I only include this letter, something I tapped out one cold December's eve, lubricated, I'm sure, with malt liquor, because of its total affectation of a Tom Sawyeresque persona. Esther lived in Joplin, Missouri. Joplin is the biggest city in the tri-state Kansas-Oklahoma-Missouri border area. My wife and I stayed a few days with Esther in Joplin during our summer transcontinental honeymoon drive on our way to New York. Her house was a hushed, air-conditioned oasis after a nerve-wracking 20-straight hours motoring through Kansas. I remember the house was well carpeted -- the carpet, a golden-tan color, might have even been new -- and all the rooms seemed empty. Her husband, Floyd, had been dead not more than a year or two at that point. Esther had probably just cleared all his stuff out.
What I remember about Floyd -- I never met him -- is a story my wife told me. Floyd died of Alzheimer's disease. What finally made Esther move Floyd into a facility was his habit of shitting in brown-paper lunch bags and leaving them lying around the house. This struck me as a rich depiction of dementia. Something Raymond Carver could have written. Floyd, a solid country club Republican Joplin Brahmin, reduced to defecating in lunch bags and leaving them scattered around his home possibly for a future repast.
Esther died a couple years later. I was already well clear of her granddaughter by then. So I have no idea or recollection about her funeral. I would assume she is buried next to Floyd at a cemetery in Joplin.
December 1989
Dear Esther,
Thanks for all the great gifts and food and money you sent!
That was some kind of package you put together. I really liked your pumpkin bread. I took it to work every day and ate it with a cup of black coffee during my 11 o'clock break. Mmm mmm good. I liked the apple breed a whole bunch too; I liked that after dinner because it was nice and sweet.
Ashley left for Oregon on Monday and the next thing I knew I looked down at my watch and saw that it was already Thursday. -- Gosh, I hope this letter gets to you in a hurry. Time flies when you're working on Wall Street. One moment you're riding to work on the subway; then you're riding home. The next thing you know you're fluffing up your pillow and setting the alarm for 6:30 AM. The cold weather we've been having makes a difference too; it really takes the wind out of your sails. It has been in the teens all week. Tonight it's down to 9 degrees, with a 20 below wind chill. The first thing I think of when I get home, after I feed the cat and then myself, is that I should go to bed. No reading, no writing, no TV, just sweet deep sleep (must be the hibernation instinct that's tucked back there somewhere in the human animal). And from what I can tell from reading the weather map in the newspaper, Southwest MO's been in the same straights -- high teens. I hope you're holding up all right.
I sure miss Ashley a lot. This is the first Christmas we've been apart since 1982. I couldn't get the time off work though, and, anyway, we need to be cautious these days when it comes to the flow of cash. Ashley will have a good time in Ashland just the same, and I'll get some time to finish up a few odds and ends that I've let dangle. She's coming back the 30th; so the worst I'm looking at is eight more days of loneliness. When she gets back, we're going to go out to rural New Jersey where a good friend of hers (a fellow med student) has family, and we're going celebrate New Year's. It should be fun. I'm going to bring along a fifth of fine bourbon.
Merry Christmas, Esther! It was a fun time seeing you in Vermont with Lynn and Sarah, and I know it'll be fun seeing you again.
No comments:
Post a Comment