry lava, all over, palaver on right and left.”
“Don’t let that bull shit get to you.”
“Daisy, baby, its climate change, you know?”
“Right, the ice caps are melting.”
“They are firing words out of AKs now. There is no conversation, it is high volume, ah, ah, ah.
Daisy lets go and Hank folds his hands on his belly and drifts off. Helga is back.
“Daisy, Fred, you want some coffee?”
“Thanks, I would love a cup.”
Helga is off again but turns at the door.
“Daisy, I’ll bring you one too.”
Daisy reaches over to Hank and strokes the back of one hand. It is blotched with purple bruises from intravenous feeds. His eyes open.
“Like going back to infancy.”
“What is?”
“Hospital, spittle care, horse spittle!”
He rubs the bald egg-like head.
“Fred, hi, ah, ah, yeah, good to see you. Who else did you bring, Daisy?”
“That’s all I got, honey!”
“Where’s your hat, Daisy? And your bracelets? You lose them?
“The wind got my bowler. It is probably in the Potomac by now, and I left my bracelets off when I started teaching.”
“You did? Why?”
“They were getting in the way.”
Hank’s lids close halfway over his eyes and he nods forward for a moment, with his chin on his chest, and comes back.
“Yeah, Daisy, hospital, all bodily functions managed with meds, tests and obscene physical intrusions into my person.”
“Okay, you must be glad to be back home in your chair.”
“Infant high chair, more like. See my seventeen soldiers lined up there?”
He extends his arm with half-folded fist toward the bookcase on his left.
“You have more books than that!”
“No, in front of the books, on the lower shelf!”
“Yeah, all those medicine bottles lined up in front.”
“That regiment is my regimen, god damn conspiracy of pharmaceuticals and profiteering and a sad lack of prophecy.”
“It’s not a conspiracy, Hank. Those are prescriptions.”
“That’s your description. Daisy let me re-describe here. That’s what my Uncle Rorty used to say, ‘Re-describe the problem, keep re-describing.’ So, listen up, there’s one for this, which leads to that, and another to counteract that so this may happen and another to counteract the side effects of the first two together. Now, all those shenanigans are what I would describe as conspiratorial!”
“Hank, you are crazy loquacious these days.”
“Yeah, bumped my head and loosened my words.”
“Now, they pour out.”
“Never used to, ah. I was spare with my words, cautious. Let the other guy make an ass of himself!”
“You were always pretty quiet, succinct too.”
“No college, but the Army, I can read through. I know how to use a library. Spent time in Nam and Germany. Brought the best part of Germany back, too. I built and ran a successful business. Now I run my mouth!”
Hank is looking at his meds.
“Right, yeah, anyway, one of those bastards goes right up my ass! constipation, maybe more than one.”
“Too much information Hank.”
“Too much of a good thing! Some of those soldiers parade daily, some are twice or thrice daily. Others do night assaults. You might call them periodicals!”
“Okay, when does your subscription expire?”
“When the battle is over, or the ammo runs out. Whichever comes first. This is frontline combat, and I had a, ah, ah, ah.”
Hank closes his eyes again and leaves us with his deep rhythmical breathing.
“How do you feel, Hank?”
“Please excuse me. Did I fade out?”
“Are you alright?”
“No, rotten to the core!”
“You passed out, Hank!”
“It was a squirrel.”
“What was?”
“That’s what I call them, squirrels.”
“Right, okay, but what are you calling a squirrel?”
“Thoughts, like furry little bastards that disappear up the other side of Quercus alba before I can get them into words.”
“Quercus who?”
“Quercus alba, the grey ghosts.”
“Oh! you mean the ghosts of your thought that disappeared.”
“No, I am talking about the white oaks growing all around us with gray trunks.”
“It is surprising how many are left. Seems like there are power saws running somewhere in the neighborhood every day.”
“Diddlie, gave me a lecture on the subject back around Christmas, white oaks, Quercus, and ghosts, in all that tree hugging vocabulary of hers.”
“Ghostly, especially in winter when it is misty like today.”
“Yeah, no wonder, ah, ah, ah.”
Hank is quiet. His eyes closed.
“Fred, do you think we should go now?”
“He does seem tired.”
Helga brings coffee. Two mugs on a tray with a small carton of half and half.
“Oh yeah! I can smell the coffee! You got one for me?”
Helga stops with tray in hand and looks down at the two mugs.
“Ah, why not? Bring me a couple, just a couple of swigs, honey.”
Helga leaves the tray and steps out again.
“Right, well, okay, I am tired. Hurt my brain when I fell, or maybe I fell because my brain got hurt. Anyway, the gray matter is scrambled as a breakfast egg.”
Helga comes in with a plastic cup full of water, lid and plastic straw.
“Henry, you had a stroke and fell out of your truck in Diddlie’s driveway.”
“Oh! so it wasn’t over at the Ashes.”
“He fell there too, Daisy, but didn’t hurt himself.”
“I know Helga. I know honey. That is your story.”
“Happens to be a true story, Hank.”
“Truth, stories, facts, oh! let’s not go there!”
“We still know the meaning of truth in this house, Henry.”
“Well, I don’t remember it that way and whatever did happen, happened to me.”
“I get that.”
“I was in the truck, then on the ground, then in the hospital and now, home sweet home with Helga the soldiers and ah, ah.”
“Daisy, he does this now. He just loses his way.”
“Scrambled egg!”
Hank grabs the plastic cup and Helga drops some pills in the palm of his other hand.
He flashes a gap-tooth grin and downs his meds.
“Doesn’t taste like coffee to me.”
“Hank, what happened to your teeth?”
“Daisy, I lost the front ones in the fall from Grace.”
“You got religion now, Hank?”
“I have been a promiscuous reader, Bible included, and shop manuals, Keats, The Post, The Nag Hammadi Library, damn-fool junk mail, and Melville and so on. My bastard thoughts are born of random sampling!”
“What are you reading now?”
“Labels on these meds and instructions from the ‘horse spittle’ and prattle from the insurance company and this!”
He picks up a document from his cart.
“From Dr. Glad-t0-know-you, the son of a bitch wants $700.00, for what? He doesn’t say. Daisy, take a look with your discerning artist’s eyes.”
“Hank, I think maybe you are being scammed!”
“That’s what Helga said.”
He grabs the paper and tosses it back on the cart. It settles for a moment on top of a box of tissues and floats to the floor. Hank retreats behind his eyelids for a moment.
“I’ll have our daughter look it over, Daisy.”
“Where is Grace these days?”
“Grace, is fresh out of pharmacy school and ah, ah, hanging out with the boyfriend, upstate and, and, and outside in the truck I, ah, ah, ah.”
Hank, is gone for another moment.
“Yeah, Helga calls my truck Grace, you know.”
“Oh, that truck! He wouldn’t hire a mover after we bought the house. We must have made two dozen trips, saved so much money.”
“The two Graces, they are both 25, and both carry a lot of weight around here!”
Helga rearranges his red blanket.
“Henry, you remember the sideboard door swung open as we loaded it and broke the glass?”
“I beg forgiveness! And don’t forget the lost sugar bowl, the ancestral crystal, my love.”
“Oh, Die Zuckerdose! It survived British bombs and American. Grace, told me the other day. She has it up in Syracuse.”
