The Furious Spinner

On Saturday after the parade went past my house, I zigzagged out of town to Linda’s place. As I drove up the winding road toward her farm—green darkness all around me—I breathed deeply and chanted silently, “Om Tara, Tu tare, ture soha.” May she who hears the cries of the world hear Linda and take away her pain and suffering. I thought, no matter what happened I was going to be there for her, to do what I could do. It was an honor to be by someone’s side when she was born, as she lived, as she died. So what if some it was hard? Who said any of it was gonna be easy, my friend?

A black bear suddenly raced across the road, running for her life it seemed, her fur shiny in the morning light. She disappeared into the woods. I remembered the meditation at the Fairy Congress where the Bear said to me, “You are inside the healing.” Here I was in the big black slimy maw of the healing.

At Linda’s house, I said hello to her dogs who have finally learned not to jump up on me. I talked to them affectionately, petting them with my words, and then I went inside the house to get Linda. She didn’t even say hello—she was so focused on just walking, just breathing. Niceties go the way. I don’t care. After she got in—lifting her legs up slowly to pull them inside the car, I threw the walker into the back seat.

It was a beautiful day. A few clouds. Sky blue sky. White caps rode the waves of the entire river, like the beginnings of hardening meringue under the sun broiler. Butterfly sails here and there. Linda began to talk about how hard it had been for her lately, how each day was spent in closed rooms with people who didn’t care, how she understood why people gave up, how she wasn’t having quality of life, how she was falling through the cracks. I rubbed her back with one hand while I drove, and she cried. I could only feel skeleton now when I touched her. “I don’t want to cry,” she said.

“Why? We are able to cry for a reason,” I said. “It releases good hormones or chemicals or something.”

At the hospital, I got her a wheelchair. She tried to sit in the sun while she waited for her shot but something smelled like creosote, so we went inside. She started shivering in the semi-dark of the room they put her in. Everyone in the emergency room was busy, so I walked to the birthing wing of the hospital and got her a white cotton blanket still warm from the dryer—or from sitting in the sun. I went back and put it around her shoulders. She said, “I can’t stand being in these places any more.” Her voice sounded so shaky and vulnerable—small. I didn’t see how she was going to survive much more of this.

I stood behind the wheelchair and put my arms on her arms so she could rest back on me. I breathed deeply and imagined my spine was hollow and a kind of hollow tube ran through my arms and legs. I imagined energy flowing through me. I wanted to stay grounded and try to help bring her some peace.

“When I went to the Fairy Congress,” I said quietly, “I remember one of the speakers said that the fairies, the Invisibles, guides— whatever you want to call them—are everywhere. He had us go on a meditation to a mall. He suggested maybe the fairies were attracted to the lights in a mall. Or here. Maybe they like this mural on the wall.” It was a tree and a beaver, I think, although I didn’t pay that much attention. “I bet there are guides here to watch over and care for you here. And even though you are in this room, you are on the Earth. As you breathe, imagine you’re outside under a big old tree, sitting on its roots that reach deep into the Earth. You can hear the birds singing. You can hear a woodpecker ra-ta-tatting deep in the woods. A stream of sunlight warms you. A gentle breeze blows through the trees. All that you need is right here. You don’t need to do anything. Just breathe.”

I stood with her like this for a long time, just us in the near darkness of the hospital room. Then the nurse came in and turned on the fluorescent lights. Linda had been awake most of the previous night throwing up from the shot she got yesterday. She’d called the doctor and asked for them to give her the shot into her muscle so that it wouldn’t make her so ill. The doctor said yes, but when she told the nurse now, the nurse said the doctor hadn’t changed the orders. She would have to try and get a hold of the doctor. She hurried out of the room.

I went around to the front of Linda and knelt by her. She reached her hand out to me and I held it. “I’m so tired,” she said, her voice breaking. “You can’t imagine how tired I am. Thank you for that healing. Thank you for taking me to my special place. I have to stop fussing about all this stuff. I have to stop fighting. I want to get back to being me.” A tear ran down her cheek. Several ran down mine. As we looked at each other, I saw what deep pain she was in—words seem so inadequate to describe what passed between us. Love. Connection. Understanding.

“Well, I certainly love you,” I said. “I think you’re great.”

“I know,” she said. “I have to get back to me.” Her voice was even smaller now. Not the voice of my friend Linda. Yet it was. “Now I want you to go,” she said.

“No, I want to stay here with you,” I said.

“There’s no reason for you to wait for them to get their act together,” she said.

“But I don’t mind if I’m with you,” I said.

I should have insisted, but I didn’t want to stress her out. I really did want to stay with her. Nothing else mattered but my time with her. But I left. I didn’t like being away from her. As difficult as it might be to be around her, it was harder to be away. Some nights I wake up in the middle of the night and wonder how she is; I want to drive there and see if she is still breathing.

When I got home, I called up several of Linda’s friends. We didn’t think her family understood the gravity of her illness. I asked one of the women who was close with her daughter to tell her that her how sick she was. She wasn’t spending any time with Linda, so we assumed she must not understand that her mother was terminal.

Linda called after 9:00 p.m. to say she had just gotten home. (Another friend had picked her up from the hospital.) She was so exhausted she could barely talk. I said I would come over, but she said no. I asked her to sleep with the cell phone next to her in case she had to call me.

I kept waking up and listening to the night. Heard nothing but the breathing of ghosts. Or was it a breeze through the broken pine tree?

Sunday morning Mario and I drove to Linda’s after we worked for a few hours on “Pearls for Serena.” I wanted Mario to clean out her refrigerator. (She wouldn’t let me do it.) It turned out she had spent the morning instructing someone else how to do it, and now she looked exhausted. Mario went inside the house to do the dishes. Linda and I stayed outside for a bit. I offered to write down phone messages for her. She agreed but then started to do it herself. She was too exhausted and in too much pain. Two more of her friends arrived. One heated up mashed potatoes for her while the other rubbed her back. I hurried into her bedroom to find a vial of pills to help with her heart palpitations. Her breathing was too fast, too labored. She needed to rest.

We left her in the hands of her two friends and returned home where we worked most of the day on “Pearls for Serena.” When we finished it, we drove to Vancouver and got Kinko’s to cut it and spiral bind it. An hour back home again. We wrapped Serena’s copy of the book, wrote her a check and slipped it into a card, and then I left the house for Linda’s again, promising Mario to return for dinner.

The dogs didn’t bark so I knew Linda wasn’t home. (Don’t know why; it’s just something I’ve noticed.) I parked the car and got out, murmured hello to the dogs. The door was open, Linda’s aluminum walker stood open and empty on the gravel drive, the sheep wandered all about. Something so empty about the place without Linda. A note written in Linda’s hand was tacked to the entrance: “Christine. We’ll be right back.” That meant all was OK. I put Serena’s present on Linda’s kitchen chair. Linda’s copy of “Pearls of Serena” I dropped onto her indoor walker. I took a piece of scrap paper and wrote, “Here’s your copy, Linda.” I drew a heart and signed “Kim & Mario.”

Toward home again. The winding roads. The roasty pink skyline. The smoky colored hills. I felt like I was inside a Japanese landscape painting. When I first went to college, I worked at a nursing home as a nurse’s aide. Or maybe I was an aide to the nurse’s aide. I can’t remember. It was shitty pay and really hard work. One of the aides tortured the more senile patients—although I don’t think they noticed she was laughing at them and teasing them as they walked around naked. I treated bed sores that looked like someone had taken a flesh drill and bored right into the buttocks or thighs of a patient. I emptied urine bags. And when they died, I prepared the bodies for the morgue.

After someone dies, they often pee and shit, so we had to take off their clothes and wash them. I remembered one man came in with end-stage cancer. Mr. R. No family or friends ever came to visit him. He was in so much pain. The last twenty-four hours or more of his life, he seemed to rattle as he breathed. It was such a struggle for him, although he appeared to be unconscious. Throughout the day, I went to check on him. It seemed so sad that he was alone. His mouth was opened wide, his eyes were closed, his body cadaverous. “It’s OK,” I whispered. “You can go now.”

Mr. R. died when I was in the room. He let out a final sigh and then he was quiet. I went and got an aide. Then I stayed with him, my hand on his arm, while the aide went to find a nurse. The nurse confirmed that he was dead. Then we gently took off his clothes. Tears ran down my cheeks. Even though I was only 18 years old and did not know the meaning of the word “sacred” (as anything unrelated to religion), I knew we were performing a sacred duty. The aide who teased the patients was in the room with us. Even she was solemn. I dipped a wash cloth in warm water and began stroking him gently on one side. Or did the nurse do this? Did we both? In my memory I am holding his hand and washing him. It doesn’t matter. In that quiet room the three of us women tended to the dead man. We quietly talked about what a relief it must be for him now that the pain was over. A single tear fell out of his cloudy eye and rolled down his cheek as we washed him. “What does that mean?” I whispered through my tears. The nurse shrugged, gently. “That happens sometimes after they die.”

After we finished washing him, we covered him up. Did we dress him again? Did I wait until the morgue truck came to pick him up? I know I wished him well. I only worked at the nursing home for a short time, but it was the only time in my life that I was not afraid of dying.

When I got home from Linda’s, Mario and I watched the finale of “Six Feet Under.” (It’s about a family who owns a funeral home.)

Do you ever wonder why people are not insane? I asked Mario. We know we are going to die. We can imagine being snuffed out. No more of us. It’s terrifying.

Maybe we are insane.

Remember how Linda said she viewed death?

As taking off a shoe that was too tight.

Only she isn’t acting like that now. I don’t blame her. I don’t mean that. I was just hoping it was true. I hoped she really thought of death that way. But that was before. That was before it was so close. How could one not be terrified? Are you afraid of it?

Not yet.

In the final minutes of “Six Feet Under” they showed us how and when each character died in the future. It was very moving. Easier on TV than in real life. Not a revelation there.

Afterward, in the dark with the nearly full moon above us, Mario and I walk around town. It is so quiet. A slight breeze rattles the leaves in the old oak and maple trees. Sounds like autumn. We stand on the grass near the old trees and watch the raccoons walk across the retaining wall toward the holly trees—little black shadows—reminding me for a moment of upside down ducks, like those ones in a carnival that go back and forth, back and forth, as someone tries to shoot them.

As we walk by the convenience store, just before we step into the darkness that leads to the river and the fairgrounds, we hear music booming from one of the cars in the parking lot. “Like we want to hear your crap,” Mario says. “Oh, wait. It’s Queen.” I listen and can tell from the beat that it is Queen but I can’t don’t know what song yet. “What is it?” I ask.

“Another one bites the dust,” Mario answers.

I laugh and shake my head. Eventually we end up down at the fair grounds in the boneyard of the carnival. The Rescue 911 is folded up, the ferris wheel is gone, the carousel is dark, along with the bumper cars. Some carny lights still blink on and off—flickering really. A group of carnies stands huddled together in the dark. I wonder what they talk about. What they are doing. None of my business. I had a friend who used to do the carnival circuit. It wasn’t a pretty or easy business. Edge dwellers all. Or not.

At the edge of the light and darkness, two children play. They laugh and chase each other. The girl does a cartwheel. Several tents huddle close to the trucks, softly lit up like giant lightning bugs. The night is so still, so quiet—except for the throbbing of those trucks. Gauzy clouds cover the moon, but her light shines down on the water in Rock Cove anyway. It’s all perfect. We sit on the bench in front of the darkened carousal and drink it all in. I am reminded of yoginis dancing in the charnel grounds. I am a character in a Ray Bradbury story. We walk toward the bleached white spot light over the empty dais and the benches and straw bales in a crescent around the dais. I feel like a ghost walking amongst the living, even though they are nowhere in sight. We sit on the bench and face the light.

I hear music. A harmonica? A flute? And a sheep baaaing. We peek into the empty barn. We see nothing but tiny stalls and straw strewn about the floor. Still the sheep bleats. Has someone forgotten her? I reach for Mario’s hand. His fingers are so warm in mine.

We head for home. Over the bridge. On the path toward.... A man walks by us. Head down. Not from these parts. A carny. He looks rough. His white face stubbly with beard or dirt. Tight. Druggy. A skeleton in clothes. I nod. Does he grin? We pass each other. “Is he coming back to hurt us?” I whisper to Mario. He laughs.

“No,” I say. “Look, is he coming back to kill us?” Fear is such a habit.

“No,” Mario says after he glances back. I look behind me. The bogey man is gone. We come to the end of the path, to the exit from the fair grounds, or the entrance to town, a kind of threshold where the street lights cannot chase out the shadows. I see a man coming. He is big and black, rotund, striding with his arms and legs, more of a dance than a walk. I know immediately he is no threat—no tightness, just free movement. But he doesn’t see Mario and Mario doesn’t see him and they meet and cry out, almost knocking into one another. They each keep walking, stumbling away from the other.

“Dude, you OK?” the man calls.

“Yeah,” Mario says. They’re laughing. Still walking away from one another.

“Are you all right?” I call.

“Yeah, we didn’t see each other. Man, out of nowhere.” Then he keeps walking. All arms and legs. In the world. Taking up space. Dancing toward the boneyard.

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