Trippin'

I walked in on a movie that was playing this afternoon, a chic flick from what I could gather in the short few minutes, a bunch of girls going on and on about a pair of magical blue jeans. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants was the movie, I had to look it up to be sure of the title.

I was ready to leave when, as the movie progressed, one of the young women went to visit a friend in the hospital. There in the hospital bed was a young girl, her ashen complexion was very convincing; but that’s not what got to me. I looked at her eyes, little lumps of black coal set against the darkened shadowed sockets with only the faintest reflection from the light in the room on her pupils.

“She’s dying, isn’t she?” I asked my wife since she had been paying attention to the story line of the movie whereas I had barely noticed.

“Leukemia.”, she said. I’d have to give an award to the make up artist involved in that particular scene. I felt my emotions overflow with memories of Tim Andersen, a dear friend of mine who died of leukemia several years ago.

I visited Tim a couple of days before he died at the hospital. I’d known him for years; a vibrant young man, full of life and a spirit worth knowing. It hurt, deep inside, as I looked into his eyes and noticed the fires going out even as I stood there. That was the first time I’d ever watched death working in an active way, at least on someone I cared about. That may sound strange, my being a police officer all those years and dealing with the dead or the dying on numerous occasions; but that was part of the job, I never really knew any of those people.

I once was at the scene of a domestic violence shooting; a husband had beaten his wife to a fair thee well. The only thing that saved her was a small pistol that she used to shoot him several times in the chest; that was her story and she had the black eyes, the bruises and the look of a life wasted living in fear as proof. It took a few moments for us to determine what had gone on, making the scene safe and only then noticing the man sitting in the chair had been mortally wounded, a couple of gasps and he was gone; not that we didn’t call for an ambulance, just that it didn’t take a doctor to see that he wasn’t going to beat up on his wife ever again.

That kind of death didn’t get to me; Tim’s living inside that empty shell looking out at me through those lumps of coal, that bothered me and seeing such a similar image on the television set me “trippin”. I made a “crispy critter”, on the Pierce Elevated one time; a fatality accident where the car caught on fire and . . .; you get the idea, no need to go into details. I couldn’t eat barbeque for a long time after that; but even that was abstract compared to those darkened eyes looking at me from the edge of the veil when I knew the person, the remains of that person leaving this mortality.

I was ten years old when my grandfather died of cancer. I wasn’t old enough and hospital rules made it so I couldn’t visit him. I never saw the worn out old body; all I remember is the healthy version, the man who took a shine to me, an awkward kid. Maybe the hospital rules were a blessing in disguise, keeping me from seeing death at work left me with an innocence, a lack of reality that keep my childhood in place a bit longer.

I know, “trippin”, that’s a 60’s term. We keep a box of Kleenex on the end table to manage emotional disturbances while watching movies; Lucy tends to cry, just about anything will set her off. Somehow the box was empty and I had to fetch a new box from stock. I wiped away some tears, an allergy reaction or something ‘cause movies never get to me; must be time to get the sofa cleaned. I may watch a movie tonight, The Dirty Dozen or maybe Aliens; no chic flicks, please.