w i n t e r
advice iii
If you drive far enough up Wisconsin Ave., you'll eventually get to the prime property sprawling throughout north west Washington D.C. Here, among the old trees that bow and cuddle with the houses they protect is the United States Army Distaff Home. It sits on acres of this land. It's crisscrossed with paths and in the very center there is an old estate, looking very much like something the brothers Grim would have liked to occupy.
This time of year the trees are turning and leaves cover the dying grass and swirl around the evenly spaced statues of saints lining the courtyard of this most depressing place.
Inside it is unbearably hot, but the widows that live hear will tell you different. Their skin is too frail. Their clothes too old. Their lust for life too far away and yet it goes on. Life I mean. It moves and breathes in short gasps. It checks itself at the medicine cabinet and in the darkened apartments on the second, third, and fourth floors. In the basement, at the infirmary, it sometimes gives in. Usually the elevators only move one way.
The laughs of visitors are tellingly false. They want to say, "I'll never see you again. I'll never see you again, you're too old and I won't make it back before you die. Some stranger will call and let me know you passed silently in your sleep, or you fell, but I won't be here and I so much want to be but this is it. The last time!"
And the faces of the old respond with upturned lips and 10 yard eyes, "Go please. Go please and leave me, but don't leave. Stay! No, you must go, I've had my time, just let it come soon, but maybe this isn't the last. Maybe I'll see you again at Thanksgiving, no that's right you can't come this year. Well there's always next. It may really be over."
But there is real conversation here. Deep words exchanged around the issue everyone wants to confront but can't. There are jokes and good meals and walks and somewhere there is even a sense of dignity and certainly of pride.
"You play the bugle, right? You've always played the bugle. Christopher's a good bugle player. Played with the Kansas National Guard you know. A good bugle player."
"Gamma, he's a different Christopher, you've not met him before."
"Christopher, yes. Glad you came. Good to see you again. You still play the bugle? You were always so good."
"No, Gamma, he's..."
"Reminds me. If I live past January I'll have touched three centuries," three frail, liver spotted, fingers spread before me. A pause, "I wouldn't recommend it."
She falls silent, simply going back to eating food she insists on still cutting herself though she can barely get the knife through it.
I wouldn't recommend it. This woman who new Ike. Who was privy to the trials at Nuremberg as her husband was a judge. This woman who has carried three generations through West Point and seen her last friend die across the table from her at bridge wouldn't recommend it.
Outbound 66 west to Dulles and I'm on a plane. The most beautiful sight I've ever seen in my life. Climbing through 10,000 the pilot hangs just above a limitless cloud bank. He must be cruising 50-60 feet above it as the sun sets on the cotton vapor off the port wing. It goes on forever. As far as I can see. A landscape of clouds. Every once in a while the wing dips and disappears for a few seconds. The vapor moves over the camber of the wing at incredible speed, 500-600 mph. You really can't tell how fast you're moving until the wing runs through the cloud like my outstretched hand playing with fog when I drive down damp back roads in the MG.
We got to Raleigh early and circled once over the suburbs before landing.
It never slows down.
Below the kids were trick-or-treating, I could plainly see them, small frames with capes and sheets and pitch forks along with futures trailing behind them.
The wheels touch hard and the thrust is reversed in a vain attempt to slow us down. We all keep moving. We make the gate and the cool air from outside breezes through the cabin causing some to put on coats, but they don't even slow for that. One arming them as they fumble with a bag or a package.
I drive fast on the dark highway home. The white lines almost become one as I push the car to ninety. I stay there for a twenty mile stretch and then for one brief moment push it farther to ninety-two, ninety-three, holding on ninety-four mph before letting the car find its hold on the road once again.
I'm going fast enough. We all are.
Some of us will touch three centuries and think it a novelty and luck, but from what I've seen...
I wouldn't recommend it.
goodnight 11.02.99