In the cool of the morning I ventured out to the MSU clinic to pick up my mom’s prescriptions. Even mad-dogs and Englishmen don’t venture into the humid midday swamp. I’m pretty good with dogs, but I don’t presume to know their emotional state, like other mammals it’s easier to present anger or insanity (the two primary meanings of mad) than the more complicated state of emotion running through our fuel lines.
In coastal Oregon towns mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday in shorts and a t-shirt. Well, the Englishmen do, mad dogs still wear fur coats. I was authoring something in my head, a father and son, perhaps, crouched near a stable. The older of the two points out how the hogs grunt in a pattern so that it’s hard to pin point where any one is, the younger boy is doubtful of this pre-meditation but is pre-occupied with horror as what he hears is the slapping of wet meat against old wood in time to the grunting, an on the beat horror.
I missed a call from the hospice grief counselor, she left a cheery message on my voice mail about how I could talk to her anytime. The crouching at night to sound of pigs wasn’t a random half scene, it was, in part, what I might say to a grief counselor. No, please, don’t look for hidden meaning, the abstraction is the meaning. My mom actually took the call. I’m thinking it was odd. My mom can’t really hear live and in person, has more trouble with womens voices and telephones. I think they might have had two completely different conversations at the same time, or, you know, my mom won a radio contest for a cruise to Iceland.
What do you suppose mad-dogs and Englishmen talk about? The EU? Kibble? I think they probably say things like “It’s not the heat it’s the humidity.” And “Woof. Bark. Arf.”
I might could use a shrink, I don’t know, but I think it’s a great kindness on my part not to talk to a grief counselor. I mean there has been years to process the grief, and, if I talked I might point out how you don’t leave hospice messages on voice mail, how very last minute to this party she is and …. I don’t know, I have nothing kind for her and she has nothing whatsoever for me. I might be underestimating her, but I don’t think, based solely on her chirpy cheery voice on my voice mail, that she’d understand the grunting of hogs of the slapping of wet meat.
That I come from a completely different planet is not the fault of the locals, it’s mine, I own it. I’m not being patronizing, if I really needed grief counseling though I’d probably use a bartender. I’m not suggested I’m put together well or have a stiff upper lip or anything, just that in terms of my fathers death it’s a relief that he is at peace; mourning the guy he used to be, well, I’ve done that. I’ve been fairly gracious about most of the people who are just catching up to that. I have a feeling the hospice lady isn’t equipped to deal the sort of thing I would probably need to talk to a shrink about if I went around talking to shrinks.
I don’t really think my head is a much darker place than anyone elses, I just don’t stuff the darkness away in tidy little cubby holes it’s all piled on the floor and reeks of gasoline, and very little of that darkness is without cause, almost none is a phobia. I could be mistaken about the grief counselor, but I’m not about the darkness.
I could sum up what my goal from counseling would be if I went to any counseling; What the fuck am I supposed to do next? I know it’s not very original, might be the least original thing ever, and I know too shrinks don’t answer questions like that. The decimation of a pig pen, the acoustics of grunts and the slapping of wet meat on the beat against a wooden plank is exactly the answer to what the fuck I’m supposed to do next, well, maybe not the answer, but it’s exactly how I’m prone to frame the question.
You’ll notice that if I had a qualm about telling y’all I disenqualmed myself with a quickness. As I have long anticipated my fathers death due to his steady decline, y’all have long expected me to tumble down the hill to crazy and sip tea with the maddogs and Englishmen in the noon day sun.
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