Is He Gone Yet?
By Janet Hall-Gilbert
Feb.8th
2013-02-08
Everyone at one time
or another has had a person in their lives…. Well let’s just say you would
rather be consumed by a boiling kettle of pig’s oil than to have to be in the
same room with them. Other names come to mind such as wacko, monster in the
closet, or Uncle Tom.
I have changed the
name to hide the identity of this person; (not). Uncle Tom was probably not a
bad character and he likely had friends, or at least some people that would tolerate
him long enough to say hello. Just not this person. (Which of course, means me
:)
It’s customary in
all families to get together for annual fisticuffs. Mine was no different. The
problem in my family is that my mother’s side just happened to have the most
wackos. Not that they were murderers or child molesters… but few could have won
an Oscar just for their costume design.
Sundays would be the
day that I was made to put on a smile, and wear that ugly dress that had so
much lacy stuff and starch in it. That when I walked, I sounded like a hammer whacking
a two by four when ever my knees hit the front of it.
We would load up the
car with some concoction that Mother had made for potluck at Granny’s. Then
head out, pickup Uncle Tom, for a fun filled afternoon with the family. (God I
hated those days.) One time I remember this very clearly because I received a
red butt for it. Tom had decided to ride in the backseat with my brother and I.
Of course there are four doors on a vehicle and he would have to pick mine. My
mouth began to open in protest, when my eye caught the… don’t you dare say a
word and move over look. His pants were caked with three weeks of dirt that had
dried and cracked. So when he slid across the seat touching the over starched
skirt, his pants split a hole in it from the waist to the hem. The rip was loud
to the point of deafening my ears. Mother spun around in a complete circle, her
eyes a bright red glow. I slunk down in my seat, thinking of the lash I would
get once the car stopped. I hated that dress and she knew it. Oh how many times
she had told me “Ladies don’t slide across their butts. They gently rise and
skooch over keeping things neat and tidy as not to show off their knees.
Tom was always the
center of attention at the supper table, not that he was a great
conversationalist, because a well placed grunt was the most I ever heard him
say and for this story’s sake let’s just say he lack a lot of social graces.
His un-kempt waist long beard was a nest of
hidden caverns of last week’s meals, a few drippings of chewing tobacco that
the wind had carried back in his face. He could not grasp that spitting into
the wind was not such a great idea. I often wondered if he peed into the wind
as well or maybe he just didn’t change his underwear that often. For sometimes
he had that outdoorsy bathroom smell.
Well enough of his
smell and back to his beard, I swear that on more than one occasion, something
moved inside of there and I’m sure it was a mouse, maybe a rat, but I had been
informed by my brother that we lived in a rat free province so my eyes were
seeing an optical illusion, and if there was anything alive in there it would
meet its demise once the hot ladle of gravy hit it.
He never talked much, and understanding him
was more of a lesson in learning a new language. Along with the language lesson
was a course that was a mandatory requirement, you had to learn what I call the
duck and wipe. For his toothless mouth had deadly accuracy, from fifty feet
away he could launch a chunk of turnip into the pupil of your eye, followed by
a barrage of spit that would sprinkle your face like a round of buck shot on a
carefully aimed target. I should know. I had, on more than one occasion, been
carefully placed across the table directly in the path of the volleying
onslaught of food.
“Take one for the
team sis,” my brother would say.
Mom would smile at me giving me a look of
love, and sympathy, kissing me on the top of my head. Then looking my brother
in the eye, taking a deep breath she would say. “For that comment my dear young
man you just earned you a spot next to him at the table.”
We all knew that meant you were heading into
the Mustard Zone. A silent but deadly gas would fill the room at least once
during the meal. I got good at reading his body. Calculating the time it would
take to reach my side of the table by the way he would adjust himself on his
chair. If he adjusted himself to the right, it would take two people to go
through before it reached me, but if he lifted his left leg I would have time
to call in the fan unit. That was Granny’s job. She had strategically placed it
with in arms reach so when she switched it on high the gale force winds would carry
the deadly gas into the direct path of my brother nailing him with both barrels
so to speak.
As I got older it wasn't a mandatory thing
that we attend all the family gatherings and when I did, I would make sure I
packed something that would resemble homework, and would be excused from eating at the big table
so I could spread my things out to study. For don’t you know an education was a
highly valued thing and my parents should be proud that I would be such a
diligent child with my studies. (I wish we had laptops and facebook back then.)
By the time I had reached my twenties I was
engulfed with my own path in life and Uncle Tom was but a memory. Until one day
an urgent plea came from my Mother. Uncle Tom was succumbing to old age. Since
Granny passed Sunday supper was not frequently celebrated, and Tom was placed
in a home. She needed to be by his side…my father had become hermit or shell
shocked by my mother’s family. He would hide in the bathroom grunting so loud
that a neighbour had called the police thinking he was having a heart attack.
When they arrived Mom told the officer that he was having a prostate problem
and would be just fine as soon as he rubbed a bit off. I often wonder if she
knew what she had told them. Anyway she needed a ride to the hospital to say
her goodbyes. After a few long uncomfortable minutes of making excuses and feeling
guilty I obliged.
When I saw him for
the first time I must say I was pretty impressed. I was looking for this frail
old man, with sunken eyes fallen cheek bones, ya’ll know someone that looks
like a good round of embalming fluid would do him some good. But he wasn't… his
cheeks were full, his beard had been unmatted and as far as his eyes went I had
never paid too much attention to them so I couldn't tell you if they were green,
black or brown, but they were open staring at the ceiling moving side to side
as if he were counting the holes in the tiles.
I watched my mother
take his hand. She nodded for me to come be by her side. Not the place I wanted
to be, I was quite comfortable leaning up against the door frame. I was fine
where I was. Why is it that mothers can
guilt you into do something just by looking at you? So I moved to the other
side of the bed. Uncle Tom’s eyes zoned in on me, he smiled, his mouth moved to
speak, I calculated which way to duck. Then I noticed the dentures.
“Shit this is gonna
hurt.” I thought. He drew in a deep breath, held it then letting it out slowly
until nothing was left. With his mouth now an open cavern, as life crept away.
The room eerily silent. My eyes fixated on his face. I watched the upper plate
of his dentures slip slowly from his gums… clacking when it met the bottom
plate, echoing throughout the room. I looked at my mother a tear trickled from
the corner of her eye. I wrestled with my thoughts Then decided I to ask. “Is
he gone yet?”
