Len - Chapter 1
The property was beautiful. High above the river, the hill out front covered with trees. The gravel drive wound up the hill, rutted in spots thanks to runoff. As I turned the bend at the top, the house and outbuildings came into view. It was like driving from urban sprawl into rural southern Kentucky in 500 feet of time.
I threw the bag over my shoulder and slowly walked to the back door. Bees were everywhere, buzzing around the arched trellis covered in wild roses. Prairie smoke exploded out of pots sitting in a rusty wheelbarrow. I knocked, but no one answered the door. They were expecting me.
I knocked several times, sighed in irritation, and turned to leave. It was a beautiful day for a drive, but this was still a time waster. Behind me the screen door squeaked open, and he looked out. “Hey!” I turned toward the shout. “Hi. I thought maybe you guys weren’t here.” “Nope, c’mon in.”
The guy, Len, was not what I expected. Tall, lanky, balding but with a ring of greasy, stringy, shoulder-length hair and a flat affect, he was a bit like someone I would walk away from rather than toward in different circumstances. His undershirt was covered with grease stains. He clearly hadn’t showered or even changed his clothes in days.
Len led me through an aisle in the kitchen. There were crumbs and grease stains everywhere, and piles of belongings. An obese person would never make it into the house. We passed a slightly cracked open bathroom door, and I shuddered at the thought of what it might look like in there.
We came into the living room, also stacked but with a secondary aisle enabling Len to sit on a filthy couch and see an old TV across the room. There were guns everywhere. They hung on the walls, lay on tabletops; there were too many to count. They were every size and shape. Some were obviously collectibles from long ago, others looked ready to shoot any minute. A mostly empty bottle of Jack Daniels sat on the coffee table next to a gun and an overflowing ashtray.
Len sat down on the couch and pointed to my right. “She’s in there.” I could see there was a large doorway, but I couldn’t see into the room yet because stacks of boxes still obscured my vision. As I turned and stepped into the doorway, I stopped for a moment to compose myself. This was not a good situation for a dying woman to be in.
She was such a tiny form in the hospital bed under a huge double window. Her view was beautiful, all hill, trees, birds, and river. But the room. The ceiling bowed with water damage and moldy tiles. Everything smelled of mold, mildew, and urine. Boxes and bags lined the walls and pushed in. It was a large room, but all the piles narrowed the open space including the bed to about 6 x 8 feet. In this area was a commode, a tiny old rabbit-eared TV on a TV table, the bed, a second TV table with hospice supplies, and a folding chair for the nurses to sit on while they met with Len’s mother.
I said hello but got no response. Again and again, I tried to rouse her. Finally Len, who could hear everything but was disinclined to help in any way, yelled, “C’mon Ma. Wake up for Christ’s sake. Wake up!” His yelling caused her to stir, and the tiny woman sat up in bed with her white hair standing straight up as if in terror. I greeted her and introduced myself, but stopped mid word when I saw something move.
A horrible tiny dog, mostly bald with spotty tufts of white hair sticking out at all angles crawled out of the bed covers. It had runny eyes and scabby, spotted skin. It looked like it had crawled out of the Pet Cemetery. Ma yelled to Len to take the Lulu out so she wouldn’t pee in the bed again. Len grumbled about how much he hated that nasty little rat, and roughly carried her out the kitchen door between his thumb and forefinger.
Ma looked around furtively. She was suddenly sharp as a tack. “He’s not giving me my meds.” she whispered. “He forgets to feed me.” The screen door creaked, and Ma got sleepy again.
