Family Reunion at Buena Vista



Gramma Story: failing fast, they say, declining, (must be more than 90 now), so prone to fall that she’s confined to a wheelchair now, and, mentally, maybe not all there... although (for my part) I’m not so sure.  You know, hard of hearing can make a person seem aloof and stupid, and, probably, she’s pretty much deaf.  But we know her eyes work, they see just fine, because she says that she wants to go to the look-out, down the sidewalk a hundred yards from the park pavilion to where the trees have been cut-back and you can gaze out from here to forever, all the way across the river valley to the lock-and-dam and the bluffs in Minnesota which are pretty much like the bluffs here at Buena Vista Park, steep and green with woods in the folds and creases and rocky tops like broken crockery.  She wants me to push her wheelchair along the sidewalk and down the steep ramp to the look-out in the hot sun, ravines on both sides hissing with insects, the railroad track six-hundred feet below between the state highway and the lagoons and the stretched-out lakes nestled up against the main channel.  “There!” I say to her, my duty done, “you can see now.”  And she nods her head and licks her lips a little and gazes out over the panorama – it’s why they call it Buena Vista.  So we wait for five or six minutes and people come pushing strollers with babies in bonnets to protect them from the sun and Gramma Story looks at the babies and, then, up at the big hawks hungrily circling overhead and, then down to the green valley full of jungly green bush and swamps and flooded places rippling with current that means that this lake or that is somehow connected to the main channel and, under the lock-and-dam, there is a white sailboat sailing as pretty as can be...

She knows what she is seeing, no question about that, and Gramma thanks me in a whisper since it’s been hard for her recently to talk and, then, I push her back toward the pavilion, wrestling the wheel chair up the steep ramp and she says, clear as can be, “You can see the whole wide world from up here” and I reply, “Yes, you can Gramma Story, yes, indeed, you can.”

Then, Melinda comes down from the pavilion to help me, but I really don’t need help with the wheelchair so she just walks alongside and, then, lights a cigarette and, so, I suppose that she has really come away from the family gathered under the shelter mostly to smoke, although that’s okay with me.  We pause to look at the squirrels dancing under the trees and the big yellow dogs chasing, but not catching them, and I slow down a little to accommodate Melinda’s need to smoke her cigarette – it’s our annual family reunion and I know things like this stress people out, family’s more stressful than strangers, at least that’s what I think, and, then, Big Bob comes down to walk with us, also lighting a cigarette, and he says that we all need to keep an eye on the kids because there’s some weirdo loitering around the public toilets, but, when I look that way, I don’t see anyone, just a couple other families at picnic tables or with blankets spread on the grass or drinking from the fountain, a man playing catch with a boy and two long-haired kids pitching a frisbee this way and that over the shadow-dappled lawn...

Then, we’re at the Pavilion and Vicki, Granma Story’s daughter, big and red in her blue pants-suit comes up and asks about her mom, and Granma Story blinks her eyes at her daughter and says that she’s not in the least bit tired and that it’s wonderful to get a little field trip away from the nursing home and Vicki tells her: “Mom, just say the word and we can take you down to town and back home” – meaning the nursing home on the grassy terrace over the railroad tracks and river-side swamps, also called Buena Vista – but Gramma Story says that no, she is having a good time and not the slightest bit sleepy and she will tell us when she is tired and wants to go back to her room and, then, Vicki pushes the wheelchair and puts it under the shadow of the pavilion, next to the buckets of KFC chicken and the cole slaw and the potato salad and the tray where there are pies waiting to be sliced and ice-cream in a cooler and soda pop in another cooler and, of course, a keg of Pabst Blue Ribbon on ice surrounded by the men who are standing there in the shade, bullshitting one another, laughing loudly and waving their hands in the air.

It’s a good turn-out, all the Hanson’s and Mork’s and the Norberg’s too, some of them come from as far away as the Carolinas and Pittsburgh and Portland – people that you will see maybe a half-dozen times in your life, mostly, I’m afraid, at funerals, and others whom you see twice a year, also at funerals or baptisms, and, then, those you see monthly and weekly and every other day for Christ’s sake!  It can be comfortable or tedious as hell or both at the same time.  And, now, Uncle Jerome is ferrying the kids from the park two miles over the gravel roads to his farm on the ridge-top where the girls are riding ponies and the boys tooling around on four-wheelers, five or six kids at a time coming and going since he lives just beyond the ravine snaking around the bluff on a farm with a silo and a big red barn and, each time, Jerome comes to let off kids and pick up the next group, he seems more and more drunk, slurring his words, and, maybe it’s a little bit of a risk for him to take those kids and supervise them (or not) doing godknowswhat on his farm, but these are city children and they don’t get out to the boondocks that are also god’s country that often and, so, no one really wants to spoil the fun, no one wants to intervene and be a spoil sport and, returned from their adventures, the boys and girls cluster into groups, male here, female there, and chatter with one another and dart back and forth from under the pavilion down to the overlook and, then, along trails in the ravines where they might encounter poison oak or poison ivy and, then, throwing around helium balloons from the pavilion by the public toilets where someone should be watching them because, after all, there is supposed to be a weirdo lurking about that place.

The Trump supporters and the never-Trump republicans are getting up in each other’s faces and a little feisty, although so far it’s all goodnatured, and the Democrats really don’t have anything to say and so they are just keeping out of it and there’s Aunt Wilma recovering from hip surgery and a little groggy with oxycontin, Jill who’s on the wagon after a DWI sipping diet Coke, Tony who got in trouble with a girl down in Des Plaines and is still on probation and, probably, not supposed to be drinking although he’s got a beer in front of him, next to his plate of Kentucky Fried Chicken and potato salad, Kermit the investment banker with his polo shirt and golf shoes, Brandy who’s been married four times next to her new beaux, younger than her and blinking at all of the sunlight and open air and nervously brushing gnats away from his eyes, Tom who lost the farm, Gary who has the implement dealership, Tiny from the service desk and Georgina dying of cancer, Fawn who has diabetes, Wilma Ann covered in more tattoos than a carnival freak except that nowadays the carnival freaks have come out of their tents and booths to join the party, Eddie who’s supposed to be under a restraining order to keep him away from his wife, June sitting exactly three feet from June right now and whispering something in her ear, Gladys the family historian and geneaologist, William who has an African-American wife and Bonnie who is married to a Chinese man, the toddlers with smeared faces, the coughing first-graders, the sullen teenagers who keep vanishing into the forest, the first cousins and half-brothers and half-sisters and cousins once removed and the in-laws looking strained at the effort to remain non-judgemental and polite and, finally Gramma Story so-called because she taught Sunday School for forty years and read her Bible every morning and every night and so, always, had a fairy tale from scripture to answer every question and to solve every problem (and so named as well because for many years there were two grammas and one of them told stories and the other one, Gramma Sherbet served sherbet for dessert  – that was how you kept them apart when you talked about the two old ladies) and, now, Gramma Story is among her people but apart from them also, looking across her kith and kin, with a slight proprietary smile because, after all, these people are hers, she made them in one way or another, they have come out of her and, so, she gazes at them the way a farmer gazes at his growing crops, not exactly with love or, even, pride (after all growing things grow on their own) but with a sense of ownership and, even, compassion – after all, she’s old enough to know how all these things come out in the end.

Then, Jerome is back with another gang of kids, standing by the beer keg with a cigar in his hand, recruiting the next group to ride over with him to his farm, and I think, maybe this is not exactly all right, because the man is pretty obviously drunk, slurring his words and walking unsteadily, but also appraising whether it is my place to say something (it’s not) and what affect that might have on this heretofore happy gathering (unfortunate) and, then, I look across the lawn and see a couple, young lovers, I suppose, certainly a part of the family reunion because they are wearing name-tags although who knows who they belong to, and they are curled together on the sod cuddling and gazing up at the sky and I look up also, between the arches of the leafy trees where a pink helium balloon is temporarily nested, and see the hawks and a jet trail scratching a line on the blue sky... There’s a haze of gossip over the food and people excitedly telling one another about scandals, triumphs, and one of my aunts is talking about her niece who is attending Harvard and someone else says something about Yale and a train hoots far down in the valley, a sad, companionable sound like a well-loved dog barking and, then, I see the weirdo, a fat middle-aged man, a slob wearing shorts that are much too tight for him and carrying a miniature backpack slung around his wrist, all hot and panting and slippery with sweat, the bald spot on his head covered haphazardly by a baseball cap that’s stiff with sooty grime.   The man has mosquito bites all over his wrists and calves that he has scratched into red scabs and his shirt is open on a hairless chest that is also speckled with bug bites.  He wears thick glasses that are clouded with yellowish filth and, as a he approaches, circling the place where the family is gathered under the pavilion, I can see that he has plastic hearing aids pressed up between the greasy whorl of his ears and his skull.

Everyone ignores the weirdo and I don’t see any benefit in looking at him either – it’s distasteful -- and, so, I find a paper towel and a paper plate on the picnic table and take some chicken from the bucket with potato salad and baked beans and, then, I hear children giggling and squealing and see them crowding into the back of Uncle Jerome”s 4 by 4 pickup and, far to the west, beyond the Minnesota river bluffs I can see some remote pinkish thunder heads boiling up over the horizon and there is a loose balloon gone fugitive in that direction, bobbing over the cliff tops.

Someone brushes by me and I smell strong body-odor and a faint scent of cologne and, when I look up, I’m surprised to see that the weirdo has joined the group.  He’s now under the shelter of the pavilion and standing in line near the chicken with a paper plate atop his cupped hands and, I think, this isn’t all right, I mean the rudeness of this guy, his presumptuousness, who is this dude anyway? – I don’t pretend to know everyone in the extended family but that’s what the name-tags are for and I sure don’t see any name tag pasted on this fellow’s shirt or beer belly.  I set my food aside and stand up and, then, a couple of big guys who have parked themselves around the beer keg stand up also and approach the weirdo and one of them says, Excuuuuse me? And someone else asks: “Do we know you?” 

“I was just gonna eat,” the weirdo sort of lisps, almost like he’s got his mouth and choppers already full of food.

“Jes’ gonna eat?” Big Bob says.  “Who invited you?”

“But I’m hungry,” the weirdo says.

JayCee flips up his sunglasses so he can shine his hard blue eyes on the weirdo.  “You’re not part of this family,” he says and thumps the weirdo on his sweat-shining chest.

“I just wanna eat,” the weirdo says.

“Well, we don’t want you to eat,” Big Bob says and he also thumps the weirdo over the heart and on his shoulder too.

“You can jes go away,” JayCee says putting his jaw up close to the weirdo’s face.

The weirdo throws up his hands regardless of the chicken on his plate so that breast and thigh drop down on the concrete under the picnic tables. 

“You know that Amy went all the way up to Red Wing for that KFC?  She had to go over the bridge to Minnesota for that,” JayCee says.  “Now you spilt it, you wasted it right here.”

“You gonna pay for that plate of food,” Big Bob says.  And, then, another man from beer keg, Tiny walks over, waddling like he’s pregnant, uncertain on his feet, and Tiny says: “Now what are we gonna do with this son-of-a...(he pauses) gun?”

Tiny pokes the weirdo hard in his beer belly and the weirdo grunts.

Then, we hear a voice ringing like a bell in the air, clear and high –it’s Gramma Story.  “That’s Carl,” she says.  “That’s your second-cousin once removed, cousin Carl right?”

The man looks at her quizzically. 

“Don’t be makin’ a fuss,” Gramma Story says.  “Carl, you come over by me and keep me company.”

The men from around the beer keg drop their fists down to their sides and look a little ashamed.

“I didn’t recognize you, Carl,” Big Bob says.

“Me neither,” Tiny adds.  “It’s been a long time.”

The man shrugs and goes to where Gramma Story is sitting and someone unfolds an aluminum chair for him and he sits down beside her wheelchair.  Gramma Story says to Wilma Ann: “Be a dear and get your cousin Carl a plate of food.”

Wilma Ann nods and gets up and walks back to the buckets of KFC and the other food. 

“While you’re at it, get Carl something to drink,” Gramma Story calls out. 

Wilma Ann puts food on a paper-plate and pumps a cup of beer for the man who is sitting next to Gramma Story. 

JayCee, who has retreated to the beer keg, mutters: “Cousin Carl died twenty years ago.  In a car wreck.  The old lady’s gone senile.”

Wilma Ann comes back to where Gramma Story and the man are sitting.

“You know I ain’t –“ the man starts to say.

“You just hush and eat your dinner here,” Gramma Story says.

Wilma Ann asks: “Is this really Cousin Carl?”

“You betcha,” Gramma Story says.  Then, she asks for a slice of pie and ice cream too and Wilma Ann, who looks warm in her sleeves and vests of tattoos, asks if she should get pie for the man.  “What do you think?” Gramma Story says.  “Of course, I will,” Wilma Ann answers. 

One of the great grandkids from Pittsburgh is missing and the men at the beer keg walk down to the overlook and, then, beat the bushes a little and, after a few minutes, a small child with a bloody knee and a bloody elbow is produced, trembling and snotty-nosed and, then, when people look over to Gramma Story they see that she is alone, even dozing a little with her eyes half-closed and a horse-fly exploring the whiskers on her chin.

“Where did that weirdo go?”  Tiny asks.

“That wasn’t Carl,” JayCee says.  “Carl got killed in a car crash in LaCrosse twenty years ago.”

Wilma Ann says in a whisper: “The old lady’s got Alzheimer’s I suppose.  She mistook him.”

Tiny says: “We should of charged that son-of-gun eight dollars for that damn plate.”

It’s time to go and so we wheel Gramma Story to my SUV and, then, with Vicki riding beside me (her car is parked down at the nursing home), we follow the high ridge-line, the road turning sharply to follow the contour of the highest bluff where the hillside trees give way to farmland planted in corn and beans, fields like stretched-out fingers with the deep green valleys between them, and, then, I swerve to avoid the weirdo, stumbling along the fog-line on the right side of the road, swinging his little backpack to and fro and leaning on a stick cut like a cane, foot-sore it seems and gimped-up with a stolen yellow helium balloon tied to his wrist, and, then, where the gravel lane intersects the asphalt, Uncle Jerome comes barreling out, turning wide in a cloud of swirling yellow dust, and comes damn near to clipping us, so that Vicki says: “That man’s a menace.”  Then, the two-lane black top plunges down the ravine, zigzagging back and forth, passing the drive-way that goes up to the winery under the cliffs, some cars parked up on the terrace parking lot above the staked grape vines, and, after another quarter mile, we are down at the bottom in the lush river-valley below the bluffs.

I pull into the Buena Vista nursing home, parking lot full of cars and trucks of weekend visitors, and we get the wheelchair out of the SUV and Gramma Story seems to be dozing a little.

“That wasn’t Carl,” Vicki says to me.

“How could it be?” I reply.

Gramma Story opens her eyes and looks at the flowers crowding up around the walls of the nursing home, an aide sitting on a bench under the carport smoking a cigarette, a humming bird like a dragon-fly at the feeder.

“What make you think I don’t know my children and my children’s children?” Gramma Story asks.

“No, it’s okay, mom,” Vicki says.

“What make you think I don’t know who my family is?”

“It’s okay, mom,” Vicki replies.  “It’s okay.”