She tells me, "Thank you darling! Thank you for coming! Thank God for letting you come. Sometimes I'm so angry at him! Dear God, what have I done to deserve this stroke, to live in this place?!

But what can you do about the guy? He does anything he wants and you can't take a breath without him."

I like her in this place. I mean, I don't like that she has to be here, in this critical care home, but it beats Bellevue, it beats a state asylum, and I like how she is. She needs me. She treats me good here. Only a little scrap now and then, in this place.

How often do you get a chance to change a family thing that's driving you nuts -- no pun intended -- to something better?

Cups and Saucers

"This is what you've brought to talk about?" she asks, clearly annoyed.

I ignore her and continue. "Can you see the flying saucer in this picture? Are your eyes still good enough to see it?"

She is straining, then laughs, and asks, "Where's the cup?"

I show her more Unidentified Flying Objects.

"Am I supposed to remember these?" she (toothlessly) asks, still laughing. "I can only remember the saucer!"

"You don't have to remember a thing. Dr. Frima told us we should try and engage our intellectual powers, Lita. I thought you might enjoy this book, Folk Concepts of Outer Space It's fascinating to me."

"I don't understand any of it."

"It's as simple as this: Some people think there are lives on other planets that visit us on earth."

"That's a very advanced intellectual talk. I can't understand a thing you're saying."

"There's not a lot to understand. Some people have organized to worship someone they call God. Others have organized to worship outer space, and they think they had past lives in other planets."

"What"

"Past lives."

I stare at her, trying to figure how to explain to my catholic grandmother, who is clearly completely lost talking about UFOs, what a "past life"is.

I can't think of any analogy, any metaphor, I can't think of anything that will bridge the gap between Catholic worship and "past lives". Saints, visions, miracles, but "past lives"? I don't think the Vatican ever addressed the issue.

I return to pointing out UFO and spaceship pictures.
"Look, there's Mother Teresa at a UFO landing pad in Canada. You know her, don't you? The Catholic saint who's devoted her whole life to working with Lepers in India?"

"She devoted her whole life to working with animals?!" she asks with equal amounts of disdain and incredulousness.

"No, not leopards, the black cats!" Talking with Lita can be like visiting another planet. "Lepers, the people with leprosy, the one's who are quarantined in special colonies, the ones no one will go near but Mother Teresa!"

"No, I don't know this Mother Teresa, and what's she doing with a spaceship? I can't understand a thing!"

"Lita, it's not real hard to understand!"

But I have to remember this woman came into the world riding a donkey, not even a horse, on a farm in a foreign country, using an outhouse and wearing bloomers. Her lifetime is the whole of the 20th century. In her years, she has seen the tractor, water running through faucets, the car, the airplane, radio, television, the washing machine! She's washed everything by hand for as long as I can remember. She has seen jets and rockets, and astronauts walking on the moon.

Maybe this is where the buck stops. Maybe spaceships and aliens truly are beyond her comprehension. And maybe she is confused by U.S. immigration calling people "aliens" who came to this country from another.

I try to imagine what I will not be able to comprehend at age 90, in the year 2040. The date is even hard to comprehend!

I tell Lita, "Reading these people's stories might help it make sense."

"You may think reading is a good exercise in gaining understanding but what's the point of reading if I can't remember what I've read?"

Her usual bulls eye shot to my heart, but I am trying the practical approach lately.

"You have a hard time remembering anything these days, Lita, so maybe you should entertain the notion that reading is pleasurable just for the freaking moment!"

"What a great idea, darling!"

Thank heavens she goes for it! We leaf through the pages,m reading about different kinds of UFOs, her favorites being all the ones that are saucer and cup shaped.

I like that she's made these UFOs into saucer and cup shapes. For both of us, our favorite twentieth century pastime -- coffee in a breakfast joint.

Latina Cultura

I race into the hospital, to Lita's ward, a tad late. She is hanging with her ladies. They are all staring into space, in an after dinner thrill, looking like they are not listening to the blaring TV, which I now know better than to turn off.

Meals are always a high around here. (Maybe anywhere. I think about it.) The lull isn't heavy yet. Three hours after dinner, with most of them in the same spot, staring into space, waiting to be put to bed, the lull gets rea-l-ly hea-v-y. The feel of the waiting is almost more than I can endure, just walking into the room. And yet, endure they do, for as long as it takes.

Right now however, the lull is light. They are still basking in an after dinner thrill.

I grab Marie's chair, swing it out from the dinner table, and exclaim, " Lita, Latina Cultura Clube"

"(Toothless) "Oh mi Dios! Este es tu?!"

I don't wait to go through the ritual of letting it sink in to her that yes, it is her granddaughter. Tonight, I am in a rush.

"I asked the nurses to call you today and was just thinking you wouldn't be coming, but look! Oh dear God! An angel has been sent to me!"

Like a broken record, the same exact words every time. But every time it is fresh. IT is passionate and full of meaning. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that these words are sincere. That from the bottom of her heart, she is thanking God that he sent an angel to her. Her good arm and hand waving in the air, trying top grab hold, to touch me, expressing the gratitude she is overwhelmed with at the moment.

But I am not stopping for the ritual tonight. I grab her hand from behind for only a second. I am rushing to Latin Culture. Whisking her down the hall, weaving in and out of others in their chairs, calling Hi! to all the ones I know, while Maria is praising angels being sent to her.

There is something about needing to break up this visiting routine, about needing to feel a purpose. Life has meaning with a purpose. WE attend this Latin Club to play dominoes, to play checkers, to snap our fingers to some merengues, because it means we have something to do. A reason to be.

An illusion.

of going

somewhere.

Theo Didn't Smoke

Theo. He's one of the sweet young men. Some of them are angry. Some are jerks. Some deal what I assume i a lot of drugs in this place. One of the dealers knifed a nurse last summer. Some are funny and mischievous. Some really are looney, and a lot of them lie.

I like to think they are creative. I conjure up details to the tales they tell, elaborate details. Like when Bill was going on about his six properties scattered across the States, we made one a medieval castle with a mote and lots of dogs but none mean. Dogs you'd love to run and roll with.

"Frolic," is the word that comes to mind. Frolic, is like a medieval castle word to me. I like it when words reflect a mood, an historic period. "Frolic," conjures a whole thing around it,, not just someone playing merrily.

Frolic, is what most of the sweet young men do not do around here, so they conjure it. They frolic in their minds, like Theo.

He's getting out today, as soon as his aunt arrives. She's looking for an apartment AS WE SPEAK, he tells me. Anywhere, he's not particular. She's looking in Queens. TODAY, he's leaving. Maybe tomorrow, but no later than that.

And -- he's almost better. His skin is flaking and he's splotching red but he's almost better. He's walking today. HE is pushing the wheelchair instead of someone pushing him. Just a matter of days and he'll be cool.

He doesn't look cool. He breaks into hot sweats that stop him eating mid-meal, which is mostly all he eats. Mid-meal is about his best shot.

And he's forever saying my grandmother, Maria, is an inspiration to him, that she's lived 90 years. He's forever saying he's going to live that long, with Maria as his inspiration.

Theo teases her incessantly. She does some stuff worthy of teasing. At the Goldwater barbecue, she went topless.

When he told me, I could not grasp what he was saying. I made him tell me three times. Apparently it was also beyond Maria's comprehension, or beyond her memory, because he comment on the affair was,

"How could you listen to someone as ugly as that man!"

There are moments I think she has a selective memory.

Three other patients verified the tale, so this time I don't think Theo was embellishing reality. They also saw Maria's blouse come off -- by the chicken grill.

I was still having a hard time grasping. She's so dignified and has such an attitude. She sat looking down her arrogant and what she assumes to be patrician nose, reprimanding me about taking "that ugly man's word" over hers.

I kept looking real hard at her ninety-six pounds of catholic modesty, trying to understand the depth of her fury.

It's like when she calls someone "toilet." The way she says it, makes you one. "Toilet" is one of those words that can do some heavy conjuring. Far worse than a four letter word, or a picture of some naked queers together. Helms and his congressional boys can't ever censor the kind of obscenity that can stir a shriveled old woman to rage serious enough to spew out "toilet" so you recoil from the heat. Or can stir a woman to a primal rage great enough to get her flashing her ninety year old breasts in public.

Sweet Theo bypassed the rage and teased her mercilessly for days, about going topless to the Goldwater Barbecue.

"Theo" is not a medieval word, like frolic and castles. "Theo" conjures up service. I think of Theodore Roosevelt, his cousin Franklin, and Eleanor Roosevelt, in service to all the people, especially the poor people, of the United States.

Theo looks after all those he considers less fortunate in Goldwater. He always makes me give someone half his sandwich. As I said, his best shot is mid-meal. Most people wrap their food and eat it later. Theo always gives his away. What I don't tell him is that no one will touch his halves.

"Don't give me no AIDS sandwich! I won't have it." They say emphatically.

"He didn't even touch it," I tell one after the other. Normally they'd kill for a ham and cheese on rye. "You cannot get AIDS from a sandwich," I continue, "AND I got it from the counterman myself. Theo didn't touch this half." Playing into their stupid games.

"No way am I eating no AIDS sandwich!" They retort.

I can't tell Theo. I pretend to give it to someone behind him, where he can't see that no one will take it. It would break his heart. It would send him to church so quick you'd miss him flying by in his chair. The chapel is one of his favorite spots.

He's a deeply religious man. I'd bet donuts to dollars he was a deeply religious man before he got AIDS, though I know AIDS can bring on the religion in people, whether you have the virus or not.

So I conjure up cals with Theo, this sweet young man, always with a smile. If I'm feeling blue, running into Theo picks up my spirit right away.

We conjure his spot together and decorate. We add a cat, a Persian, one of those lavender longhairs. He's always wanted one. We put plans on all the windowsills. He's getting out of here. He's permanently in his wheelchair lately 'cause his feet and hands have bloated to twice their size, and he's eating even less. But he's getting out of here. He's living to 90 years, just you wait.

One day visiting Goldwater I can't find Theo. I can't find him this one day. I ask around and nobody is sure whether it was suicide or a cigarette gone awry, but they say he burned up in his bed -- just last night.

This is the second patient on fire in the last year, so now they say the State wants to outlaw smoking. Take out cigarette machines, no smoking areas, nothing. They are going on and on about the State, smoking being a civil right the State is trying to take away.

I, am drifting someplace else. They, are talking in my face but I, can't hear them anymore.

I'm with Theo, in his new spot, plants at every window, a lavender cat on his lap.

And like a broken record my brain keeps scratching out, "Theo didn't smoke."

Shut Up, Shut Up