Walls and Machines
Dear Cuz,
It sure is good to be home sweet home. I've always loved coming home no matter where I've been if it has been more than 3 or 4 days. This last journey was no vacation which makes home all the better.
As you know, my identical third cousin Arthur, 'Don't Call Me Art' Dekko, was stricken down with the wheezes and had to go spend a week at the hospital over there in New Monia. I stayed with him to make sure he got all the good care that he will not ask for on his own. You'll be happy to know that I only made two nurses cry. All the rest of the staff was terrific.
After the third day in ICU and Arthur's lung Dr., Dr. Neidelweiner, had visited and listened to Arthur's breathing mechanism and giving us the old thumbs up, the walls started closing in on us. The room wasn't as big as a bathroom to begin with but it felt like it was shrinking in at a rate of a couple of inches per hour. In an effort to take our minds off our predicament, We tried talking about better times. The machines in the room with us gurgling, beeping and dripping were all around Arthur with tubes and monitoring devices sticking in his arms and glued to the hair on his chest. I asked him if he remembered going to a friends house in Oakhurst, California right before we left for the Tonkin Gulf. Our friend had a beautiful piece of property there below the snow line with granite boulders bigger than houses scattered around the place and a noisy little creek that ran from the top of the mountain.
It was 1967 and we had been reading a book called Trout Fishing in America written by Richard Brautigan. We found some other works of his including a book of poems called The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster which begins with a poem titled All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace. We sat there atop one of those giant boulders and read the whole book of poems, which, by the way only took an hour or so. I like short poems. Arthur said he did remember but was unsure these machines he was hooked to had any loving grace in them. Then the nurse came in and gave Arthur a shot in the stomach which was supposed to be blood thinner but he said it felt more like paint thinner.
Arthur was going on about those poems and stopped and said he wondered what might have become of Old Braughty as he hadn't seen any new work from him lately. I had to tell him that mister Brautigan was found at a house in Bolinas, California in 1984 dead from a self inflicted bottle of whiskey and a .44 wound. I was afraid that might upset Arthur but he just said " That was pretty darned inconsiderate of him. He must have not been very happy. Maybe these are the machines of loving grace."
After several more days they let Arthur come home without the machines so he could sleep on his own cot with his little dog Georgie underneath. I keep on telling him that breathing in all that dog hair doesn't do him any good but he insists that the Doctors don't know everything about prolonging quality life and he is much happier when he's with his little dog. So be it. I just need to find a hospital that will allow you to bring your dog with you for his next bout with the wheezes.
Your loving cousin,
Rev. Dr. Buck Stonebroke
