Duke and other stories
By Nicole Marie Moore
That was the day the parakeet flew into the mixer; when Grams was making a cake in the house on Trudgeon street in Henryetta when my father was a boy. He doesn't remember. But, undoubtedly that is a detail any half-decent parent would cover up. I was much older when I learned of the tragic death of my own family-shared dog; found by the pool guy at the bottom of the deep end; a sad end to the sad mange-ridden life. Strange how so many beloved pets have such tragic deaths.
But in the small house with the air conditioner that dripped water and with the huge maple tree out front, the blue parakeet was soon replaced with a green-feathered one. Duke was smart, though, and comical too. And he had the run of the house. You could talk about gutting a fish at the table and Grams (my grandmother) would get up and leave. "Yeah, she always had a weak stomach," Dad explained to Margaret, my great-aunt who is 90 years old.
"But she would let that bird poke around at her mouth and stick it's head in and pick crumbs right up off her tongue," insisted Margaret about her sister-in-law, with a look. That sounded just like her. I remember when Grams would pick up her little Maltese dog Nipper and ask for kisses with puckered lips while he licked her lips, nose, cheeks, and chin. I can't even touch another person's pet without feeling I need to wash my hands; perhaps it's the same way a parent must think of children: yours are clean, sweet, innocent, and perfect; but the rest of thems is just crawlin' with germs! (The dog was supposed to have been mine, but as Mom didn't care to have a dog in the house, Grams kept him. And Nipper loved her like no other. When she left to the store, he stood at the door, or ran from the bedroom to the door whimpering unconsoled until she returned. Little dogs are all the same that way.)
But Duke was a smart bird. You could set a deck of cards at one end of the back of the couch and he would surreptitiously and rhythmically pick one up in his beak, carry it to the other end, drop it to the ground, cock his head to the side, look down at it, side-step back across the couch to the deck, pick up another card and do it all over again; fifty-two times in complete habitual contentment. The habit-driven body has no unspent energy and the mind no time for wild or unconsoled thought.
And if you put a large, glass mayonnaise jar down on the floor, Duke would hop right on inside and roll all over the place like a hamster in a plastic running ball. But the best stories were when Dad as a boy would practice. First he played the trumpet, then the baritone and also the piano. Duke would stick his head over the bell of the trumpet, cock his ear toward the opening and when my Dad would sound a tone, Duke would run the length of the trumpet up to Dad's face and give him a light peck on the nose. This happened over and over again until Dad's nose was as red as Rudolph's. Same with the piano; but with the keys, Duke would run across them and nip at my Dad's fingers as he practiced. Duke loved the baritone best, though; hanging over to listen to the rich bass sound. He was involved in all practice sessions.
And when the affluent businessman that Granddad worked with at the glass plant came over for dinner one evening, he disbelieved in Duke's impeccable speaking abilities. Per usual, Duke was roaming the house. As he sat on the visitor's shoulder later that evening, the man turned to Duke and said to him, "So, you can talk, huh?" And Duke turned to the man and responded in simply perfect repose, "Whatcha' lookin' at, stupid?"
But Duke wasn't the only comical part of life in Henryetta in the early days. Dad and his cousin Deanna roamed the small-town streets, looking always for kicks. And, unfortunate to the insects, they often involved them in the plans. Like the time Dad and Deanna collected a bunch of grasshoppers and put them into a meat grinder, ending their lives for the betterment of a meatloaf they tried begging my great-grandmother Ma, who died a few months before my birth, to make. I am pretty sure the lime-green gelatinous mixture never made it out of the refrigerated bowl.
Another time they collected an entire jar of ants that was quickly turned away from the inside of the house in parental disgust. And unfortunate to the parental disgust, though not to the ants, the breaking of the glass jar in the street afforded the army to converge instead toward the lawn and into the safety of the grass.
I didn't fair so well with my own ant experience as a child while blithely riding my bike outside the pool gate at my Grandparents’ apartment complex. My tire must have slipped off the concrete as I rode the fine line between grass and foundation and I toppled off and into a fire ant pile. I was "squealin' to beat the band" Dad said, while my Grandparents and he slapped the ants from my legs, feet, back, butt, and torso.
It's odd to think how differently life could have been, how easily paths could have diverged and certain people not born. Granddad had an appointment to train at West Point. This is something I had never known before. But when Granddad’s first wife Opal got pregnant with Dad's half-sister Jacque, my Grandfather's plans changed. At that time (and perhaps even now), married men were not accepted into West Point. He was a smart man, though. And a hard-working man. And the years at the glass plant afforded him the ability to care for his family and to provide a stable life. But, I am not sure that he was ever a truly happy man (though perhaps like many people, happiness wanes with age and lost opportunity).
I was always a bit intimidated by him when I was a young child. And the best memory I have of my Grandfather is when he made a paper-doll chain for me. I remember watching as I stood beneath the circle of lamplight, with my head leveled next to the heavy mahogany table, as he folded the paper and made the required small cuts to particular corners and sides. Like a magician, his blue eyes twinkled when he pulled the paper sides apart and a long strand of paper dolls appeared across my large-eyed, awed vision. I also remember him present and active when I was learning to ride my first real bike; so I know he loved me in his way. But mostly I was sheltered from his gruffness by my Grandmother, who played penny-poker and dress-up endlessly with me, and who peppered my imagination with stories of a pet polar bear who protected her on her way to school when she was a girl.
Now, when my Grandfather and Grandmother married, Grams didn't think she would be able to have a child on account of her having only one ovary. But along came my father, who she named John because it means "gift." He was the gift she could never have truly hoped would be. But Dad and Granddad had a tumultuous relationship, as did I with my mother. And this too seems to be an unspoken law of nature. The struggle between father and son, mother and daughter; will against will. It is certainly true that there are families in which this struggle does not occur, but I think those may be the glorious exceptions.
Granddad still moved to Texas for my birth, against his real wishes, so that Grams could be close to Dad and to me. And Texas is where Granddad passed, though his body he returned to the red land of Oklahoma. Grams passed in Texas too, though here she remains.
And perhaps some of the unhappiness Granddad suffered came from the second major disappointment of military service because when WWII broke out, he signed up to fight. But once again, his avid passion to serve was thwarted; this time by a health condition. Dad, on the other hand, did serve. When the war in Vietnam ensued, Dad enlisted under the buddy program. Back then, you could enlist with a friend and you were guaranteed to go through basic with that buddy. In basic, Dad met some of the men who remained the best of his friends to this very day (all crazy musicians). And the army-buddy families grew up together, like sisters and brothers in the best of times, and cousins in the later years when deaths and grandchildren distanced them more. But the stories, the great grand stories that have come from that group of friends are something to be recorded for posterity. And perhaps one day soon, we can collect them all and bind them and share them, and laugh when reading them, and take joy in having them spoken beyond those who know them best.
I remember listening one night camp-side, after the recent passing of one beloved army buddy, to an old re-recorded eight track. See, Dad was the only one of the group to go to Vietnam. He was the sometime band leader and sometime drum major and all-time euphonium player for the American Division US Army Band. And the other guys would pile into a recording booth in the rehearsal hall of the 4th US Army Band at Fort Sam Houston with smuggled bottles of whisky in hand and proceed to record nonsense stories and jokes and fooleries for hours at a time. Then they would send the recordings to him, overseas. When he got back, the fooleries didn't stop and the camping trips, accidental fires, tires buried in the sand, and near-death experiences only tripled! If Dad had never joined the army, he may never have met these amazing friends. (So strange how life's histories have so many other possibilities.)
Another life that diverted and reconverged was great-great uncle Erwin (the father of the husband of my Grandfather's sister) who had an early show of musical talent and a fondness for the piano. But his father didn't believe a boy's place was playing the piano: A boy's place and a man's place were in the field. So at 5 years of age, great-great uncle Erwin was helping to tie metal around the bales of hay and got his finger lopped off in the process. It is amazing though, how life adapts, especially for musicians, because great-great uncle Erwin continued to work at the piano and was able to play very well, even after the loss of a digit. But, one need only think of the great jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt whose fingers of the left hand were forged together, or the great pianist Paul Wittgenstein who lost his right arm in WWI and played a composition written for him by Ravel for left-hand that sounded like four hands. Yes, life adapts in such a myriad of ways. It cripples us then forces us to think beyond the crippled body and to draw upon the strengthened soul.
Visiting my Grandfather's daughter Jacque and her husband Barney on their farm near Wewoka always helps to strengthen my soul. The days are simple, with dinner at two in the afternoon. They are retired from farm life mostly, though Barney keeps the two large catfish ponds stocked and drives out each morning in the same ol’ pick-up truck with the same 'ol shotgun to feed the fish. But mostly he takes it easy in his easy chair and watches baseball to his heart's content. Jacque tends her garden and keeps and cleans and tends to Barney as he needs. And the grass that roams their acreage is tall and slender; and when the wind blows it waves back and forth like a thousand tendrils of long hair in lime-green water. The hummingbirds stop periodically at a feeder just outside the living room sliding-glass door each day. And the mare gave birth to her foal shortly after the last time I went to visit.
So life can be simple, but perhaps it only gets that way after all the tumult of youth and living, after the recording and story making, and after driving back by the old childhood houses that seem to grow so disproportionately large in memory. So, in lieu of Duke and Dad, Granddad and Grams, Great Aunt Margaret and Cousin Deanna, Great-Great Uncle Erwin, Jacque and Barney, and the Army Buddies, may the stories merely be beginning!