Not Even Not Zen 377: Biomythography - Note 114: Correct But Wrong Memories

Correct But Wrong Memories

I’m standing in the living room of a fourth floor apartment in Frankfurt. From my angle relative to the furniture, and from the cushions and the rug, I’m about three years old. I turn toward my father in three, waddling steps. He's standing in the open floorspace past the couch.

My father is wearing dress pants, a buttoned shirt and a vest. He waves once to get my attention. When he’s got it, he says something he has said many times before.

“Vo bist du mama?”

He has encouraged me to memorize the phrase, I know. And I have. I know it's my turn. I’ve memorized an answering phrase.

“Mama ist in der Schule!” I pronounce. 

This is a compound memory in the sense that I can feel it happened more than once. Many times, he prompted me with the phrase, often in our home. The prompts happened slightly differently each time but they had a similar cadence. In my place during the return phrase of the ritual, I almost always I responded in the same, sing-song voice. The details of the individual events may be lost. They have been compounded into one archetypal memory. There's something slightly different about this one, a reason it stands out. The apartment has warm light from the lampshades.

Off to my left side, during this one instance, someone corrects my father. It must be one of my German nannies. I don’t remember her face, just the sound of a voice off to the side. And I remember my father trying out the new words she prompted and not liking them. 

Now that I have examined some German phrases, I realize why someone, most likely my nanny, was correcting my father.

The correct German phrase would have been, “Wo bist diene Mutter?” 

That doesn’t mean that my memory of my father's repeated phrase is incorrect. I think, in this case, I may have a correct memory of something repeated many times with the words incorrect. 

I've been a parent myself and I can reflect a little on how casually I approached some conversations with my children. I think my father had learned some German, very informally, and had either picked up local Frankfurt slang or he had decided to use his own blend of English and German to teach me.

"Vo bist du mama?"

The phrase illustrates a point, to me. No matter how careful I am with my memories, I am still led astray by them. Aside from how my process of recall is flawed, even a very faithful memory may in some way be corrupted slightly by my impressions of the humans of the time.

As a child, I learned many things that were wrong. I was taught wrong facts by trusted teachers, by textbooks, by uncles or cousins or other relatives, and sometimes by dear friends. I have tended not to examine those memories in light of my newer knowledge. That’s good for the process of faithful memory. 

It helps my recall to be faithful to the child I was. But it doesn’t make those wrong facts become true. It only points up how little most of us knew at the time and, probably, how little we know now. 

Not Even Not Zen 376: Biomythography - Note 112: Running from the Law, Part Zero

Running from the Law, Part 0

It started at a cast party. 

Someone's parents had lent their big, classy house for the event. I remember gawking (inwardly) at the cleanliness of the place. How was this a real family? They had matching furniture and pictures on the walls. The grey carpets looked new. The floors looked clean, especially the white kitchen tiles. Everything smelled nice. Someone had arranged knick-knacks tastefully on the shelves. They had hidden away their flatware in logical drawers and cabinets.

At my home, my father had started using his memory system for arranging everything. Lots of tools lived in odd places and the rest of us couldn't move them or else they'd be lost. Despite my mother's attempts to keep things clean, we had cat fur, dog fur, and cigar ash on most of our home surfaces (although not in the kitchen or dining room, where my mother was winning the battle against the rest of us). The furniture had once matched. Now, mostly, it didn't. My parents had added paneling to some of the walls because it was easy, but with different panel types in different rooms. We had a multi-colored faux-Afgani circus carpet in one bedroom. We had red, white, and blue carpet with stars in the main hall. Everywhere, we'd burned holes in the rugs and walls or we'd stained them with dirt and diet coke. 

Visiting a nice house was a revelation. The parents here had even put out plastic red solo cups. As with most cast parties, a few people managed to bring beer. We drank in celebration of the show. Then my girlfriend left. A couple cast members decided I should go out for more beer. That seemed fair. I had nothing to do but drink. (It's likely that I didn't have a car that night. Nevertheless, I looked old enough to not get carded, so I was the obvious choice to make purchases.)

Scene: There's a lack of a scene here, actually. I'm not sure if this was my first alcohol-induced blank spot. If so, it wasn't a major one. Part of the evening passed by in a blur, that's all. 

When my recall returns, I'm talking with one of my friends, Tom. He wants to serenade his girlfriend, Debi. That makes sense. I have the feeling he's mentioned this to me before, though. 

"Absolutely," I'm agreeing with him for the second or third time. "You should sing to her."

"And you?"

"Sure. We all should."

"I'll ask around for more singers."

"I'm in."

Scene: Our cast members include high school football stars, baseball stars, and a martial arts black belt, all part of our dancers. They're standing in the white-tile space between the kitchen and dining room. They're making wide arm gestures and they announce they're coming with us. They're agreeing to serenade our friend's girlfriend. 

"You agree?" Tom asks the baseball star again, a tall, black, muscular young man, possibly the best dancer in our show. 

"Of course I agree." He laughs. He's big, athletic, and sure of himself. In his way, he's a reassuring presence. He thinks we're doing something cute.

"You?" Tom turns to another friend.

"I already said I agree. Let's go."

 

"Okay." Tom nods. We're all agreeing. We're in. Tom returns to the question he's asked before. "Is anyone good to drive?"  

Scene: I am outside, wandering in the dark in front of the apartments at Orchard Pond in Gaithersburg. I'm not sure how we got here. But I know the development. In the distance, I see a streetlight. It's a long ways off. By my feet, I see inky black ashpalt outlining my shoes. 

One of my friends says, “Do we need him?”

“Yeah, we need him.”

Someone touches my elbow. Gently, he guides me by the arm toward the apartment on the next block. Sick from an over-indulgence of alcohol and maybe half blind, I stumble into the stairwell to join the others. I’m ready to sing.

Someone says, "Maybe this is a bad idea.” 

"It's a great idea."

"It's a hilarious idea," I volunteer.

Scene: We aren't in the stairwell anymore. We're outside, walking around the apartment building. The grass is dark. The sidewalks lay in shadow. I think that, moments before, we sang at the back windows of the complex. Already I don't remember the song we chose. It's a blank spot. Someone chuckles. 

“That was pretty bad. What next?”

“How did we get here?” I wonder aloud.

“Not with you," someone says, a bit too emphatically. "You didn’t drive.”

“Thank fucking god.”

After a minute or wandering in the dark, someone tells me I’m supposed to go to Jake’s house now. That’s a hefty walk, about a mile or maybe longer. It’s in another development. 

For a minute, I continue to wander in a circle. In the apartment parking lot. In the dark. Suddenly, a police car pulls up with whirling lights. Then another. Wow, it's a lot of lights. Then another. One of the doors opens on one of the cars. The silhouette of a man steps out. 

As I stand gawking at the lights, I hear voices behind me. My friends sound excited. 

Someone yells, “Scatter!”

Finally I know what to do. I scatter. Dim police shapes take off after me in the dark.

Scene: I'm on the double line near the top of the hill in the middle of Clopper Road. The street is not dark, at least not always. There's a streetlight behind me. There are headlights in front. A bit of traffic whizzes by, a silvery car. This is my strategy. An officer was chasing me in the development. But not anymore, not on the road. I’m losing the cops. 

Scene: I’m jogging on Longdraught Road, which in my head is spelled Long Draft. (For years, I'm surprised by the sign.) This isn't quite the direction to Jake’s neighborhood, but I'm pretty sure it gets me close. Every forty yards or so, I pause to look for cops. After a while, I cross to another road, Firstfield. It's so dark, the street sign for Firstfield looks silverly. The street lights are fewer here and farther between. But I'm pretty sure this is better. I'm think I'm almost on the main drag to Jake's condo development.

Behind me, red and blue lights swirl. When I sense they might be coming closer, I step off into the dark, behind a thick tree. It's like playing flashlight tag. I always liked that game. 

I'm good at it. A car passes. The lights never shine on me. The trees are my friends. Clumps of tall grass protect me when I lie down. I'm safe because I know how to play this.

Scene: I am standing outside a condominium. This looks like Jake’s door. It is putty gray with a stainless steel knocker in the center by the peephole. But I'm cursing at it. The door is locked. Either I got to Jake's place before he did or I have come to the wrong door. I knock again. I rattle the knob. 

Jake's condominium development duplicates the same pattern again and again. When I walk to the front stoop, I see identical design and construction in all directions. Even the street shapes are the same, although repeated twenty or thirty times. Every unit looks alike. I hadn't really thought about the condos before. They were just a place I’d visited while driving. Even then, I passed only with Jake giving me directions. I hadn’t traveled here on foot, drunk and lost.

I stand with my hands on my hips. Maybe I stopped walking one block too early. I only need to continue west a little more. 

While I'm thinking, a police cruiser whizzes by with its red and blue lightbar flashing. It's not running its siren. I take a few steps in the direction it took. Then I pause to throw up in some bushes. 

Scene: I'm standing at a similar building, a similar door, now one more block west. I had to dodge the cop car, which must have noticed me standing at the other place and doubled back. It's turned its search beam on now. That lets me see it coming from a long ways off, of course, and when I needed to, I just lay myself down in the tall grass. The beam passes over, no problem. 

Free of the pursuit, I try Jake's door. It's open.

With a sigh I keep to myself, I step inside. Quietly, I close the door behind me, careful not to wake Jake's parents like he said. Then I glance around. Except for a kitchen light, the place is dark. Apparently, I've beaten Jake home. 

I walk around for a minute and pause at the kitchen sink, wondering if I'll throw up again. The answer is no, so I look for Jake's father's liquor cabinet in the living room. To my surprise, they liquor isn't there. Is his father hiding it from us? If so, that was a lot of bottles. It took some effort. 

For a few minutes more, I walk in circles around the apartment. I stroll down the hall, where I can hear someone asleep in the main bedroom. Something about this place seems odd, though. The walls don't look quite right to me. Everything is set down with the right layout but the furniture and pictures seem slightly wrong. I head out to the liquor cabinet again. It's still not where it should be. 

With a feeling of dread, I inspect the pictures in the living room. There are none of Jake's mother. I don't see any of Jake, either. I'm in the wrong home. 

Feeling crushed and a little spooked, I step back outside. I squeeze shut the door behind me. Before, I was lost physically. Now I'm lost metaphysically, like a ghost. I'm moving through the world unnoticed. And I'm lucky to be passing through. I'm over-winning in the great game of flashlight tag.

If only I didn't have to keep dodging police cars, I know I could find Jake's house. All I need to do is clear my head a little. 

There on the front stoop, I sit down. Ten feet from the unlocked apartment, I lean my head against the cool, brick wall of the building's entrance hall. Maybe I doze for a moment, maybe not. For sure, I bring up a map of the development in my mind. I've never seen the place from above. But I have my driving experience on the roads. I remember the shape of the turns in my mind, the distances between. In a few minutes, I develop an eagle's-eye view in my head, or at least a drunk owl's view. I'm out of place because I've come too far south. I turned left, I realize, when I was lured by a familiar building I thought belonged to Jake's condo. What I needed to was continue west another block. 

I'm only two blocks away. No problem. One north, one west. I just need a moment to rest and then I'll be gone. 

When I close my eyes, I hear a car screech to the curb. I look up. Oh good, it's the police. 

Scene: 

"Are you okay, son?" The police officer seems to be dealing with me out of a sense of humor about the situation but also out of some real concern. 

There are three other officers behind him. One, apparently the first one's partner, stands close, silent, fingering a nightstick at his right hip but not in an anxious way. He's just fidgeting. The other two are wandering on the landing and sidewalk in front of the building. To my blurry vision, they are pretty much just uniforms. One of the distant pair has dark skin but the rest are pale-skinned in their dark, blue uniforms. Beyond them in the parking lot sits a parked police car in the fire lane. Behind it, with its lightbar on, sits a second cruiser. Wee-woo, wee-woo. It's not making any noise but I find myself humming to the inaudible sound waves for a moment. 

The cop asks me questions about my drinking and I confess that I'm only sixteen, no seventeen now, nearly legal. He's not impressed. He's also not mad. 

"Is this your first time drinking?" he asks.

I try to dance around that. He soon gets me questioning my knowledge about myself. It's not my first drink. Hunters had left their beers in the woods, for one thing. At fourteen, I had one. I maybe blurted that out because he gives a narrow-eyed, measured chuckle. 

"Are you good to walk?" he asks.

"Yeah. I know where my friend's house is. I'm supposed to spend the night there."

"Not supposed to be drinking, then."

"Um, no sir."

"Your parents don't know?"

"No."

"Can you find your way?"

"Yes. I'm sure." And I am. I have figured out how to get to Jake's. "I just needed to rest."

"And to throw up in the bushes."

"Oh, well, yes sir. Sorry."

"One last thing. We came here chasing some guys for disturbing the peace. Did you see anyone run by here?"

Meaning, did I see myself. And yet I had the impression it was a genuine question. He really thought I might have seen other teenagers run by.

"Uh, no." I pause for effect. "But I didn't notice you until you drove up."

"Yeah." He nods knowingly. "Are you sure you can make it to where you're going?"

"Yeah."

Amazingly, they hop into their cars and leave me on the stoop in front of the apartments. I rise to my feet as soon as they're gone. I pur a hand out and rip myself against the wall for a moment. Feeling wobbly or not, I'm not staying to find out if they change their minds.

Not Even Not Zen 375: Biomythography - Note 113: Our Own Best Doctors

Our Own Best Doctors

As I walked to the cashier line at the local Weis supermarket, a woman approached me from the right. The aisles were crowded. I stood among rows of shoppers trying to find the best checkout line for a moment, then I gravitated to a spot behind a lady trying to put her selections on a conveyor belt, so I didn't glance around much. A woman marched into my field of vision. She stopped next to me. Finally, I noticed. My visitor was a straight-haired brunette, about five foot six, a bit younger than me. She was in good shape in the ordinary way of an office worker, someone who doesn't have much time to spend in the gym. 

She gave me a friendly smile, which was, at the same time, a knowing expression. I wondered why she seemed so happy to see me and how we knew each other. Her face felt familiar, like she might be a person I'd seen enough to hold a brief conversation, maybe two or three. 

"Aren't you Mr. Gallagher?" she asked. Because she knew my name, that eliminated her as the sort of casual acquaintance I sometimes make with strangers. So I knew I should remember her.

"Um, yes?" She looked too young to be a swim team parent. She was the right age for an elementary school teacher. Maybe she knew my children.

"Didn't you break your plantaris tendon?" she continued. "And you ended up on crutches?"

"Well, yes." Now I felt mystified. A few teachers had seen me hobbling around but not many.

"I work for Doctor D, across the street."

The revelation took a moment. When I understood, I couldn't withhold a wince. That particular orthopedist had been useless. In fact, he'd been counterproductive. My GP had recommended him, which meant he was competent at his job and many other things besides. (My GP in those years was fantastic. She kept track of her recommendations and paid attention to what her patients reported back to her.) The orthopedist must have done well by a patient before me. But he got my case wrong from the start.

The problem, as sometimes happens with experts, was the state of the guidance. People have a tendency to accept a general summary sentence in a textbook as a hard rule. 

At the start of my only appearance in his office, Doctor D frowned when he saw me. I had broken my plantaris tendon. That's all I'd done, according to my paperwork. His textbooks told him it meant essentially nothing. Plantaris tendons aren't vital. I had hobbled in on crutches, so obviously (to him), I was a drama queen of some sort. He was pretty convinced from the start that I wasn't feeling any pain or disability. I only thought I was feeling pain. 

"You don't need those crutches," he said.

He dutifully and competently examined my right leg. He saw the lump created by my rolled up plantaris. It had been a clean break.

"I guess this is sore. You did this when you were running?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"Trying to get back in shape?" He gave a slight smile. Although my body was fairly young and still mostly muscle, I was starting to develop pudge around my middle. Years at a desk job can do that. A few weeks earlier, when I'd stepped on the scale and saw I was ten pounds overweight (again), I went back to running after work each day. On one of those days, I felt an electric twang in my right calf. It brought me to a halt. My leg felt weird. But I had a mile more to run to get home, so I resumed my trek. 

Within a few minutes, I was limping as I ran. A minute more and I was walking. I could barely manage to put my right foot down. Soon, I couldn't. I finished by hopping on my left foot. Barely, I made it home. Right away, as I passed through the front door, I sent my family members to look for our old pair of wooden crutches.

That evening, I couldn't put weight on my right leg. The situation seemed to be getting worse, not better. I decided to visit my family doctor. Maybe there would be nothing she could do but I wanted to find out what had gone wrong with me. 

She laid me down on a table the next day, touched my calf, and figured out it was the plantaris instantly. That's how I ended up in an orthopedic specialist's office. 

The specialist kept telling me I wasn't really hurting. And I could go right back to running. But for my part, I kept not getting better. Day after day, week after week, I couldn't move my right foot. The swelling and pain continued. After a few weeks more on crutches, my GP gave me a different recommendation, this one to a podiatrist. 

"Why didn't you see me before?" the podiatrist asked. "Your right calf is twenty percent bigger than your left."

"I didn't know that."

"Your plantaris is reattaching, probably. It's too late to do anything about it. But I can make you walk with a shoe insert, I bet."

His proposal seemed ridiculous. A mere insert couldn't help and I said so. But the podiatrist insisted. Eventually, I agreed to go along with the program. He measured me for inserts. After another week on crutches, I picked up the inserts and tried them in my shoes. To my shock, I found myself walking. In a few days, I felt almost normal. Although the shoe inserts weren't exactly a cure, they were an unexpected help.

At the follow-up visit, I left my crutches behind and walked in. To the podiatrist, I mentioned that my orthopedist said I could go back to running. The podiatrist laughed. 

"Maybe someday," he said. "You can try. After your walking is pain free, maybe." 

In the line at the grocery store, a year later, I tried not to insult the woman who worked for the orthopedist. She seemed professional, bright, and she still had on a sly expression. I noticed, finally, that she was wearing scrubs.

"The orthopedist, right." I nodded politely. I was struggling not to frown or sigh. "I see."

"Hah." She read my expression perfectly anyway. "I notice you're walking now. With a limp, but walking. Did you see someone else?"

"Two others. I got a set of inserts from Dr. Levine. Those helped. They really do a lot for me, I have to say. I can't walk without pain yet, I guess, but I don't need crutches."

"Just inserts? Interesting." Her mouth hung open in a wry smile, no teeth showing.

"Well, it's nice to meet you again." I didn't want to talk more with her in case she tried to get me another appointment with her boss.

"Did you know Dr. D broke his tendon?" She said this with a sort of glee. It was very odd. After all, she worked with him.

"Sorry to hear it."

"His plantaris tendon." Finally, her barely-contained smile broke into a teeth-baring grin. Her eyes crinkled. She beamed me a sense of smugness. "He's on crutches." 

"What, really?" This time, it was my turn to let my jaw hang open. 

"I've been thinking about you." She closed her lips but she couldn't suppress her satisfaction. Really, it had been on her face the whole time.

"Wow."

"Anyway, I'm really glad you're walking." She seemed to realize it was a funny conversation to have. People were starting to line up behind us. She gave me a tiny wave.

"Thanks," I said, and meant it a little extra.

Not Even Not Zen 374: The Drop Off

The Drop Off

I open the front door and almost step into it.

On the concrete slab, we now have 

a big, brown box, high as my waist.

How could I have missed the delivery? 

The screen door slams behind me. I halt, puzzled

by the mystery package. 

I have always known in advance.

I have heard footfalls fade down the walkway, at least.

How many times have I listened to a retreat?

I've watched the drivers hop up into the cabs of their trucks. 

I've studied their vehicles as they pulled away. 

Then it strikes me. I have not known.

The dog knew. She always got up.

She danced. She barked. 

She bounded at the door. 

She threw herself against me for reassurance.

"Quiet! Quiet, down!" 

I would hold her, pat her.

She would wag, sometimes lick me.

She would pant or whine.

My dog always over-reacted

and I had to spend a moment

in a hug with her, making sure she was calm.

Then we would fall into our customary positions. 

as I strode to the door 

with her by my side, her tail wagging

as if she were looking forward to meeting our guest.

She was usually disappointed.

We heard those retreating steps

or the slam of the truck door

as our potential guest left us.

The routine irritated me every time,

which is why it is such a surprise

to feel the sigh well up in my chest,

notice the heat in my face, my throat,

and to gasp a shivery breath.

I blink at the drop-off through water in my eyes.

Here I am, close to crying 

on my front doorstoop

because I'm missing the most annoying love 

of all the loves.

-- Eric Gallagher