That Good Night (2 page)

I met Lori in high school. She and I were on a team collecting scrap metal for the war effort, WWII, that is. Who the hell remembers that these days? Lori was five-foot-two, had blue eyes, had a great ass, and could lift fifty pounds of scrap metal like it was nothing. I'd watch Lori bend over to grab hold of a chunk of rusted steel, and for the next week and a half be in a terrible way. I didn't need pin-ups to stir my adolescent
yearnings, I had Lori. Courting back then was different than it is today. It might take a week or more just to get up enough courage to kiss the girl. And even then, first-tries were summarily rejected. There were all sorts of expected courtesies in those days, like opening doors, carrying books, being a down and outright slave and, of course, getting the approval of the parents before even thinking about taking a walk together. Is it better today with getting sex as easy as picking fruit off a tree? I'm not so sure. But I think when you come down to it, romance has always trumped sex and I hope that it still does.

The boys said that maybe I was depressed and needed help. Are you kidding! Of course I was depressed. Sad perhaps describes it better. Damn sad. How would they know what my days were like? After Lori's funeral, off they went. One to North Carolina, the other to Kansas. “C'mon and live with us for awhile,” they offered half-heartedly. Sure, tear me away from the familiar just when I lose the most familiar. And since when does living with your kids lift one out of depression? And what is
for a while
supposed to mean? Until one or the other of us can't stand it anymore! Anyway, they didn't mean it. A gesture, at best. “You want to do something,” I wanted to say to them, “then call me once in a while. Maybe invite me on a vacation like on some Disneyesque cruise ship or rafting down the Colorado. But don't ask me to come and live with you for awhile. No, let me alone to figure it all out.” To me, it made no sense to visit anyone, sleeping in a strange bed, being an interloper in someone else's routine. But apparently, my desires weren't anyone's priorities but my own. My adjustment to post-Lori was quickly noted as going off the deep end. I hate to admit it, but I'm convinced my kids had a plan: get power of
attorney, commit the old man to a managed care facility, and take whatever they want. I know that sounds like paranoia, but they built a case, hired a lawyer and hauled me before a judge.

Enlisted as watchdogs by my
caring
kids, my neighbors reported that I only went out after ten at night. When Lori was still alive, we were asleep well before that time, so my late night forays were seen as a sign of instability. The truth was I enjoyed going out late to buy groceries and other things. For one thing, there was less traffic. For another, there were no screaming kids and their hectic moms clogging the aisles. I liked night people more than day people. Things were more relaxed. What the hell do people expect? You're married for half a century and then in an instant you're single. What? I'm supposed to be unchanged, go about life like everything's rosy-pink? Well, it isn't. Major changes in life are just that, major and the older you get the more anxiety comes with it. Did my kids or neighbors or the minister expect my life to simply go on as if nothing happened? One neighbor pimped me the idea of hiring her cousin as a live-in. Can you believe it? Replace Lori with a
live-in
?

Another item on the indictment was leaving the stove burner on. I admit that this can be a serious matter, but I was pretty careful and only slipped up now and then. And what's supposed to happen? If the damn pot burns, the smoke alarm would scream like a nervous Banshee and the fire-department shows up. That only happened once. A little smoke damage and it's as though I planned to burn down the neighborhood! And if there was no pot on the stove, the house would just get a little warmer.

There were other things that raised suspicion that I was losing it. Like on one of their spying visits, my daughters-in-law
found jelly pieces in the mayonnaise, or me wearing two different socks, not always zipping my fly, not shaving every damned day, and the clincher, banging the back wall of the garage with my car that put a little bulge in the living room wall. Hell, it's my wall. Okay, there were two other things, both of which included getting lost. Who hasn't in their life gotten off track? Heading north instead of south is no big deal. You turn around and go back. The first time it only took a few hours to get home. The second time it took almost two days. But I did get home. That's the main thing, isn't it?

At first the judge seemed to be favoring my side. He told my kids that their observations were more typical of depression than dementia. The judge asked me if I felt in command. I replied, “Sure I am.”

He went on, “Mr. Lambert, the evidence before me seems to indicate that your life will straighten out, given time but before I rule on the matter, would you be willing to submit to a psychological assessment?”

I guess that I should have bowed my head and said yes, but hell if I was going to have some shrink dig into my grey matter. It's none of anybody's business what goes on in old Charlie's brain. Back in my elementary school days, I was caught in the girl's bathroom. For that infraction of exercising pubescent curiosity, I had to go to counseling. What a waste of time. I swore then that no shrink was ever going to get me ever again. So, I told the judge, “No, sir. I will not submit myself to that foolishness.”

The judge looked at me like the principal did back in elementary school. “Mr. Lambert, your denial of my request, which was made entirely for your benefit, places a considerable burden on the court. On the one hand, I understand your reluctance.
On the other, your welfare trumps that by a large margin. Are you sure that you want to refuse a third-party evaluation?”

“Yep, I'm certain. All I want to do is go home and be left alone. Left to live my life where I've always lived it. My bed, my rugs, my stuff. Just let me get on with it, Judge.”

After some more discussion, some of it rather heated, I could tell the Judge was sliding in favor of my kids. I blurted out, “Just wait your honor, your time's coming.”

“Is that a threat?” he asked me.

“No sir, just life talking. You're on a downward spiral. You'll understand someday.” With that, I walked out of the court.

Can you believe it? At eighty-four years old, me, myself, and I ceased to collaborate. I was admitted to a retirement village. What that means is, if you're not on death's doorstep, you're assigned to
assisted living
. Essentially, that means that they watch you like a hawk and not because they have your welfare in mind. No, it's because if you fall or hurt yourself they become liable. And no car. That was one of the worst things, losing my car. I'd been driving for over sixty years with a only a few scrapes and a less than a handful of tickets and by damn, they took my car away from me. They might as well as have cut my legs off.

At first, I had a two room apartment in the Senior Living section of Sunset Home. I was able to “decorate” with some things from home. But not any furniture, or my bed, or any dishes utensils, cookware, or just about anything that might taste or smell like home. I brought my and Lori's favorite pictures and a few things from my dresser. Hell, I had more stuff when I went on business trips. The thing that was so goddamn depressing was this: there was no going home. This was not home. This sanctuary of the living dead could never be home.
There is no way in hell that all the new sounds, colors, toilets, sinks, linens, pillows, chairs, smells, or whatever could possibly be home. Bullshit!

Connected to Senior Living is what I call Senior Death. If you get sick, which I did, you graduate to a room in the nursing section, which is like moving from a larger coffin to a smaller one. It wasn't like my kidneys failed or my heart stopped beating. I got the flu. The flu put me in the nursing home, isolation to start with. That was two months ago and while I'm out of isolation, I'm still on death row. Apparently, when I was
temporarily
moved out of my two room suite, they let somebody else have it. My little bit of home stuff was put in storage, probably in a damn shoebox stuffed in the janitor's closet. I'm told it might be a year until I can get back to the living section. My guess is that they get bigger cuts from Medicare by having me in the nursing home.

Soon after Lori's funeral, the kids started visiting me at home once a month for three days. After day one, coveting would begin. Table tops would be stroked, vases caressed, paintings studied, chairs patted, corners of rugs turned to check the weave, silverware hefted, linens fingered. “Do you watch
Antiques Roadshow
?” one or the other would ask. A lamp might get, “Where did you and Mom get this? I've always liked it and would just love to get one.” All of the sudden, my boys took great interest in my gun collection, even though when growing up they wouldn't dream of shooting poor Bambi. Who the hell did they think they were kidding? After a few of those visits, I had pretty much decided to change my will so all my earthly goods went to the Salvation Army. And I suppose the kids guessed it, because here I am and all my and Lori's stuff is theirs.
Notice, I haven't mentioned their names. I will not write or utter their names ever again. At first I felt guilty about all this as if I had done something terribly wrong; or that maybe Lori was a poor mother. But, no, we raised these kids, we loved them, nursed them, nurtured them, wiped their butts and their noses. We paid for college, bought them cars. We gave them life and what did we get in return? Not much.

The boys got what they wanted, their wives divvying up the spoils like victorious Vikings. My house was sold with the proceeds going into a trust established for my care. My social security check goes to the nursing home, as does my annuity check. My eldest son has Power of Attorney and control of my assets. I had sold my machinery business for a couple million, so his control is no small thing. Legally, I don't exist. My rights are gone. I'm in a place I don't want to be with people I don't want to be with. But I have an ace up my sleeve which I'll pull out when the time is right. The old man isn't dead yet. But first, I have to get out of this place.

Officially known as an Electronic Home Monitoring Device, I wear an ankle monitor like criminals wear when they get sentenced to home confinement. The penalty for two foiled escapes, I wear it like a badge of honor. The first try was spur-of-the-moment. I was lingering around the lobby when a family group was leaving. I simply walked out with them as if I belonged. Out front is a bus stop sign that read “Bus to Downtown.” Next to it was a very inviting bench. A flower pot with geraniums sat to the right. I nervously sat down, convinced that a neat little bus would appear to whisk me away from this place. But that didn't happen. Like everything else in this place, it was a fake. Within a few minutes of sitting down, I had two white
uniformed men sitting on each side of me. The damn bus stop sign was a baited trap for unwitting old people trying to go home. Devious bastards.

My second escape was pre-meditated. I tried leaving with the food delivery truck—a stowaway who boarded via the kitchen's back door. At the next stop, the deliveryman discovered me hiding behind some Del Monte carrot crates. The Sunset van was summoned and I was returned to the home, like a truant that skipped school. I was called a “bad boy” and fitted with a security strap fixed around my left ankle. The device was programmed to alert staff if I ventured into what they called
unauthorized places
. I told them all to go screw themselves, which only got, a “Now, now, let's not go potty-mouthed on us.” The staff's use of language hovers somewhere around the first grade. I'm an eighty-four year old man, for Christ's sake, not a six-year-old boy. Whatever sanity I had left coming into the place was quickly eroding. A few more months of this crap and
senile
would be a justifiable term. And, I'm afraid to admit, even welcomed.

The ankle monitor is no-nonsense. Shiny black, it had a fastener that cranes could use to lift girders. Go out a door or into an unauthorized space and Security is on you like ugly on an ape. For fun, now and then I stick my leg out a door and run for my bed where Security finds me smiling. Rather than annoy the guards, it only enhanced their quasi-military pea-sized brains. Since being fitted with the damn thing, I've turned all of my attention to getting out of the place. Escaping is really no end in itself. It needs to be a part of a plan, a cog in gears that mesh, turning slowly with power and grace, like a torque converter.

My escape would be masterful, like Clint Eastwood's in
Escape from Alcatraz
. Perhaps it'll become a legend, inspiring others to try. The old WWII movie
The Great Escape
joined
Escape from Alcatraz
as my inspiration: Heroic Americans befuddling overly pure-gened Germans by digging a tunnel right under their stinking feet. If prisoners of Alcatraz and a bunch of unfed POWs could do it, so could I. And like them and countless others who slipped past prison guards and barbed wire, crawled through claustrophobic tunnels, scaled walls, outwitted sophisticated electronics, and made fools out of experts, I, Charles Lambert, would find my freedom. And I could afford it, too. What I mean to say is that I have a bunch of money hidden away. That's the ace up my sleeve. It would rot in safe deposit boxes before I'd let it get into the hands of my kids.

I began making lists of where I wanted to go and what I'd do when I got there. Home was out of the question. There was no home. Friends? Listen, when you're old and your spouse dies, friends and neighbors disappear. You become a loner. And it's not just because your friends don't want you around, it's also because you get bored being with them. It's just no fun. Everything changes. Your personality changes, reverts to some hidden part of yourself that you either hate or admire. You go out and can't wait to get home. You get home and there's nobody to talk to about the day's events. It's an endless cycle of gloom and doom. Death begins looking good. It's the going home together that matters. Without that, life sucks. Or at least it did for me.