Butterman Sleeps at Home
My friend Jo invites me for supper. "We're having beef stew and three kinds of dessert," she says cheerfully. I thank her, but Rich is in the hospital, I've been there all day, and tonight I'm just going to crash. "We'll bring you the leftovers then," she says. The next morning there is Jo at the door. She hands me a package wrapped in foil. "We ate all the stew," she says, "but here are three different desserts." Rich has a sweet tooth these days and I take Jo's desserts to the hospital. He is just finishing lunch and I hand him the little package.
"What's this?" he asks. "Beef stew?"
I love this stuff. It happens all the time. Rich knows nothing of Jo, or what she made for dinner, but since the accident he knows things he couldn't possibly know. Maybe when one part of the brain is severely injured, another part kicks in. Maybe hindbrain, the earliest brain, still in there underneath our more highly evolved layers, communicated differently, without language. If we peel those layers away, maybe we've got the family heirloom.
After all, who needs words? My dogs know more about me than I know about myself. When they look at me with that imploring "no, don't do it" expression, I realize I'm about to drive into town for a cup of coffee and the paper.
The first time involved a puppy.
My friend Denise came east after the death of her beloved dog, Gus. In the old days before his accident Rich and Denise were news junkies together; it was Denise who once gave Rich fifty pencils with the words
The Nicest Man in the World
engraved on them. The second day of her visit we were downtown shopping, and on the sidewalk in front of the store there was a woman holding a gangly cream-colored puppy. He was a white Doberman, ears and tail intact, and he was for sale. I watched Denise's face when she took him in her arms and realized this was a done deal. That night the puppy, christened Henry, ran around the apartment with my dogs, Harry and Rosie, all three of them barking. I remember thinking how Rich would have hated the chaos. The phone rang. It was a nurse from the facility where Rich was living telling me my husband wouldn't come out of his room. He was certain Dobermans were outside his door, waiting to attack him.
Rich knew nothing of the puppy in our apartment.
Today Rich mentions the name Eddie Butterman and says something about the stock market. He has talked about an Eddie before, but without the last name.
"Who is Eddie?" I asked the first time.
"Eddie is our beloved Eddie," said Rich. "Eddie is the only Eddie around."
He unwraps the desserts and breaks a chocolate brownie, offering me half. "No thanks," I say, but he sets it apart for me on a napkin anyway.
" The lounge lizard was here again," says Rich, brownie halfway to his mouth. "Maybe I should imitate him."
"Who?" I ask. "Imitate who?"
"The lounge lizard." Rich smiles, pops the brownie in his mouth, and the conversation ends.
Six months ago a friend was angry with me and I with her. I had written about something someone said many years ago, but it was she who heard the words, not me, a fact I had completely forgotten. Her experience was precious, and she accused me of stealing her memory. Not only that, but what she remembered with grief I had somehow transmuted to gratitude, so besides stealing her memory, I also got it wrong. We argued, but there was no meeting place. For days the same questions went through my head. Is memory property? If two people remember something differently is one of them wrong? Wasn't my memory of a memory also real? There were no solid answers, just winding paths I went round and round on. I thought of nothing else; a chasm had opened between me and my friend.
When I went to see Rich that Thursday, the first thing he said was "Please forgive the selfishness of an old man who seizes the past for his own." He paused, but I was already listening closely. This sounded oddly like what I'd been thinking about.
My friend Jo invites me for supper. "We're having beef stew and three kinds of dessert," she says cheerfully. I thank her, but Rich is in the hospital, I've been there all day, and tonight I'm just going to crash. "We'll bring you the leftovers then," she says. The next morning there is Jo at the door. She hands me a package wrapped in foil. "We ate all the stew," she says, "but here are three different desserts." Rich has a sweet tooth these days and I take Jo's desserts to the hospital. He is just finishing lunch and I hand him the little package.
"What's this?" he asks. "Beef stew?"
I love this stuff. It happens all the time. Rich knows nothing of Jo, or what she made for dinner, but since the accident he knows things he couldn't possibly know. Maybe when one part of the brain is severely injured, another part kicks in. Maybe hindbrain, the earliest brain, still in there underneath our more highly evolved layers, communicated differently, without language. If we peel those layers away, maybe we've got the family heirloom.
After all, who needs words? My dogs know more about me than I know about myself. When they look at me with that imploring "no, don't do it" expression, I realize I'm about to drive into town for a cup of coffee and the paper.
The first time involved a puppy.
My friend Denise came east after the death of her beloved dog, Gus. In the old days before his accident Rich and Denise were news junkies together; it was Denise who once gave Rich fifty pencils with the words
The Nicest Man in the World
engraved on them. The second day of her visit we were downtown shopping, and on the sidewalk in front of the store there was a woman holding a gangly cream-colored puppy. He was a white Doberman, ears and tail intact, and he was for sale. I watched Denise's face when she took him in her arms and realized this was a done deal. That night the puppy, christened Henry, ran around the apartment with my dogs, Harry and Rosie, all three of them barking. I remember thinking how Rich would have hated the chaos. The phone rang. It was a nurse from the facility where Rich was living telling me my husband wouldn't come out of his room. He was certain Dobermans were outside his door, waiting to attack him.
Rich knew nothing of the puppy in our apartment.
Today Rich mentions the name Eddie Butterman and says something about the stock market. He has talked about an Eddie before, but without the last name.
"Who is Eddie?" I asked the first time.
"Eddie is our beloved Eddie," said Rich. "Eddie is the only Eddie around."
He unwraps the desserts and breaks a chocolate brownie, offering me half. "No thanks," I say, but he sets it apart for me on a napkin anyway.
" The lounge lizard was here again," says Rich, brownie halfway to his mouth. "Maybe I should imitate him."
"Who?" I ask. "Imitate who?"
"The lounge lizard." Rich smiles, pops the brownie in his mouth, and the conversation ends.
Six months ago a friend was angry with me and I with her. I had written about something someone said many years ago, but it was she who heard the words, not me, a fact I had completely forgotten. Her experience was precious, and she accused me of stealing her memory. Not only that, but what she remembered with grief I had somehow transmuted to gratitude, so besides stealing her memory, I also got it wrong. We argued, but there was no meeting place. For days the same questions went through my head. Is memory property? If two people remember something differently is one of them wrong? Wasn't my memory of a memory also real? There were no solid answers, just winding paths I went round and round on. I thought of nothing else; a chasm had opened between me and my friend.
When I went to see Rich that Thursday, the first thing he said was "Please forgive the selfishness of an old man who seizes the past for his own." He paused, but I was already listening closely. This sounded oddly like what I'd been thinking about.
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