Maelstrom: Uncle Dingy's Regrets

Part 9 of 31

They Found Another Body

This was a relative of mine, Uncle Clarence aka Uncle Dingy, who actually died before I was born. Once upon a time something happened and Dingy went a little rancid, wormy in the head. These days it might’ve been called a mental breakdown, because he was definitely under the weather where it counted. He had several close calls with death. He saw more than a man of his limited mental capabilities should see. Involving someone else's wife, likely from the neck down in full display. And he ended up dying of natural causes, some say murder. There was a prolonged vigil, rattling the cages and storming heaven's gate but it didn’t do any good.

I’m kind of glad it all went down before I was born. I have the space to stand back semi-detached and judge from a distance: “What happened to you, Dingy, that you couldn’t make it to old age like the rest of the brood? Did you forget every teaching they taught you, not to get involved in the affairs of people of such low character, with more on their mind than citizenship, patriotism, and doing good? You know the family, right, Dingy? We wisely stand back when the world’s going to hell in a hand-basket. Where others wilt in the face of temptation, we stand tall. So what happened to you? Was she that hot?

Ouch, that might burn, I got a little too close to the truth, which I wasn’t going to touch. But there was a jealous husband, jealous to the point of taking it out on Dingy, it being a firearm, a pistol to be precise, waving it about, about to fire it in that room of sin, with red wallpaper and nude paintings, the works, after backing Dingy to the headboard, who strained his neck something fierce when there was nowhere else to crawl. Bang!

His last word was “Maelstrom! Maelstrom!” I’ve heard of that, but I had to look it up to get a fuller understanding. The dictionary says, “A powerful whirlpool in the sea or a river.” And “a situation or state of confused movement or violent turmoil.” My first thought is that Dingy was out of his mind and randomly remembering something maelstromesque. But I ran it by a friend and he said Dingy likely was likening his experience with the woman and her jilted lover/murderer to a maelstrom, something he wished would’ve never happened, and if he had it to do over, he wouldn’t have. Or would've taken her to a different town.

That’s pretty smart reflection. ‘I did something, I’m sorry I did, and if I could do it over again, I wouldn’t have, or would've gone farther.’ But then he was in a maelstrom, a whirlpool of consequences, sucked down, dragged inexorably toward a fitful though regrettable conclusion, death.

What could he have said to call off the dogs? If a word like maelstrom didn’t call them off, probably nothing would have. “I’m sorry, it was a one-time thing, nothing we’ll repeat, I’ll make it up to you somehow…” “Make it up to me, huh? There’s no unsullying her good name and honor!” Bang, bang!

Uncle Hoist and Aunt Eedee

Yesterday, I posted my '80s college psychology work, the Ladder and Scaffold of Self Images, which, just to answer a few who quickly wrote in, is indeed something I came up with myself. I did not copy it from the works of Freud or Jung. And to the guy who loudly proclaimed he saw it in a psychology textbook, that's true; I licensed it to the publishers of that particular edition. 50 bucks.

Sheesh! You think everything has to be derivative? A student can't be Super Brain and just come up with something on his own? I've been coming up with good stuff all my life. I was in the school library doing research on the history of my town's name in first grade. I knew how to spell "encyclopedia" in fifth grade, and totally grasped the distinction between "form" and "from." Along with memorizing the capitals and presidents.

But it's OK if you want to be suspicious. I know myself, and I don't copy! An old psychological saw comes to mind, something like this: If you're quick to accuse others, you've confessed your own guilt. So I'll let you think about that for a while. By the way, there's a similar blues song, "Before you 'cuse me, take a look at yo'self." I hope I got the dialect right...

It's funny, though, how we do that. We always think it's some guy faraway in Zurich or Berlin who has to be responsible for all the brainy stuff in the world. Because everyone knows that some kid on your block or anonymous guy on the internet -- a local guy with a blog -- can't know anything! Heavens forfend! That any of us may have gone to college, as I actually did. And you can't go to all the parties I went to and not learn something.

You might be interested to know, though, I come from interesting stock, where anything's possible... Meaning, I had a redheaded uncle. On that, I don't know if there's a psychological postulate, but there should be. Redheaded men go through so much, they either prosper beyond your wildest imagination or they die. Which I didn't know when I was a kid. I thought Uncle Hoist was just another hayseed uncle. And he cultivated that image, for reasons of his own, but when he revealed himself he was an entirely different guy.

Only a few people knew how smart Hoist was. Of course one of those was Aunt Eedee, who, it turns out, served as his "right hand man" for many years in his lab work and studies. It's funny, though, to the outside world Hoist was just a "good old boy," but like I said, when he revealed himself, it was a whole different thing! The man was a genius. I don't know if he applied for the certificate, but he could've.

Anyway, here's the tie-in with my "Ladder and Scaffold" chart. I had just come home from college, and I had the original copy of it with the big fat shiny "A." We were at Hoist and Eedee's for a barbecue. And Hoist (as the hayseed) was sitting there with no shirt, proud with his bright red hair and completely white hairless chest. He calls me over and goes, "You did this, boy?" He has it in his left hand and softly taps it with the back of his right. The old hayseed then turns it upside down, like he's trying to make heads or tails of it, since it does look a bit complicated. I can see he's challenged by the advanced vocabulary, deep concepts, and impressiveness of the big fat shiny "A." I said, hoping not to condescend, "That's an A, Hoist, the best grade you can get." He looked confused, but apparently reached some level of understanding as to what I was attempting to enunciate.

Anyway, Hoist takes a piece of tape -- This is a redheaded man! -- and sticks the chart right in the center of the keg, putting it on good display for the family. "Wee doggies!" he ejaculates, "This deserves a big celebration!" Eedee comes out with an apple pie and bowl of her patented chop suey, which I loved, and I knew I'd hit the big time.

Later, then, Hoist is nowhere to be found. And Eedee comes over and whispers that he wants to see me in the garage. I get there and he's taken the chart off the keg and had it laminated. I'm aghast, as it turns out Hoist isn't just a good old boy, but something else! We get in a narrow elevator, a small chamber in the corner, and descend to an underground lab, 50 feet down, under the garage, and massive like the Batcave, where Hoist has been busy doing experiments and running studies on human consciousness (and other consciousness, as much as he has time for -- dogs, cats, horses, etc.) In fact, it turned out he's the guy who painstakingly quantified the horrific psychological effects of Lawn Darts on insects.

Suddenly, he tells me that my Self Images chart -- after 40 years of agonizing twists and turns and theories he's worked on -- finally clarified everything for him, being "the one perfect road map" as to how things are! Isn't that amazing! Then he goes, "To think you had all this lying dormant in your mind all those years -- while playing basketball in my driveway -- and I, your faithful redheaded uncle, never recognized it! I'll need time to process this, my worst failure..." I felt badly, but knew he'd bounce back, like redheaded men generally do, and very soon he was his jolly self. Although serious, too, as the serious scientist he turned out to be.

I toured the lab and was amazed at the facility, his investment, and work. This was in the '80s, Hoist is now gone. At that time he had just concluded a five-year project in child psychology. If truth be told, Hoist deserves most of the credit for the drop in serious drug addiction stats among children under 5 in the '90s. And going with that, perhaps even more important, Hoist and Eedee worked with an endless procession of dogs in the testing of invisible fence technology, meaning those kids could finally play in the neighborhood without fear and needing to resort to drugs.

A Death in the Family -- Scarecrow

We just had another death in my family. They seem to be piling up, which I hate. I let the last few go, but finally I've had enough, OK? I don't precisely know any other way to stop it, so I'll just tell you what I'm going to do. Starting with this last one -- then in the future if there's any others -- I will be offing someone from popular culture. Kill my family, will you? Then suffer the consequences.

This time, I'm sorry to say but it's Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz. Old Scarecrow's going away for a long long time -- forever -- like my loved ones, never to return. Again, sorry about this, and sorry if it makes you angry. If it does, at least you'll have some idea how I feel. And if you want to know the honest to God truth, I like Scarecrow. He was Dorothy's first partner on her way to Oz, and for a guy without a brain he did a pretty good job talking, singing, dancing, and fighting wicked witches.

But now it's been years since any of that. The gang's been split up and scattered for years. Dorothy's an old old woman in Topeka, barely making ends meet waiting tables at a diner. And the rest of the group has been out of touch with the others for years. I've had friends like that, then suddenly they're gone, no doubt forever pining to see me again, I'm imagining, if only they could.

Scarecrow, the same way Tiny Tim ended up, is in an old hotel in Des Moines. He stays inside a lot, so much that when people hear he died, they'll say they thought he was already dead. But he can barely move, being broken down, with no one to restuff him. Even that's the least of his worries; he's got total rot in his flimsy supports, brain damage, etc. His spark of life has a faint but persistent short circuit.

If anyone could help, it'd have to be Dorothy, who only answers if she happens to be next to the diner's public phone. Lion and Tin Man are probably in a home somewhere, Lion dribbling in his bib, and Tin Man rusted in the nodding position, more grey than silver.

All the hopes Scarecrow had, dreaming of everyone getting out on the road and doing their songs again, of course that's been out the window for ages. He used to have terrific regret about it, now it's just wistfulness and a dull pain; he wouldn't remember how it went anyway. Age can do that to a guy. I knew an old guy who used to tell me he forgot more than I ever knew, but in the end, as he declined, regrettably I overtook him in the knowing-forgetting differential.

Getting toward the end, Scarecrow heard a noise outside and his hopes rallied. A loud car coming by -- maybe it's them! He struggled to his one good elbow and looked outside, in time to see a young beauty queen in a convertible going by -- so young. She was on her way to be feted by the town, with her young male friends all looking up to her. He thought, That's how it was for us in the Emerald City ... losing his train of thought in a rasping coughing fit.

Memories are so much harder for Scarecrow to contemplate. They used to be like brain-food, who said or sang what, what all they had to do to attain the various boons from the Wizard. Those were the days. If only there were someone like that today, a Wizard, to renew this wasteland of post-modernity and his personal grief. He glances up at the calendar, unturned for decades, 1939, how long ago! No way to catch up now! He turns to the window and sees the grey sky. You'd think the old stuff would still be possible. Instead, everything is-- blank-- the possibilities fizzled.

And so now it's come to this. Pain everywhere, burdens beyond relief. A hardening of the straw tufts, complete calcification of the joints, brittle straw bugs, life ebbing away. He feels a strange mental spasm, some weird movement in his head. Did something erupt? An aneurysm? Wouldn't that be ironic, for a guy who wanted a brain? It hasn't been exactly smooth sailing for quite a while. Now and then consciousness emerges reliably, then veers off a dozen different directions. He senses things going to pot, a little here, a little there ... "That's me all over, and now, for me, it's all over."

As it turned out, no one checked on him. A couple weeks went by and the mailman noticed junk mail piling up in the box by his door. Then he thought he smelled the horrible odor of rotting straw from within. He called the Des Moines police, who carefully donned gas masks and bravely moved in to face the hideous scene.

People Are Dying

I had an aunt die recently, might have been November or December. They don't always tell you about aunts and uncles who die. Maybe they think we're out of touch or don't care. But you eventually hear about it.

This was an aunt who lived out in Colorado. She was one of the boys' (Grandma's son's) wife, and she used to be back at least once a year to see us all. The '60s as far as I was concerned were the golden years for the Colorado relation to come back. They were still coming in the '70s ... but it all tapered off then.

So I haven't seen this particular aunt since the '70s sometime or maybe the late '60s. The whole old family is giving up the ghost.

I posted a picture a few days ago, a bunch of people standing around the old house. The passed on aunt is in that picture.