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Paying The Price For Neglect
I decided to pay a visit to the dentist. Blood was the first sign of trouble and he told me
my gums were bad and I would have to succumb to the needle to make my whole mouth numb so they could dig the build up of plague and tarter away from around the roots.
I had nightmares every night with the inevitable doom hanging over me. My only defense was to plead guilty as charged and hope for a lighter sentence. I searched for many alternatives, thinking I would find a way to avoid the needle and my teeth would not fall out but even all the herbal cures would not get me off the hook this time.
The dentist was like the DA, sentencing me to days and nights of long misery. It felt like I was waiting for my execution on death row and I got what I deserved from not flossing enough or getting a routine cleaning every six months. I wanted to believe that there was some part of my life I hadn’t lived yet still out there waiting for me, once it was all over.
Then that day finally came, when I had to go to the chair and to top it all off, it was Jack’s
birthday also. I thought, what karma to have to go to the chair on Jack’s birthday. So I
psychologically braced myself for the doom that was soon to descend upon me. Hell, I thought, there were worse things in life but that day and for many days to come I knew
I wouldn’t be tipping the ole bottle to celebrate with old Jack or hanging out with my friends at the coffeehouse drinking double espressos and lattes.
The dentist told me after he was through drilling in my mouth and a fair amount of blood had went down the drain and the left side of the mouth was all numb, no alcohol or caffeine for me. I was going have to go straight. But then what did he do? He shoved a bottle of pain killers down my throat and I was havin a fun ole time and feelin high and goofy as hell. Of course I didn’t make it out the door without paying $750 for my second visit with another $750 due the next time, when he would do the right side of my mouth. And well, as for the dentist, he was soon to to take a trip to the Southwest to places like the Grand Canyon and spend time at a resort with a golf course. And digging down around those roots was like going down deep into a canyon of pain that I would never forget and that my dear friends, is the price I paid for neglect.
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Seniors I Worked For
I think about the aging elderly women I worked for like Mable. What a big heart she had giving away her canned peaches, tomatoes, string beans. cherries and jams every time I worked at her place, always sending me off with something and she saying, “ If I can’t share what I have then there’s no use living in anymore.” Then she would write me out a check for ten dollars over the amount just to show her appreciation for my reliability and good work. She couldn’t see to well anymore. She sat there looking at me through her thick bifocals asking me to look at the check to make sure she had written it out correctly. She carried her plump short body, shuffling along with her cane. Sometimes she used her walker if she was really in pain. A part of her refused to believe she was becoming disabled. Another part of her wanted to bend down and pick the dead blooms off the camellias or pull the weeds in the raised beds, kneel down and drop a few beans in their holes. When I arrived to work she would say,” Oh it’s you, you don’t have to knock. You can come right in. You’re always welcome in my house.” She liked to do gardening the organic way, the old fashioned way. She often reflected back on the past when her husband was alive, the way he worked in the yard and kept it in shape. “ Daddy used to do it this way,” she would say, explaining to me how he built up the compost pile for the garden or constructed the poles for the beans to grow on. She told me she paid over a thousand dollars a month in medical bills and pharmaceuticals but was losing her sight and her strength. She was like a grandmother to me in some ways. Then there was Janet up on Knob Hill. She saw one of my business cards I had pinned up on the bulletin board in a laundromat over on 29th Street three years ago. She had a small yard and not much of a lawn to mow, a few flower beds in the back, some rhodies and azaleas in the front. She didn’t own her place but paid rent on her two bedroom duplex . The large maple tree in the backyard blocked out most of the sun and the moss had taken over where the grass used to grow. I planted some ferns, a few azaleas, some pansies and primroses in the back beds along the fence. I didn’t spend many hours a month on her place. Her health had been failing the last few years and she was on an oxygen tank. Sometimes she would smile at me from her frail thin little body and say, “ Well you go ahead and plant a few things out front. I’m not under the ground yet.” It took me about ten minutes to mow her back yard. I didn’t charge her anything for it. One year when I was in the middle of moving and hadn’t found another place to live and needed a place to keep my gardening tools she offered me her garage. She had just sold her old Oldsmobile realizing she was getting too old to drive. So I maintained her yard in exchange for a place to keep my tools like my lawnmower, edger, weedeater, rakes, shovels, hoes, pruning loppers and shears and extension 12 ft aluminum ladder. I only charged her for the cost of the materials like the potting soil, fertilizer for the roses and extra plants and bark mulch. Sometimes it was hard to even charge her for that. Then there was Helmi up on Emerald Street. She sat there in her livingroom sucking on a cigarette. Her skin was wrinkled like old worn leather and turning purple like an old dried up prune. Her small veins bulged out everywhere in her skinny boney arms. Her face was so thin with its cheek bones showing through and she looked as if she was already dead. She sat there watching the TV in the middle of the afternoon. I knocked on her front door each time to let her know I had arrived to mow her lawn, edge the front along the sidewalk and driveway, spray the roses so they don’t get fungus and aphids, pull up a few weeds in the flower beds and rake the dead blooms from the camelias out front by her livingroom window. “ Hello, how are you today?” I would greet her as I stepped inside the front door. She would turn her aged worn face full of deep cracks and lines that ran across her forehead and cheekbones. “ Oh hi, say can you be sure to water everything real good before you leave today?” she would ask kindly. At the end of the month I presented her with the bill for the maintenance. She could barely read it but never questioned how much I charged her. Sometimes I thought I charge her too much and sometimes I thought I charged her too little so it seemed to average out. She would slowly take out her checkbook and proceed to write out a check and then I would hand her the statement for the monthly maintenance and mark it paid after she handed me the check. She would look at me and say in her tired weak voice, “ Thank you,” and I would reply, “ Well I ‘ll see you next week, take care now.” But I often went away thinking I might not see her the following week, that she could collapse and fall to the floor or die sitting there in that chair with the TV on and a cigarette hanging out of her mouth and the place would go up for sale. I think of working for Mable, Janet and Helmi and the others as more than just a worker to client relationship. I think of the human spirit that embraced me when I went to see them and worked in their yards. Just knowing that there was someone working in their yard that they could understand and trust, cutting back the dead stuff, weeding the beds, pruning the fruit trees, planting some starts and watering a few flowers and mowing the lawn kept them hanging on a while longer. like Mable said, if it wasn’t for her yard she wouldn’t have much of a reason to live anymore.”
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(c) Thomas Avery, 2001