Too Many Cooks

Len - Chapter 5

Previously …

Somehow the word treasure seemed more believable being spoken in this cavernous hideaway. Old milk crates of discarded power cords curled up under the workbench serpent-like and the curved metal roof of the structure caused our whispers to echo slightly.

“Nessie, you can trust me.” 

After all I was an impartial observer here. My aim was to collect data. To collect stories, not personal effects. Although from the look of things on the property, I couldn’t imagine what type of treasure she was talking about but human curiosity won out. 

“What do you mean, you don’t want Len to know about the treasure?”

“There’s treasure here on the property. Surely you don’t think I’d stay here in this heaven forsaken place for no reason. I’m dying, not crazy.”

“So you could leave if you wanted to?” I pressed. I may not be an advocate but this case was causing my brain to hurt and to battle with itself.

“Of course, dear. I’m not a prisoner. You see how easy I snuck out,” she snickered, still feeling the effects of the long drags of pot she’d soaked up, no doubt. “Oh my, but I do seem to have soiled myself. Could you help me get cleaned up?”

Her clarity of communication was in such stark contrast to her physical appearance that it took me a moment to reconcile the two. Clearly we needed to get her back to the house. She got herself out here but now, slightly wobbly from the self-medicating and because she was trying to walk holding her gown so the moisture that ran down her leg wouldn’t cause the fabric to cling to her, she needed an arm to steady her return course.

We moved slowly but deliberately back through the high grass amidst the grabbing twigs of plants long since neglected that reached out in the hopes that someone would come to their aid. I indicated for Nessie to stop for a moment when I heard a rustling in the grass. Sometimes I really hated these rural interviews. Too much nature wasn’t my speed. Then I saw a field mouse scamper away and let my breath back out.

Even with her slight frame and wobbly motion we returned to the house in a matter of a few minutes, opting for the side door instead of her windowed exit route. We had to go single file through various spots past the kitchen counter and through the hallway back to Nessie’s room with a view. I sat her on the commode and while I didn’t have any nursing training, I figured I could at least help her get changed and back into bed. I had noticed she had started to wheeze ever so slightly shortly before we got back to the house.

I found a new gown for her in the dresser and ventured into the bathroom hoping that I would be the sole inhabitant on two or more legs. As expected it was as “unkempt” as the rest of the residence but I found a relatively clean, albeit tattered, washcloth and a small plastic basin. Filling it was a little warm water and grabbing a bar of soap from the dish next to the sink I headed back to the bedroom.

By the time I returned Nessie had disrobed and sat on the commode with her gown held up as a privacy shield in front of her, tucked underneath her arms to keep her hands free. She and Lulu were in a staring competition with the bedraggled mutt stationed on the corner of the bed with her head slightly tilted to one side, the doggy version of the a girl standing with one hip jutted out.

Nessie took the washcloth from the basin and slowly dragged it over her sagging skin. There was a frailty to her skin that was still too big for her shrinking body despite its compressed, crumpled-paper complexion. Still, there was a certain elegance about her and I found myself wondering what she looked like when she was younger. I took the cloth and helped her with the spots she couldn’t easily reach and then got her dried off and redressed.

I could see that her outing had taken its toll as she struggled to get from the seated position. I gave her a hand and got her back to bed, tucking her in in an odd role reversal from the days when I had visited my grandmother as a child and had been tucked in. My gran would always kiss me on the top of the head and I had to restrain myself from transferring that memory from my head to the physical world. It had been a long time since I’d smoked pot and clearly I wasn’t as clear-headed as I thought.

“Dear, could you get me my comb? No sense putting on a fresh gown and having my hair undone.” She smiled as if to say thank you, not only for your kindness but for your silence. We hadn’t spoken at all since we left the shed.

She’d indicated that it was in the top drawer of the dresser. Inside the drawer I also found a box of graham crackers that were likely contraband snuck in by one of the nurses. Len may have “forgotten” to feed her at times, but clearly someone was conspiring to keep Nessie in snacks. I pulled the box out and motioned to see if Nessie would bite.

“Not just yet, but I could use some water.”

I headed back to the kitchen and hoped that I would find a clean glass there. I made a lucky guess as to which cabinet might house the glassware and took out a small tumbler. Opening the fridge to see if there might be some bottled water I wasn’t entirely surprised to find it sparsely populated. Surprisingly there was a gallon jug of water, so I filled the glass that looked to be one of those collectible edition jelly jars.

Returning to the bedroom Nessie looked like she’d dozed off but her eyelids fluttered open when I approached. She took the water and sipped gingerly at it after sniffing it. Before I could return to our earlier conversation I heard the tell-tale sound of gravel being crushed under an approaching vehicle. While I had gone looking for the escapee, Len had made his own escape.

The truck door squeaked before it slammed shut. It was an old rusty pick-up and from the sound of that door, it may have met abruptly with another unfortunate vehicle at some point. Then a second slam as the screen door slammed from the tug of the spring that automatically closed the door behind him. He seemed startled by the fact that I was still there as I met him in the kitchen.

The brown grocery bag on the table provided a barrier between us. A couple of familiar bottlenecks shown out the top. Jack Daniels was his constant companion, the only one welcomed here.

“I found her.” I said, simply as a factual remark, without emotion.

I was met, as I expected with an unimpressed, “That so. Well then I expect you must be done here.” There was a touch of belligerence growing in his tone. I pegged that it was fueled by liquid courage and decided that I didn’t want to spark anything.

“Yeah, I think I’ve gotten what I need … for now.”

I went to retrieve my bag and take another peek in Nessie’s door. This time she was asleep as I could tell from the slight muffled snore she emitted. Heading out the side door to my car I had to shoo Lulu away from the door. That little mutt certainly could get under foot but was likely just looking for someone with opposable thumbs who could make some food appear in a bowl.

On my way to the car I heard the screen door slam again. It had started to take on Len’s cantankerous personality and seemed to slam louder than necessary. Len stood framed by the doorway, and this time his imposing figure was made more menacing by the shotgun that was now resting along the length of his leg.

“I think our interview has concluded,” Len barked at me as I got into my car.

Heart-racing I clutched the steering wheel with one hand tried to turn the ignition key with the other, all the while keeping my eyes firmly affixed to the straggly-haired creature that guarded the house like a odoriferous gargoyle. I was just an observer here, not an advocate. Keep my distance. That was clearly what all parties wanted me to do. I tried to shove thoughts of Nessie and questions about treasure out of my head as the car rumbled to life. I’d just started to pull away when I heard one final sound.

“Yelp!”

Len - chapter 4

Previously…

I tried to rouse Len from his seat, hoping there really was a small measure of love guttering in his dark heart, but he remained fixed and staring.

I figured Nessie couldn’t have gotten far, so I went out the front door and circled around the side by her window. There was no sign of her, but the grass was short and trampled; it looked like this wasn’t the first time Nessie had gone AWOL. I tried to follow her path through the yard, but lost it a few yards from the house. I looked around and noticed the rampant neglect and decay I’d missed from the road.

Unruly blackberry brambles were encroaching from all sides and johnsongrass was spreading like a cancer over the ruins of a once fine bluegrass lawn. Rosebushes had been left untended to choke themselves out. Tiny, sickly buds were all the thorny masses could produce.

I zigzagged back and forth over the yard, looking for any sign of Nessie. I scanned in the distance, searching for her frail and crumpled form in the gently rolling lawn. I checked the ground nearby for footprints like some mountain tracker. I noticed a soft lump of green, a sudden and unexpected wave cresting up from the flat plane. I found myself drifting toward it.

As I got closer, its form sharpened up. It looked like an old garage or carriage house had succumbed in a sea of kudzu. The big doors were invisible beneath the twisting vines, but as I walked up a small door on the side swam into view. A few stray vines swung limply over it, but the rest had been cleanly pruned away. I tried the knob and pushed the door open into the gloom.

Motor oil and sawdust tinged the cool air, with a faint undercurrent of juniper or a musty Christmas tree lot. The dark building was oddly inviting and I still needed to find Nessie, so I ventured inside.

My eyes adjusted to the dim, greenish light. I felt like an explorer in an underwater grotto or a deserted temple buried in a tropical rainforest. To my left was a workbench and pegboard with artfully arranged tools. A hammer hung here, two wrenches placed just so, a set of screwdrivers with matching yellow handles lined up from tallest to shortest like a kindergarten class on its way to lunch. Screws and nails and nuts and rivets were organized by size and type in jars on a shelf. An old coffee can promising its contents were “Good to the last drop” overflowed with the bits and bobs that didn’t fit anywhere else. The workshop was organized and neat, in its way, and I couldn’t imagine someone like Len spending one minute inside it.

I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye and turned toward it. A small blob of gray-green, darker than the surrounding gray-green, shifted in the corner. A bright orange glow, like a lightning bug or a beacon, blossomed near the top of the shadow. I’d found Nessie and she was medicating herself.

“You want a toke?” she asked as I picked my way across the room. I figured the day couldn’t get much stranger. What the hell. I inhaled.

It was the first smoke I’d had since my ex went west, and I felt the lightness hit the back of my head before I’d even started blowing the first lungful of sweet smoke out. I’d almost forgotten how nice it could feel to get high because I wanted to and not because my boyfriend was getting stoned yet again. Looking back, I realized I was glad he got a fellowship in California. We’d both checked out of that relationship long before he left.

I passed the joint back to Nessie and sat on the floor next to her. “So tell me about Len. Why isn’t he giving you your meds?”

Nessie closed her eyes, took a long drag - longer than I’d have expected from her tired old lungs - and held it for a good fifteen seconds. I took hold of her wrist after ten just to make sure her heart was still beating, but it was going strong. The old girl might have been on her last lap, but she could hold her pot.

“He wants me to die quick so he can sell the farm. He doesn’t know I’ve already changed my will. He ain’t getting nothing. I’m leaving it all to Lulu. And…”

She trailed off and pinched the tip of the joint, dropping the remnants into another coffee can sitting by her side. “And what, Nessie?”

She put her hand over mine and looked me right in the eye, wit and clarity still sparkling in hers. “I don’t know why, but I think I can trust you. He mustn’t know about the treasure.”

Len - Chapter 3

Previously

“Huh?” Len’s stare came into focus, as if he had actually heard me. “What kind of question is that?”

“It’s the kind of question I need to ask,” I replied. “Why don’t we go back into the other room and let your mother sleep while we chat.” I moved toward him, as that was the only direction available to me in the midst of the clutter. Len put Lulu down and she disappeared from sight. He backed out of the doorway and returned to his well worn place on the couch. I saw what appeared to be a sturdy wooden chair holding two tubs of assorted blankets and clothing. It was obvious Len wasn’t in the mood to be a helpful sort of a guy, so I lugged the tubs to other stacks nearby and took a seat.

All of the windows were open, and the sweet air pouring in provided a stark contrast to the musty odors in the house. Len watched me as I made a place for myself, scratching absentmindedly at his scruffy beard the way a dog might scratch his neck.

I tried again. “Len, do you love your mother?”

He dug around on the coffee table, shaking packs of cigarettes until he finally shook one free. He repeated this process while looking for a match, then he lit the cigarette and leaned back. I sat silently, waiting for his response. It came after three long pulls on the cigarette.

“Do I love my mother? Hell, I’m here taking care of her. That counts for something, don’t it?” He seemed agitated, and I could see him dart a longing look at what was left of his bottle of Jack.

“Let’s talk about that. What exactly do you do to take care of Nessie?” I knew I should write down his responses, but after all of this time, I could predict what he would say. He was like so many others.

“Well, I feed her. I give her medication when she needs it. I help her get to the bathroom. I take her to see the doctor. You know. That kind of stuff.” He tapped the ash from his cigarette in the general direction of the ash tray. Most of it fell to the floor.

“When did she last see her doctor?” I wondered if Len would tell the truth or if he would try to pull a fast one on me. I knew from Gerald that Len had cancelled the last two appointments and not rescheduled.

Len looked up at the ceiling, as if in thought. “I think maybe one of the home care nurses took her to her last appointment because I was out of town for a day or two.” He didn’t look at me because he knew how weak his answer sounded.

“That’s odd, because Dr. Leach said you cancelled Nessie’s last two appointments and never rescheduled. What’s going on here, Len?” I tried not to sound harsh, because that usually made family members close up on me. This situation was tricky; at this point, I felt that Nessie needed medical treatment instead of an end-of-life interview. I needed Len to see me as his ally; otherwise, he’d never agree to take Nessie to see Dr. Leach and he might even forbid me from visiting in the future.

“I can’t do this no more.” He ran a hand through his tangle of hair. “You think she’s dying? What about me? I’m stuck in this dump, we’re living off of her Social Security, and nobody really gives a rat’s ass as to whether or not either of us live or die. There’s times I think the best thing to do would be to put us both out of our misery.” He looked down at a gun on the coffee table and I knew he meant what he said. The problem was more serious than I expected and I wasn’t certain of how to proceed. I had yet to spend time with Nessie and was operating solely on my gut feeling that she wasn’t ready to meet her Maker. Len, on the other hand, seemed more than ready to meet his and take Nessie along with him. The situation worried me.

“Maybe I can help.” I stood up and moved toward the bedroom. “I need to spend some time with your mother first and then you and I will talk again. Why don’t you stay out here and watch some television while I visit with Nessie?”

Len grabbed the bottle of Jack and slumped back on the sofa. He turned on the television and I could hear the squeals of excited audience members as game show contestants bid on fabulous prizes. Len seemed oblivious to my presence. His eyes glazed over as he tipped the bottle against his lips and let the amber liquid work its magic.

I entered Nessie’s room and walked over to the bed. The lump under the covers didn’t move. I called, “Nessie? Nessie?” I nudged the lump. Something didn’t feel right.

Pulling back the sheet, I found two pillows, but no Nessie. I looked around the room, thinking she had perhaps gotten up to use her commode and fallen in the process. There was no sign of her anywhere.

“Len?” I called out, but knew he would not answer. I picked my way through the debris on the floor and went back into the room where Len was still slouched on the sofa. “Len! Len!”

The volume of my voice finally roused him. He looked over at me and for a moment, didn’t know who I was. Once my identity registered, he responded. “What? What do you want now?”

“Nessie is gone,” I said.

“What are you talking about? She’s in her bed, right where I left her. Did you look there?” He was irritated with what he perceived to be my inability to see his mother right in front of my eyes.

“Of course I looked in her bed. Her pillows are there, but she isn’t. Come and see for yourself.” I made my way back into the bedroom and waited several minutes for Len to appear. He walked over and stood next to me, staring at the pillows. Then he looked up at the huge double window above the hospital bed. One of the windows was open.

“Aw, shit,” he said. “She’s gone out the window. I guess I forgot to lock it last night.” Len turned and walked back into the living room, leaving me alone with the empty hospital bed.

Len — Chapter 2

Chapter 1

At first you pretend not to notice. Or maybe it’s more that you learn not to see what you’re looking at. You walk into someone’s living room enough times where there’s an eight-foot-tall mounted black bear in the corner standing claws-out next to a treadmill being used as a dish rack and eventually you learn to not even turn your head. You just smile and move on to wherever they point you. I think in most cases the manner one organizes his belongings doesn’t necessarily say anything more about his character than how he prefers to organize his belongings. This is almost certainly true in the situations I tend to meet people in, which makes it relatively easy to ignore peculiarities. A couple months ago there was a man who’d rearranged all the furniture in his house so that it was facing southeast. Every chair, bookcase, end table, even the ottoman he’d pulled up beside his wife’s hospital bed in the dining room. He said it made him feel warmer. I knew enough not to ask.

When Gerald called me about this place, he’d warned me the rooms were a little unkempt. That’s the word he used: unkempt. “Hello, Ms. Horovitz. This is Gerald Johnson calling from Dr. Leach’s office.” He said it every time, as though caller ID doesn’t exist. Or even if it didn’t, like I wouldn’t just know his voice. We’ve been talking once, twice a week for five years. I’ve interviewed him, I’ve been to their office Christmas party and witnessed his karaoke version of “Santa Baby” (he makes a convincing Eartha Kitt after a few drinks), and I’ve even politely turned down a fumbled request for dinner.

“You know you can call me Althea, Gerald.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Althea, Gerald. Now how are you?”

“I’m well, Ms. Horovitz. Thank you for asking. I’ve called because we have another candidate if you’re interested.”

I moved the cat from my lap and found a notebook. “I’m always interested, Gerald.”

“Her name is Agnes. She lives with her son. We’ve spoken to him about your work and have his initial consent. Shall I continue?”

He continued. I got the information. Gerald mentioned the boxes, in his way. Later that afternoon I spoke briefly with Len on the telephone. I explained I research end-of-life care and that I was hoping to ask him and his mother some questions. I left out that I’d been working on my dissertation for six years and while my advisor was continually impressed with the amount of data I’d collected at the bedsides of the soon-departed, all I felt I’d accomplished was a lingering minor depression, an immunity to certain smells, and the ability to turn a live-in boyfriend into an ex-boyfriend who lives in Berkeley. (“People die in California, too,” he said before he left. “I don’t know why you have to stay here. People die everywhere.”) Len gave me the address and now here I was.

I look down at the bed, where this sad woman furtively burrowed herself away. “Agnes,” I say. “Agnes, did I hear you right?”

“Nessie.”

I look over at the doorway and there he is. He has the dog tucked under one arm like a newspaper. There’s a bit of pus in the corner of its eye that Len wipes off without looking away from my face. “Nessie?” I ask.

“Her name,” he says. “Nobody calls her Agnes. Not even my grandma called her Agnes. It’s Nessie. But she won’t answer you anyway.” He looks at the hillock of blanket and crumpled tissue suggesting his mother. Nothing registers on his face, no new emotion tightening the skin around his eyes, no whirring of thought visible in the way his lips open, nothing. But he holds his gaze there, like it might mean something. “Nope,” he finally says, “she won’t hardly ever wake up at all anymore.”

Family do weird things at the end. Who can blame them? More often than not they’ve been working hard for too long in order to ensure there’s never a time when a woman like me or the Hospice nurses comes to tell them it’s the end. When that time does arrive, they’re left with a strange mix of relief and sadness. Nine times out ten that little bit of relief mixed in there makes them either temporarily lose their minds or hate themselves. Neither’s a good option when fueled with grief. Last year I watched a mother go out and buy her teenage daughter a prom dress less than a day before she died. She got the dress on her, too, so the girl was just lying there in bed wrapped in satin and the cords from a heart monitor. When I asked the woman why, she told me she just wanted her daughter to feel pretty, to feel like a normal girl one last time. Then she locked herself in the bathroom and I showed myself out.

I’ve seen all sorts of weird things from family members. And I’ve forgiven them all. It isn’t my position to judge. But this situation is different. I just want to get my interviews done, get some good songs on the radio to sing along with on the way home, and enjoy a nice breeze through the open windows as I drive. I don’t want this. I’ll hold Nessie’s hand as I record her experiences that led to being in that bed. I’ll push a Kleenex box toward Len when he starts to cry while talking about his childhood. But I don’t want to be an advocate. I’m not supposed to be an advocate. The Hospice nurses are advocates. Gerald and Dr. Leach are advocates. I’m meant to be impartial, an observer, witness.

And now I’m not even sure this woman is actually dying.

I can feel Len staring at me. Here I am, standing in his mother’s bedroom, a stranger loitering among the debris of their lives, and I don’t even show the courtesy of responding when he speaks to me. I put my bag down on top of some boxes beside me and pull out a notebook. I flip through the notes I’d made in preparation, my standard questions, then put the papers back. I turn so I’m facing the door, but remain where I’m standing.

“Len,” I say, “do you love your mother?”

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.