The Green Flash

Posted on February 9, 2024 by 34orion

Chapter 2: Day 2: Continued

The Strand is six-mile strip of concrete  walkway that runs parallel to and directly adjacent to the beach in Manhattan Beach from El Segundo to Redondo Beach. It is lined with some of the most ridiculously priced real estate in the world. On postage stamp sized lots the uber wealthy such as early employees of Facebook buy up these properties for several million dollars only to knock down the existing homes and spend millions more building new structures that featured indoor swimming pools and garages with lazy Susan’s so they would not have to back out a street.

I love walking along the Strand. It is part exercise, part the sport of people watching and part the Zen relaxation of walking by the sea. The morning following my conversation with Conor I found myself walking along the Strand with Delilah. Buddy boy had gone off to some meeting in Orange County and we had decided to get some exercise by walking along the Strand. At home, I go to the gym almost every day. Not only do I enjoy the physical aspects of working out but if, I am being honest, I enjoy the sightseeing. I am irrevocably heterosexual, and I grew up at a time where gawking at women was nearly an Olympic sport and considered an innocent pastime.

The women at my home gym were pikers compared to the ladies who were power walking along Manhattan Beach’s esplanade. These were, at least according to my friend Lani who lived in town, the 2nd and 3rd wives of the ultra-wealthy who lived in town. Like professional athletes who consider their bodies their money makers they hired a slew of support personnel such as physical trainers, dieticians, and Dr’s to maintain themselves in the peak of physical perfection. It was truly a sight to see these examples of physical perfection, many of them surgically enhanced, speed walking along in sports bra and tights, trying to expend enough calories so perhaps they could have a cup of broth for lunch. Which is why I was only half listening to Delilah as we made our way down the strand. And then she said something that snapped me out of my sightseeing.

I said “Delilah. I am sorry. I missed what you just said. Would you mind repeating it.”

She replied, with an understandable annoyance “ I said, that I need your help with Con.”

This was an astounding development. I, who she had always thought of as a bad influence on her husband. Who she had accused of corrupting her children needed my help? Too astonished to say anything else I replied “How.”

She launched in “Did you see how much he had to drink last night?”

“Del, yes I saw.” And added, with shade “But, I didn’t think much about it. What’s on your mind.”

“He is drinking too much. He is an alcoholic.”

The fact that my buddy could be an alcoholic was not a surprise to me. He comes from a long line of them. His mother was a nonfunctioning alcoholic who could barely get out of bed. His father was a functioning alcoholics who could perform at the highest level of business and consumed copious amounts of alcohol to smooth out the edges of his day and maintain equilibrium. His son Duke had succumbed to this disease.

I replied to Del “I am not trying to be difficult, but I am not sure what your concern is right now. He may be drinking a little more now than in the past but having a cocktail at the end of the day has always been a part of your lives together. I can remember you telling me that it was an  important of your daily ritual. You know, like Con’s grandparents. Having that pop at the end of the day to signify the end of the workday and the beginning of the evening with your family.”

“It is more than him drinking a little more.”

“What do you mean? Is he day drinking.”

“No, it isn’t that. Now when he drinks in the evening, he gets nasty.”

Delilah knew something about nasty drunks. Her father had been one. I had the unfortunate experience of  seeing it firsthand. Just before Del and Con married, I was invited to her parents’ home for dinner. If someone had snapped a photo of the dinner that evening it could have been a Normal Rockwell painting. Lovely split-level home in suburban New Jersey. The patriarch, sitting in command at the head of table laid out with their finest china and heirloom silver, doling out slices of roast beef while bowls of potatoes au gratin and green bean casserole passed hand to hand. The conversation had been lovely and light, centered on Del and Con’s upcoming nuptials. How lovely the chapel at Union College, where they would be wed, was, and how even though it was in New York State it was not inconvenient at all. It could not have been more pleasant. Until it wasn’t.

Del’s father, Erik, made a comment that Ronald Regan would go down in history as our greatest President. I am not a fan of Ronald Regan. He was a polished actor who turned out to be the original sin of the Republican party introducing it the evangelicals and other deplorables. Used to dinner conversations at Con’s family table and mine where civil disagreements over politics often took place, I made the mistake of offering up the opinion that Ronald Regan’s administration was akin to a frat party. That it was going to feel great while it was going on but the hangover the next day would be epic. You know those cartoons where the characters’ face turns red from the neck up, eyes bulges and steam streams out their ears just before their hat blows off their head. That was Mr. Nelson’s reaction to my comment. He proceeded, in a voice just below shouting and in an angry almost violent tone, accusing me of “insulting him in his own home. Who did I think I was, some pissant Jew, to dare suggest that his opinion maybe wrong? And that I needed to apologize or get the fuck out of his house.”

If we are being perfectly honest. I am not sure those were his exact words. The passing of four decades has eroded my exact memory. But they are close, and my memory has not faded regarding tone or tenor. I clearly remember the look on Delilah and her mother’s face. They showed unsurprised fear. It was clear that “Erik the Red,” as I later dubbed him, reaction was something they had dealt with many times before and many times it had gotten far worse. How much worse I would not learn for years but it was clearly awful because both immediately became supplicants apologizing for me, saying that I must have misspoken and that I meant no insult to him while at the same time telling him how much everyone agreed with him. I, realizing that I had stepped on a landmine, did my best to stutter out an apology saying that “I had no intention of insulting you. I only meant to offer my opinion and if offense was taken then I could not be more apologetic.”

He did not accept my apology. Instead, he got up from the table without a word but with dagger eyes for me and disappeared behind a door that led to the basement. I was mortified. I apologized to Mrs. Peterson and Del saying while I was confused about what I had done to poke the beast. I had meant nothing by it and please accept my apology for ruining our dinner. They were polite about it although you could still see the fear in their faces telling me it was not my fault. “He has his moods” and had a “hair trigger” and not to worry about it.

 It was only the next day and after being sworn to secrecy that Con had told me the back story about Erik. He was a middle level executive with a multi-national oil company that spent his lunch hours at a tavern self-medicating on Martinis. When he got home in the evening, he would have several more drinks and by the time dinner rolled around he was often out of his mind drunk. That the best Delilah, her sisters, and mothers could hope for was him being emotionally abusive to them, telling them how worthless they were. There were times where emotional abuse was accompanied by violence. Beatings, especially when the girls were children, were commonplace. Delilah’s mother had been used as a punching bag, but the children had it worse. Unspeakable things had happened in that house when no one was looking.

I had been horrified by Con’s revelation. I had only read about stuff like this in books and portrayed in movies. I could not believe it was happening to people I knew. When I asked why they didn’t do anything about it. Con told me he didn’t know. The girls had left home as soon as they could, but Mrs. Peterson had stayed either out of some misguided loyalty or lack of options.

Consequently, when Del told me Con had gotten nasty our conversation took on a whole new tone. I asked “Del, I can’t believe I am going to ask you this question. But is he getting violent with you? Tell me the truth. “

“No. No. It is nothing like that.” Giving me a look as if I were crazy for asking the questions and only then me recalling that Del didn’t know that I knew about her father’s violence. “When he drinks at night. He makes me feel small. Unheard. Belittled. He sneers at me and tells me my ideas are stupid. Or I don’t understand.”

“And when he does that, what do you do?”

“You mean when he gets nasty.”

“Yeah.”

“I walk away. I go to another room and read a book. I don’t want to get into a fight with him.”

I thought for a second. When Con and Del had lived in Atlanta they had been, much to my horror, become members of an evangelical mega church. While my buddy had always been spiritual, looking for the bigger questions in existence, I, perhaps in my ignorance thought these mega churches were more cult like than spiritual. Tithing to fill their coffers more important than helping the poor or lost souls finding a way to God. But I never let my prejudices interfere with the path they had chosen. When Con would spout the tenants of their church, I would just nod, smile, and think other thoughts as he would prattle on. I remembered one such conversation when Con told me that one of the things his church professed was that in a home there could be only one leader and that was the man. And that his wife must accept the decisions that they make as final. I can remember at the time thinking not only how much of appealed to my friend, as he could often be arrogant and self-righteous, but how for the same reasons it would be a dangerous invitation to his darker side.

I asked “How much does this have to with your faith. I mean the whole bit about a wife needing to follow the husband’s decisions.”

“That is not how it is supposed to work. The husband is supposed to cherish the wife’s opinion and try to reach consensus with her about decisions but if there is an impasse the husband is supposed to make the final decision.”

“Okay. And he doesn’t listen to you?”

“No. He does but then he puts me down and does what he wants.”

A young woman ran by looking as if she had invented cantilevers and counterweights, wearing nothing but a sports bra and yoga shorts. I was momentarily distracted, and I asked to cover my distraction “Give me an example.”

“You mean of how he ignores what he thinks.”

“Yes.

“She paused for a second and then said, “Did you know your buddy is going to get hair plugs.”

I was a little surprised. While Con’s hairline had been receding forever and his hair growing ever wispier for nearly as long, he told me that he thought men who fought their male pattern baldness ridiculous and had declared that he would never do it.

I said “Really?”

“Yes. And it’s expensive. Ten grand and with no guarantee it will take. Most people have to have more than one treatment. And when he told me he was getting it done I told him I thought it was ridiculous. Too much money. He looks fine the way he is. And we need to save money. Not spend it.”

“And what did he say to you?”

“He said that he was doing it for business. That in California it was important to look young. And that it was his money and if he wanted to spend it that way it was his right to do it. When I brought it up to him a few days later he cut me off and said he had decided as head of the household and that was it. “

At this point we were at the farthest point of the esplanade, where Manhattan Beach meets El Segundo. I turned to Del and asked, “I hear what you are saying Del but why are you telling me all this?”

“Because he is your best friend, and you should talk to him about it.”

My first thought on hearing all this was she had a lot of nerve asking me for help. I knew, because she had told me in no uncertain terms years before, what she thought of me. Now because she was unwilling or unable to confront the situation, she wanted me to help her. Fuck that. Fuck her. She was playing with me. She knew if I thought Conor was in trouble I would help.

I decided to respond with humor. “I don’t know what to say Del. It sounds like he is being an asshole” and laughing “Not that is news. But I will talk to him. See what is going on. “

Con had the weirdest walking gait of anyone I knew. Most people walk heal to toe. It produces a rolling step that is even and when put in the hands of a runway model a very appealing look. My friend started his step on the ball of his foot, never quite putting his heal down, and then rolling to the toe. It generated a very bouncy step and Popeye sized calves. Which being his best friend, I made fun of unmercifully, and all the time.

“Dude, is it possible that your calves have grown since your move to California.”

We were walking along “The Strand.” It was what Con had wanted to do when he returned home after his meetings. And even though I had already put in three miles with Delilah that morning I had agreed to go. Not only was my workout routine significantly more challenging back home but it seemed a good opportunity to get him alone and try to get to the bottom of Del’s revelations that morning. I would love to say that as we walked, we were contemplating the late afternoon sun, how the yellow of the near magic hour light reflected beautifully off the dark blue of the mighty Pacific. Excuse the pun, that would have been the enlightened way to see the world. However, it was Con and me. We had been admiring women together since high school more for an appreciation for god’s miracle, which is a woman’s form, than in a leering construction worker way

When a particularly stunning woman, albeit with major surgical enhancements front, back and up top, came jogging by Con asked, “You know what I love about California, Danny boy.”

I could have guessed but replied “No. What?”

“I love that the women out here are always trying to improve themselves.”

I laughed. “Yes. Yes, they do. Especially, here in Manhattan Beach where people use their money as tactical weapons. If your original equipment is not to your liking, there is no reason in the world not to go restomod and put in the latest accessories and modifications. “I paused for a second and said, “Speaking of which…” and let my voice trail off.

Con looked over at me and replied, “Speaking of which, what?”

“Delilah tells me that you are about to go all resto mod on your hairline.”

“She told you that.”

“Yeah. She did. What’s going on with you? You used to make fun of men who went through midlife crises by getting hair plugs.”

“Yeah, I did. But things are different here in California. It is all about how you look. Young is what sells. And having a receding hair line just doesn’t make it. It is like a present I am giving myself. To help me in business.”

I was not buying his doing it for business argument. Con was one of the vainest men I knew, and he was particularly vain about his hair. Back in the days when I had a six inch “Isro” and he had long flowing golden locks no one spent more money on shampoos and conditioners, more time blow drying his hair than him. The amount of time he spent grooming himself was a constant joke among myself and the various women he had dated before meeting Del.

“Bullshit, Con. It ain’t about business. It is about how you feel about yourself. You want to return to the glory days when you needed to spend thirty minutes blow drying your hair. I would have thought by now you would prefer a simpler morning routine.” ‘

Con knew I had him and only responded with a smile, so I went on “Isn’t ten grand a lot to pay for vanity.”

“She really laid it on you, didn’t she?”

“I guess. But she is concerned that your spending money that could be better used for something else.”

“That is not what she is concerned about.”

“Okay what is she concerned about?”

“I bet she didn’t tell you about the work she done.”

“What.”

“Take a look when we get back to the apartment. She had her butt and tits lifted a few months ago. The woman across the street convinced her to do it and I happily paid.”

“So, if it isn’t the money or the fact that you are improving your look surgically what is it?”

“She wants to be the boss. She thinks if she feels a certain way then that is the way it should be even though our faith teaches us something different.”

“You mean the husband is the final decision maker and that a wife needs to make peace with that even if she strongly disagrees.”

“Yep. She puts on all these pious airs. Even has a bible study group on Skype but she can’t accept it when I decide.”

I said nothing for a moment. I let myself get distracted by a spirited game of women’s volleyball that was taking place on the beach below us. I needed the time to think about what I was going to say next. I knew better than to get in between a husband-and-wife relationship. The nice thing to do would be to shut the fuck up. Let them figure out their path by themselves. But wouldn’t be kinder to let Con know what I saw and what I heard? My code has always been given the choice kind always trumps nice. I said, “She says, that you are nasty with her.”

“Boy you two really had the conversation this morning.”

“Yeah. She did quite a lot of vomiting on my shoes.”

“Maye I am a little nasty with her. But she is frigging infuriating. She always comes at the problem from the sides. Never directly. And when I confront her with it, she retreats into this place where she agrees with everything, I say just to get me calmed down when what I really want to do is have a knock down drag out fight.”

“You want to fight?”

“Yes. I want to fight with her. I want to get all the poison out. Clean out the wound. That way things can heal, and we can move on.”

“Have you told her that. Have you said you wanted to fight so you can clear the air? Get things out in the open and resolve things.”

“Sure. But she doesn’t seem capable of it. She turns into her mother dealing with her father. Doing whatever she can to deescalate the conflict and get the beast back into his cave.”

“Funny, not funny, that you should mention that.”

Con stopped and looked at me and for an awkward second neither one of us said anything and then I said “She thinks you are drinking too much. That you are an alcoholic.”

Conor resumed walking and set off at a slightly faster pace than we were walking previously. He got a step on me, and I scrambled to catch up. He asked in a tight-lipped tone “What do you think?”

“Buddy, I just don’t know. Not enough data. I only see you a few days a year.”

“Fuck that. What do you think?”

“I think you drink a lot. But you know this is coming from the perspective of somebody who barely drinks at all.”

“And?”

“The cocktail you make every night is gigantic. You must be putting six ounces of rum in that bad boy.”

“It isn’t that much. It’s mostly ice and tonic.”

I gave him a skeptical look and said “I don’t know how much booze you put in there. But you both know that it is more than a little. Combined with the wine you usually have with dinner let’s just say that it is probably more than the AMA would like you to drink in an evening. Can we agree to that at least?”

“Did Del mention to you how much she drinks at night. A couple of glasses of wine with dinner. A glass of port before we go to bed at night.”

“She didn’t but were not talking about her. We are talking about you.

We reached the northern end of the Strand, where it dead ends at El Segundo and turned around. We walked in silence for a while watching the gulls swoop and glide, riding the steady wind coming off the Pacific. The setting sun and the birds reminded me of the surfing posters that had been so popular when I was a teenager. A time when the Brady Bunch was the perfect family and lived the perfect California lifestyle. When problems were never too big that they could not be solved, and conflicts were ended with a silly quip and a hug. Much to our chagrin life had not turned out that way. We could not surf our way through it. We could not count on steady winds to swoop and glide through life. Families did not always get along and the only joke was that life was hard.

Conor interrupted my California dreaming moment by saying “It doesn’t effect what I do.”

“What doesn’t.”

“My drinking. My boss goes out of his way to say how happy he is with how things are shaping up out here.”

“I am sure you are doing a fantastic job out here. Would not doubt that for a moment. All that means is that you are functioning. It doesn’t mean you aren’t an alcoholic. And, I am not saying you are. You are far better qualified to evaluate that than I am. I can only tell you what I see. And what I see is that you drink a lot more than I do. I am holding up a mirror not offering up judgement.”

Belligerently, Con replied “So you are saying I am functioning alcoholic?”

“You could be. And if you want to be a functioning alcoholic, I could give a fuck. That is not business. You and I have talked about this a lot. How you choose to live your life as long as you are not doing irrevocable harm to yourself, or others is your decision to make. If I don’t like it that is my business and if it really bothers me or I think you are crossing the line, my job as your friend is to let you know. It is the Dorothy Parker quote.”

Con gave me a puzzled expression. I added “You know. The one that goes “You can lead a horse to culture, but you can’t make her think.”

Laughing Con said, “So now I am a whore.”

“And that surprises you how?”

Now we were both smiling. The serious tone of our conversation lightened but I could not resist throwing out one more thought. “Con, one more thought before we do a deep dive into the effects Lululemon has positively effected human existence in the early 21st century.”

“What’s that.”

“Treat Del better. You and I share a common fault. Sometimes we see sooner than those around us and when they don’t get it, we get frustrated, and the snark and nasty can come out. Del will never be as quick out of the gates as you. Doesn’t mean you have to make her feel bad about it. Even if you are the final decision maker, you need to make her feel better about the decisions you make. You have finally reached a place in your life where you are living your dream life. A perfect job in a perfect place. Why fuck it up by having an unhappy wife?”

Con nodded and said, probably just to get me to shut up added, “When did get so smart?” It worked. I shut up about what was going on in his life and spent the rest of our walk being politically incorrect lecherous late middle-aged men who still thought ourselves irresistible to women.

When Conor had jumped in the shower after our walk, Del cornered me in the kitchen and asked plaintively “Did you talk to him about what we talked about?”

“I did?”

“And what did he say.”

“He is thinking about it. “

“About what?”

“About the fact that he may be drinking too much. I am not sure he is willing to admit it’s a problem. But he knows we are looking at him and that will make him look at himself. In any case, he thinks he is functioning fine.” Knowing that Del would not appreciate my Dorothy Parker quote I added “The best we can do is lead him to water. It is up to him if he wants to drink. Get it?”

She didn’t. So, I added “Seriously, I shook him up talking about his drinking. And I told him that he needs to treat you better too.”

“What did he say about that.”

“He said that he wants to fight with you.”

“What?”

“He wants you to push back at him. Fight with him to get your way. He thinks that you back away from arguments too quickly and that it leaves a lot of things unsaid, unexpressed and festering. It’s better to have a knock down drag out fight than constantly patching over disagreements.”

I could tell from Del’s expression she did not grasp what I was saying. I would have attempted to give her a better explanation when Con, finished with his shower, walked in, and said, “Who is for cocktails?”

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The Green Flash

Posted on February 7, 2024 by 34orion

Chapter 4: Day Two: 7AM

I am a gym rat.

Spending time stretching, lifting weights, pumping out miles on the elliptical and climbing monuments on the stair master, sightseeing Lululemon six or seven days a week is what I do. Exercise helps me stay centered and on track. Rid my mind of the unwanted baggage of the day and the space sort my thoughts. My metabolism also demands I go to the gym. Without it my daily ration of food would resemble Gandhi’s during a hunger strike.

All that ended with Covid. My gym closed. Even if had been open I doubt I would have gone. Working out wearing a mask is not as much fun as it sounds. Consequently, to help me maintain a modicum of sanity, I had become a walker. First, around the cobbled streets and hilly jungle lanes of Brazil and more recently around the hills and trails adjacent to our home in New Jersey. The latter always accompanied by Fenway, my caramel colored, fleece coated Australian Cobberdog.

To help settle my mind after my struggles with the ghosts of Covid last night and this morning, I have stopped by the front desk to see if they have a trail map for the property. I They do. Valeria from Moldova (it says so on her name tag) the very friendly front desk clerk goes and fetches one for me. While I wait, I notice a large carved dark wood panel behind the front desk. It depicts a Polynesian woman with an exceptionally large head featuring an oversized smiling mouth, flaring nostrils, eyes that are series of concentric arcs, furrowed brow and hair depicted as waves. I am intrigued when Valeria returns with my map. I ask what the image depicts.

They must get this question a lot because instead of answering me she hands me a card. It says:

“The wood panel is of the ancient Hawaiian Goddess Pahulu. Her brand of sorcery was known to have been practiced through dreams. In King David’s book he says that in ancient times she ruled Lanai, Molokai, and Maui before Pele in the days when Kane and Kanaloa came to Hawaii. Molokai was supposed to be the strongest center of her sorcery and legend has it that all of Molokai’s sorcerers are descended from her.

“There is much to be learned about Pahulu through stories from Native Hawaiians, but for now, leave it up to Pahulu to meet you in your dreams and tell you about her sorcery!”

I thanked her for kindnesses and after studying the map I decided on a five-mile round trip hike through the jungle to what the make indicates is a tiny beach. To start I make my way towards the golf course where the mapped hiking route begins. The wood carving behind the front desk has intrigued me. How clever the ancient Hawaiians were. The god of dreams a sorceress. Are all dreams that come true magical? And dreams that don’t come true cursed. But what about the nightmare we have been living this past year? Life without dimension with characters who rivaled those of our worst nightmares. Was that Pahulu’s sorcery or just our bad choices?

I reach the trail head. It is, at least for now, easy. A paved path that begins a gentle descent towards a dense growth of trees. I think of my dad and the hikes he used to take us on as children. He said it was so we would appreciate nature, but his real motive was to get us out of Mom’s hair. He used to ask Levi and I to sing to him a song we had learned at our day camp, Camp Riverbend. “The Happy Wanderer. “

I love to go a-wandering,
Along the mountain track,
And as I go, I love to sing,
My knapsack on my back.

Chorus:
Val-deri, Val-dera,
Val-deri,
Val-dera-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha
Val-deri,Val-dera.
My knapsack on my back

My parents’ attic is full of ghosts.

Or so I think when shortly after my mother death I enter the attic of my parent’ house where they have lived for over a half century. We have decided as a family to sell the place we call home as none of us have the money or the resources required to keep it. As I live the closest, have no family present as Nadine is still in Brazil, and have little better to do as my work has been killed by Covid, I have been volunteered to organize and pack the home. I do much of this alone. Not that my sister and brother-in- law have not put in their hours. They have. But as working in a mask is a challenge and a bother we have chosen to work on different “shifts.” My brother has not come at all but has made it clear he wants his share of whatever treasures the house contains.

The attic is a sea of sealed boxes, ancient steamer trunks and luggage from the by days gone by. When travelers had a good leather suitcase, and you didn’t mind the weight because there was always a porter around to assist you with your baggage. I know before I start that this is going to be an intense genealogical expedition. Both of my parents were only children which means any family photo, ephemera, of keep sake passed to them. There has been no division between other children or relatives. Second, my mother was raised in a New York City apartment where every inch of space was scrutinized for use. If you kept it, it had value to you. Finally, Mom by training was a librarian and had a family diagnosed case of ADHD. Everything had to be catalogued and put in its place so she could feel comfortable.

The attic lacked air conditioning, and, in the summer, it could do double duty as a sauna. As I could not work there my method was to take each box, steamer trunk, etc and bring it down to my parents’ adjacent and air-conditioned bedroom. There I could work through the collections without the danger of becoming one of those grizzly discoveries you read about on the internet. The first box I chose was an unlabeled cardboard bankers’ box that I selected because it seemed unlikely to contain emotional bombshells and it was closest to the entry. I was wrong. It contained every letter, report and note that my brother and I sent from Camp Forest Grove during the two summers we spent there when we were pre-teens. Included in this treasure chest was a note I sent to her that read:

“Dear Mom

When I left for camp, you promised to write to me every day. Yesterday, at mail call, I did not get a letter from you.

What is wrong? “

It brought back in a flash every bit of mother love I had ever felt in my life and breaks me down into heaving silent tears. My mother, in her final years, had often been difficult, demanding, and a constant draw on my time and emotions. There were times when it got to be too much for me and I had responded by being less than kind, cranky and snarky. More than once, to my everlasting chagrin, harsh words had been exchanged. Now, what I wanted more than anything, was one of her hugs and to apologize to her for any unkind, uncaring, less than loving thing that I had ever said or done to her.

As I begin to recover from my emotional breakdown the phone rings. It is Conor. I do not want to speak with him. He is an emotional vampire these days. That is not a judgement. Were I in his position I would be too. But at this moment my emotional reserves are running on fumes. How could I explain to my buddy why it was that I was emotional basket case when I had not even told him that mom had died.

I am back at Conor’s and Delilah’s place in Manhattan Beach. This is a new apartment. They have upgraded. They are now in an even nicer, larger apartment, closer to the beach. As Conor told the story, when he had rented the previous apartment, the landlord failed to disclose that the building next door was going through a down to the studs renovation that was expected to last over a year. The construction sounds along with a boisterous build crew made working and living in their apartment impossible. Conor had managed to convince his landlord, after threatening a lawsuit, to release them from their lease. And as he told me “The new place is more expensive, but we are closer to the beach, and we have better downstairs neighbors.”

It turns out that the downstairs neighbors were three members from the world champion USA women’s soccer team. Delilah had adopted them, without their permission, as in loco parentis.  According to her, she helped them cope with being away from home and provided the motherly advice they desperately needed. According to Con she was doing this to avoid finding a job or doing anything useful. And, when I meet the young women, it became apparent to me that they thought of her as just another hanger on albeit a useful one who helped them get errands done.

For Conor they represented something far different.

He had always been attracted to tall, strong, athletic women. His first real love, and the woman I always thought he should have stayed with, Shoshana Dukes, had been a tall, willowy blonde. She possessed a quirky sense of humor and had played goalie on our state champion’s women soccer team. I think that even though it was a high school romance it would have lasted except for Conor’s penchant of putting his penis into other woman’s vaginas. It had destroyed every one of his relationships until he met Delilah. He had by his own admission two problems with sex. The first was getting women to play “slap and tickle” with was a game he was good at. You know the expression “He could charm the pants off of you.” That described Conor perfectly. And you know how operant conditioning paradigms work. If you want to continue a behavior, you reward it. Can you think of a better reward than an orgasm? I can’t. The second problem was an over-the-top libido. I like sex. A lot. But I did not need to have sex every day. He did. He had told me on more than one occasion that if he did not have sex every day, he didn’t feel good. It made him edgy and mean.

I never asked how Delilah put an end to his fucking around. Assuming, naively, that he had stopped stepping out. I just thought that she too had a similar sex drive which she all but confirmed one day when she emerged from the bedroom one afternoon when Conor had been a particular pain in the ass and said ““I just gave him a blowjob. That should put him a better mood.” To say the least, and double entendre intended, I could not believe what was coming out of her mouth, but it made me assume that she had her ways of soothing the monkey on his crotch.

One of the features of the new apartment was a shared firepit. It sat in a small, recessed area between the front of the building and the street. Around it was a circle of Adirondack type chairs that had a view of “The Strand,” a walking path that paralleled the beach. It was a natural place for the tenants to gather, unwind from the day with a glass of wine or a cocktail and of course look for the green flash. My first evening staying with them Conor and Delilah insisted that we sit at the firepit and enjoy a cocktail and as Delilah put it meet the “girls.” Even though I had been a seller, constantly introducing myself to people throughout my business life, I tend to be reticent, just shy of shy, in my personal life. And this situation, joining a group of world class athletes, unwinding from their day made me the new kid at school who is asked to sit at the cool kid’s table. I was uncomfortable to say the least, but they were lovely young women. Poised, articulate, and no doubt skilled at making people feel at ease in their presence they made me feel as if I belonged in their “circle.”

Del had developed a deep relationship with these future gold medalists. She was the one who asked them about their training, inquired about their significant others, and even volunteered to run some errands for them to help alleviate the time crunch training was placing on them. When they began talking about an upcoming trip for a tournament in Europe, Del shared that she and Con had lived in Europe for “many years” and began to tell them in detail all the things the young ladies should be aware of. I could hear Con’s eyes roll from where I was sitting. One of his pet peeves with his wife was she always brought up their time living in Europe almost as much and as often as a person who attended Harvard name drops that institution into a conversation. Con considered their time in England past the statute of limitations of conversations. They had not been there for almost a quarter century. It no longer defined him and could not understand why she felt like she needed to speak out about it all the time.

Con’s eyes were not the only ones to roll. As I looked across the firepit I could see that these three women, who undoubtedly traveled the globe far more extensively than Del, share a glance with each other. No doubt they had heard this conversation before and because they were nice young woman did not have the kindness required to Del that they had heard this all before. I also noticed something else. One of the young women, Alison, a willowy, blonde center full back, exchanged a glance with Con. I had seen that sort of glance before. You hung around Con enough in his single days and you were sure to. Usually, it was with a woman he had made love to and for whatever reason was not public knowledge. The look suggested intimacy. Perhaps not sexually but certainly emotionally and while I had long since ceded my role as Con’s moral guiderail, I found it disturbing. He did not have women friends. He had fuck buddies. Was he having an affair with this woman young enough to be his daughter? I didn’t know what to think. My inner frat boy, the most testosterone-soaked elements of my brain wanted to say “Bravo! Well done. But the truer part of me, my inner boy scout, who believed in his marriage vows and knew the destruction infidelity wrought wanted to shake him and say “Dude, what are you doing?”

After dinner, he and I had returned to the firepit to sip a couple of ounces of Blanton’s Bourbon, stare at the flames and talk. At that time of year, March, it gets chilly, and I can remember how grateful I was for the fire and the bourbon and for the full moon that was casting its rays on the Pacific. Con and I talked all the time, but we were also comfortable enough with each other not to say anything. Sometimes silence says more than words. We had been quiet for some time, enjoying the bourbon, the moon, and the fire when I asked, “What is going on with you with that Alison girl.”

Conor answered with feigned innocence. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t be an asshole.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. She is just a neighbor.”

“Yeah. Right.”

“No. Seriously, she and I are friends. Sometimes she comes out here and we talk but that is about it.”

“Listen, buddy. I don’t care if your friends, friends with benefits, or rip each other’s clothes off every time Del turns her back. Ain’t none of my business. But if I can see something other people can as well, then one day it will bite you on the ass and it will cause you more trouble than you can imagine.”

“I am telling you it is nothing more than a friendship.”

I let it drop. I had said what a friend should say and beyond that it was none of my business. I had long since gotten past the point of judging other people’s relationships or making sanctimonious moral judgements about what they do. We all manage relationships differently. Consider Nadine and me. What people see is two people who spend much of their time apart. You can practically hear the judgement when people hear of how we manage our marriage. Long distance relationships don’t work. Doesn’t it concern you that you spend so much time apart? They don’t see the value in the time we spend communicating every day through emails, Skypes, and texts and as we see it communication that most married people don’t have. But at the end of the day what other people think doesn’t matter. Their judgement is only valuable to them because our relationship works for us.

The question, more for my own files than for anyone else’s, was, did I believe him? He had a history of running a flirtation right up to the edge of where an infidelity would occur and then running away.

We had been in Riga for the wedding of a mutual friend who was marrying a Latvian woman. We were not traveling solo. Con was accompanied by his fiancé Deliliah, and I had brought along my girlfriend Eliza. The night before the wedding the men took out the groom for one final night on the town. No city could be better suited for a bachelor party. For years, Riga had been a place where Russian soldiers from neighboring Soviet bloc countries had flocked to “entertain” themselves. It had a reputation of having the best strip clubs in the world. Our goal for the evening was to conduct an unscientific but thorough study of these clubs to determine whether Riga’s reputation was well earned. At the first club we went to, the bride’s brother stood up and gave a little speech. First, this night would never be mentioned again so that anything that happened or was said would be “vanish into the mists of amnesia and vodka.” And, to aide in our forgetfulness we were each given a half liter flask of vodka that we were instructed to drink “like Russian soldiers.”

At the time I was working for Rolling Stone Magazine as its associate publisher. My habit was to carry my business cards with me because who knew whom you were going to meet. (Axel Foley, Rolling Stone Magazine) As chance would have it that evening Prince was giving a midnight concert at the local stadium. Why midnight I never quite figured out. Our bachelor party had started at around 7pm and by the time 10pm rolled around we were so drunk that standing required intense concentration. It was then that Con had spied two particularly gorgeous women standing at the bar and decided that we needed to talk to them. When I protested, suggesting that they may be paid professionals, he insisted they were not and told me I needed to be his wingman. He introduced himself as an American concert promoter and that I was the publisher of Rolling Stone magazine and offered to buy the women a drink. They accepted and two drinks later, and I am not sure how it happened, we were walking out the door with these women headed to the Prince concert. Conor had convinced these comely young professional women my business card could gain us entrance. But first we would be stopping at our new friends’ apartment for a little pre-game and by pregame, I mean we would be employing these women in their chosen profession.

I did not want any part of this and told Con as much as we were leaving the club. He told me, in his best “Con man” tone not to worry. That he had no intention of going through with things he was just having a little fun and following his lead. We found a taxi right outside the club and proceeded to the young women’s apartment. Con asked the young women to climb out of the cab while we paid the fare. The minute, they stepped out he slammed the car door shut and yelled at the drive “Brauc, Brauc” or drive, drive in Latvian. I can remember looking back at the young woman looking at us in the fleeing cab in utter bewilderment. Somehow, we managed to convey to the driver to take us to a McDonalds near our hotel where we proceeded to choke down Big Tasty with Cheese, milk shakes and fries while laughing so hard at our exploits that Con, who like me was so drunk we thought we were sober, kept falling out of the booth.

I don’t remember the walk back to our hotel. I do remember doing a face plant into my pillow and falling into one of those fitful drunk sleeps where you are either too hot or too cold and no matter how much water you drink you can’t quench your thirst. I was awakened the next morning by Eliza accompanied by a furious Delilah. The wedding for which we had flown 4,000 miles to attend was due to begin shortly and not only did I need to get my ass out of bed to get ready but needed to convince Con to get his ass out of bed as well. He was telling D that he wouldn’t get up until I got up. I managed to extricate myself from bed and my tongue from the roof of my mouth and padded over to Con’s room in boxers. Con had not gotten his clothes from the night before and was laying on top of the bed fully dressed with his mouth agape and emitting loud belly snores. I shook him awake and said “Con, c’mon move your butt. We gotta go to a wedding.” When he opened his eyes and saw me, we exchanged a glance that brought back all the previous night’s exploits. Both of us began to chuckle, which grew into laughs and then guffaws leaving both Eliza and Del bewildered as to the source of our mirth.

As I lay in bed that night, waiting for sleep to come I wondered, was Con just being Con and pulling a “Riga”  on this young woman or was it something more. Should I push him on it or let him come to me and discuss if he felt the need? Was it my responsibility to him as a friend to let him know the hard lessons I had learned from infidelity, or do I let him choose his own path and seek my advice should he want it? I fell asleep without deciding.

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The Green Flash

Posted on February 5, 2024 by 34orion

Chapter 3: Day 2: Dawn (continued)

Route 78 between Newark and the Short Hills Mall is not scenic. Mostly shopping malls, light industry, and sound barriers. But with every mile passed, my anticipation grows. When I was I kid growing up and I did something that my mother thought was special she would proclaim me “Hero of the western World” as if I were a hero returning from battle. I feel that way now. I had, against all odds, by plane and taxi, through pandemic and ignorance, at great risk to myself, managed to travel 6,000 miles from Rio De Janiero to Summit, New Jersey in less than forty-eight hours from when Mom called and told me she needed me. I was unduly proud of myself and thought of the videos I had seen on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and families who had been reunited after being separated by Covid. The bear hugs. The joyous tears mixed with laughter born of relief. I knew I would not get a hug as Covid protocols were to self-isolate for fourteen days, after travel but I knew Mom would be happy to see me through closed glass doors. A tear would be shed. I would be her “hero of the western world” yet again. I can’t wait to knock at her door.

We leave the highway and enter Summit via River Road. Years ago, my mother told me that the reason she and Dad had fallen in love with Summit was because of the trees that blanket the town. I understand that. It is the reason Nadine and I decided to move to Summit when we married. As she put it at the time, with only a little twinkle in her “You know my darling, I like green. I grew up in the jungle.” A tear trickles down my cheek. I had no idea the emotional release I would feel when I reached this place. It is home. I have made it home A place where you have always felt safe, where nothing bad could happen to you. It makes me even more anxious to see my mother and the last few miles of the trip seem to take longer than the entirety of my trip.

We turn off the main road into the neighborhood my parents have called home for the past half century. It looks the same despite some recent McMansioning and I feel some of the tensions I have been carrying in my neck and shoulders release. I have made it. The prodigal son has returned!

That feeling of well-being is short lived. In front of our home is a blue and gold truck of the Summit First Aid Squad. Its lights are flashing. In our driveway is a black Ford Explorer with a police department logo shadowed on its door. Its lights are flashing as well. I throw a hundred-dollar bill at my driver, grab my bag, and launch myself out of the cab. I fly across the lawn to get to the front door, I am intercepted by a man wearing a white paper hazmat suit, N95 mask, and plastic face shield. He does not touch me but tells me to stop. I tell him he needs to get out my way. II have traveled six thousand miles to be here and I refuse to be blocked.

The man say’s “Danny, I can’t let you in.” He takes off his mask and pulls down the hood of his hazmat suit. H

He is a high school classmate of mine, Daniel McMahon. He has been a paramedic for the First Aid Squad since High School. He says “Danny, everything is under control. Your sister called us. Your mom was having some breathing difficulties and was coughing up blood. She let us know she had been exposed to Covid which is why we are using protocols. “

He pauses for a second and then adds “We have checked her. She is having trouble breathing and he Oxygen level is about 88%. Anything below 90% we are required to transport to a medical facility so we are taking her to Overlook Hospital.” 

“Can I see her?”

“It’s probably better if you wait right here. They are getting her ready for transport and it is a little hectic. When she comes out will give you a chance to speak with her.”

Five minutes later a gurney emerged from the front door of the house. Mom is in a seated position with an oxygen mask over her face, her black Ferragamo purse clutched tightly to her chest. She is agitated and simultaneously giving directions to the EMS workers guiding her gurney “watch the door frame,” “Be careful of the flowerpots on the stairs” and telling them how unnecessary this is. “ I can walk you know. I am not an invalid.” It was Mom.  Fussy, fiercely independent, and elegant. She had even managed to put on lipstick before getting on the gurney.

I walked over to her  and said in as calm a voice as I could muster, “Hi Mom.”

“Danny! Can you tell these people they are being silly? I don’t need to go to the hospital. “

“I know Mom, but they say your oxygen levels are down. They must figure out why and the best place to do that is at the hospital. “

Before she could reply she broke out in a coughing fit, mucus filled and racking. It was hard to hear and even harder not to step away from the gurney to avoid exposure to the infection. I said “Mom, we can’t take care of you here. Honestly, the hospital is the best place for you. I will meet you there. Okay? “

The coughing had left her breathless, so she just nodded and waved as they rolled her onto the ambulance.

Daniel, who had been standing next to me, during my interaction with Mom said in a kind tone. “You know you cannot see her at the hospital. Covid protocols. No visitors in the hospital.”

I nodded. “I knew but I didn’t know. Don’t they make exceptions for frightened old women?”

“The hospital will call you and let you know what her condition is.”

“Daniel, nothing you can do for an old classmate.”

“I am sorry. There is nothing I can do except put in a word with the admitting physician to give you a call sooner as opposed to later.”

“When will that be?”

“Hard to say. It depends on how soon they can make a diagnosis and when a Doc or nurse has time to get to the phone…” He must have seen the horror on my face because he quickly added “It is chaos down there Paul. Everything is in triage mode but trust me they will do everything they can for your mom.”

I suddenly didn’t feel so well.  My head buzzed and I felt my knees turn to rubber. I sat down on the front steps of our home and put my head between my hands. I had promised my mother that I would never leave her alone and I had left her alone, she had gotten sick and now she would be alone. Daniel put a hand on my shoulder  and asked, “You okay.”

“Yeah. Fine. I am fine. A little overwhelming after traveling for almost two days.”

He nodded and said “Give me your phone number. I will give it to the hospital, and they will call you when they know something.” He handed me his phone and I punched my digits into his contacts list. He reached for his phone but I held and said “Daniel, take good care of my mom.” He nodded and I let go.

A minute later the ambulance pulled away followed by the police cruiser sirens blaring. I wanted  to scream, rant, rave, and call god ugly names. What kind of sick joke was it to have a man spend thirty hours traveling only to make it home after incredible difficult journey only to see his mother carted away to the hospital. My grandmother Jenny, a survivor of the holocaust was fond of saying ““Mann Tracht, Un Gott Lacht” which she would tell us in her sweet Hungarian accent.  “Man plans, and god laughs.” I didn’t think much of God’s sense of humor. I wanted to find a nice dark place, curl up into a fetal position and suck my thumb.

I was so deep in despair that I didn’t notice when my sister Lotte pulled into the driveway. I only notice her when she is standing in front of me and says, “Welcome home, brother.”

I look up. My sister is standing about ten feet away and has an oval light blue KN95 mask dangling from the middle finger of her left hand. She is a beautiful sight to see. Not just because she is attractive, she is, but because of all the people I would like to see right now, she is my first choice. I say “Helluva homecoming.”

She sits down on the other side of the stoop from me, leaning up against its iron railing and says, “I take it the first aid squad has been here.”

I nod my head and reply “Come and gone. They were taking Mom out on a gurney when I got here.”

“How did she look?”

“Not great. She had a full oxygen mask and she looked very angry. She kept telling the EMS crew what to do and being a bit bossy. She also begged me not to let them take her to the hospital.”

“Did you think about it?”

“Of course. But the guy who was the head of this crew is someone I knew from high school.”

“Naturally.”

“And he said that her blood oxygen levels were in the eighties, and she was spitting up blood. He had to take her.”

Lotte said “Yeah. She sounded like hell when she called me this morning.”

“She called you.”

“Yeah. Called and said did I think it was problem when she coughed, she got a little blood in her tissue. And she sounded completely out of breath. I volunteered to call her pulmonologist and she said had tried yesterday and had not heard back. I told her that then we had to call the First Aid Squad. She argued with me, but I said “Mom, you can’t breathe. You are spitting blood. Your Dr. isn’t returning your calls. What else are we supposed to do? “

“And.”

“She agreed. Reluctantly. And asked me to call. I told her I would and that I would try to get there before they came. But if not, I would meet her at the hospital.”

“That is not going to happen.”

“What do you mean that is not going to happen?”

I explained about the new hospital protocols. Visitors were no longer welcome at the hospital. She would be evaluated and that someone on the staff would give us a call and let us know what was up.

My sister is a fierce defender of those she loves. I saw that fierceness rise in her eyes noe. How dare anyone keep her from her mother. How dare anyone not let us see her and be there for her. But as quickly as that anger grew, I saw it float away like a shout in the wind. These were crazy times. None of the normal rules applied. It didn’t make it any easier to accept but it sucked the wind out of your anger.

For a few moments we sat there quietly on the steps of our home for the past fifty years. A place where we had always felt safe and slept better than anywhere else. A place of family joy and unconditional love. The home my father had chosen to spend his final days so the last sight of this world would be of the trees and garden of the haven he had created with my mother. We knew in that moment that those days were coming to a close and the pain of that realization kept us silent.

After a few moments of silence Lotte said “Was she wearing lipstick.”

I smiled. A family joke. Mom never left the house without lipstick on. I say “Of course.”

“Then there is hope.”

Lotte drove me home and for safety’s sake I sat in the back of her silver blue BMW X4 with the window open. We didn’t hug. We didn’t hold each other close as we both would have liked. I was still under Covid protocols and had no desire to contaminate my sister and her family. Having a sick mom was enough. Instead, we fist bumped. It was the emotional equivalent of putting out a forest fire with a garden hose.

It was good to be home. But it was an empty space. So empty that you could practically hear my thoughts echo. Wife in Brazil. Fenway Rose, my Australian Cobberdog, still at the farm where I had left for a week four months ago. I was alone. Alone with nothing but my worries and fears over my mom. I tried to push them away but going through my normal routine on returning from a trip. Clothes went into the washer. Toiletries placed in the bathroom. The suitcase placed into storage and a long hot shower to dissolve away the remnants of my journey. Finished, there was nothing left to do but wait.

Time was on a different scale that afternoon. Seconds were minutes. Minutes were hours and hours were days. I tried to busy myself with minor chores, but the house was immaculately clean as Zita had come weekly in my absence. Not because the apartment needed to be cleaned but because I knew if she did not work, she would not be able to feed her family. My focus was not strong enough to read a book. I did not have the emotional capacity to even get into a good Facebook argument with someone. I called Nadine several times, but we had little to say to each other as both of us were caught up in our own emotions about my mother. Nadine’s mother had passed long before I had met her. When she had met Mom, she had instantly adopted her as a surrogate. The thought of losing her was like losing her mother all over again. For my part, I found it very difficult to talk about Nadine’s suffering when I felt mine were paramount. I did not have the emotional flexibility to be able deal with both.

The phone finally did ring shortly after six that evening. Much to my surprise it was a physician I knew, Dr. Alice Liddell. She had treated Mom two years previously when, after valve replacement surgery, she developed a lung infection. I had liked her from the beginning. She had a way of being a matter of fact while still being gentle and kind. Most physicians don’t have this gift. After she had saved Mom after her surgery, I was so grateful that I bought her a pair of Wonder Woman Converse All Stars as I had noticed they were her favorite shoes.. A friendship had developed. It was reassuring to hear her voice on the other end of the line.

She got right to the point “Daniel, I have some very difficult news for you. Your Mom has tested positive for Covid.”

“We figured…”

“Because of the way she was presenting and my experience with her in the past I had them run some blood work and took an X-Ray of her lungs.” She paused and then in a softer voice said, “Did your mom tell you she had leukemia.”

 “Yes. But she told us it was mild and didn’t need treatment.   Just something lurking in the background they may get worse or may just stay the same. It was a wait and see nothing to worry about diagnosis.”

“That’s right. It is not severe. We would not treat it under normal circumstances. Even then, considering her age, we may not choose to treat it all.”

“Okay…”

“But I am far more concerned about what we found on her X-Ray.” She paused again and then said in a very gently tone “I am sorry Daniel, while I cannot be 100% sure without a biopsy, it appears that her lung cancer has returned. That is what has been causing her to spit up blood.”

This news caught me completely off guard. I was expecting her to be diagnosed with Covid. It had seemed almost a foregone conclusion. But for her lung cancer to come back after ten years was not even close to being on my radar. Stunned, I said “Can it be treated?”

There was a long moment of silence on the phone, and she spoke. “In a normal world, a world without Covid, I would say yes. We could try chemo or radiation or even surgery.”

“But this is not a normal world.”

“Right. And more importantly it is not your mom’s biggest problem right now. She has Covid. She is having difficulty breathing. When she came in this afternoon her blood oxygen was in the low eighties. We have gotten them up to the low nineties by using high volume Oxygen, but her lungs are full of disease and that is just exacerbating her cancer. Normally, my course of treatment would be to put her on a ventilator to give lungs a chance to heal and rest…”

She paused, no doubt hoping that I would finish her thought. She knew I could have. I followed the news like some follow the stock market. I knew there were not enough ventilators to support all who had Covid. Hospitals and physicians were forced to triage their patients. Deciding who had the best chance of survival. Who would benefit most from the gift of life these machines would give them? Mom’s age would have counted against her having access to one of these precious machines to begin with but with the additional diagnosis of cancer and leukemia her opportunity for a vent dropped to zero. I could have told Alice that I knew all that, but I did not have that type of generosity. Instead, I remained silent and let her words inform me.

“Danny, we can’t give Mom a vent. There just aren’t enough. We must give them to patients who have fewer issues, are younger…” Another pause. “Patients we think can survive.”

“You are saying Mom is going to die.”

“No. I am saying that her prognosis is grave. That we will do what we can do to make her comfortable. We will keep her on high volume O2. We will sedate her. I have seen nursing home patients come with far worse symptoms and walk out of here a week later. Who knows? I don’t want to give you false hope but also don’t want you to think all is lost.”

“When can I see her?”

“Danny, you can’t. The hospital has a no visitor policy.”

“Even for patients in my mother’s condition.” I say with undisguised anger. My Mom is dying. I need to be there for her. They need to let me in.

Alice replies gently “No. Not even for people in your mom’s condition or should I say especially for patients similar to your mom.” and added in an even kinder tones “Covid had forced us to do unimaginable things including this. It is horrible for everyone. For the patient. For their families and for us who are trying to care for them. You don’t have any…”

She stops in mid-sentence sensing she was about to go too far. She doesn’t want to put her burdens over mine. But I know what she is going to say. I have seen enough Dr’s interviewed on the news. For them, telling patients there is nothing that can do to save them. Telling them that can’t even have the comfort of those they love nearby in the final hours.  Explaining to families they cannot be with their loved ones is as cruel to the caregivers as it is to the families except, they go through it day after day. And they have been doing it for months.

I know all this. Under other circumstances I would be sympathetic. But it is my mother who is lying in that room all alone. It is she who is scared. It is she that no matter how kindly Dr. Liddell is presenting it, is dying. I promised her she wouldn’t be alone and now, perhaps when she needs me more than anything, I cannot do a goddamn thing for her. All I can think of is “I promised her she would never be alone. I promised. In that moment, the fatigue of the trip, the frustration of the moment, and the realization we were at the end of times for mom struck me like walking into a wall and I began to sob. First soft welps, then deep heaving snot blowing back arching can’t catch your breath sobs. I tried to stop. I was conscious that Dr. Liddell, no matter how sympathetic she was to me, and my situation did not need or want to hear my despair. But I couldn’t. I tried to apologize for my breakdown, but Alice would not let me. In her kindness he told me to take a moment. She would wait. was to tell me it was alright and to take a moment.

When I finally found the ability to control myself. I said “Dr. Liddell, I can’t let my mother be alone. Is there nothing we can do? Is there a release I can sign? An administrator I can call. What have other people done? “Pausing I then add “Help.”

“There is no one to call. There is no release you can sign. But what other people have done and what we can do for Mom, is put an iPad in her room. If you have a subscription to Zoom or another video conferencing channel you can, and your family can spend time with Mom. You can make sure she is getting the care she needs. I know it is not the same as being there, but it is the best we can do….”

At 11pm I am sitting in my car waiting in the very empty parking structure at Overlook Hospital. Dr Liddell’s had agreed to meet so I could give her  an iPad for Mom’s room. I find parking garages creepy. In movies people always seem to find themselves in trouble in them. Not having slept in forty hours, and the energetic thunderstorm outside don’t help make me feel more comfortable. I am waiting thirty minutes before a tiny figure appears out of the gloom. One of the things that had always struck me about Dr. Liddell when we had met in the past was her dynamism. She was a ball of positive energy which made you feel that with her on the case anything could be accomplished. This is not the Alice I see now. This is an altered woman.  Every step towards the car is an effort. She is hunched over as if she was carrying a heavy backpack. When she is closer and I can see her eyes beyond her protective googles and N95 respirator. They are dim. As if the light had gone out of them, surrounded by fatigue lines that could not be concealed by makeup. No doubt she had better things to do than get an iPad from a patient’s sons. But she had made the effort for me. It is an incredible act of kindness.

I say “Thank you. I cannot tell you how much this means to me and to my family. It is a debt I can never repay but will always be grateful for.”

“No need to thank me. I am only sorry I can’t do more for Mom.” She takes a deep breath and lets a long sigh. I can tell she is not looking forward to going back inside. As if reading my mind, she says “I have been on duty for the past thirty-six hours and I have twelve more to go. The ICU is full. We have converted the entire psych floor for ventilator patients. And I need to see them all.”

She is on the verge. This is what the disease and the deniers have done to our caregivers. Turned them into the walking wounded. Talk about heroes of the western world. I am ashamed I even considered myself in that class earlier in the day. I say, “I know I can’t give you a hug now but when this is all over, I promise you that I will give you one that will make a python proud.” She laughs, waves and heads back to her personal hell.

On the ride home, I think about Tex and his fellow Covid deniers including Trump. How they lack the imagination, the empathy, or the emotional intelligence to understand what their litany of excuses for not wearing a mask or wishful thinking that this was no worse that the flu had done. Why couldn’t they see they were murdering people? Last moments that should be full of succor and love are spent alone and in fear. Families left inconsolable unable to have a final embrace or kiss. Condemning care givers to a hell of dying patients, they can do nothing to help. I want to scream at them to wake up. To beat sense into them but I am impotent to cure this new social disease and instead pound my steering wheel in frustration.

At home I am greeted by an angry email from my brother Levi. Lotte and I had been in constant contact through text and emails since we had parted company earlier that day. I had left it to her to communicate with our older brother. It is not that I do not love my brother. I do. But there had always been a sibling rivalry between us we were hard pressed to put behind us. It had been exacerbated by his lack of presence during our father’s and mother’s illnesses over the years. He had left the heavy lifting to Lotte and me and when confronted with it had gaslighted us by saying perhaps we “were doing too much.” But before I had left to give Alice the iPad, I sent an email to the whole family letting them know Mom’s situation and how to access Zoom. I wanted to in the gentlest of ways encourage everyone to spend time with Mom before the inevitable.

This was the subject of Levi’s tirade. If I was inclined to be charitable, I would say the tone of his email and the outrage it expressed was sourced from the grief and horror of the situation in which we found ourselves. But I was not so inclined, nor did I have the bandwidth to process his grief and anger with my own. It pissed me off that he felt that he should be included in all medical decisions. Mom had given me her medical power of attorney because she trusted me, not him, to make those decisions for her. I did not have time nor the inclination to herd cats when we needed to make immediate decisions. What angered me the most is that I was including him in all the decision making which is why I sent the email. Instead of being grateful for what it is that I was doing, he was telling me I was doing it wrong.

Poor Nadine   she had to listen to me rant, rave and curse my older brother. I was the one who showed up, I was the one who was here, he had done nothing but drive from the backseat and second guess. She calmed me. “My darling just remember this when your mother needed someone to help her, she did not call Levi who lives in Manhattan. She begged for you to travel home from Brazil. Levi did not volunteer to care for her. He only offered to be critical of your handling of things. He will not change. Ignore him. Let Levi be as angry as he wants. Louise trusted you to make the right decisions. She is the only person whose opinion matters.”

My anger is marginally relieved by a medicinal dose of Blanton’s Bourbon. Exhausted, I make my way to bed. Propped up by pillows I log onto to Zoom hoping to see Mom before I stumble into sleep. No such luck. The hospital has not set up her Zoom yet. I try to remain awake until they do but my emotional and physical exhaustion are stronger than my will and I fall asleep without realizing it.

I am awakened by the dawn. I have forgotten to drop the shades and close the curtains and outside my windows the sparrows’ chicks who are nested in the eaves of my townhouse are chirping for their morning meal. My watch tells me that it is 5:23. I glance at my iPad, and I am overjoyed to see that someone has activated the device in Mom’s room. I suspect that have placed it on one of those rolling tables on which  patients’ dinners tray are placed as I can only see the top of her shoulders and head. Her pallor is a purplish grey and her lips, now devoid of lipstick, blue. Her mouth hangs open as if her jaw muscles no longer work and she has a large bore canula in her nose. The only reason I can tell she is alive is there is vital signs monitor in the background that show her respiration rate and heart beat.

I take my iPad with me to the kitchen and keep Mom in view as I make my morning pot of coffee. Coffee had always been one of my mom’s things. Each day began with a cup, often taken back to her room to savor in private. As kids, we had been instructed never to talk to her before she had downed her morning fix. I think of this and how she used to reheat morning coffee in a pot for her afternoon jolt before she got a microwave. As I watch I am surprised by, but grateful for, the lack of coughing. No doubt they have pumped a lot of drugs into her like morphine to suppress the coughing reflex. I go to the refrigerator to get a splash of milk for my coffee and when I return to the screen, I see that mom’s eyes are now open. They are unfocused and they are scanning the room with bewilderment and a touch of fear.

I say in the jolliest voice I can muster “Hi Mom. How are you feeling.” She looks at the screen and I wave. She looks at the camera intently and for a second, I sense she cannot comprehend the screen with my face and the sound emanating from it. I see comprehension sweep over her features and she mumbles something that I cannot decipher.

“Mom, what did you say? I could not hear you.”

She looks at me with annoyance, the face she used when she was displeased with something we had said or done. She, swallows, and then says in a marginally louder voice “I said, get me out of here.”

There is nothing more I would like to do. I know how much she hates hospitals. I know how much she struggles when she is not in control. I also know that on some level she knows she is never leaving this place. This tears me apart. And I try not to cry when I lie and say “I will Mom. Just as soon as you get better. I promise but right now you need to get better, okay.”

My words seem to mollify a little. Or perhaps it is just the drugs. Her focus shifts to somewhere beyond the iPad. She mouths words that I cannot hear and for a moment I think she is talking to a nurse or aide. But none appear and she continues to speak, stopping occasionally to let the person she is imagining a conversation with respond. I hear her mention my father’s name and it sounds as if she is having a great conversation with him. While I can hear none of the words, the dialogue comforts her. I hope he is telling her not to be afraid. She is loved. She will be missed.

Eventually, the conversation ends, and Mom closes her eyes and appears to fall asleep. I take the opportunity to walk to my desk. My plan is to watch her as I answer emails and straighten my desk, which is unfamiliar after months of absence. I never get the chance. As I walk to my desk the sound of an alarm comes blaring through the device’s speakers. I open the iPad and can see that it is her vitals monitor that is squealing.

Mom’s heart has stopped. Mine is broken.

It is now full daylight. The sounds of birds singing their morning odes have been replaced by the sound of the resort coming to life.

Like Maui I tried to be a good son. But while he was successful in his effort to make the days longer for his mother,  I am haunted by my failure. The months of isolation have only served to make me more comfortable with my ghosts, not quiet them. Which is why I call her every day. I know she is no longer here. That doesn’t mean she is not listening. And calling is what dutiful sons do even when you know your mother won’t answer. And perhaps, just perhaps, one day she will answer and let me know I am forgiven for leaving her alone.

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The Green Flash

Posted on February 5, 2024 by 34orion

Chapter 3: Day 2: Dawn -continued

Route 78 between Newark and the Short Hills Mall is not scenic. Mostly shopping malls, light industry, and sound barriers. But with every mile passed, my anticipation grows. When I was I kid growing up and I did something that my mother thought was special she would proclaim me “Hero of the western World” as if I were a hero returning from battle. I feel that way now. I had, against all odds, by plane and taxi, through pandemic and ignorance, at great risk to myself, managed to travel 6,000 miles from Rio De Janiero to Summit, New Jersey in less than forty-eight hours from when Mom called and told me she needed me. I was unduly proud of myself and thought of the videos I had seen on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and families who had been reunited after being separated by Covid. The bear hugs. The joyous tears mixed with laughter born of relief. I knew I would not get a hug as Covid protocols were to self-isolate for fourteen days, after travel but I knew Mom would be happy to see me through closed glass doors. A tear would be shed. I would be her “hero of the western world” yet again. I can’t wait to knock at her door.

We leave the highway and enter Summit via River Road. Years ago, my mother told me that the reason she and Dad had fallen in love with Summit was because of the trees that blanket the town. I understand that. It is the reason Nadine and I decided to move to Summit when we married. As she put it at the time, with only a little twinkle in her “You know my darling, I like green. I grew up in the jungle.” A tear trickles down my cheek. I had no idea the emotional release I would feel when I reached this place. It is home. I have made it home A place where you have always felt safe, where nothing bad could happen to you. It makes me even more anxious to see my mother and the last few miles of the trip seem to take longer than the entirety of my trip.

We turn off the main road into the neighborhood my parents have called home for the past half century. It looks the same despite some recent McMansioning and I feel some of the tensions I have been carrying in my neck and shoulders release. I have made it. The prodigal son has returned!

That feeling of well-being is short lived. In front of our home is a blue and gold truck of the Summit First Aid Squad. Its lights are flashing. In our driveway is a black Ford Explorer with a police department logo shadowed on its door. Its lights are flashing as well. I throw a hundred-dollar bill at my driver, grab my bag, and launch myself out of the cab. I fly across the lawn to get to the front door, I am intercepted by a man wearing a white paper hazmat suit, N95 mask, and plastic face shield. He does not touch me but tells me to stop. I tell him he needs to get out my way. II have traveled six thousand miles to be here and I refuse to be blocked.

The man say’s “Danny, I can’t let you in.” He takes off his mask and pulls down the hood of his hazmat suit. H

He is a high school classmate of mine, Daniel McMahon. He has been a paramedic for the First Aid Squad since High School. He says “Danny, everything is under control. Your sister called us. Your mom was having some breathing difficulties and was coughing up blood. She let us know she had been exposed to Covid which is why we are using protocols. “

He pauses for a second and then adds “We have checked her. She is having trouble breathing and he Oxygen level is about 88%. Anything below 90% we are required to transport to a medical facility so we are taking her to Overlook Hospital.” 

“Can I see her?”

“It’s probably better if you wait right here. They are getting her ready for transport and it is a little hectic. When she comes out will give you a chance to speak with her.”

Five minutes later a gurney emerged from the front door of the house. Mom is in a seated position with an oxygen mask over her face, her black Ferragamo purse clutched tightly to her chest. She is agitated and simultaneously giving directions to the EMS workers guiding her gurney “watch the door frame,” “Be careful of the flowerpots on the stairs” and telling them how unnecessary this is. “ I can walk you know. I am not an invalid.” It was Mom.  Fussy, fiercely independent, and elegant. She had even managed to put on lipstick before getting on the gurney.

I walked over to her  and said in as calm a voice as I could muster, “Hi Mom.”

“Danny! Can you tell these people they are being silly? I don’t need to go to the hospital. “

“I know Mom, but they say your oxygen levels are down. They must figure out why and the best place to do that is at the hospital. “

Before she could reply she broke out in a coughing fit, mucus filled and racking. It was hard to hear and even harder not to step away from the gurney to avoid exposure to the infection. I said “Mom, we can’t take care of you here. Honestly, the hospital is the best place for you. I will meet you there. Okay? “

The coughing had left her breathless, so she just nodded and waved as they rolled her onto the ambulance.

Daniel, who had been standing next to me, during my interaction with Mom said in a kind tone. “You know you cannot see her at the hospital. Covid protocols. No visitors in the hospital.”

I nodded. “I knew but I didn’t know. Don’t they make exceptions for frightened old women?”

“The hospital will call you and let you know what her condition is.”

“Daniel, nothing you can do for an old classmate.”

“I am sorry. There is nothing I can do except put in a word with the admitting physician to give you a call sooner as opposed to later.”

“When will that be?”

“Hard to say. It depends on how soon they can make a diagnosis and when a Doc or nurse has time to get to the phone…” He must have seen the horror on my face because he quickly added “It is chaos down there Paul. Everything is in triage mode but trust me they will do everything they can for your mom.”

I suddenly didn’t feel so well.  My head buzzed and I felt my knees turn to rubber. I sat down on the front steps of our home and put my head between my hands. I had promised my mother that I would never leave her alone and I had left her alone, she had gotten sick and now she would be alone. Daniel put a hand on my shoulder  and asked, “You okay.”

“Yeah. Fine. I am fine. A little overwhelming after traveling for almost two days.”

He nodded and said “Give me your phone number. I will give it to the hospital, and they will call you when they know something.” He handed me his phone and I punched my digits into his contacts list. He reached for his phone but I held and said “Daniel, take good care of my mom.” He nodded and I let go.

A minute later the ambulance pulled away followed by the police cruiser sirens blaring. I wanted  to scream, rant, rave, and call god ugly names. What kind of sick joke was it to have a man spend thirty hours traveling only to make it home after incredible difficult journey only to see his mother carted away to the hospital. My grandmother Jenny, a survivor of the holocaust was fond of saying ““Mann Tracht, Un Gott Lacht” which she would tell us in her sweet Hungarian accent.  “Man plans, and god laughs.” I didn’t think much of God’s sense of humor. I wanted to find a nice dark place, curl up into a fetal position and suck my thumb.

I was so deep in despair that I didn’t notice when my sister Lotte pulled into the driveway. I only notice her when she is standing in front of me and says, “Welcome home, brother.”

I look up. My sister is standing about ten feet away and has an oval light blue KN95 mask dangling from the middle finger of her left hand. She is a beautiful sight to see. Not just because she is attractive, she is, but because of all the people I would like to see right now, she is my first choice. I say “Helluva homecoming.”

She sits down on the other side of the stoop from me, leaning up against its iron railing and says, “I take it the first aid squad has been here.”

I nod my head and reply “Come and gone. They were taking Mom out on a gurney when I got here.”

“How did she look?”

“Not great. She had a full oxygen mask and she looked very angry. She kept telling the EMS crew what to do and being a bit bossy. She also begged me not to let them take her to the hospital.”

“Did you think about it?”

“Of course. But the guy who was the head of this crew is someone I knew from high school.”

“Naturally.”

“And he said that her blood oxygen levels were in the eighties, and she was spitting up blood. He had to take her.”

Lotte said “Yeah. She sounded like hell when she called me this morning.”

“She called you.”

“Yeah. Called and said did I think it was problem when she coughed, she got a little blood in her tissue. And she sounded completely out of breath. I volunteered to call her pulmonologist and she said had tried yesterday and had not heard back. I told her that then we had to call the First Aid Squad. She argued with me, but I said “Mom, you can’t breathe. You are spitting blood. Your Dr. isn’t returning your calls. What else are we supposed to do? “

“And.”

“She agreed. Reluctantly. And asked me to call. I told her I would and that I would try to get there before they came. But if not, I would meet her at the hospital.”

“That is not going to happen.”

“What do you mean that is not going to happen?”

I explained about the new hospital protocols. Visitors were no longer welcome at the hospital. She would be evaluated and that someone on the staff would give us a call and let us know what was up.

My sister is a fierce defender of those she loves. I saw that fierceness rise in her eyes noe. How dare anyone keep her from her mother. How dare anyone not let us see her and be there for her. But as quickly as that anger grew, I saw it float away like a shout in the wind. These were crazy times. None of the normal rules applied. It didn’t make it any easier to accept but it sucked the wind out of your anger.

For a few moments we sat there quietly on the steps of our home for the past fifty years. A place where we had always felt safe and slept better than anywhere else. A place of family joy and unconditional love. The home my father had chosen to spend his final days so the last sight of this world would be of the trees and garden of the haven he had created with my mother. We knew in that moment that those days were coming to a close and the pain of that realization kept us silent.

After a few moments of silence Lotte said “Was she wearing lipstick.”

I smiled. A family joke. Mom never left the house without lipstick on. I say “Of course.”

“Then there is hope.”

Lotte drove me home and for safety’s sake I sat in the back of her silver blue BMW X4 with the window open. We didn’t hug. We didn’t hold each other close as we both would have liked. I was still under Covid protocols and had no desire to contaminate my sister and her family. Having a sick mom was enough. Instead, we fist bumped. It was the emotional equivalent of putting out a forest fire with a garden hose.

It was good to be home. But it was an empty space. So empty that you could practically hear my thoughts echo. Wife in Brazil. Fenway Rose, my Australian Cobberdog, still at the farm where I had left for a week four months ago. I was alone. Alone with nothing but my worries and fears over my mom. I tried to push them away but going through my normal routine on returning from a trip. Clothes went into the washer. Toiletries placed in the bathroom. The suitcase placed into storage and a long hot shower to dissolve away the remnants of my journey. Finished, there was nothing left to do but wait.

Time was on a different scale that afternoon. Seconds were minutes. Minutes were hours and hours were days. I tried to busy myself with minor chores, but the house was immaculately clean as Zita had come weekly in my absence. Not because the apartment needed to be cleaned but because I knew if she did not work, she would not be able to feed her family. My focus was not strong enough to read a book. I did not have the emotional capacity to even get into a good Facebook argument with someone. I called Nadine several times, but we had little to say to each other as both of us were caught up in our own emotions about my mother. Nadine’s mother had passed long before I had met her. When she had met Mom, she had instantly adopted her as a surrogate. The thought of losing her was like losing her mother all over again. For my part, I found it very difficult to talk about Nadine’s suffering when I felt mine were paramount. I did not have the emotional flexibility to be able deal with both.

The phone finally did ring shortly after six that evening. Much to my surprise it was a physician I knew, Dr. Alice Liddell. She had treated Mom two years previously when, after valve replacement surgery, she developed a lung infection. I had liked her from the beginning. She had a way of being a matter of fact while still being gentle and kind. Most physicians don’t have this gift. After she had saved Mom after her surgery, I was so grateful that I bought her a pair of Wonder Woman Converse All Stars as I had noticed they were her favorite shoes.. A friendship had developed. It was reassuring to hear her voice on the other end of the line.

She got right to the point “Daniel, I have some very difficult news for you. Your Mom has tested positive for Covid.”

“We figured…”

“Because of the way she was presenting and my experience with her in the past I had them run some blood work and took an X-Ray of her lungs.” She paused and then in a softer voice said, “Did your mom tell you she had leukemia.”

 “Yes. But she told us it was mild and didn’t need treatment.   Just something lurking in the background they may get worse or may just stay the same. It was a wait and see nothing to worry about diagnosis.”

“That’s right. It is not severe. We would not treat it under normal circumstances. Even then, considering her age, we may not choose to treat it all.”

“Okay…”

“But I am far more concerned about what we found on her X-Ray.” She paused again and then said in a very gently tone “I am sorry Daniel, while I cannot be 100% sure without a biopsy, it appears that her lung cancer has returned. That is what has been causing her to spit up blood.”

This news caught me completely off guard. I was expecting her to be diagnosed with Covid. It had seemed almost a foregone conclusion. But for her lung cancer to come back after ten years was not even close to being on my radar. Stunned, I said “Can it be treated?”

There was a long moment of silence on the phone, and she spoke. “In a normal world, a world without Covid, I would say yes. We could try chemo or radiation or even surgery.”

“But this is not a normal world.”

“Right. And more importantly it is not your mom’s biggest problem right now. She has Covid. She is having difficulty breathing. When she came in this afternoon her blood oxygen was in the low eighties. We have gotten them up to the low nineties by using high volume Oxygen, but her lungs are full of disease and that is just exacerbating her cancer. Normally, my course of treatment would be to put her on a ventilator to give lungs a chance to heal and rest…”

She paused, no doubt hoping that I would finish her thought. She knew I could have. I followed the news like some follow the stock market. I knew there were not enough ventilators to support all who had Covid. Hospitals and physicians were forced to triage their patients. Deciding who had the best chance of survival. Who would benefit most from the gift of life these machines would give them? Mom’s age would have counted against her having access to one of these precious machines to begin with but with the additional diagnosis of cancer and leukemia her opportunity for a vent dropped to zero. I could have told Alice that I knew all that, but I did not have that type of generosity. Instead, I remained silent and let her words inform me.

“Danny, we can’t give Mom a vent. There just aren’t enough. We must give them to patients who have fewer issues, are younger…” Another pause. “Patients we think can survive.”

“You are saying Mom is going to die.”

“No. I am saying that her prognosis is grave. That we will do what we can do to make her comfortable. We will keep her on high volume O2. We will sedate her. I have seen nursing home patients come with far worse symptoms and walk out of here a week later. Who knows? I don’t want to give you false hope but also don’t want you to think all is lost.”

“When can I see her?”

“Danny, you can’t. The hospital has a no visitor policy.”

“Even for patients in my mother’s condition.” I say with undisguised anger. My Mom is dying. I need to be there for her. They need to let me in.

Alice replies gently “No. Not even for people in your mom’s condition or should I say especially for patients similar to your mom.” and added in an even kinder tones “Covid had forced us to do unimaginable things including this. It is horrible for everyone. For the patient. For their families and for us who are trying to care for them. You don’t have any…”

She stops in mid-sentence sensing she was about to go too far. She doesn’t want to put her burdens over mine. But I know what she is going to say. I have seen enough Dr’s interviewed on the news. For them, telling patients there is nothing that can do to save them. Telling them that can’t even have the comfort of those they love nearby in the final hours.  Explaining to families they cannot be with their loved ones is as cruel to the caregivers as it is to the families except, they go through it day after day. And they have been doing it for months.

I know all this. Under other circumstances I would be sympathetic. But it is my mother who is lying in that room all alone. It is she who is scared. It is she that no matter how kindly Dr. Liddell is presenting it, is dying. I promised her she wouldn’t be alone and now, perhaps when she needs me more than anything, I cannot do a goddamn thing for her. All I can think of is “I promised her she would never be alone. I promised. In that moment, the fatigue of the trip, the frustration of the moment, and the realization we were at the end of times for mom struck me like walking into a wall and I began to sob. First soft welps, then deep heaving snot blowing back arching can’t catch your breath sobs. I tried to stop. I was conscious that Dr. Liddell, no matter how sympathetic she was to me, and my situation did not need or want to hear my despair. But I couldn’t. I tried to apologize for my breakdown, but Alice would not let me. In her kindness he told me to take a moment. She would wait. was to tell me it was alright and to take a moment.

When I finally found the ability to control myself. I said “Dr. Liddell, I can’t let my mother be alone. Is there nothing we can do? Is there a release I can sign? An administrator I can call. What have other people done? “Pausing I then add “Help.”

“There is no one to call. There is no release you can sign. But what other people have done and what we can do for Mom, is put an iPad in her room. If you have a subscription to Zoom or another video conferencing channel you can, and your family can spend time with Mom. You can make sure she is getting the care she needs. I know it is not the same as being there, but it is the best we can do….”

At 11pm I am sitting in my car waiting in the very empty parking structure at Overlook Hospital. Dr Liddell’s had agreed to meet so I could give her  an iPad for Mom’s room. I find parking garages creepy. In movies people always seem to find themselves in trouble in them. Not having slept in forty hours, and the energetic thunderstorm outside don’t help make me feel more comfortable. I am waiting thirty minutes before a tiny figure appears out of the gloom. One of the things that had always struck me about Dr. Liddell when we had met in the past was her dynamism. She was a ball of positive energy which made you feel that with her on the case anything could be accomplished. This is not the Alice I see now. This is an altered woman.  Every step towards the car is an effort. She is hunched over as if she was carrying a heavy backpack. When she is closer and I can see her eyes beyond her protective googles and N95 respirator. They are dim. As if the light had gone out of them, surrounded by fatigue lines that could not be concealed by makeup. No doubt she had better things to do than get an iPad from a patient’s sons. But she had made the effort for me. It is an incredible act of kindness.

I say “Thank you. I cannot tell you how much this means to me and to my family. It is a debt I can never repay but will always be grateful for.”

“No need to thank me. I am only sorry I can’t do more for Mom.” She takes a deep breath and lets a long sigh. I can tell she is not looking forward to going back inside. As if reading my mind, she says “I have been on duty for the past thirty-six hours and I have twelve more to go. The ICU is full. We have converted the entire psych floor for ventilator patients. And I need to see them all.”

She is on the verge. This is what the disease and the deniers have done to our caregivers. Turned them into the walking wounded. Talk about heroes of the western world. I am ashamed I even considered myself in that class earlier in the day. I say, “I know I can’t give you a hug now but when this is all over, I promise you that I will give you one that will make a python proud.” She laughs, waves and heads back to her personal hell.

On the ride home, I think about Tex and his fellow Covid deniers including Trump. How they lack the imagination, the empathy, or the emotional intelligence to understand what their litany of excuses for not wearing a mask or wishful thinking that this was no worse that the flu had done. Why couldn’t they see they were murdering people? Last moments that should be full of succor and love are spent alone and in fear. Families left inconsolable unable to have a final embrace or kiss. Condemning care givers to a hell of dying patients, they can do nothing to help. I want to scream at them to wake up. To beat sense into them but I am impotent to cure this new social disease and instead pound my steering wheel in frustration.

At home I am greeted by an angry email from my brother Levi. Lotte and I had been in constant contact through text and emails since we had parted company earlier that day. I had left it to her to communicate with our older brother. It is not that I do not love my brother. I do. But there had always been a sibling rivalry between us we were hard pressed to put behind us. It had been exacerbated by his lack of presence during our father’s and mother’s illnesses over the years. He had left the heavy lifting to Lotte and me and when confronted with it had gaslighted us by saying perhaps we “were doing too much.” But before I had left to give Alice the iPad, I sent an email to the whole family letting them know Mom’s situation and how to access Zoom. I wanted to in the gentlest of ways encourage everyone to spend time with Mom before the inevitable.

This was the subject of Levi’s tirade. If I was inclined to be charitable, I would say the tone of his email and the outrage it expressed was sourced from the grief and horror of the situation in which we found ourselves. But I was not so inclined, nor did I have the bandwidth to process his grief and anger with my own. It pissed me off that he felt that he should be included in all medical decisions. Mom had given me her medical power of attorney because she trusted me, not him, to make those decisions for her. I did not have time nor the inclination to herd cats when we needed to make immediate decisions. What angered me the most is that I was including him in all the decision making which is why I sent the email. Instead of being grateful for what it is that I was doing, he was telling me I was doing it wrong.

Poor Nadine   she had to listen to me rant, rave and curse my older brother. I was the one who showed up, I was the one who was here, he had done nothing but drive from the backseat and second guess. She calmed me. “My darling just remember this when your mother needed someone to help her, she did not call Levi who lives in Manhattan. She begged for you to travel home from Brazil. Levi did not volunteer to care for her. He only offered to be critical of your handling of things. He will not change. Ignore him. Let Levi be as angry as he wants. Louise trusted you to make the right decisions. She is the only person whose opinion matters.”

My anger is marginally relieved by a medicinal dose of Blanton’s Bourbon. Exhausted, I make my way to bed. Propped up by pillows I log onto to Zoom hoping to see Mom before I stumble into sleep. No such luck. The hospital has not set up her Zoom yet. I try to remain awake until they do but my emotional and physical exhaustion are stronger than my will and I fall asleep without realizing it.

I am awakened by the dawn. I have forgotten to drop the shades and close the curtains and outside my windows the sparrows’ chicks who are nested in the eaves of my townhouse are chirping for their morning meal. My watch tells me that it is 5:23. I glance at my iPad, and I am overjoyed to see that someone has activated the device in Mom’s room. I suspect that have placed it on one of those rolling tables on which  patients’ dinners tray are placed as I can only see the top of her shoulders and head. Her pallor is a purplish grey and her lips, now devoid of lipstick, blue. Her mouth hangs open as if her jaw muscles no longer work and she has a large bore canula in her nose. The only reason I can tell she is alive is there is vital signs monitor in the background that show her respiration rate and heart beat.

I take my iPad with me to the kitchen and keep Mom in view as I make my morning pot of coffee. Coffee had always been one of my mom’s things. Each day began with a cup, often taken back to her room to savor in private. As kids, we had been instructed never to talk to her before she had downed her morning fix. I think of this and how she used to reheat morning coffee in a pot for her afternoon jolt before she got a microwave. As I watch I am surprised by, but grateful for, the lack of coughing. No doubt they have pumped a lot of drugs into her like morphine to suppress the coughing reflex. I go to the refrigerator to get a splash of milk for my coffee and when I return to the screen, I see that mom’s eyes are now open. They are unfocused and they are scanning the room with bewilderment and a touch of fear.

I say in the jolliest voice I can muster “Hi Mom. How are you feeling.” She looks at the screen and I wave. She looks at the camera intently and for a second, I sense she cannot comprehend the screen with my face and the sound emanating from it. I see comprehension sweep over her features and she mumbles something that I cannot decipher.

“Mom, what did you say? I could not hear you.”

She looks at me with annoyance, the face she used when she was displeased with something we had said or done. She, swallows, and then says in a marginally louder voice “I said, get me out of here.”

There is nothing more I would like to do. I know how much she hates hospitals. I know how much she struggles when she is not in control. I also know that on some level she knows she is never leaving this place. This tears me apart. And I try not to cry when I lie and say “I will Mom. Just as soon as you get better. I promise but right now you need to get better, okay.”

My words seem to mollify a little. Or perhaps it is just the drugs. Her focus shifts to somewhere beyond the iPad. She mouths words that I cannot hear and for a moment I think she is talking to a nurse or aide. But none appear and she continues to speak, stopping occasionally to let the person she is imagining a conversation with respond. I hear her mention my father’s name and it sounds as if she is having a great conversation with him. While I can hear none of the words, the dialogue comforts her. I hope he is telling her not to be afraid. She is loved. She will be missed.

Eventually, the conversation ends, and Mom closes her eyes and appears to fall asleep. I take the opportunity to walk to my desk. My plan is to watch her as I answer emails and straighten my desk, which is unfamiliar after months of absence. I never get the chance. As I walk to my desk the sound of an alarm comes blaring through the device’s speakers. I open the iPad and can see that it is her vitals monitor that is squealing.

Mom’s heart has stopped. Mine is broken.

It is now full daylight. The sounds of birds singing their morning odes have been replaced by the sound of the resort coming to life.

Like Maui I tried to be a good son. But while he was successful in his effort to make the days longer for his mother,  I am haunted by my failure. The months of isolation have only served to make me more comfortable with my ghosts, not quiet them. Which is why I call her every day. I know she is no longer here. That doesn’t mean she is not listening. And calling is what dutiful sons do even when you know your mother won’t answer. And perhaps, just perhaps, one day she will answer and let me know I am forgiven for leaving her alone.

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The Green Flash

Posted on February 3, 2024 by 34orion

Chapter 3: Day 2: Dawn (Continued)

Zita was great at taking care of Mom. Most of her work had dried up due to the pandemic so she put her heart and soul into taking care of our mother. A strong affection had developed between the two. Not that there had not been a little friction. Due to school closures, spotty day care and her husband’s work schedule there had been a number of occasions where she was forced to bring her four-year-old daughter, Maria, with her. This had not pleased Mom. It was not that she was anti children but with all that was going on in the world she saw kids as walking Petry dishes full of disease and pestilence. Long-distance negotiations were conducted amongst sturm and drang on both sides, and a compromise reached. Marie could come but would be restricted to the finished basement Mom never entered.

Then Zita caught Covid.

It was late May, and I was sitting at my desk in the small office Nadine, and I shared on the first floor of our home. It had old school dark wood and glass paneled bookcases on one wall, two large windows opposite them and desks for each of us on the remaining walls so we sat back-to-back albeit six feet apart. I was deep into writing. Or better said, deep into the idea of writing. There was a Toucan visiting a mango tree just outside the wall to our home. The difference between wildlife in New Jersey and here never ceased to amaze me and make me grateful for where I was. However, I was not thinking about that. I was wondering whether they sold Fruit Loops in Brazil. And if they did, was Sam the Toucan still their mascot? Deep thoughts for the writer.

My phone chirped and I saw it was Mom, I didn’t think much of it. She called me when she could not figure out how to change the font on her computer or to walk her through resetting the Wi-Fi router. Over the last few months, I fielded a number of these calls. It was all part of what the media was calling the new normal. I clicked the answer symbol on my phone and before I could even say hello I heard through my phone’s speaker Mom shouting, panic in her voice “You need to come home right now. I don’t care what it costs. I will pay for it. But you must come to my home. Now!”

Stunned by her tone, her demand and lack of introduction I replied “Hold on. Hold on. What is going on? Why are you so upset?”

“Zita has Covid. She just called. She won’t be coming in and she exposed me. You need to come home. I can’t be here by myself. What if I get sick? What will I do.” she said in a fearful voice. .

“Okay. Okay. I get it. And I will see what I can do about getting a flight, but I don’t think they have resumed flights from Rio to the US yet. Let me call Zita and find out what is going on, but you always wore a mask when she was there, right?”

“Yes.”

“And you maintained a safe distance when you could.”

“Yes. But that little girl of hers was always taking off her mask.”

“Okay. But Mom, I don’t think you would have caught Covid from her. I know her, she was very careful around you. Let me call her. Find out what is going on. Then I will call the airlines and call you back. We will figure this out. You are not going to get sick. I promise. Okay?”

“Okay. But enough of this nonsense of you staying in Brazil. Book a flight home today.” And she hung up.

My mother’s panicked tone was completely out of character. She had not loved that my trip back to the United States kept getting postponed. But she understood. You couldn’t watch MSNBC all day long and not understand. Besides, between my sister and I we had arranged a very comfortable, if lonely, life for her in the time of Covid. I knew from talking to her she was grateful for that especially considering that old age homes had seen horrific death tolls. But I also knew what was scaring her. Mom was among the most vulnerable for Covid. A decade ago, she had undergone treatment for lung cancer. They had caught it early and between chemo and radiation therapy she had been cancer free ever since. But they had warned her that her lungs were irrevocably altered and were now especially vulnerable to disease.

I called Zita. She was sick. Very sick. She could barely speak to me as she had difficulty breathing.. She told me that the only reason she was not in the hospital is there were no beds available. She had caught the disease in a side job she had picked up at a grocery store packing groceries for delivery. One of her coworkers had contracted the disease and generously shared it with her and a dozen others. She was now sleeping in the basement of their home while her husband and daughter lived upstairs and left meals for her at the top of the basement stairs. I felt so bad for her I didn’t have the heart to tell her how angry I was at her. I knew she had taken on the side job to help feed her family, but she didn’t give me heads up about it which would have allowed me to decide about Mom’s care. Now my mother was in danger of catching the disease because of it and I couldn’t forgive her for that. I did not trust myself to say anything. I just hung up the phone.

I called American Airlines. All flights to Brazil were suspended. They suggested that I call United Airlines. They thought they were still operating out Sao Paulo but were not sure. United did have two flights a week from Sao Paulo to Houston. Their next flight left tomorrow. Was I interested in reserving a seat?” I told them I would call them back.

I found Nadine sitting on the couch in our living room. It is the most stunning room of our house with floor to ceiling glass doors it allowed the outside in. It had a granite floor with oriental rugs, a bar and even a sunken section for listening to music. It is where my wife loved to read the ink off “O Globo” Rio’s largest newspaper Today she in a half lotus position, Alice, our Siamese cat, in her lap, reading glasses halfway down her nose, with the front section held in front of her like a shield. I sat on the love seat opposite her without saying anything. She looked up and I must have looked very troubled because when she looked up, she immediately said “What’s wrong?” I told her.

“What do you want to do, my darling.”

“I don’t know. It is a Siberian dilemma. Do you know what that is?”

She shook her head. “It is when the only choices you have are bad and worse.” I paused hoping she would volunteer the solution I had already settled on. She didn’t. I continued   If I go, I leave you by yourself. If I don’t go and my mother gets sick, I will never forgive myself. She can’t be alone.” Nadine got up, much to the dismay of the  cat, who meowed in displeasure at being displaced. She sat next to me and held my hand. “Do not worry about me my darling. I am fine here. You must go.”

I looked at my feet. They were tan and clad in a pair of yellow and green Havianna’s. I had rarely worn anything else on my feet in months. In the moment, I wondered what it would be like to wear shoes again. Funny, the things you think about when you are in crisis mode. I looked up and asked, knowing the answer before the words left my mouth “Come with me?”

“You must go my darling, but I cannot leave. I have too much to do here. Who would take care of our home? Who would take care of Romeow? I promise I will come when there are direct flights to the US from Rio.”

I looked at her with distressed eyes. She grabbed both of my hands and holding my gaze said. “Va com Deus, meu amor. Trust me I will be fine.” 

Twenty-six hours later I found myself in the nearly empty international terminal of São Paulo/Guarulhos International Airport. A year earlier this hall would have transited a hundred thousand people in a single day. Today it was so empty you could hear a mouse fart.

I had taken a cab from our home in Rio De Janiero because flights were crowded, difficult to book and considering the state of pandemic precautions put in place by the Bolosonaro (Trump of the tropics) government not safe. . Marcus, a driver that Nadine frequently used, had agreed to drive me the two hundred and seventy miles for twenty-five-hundred Reals, or five hundred dollars. Getting into that cab, saying goodbye to Nadine is among the most difficult things I have ever done. I was leaving the person I cherished and loved above all others with no expectation of when or even if I would see her again. That type of goodbye belonged in movies. Not in my life. I managed to put on a brave face through our final embrace. I told her all the lies that one tells someone you love when the future is uncertain. It won’t be long. I will see you before you know it. You are tired of me anyway. We have Zoom. We were both remarkably stoic. Until we were out of sight of each other and then I let the tears flow.

The ride from to Sao Paulo took just under six hours and took place mostly in silence. Both Marcus and I were double masked to protect each other but kept the windows open despite the heat. . Three months into the pandemic wearing a mask is a part of daily life but it makes conversation difficult. Besides my Portuguese is limited as was his English. The view out the window helped make up for the silence. The countryside, once you leave the factories and favellas of Rio behind, is remarkable. First through the mountains of the Serra Do Mar, the tallest along the entire Atlantic seaboard, then the lush Paraiba Valley home to Brazil’s original coffee industry.

At one point, we pass a desiccated field that is studded with two-meter-tall termite mounds. I have read that before there were people in Brazil there were termites. So many in fact scientists have recently discovered an ancient Termite city in the northeast of the country that is as large as Great Britain. It is so large to see it all they had to use satellite imaging. It is hard to imagine a world run by terminates, unless you are science fiction author, but they did here. And then they didn’t. Evolution is relentless. Nothing is permanent. Everything has its time.

When we get to the city of Sao Jose dos Campos, Marcus pulls off the highway to refuel the car and give both of us the opportunity for a bio break. We pass a hospital. I don’t catch its name. But I can see they have sent up tents in the parking lot and there is a long line of masked people waiting to be seen by a physician. It terrifies me. It reminds me of the sleepless hours I had early in the pandemic. I was marooned in a country where I did not speak the language and. It seemed that all Globo and CNN broadcast were scenes from hospitals where people were dying, separated from the comfort family provides. What if I got sick and had to go to the hospital? Nadine would not be there to translate what the Dr’s and nurses were saying to me. I would be in a permanent state of fear and confusion. I would not know if I was getting better or worse. There would be no encouraging words to hear. It would be just the hot winds of my imagination blowing on the embers of fear. Flames of panic would no doubt erupt. And what if I got worse? What if they could not stop the spread of the disease? What if I became terminal? Who would be there to comfort me? Who would let me know that I was loved. The idea of facing eternity alone terrified me.

I must have whimpered audibly at this point as Marcus said “Senhor Paul, tudo bem?” I reply
Tudo bom, I am fine. “

As we get back on the highway It is easy to imagine the terror my mother is feeling right now. With her addiction to MSNBC, she has seen the same news reports I have. She is also doubly vunerable as an octogenarian and lung cancer survivor. If she catches the disease, it would be a miracle for her to survive. And now she is alone. Which is my fault. This is not gratuitous self-pity. Or a messiah conflict. I had freely taken on the responsibility of her care. I had promised her she would never be alone. Yet even though it was beyond my control, I had abrogated that responsibility. I know in my heart of hearts that I could have made it home sooner. It would have required a long circuitous route and exposed me to the disease at every turn. But it could have been done.

I have broken a promise to her. I told her she would not be alone. And I left her alone. And because I left it to others to care for her, she has been exposed to an illness that could kill her. Her fear, her panic is on me.

We reach Guarulhos at around three pm. I have eight hours to kill before I can board my flight. I had purposely chosen to get to the airport early as I did not know what trouble we might find on the road, and I could not miss this flight. I had hoped to spend time in the Admiral’s Club lounge at the airport. But it is closed. I find refuge in American Express Centurion Lounge. Other than me there are only four other travelers. The emptiness has an end of the word feel to it. As if we are the only ones left after a great disaster has struck. And so, it has. None of us want any contact with each other so we arrange ourselves at opposite ends of the club and keep to ourselves.

I settled into a banquette near the bar. It is isolated and separated from other areas by plexiglass partitions.  I call Mom. She answers on the second ring. Not with hello but with “Where are you?” I tell her I have made it to Sao Paulo and that the flight is leaving on time. That with any luck at all I should be back in New Jersey by 1pm tomorrow and she should not worry. I consider telling her how odd it is at the airport when it is devoid of people, but I decide that will only invoke fear. instead, I share how pretty a drive it was to get here. She is not listening and seems distracted. This is unlike her. She is usually very present and engaged. I assume that it is her mom’s nerves working overtime. Worried about me and the journey I have undertaken. I assure her all is well and tell her I will call her when I reach Houston.

Just as I am about to board the flight my phone rings. I answer without looking at the screen assuming it is Nadine, Lotte or my mother. It isn’t. It is Marcus. He asks me in English “You leave now?” I reply “Sim. Yes. The plane is leaving.” He has been waiting in the parking lot of the airport not wanting to leave me stranded should be flight be cancelled. It is an act of kindness I will never forget.

As the flight is boarding that due to Covid protocols they will strictly enforce boarding by row number. That we must maintain our distance and masks must be always worn except when eating or drinking. That violations of these rules can result in a fine and or being put on the FAA no fly list. I look around. I can see that most of the people are taking the pandemic very seriously. There is even one woman who, in addition to wearing a mask and a shield is wearing a white disposable hazmat suit. I think that this is a little over the top, but I understand. What I find harder to understand is the few who insist on wearing their masks without them covering their noses or worse around their chin. They piss me off. I know they know how to wear a mask. Their disregard for other people’s safety is a political statement. A symbolic middle figure to those wearing their masks correctly. That they are a supporter of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro who has famously said Brazilians don’t need to worry about the virus because they are tough…. They can even swim through sewage and not get sick. Or, they believe in Bolsonaro’s mentor, Donald Trump who not only refuses to wear a mask but suggests that drinking bleach, taking an animal anti-fungal drug, or exposing yourself to massive doses of ultra-violet light will rid of you of the disease. These men disgust me and are for all intent and purposes mass murderers.

I settled into my seat in first class. Nadine and I decided that it was worth a couple of hundred extra dollars for the additional separation from other passengers. I do this despite knowing that airplanes in flights are safer than anywhere else from disease transmission as they cycle the entire air supply every three minutes through HEPA filters. I rationalize that eliminating as much risk as I can from this trip is important as arriving home ill would defeat the purpose of coming home to take care of my mother. I also don’t hate the extra comfort. It is not a normal first-class service. Instead of cocktails, followed by progressive courses and concluding with ice cream sundaes and after dinner drinks, we are presented with a single tray crowded with each element individually wrapped. I am glad that United is taking hygiene so seriously even though the crowded tray makes maneuvering a bit of a challenge. The food is as delicious as airplane food can be from the bits of peach in the salad to the mushroom sauce on the Filet Mignon. I miss my sundae, but the chocolate truffles are more than an adequate sweet note to end the meal.

I recline my seat to almost horizontal. I am very tired from the long drive and the sleepless night leading up to it. I am hoping that sleep will overcome me quickly. But of course, it does not. My thoughts turn to Nadine. I cannot justify leaving her behind. She has her reasons for staying. Both said and unsaid. She has told me that she feels safe in our home. I know that this goes well beyond the isolation of our house and our neighborhood. Beyond the fact we have developed a system to get food and supplies with minimal chance of exposure to the disease. Since long before I met her eight years ago, this home has been her castle, her protection from an often-hostile world, a lifeboat on an unfriendly sea. Leaving it now, when Brazil is on fire from disease, political corruption, and travel with me through the belly of the beast is an act of faith she cannot muster. I understand this. My guilt remains. Will she be, okay? What kind of a person leaves his wife to face the pandemic alone.

When eventually I do fall asleep it only to be awakened a few hours later by the flight attendant yelling at the man seating behind me. She is telling him to put on his mask. That he can do whatever he wants when he leaves the airplane but for now if he doesn’t put on the mask, he will be arrested upon arrival for disrupting a flight. My fellow passenger puts on his mask as the steward departs shortly thereafter. I expend some mental energy trying to figure out why the inoffensive act of putting on a mask to protect yourself and others is such trouble for some. Why does kindness seem to be in such short supply these days when it should be just the opposite. Why is it that the Trumps and Bolsonaro’s of the world seem more plentiful than the Marcu’s. It is a quandary that has no answer but acts as a soporific. I fall back to sleep.

Shortly before 7am, thirty minutes behind schedule, my flight lands in Houston. There is no playing of the Star-Spangled Banner. They didn’t put Bruce Springsteen’s “Born In The USA” on the PA system. There are no fire trucks creating an arc of water to taxi under. There is not even the cheering you occasionally hear when a plane lands after a particularly difficult flight. However, for me it is a deeply emotional moment. One of the few moments in my life that despite the erosion of time on memory, I will never forget. After three months of being marooned I am home.

For 91 days I have wondered whether I would ever make it back. I have been a castaway on a desert island wondering whether I would ever escape. The island I escaped from could not have been more welcoming. It was beautiful if not spectacular. I was as safe as any place can be in a pandemic. I have been with Nadine, the one person required for me to be whole. But I was stranded. As well fed as I had been, it did not have the flavors of home that comfort and cajole. Worse, I knew that my mother had been by herself, I had failed in my obligation to her and promises I had made to myself.

An announcement is made about deboarding the aircraft. We are told that Custom’s and Border Patrol have instituted measures to help ensure social distancing. Only six rows will be allowed off the airplane at a time and only those rows who are called may claim their luggage and other belongings from overhead bins. Deplaning will start with the business class section and work its way from front to back. We are reminded that masks are required on board the aircraft and while in the terminals of George Bush International Airport.

My section is the first to be called on to deplane. This is good news for me as our late arrival is making me doubt my ability to catch my connecting flight to Newark which departs in just over one hour. I collect my bag from the overhead bin and follow the passenger who had been chastised by the flight attendant off the plane. Normally, when an international flight arrives there is a mad dash of passengers to immigration. Nobody, even those, like me, who use Global Entry Kiosks to enter, wants to be caught in the long lines that are the hallmark of entering the country. There is no need to rush today with only 20 of us exiting at the same time. But I do. I am late. I cannot miss this connection as the next flight does not leave for six hours.

When I reach the kiosks, I begin the familiar process. First, I slip my passport into the reader and remember just in time to lower my mask so the device can take my picture. I place my fingers on a touch plate so it can read my fingerprints. When they are accepted, I prepare to go through the standard series of questions such as purchases made abroad, have you visited a farm, what flight you were on, etc. But the machine asks me none of those questions, just printing out the standard form to hand to the CBP officer. I am not sure why things have changed but I am grateful as it speeds my journey.

I leave immigration and follow the signs to security. During normal times, even with TSA Pre, this is a choke point due to long lines and the extra scrutiny given to international travelers. Today, it is empty. The maze leading up to the identification check point has been reconfigured into a single line and it has no one in it. This fills me with hope as a quick glance at my watch tells me I have only forty-five minutes before they shut the doors to my flight. I place my bags, computer, iPad, jacket, shoes, and belt on the conveyor belt. I am scanned without a beep, but my bags need to be run through twice to ensure my CPAP machine is not an instrument of mass destruction. Normally, I would not be annoyed at this inconvenience, it just the TSA doing their job, but today I am impatient. I need to make that flight.

As I leave security and begin the journey to my gate at a jog, I see my mask averse seat mate once more. He is having a booming argument with some of the security people. Apparently, he did not hear the announcement or get the email which had been sent to all passengers on our flight ordinance that all people at George Bush International Airport are required to wear masks at all times. Nor did he listen to the post landing announcement on the plane. He is arguing loudly that he does not need to wear a mask. I shake my head. I will never understand why people cannot do the simplest least intrusive thing to protect themselves and others. Whether they remembered the golden rule. An axiom that connects virtually every faith practiced by man. It is a concept taught in Sunday schools, public schools and by teachers and parents alike. I have no doubt, that if I asked “Tex” what the Golden Rule was he would have no problem reciting its words. Why then does he have such trouble living it? Doesn’t he understand that he has been in Brazil a country that has the second largest infection rate in the world without doing any significant testing and he could be infected or a carrier and not know it? Unmasked carriers had spread the infection and brought our country and the world to its knees.? Wearing a mask is an act of kindness to your neighbor and your community and would help prevent needless disease and death. His not wearing a mask would encourage others not to wear a mask and that could result in him or someone he cares for getting the disease.

My mother could be a victim of someone like him. Someone who chose not to wear a mask because it offended them in some unknown way and now my mother may be sick. It enrages me. It is more than just people not wearing masks. They are just a symbol of a different type of virus that is running rampant through the cultures of both Brazil and the United States, if not the world. The mental defect that allows science and facts to be discounted by unproven theories and conjectures. The social disease where memes are given equal weight to historical fact. The infection that allows people to express vileness and hatred with a sense of impunity. My anger doubles my pace.

My father used to love the quote by Dorothy Parker who when asked to use the word horticulture in sentence quipped “You can lead a whore to culture, but you cannot make her think.”

It is not easy to run with a backpack, roll-a-board, and mask but I make it to the gate, sweaty and out of breath with about five minutes to spare. I take my seat, a single in business class, and it hits me. I am on the final leg of my journey. Home, and all it represents, is just a few hours away. It is only after they close the door that I realize in all my rush and rage against ignorance I have forgotten to call my mother. Idiot.

Frequent flyers are familiar with a phenomenon. When a plane’s doors are sealed a large percentage of passengers either doze off or feel very sleepy. It is a biological response to a sudden drop in oxygen levels. I have never needed an excuse to nap. It is one of my favorite activities and no more so than on airplanes where snoozing cuts perceived travel time. Combine this phenomenon with additional factors such as length of travel, lack of sleep and stress and is a near certainty that my chin will assume a resting position against my chest. I am asleep before the plane leaves the gate and do not wake up until the flight is on final approach to Newark.

When the cabin door is opened, and we are given permission to deplane, it is as if I am shot from a rifle. I move at speed walker pace down the concourse C at Newark. I pay no notice to the closed shops, restaurants nor even to the very few people have made a choice not to wear a mask. I am focused only on getting to baggage claim where my brother has arranged for a well-regarded car service to pick me up and take me home in as safe and as Covid free environment as possible. I scramble past security and negotiate my bags down two sets of escalators to baggage claim. It is empty. None of the carousels turn. No patient passengers waiting for bags. Most importantly no car service person holding a sign with my name on it.

I surveyed the whole area. I walk down to the carousel where the bags from my flight will be deposited. Still no one. I am annoyed and angry. I almost never ask my brother for favors and the one time I do he drops the ball like a little league outfielder. As I survey baggage claim for my driver, I consider calling my brother Levi and asking him what is up with his car service or digging through my phone to find the number of the service and finding out about my ride. I reject both ideas. Home is only 15 miles away by the time I resolve the issue I can be at Moms front door. I dash to the taxi rank.

The hack at the head of the cue reluctantly ends his phone conversation when I approach the taxicab. I see that his mask is dangling off one ear. I ask him, probably too firmly, to please put on his mask. He shoots me the stink eye. I feel bad for my tone but not my message. As we pull away from the curve, I apologize to him, telling him that I have been traveling for the past twenty-four hours and am tired. It is not an excuse, but an explanation and I hope he understands. He tells me he understands. I let him know that we will be making two stops. That we are going to make a brief stop at my mothers’ home as she is elderly and has not seen me in four months. I explain that I want to wave at her before I go into the fourteen-day isolation the CDC is recommending for international travelers. That it will only last a minute or two and I hope that he understands. Then we will proceed to our destination which is only a few minutes from there.

Route 78 between Newark and the Short Hills Mall is not scenic. Mostly shopping malls, light industry, and sound barriers. But with every mile passed, my anticipation grows. When I was I kid growing up and I did something that my mother thought was special she would proclaim me “Hero of the western World” as if I were a hero returning from battle. I feel that way now. I had, against all odds, by plane and taxi, through pandemic and ignorance, at great risk to myself, managed to travel 6,000 miles from Rio De Janiero to Summit, New Jersey in less than forty-eight hours from when Mom called and told me she needed me. I was unduly proud of myself and thought of the videos I had seen on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and families who had been reunited after being separated by Covid. The bear hugs. The joyous tears mixed with laughter born of relief. I knew I would not get a hug as Covid protocols were to self-isolate for fourteen days, after travel but I knew Mom would be happy to see me through closed glass doors. A tear would be shed. I would be her “hero of the western world” yet again. I can’t wait to knock at her door.

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The Green Flash

Posted on February 1, 2024 by 34orion

Chapter 3: Day 2: Dawn

According to legend, the god Maui not only created the island paradise we call Hawaii, but he also made the days longer.

The story goes that he found his mother Hina, who was normally cheerful, sad, and upset one day. Being a dutiful son, he asked what was bothering her. She told him that she was sad because the days were too short and because of that her clothes would not dry, and the crops did not grow fast enough. Maui decides he needs to do something to make his mother happy and sets out to capture the sun. He cuts down palm trees and using their fiber creates a strong rope and then in the dark of night climbs to the top of Haleakala where the sun makes his home. When the sun rises, Maui lassos the sun’s legs. The sun fought mightily against the rope, but it held. Trapped, the sun asks Maui why he had done this. Maui explained he was there because Hina was unhappy. The days were too short. She could not dry her clothes and the crops were not growing fast enough. If the sun promised to travel more slowly, he would let him go. The sun promised and that is why Hawaii has days that are long and full of sun.

I am sitting in one of the dark green faux rattan chairs around my fire pit when I recall this legend from King David’s book. I have been here for the better part of an hour. Sleeping has never been one of my great strengths and being six hours different than my normal circadian rhythms has not helped. I guess I could have stayed in bed and read or checked my Facebook feed and hoped that I would fall back asleep again. But I am too restless for that. Besides, how often does one get to embrace the new day over the Pacific? In the last few moments, the fuchsia, ginger, and saffron fingers of dawn have appeared on the horizon. It is a sight to see and at this moment I am grateful for my restive mind.

Beyond the birth of a day, I realize why I have been reminded of Maui and Hina.  For the last hour, I have been getting the occasional waft of a rich fruity scent that has a hint of musk to it. It is oddly familiar to me and like a familiar object whose name lurks just beyond your grasp. It bothers me that I cannot identify it. With sudden clarity, I know it is jasmine. A fragrance that reminds me of my mother’s hugs as it is the dominant aroma of her favorite perfume, Coco.

I have not spoken to my mother yet. I could call her now, but I suspect she won’t answer. She is likely away from her phone. Besides dawn is a magical time. A time when the darkness of past days is cancelled, and you are embraced by the promise of the possibility of a new day. Isn’t that why birds chirp, peep and tweet the loudest then? I listen. I can hear the cooing of doves, the screaming screech of the native Alala who the Indigenous people of Hawaii consider a deity. There are other bird songs I cannot identify. They all join in an overture to the new day. I savor it as the world is flooded with light.

It is early June 2020. I am in a Bob’s Hamburgers restaurant off Brazil’s Highway 116, the road that connects Rio to Sao Paulo. For the past three hours I have been in the back seat of a cab that I have hired to drive me from our home in Barra De Tijuca to Guarulhos Airport in Sao Paulo. The drive has not been unpleasant despite the fact that I am wearing a surgical mask, suffering from the near ninety-degree weather as we are not using air conditioning. Neither Marcus, my driver, nor I totally trust the fact we are Covid free. We stopped here because the restaurant is attached to an Ipiranga service station, and we can fill the cab’s tank as both Marcus and I can empty ours.

Having taken care of the pressing business, I have paused in the waiting area of this dusty service station to consider whether or not I want to get something to eat. Bob’s Burger in Brazil are as ubiquitous as bikinis on a beach in Rio. The original fast food burger place in Brazil they are everywhere from standalone restaurants to kiosks in malls to sharing space at a service area. When I first came to Brazil, I thought it was hilarious as Fox had just launched an animated show called “Bob’s Burgers.” Nadine did not think it nearly as amusing as I did but she insisted their burgers were better than McDonalds and to prove her point took me out to lunch there. She ordered Bob’s Grand Picanha 200g as well as shakes and fries. To my surprise the burgers were good and the shakes excellent. Which is why I pause now. Who knew when I would be able to eat again?

Before I make up my mind, I notice a television is playing in the seating area of the eatery. It is tuned to Globo News. On screen is a “live” helicopter shot of a graveyard in Sao Paolo, the fourth largest city in the world and the largest city in the Americas, where a bulldozer is ripping into the earth excavating mass graves. The health care system here has fallen apart. Thousands are dying every day, and the death industry cannot keep up. It is a scene from some bad apocalyptic movie, not real life. How did our hero get here? It is a good question. One that I have pondered mightily over the last few months.

It started, at least a little, in anger. When Nadine had returned to Brazil at the end of January, she had promised to return to the US in time for us to celebrate my birthday on March 14. However, the number of issues she had to deal with in Rio De Janiero had seemed to multiply faster than rabbits when she arrived at our home there. One of the apartments she owned had lost a tenant and now needed to be repaired and updated before it could be offered to rent. Our home’s roof had developed a leak and could only be repaired under her supervision along with many other things. As a result, she pleaded I come to her, as opposed to returning to the USA as she had promised. Would I please come to Brazil for my birthday. She would take us away to Paraty, a seaside resort famous for its party lifestyle and Cachaca, for a few days of celebration and fun.

Normally, I would have been happy to go but anger born from frustration had been my initial response. While I understood that life has a way of throwing you curve balls, a lesson that would hit home with a vengeance in just a few weeks, I also lived by the axiom “Say what you do, do what you say.” You keep your promises and Nadine had promised to return to the US. Now she was asking me to drop everything and come to Brazil. That was not so easy. I had a job. While working remotely or taking PTO was not a huge issue and could be managed it was an inconvenience. Fenway, our three-year-old Australian Cobberdog, would need to be boarded, which was an expense, but it too could be managed. But the biggest issue was my mother.

For the past eight years, since my father’s departure, she had lived by herself in their four bedroom, 3 and ½ bath split level colonial we had considered “home” for the past fifty years. She was independent in the sense she had no physical limitation that impaired her mobility or mental impairment despite her ninety years. She spent her days doing the work she had done all her life: the writing and editing of books. However, she no longer drove. She was challenged with various maintenance issues in the house. She was lonely and needed assistance nearly every day.

Which is why, when Nadine and I married shortly after Dad’s departure, we moved from my apartment in New York City to a townhome a couple of miles away from her. Someone had to take care of Mom. My sister had the desire but not the bandwidth as she had a career, two children and a husband to manage. My brother? Well let’s just say his priorities were elsewhere.

Part of my acceptance of my new role came from a promise made to my mother years earlier. My father had been hospitalized with what was later diagnosed with kidney failure. The physician treating him was a kind man who believed that telling best way path to compassion in telling patients and their families the whole truth about their diagnosis. I agree with that philosophy. Ripping off the band aid fast is a way to get beyond the pain to a place where more reasonable decisions can be made. In this case, we had been told that Dad’s kidneys would never function properly again, dialysis was likely to be a part of his life for as long as he lived as transplants were not given to octogenarians, and this would likely be a cause of death.

The drive home from the hospital was awful. The NJ Turnpike was moving at the pace of an arthritic tortoise, and we were driving into the afternoon sun on an early August day. The air conditioning was working overtime and losing the battle. Difficult thoughts comingled with uncomfortable surroundings produced a silence as thick as London fog. Each lost in our thoughts. Each contemplating what life would be like without Pops. Suddenly, Mom began to sob. Apologizing for her tears as if they were something to be ashamed of, she told me that she was frightened. That she had never been alone. She had gone directly from her father’s house to my father’s house. Being alone terrified her. Moved by her tears, and prompted by a few of my own, I had promised that no matter what I would make sure that she was never alone. Some might consider this a foolish pledge made in despair of the moment. They are probably right. But I have a problem that arises from the fact that I have read far too many fairytales or took my childhood socialization training far too seriously. That is, once I have made a promise, made a commitment I have an extraordinarily difficult time breaking it. You say what you mean and do what you say. You show up.

There is a scene from the movie Blindside, the movie where Sandra Bullock and her white affluent family adopt a very large African American young man. Michael Oher. In it he undergoes some psychological testing, and it is determined that he has an overwhelming need to protect and defend his family and those that he loves. I had seen the movie with my girlfriend and after the movie she had told me that the Michael Ohrer character in the movie had reminded her of me. Being a wise ass, moderately sized Jewish man, I asked, “Is it because I am a large Black man?” She may have punched me in the arm and said “No, you are singularly the most loyal man I have ever met.”

It was a wonderfully nice thing for her to say to me. And no doubt there are elements of truth in what she said but If for any reason that this narrative has given you the idea that I am beatific in any way, to use a Jersey expression, forget about it. I am a very flawed human being. I have no desire to list all my faults. It would take too long, and no doubt be boring to anyone not paid to listen to my confessions. I believe life is a journey of successive approximation. You try. You do your best. If you succeed, god’s speed. If you fail, pick yourself up, learn from your mistakes, make corrections, move on.

My promise meant to me that I needed to be there for her. When minor household things such as the printer ink running low, a light bulb needed changing, or her computer became funky I was available for immediate twenty-four-hour service. I was also her companion. Most days, I would do a ten- or fifteen-minute drop in to make sure she was doing fine and remind her she was not alone. She would have preferred I ate dinner with her every day. She would have preferred I didn’t leave, and it became a major article of tension with us. “Why don’t you stay a little longer,” “Don’t you want to have dinner with me?” 

Eventually we set up a routine. When I was working from home, I would pop in every day just before lunch and have a cup of coffee with her before returning to my desk or going to the gym. Saturday morning, I would take her to King’s Supermarket and let her shop for her weekly groceries and then carry her supplies to the kitchen for her organization. Sundays we would have dinner together. Either Chinese food (1 egg roll, General Tso’s Chicken) or Smash Burgers. If she had to go the Dr. I took her. Shopping? I was here bag carrier and driver.

Getting someone to check in on Mom and take care of her immediate needs was not an issue. My sister Lotte would be happy to step in for a few days. She appreciated the burden I had taken on and was happy to give me a break. What made me hesitate is my own guilt leaving her alone. I, more than anyone else, knew how lonely she could get. How frightening it was to her. But isn’t the first rule of caregiving taking care of yourself?

I left for Brazil on March 8th, 2020. I would spend the next week with Nadine in Brazil and return on March 17th. Yes, the news was full of stories about the coronavirus. Trump had just declared under control and not to worry about it. Not that I believed him, but doctors were providing details about their frustration with treating the “novel Corona virus” and were sharing what they knew about how to prevent getting the disease including quarantining. The business press and who what and financial pundits discussing what an epidemic would do to the economy. It was all just background news to me. I was not particularly concerned. How bad could this be? I remember thinking how crazy the woman sitting next to me on the first leg of my trip to Miami was for wearing a surgical mask.

March 10th found us in Paraty, a small coastal city one hundred and twenty-five miles south of Rio. It is also 175 miles from Sao Paulo. Given the relatively short distance from both cities, the beautiful coastal location, and archipelagos, and its famous for Cachaca, (Brazilian moonshine made at nearby sugar plantations), and an old city that retains the look of the colonial period, it is a place people go to forget the outside world. A place to party and relax and to enjoy your life. Nadine had chosen a wonderful place to celebrate my birthday. I can’t really say the same about the hotel she chose. It was two stars at best and at best resembled a no-tell motel done in Brazilian colonial style. Our room lay on the second floor facing a courtyard and while it had adequate air conditioning, emphasis on adequate, it did not have a television and their Wi-Fi had the speed of a dial up connection during a thunderstorm. Under normal circumstances, this would have been ideal. What could be better than to be in a beautiful vacation hideaway with little or no access to the outside world allowing you to fully enjoy your holiday bubble.

On March 11, when the WHO declared Covid a global pandemic we were on a chartered boat exploring the coast, drinking cachaca and feeding hungry monkeys outside the café where we ate dinner. It was not until we got back to our room and managed to attach ourselves to the cup and string internet that we got word of the declaration. I was not overwhelmingly alarmed. I assumed life would go on as before albeit with more intense screening for the disease and people would be more cautious. What concerned me more was Mom would not be so nonchalant. She spent a good deal of her day in her kitchen watching MSNBC and indulging in her favorite passions: hating Donald Trump. I had no doubt they were spinning the story as anti-Trump for no other reason than his response to the looming threat had the competence of a second grader working on quantum mechanics equation. As a rule, I called Mom everyday while I was traveling using Skype as the overseas charges for cell phone usage would plunge small nations into a debt crisis. As we had such spotty internet, I had not called her in the last couple of days but knowing she would be in full panic mode I called use cell service.

She picked up on the second ring. “Daniel?”

“Hi Mom. Greetings from Paraty!”

Normally my mother is an exceptionally gracious lady. She would have asked how my trip was going, whether the weather was good, how was the food and other questions that demonstrated her interest in my trip. This time she did not. She demanded, “When are you coming home?”

“You know this mom. My flight is scheduled to leave on the 16th. I will be home the morning of the 17th.”

 “Can you come home now?”

“What is up Mom? I will be home in a couple of days.”

“Have you been keeping up with the news? Do you know what is going on?” she asked in an accusatorial tone.

“Somewhat. The internet here is lousy and we don’t have a television. But I have caught snippets. It seems your beloved President is starting to take this thing seriously.”

“Daniel, MSNBC is saying that the President is considering shutting down travel from overseas and locking down the country. You need to come home.”

I didn’t say anything for a second. It was all too easy for me to imagine Mom’s panic. I was her primary care giver. She could not get food or anything else without me. If I were caught overseas who would help her? She would be on her own. Something I had promised her I would never let happen. I replied “Mom, let me see what I can do, and I will get back to you in a little while.”

When I hung up the phone, I told Nadine what was going on at home and how my mother was in full blown panic. To my beloved wife’s credit, she said with no prompting “Then my darling you must go home.” I called American Airline. I was not the only anxious American who wanted to go home. All the flights from Rio before my travel dates were completely booked. We tried flying out of Sao Paulo. They too were fully booked. Connecting flights, the same. When I asked the agent about what she had heard about flights being cancelled she said as far as they knew flights would be operating normally. She said not to worry. Easy for her to say. She didn’t have a nearly ninety-year-old mother who was getting worked up by cable news.

Frustrated in my efforts to rebook my flights but knowing that I had done all I could do I called Mom back and shared the news with her. She was not happy. I knew this was not directed at me. It was directed at the situation. She was scared. But it was hard not to take this personally. A son’s guilt. I told her that I would continue to try to get an earlier flight but not to worry I would see her on the 16th. I promised.

How could I know what was coming? No one knew. But late at night I am still plagued by that promise. I should have called other airlines. I could have tried begging the airlines and explained my situation. Could have. Should have. Would have. The most worthless expressions in the English language.

From then on, I left my cell data on. I did not care what it cost. Things were getting serious, and I needed to get home. It is hard to enjoy yourself on holiday when your phone is constantly beeping with updates and the world as you know it is ending. It affected our behavior. We started avoiding crowds of any sort. We began to choose restaurants not only by cuisine but by whether they were crowded or better yet had an outdoor seating option.

On March 13th, our last night in Paraty, after weeks of downplaying the pandemic Donald Trump declared Covid 19 a national emergency. The fact that the man who had downplayed Covid as no worse than the flu virus was now taking it seriously was alarming. When I called, Mom would barely say hello to me before asking “Have you had any luck getting on an earlier flight” and when I would respond in the negative, she inquired “And your flight on the 15th is still leaving on time.” And when I reassured her that it was, she would tell me “Good. Make sure you are on that flight.”  It made me desperate to leave. The only way I could sleep at night was knowing on the fifteenth I would be headed home and a liberal dose of Cachaca.

On March 14, my birthday, we headed home to Rio. We were happy to leave. The last few days of the trip had not been the relaxing time we had hoped for. We were wrapped up in the terror of catching Covid and my desperate attempt to leave the country. Not that leaving the country was a completely comfortable feeling. I would be leaving my wife behind amid a pandemic. What kind of a husband does that? When I brought up these feelings with Nadine, she was both honest and gentle with me. She told me that she was frightened. Frightened she would catch the disease. Frightened that she would have to face it alone. Fearful she would never see me again. But she knew I must go. That my mother could not take care of herself and that her needs and fears were small compared to hers. She said “My love, you do not have a choice. You must go. I understand.”

Her understanding made me feel horrible.

About halfway through our journey, close to Angara del Reis, the home of one of Brazil’s nuclear power stations, we stopped at a roadside cantina for a bio break. The place had an open-air architecture that might have been popular in the fifties with a hint of decrepitude covered in faded blue paint. It was not a pleasant experience. The place was crowded, and we were unprotected. The men’s room was dark and dingy and when I went to wash my hands there was no soap or paper towels to dry my hands. For some reason, the whole thing reminded me of a scene from a Hunter Thompson tome. I was living in a Ralph Steadman drawing. Things were getting very weird and scary. I had just shaken my hands dry when my phone buzzed. It was a text from American Airlines. My flight had been cancelled. I showed Nadine. She hugged me and said “Oh Daniel. Do you want to call them now.”

I didn’t. I knew the call would be difficult and have long holds. I replied, “Let’s wait until we get home.”

We made one more stop before arriving home. The Guanabara Super Mercado, a huge supermarket off Avenue of the Americas in Barra de Tijuca, the section of Rio where I home is located.  We had decided on the latter part of our journey that we needed to provision up. Who knew how long this pandemic would last and neither of us had much appetite, excuse the pun, for going out, so we might as well stop now. It was a madhouse from a parking lot where drivers cut people off for parking spaces to tug of wars over rolls of toilet tissue and fist fights, not hyperbole, over a case of Itaipava beer. But that is not what bothered us the most. It was being amongst a crowd of people, maskless, in a place where there was no separation and where you could almost see the Covid virus doing pirouettes in the air above us. We left there with a profound desire not to do that again. Little did I realize that it would be a year in a half before I stepped foot in a grocery store again.

When I finally called American Airlines late that afternoon, I was placed on hold for nearly an hour. As someone who has flown over three million miles with them and had access to a special phone line for their customers, this was quite a change, albeit understandable. The agent I eventually spoke to have the tone of someone who had been run through a ringer. I had no doubt that she had dealt with dozens of customers who were now stranded and desperate to go home whom she had no ability to accommodate. I had no doubt she had suffered abuse by many of them. Therefore, I tried to treat her with as much kindness as I could. Even when she told me that American Airlines had cancelled all flights to and from  Rio until March 25 and that I was now booked on that flight. She also warned me that flight was provisional. She could not guarantee there would be no further delays.

When I hung up the phone with her, I called United and Delta, the two other US carriers who service Rio. The story there was the same. No flights for at least two weeks and even then, no guarantee. I was frustrated, angry with myself for putting myself in this mess. I should have seen it coming. But mostly I was feeling guilty. What about Mom?

I called my sister. I started off by telling her I knew that it was impossible for her to give Mom the daily care she needed. Which led to a dialogue about how could I say that? She was fully capable of handling it. I told her that she already had too much on her plate with a couple of teenagers, two cats, a dog, and a husband to be responsible for and that as magnificent as she was it would burn her out. Moreover, who knew how long this craziness would last? It would be better to get ahead of the curve than to be behind it. A nursing home was discussed and rejected not only because they were already breeding grounds for the disease and were causing a large number of deaths, but Mom hated them. Even when she was weak and recovering from surgery, she would ask every day to be set free. I could not blame her. To me they were dormitories of death.

We eventually hit upon a couple of ideas. The first was to ask Mom’s cleaning woman, Zita, a recent immigrant from Portugal, who was also cleaned my apartment, if she could stop in three times a week and bring whatever necessities Mom might need. She was capable and, in the past, she had provided when Mom needed it.

I called Zita. She, like so many immigrants, was willing to take on the extra duties for the additional cash it would bring in to help finance her American dream. Especially considering that most of her clientele had abandoned her during the pandemic, preferring to do their household chores now they were home full time.

I rang Mom. She was not happy that my flight was now delayed for ten days. “Why didn’t you get an earlier flight. I told you to get an earlier flight.” I could not convince her that I tried and there were no flights to be found. But I also understood. She was vulnerable, and the whole world was burning down around her. It was scary. Me being nearby would lessen that fear. And I wanted to be there for her, but I couldn’t. Her anger, my guilt. Neither of those emotions did either one of us any good but in these circumstances, they were immutable laws of the universe.

I did not leave the country on March 25th. Nor on April 4th. Or May 1, the world had shut down. Like a global game of musical chairs, you were stuck wherever you were when the music stopped. Nadine and I had it better than 99% of people who were living in the Covid world. Our home in Barra was in a gated community with a twelve-foot wall around it. We had help coming in three days a week. Now this may seem like we were putting people at unnecessary risk and to be fair we were. But Nadine’s housekeeper, Fatima, and her groundskeeper, Antionio, depended on the money we paid them to survive. And we paid them extra so they would not have to take public transportation. I am not saying we were saints for this. Sainthood would paying them and not asking them to come to work. They shopped, cleaned, cooked, and maintained for us and for that we felt truly fortunate to be in the situation we were in.

Things were going as well as could be expected in New Jersey. In addition to Zita coming three times a week to clean and check in on Mom we had established an Instacart “reservation” for her. Once a week she would get a delivery of her normal order of prepared meals and anything else she needed and could be found at Kings Market. If there were a special need, Milano cookies, a pint of Ben and Jerry’s or household items like paper towels or Listerine wipes either Julia or I would add them to the order. Every night at 5pm her time I would call her on Facebook Messenger and have a video chat with her. It was not as good as me being there for her or for me, but it did give us the opportunity to see each other face to face and have a conversation about what was going on in her life. For her, it was mostly Donald Trump focused. She had a passionate dislike for the man, who could blame her, but his handling of Covid and his refusal to accept basic medical thinking sent her over the edge.  Her end of the phone calls were often long rants on Trumps failings, missteps, and incompetence. I did not mind. It meant she was engaged and well. For my part, I would often read her, she an editor of great note, paragraphs from a novel I was writing about my father’s war experiences.

In an odd way, these daily sessions made us closer than ever before despite the fact I was six thousand miles, not two, away from her. I am not saying it relieved the guilt or the pressure to get home. It did not. Every call would end with “have you heard any more about getting a flight home” or “I wish you were here” but our situation forced us to talk in way that we didn’t when we were in closer proximity.

Things were going great. Until they were not.

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The Green Flash

Posted on January 30, 2024 by 34orion

Chapter Two: Day 1 5pm (cont.)

I was on US 78 W on my way to my the Sloan Kettering oncology facility in Basking Ridge N.J. Sitting in the passenger seat was my mother who had been diagnosed with lung cancer several months earlier. We were on our way to the third out of twelve radiation treatments. Her prognosis was good. They had caught it early, but the diagnosis was sobering and, as you can imagine, the mood in my car was tight lipped and somber. Going to a place where they promise that they are going to hurt you, make no promises of future well being and where you are among the sick and dying is sobering.

Some people put on a false front when facing treatment for a disease that has a huge chance of causing your demise. Mom was not one of them. She was not overly morose or weepy. Just tense and as brittle as a decades old pressed flower. I had tried my jolly elf routine and it had been as successful as telling an Italian joke at a Knights of Columbus meeting. A very loud silence permeated the car which kept us imprisoned in our fears and thoughts. We were both startled into the present when my phone blared through the car speakers. It was Del. A welcome distraction from the somber mood in the car. I answered the phone on speaker. I had barely gotten out “Hi D “ let alone warned her we were on speaker and Mom was sitting next me when she began cursing me out. Apparently, she had just gotten off the phone with Duke, then a sophomore at MIT,  with whom she had just had a knock down drag out fight and for a reason I could not fathom at the time, blamed me for the argument.  He had told her in a way sophomore in college often lecture their parents that listening to Fox News was rotting her brain.  Her political opinion was racist and woefully ignorant. That her view of Christianity, steeped in the megachurch evangelical community in which she had immersed herself were both heretical to the true precepts of Jesus and hypocritical. That she preached love and understanding but practiced hate and intolerance. She screamed into the phone “You did this to him. You and your New York liberal elitist point of view. You have stolen his values from him.”

It stung like a slap to the face on a cold day. A smack that came with no warning. A blow that produced instant anger that would never be regretted. How else should I have felt? New York Liberal elite was transparent code. She might as well call me a dirty Jew.  it would have meant the same thing. Back on heals from a verbal assault I didn’t see coming I parried with a brilliant retort. I said  “What the fuck do you mean by that.”

“You and your liberal ideas that you put into his head. All those Jewish ideas he gets from the New York Times and other anti-Christian media. It has turned my son against me. I never should have let you into our house.”

I guess I could have followed Jesus’s advice and turned the other cheek. But as she pointed out I am Jewish, a son of a holocaust survivor and someone who has a well-tuned knee jerk reaction to antisemitism.  I reacted. Not in a patient understanding manner but as man who has just been told that a twenty plus year relationship has been nothing more than a charade.

“Who the fuck do you think you are calling me on the phone and accusing me of corrupting your son. What kind of antisemitic racist bullshit is it blaming Jews for corrupting his values. Your fucking savior was a Jew. Have you your fucking god damn mind? Perhaps one of the reasons your son has turned against you is you spouting this kind ugliness to him. You spent every day with him for twenty years and suddenly I am the problem and Jews are to blame. Clearly, it’s us because of course it can’t be you. You talk to him every day and I maybe speak with him once a month and his opinions and thoughts are my fault. Perhaps it would be more useful for you to take a look in the mirror than call and yelling at me while I am taking my mother to radiation therapy.”

“I don’t need to look in a mirror. I know where he got these anti-Christian ideas from. Whenever you came to visit, I would spend weeks trying to deprogram him and Liam from your ideas. I told Conor I never liked having you in our home.”

I had always done my best to be the best uncle, the best guest, the best friend I could be. Never once in the twenty-five years I had known Del, not once during a single visit had she raised a red flag about my behavior. I always thought I was the welcome addition to their house. Uncle Danny. The guy who took care of Delilah when she couldn’t get out of bed for fear of losing her baby. The Uncle who bought the kids their first hot fudge sundae. The man who got took them to Yankee Stadium with tickets behind home plate and on the rail. The guy who whenever he came to visit would take the family to Morton’s or Chops or some other fancy restaurant for an opulent meal not just for fun but to teach them what to do when they went to fine restaurants. The link to their roots who reveled in telling the boys stories about their grandfather because they needed to know about their legacy. Now this woman, whom I had introduced to her husband is telling me that I was never welcome in her home.?

The slap had turned to a kick to the balls. Every circuit was blown. The years of happy memories had been irretrievably altered. Oddly, instead of intensifying my emotions,  her comments turned them cold. “You know what Delilah. You don’t have to worry about it anymore. I will never set foot in your home again. “ and pushed the end button on my phone.  There was silence in the car for a few miles and then my sweet, Ferragamo loafer wearing, never leave the house without putting on lipstick mother said, “What a cunt.”

Late that afternoon, after I dropped Mom at home, and was stuck in traffic on the Lincoln Tunnel helix I  called Conor. I started with “Louise called your wife a cunt today.” It got his attention. I told him what happened and said “I love you man, but I will never stay in your house again. Never. Not because of animosity or anger. But because if she has been harboring all this hate for me for years, and saying nothing, how can I feel welcome when I know somewhere lurking beneath the surface is this hostility, this antisemitism bullshit. Can’t do it.”

Conor had a tone of voice when he was super angry. It was a low registered growl where he enunciated every consonant and diphthong.  He used it now and replied, “I will take care of it.”

“Nothing to take care of. It is what it is. Del just told me today who I am to her and revealed who she is and I heard her.”

“I will take care of it.”

“Whatever. Do you want you want to do but I said what I meant and will do as I say” echoing one of Conor’s father’s favorite axioms.

Later that day, I got a call from Delilah. I didn’t answer it. I had no desire to talk with her and let it go to voicemail. The message, when I finally listened to it a couple of days  later when curiosity had gotten the best of me, was a non-apology,  apology.  She was sorry for the tenor of the conversation but that she meant what she had said. As she didn’t ask for forgiveness, I saw no reason to give it, let alone speak with her. But to be honest, even if she had asked, I am not sure at that time I could have given it.  My relationship with Conor remained the same, except our friendship would be conducted over the phone or on his occasional trips to the city. True to my word, I never set foot in their home again and probably never would have seen her again if I had not fallen in love and married. 

In 2012, I was in desperate need of a break. I had spent most of my free time over the previous two years being a caregiver for my father. In 2010, he fell and injured himself so badly that he could no longer walk. A pattern of hospital, rehab center, home developed where I became the child that helped both parents cope. I drove them to Dr’s appointments or drove Mom to the hospitals and rehabilitation centers when Dad was sent there. Or, just sitting with my father in his hospital rooms and bedroom and talking. It was traumatic. It was debilitating. The daily contemplation of the inevitability of your parent’s mortality, dealing with the indignities of old age such as wiping your old man’s ass or changing his catheter took a physical and psychic toll.  And even though Dad’s constant refrain was “Don’t break your ass over me” and my always reply “Don’t worry it is already cracked” I found it impossible to take time for myself. They called. I came. Not trying to being a hero, just a son who was trying to do his best to repay the debt they never asked me to pay. Sons, like friends, show up.  It was always on duty and the caregiving for my father had ground me down like a knife that had been sharpened too many times.

Then the Costa Concordia hit a rock and sank off the cost of Italy killing 34 passengers. While for many the sinking of the ship reinforced the idea that cruises were not an ideal vacation, for me, who had never been on a cruise, sparked a different thought. Don’t judge me.  I thought that due to the tragedy that their cruises might be bargained price and afford me a champagne vacation for beer prices. I was right. An eighteen-day cruise from Santos, Brazil to Savona Italy, all-inclusive with a balcony stateroom was less than $1,500. I booked it on the spot. I hoped it would re-expand my world beyond my work, my apartment and my parents’ home. I hoped being on a cruise, without good internet and expensive phone service would allow me to recharge and get strong for the imminent and inevitable conclusion of Pop’s story. And perhaps, if I was lucky, I might find a little joy.

I did not expect to find a wife. But I did. On the third night of the cruise, I was seated next to a stunning Brazilian lawyer named Nadine Silva-Campos and by the time we said our farewells at the end of our cruise I knew that I had found my great love. An intercontinental romance commenced. Nine months later, punctuated by the deaths of both of our fathers and long flights between Rio and New York City, we were engaged. 

We decided to get married that summer, in my parents’ backyard, among a small group of family and friends. I asked Conor to be my best man and for the boys to be there for their “Uncle’s” big day. I knew, of course, that this meant that Delilah would have to attend.  At that point it had been almost five years since we had talked. I figured the wound had scarred over at that point those whatever uncomfortable feelings we had for each other had faded to skin tone. By and large I was correct. She was helpful and thoughtful. Mostly. Nadine told me later that she found her a little bossy. This was echoed by Mom who told me that Del had told her that she had arranged the buffet incorrectly and had set out to do it her way. If you are trying to make a good impression on someone in their own home, it is probably bad form to tell them they are too feeble to lay out a table properly. It is especially bad form if that person, like Mom, has a touch of obsessive-compulsive disorder and knows exactly how she likes things arranged.  Or if that person already thinks you a cunt.

I am not saying that the animosity had subsided, but it was enough to broker peace. I would not and could not forget what lay beneath Del’s church lady facade. A bell once rung cannot be un-rung. But it was enough to allow me to step back into their new home in California with only slightly uncomfortable feelings.

“Nothing Del” I said “Your husband and I were just discussing whether the green flash exists or whether or not it is myth invented by hippies and drug dealers to get us to stare at the setting sun. What do you think?”

She made no move to embrace me. Perhaps it was the oversized glass of red wine in her hand. Or perhaps like me our truce would only go so far. It didn’t really matter but it made for an awkward moment that was only relieved when she took a seat on the deck chairs on the far side of Conor farthest from me. Her welcome, or lack thereof, made me realize that Conor’s insistence that I stay with them was his idea and not embraced by Delilah. I was thinking how awkward this was going to be over the next few days when she said “People around here talk about the Green Flash all the time. You always see people walking out to the pier at sunset to watch it. Our neighbor Phyllis, she and her husband have cocktails every night on their deck and watch for it. “

“But have you ever seen it?”

“Well, no but….”

“That is what I was telling Conor. It is hooh-hah designed by some chamber of commerce to get people to come to the beach and spend money at their stores and restaurant” I said with what I hoped was more than a touch of snark to my voice.

I could tell from the nearly invisible smile on my buddy’s face that he had heard my comments the way they were intended. I was throwing a verbal hand grenade into the room and seeing what would happen. Or said another way, just adding a little spice to the conversation to make it livelier and fun. It is an element of my sense of humor. An element, I might add, that was shared by Conor and had been honed by Conor’s Dad who loved to inject a bit of contrarianism or fit of fantasy in a conversation for fun. All good, except I had forgotten Delilah lacked a sense of humor.

She replied with earnestness “Well, it just has to be true. Phyllis would not make it up. She has lived here all her life and she claims to have seen it. So I believe her.”

Conor chuckled. I may have too. Which I could see instantly was a very bad idea as Delilah’s face turned stormy. Pro tip: “never tease your hostess.” Especially if she doesn’t particularly like you, has little or no sense of humor, and you get her husband to join in. Her voice tinged with ice said “Well, why don’t we just sit and watch and perhaps then you will see that you have been wrong.”

Properly chastised, I turned my attention to the red orange globe that radiated a finger above the Pacific. It was splendiferous. Marmalade skies meeting a blue green ocean. In our silence you could hear waves breaking on the beach 200 yards away along with the occasional screech of a gull and the rustle of a flag on the neighbor’s flagpole. Watching the sunset, when I have had the opportunity, has always been one of those timeless moments reminding me not only of the inevitability that everyday must end, that we must suffer the darkness before we greet a new day. Watching the end of the day has been a ritual of man since we achieved sentience. And the green flash. How long had we been looking for that?  It is not that I did not believe in the flash. It was more that I didn’t need to see it to appreciate the moment. The green flash was, if it existed, was gilt on the already gilded.

There was no green flash that evening. That is, neither Delilah, Conor nor I saw it.  The sun slipped beneath the waves with no expressions of its departure at all. I couldn’t resist. I said, “Anyone see the flash?”

Conor said with a smile “I must have blinked.” Delilah, did not think I was funny and said with little enthusiasm “Lets go to dinner.”

We ate that night at The Strand House restaurant. It may not be my favorite restaurant in Manhattan Beach, but with its location at the end of Manhattan Beach Blvd. on the last hill before you reach the Pacific and with its large plate glass windows overlooking the world’s largest Ocean its view cannot be denied. They also made an excellent Manhattan which, due to my ironic sense of humor, I always drank when I am there.

When the waiter brought us our refreshments, I say “Dude, can you imagine what you father would be saying to us right now.” Conor’s father, Big Con to his closest friends, had been an oversized presence in both our lives. He was suave, always dressed elegantly even on weekend and wickedly funny in the way you didn’t always know he was joking. My mother once described him as “one of the handsomest men” she had ever seen. The president of an Investment company he had mentored me in the finer things in life extolling such things as how to make the perfect Martini ( over vodka so cold you could chip a tooth you whisper the words Noily Pratt) or at one legendary meal at the Brompton Grill in London introducing me to vintage Port.  Despite the fact we would argue about politics all the time (He thought Nixon a great President, I thought he was a crook.) he embraced me if not as a member of the family as a member of his clan. 

He was also a man of quiet faith and inner certitude they don’t mint any longer. On his way to work he would stop for a few moments of prayer and reflection at Trinity Church in lower Manhattan. He remained faithful, as far as I know, to his wife until the day he died even though she was a hopeless, degenerate alcoholic. Elizabeth O’Neil Kennedy had been a beautiful debutante, charming and witty when Big Con had met her. Somewhere along line she had fallen in love with the bottle (yes, I understand that the alcoholism is a disease, but I didn’t know that at the time) It meant that for most of their lives Big Con, despite being a legendary tippler (code for functioning alcoholic) he had both mother and father to Con and his two siblings Leonard and Kathryn. It was he who did his best to set his children on the right path in life let alone make it to school.

It was Big Con who had made sure that Con had put his nose to the grindstone in our senior year in High School so his grades would be sufficient to get him into his alma mater, Union College in upstate New York.  He was also responsible for convincing Conor to embark on a career in insurance. It was, after all, the de facto  family business. Big Con’s father had been a successful broker so it stood to reason that Con, despite his aspirations of being a psychologist, would undertake a career in the same industry as father and grandfather.

Big Con had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer just two years after we had graduated from college. A disease that we all felt was brought on by having the company he had built over the last quarter of a century stolen from him. It was an awful time. How could it not be? A vibrant larger than life young man, he was barely in his fifties, being eaten away disease that was slowly eroding his life force. He had refused all pain medication and had managed his pain with vodka and gritted teeth. My most vivid memories of those times were seeing this man I admired laying on a couch in his kitchen racked by pain and soothed by alcohol with his wife in her normal alcohol induced dementia screaming down from the stairs at him. ”You bastard. How could you do this to me. Leave me alone like this” as if she was the aggrieved party in his demise. 

Big Con had become mythical in Conor’s family from the tales we would tell Duke and Liam. Some apocryphal, some unvarnished truth. But what really stuck was an exchange my friend would have with his boys. They would tell him that he was “the best dad” and he would always respond “No, I had the best dad.” Thoughts of him when we were together were never distant. Waiting for our drinks I say to Con.   “He would have loved this place. Not just the beach. But the attitude. It is so different than most California beach communities. It is like the difference between Belmar and Spring Lake in New Jersey. People come here to live. There is a community and some age to the place. It is shut off from  the rest of the area. Self-contained. I can see him walking down the street. Dressed in blazer and grey slacks and tassled loafters window shopping and just enjoying the scene.”

Conor smiled and said “Here is to Big Con.” We clinked glasses.

I added “He would have been proud of you too. Running the west coast of the United States for Mercer’s. He would have gotten a kick out of that. What was that joke he used to tell about Mercer’s. The one with the guy trying to pick up a girl at a bar.”

Con smiled “A famous actor walks into a bar. He is a handsome brute with muscle bulging through his shirt and with a glow of confidence from knowing he will be recognized walks up to the prettiest woman in the place and says “You know the studio thinks that I am a perfect physical specimen even my dick is insured by Mercer’s for one million dollars. The woman snaps back “Really, how did you spend the money.”

Conor and I howled with laughter. Probably more than the joke was worth but more from the moment of celebration and remembrance of all the jokes that his father had told us. He was a prodigious storyteller. But I notice that Delilah is not laughing at all and is eyeing me with a glint of disapproval. The joke does not align with her fundamental Christian values, and it is yet another example of why she mostly disapproves of me. I don’t care. I have not cared since she shared her true feelings about me in that fateful phone call. But I am a guest in her home, and I try to be respectful of people even when they don’t reciprocate them.

I change the subject and ask “Delilah, new coast, new home. How are you going to be spending your days with Conor out making the world safe for insurance?” The appetizers arrive and we are all temporarily quiet as our starters are placed in front of us. I exchanged a quick glance with Conor. His look tells me that the question I ask is a good one. He wants to hear the answer as well. Her not working or contributing to the finances of the household has been a major bone of contention since little Con’s birth. It had become a sniping point and fodder for passive aggressive behavior between them ever since.

Del picked at her Caesar Salad, never raising her eyes from her plate and said “I have not figured that out yet. We have not even unpacked yet. And Duke is moving out here next month to start his doctorate at Cal Tech so I am going to have him get set up. So right now I have my hands full. I’ll figure out the rest when the time comes.” When Con saw that she would not meet his look, he said with more than a touch of irony “Don’t forget Del that idle hands are the devils workshop.”

It was an asshole thing to say. Couples should not argue in front of other people. It is unseemly, impolite, and make those who experience it want to either crawl underneath the table or referee neither of which is a good option. But that was Conor’s way. He was not easy on Delilah. He would often confront her about things that bothered him in front of other people and even his children. To my shame, I never confronted him about this. Partly because I had learned over time that couples had their own ways of navigating their relationship. My parents had loved arguing with each other, something that I despised seeing, but when as an adult I had confronted them on it my father had looked me in the eye and said “We have been married for forty-three years. How long have you been married?” I had met couples who never had sex with each other but had beaucoup sex outside the relationship but stayed together not because of inertia but because they loved each other enough that they found ways to make the marriage work for them. Those things did not fit my idea of what I wanted from a marriage but who the only opinions that matter in a relationship are those in it.  If it worked for them who I am to judge.

Later, I would wonder whether I should have said something to Con about his behavior. Perhaps things would have been different. Perhaps not.

I also knew what was going to happen next. I had seen it enough in their relationship. Delilah would adopt a saccharine sweet persona where she would coo and fawn over Con. He would respond with kindness and solicitude. And they would become a Facebook ready image of the happy couple.

That is exactly what happened. The boil of resentment lanced they proceeded to coo at each other for the rest of our meal. They talked about the life they were going to build for themselves in California. Their need for a second car and how Conor wanted a Lexus and the ever-thrifty Delilah thought it would be best if they bought a Honda. There was an apartment to decorate and golf clubs to investigate. Honestly, it was boring and a little unsettling to me. Dull because how others set up their domestic arrangements doesn’t interest me very much. Have at it. Call me when you are done. Unsettling because the ease they had moved from eye daggers to puppy dog love was so fast it left me dizzy.

Dinner concluded with a shared dessert of all thing’s donuts: Tahitian vanilla bean, apple crumble, chocolate crunch, spiced blackberry, caramel with fleur de sel. Very California to have a beginning of day sweet at the end of the day. To accompany our dessert, I ordered a bottle of Dolce by Far Niente and while not Chateau Y’Quem one of my favorite after dinner wines. I toasted them by saying “Dolce means sweet in an Italian and Far Niente meeting means without a care. May your new life in California be sweet and without a care.”

Little did I realize then how those words would boomerang on me.

We didn’t quite stumble back to their apartment. But we weren’t walking a straight line either. We were in that marshmallow state where you have had just the right amount of liquor, your belly is full of good food and you are in the presence of people that you care about. Conor was all for continuing our imbibing when we got home but I was still on east coast time and had reached my personal limit on alcohol, so I begged off and went to bed.

Robin Williams famously said, “I love Jack Daniels, but Jack Daniels does not love me.” I remember that every time I wake in the middle night after an evening of imbibement. Inevitably, I wake up. Inevitably, I cannot fall back to sleep.  That night, when I woke, it was even more difficult than usual falling back to sleep. Part of it was how uncomfortable I felt being in Delilah’s home. While there was a truce between us, there was also an underlying tension. It went beyond her barely disguised animosity for me. There was something else gnawing at the edge of my awareness but for the life of me I could not figure out what that was. In my eyes, Conor and Del had reached a pinnacle point in their lives. A beautiful new home on the beach in one of the nicest communities in California. A great job that not only provided a significant income but prestige as well. A marriage that produced two fine young men and while not perfect seemed, at least from the outside, to work.

I awake to the sound of distant drums and muffled cheering. I suspect that somewhere on the Ritz’s property a group of native Hawaiians are giving some mainlanders a highly sanitized introduction to their culture. Perhaps a hula demonstration or Luau. I have no desire to get up and join them. It is too corny and I am too tired for any socializing tonight. But I am still wrestling with what brought us here in the first place. Not only the death of Conor but the circumstances that led up to it, how I had missed so much and the role I had played when everything went tits up.  

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The Green Flash:

Posted on January 28, 2024 by 34orion

Day 1: 8pm

.

Chapter 1:

Well the first days are the hardest days, don’t you worry any more
‘Cause when life looks like easy street, there is danger at your door
Think this through with me, let me know your mind
Woah-oh, what I want to know, is are you kind.

Uncle John’s Band, The Grateful Dead.

I am lying on my bed at the Ritz Carlton reading.

They have upgraded my room to “Luxury Fire Lanai Ocean View “ from the garden view guest room I had reserved. There is no explanation for the switch, my “BonVoy” status was another victim of Covid. I suspect Liam may be behind it. He knows that this trip is stretching my finances, and he has a soft spot for his uncle. Whatever the reason I am grateful. Not because it is a bigger room. It isn’t. But I do have a view of the ocean and a fire pit and can easily imagine sitting there at night, fire crackling in the pit, glass full of bourbon in hand staring out at the Pacific hoping to catch a pod of whales breaching.

I am an inveterate reader. The type of person that always has a couple of books going at one time and another couple on his nightstand or in this day and age my Kindle ap waiting to be started.  Thank God for the Audible, Kindle and Apple books app on  my phone and iPad during the pandemic. I don’t know if I could have managed the last seventeen months of the pandemic without a constant source of new reading material. Far more than the streaming services that had defined so much of the Covid isolation experience for many, the printed word for me was supreme. It exercise my imagination far more and allowed me into the authors universe using my own eyes, not those of an intermediary. With books I may have been alone but I was never by myself.  

Make no mistake. I had been alone.  My only companions other my dog and books  were two dimensional and locked behind a screen.. It was “Travels with Charlie” without the truck and Steinbeck’s prose. Just like him the feeling of isolation from a world that I no longer fully understood. Confronting people like the Trumpinista’s who know longer behaved in rational, fact based world and killed millions with their ignorance and conceit. 

The point is that is no surprise I am reading. Nor that I am doing it from my bed as opposed to the by the pool or on the beach. I am tired and content with snuggling only with my down comforter and enjoying the view of the Pacific in air-conditioned comfort. .

It is not even a huge surprise what I am reading. One of the habits I developed over years of nearly constant travel is to always have a book about my destination handy. It didn’t matter whether it was nonfiction or fiction. Reading a story about a place or learning a bit of its history allowed me to connect to it in new ways. more deeply. I especially like reading mythology probably because it is a wonderful cocktail of fact and storytelling. Which is why I chose: Hawaiian Legends: The Legends and Myths of the Hawaii: The Fables and Folklore of a Strange People by King David Kalakaua.

He is an engaging writer despite his prose is rooted in the middle 19th century. He reads like Dickens might have had he been born in Maui not London. What is surprising about this book is the effort Kalakaua takes to connect ancient Hawaiians to biblical times. He points out that the origin humans in the Hawaiian mythology, Ku and Hina, were created from dust and had life “blown into them” just like Adam and Eve. Hawaiians circumcise their males as do Jews and Muslims . He says it is supported by anthropological research pointing to the physical similarities between semitic and Polynesians peoples.

I think King David Kalakaua is trying too hard to make a connection. Perhaps it has something to do with his name although I suspect it has more to do with the missionaries who flocked to the islands in the early part of the 19th century. No doubt they helped the natives “see the light” by equating their myths to those in the bible. Adoption and inclusion of native culture into Christian mythology has been a hallmark of evangelism since Peter.

The person I would love to talk to about this is my dad. He was an intellectual, a scientist and a professor. He loved breaking down theories down to their basic premises and then examining those microscopically to see if you could find a flaw. A colleague of his once described as a man who upon seeing a herd of white sheep would proclaim “lets drive around to see them from a different angle to make sure they are not black on the other side.”  We have had these types of conversations a lot over the years as he and I were eager travel companions. I remember arguing with him in Israel about whether the rock, as in the Mosque of the Dome of the Rock, was the actual place Abraham took Isaac to be sacrificed. In Alaska we talked about how the indigenous people arrived in the new world. Was it a “land bridge” or by sea? In his native Vienna we discussed the barbarian hordes. Sadly, when we were in Hawaii together, we never discussed this. We talked about other things.  Like green flashes.

Dad  has been gone for five years. Even after all this time it is hard for me to say he is dead. This is not because I can’t accept his passing. I can. I do. I was holding his hand when he left. Watching someone transition from this world’s existence to whatever may lay beyond creates a kind of post traumatic shock that is hard to shake. It provides a finality but experiencing the razors edge difference where life can exist one second and then be gone the next makes you think, or perhaps hope, that the difference between the two states is perception. What are my symptoms of my PTSD?.  Most of the time it is just ghost memories, like his love of mythology and hotels that have “enough” towels.  But on occasion, especially since my days of Covid isolation, they have taken on more corporeal manifestations. They are no less maddening, hurtful, nostalgic, painful or scary. They are just more real and leave an indelible mark on my state of mind. Instead of conversations there are monologues with most of the talking taking place on my side.

It occurs to me as unimpressed as he had been with Hawaii when we visited the last time there is no doubt that he would have liked this room. Dad judged hotels by their showers and the quantity and quality of their towels. The Ritz would have gotten the Dabuk (our last name) seal approval.  Not only does it have six programmable shower heads with various levels of massage, but water temperature is set by thermostat not successive approximation. My shower had been a sybaritic delight. After eighteen hours of travel among the unvaccinated I had felt the need to clean down to the molecular level. As I lay down on the California King bed with its snow white down comforter I think “Pretty good Dad..” And I can almost hear him mocking me with “Lets see if it is still this good tomorrow.”

The ghost of my father reminds me to call my mother. My friend Des once called me a “Mamas boy” When he saw the look of horror on my face, he quickly added  “So am I.” I am really not though. Mom does not really control my life. Well not much. For years, or at least since Dad went away, I have been her primary care giver. I am the one who takes her to the store, the Dr, to visit family and friends. She lives alone and with little to serve as distraction she tends to worry about all nature of things from Donald Trump to whether her printer is running of ink. I assuage her fears when I can. Letting her know that I have reached the hotel successfully is a worry I can take off her plate. Okay. It also makes me feel loved to know that my well-being is an integral part of hers.

I look at my watch. It’s almost 4pm here so it is nearly 10pm back east and if I don’t call her now, I know she won’t be able to go to sleep. I touch her name on the speed dial of my phone and, after a pause of a couple seconds,  her phone begins to ring. And ring. And ring. Eventually, I reach the conclusion she is not going to answer. This doesn’t worry me too much. It has happened a lot recently. It just means she is doing something else.

I hang up and a wave of fatigue sweeps over me. I place my glasses on the night table, tuck a pillow under my neck and close my eyes. I fall asleep without even thinking about it.

“The green flash should happen at any moment.”

The speaker of that line was my best friend, Conor Sean Kennedy. We are on the deck of his apartment in Manhattan Beach, California watching the sun make its nightly plunge into the Pacific. This view, the nightly reverence for the final moments of the day, are still new to him having recently moved from Atlanta, and he was showing it off in the way one might show off a new car. The intention was not to rub your nose in how wonderful his life was but to share delight (excuse the pun) in where his life had taken him. He had reached a new pinnacle, and he was savoring it.

I understood. After all, isn’t that what best friends are for. To share in and celebrate each other’s successes. I knew that it was all new to him. This view, the apartment, the city and state still had a new car smell to it. They were all just weeks old.  A month before he and his wife had been empty nesters in a McMansion in a suburb of Atlanta. He had been running a second phase start up in the fin tech sector (I was never quite sure of what they did) that was struggling to find traction when out of the blue a former colleague had invited him to join Mercers, the largest insurance brokerage house in the USA and head up their west coast business. The job carried with it the stink of prestige, a huge salary and overall package that could make him a wealthy man in just a few years.

When he first told me about the job, I knew he would take it even though that decision was less obvious to him. He had invested so much time and ego in his startup that he was reluctant to leave despite the business having seriously drained his bank balances. He had a streak of stubborn in him, always had, that made him believe that given a little more runway, a little more money, his foray into entrepreneurship would make him as wealthy Mark Cuban. But the boy loved prestige. It was baked into him from our days of growing up in a tory suburb of New York City. His father had been a President of a small insurance firm and the life he had grown up in was that of entitlement and privilege.  Two things that don’t necessarily greenhouse entrepreneurs. Working for the most well-known company in his industry was something that appealed to his sense of self. I am not criticizing. All of us have egos and while Conor’s was more developed than most, I think most of us would feel boosted by landing one of the top jobs in our profession.

I also knew from our almost daily phone calls that he missed the perks that came with corporate life:  big salary, ridiculous expense account and worldwide first-class travel. All the things he used to have and had lost when, after a series of corporate mergers, he had lost the adult version of musical chairs and was forced out of the company he had been with for 20 years. He had received a great package and he ventured out to set the world on fire with his business and investing acumen. Not only because he felt he had the skillset for it but also, as he once put it “to prove something to those motherfuckers.” He had not failed in that goal. He had survived. But he hadn’t succeeded either. His years in the wilderness of entrepreneurship had fueled his competitive fire to prove something to those who had set him adrift. The new job would go a long way to settling that score.

If our high school yearbook had a category “most likely to move to California” Conor would have won in a runaway. He was blonde, handsome, glib, charming and with a near constant horniness that sabotaged any effort he would make towards more serious relationships. He also worshipped the sun, the beach, and the water in the way an acolyte would a deity. He loved nothing more than going to the beach,  slathering on Coppertone dark tanning oil (despite his Irish pale skin) and dreamed of spending his days body surfing, and admiring bikini upholstery.

The chance to live in California, by the beach, and live the life he always dreamed of I knew would be irresistible.

I felt, like he did, that it was his destiny to be here.

“Bullshit”

“What is bullshit.”

“The green flash is bullshit. It is in the same category as green sparks from wintergreen lifesavers chewed in the dark. A modern fairytale. Doesn’t exist. A myth created so people feel justified in watching the sun set into the ocean.”

“I have seen it.”

“Sure you have…show me a picture.”

“I am sure I can find one on the internet.”

“Yeah, and everything on the internet is certainly true.”

At this point, we were both chuckling. He with the deep belly laugh that he had inherited from his father and my own laugh come from that deep inside place where real amusement grows. Our exchange was a summation of our relationship where neither one of us took each other so seriously that we would accept without question what the other said. In fact, it was more likely to be the contrary, where we would find a way to poke a hole in the balloon of our pretension. Not out of meanness, but to remind us that we each knew each other too well to try to bullshit each other. Or at least that is what I thought.

Besides busting balls is what men of our generation do to show affection.

“What are you two boys laughing at?” Conor and I both turned to see Delilah standing at the sliding glass doors that separated their apartment for the deck. I immediately stand up to greet her. She had not been at home when I arrived an hour ago, which, if I were to be honest, I was grateful. Once we had been great friends but that ended years ago.

Delilah and I met shortly after I had graduated from Syracuse. We were both in IBM’s legendary sales training program. It was everything a recent college graduate could hope for then. A salary way above what our peers were receiving in their first jobs, training that would be useful regardless of what path we took in life.  Initially, the largest part of the job was sitting in a classroom learning the IBM selling technique and memorizing the FAB (features-advantages-benefits) of the products we sold. For a borderline ADHD guy like me It provided a lot of time to daydream, a skill which I was particularly adept at especially when it came to contemplating the few women who were my class. The selection process, which while enlightened for the day, still had a long way to go as far as rooting out sexism. The women in our class were selected not only for their businessmen acumen, they were all aggressive and smart, but for their looks. In both areas, Del was top of the class. Tall and slim with the Nordic features and flouncy shag cut hair that seem to define that era, I imagined I could sense a “wildness” underneath the modestly cut, shoulder padded, business suit with matching pirate blouse that was the women’s business uniform of the day.

 I made it a mini mission to take her out on a date. I was not particularly slick in my attempts. Asking women out was not my most developed skill set. But what I lacked in style I made it with sincerity.  This allowed me to have a lot of women as friends but very few who were more than that. My ploy was asking her stupid questions about material we had in class or ridiculous questions about the future of the technology we were using (Fax machines were in their infancy and the first home PC’s were still a few years away.)  Delilah knew what I was up to or at least that is what she told me later. Eventually I wore her down and she agreed to go out for drinks. 

We went to a backgammon bar near our office and played a few games while quaffing overpriced beer.  I still recall the exact moment that I knew that there was not going to be a love or for that matter a lust connection. I had just won two games in row, and we were getting to know each other. Telling our origins stories. Where we had grown up. What kind of mischief we had gotten into to college when she told me “how she had been saved” and about her “personal relationship” with Christ. I am not against religion. I am not against Christianity, per se. However, I am the son of a Holocaust survivor and had a strong animosity against any who proselytized too fervent a belief in God. Most of the “born agains” I had met were condescending (my god’s better than your god”, sanctimonious (Jesus wouldn’t want me to do that)  and hypocrites ( I know it is wrong, but Jesus will forgive me.) With Delilah, it poured ice water on any lusty notions I was erecting. Eliminating the sexual tension allowed for a relaxed evening of conversation and backgammon. At some point it struck me that this woman was just Conor’s cup of tea. This was more an emotional leap of faith than some magical check list. I felt, instead of knowing that the two of them would click.

My hunch was spot on. The two hit it off practically on introduction and within weeks were a “couple.”  Delilah  became a regular at the beach house Conor and I had rented in Spring Lake New Jersey where we would party and sun ourselves into submission on weekends.  Con all but moved into Del’s apartment.  When Conor’s father died of lung cancer, and he fell apart, she and I helped him up. When he developed a taste for cocaine that he could not control we helped him confront his addiction and move beyond it. When they fought or hurt each other’s feelings I was the one each turned to as mediator and confidant. While likely not the healthiest of ways to manage relationship, it worked forthem. And for me. We became a family of sorts.

They were engaged twelve months after being introduced and married just six months after that.

When Conor’s job transferred him to the UAE, they married and Del quit her job and followed him. I would send them the latest videotapes ( pre streaming technology that required an advance degree to master recording the correct shows) and exchanged frequent letters (things people used to send each other before email, Zoom and texts) When they would get leave, I and whomever I was dating at the time would meet them at some foreign destination and party and play until we needed IV’s and oxygen to recover. When they returned to the states a few years later and started their family I became Uncle Danny. As Con put it at the time, no doubt quoting someone else, “There are three types of families. Those we are born into. Those who are born to us. And those we let in.”

As I had during their courtship I often served as a counselor to both and a mediator when necessary.  For example, when their oldest son, Conor Jr or Duke, was born Delilah unilaterally decided not to go back to work. It created a crisis in the family. Con hated the idea of shouldering the financial burden by himself. He told me that one of the reasons he had married Delilah was because she would be a financial partner as well as domestic. This changed everything. He resented it immensely. Delilah felt that the price of day care combined with the separation from her oldest child was too heavy a cost for the family. I understood both points of view and had conversations with both that eventually led to an understanding between the two of them. Con would become the primary breadwinner in the family and Delilah would manage the business of the family. With the twenty-twenty hindsight of chroniclers this was the original sin of their family. Mine as well. For them it buried a resentment buried so deep that when it emerged years later it had mutated from a benign disagreement to a cancer that would end them.

My sin? I thought that I was kind in helping them. I wasn’t. Instead of helping them develop a tool set that would allow them to confront their issues as they developed, I had given them a work around that was not only unsustainable but allowed resentments to fester and grow. I am not self-flagellating. My intentions were good. Even nice. But looking back on it, I had provided them with not a cure, but a palliative, to the challenges of their marriage.

Life went on for the Kennedy’s. They seemed to be living the American dream. Con got promoted and transferred first to Chicago, then Atlanta. Along the way, their second child, Liam was born. And Uncle Danny was along for the ride. When Delilah was ordered to bed rest before Liam was born,  I used a weeks’ vacation to help around the house. I devoted myself to being the best uncle I could be. When I discovered that the boys had never had a hot fudge sundae, I threatened Con and Del with calling children’s protection services, and immediately took them out to Cold Stone Creamery to remedy the situation. As they got older, there were expensive dinners and trips to Yankee Stadium. I shared with Duke a love of books and learning. With Liam a sense of play, fun and humor.

Looking back I was there for every major point in their relationship. A family member, friend, confidant, godfather and consigliere.

It was all good until it went bad.

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The Green Flash: Chapter 1

Posted on January 25, 2024 by 34orion

Day 1: 3pm (Continued)

It is my nephew, Liam. 6’4”, and despite his twenty-eight years a boyish face with rosy cheeks, dimples, and a beard that only needed to be shaved twice a week. Covid protocols be damned we gave each other a hug. Not the back tapping, no body contact hugs of relatives at holidays and birthday celebrations but the full body contact, boa constrictor hug suitable for the return of prodigal son, winning lotto or other life changing events. There were tears. Our journey over the last few years called for them, as did the fact that it had been eighteen months since I had seen him last. During that time, the world and our universe had been altered beyond recognition.

He smiled down at me. If you did not know him as I did you would think him cherubic. But I knew what lay beyond that smile. Here was a man who over the last few years had to make decisions and sacrifices that I had not had to make until I was well into middle age. He had gone through gauntlets that even cruel fiction writers would not have imagined for their protagonists. He had done so without an utterance of self-pity. No wo-is-me for him. He had faced each crisis as it came head on and while not always maintaining his composure, who could, he had gotten up every time he was knocked down. His resolve unbroken, ready to face whatever the next crisis was head on and often with a sense of humor.

I was not surprised to see him. I had arranged my flight to arrive at the same time as his. But somewhere along my fifteen-hour journey I had decided that I would make a quick exit at the airport and meet up with him and the rest of our fellow travelers later that day. But Hawaii had distracted me and made me forget my plan. And instead of getting a few more hours on my own, to build up my strength for what was to come, here he was.

“It’s good to see you shrimpy.”

This elicited a big grin. I had been calling him that since he was a toddler and following me around the house on one of my frequent visits to his parents’ home. It was a simplification of my original sobriquet for him, “shrimp toast.” I don’t remember how I came up with that. It is not even an item that I usually included in my Chinese takeout order. I just liked how it sounded and he loved having a nickname back then and when, as a teenager, he began to sky above me, it became ironic, and we both loved it even more.

“You too Uncle Danny.”

“Where is everybody else.”

“At the carousel waiting for the luggage. I saw you out here so I thought I would say hello.”

“You didn’t pack…” I said letting my voice trail off.

He laughed “God no…in a rollaboard. Couldn’t trust them to the luggage handlers.”

Smiling I said “And who said you were not bright boy. Listen, I am desperate to get to the hotel. I smell like a skunk and have some phone calls to make. Can I catch up with everyone at the hotel? Cocktails and dinner?”

Waving his hand in front of his nose as if he had smelled something awful, he said “Yeah. That is a good idea. Let me talk to Hadley and the others and I’ll text you “

“Okay.” I said, grabbing my rollaboard and backpack and began walking to the taxi queue. I had only gone a few steps when I hear a shout “Uncle Danny, I am glad that you are here.” It is Liam’s brother, Duke. He is standing near the exit of baggage claim, and he is waving at me.

I grace him with the half smile the forlorn show to others when we want them to believe they are doing fine and yell back. “Where else could I be?”

I hate lines. Doesn’t everyone? My father once told me the reason he became a psychologist was the line to become a zoologist was too long. One of the only positives about the pandemic is that it has made lines more manageable, people no longer crowd together, and of course there are less people. The taxi que is proof of that. There is just me and a family of three, two teenage girls and a mom, in line. The girls are wearing, from what I can infer from the social media posts of nieces and nephews, typical travel outfits for their age group:  pajama bottoms, Good Mythical Morning T-Shirts and Ugg Slippers. Each has a black North Face backpack and burnt orange hard shell roll-a-board. They seem underwhelmed by their surroundings and very put out for having to wait for a cab. They barely look up from their iPhones. Their mother, a petite woman wearing faded, low rise, boot leg jeans, a white embroidered peasant top, is doing her best to navigate the line with a large rolling suitcase and a dark blue Tumi backpack that is working double duty as purse and briefcase. She is attractive. Not in the glamourous way they depict in fashion magazines, all cheek bones and facial angles.  Instead, it is the type of beauty that gets better with age. It looks like a face you could spend a lifetime staring at and never get tired of the view. She catches me looking at her and I blush when she smiles at me and gives me the smallest of head nods hello. In my embarrassment at being caught out I look down. When I raise my head, they are gone, and my cab is pulling in.

I put on my red KN95 mask and climbed into the cab, a late model silver-grey Honda Odyssey. We drove out of the airport past Krispy Kreme, Costco and Target and Safeway. It strikes me how “all-America” Hawaii is. This was “paradise.” Yet, it looked like middle America. That was never my idea of paradise. In fact, I spent most of my life trying to avoid anything that even hinted at being a part of the normal. I wanted to be a little different. Not that there was anything wrong with living a check list life of middle America. If that made you happy, I had no beef with that. But I didn’t think it was for me. Yet here I was, in Paradise, surrounded by the trappings of middle-class life. Perhaps I had made a mistake in my journey. This was the way paradise should look.

We pass a cookie cutter town home development that is set in the middle of a sugar cane field. So close to the airport it cannot be for tourists. This is where the people who work in the resorts live. I had read in the run up to this trip one of the biggest problems on the islands these days was housing. Not for the wealthy and the rich. There was an abundance of domiciles for them. However, for those who made the made the illusion of paradise, the angels who tended bars, waited tables, who cleaned, collected garbage, and sang soothing songs to the paradise seekers there was little affordable housing. They were forced to live far away from where they work, in developments that were built on the cheap.

Was it ironic or just sad that those who visit paradise live a better life than those who make it possible for them to be here? Why was I not surprised? It is the heritage of these islands since the time of Captain Cook. When he “discovered” the island he was greeted by surfing Hawaiians, many bare-chested women, greeting him with the “aloha spirit” which according to an article I read “is the coordination of mind and heart within each person. It brings each person to the self. Each person must think and emote good feelings to others. It means mutual regard and affection and extends warmth in caring with no obligation in return.” Cook and his crew had little or no appreciation for the spirit in which they were greeted. Eventually the Hawaiians caught on and after a particularly egregious offense where the crew on orders from Cook, attempted to desecrate a burial ground and seize the king, the captain was murdered and in an abundance of irony, became an entrée for the chiefs that evening.

After Cook came the bible thumping missionaries from New England. Often newlyweds, as missionaries were required to be married, packed eight to a tiny cabin, they endured a six-month journey around Cape Horn, the most dangerous passage in the world for sailors, and almost all arrived pregnant. I have always found those logistics intriguing. (Did they schedule private time, surrender their modesty and was it just one Puritan orgy.) Hawaii must have been a huge shock for them. They had left a land caught in a mini-ice age. A place where one of the main exports was ice (Queen Victoria’s favorite ice came from Wenham Lake north of Boston) and arrived in a tropical paradise where the average temperature was in the 70’s. Of course, they set out immediately to spoil it. Nakedness was the first to go as it offended Christian morality and within short order acquired most of the land rights from the natives who had little understanding of property ownership, deposed the King and established a “republic” and in the process wiped out much of the native population with the diseases they generously shared with the natives who had no immunity.

It reminds me of the book I have tucked away in my bag. “The Curse of Lono” by Hunter S. Thompson. I brought it with the intention to read as an homage to my friend Conor, Liam’s Dad. He loved Thompson and before cosplay was cosplay would don Hawaiian shirt, aviators, and smoke cigarettes out of a holder when we were in partying mood. Since we were here to honor him, I thought it righteous addition to my luggage. I hadn’t opened the book yet out of fear of the emotions it might evoke but thinking of Cook reminded me of Lono. The Hawaiians had thought Cook was Lono. And one of the reasons that had for clubbing, stabbing, and then roasting him was he was not who they thought he was. Always a disappointment when someone you know is not who you thought they were. But sadly, most people are not who you think they are. They are projections of either your hopes, or fears, or both. Which really is not a problem until you realize that your impression of them is not real. As Dr. Thompson said, “When the going gets weird, the weird get going.”

One of the symptoms of my year spent entirely by myself due to Covid isolation is the amount of time I get caught up in thought loops. With little or no interruptions from human contact and other interruptions, my mind tends to wander like my ancestors in the desert. It is at best a badly designed time portal where time could either pass very quickly or seem hardly to move at all. It would be great if I had some control over it. But it has a will of its own. In this case, time had accelerated. The cane fields had melted away and been replaced by the Hawaii of brochure, poster, and Instagram posts. On my left was the Pacific glittering like a thousand diamonds and to my right steep, verdant, volcanic mountains. A sign tells me that Kapalua, my destination, is only eight miles away.

I am headed to the Ritz Carlton, Kapalua. It is a wonderful if not magnificent hotel. Some even consider it one of the best hotels in the US. Why not? Located on a promontory overlooking the Pacific and the islands of Lanai and Molokai, guests can see Humpback whales breaching from their rooms. Combine this with two championship golf courses, world class tennis facility, multiple pools, its own wildlife preserve, six dining facilities, a luxurious spa, and rooms that inspire you to remodel your bathrooms when you got home, and you get the full luxury Hawaiian holiday experience. Don’t get me wrong, I am a hedonist at heart and love the wallowing that this type of resort has to offer. But considering what the pandemic had done to my business, it had all but evaporated, this was not the budget option I was originally seeking. I wanted to find a small apartment on Airbnb or budget hotel, but my vote was not considered.

Even if I had the capital the purpose of this trip was not a vacation. I had not come to Hawaii to spoil myself. How could I? The world was on fire. Despite the vaccine tens of thousands in the US were catching Covid every day, hundreds were dying. It is not that I didn’t get why after sixteen months of lockdown why folks would feel the need to let loose and enjoy life in the best way they could. I did. I felt that as deeply as anyone, but survivors’ guilt can be a bitch. It makes you feel guilty for enjoying what providence had blessed you with instead of savoring the things in life that had been denied us since March 13, 2021.

But six hundred thousand people were dead in the United States alone. Thirty-three million had suffered through the disease only to face an uncertain health in the future. My conscience had a hard time justifying me being pampered and luxuriating when so many were still suffering and sacrificing.

I thought of my friend Alice Liddel. A pulmonologist, she had been on the front lines of the Covid epidemic. Endless shifts in ICU’s trying to save people’s lives. She had tried to describe to me what it felt like to know she was doing everything she could to save someone’s lives and knowing there was little or nothing she could do to save them. How it was made more difficult because her patients were dying alone because Covid protocols meant no visitors. The dying only had her and the other health care workers to comfort them as they suffered and then died. This would happen dozens of times a day with not enough comfort to go around. It ate at her soul like acid on metal. There was no respite for her. No comfort from her family as she could not risk infecting her small children or husband. In war, soldiers who had been in battle were sent to rest camps where they could reset and decompress. Health care workers had none of that. They had no respite for a year and half. Shouldn’t they be here? Not me.

I know. I should feel grateful for having the means and the ability to be here in paradise. And I did. But I could not shake the guilt. Nor the sadness.

Ironically, it was the sadness that brought me here. Sadness at the loss of my best friend Conor. He had perished six months into the pandemic. Not of Covid. Brain cancer had taken him. In his last days, he asked Liam and I to take his ashes to Hawaii to be dispersed. The islands had been his idea of Nirvana, and he joked the only way he knew he would get to heaven was if he would scatter his ashes there. At the time it had made me laugh in the sad way when a joke cuts too close to the bone. When he died it had become our mission to grant his final wish.

And if I was being truly honest with myself, my reluctance to stay at the Ritz, while certainly influenced by the pandemic and my feelings surrounding it, had more to do with who had chosen the hotel and was to join us there: Delilah Peterson Kennedy. Delilah was Conor’s former wife, Liam’s mother, and self-made millionaire if that term applies to people who get large insurance payouts when their ex-husband, whom they helped kill, die.

We had once been great friends. Great friends. I had introduced her to her Conor. I was best man at their wedding. Had been there for the birth of both her children. I had taken weeks off from work when in the late stages of her pregnancy with Liam she was ordered to bed to care for her and baby “Duke” her first born. I had spent holidays in her home and spoiled her children with gifts, and experiences. And despite the fact we didn’t not share the same world view, she is being a Fox News Republican, and I a MSNBC democrat, I had always tried to treat with respect and like a sister. Which is not to say that we did not have our disagreements. We did. One or two that had even escalated to the point of silence and benign neglect. Eventually, we would forgive each other. Perhaps not forget but forgive. That is, until a few years ago when a fuller picture of who and what she was revealed when after 32 years of marriage she had left Conor for a man that she had met online.

It was not that she was divorcing Conor that angered me. Shit happens. People grow apart over time. My buddy was not easy and had never been an angel. C’est la vie and all that. But as it turned out, she was not interested in merely divorcing him. Her goal was to destroy him. And in the end, she did. As irrational as it sounds, I blame her for the cancer that claimed him. After that, bridges burned, crops scorched, and prisoners executed. The idea of spending even a little time with her filled me with disgust and revulsion.

None the less, I had to be here. That is what friends did. Or at least that is what I believed. What friends do is show up. Always. Regardless of circumstance or sacrifice. You showed up. Explanations were not necessary. Excuses were not given. Sometimes you didn’t even wait for the invitation. You showed up. I had when Conor got sick. I was there when he was dying. Now that it was time for the final goodbye, you showed up even if it meant being with a person where loathsome was the nicest word you could use to describe them.

Even if it meant spending time with a murderer and destroyer of universes.

Why was she running the show? She was, I had learned from bitter experience, a master manipulator who when she didn’t get her way became an agent of destruction. Liam didn’t have a chance against her. I never questioned why she was coming along on this trip. I knew. But I did ask Liam when he was letting her do all the planning and his response was “She wanted to” and “You know her Uncle Danny. It is just easier to go with it. Besides, it is a great hotel. The type Dad loved. You know that.”  I didn’t have the courage to tell him that it was too expensive for me. It was off brand and embarrassing.

So, I shut up and do what friends do. I showed up.

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The Green Flash: Chapter 1

Posted on January 23, 2024 by 34orion

Day 1: 3pm

Hawaii smells as heaven should.

It felt that way because for the last fifteen hours I had been on an airplane wearing a KN95 mask and after smelling my own breath for that long anything would smell heavenly. But I don’t have halitosis and for the past sixteen months most of the breathing I had done outside my own home had been filtered the same way.

Hawaii just smells good.

This even though I was just outside the main terminal at Maui’s Kahului International Airport. Logic would suggest it should smell like jet fuel and car exhaust. But logic is not a word that applies much to Hawaii. Maybe. Everyone says that Hawaii is magical. They are right. Or perhaps it was just old sensory memory. I have been to Maui before although it seems like a lifetime ago. But what didn’t. The pandemic had drawn a line in everyone’s life. Our life before and our life after. But what did it matter if it was real or my imagination? My brain didn’t care. I was where I needed to be, the world smelled new again and I was open to what it might bring me.

I took a deep breath. Inhaled it as a sommelier would savor a vintage wine of note: deeply, with utter satisfaction The first note I caught was of the ocean. Caught on the trade winds that caressed the island. It was briny and fresh purified by the thousands of miles of Pacific that separated it from the world we live in. There were hints of the floral. Jasmine or Hibiscus. Their scent wafting in and out. Elusive like so many things these days.

I was not in hurry to go anywhere. And, after spending much of the last year and a half indoors and the last sixteen hours locked in a metal tube, I was not anxious to get into a cab. I saw a white metal bench, directly adjacent to the taxi queue that was bathed in sunlight, and it looked to be an ideal place to sit for a moment and let the day come to me. I made my way to it and sat down and soaked it in the sun like it was an essential nutrient for my spirit. Perhaps it was.

A gust of wind brought a new scent. I could not identify it, but it was deeply herbaceous and made me wonder what it might be like for someone with no sense of smell to be here on this island. Covid had robbed so many of their sense of smell in the last eighteen months and that horrified me. My memory is often triggered by his sense of smell. I once broke up with a woman when I found out she had no sense of smell whatsoever. I know. A little shallow of me. Especially these days when so many have lost their sense of smell due to Covid. But don’t judge me by what is happening now. That was then. When the world was a little simpler. But I digress. At the time I could not see a future with someone whom I could not share the gloriousness of the scent of fresh baked bread, newly pressed sheets, or lilacs in bloom. Scent transports me. Reminds me of people and moments in time. Not just brief flashes of memories but often fully cinematic experiences where I can replay full scenes word for word, minute by minute.

It doesn’t need to be perfume. Or even pleasant. When my brother and I were young our father who worked only a couple of miles from where we lived would take us to pick up our mother who traveled each day to her job as an editor in the city by bus. When we would see our mom stepping off the bus, we would run to her and invariably just as we would reach her the bus would depart belching black diesel smoke. To this day, the smell of diesel bus exhaust reminds me of those precious mother’s hugs the cure all to life’s miseries in those days.

Patchouli reminds me of the first time I made love. It was the essential oil Brigitte Conlin wore the night I lost my virginity.

A whiff of Kenzo L’eau Par instantly brings me back to the fateful and dazzling evening I met my wife, Nadine.

Today, the smell of Hawaii brought me back fourteen years, to the last time I had been here. I had convinced my parents to accompany my girlfriend and I to Maui. Dad had just turned eighty and Mom was in her mid-seventies and despite having well used passports they had never been to what Cook named the Sandwich Isles. (This always amused me due to my impolitic love of puns.) The trip was wonderful. My frequent flying had managed to get us all upgraded to first class for the entire journey. We had rented a large modern townhome on a golf course in Kapalua with an unobstructed view of the Pacific and as, it turned out, of the sunsetting into the Pacific. After a day of activities, and before dinner, we would gather on our deck and have a glass of wine or cocktail and watch the sun’s descent into the sea.

One night, just before the sun plunged into the sea with a glow in orange and yellow above a navy sea, I asked my father, the scientist and skeptic, about an urban legend popular wherever people gather to watch the setting sun. I said, “Do you think the green flash is real or is it just something that tourist boards make up to get the rubes to gather in one place so the locals can sell them trinkets.” 

Dad is Viennese. Fleeing the Nazi’s, he had immigrated to the United States at fourteen. He had never lost his accent. As a consequence, he sounded like central casting had placed him in the role of a scientist. Mind you, it was not something that I could hear. Unless it was a word like snorkel (schnorkel) and the occasional “w” would come “v.” I thought he sounded like Dad but my friends could hear it so …He replied with his feint but distinct German accent “Wat is dis green flash.”

I said “I don’t know. Whenever I go somewhere like California or Key West, or anywhere they consider watching the sun setting a sacred obligation, I hear them talk about a green flash. Supposedly, it happens just as the sun dips below the horizon. I was just wondering if there is any science to it or it is a myth people made up.”

Being the scientist he was, a man trained to wonder whether the other side of white sheep were black, he said “Vell, vhy don’t ve vatch and see.” We spent the next few minutes in silence with only the quiet rustle of palms, and the occasional mewing of a seagull breaking the spell and watching the sun end its daily journey without an apparent flash.

He said, “Did you see a flash?”

“No.”

“Hmm. Neither did I.”

“So…”

“Vell’ he said with a twinkle of mischief “You know I cannot confirm it until I can observe the phenomenon but then again, I cannot conclude that it doesn’t exist. There is not enough data so perhaps we should make sure to watch the sunset each night to see what we can observed.” We both laughed. In fact, it had become a long-standing joke between us. Whenever I talked to him from California or anyplace where I could see a sunset he would ask “Did you see the flash.”

As I never did, I would invariably reply. “No.” To which he would respond “I guess you will just have to collect more data” and we both would laugh at our own private joke.

It reminded me. I had not called my mother yet to let her know that I had arrived safely. I know. It seems a little age inappropriate for a middle-aged man to call his parent to let him know he arrived safely after a journey. My rationalization is that it made her feel better. The truth is that it made me feel better too. For the longest time, she was the only one who genuinely cared where I was and was safe. Reaching for my iPhone I am dialing her number when I hear “Uncle Danny, Uncle Danny!”

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