Kelley Jo Burke - Wreck: A Very Anxious Memoir

Copyright 2021 Kelley Jo Burke

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher or by licensed agreement with Access: The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (contact accesscopyright.ca).

Editor: Susan Musgrave

Cover art: Tania Wolk

Book and cover design: Tania Wolk, Third Wolf Studio

Printed and bound in Canada at Friesens, Altona, MB

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of Creative Saskatchewan, the Canada Council for the Arts and SK Arts.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Wreck : a very anxious memoir / Kelley Jo Burke.

Names: Burke, Kelley Jo, author.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20210155647 | Canadiana (ebook) 20210155884 |

ISBN 9781989274446 (softcover) | ISBN 9781989274453 (PDF)

Subjects: LCSH: Burke, Kelley Jo. | CSH: Dramatists, Canadian (English)Biography. |

CSH: Authors, Canadian (English)Biography. |

LCSH: AnxietyPatientsCanadaBiography. |

LCGFT: Autobiographies.

Classification: LCC PS8603.U73755 Z46 2021 | DDC C812/.54dc23

Box 33128 Cathedral PO

Regina, SK S4T 7X2

info@radiantpress.ca

radiantpress.ca

When I get back from throwing the whales in the water and enter the cottage, the only thing thats changed is that the old mans reached over, turned out the light beside his chair, and settled in for the night. He thinks Ive gone back to the hotel that he cries about every time he remembers that Ive booked into it rather than stay with him. Hes not hurt. Just angry at the waste. There are two unused bedrooms in the cottage. Its just stupid.

I made placating noises about not wanting to put him to trouble. Fact is, the stench of the place is unbearable. As mentioned, the anxious tend to have an acute sense of smell. The better to sniff out fire, ood, poison, intruders, any of the fiercer animals, and past the expiration date food that will almost definitely kill us. Unfortunately is does not turn off. I often resort to what I call the Silence of the Lambs solution, which is to put Vicks VapoRub under my nose I figure whats good enough for Clarice looking at a decayed body is good enough for me dealing with your poor cologne choices. On this trip, Id left my Vicks at home.

The old man has some kind of hired help, but it seems not to be the kind up to cleaning a 900 sq. ft. bungalow. On Grampas instructions, the cleaner has used only Liquid Gold on the furniture, panelling, and cupboards, as Teen did. But he doesnt remember, or never knew, that Teen also stripped the wood of its old Gold by scrubbing with Pine-Sol, before she re-coated it in the viscous mix of petroleum, mineral oil, and wax. That she spent hours over the maple tables and pine walls, keeping them gleaming and armoured against damp salt air. He simply tells the housekeeper to use the stuff, and she does, right over last weeks coat. The result is a rancid punk of grease and dust on every inch of wood in the cottage. There is nowhere to rest a hand that does not leave a sticky brown mark on the palm, and a sticky, brown smell up the nose.

But that is not the worst of it. The La- z -Boys the worst of it.

The one thing the housekeeper cant clean is the recliner, as the old man wont get out of it when she comes. The general musty-sweet smell coming from it, which one associates with the elderly, is wildly overwhelmed by a top note of urine. Lots of urine. Since Teens death, I figure hes spent 90% of his time in the chair and not nearly enough showering. Or, I fear, toileting.

Confirmation comes as I stand in the dark looking at him. He wakes a little before he does it, stirs, shifts, and clearly considers whether to get up. Puts his spotted hand to the crank at the base of the chair. Takes the hand back, rests it on his chest, index finger tapping. Then a vengeful grunt, deep in the back of his throat, and the warm hiss. He doesnt know Im watching. I think.

The chair, intensified by this most recent damping, is now a veritable censer of piss. Im not going to sleep in this cottage. I dont want to eat here. I can barely breathe.

Opening the windows and airing the place is not an option. Id tried earlier in the day.

Teen-Ruth-Kelley leave that alone. I dont want em open. And Grampa stands, pulls the blinds down.

So I sit in the hot, dark, stinking house, straining to hear the sea, keeping my feet pressed to the oor so I can at least feel the rumble of the breakers through the boards. Remind myself that this is not a sight-seeing mission. This is a dealing-with-your-suicidal-grandfather mission.

He chose a good day, less than a year after Teen died, sunny with a breeze, high tourist season. He sat on the porch in the folding chair closest to the neighbours, and raised the gun to his head.

Its no good, no more. Over and over.

The neighbours called the police. And the police called my mother in Winnipeg. And she called me. And I ferreted out the number of whats now called the Office of Aging & Disability Services in Maine. And state workers started to look in on him, though they kept the inadequate housekeeper. Despite her age and deficiencies, she was white. After listening to Mr. Adams views on race relations, the service felt she was the best fit.

However, the resulting care did not include my mom, whose duty it was to come home and tend to him, give him some one to shout at, at the very least. So the gambit was not a success. He went back to crying and pissing in the blinkered and sealed cottage. Alone.

As the calls from the York Beach sheriff became more frequent, I started saying, think I need to go down and check on him. Seeing normal people (like my husband) nod, yes, thats what you do if your grandfather is alone and in distress, made this seem more real, good and proper. Still, at the back of my head was a voice screaming as from a great distance that there was something here not good or proper. Not at all.

I was in my kitchen in Regina when I got the call from my mother about Teen. Late summer air heavy on my face, I listened to Mothers bald description of events: Teen had a habit of mixing up her pills, and then taking them all at once, and ODd. Again. Needed ushing out at the hospital. This time, she got pneumonia as well. She was being treated for that, and then Grampa did what he did. And then, no doubt, went back to the chair to wait for the world to go back to what he required.

And all I could think at that time was, yup. Makes total sense. But there was a gumminess between my ears, leaving the question what makes total sense? to bounce at the entrance of my brain like a forgotten wind-up toy.

Almost a year later, I travelled to Maine to help. And I double-hugged myself, because I was doing a normal thing and because I there was a good and legitimate reason to spend our nonexistent money to go to the Nubble.

Two days before, Id arrived with a vision of my visiting self, a sweet-faced, caregiving grand-daughter, tripping through sunlit rooms, placing fresh owers in whale-shaped vases, making wrongs right, like changing the linen or raising my grandmother from the dead. A vision that quickly died in the breathless box in which I found myself.