Chicken and Noodles

Tom visits, Feb, 2008.

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Duck: G got him to pop his ears. Progress. They made a urologist’s appointment and wanted to charge us money for them to transport him. Nope. Me: Managed to scan another volume, cooked a dinner that wasn’t very good. I despair for my cooking. As I lose my brain I lose my cooking. All afternoon I cook chicken and noodles that come out needing so much more. G: He had a great day. It’s so much fun to write those words. Work: Padre’s 2008 Schedule.

Tom came by, and for a few brief moments, I comfortably and Tom uncomfortably…eventually inching to the front of his chair, shared the present.

“Annie’s painting hung sideways on the wall, and Don’s painting fell off. I couldn’t find the one you did of me, so I knew something was going on. I called in, and I took the day off and came to find out how you all are. It’s been too long.”

“I’ve been thinking about you,” I began, and so I told him I’d been scanning my old journals, told him all about the kids, about my Ex…PAH, the other Tom of who I have no news of, the grandkids and Don…..especially Don. We had all known each other since 1966….even longer than we had known Duck. He had not known about all the grandkids. He had not known Delpha died.

Tom was the brightest of us all. He was the college class president, yet always a little sideways. Now he is bearish, in a way he’s looks a little like Don. He doesn’t sound fuzzy like Don tho. He’s still bright, probably still brilliant just sidetracked by the many drugs that rewired his brain. He’s now a member of that second lost generation of the sixties stuck in a low-end job driving a truck, living far out in a valley in one room with his cat.

We were all brilliant.