When I was in Maryland, part of my day was working with dementia patients at a nursing home. The disease is a horrifying, yet fascinating phenomena. A bit like Flowers for Algernon, where the regression of a mind is on full display, the patients I worked with were at the cognitive levels of children, yet still had glimmers of adults in there.
I’d read to them, and the question of dignity was the most difficult challenge to address. A book suitable for adults was too complicated, taking many sessions to unwind. If short-term memory is shot, what happened in the last chapter is a non-starter. Moreover, a lot of grown up books are downright harsh. I’d try to read them Dr. Seuss, more appropriate for their ability, but then there’s the Dignity problem. They knew it, I knew it, and no matter if I framed them as the classics that they were, it still didn’t work.
So, I wrote them a story. One of these days I’ll write more of them. I kinda like it, and if you too could use a break from the Grisham despair that pervades our “chapter books”, well, here ya go:
My Buddy Joe
Food Fight
Let me tell you about my buddy Joe. Maybe you have a friend like him. Maybe you have a kid like him. Joe’s a bit off his rocker, but in a good way. He’s about yea tall, brown hair, and gets into the darndest things. Why, just the other day I went to the store with him. He thought it would be fun to start a food fight. It all started in the produce department. Brian the grocer had just finished setting things up. Summer’s finest was for sale. Fresh yellow squash, dark green zucchini, corn piled high, ripe red tomatoes, and...watermelons, cool and striped. Do you like watermelon? I do, and I thought Joe did, too. He picked one up, and thwacked it with his finger and thumb. “My grandpa told me if it sounds like a drum, it’s ripe.” “Yeah, but how do you really know?” I asked
“Like this!” he said.
Joe picked up that watermelon, and threw it as hard as he could. It landed by the potatoes, and SPLAT! There were watermelon guts everywhere, and mostly on me! “JOE! What the heck, man?!” He laughed and laughed, picked up a tomato, and threw it all the away across the produce department. It hit a rather serious lady and exploded on her designer purse. Her mouth dropped open, and tomato seeds slid down her glasses. Suddenly, a strange thing happened. She laughed. Just a small chuckle at first, and then a big, loud roar of a laugh that had been hidden for years. She looked twenty years younger as she picked up an avocado, and zipped it right back at Joe. “I used to play softball, sir” she shouted, as green avocado guts splatted all over him. “Have some guacamole!” I’ve never seen Joe laugh so hard. He ran down the pasta aisle, and the lady followed him, throwing avocados all the way. One hit an old guy in a WWII hat. “Time to put the old skills to use!” he cried, grabbing a jar of spaghetti sauce, pretending to pull a grenade pin out, and hurling the jar so it landed right before Joe and Avocado lady, with a terrific splash of extra-chunky tomato and garlic sauce. “Fire in the hole!” He jumped around like a teenager, his eyes lit up with a mischievous fun he thought he’d long forgotten. “Give ‘em hell, boys!” Opening a box of macaroni, he slung it with a sidearm delivery. “They call me Machine Gun Jimmy! I heard you used to play softball” he said to the avocado lady. “I pitched three years in the minor leagues.” “Ow ow ow!” she laughed, as the dried macaroni found its mark.
“Come on, let’s get out of here, friends!” Joe said, giving his two new buddies a slimy, sloppy hug with each arm. “I know a good bar we can go to. They’ll actually believe our story when I tell them.”
Before the manager could answer the page over the intercom, they were clear out of the door, with me following. I guess somebody had to drive them. I saw Joe leave a stack of hundred dollar bills with a cashier “as a tip”, he said.
“But Joe, why did you do that?” I asked, not sure if I should laugh, cry, or be hopping mad.
“Josh, sometimes people are too darn serious”, he said. “Have you noticed that there hasn’t been a lot of laughter lately? I paid the store three times over, and boy do I have a good story to tell the fellas now. Everybody wins today...except you, because your car is gonna be a mess.”
Well, I guess he has a point. He usually does...my buddy Joe.