The Grapes of Pathos

Aka

Well, Yes, I Do Laugh At My Own Jokes, Why Do You Ask?

(*Anne)

[See Standard Disclaimers I and II in profile]

It is one in the morning, and I’m still shivering under a heavy leather jacket and a thick sweatshirt.  I feel like I will never be warm again.  

I also feel like I need to stop being a drama queen.  

Needless to say, these two feelings aren’t cooperating together very well. 

A mild blizzard swirls outside, but this is a city where people are used to such things.  A few flurrying inches of snow would no more shut down a 24 hour grocery store than a bit of fog would shut down London.  I’m standing in the produce section, desperately examining rows of grapes.  Burgundy and black, green and purple.  Pretty much every possible shade of grape, and they all looked delicious.

I glance at the wines nearby, giving serious consideration to moseying over and grabbing a $12 Pinot Gris wine of some sort.  I don’t even much care for white wines – I prefer the body and richness of reds – but it feels like a Pinot Gris sort of night.

Somehow, though, I doubt they’d let me drink it where I’m going, and I judge it best not to drink it before bed and risk oversleeping.  Not that the idea of oversleeping didn't have its charms.  But I’m worn out enough as it is after three long and almost sleepless weeks at the hospital.  So I examine the wines from a distance, careful not to go too close and succumb to the temptation.

             Though I’d come in only for grapes (of the unfermented variety) and French bread, I have a full-sized cart.  Partly to give me support (my exhaustion, the hard-earned result of weeks surviving on a bare three to four hours of sleep a night), but mostly because there were no handbaskets at the door.  Whoever was in charge of handbasket placement had clearly found a more meaningful way to while away the night.  I couldn’t blame him or her, really.   Few kids aim for ‘handbasket placement specialist’ as a job.  As a passion, perhaps, since people enjoy the oddest things and I refuse to judge so long as nobody gets hurt.   But not as a career.  It’s simply not likely to pay sufficiently well.

Leaning heavily, I can’t stop running my eyes over the grapes.  Every single bag seems to be perfect, each in its own way, and I begin to feel a bit frantic.  A bag of ripe grapes betrays very little.  Certainly you can find small or shriveled ones at the bottom, but grapes in general don’t have the easily-identified markers of damage that betray the loss of quality in larger fruit like bananas or apples or oranges.  A ripe grape is pretty much a ripe grape.  It’s nearly impossible to tell if the murky coloration of the skin is due to mishandling or age, or just some dust that will disappear once the grapes are washed.

That morning – or, rather, yesterday morning since it is 1 AM and a new morning has begun – I brought a bag of grapes to the hospital because she has always loved grapes.  I washed them carefully, managing to refrain from eating even a single one so we could eat them together, and left the bag out in the car for a while after I arrived in order to get them nice and cool.  

On the elevator up to ICU, I finally decided it would be best to know exactly what I was bringing her.  So I tasted one and sighed.  Loudly. 

(I glanced about, hoping that sigh conveyed the very essence of my disappointment in these grapes.  It took me a moment to remember that I was alone on the elevator.)  

Though not quite horrible, the grape tasted strictly pedestrian.  A bit sweet, a bit bitter, and the skin was chewier than either of us liked.  In other words, exactly what I would have expected of a grape bought in the throes of winter.  It had been shipped from halfway across the world, after all.   Modern commerce has done wonders with making seasonal items available out-of-season, but it had yet to overcome the stress and strain that comes with shipping.  I ate a second grape, with similar results.  I searched out a third, smaller grape, hoping one of the smaller ones would taste different.  Sometimes they do.  But not that time.   This bunch, was all I had, so I took the bag to her room.  She saw me enter and smiled, just a little, as I dropped my stuff on the floor next to my usual chair.  Slowly, though not making a show of it, I lifted the bag of grapes out of the grocery bag that held it, and pulled off a single grape.  She hadn’t been eating – as far as I could tell, she hadn’t allowed solid food past her lips in a week – but she accepted the grape that I gave her and bit into it.

                If she was disappointed, she hid it well.  But she had to have been disappointed.  It was a mediocre grape.  Nothing to break a fast for, and certainly nothing to give her a good memory as her remaining days slipped away.  I offered her another, just in case, but she mouthed No and laid her head back on her pillow.  She said something else, but I couldn’t understand.  Her voice had fallen to a perpetual whisper.

                Sometimes it almost felt like a punishment, not being able to understand her words during this last month I would ever spend with her.

                I was likewise disappointed, extremely so, but I’m not sure how well I hid it.  The lack of sleep wears away our ability to dissemble.  Each slow sleepless hour staring at a book rather than properly drowsing means a slower hour later where the mind and body become unpredictable.  Though I spend my days sitting in a chair, reading or talking softly with her, or just watching TV for a bit, I can’t recall ever being more worn out than I’ve been over the last three weeks.

So here I am in the grocery store once again, peering closely at the grapes, my face just inches away from them, as though I can somehow make out the sweetness in the color, or size, or shape.  I can’t, of course, though I can’t stop trying either.  A sense of incipient hysteria nags at my sleep-deprived brain, a compulsion that made it hard for me to just stop and pull away.  I stare and blink, stare and blink, as if by staring long enough, the secret to finding the perfect fruit would suddenly crystalize and I would be able to simply grab the right one.  

And, suddenly, as if finally realizing deep down that no such secret exists, I’m overwhelmed with the need to start sampling.  Just take one grape from each bag, I tell myself.  Just one to find out if this bag contains the right type of grapes.  

Yes, it would be stealing, and I haven’t stolen anything since I was a kid (a candy bar or two, as kids are wont to shoplift).  But surely the universe, and the store employees, would understand how important it was to find the perfect bag of grapes for someone who was running out of time, right?  Would anyone care about my motives?  Does the end justify the means?

And why the hell am I asking useless rhetorical questions to a set of coolers in the produce section?  

                The air smells of wet cabbage as the misters spray the vegetables a few meters away.  I glance over my shoulder more than once.  Seeing as it’s one in the morning, the place isn’t exactly bustling, but there are a few late-night shoppers, and the occasional employee moving pallets of grocery items around for restocking.  As I lean in close to the grapes again, I reach out and run my fingers over the mouths of the clear bags, feel the plastic crackle under my fingertips, and imagine how quickly I could surreptitiously remove a single grape and palm it for a few seconds so anyone watching would stop being suspicious just long enough for me to pretend to scratch my nose as I slip a grape between my lips. 

                But something keeps stopping me.  Morality?  Perhaps.  The forced habit of being a law-abiding citizen?  No doubt that’s a factor.  Fear?    Almost certainly – I’m not sure whether the cops would be called for simply skimming some grapes, but I’m can’t imagine being booked for shoplifting would contribute to what little time I have left with her.  There are acceptable risks in this life.  That doesn’t strike me as one of them.

              The fact that I am being ridiculously paranoid isn’t lost on me.

  I move down the row, repeating this gesture many times.  Of course, I learn nothing of use from doing so, but it kept me busy, or at least too busy to think too closely about the stakes.

                Finally I settle on a bag.  A heavy cluster, deep red and smooth-skinned, with no unsightly ones at the bottom.  At least none that I can discern.

                As I walk out to my car, I wonder whether I made the right choice.  It seemed so small a thing against such a large one.  In the end, stealing a few grapes to help send someone off into the Great Perhaps (‘I go to seek a Great Perhaps’ – Rabelais, last words)  just a tiny bit happier seems like a monumentally obvious decision.  I have to fight the urge to return to the store, to actually take that step in order to find the perfect grape.  The employees would understand if explained to them in terms of life and death, of failure and regret.  I’m not in the least bit sure of that, but I try, and fail, to convince myself of that.

                Even when I realize I forgot the French bread, I don’t turn around.  French bread no longer matters.  I still feel like getting drunk, though, or at least buzzed.  Some temptations don't go away even, or especially, when you know you won't give in to them.

It is 6:30 in the morning and the coffee tastes horrible.  Like ozone and charcoal with the slightest hint of something antiseptic.  Some things are worse than death, and really bad coffee is at the top of the list.  I immediately hate myself for having a thought like that in this context.  Since I have no intention of going back out in the freezing cold morning to brave the icy roads in search of coffee from some location other than a hospital cafeteria, I just make ugly faces as I sip.  I can actually see my expression in the occasional brushed steel doorframe I walk past.  Given the instinctual atavistic certainty that something this vile could kill a man, the temptation to spit the coffee out on the hospital floor is overwhelming.  By the absolute narrowest of margins, my genteel upbringing wins out over my crass sense of self-preservation.  

In my other hand, I hold a grocery bag filled with the grapes.  Though I’d tasted a few the night before as I washed them, and they tasted better than the previous ones, if not actually delicious, I remain nervous.  This seems too important not to double-check, so I decide to eat another one, just to make sure they still tasted okay.  As I step into the elevator to the fourth floor ICU, I set the coffee cup down on one of the hand rails, balancing the lip against the wall (not very hygienic, but, then, I’m not thinking very clearly.)  Reaching into the bag, I pull out a grape and suddenly ask myself why I hadn’t just plucked them from the stems and stored them in a plastic Tupperware container last night.

              You ever have one of those days where half your thoughts revolve around wondering why you’re not thinking clearly?  I was having quite a few days like that lately.

              I pop the grape in my mouth.  It still tastes okay.  Not perfect, but certainly better than those in the last batch.  If ‘okay’ is all you have available, you tend to lower your standards to meet that level of acceptability.

When I arrive in her room, she is asleep.  Or seems to be asleep.  I suffer from the suspicion that she sometimes just closes her eyes so the rest of the world will leave her alone for a spell.  So I set the bag of grapes on the windowsill, next to the glass frosted by the winter outside, and settle into my chair to wait for her to awaken. 

                It doesn’t take long.  Or perhaps it takes forever.  It’s hard to tell.  I think I might have dozed off.  There are no clocks visible in the darkness of the room, so I don’t know what time it is when I finally notice she is awake.  My phone, which could tell me the time at a glance, remains in my pocket, unused and silent as usual.  Though friends and family try to keep up with me, I’ve grown too used to keeping to my relationships to myself.  I don’t want to share with any of them.  I made a point of not sharing her with them when life was good, and I can’t seem to find the will to share her last days with people who were never part of our world.

                Anyway, she is awake and watching the TV.  It’s some animated movie I don’t recognize.  I smile and wave at her.  She looks like she’s about to smile, but doesn’t.  I pick up the bag of grapes and pull out a single plump one for her.  She shakes her head.  No.  Not willing to take the hint, I raise my eyebrows and try to proffer the grape again, and again she shakes her head.

                You sure? I ask.

                She nods very slightly.  She seems to be staring through me.

                The bag of grapes goes back on the windowsill, back to the thin layer of cold between the glass and the blinds.  I shiver a little as I impulsively place my right palm against the window, wiping away a bit of condensation before drying it on my jeans. 

I look back over at her.  She still isn’t smiling, or showing any emotion that I recognize.  Just looking over at me like someone examining a particularly compelling empty space.  Because I had slept so little in the last couple of weeks, and because I didn’t recognize myself at that moment, my feelings were a bit hurt.  Just a tiny bit.  Intellectually, I know better, or at least convince myself that I know better, which is why I manage to keep those feelings from showing up in my expression.  Instead, I slide the chair over a bit, the wooden feet scraping loudly on the hard tile floor.  As gently as possible, I take her hand left hand in my right one. 

Though she doesn’t grip very hard, at least her fingers bend just enough to prove that she is remonstrating the gesture.

Or maybe I imagine it, and keep imagining it to avoid the truth.  Maybe her fingers were already bent when I wrapped my own fingers around them and maybe she can’t decide whether she wants to hold my hand or not, so she’s just resting her fingers in my palm.  Or maybe it’s mere instinct, a reflexive tightening of the muscles in her wrist.  Maybe this…or maybe that…or maybe something else…every damned maybe turns into a thousand more maybes.  That way lies madness, as they say.

She’s not even looking at me anymore.

I think maybe she’s being stubborn, like that time she refused to stop reading her paranormal romance novel and look at me after I teased her about it.  It seems like a funny thought, the idea that she’s just faking it all to teach me a lesson.  If I’m not careful, I’ll start laughing inappropriately as I start to lose control of my thought processes.  I have to fight not to laugh when I ask myself – in second person – if she’s being a little ornery, as she can occasionally be when she feels stubborn.  Are you saying that she’s just in ICU for an acute case of the stubborns, Random?  Really?  This is the same girl who once drove the two of you around Chicago for three hours just to prove a point about finding a decent parking spot, after all.  Are you suggesting she can be cancer-level ornery when she sets her mind to it?

With considerable mental effort, I clamp down on that line of thought.  With even greater mental effort, I clamp down on the urge to share it with her.  In times past, she would have found it amusing.  Now?  I can’t imagine it would go over well.

But I also can’t imagine what will go over well.  She’s looking at the TV, not really watching it so much as using it as a convenient place to look.  The machines over her head beep and blink and flicker.  I stare at them for a long minute before looking back at her.  Her hand is still in mine.  I have no idea what to do with it except hold on to it as long as possible.

These are the moments when you literally cannot decide what to do next.  You’re caught between so many equally futile possibilities that you might as well not have any.  I want to lean over and insist, firmly, that she least try one of the grapes.  I want to tell her to stop being so difficult, because I knew her at her most vulnerable and she didn’t have to hid anything from me.  I want to apologize to her for presuming to bring her more grapes after the failure yesterday morning.  I want her to explain to me, in very specific terms, why she chose to give up, why she stopped eating, mostly stopped talking.  Why even a single grape is too much for her.  I want to apologize for even thinking of insisting she eat a grape even if I hadn’t acted on that thought.  I want to beg her to eat one.  Just one, to let me make up for yesterday’s grape.  I want to know why she won’t now when she would yesterday.  I want to ask her if I’m being selfish for thinking of myself, if I should be thinking of her and only her.  I want to know if I’m doing the right thing, because she always trusted me to do the right thing and I have no idea what the right thing is anymore, not in this place.  She has so little time left, and I want to ask if she’s afraid, and if she is waiting for me to do something, anything, that would make her less afraid.  

And I really, really want to ask her what I am supposed to do next.  Because I think I am afraid, and I don’t remember ever being afraid.  Not really.  Not like this, anyway.  

None of these questions have answers (and not just because I am unlikely to understand her response thanks to my slowly fading sense of hearing.)  I know that they don't.  If they did, I wouldn’t need to ask because she’d have already explained these things to me, and I'd have already answered her own questions.  I have to believe she loves me enough that she would have told me the answers to these questions if she knew them.  And I’m afraid that somehow I misunderstood everything all along.

                

What happened to that bag of grapes, I honestly can’t say.  She would pass away just over a week later, and almost everything between those two days blurs into an indistinct haze of exhaustion, misery, and bravado against exhaustion and misery.  I certainly don’t recall eating them.  Given my feelings at the time, I can’t imagine I would have been able to bear doing so.  Their most likely fate was the trashcan after I left them behind.  When thinking about them, I wonder if they went into normal trashcan or the biological waste/hazard one.   That strikes me as one of the most pointlessly inane things I could possible wonder about, given everything else that happened.  

But I do.  I can’t help it.  

The meaningful questions, the ones that define me, define us, define the world we shared?  Those questions are too big for me here, in this time and place.  It’s easier to wonder what happened to that useless bag of uninspiring grapes rather than whether or not that one grape she never managed to eat would have made the slightest damned bit of difference to her, or to me, or to anything at all.

~Fin