Humpty Dumpty
Garrison Phillips
Claire called Parker at 7:30 to make sure he was awake and wouldn’t oversleep. It was the morning after Kevin’s memorial service.
“Parker, are you there? Yoo hoo.”
Parker was already awake but pretended not to be. He answered with a sleepy mumble, “Gimme a minute.” He switched off the answering machine and placed the telephone on the table. He rolled onto his side and carefully lowered his feet to the floor just as he had learned from the nurses when he was in the hospital. He squared himself upright and pulled Kevin’s jacket across his shoulders as he reached for the telephone again.
Claire was still talking. “Today is another gift and the message for the day is—are you ready?”
Parker’s ear began to itch. He rubbed the telephone against it as Claire babbled on. His ear tingled as he scratched at it and Parker felt the strangeness—the pressure of the telephone against his ear as it began to swell, pushing slowly outwards.
Claire was rattling on, “And with that kind of a message for the day why we just cannot let it go by without celebrating with lunch. I’m free so it’s my treat at the Atrium on Third. I’ll stop by the shop for you. 12:30 sharp.”
Parker looked at the telephone. The little holes were spreading wider as the receiver slowly enlarged.
“Parker?”
Parker’s scalp felt all tight and a bead of sweat rolled down his forehead. The telephone was beginning to slowly pulsate—the holes in the receiver were like little mouths with their lips pursed in round O’s. Out. In. Out. In. Parker slipped his right hand around his left wrist and carefully guiding his hand he placed the telephone on the night table.
Claire’s voice continued. “Parker, are you all right? Answer me, Parker.”
He moistened his lips. His mouth was dry and his voice cracked as he leaned to the night table and whispered into the telephone. “Claire. It’s okay. I’ll have to call you back.”
“What is it, honey? Do you need help? I’ll send Andy. He hasn’t left for the office yet.”
“Bathroom,” Parker croaked. “I’ll call you back.”
The telephone was growing larger and now covered half of the night table and through the little holes, pieces of Claire were oozing through. First Parker saw various fingers, one with the twinkling, opal ring. Then he could see the edge of her gold-framed glasses and tips of her red hair curling through the pulsating holes of the disc.
Parker knelt, lifted the heavy telephone and edged in into its cradle. He tried to swallow, to rid himself of the dry, metallic taste in his mouth. He cupped his palms to his eyes and then, as he pressed his fingers across his forehead and back along his scalp, he was surprised to see that the telephone looked just like it always did. Same size. Same phone. No swelling. No Claire.
That was the first time. The first time anyone had tried to climb through the telephone.
That same morning, Kevin’s brother, Richard, appeared at the apartment with papers he wanted Parker to sign. Richard refused Parker’s hospitality—the offer of tea and a plain bagel. Parker sipped his tea as Richard explained his mission; the apartment belonged to Parker but any claim on any other property would be contested by Kevin’s family.
Parker listened quietly as he finished his tea, picked up Kevin’s jacket and said, “We settled all that. Now I have to go to work. I have to finish the chair.”
Parker’s response took Richard by surprise and he fumbled the papers he was trying to sort and in the process dropped his briefcase.
Parker watched as Richard, on his hands and knees, picked up the contents of the briefcase. Then Parker gestured at the offered papers. “Where do I sign?”
Richard pushed a pen toward Parker and pointed to the signature lines.
Parker quickly signed his name and turned to leave. “Please pull the door closed when you go. It’s self-locking.”
* * *
There was still some work to be done on the rocking chair. Parker had started to work on the chair after Kevin said he felt better when he could rock. The old chair in their apartment was falling apart so Parker began from scratch with scraps of cherry wood from the shop. When Tony, the burly, Italian shop owner, found out about Parker’s project, he called all over the city to find good, unblemished cherry wood and gave it to Parker. Then, when Kevin had died, Parker explained to Tony that the rocking chair would be for the kids at the school. “That would be what Kevin would want,” Parker explained.
Tony gladly gave Parker all the time he needed to work on the chair. And that was every time Parker had a spare minute and now it was close to being finished.
Parker hurried to the shop. He needed to get to work, to be away from the apartment. On the way he put on and took off Kevin’s jacket a half a dozen times or more. He wanted to feel its warmth, but then, when he had it on, he wanted to hold it. So, on and off it went—Kevin around him, Kevin in his arms.
* * *
That first morning, Parker had assumed it might be just Claire who seeped through the telephone. But then, a couple of days later, Tony called to see if he could be in early to finish up a cabinet and it began all over again. Big Tony, trying to force himself through the puffy receiver holes. Except Tony’s fingers had poked through all at once. All ten of them with the dark little hairs tufted at the knuckles like miniature eyebrows.
So Parker stopped answering the telephone. And he was terrified of it. Even in the dark, he was aware of its presence on the night table. It troubled his sleep and he would wake and turn on the light to look at it. What was happening? Parker covered it with a shopping bag but that didn’t help. The morning after Tony’s call, Parker rummaged through his dresser for winter gloves. Then he cut the telephone wire with a butcher knife. He scooped the telephone onto a newspaper and into a shopping bag, depositing it in a dumpster on Houston Street on his way to the shop. Parker felt better at once, relieved that he wouldn’t have to face it in the apartment any more.
Later that morning, Claire’s husband Andy called him on the shop’s pay phone to find out if his home phone in the apartment was broken. Kevin had been fraternity brothers with Andy and Doc in college twenty years earlier. Andy was concerned that Parker’s own health was deteriorating now that Kevin was gone. He wanted Parker to go see Doc. Andy was describing a new drug trial he had heard about when his fingers popped through the telephone and Parker banged the receiver down so hard he snapped it off the wall hook.
Parker fled to the back corner of the shop with Tony following him.
“Hey, Park. What is it?”
“It’s okay. I have to go see Doc.” Parker was sweating and his breath came in short bursts, as though he had run a long way.
“You’re wringing wet. You can’t go out like that.”
“Tony, please. I have to.” Parker grabbed Kevin’s jacket and raced out of the shop.
* * *
At Doc’s office, Parker paced the waiting room until the nurse indicated he could go in. Fortunately, there was only one person ahead of him.
“Doc, something’s wrong,” he blurted out before Doc could close the door of the examining room.
“Ease up. It’s been a rough go, but you’re doing just fine.”
“I’m okay, it’s the telephone. When people call, I can see them.”
“You’re still upset—that’s natural. Just give it a little space. This sort of thing can happen. Your imagination, the medication—a little hallucination. Something is obviously bothering you. We can handle that, so tell me about it.”
“I know about dementia.” Parker drew away as Doc gripped his shoulder.
“That’s not it. Don’t make it any harder on yourself.”
“But the telephone. When someone calls ... the telephone—I can see them. Part of them. It—”
Doc interrupted, “It’s only natural you miss Kevin.”
Why wouldn’t Doc listen to him? Parker wondered. Perched uneasily on the examining table, he banged his heels against the plastic cover and tried to dry his sweaty palms as he rubbed them down the side of his painter’s pants. He took a deep breath, then calmly tried again, “The telephone. People try to ooze through the little holes.”
Doc was slamming things about in the white metal and glass cabinet. When he turned, Parker saw the needle in his hand and scrambled up on top of the examination table to get further away. “No. I don’t need that.”
Doc moved toward the table, the needle poised, “Come down from there. You’re upset.”
“Put that down. Put that away.” Parker was bunched into the corner at the far end of the table. “Please. Please listen to me. I’m okay. I’m not forgetting things and I’m fine at work. It’s just the telephone...”
“Dammit, calm down.” Doc carefully placed the needle on the white metal table beside the door.
Parker didn’t move from his corner on the table.
“It’s okay. See. I put the needle away.”
“It’s the telephone. Everyone who calls. I see bits of them pushing though the receiver. Why?”
“Something is bothering you. Of course you must miss Kevin so let’s just give it some time.” Doc reached to touch Parker’s shoulder.
Parker had lost more weight since his last visit to see Doc. Doc weighed him on the scales, listened to his heartbeat. Doc had been with Kevin the hot July night they met. It had been the Seventies, Pines, Fire Island. Parker was dancing alone in front of the DJ booth, spinning in a tight little circle. He was stripped to the waist, his tie-dyed, ripped undershirt hanging by one strap around his neck. As he turned about, dripping wet from the heat and the booze and the non-stop dancing, he softly chanted "Doesn't anyone want to fuck a vanishing American?" over and over again. Parker suddenly paused, halted by the sight of Kevin. With a wide grin lighting up his face, Parker stretched his arms wide in an invitation for Kevin to join him.
Kevin had turned to Doc and said, “Well, lookee what I found.” And that was it. Kevin, the unattainable, copper-haired cover boy, and Parker, the part-Mohawk carpenter became an item. Kevin had curbed Parker’s roaring binges. He had never lost control of himself again for the entire fifteen years they were together. Now it felt like all was unraveling. Something had shifted. He was losing his balance.
As Doc shone a light into his eyes, Parker pictured the cedar, summer house at the Pines in a grove of black cherry trees which he and Kevin had shared for years. He had fit in quickly with Kevin’s friends. The next summer, another bedroom, bath and deck had been added to the house, pushing further into the dense forest. Parker remembered it was like sleeping in the tree tops.
“We can do some tests,” Doc said.
“Tests?”
The intercom bell sounded two short pings, paused and then pinged again. It was the signal from Doc’s nurse that something or someone needed his immediate attention. Doc guided Parker through the door and down the hallway to the bathroom. “Wash your face, Park. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes and we can talk. Okay? And lock the door.” Parker couldn’t leave the office without exiting through the reception room which Doc could see from his office. He would alert Pam, his nurse, as well.
* * *
Parker had waited for Doc to disappear down the hall, then closed the door. He was confused, muddled in his thoughts. Kevin was gone. But now Parker knew, without knowing how he knew, that he could find Kevin at the Rumsey Playground. He had to explain to Kevin, what he had tried to tell him in the hospital. It was Doc’s statement about something bothering him that triggered Parker’s thought of the playground.
He tied the arms of Kevin’s jacket about his waist and crossed to the small window and raised the blind. He unlocked the window, raised the sash and hoisted himself up onto the narrow sill. The building was pre-war, made of brick, and the outside sills were great blocks of gray slate. The sill was still wet from the morning rain and Parker inhaled the autumn aroma of Central Park a block away as he pulled himself through the window. He slowly lowered himself, his fingers grasping the slate sill. He stretched toward the sidewalk, lifted himself slightly and then dropped lithely, sinking into a body-roll as he hit the pavement. A year ago it would have been a snap for him. Now he banged his knees and ended up in a jumbled heap, amazingly with no broken bones. He stood up too quickly and steadied himself against the building before lurching toward the park. He crossed the street to avoid a telephone booth and slipped into the bright foliage of the park at 59th Street.
* * *
The playground where Kevin usually took his students was back of the Mother Goose statue at 69th Street and the East Drive. The Plaza itself was surrounded by a tall ring of London Plane trees, each tree trunk wound about with English Ivy. Kevin always said the trees looked like they wore great, green, leg warmers. It was a favorite spot for outings with the children from his school. Kevin had told him, “It’s a magic spot, you know. And the magic is from all the kids’ laughter.” Now, the Plaza drew Parker like a magnet.
* * *
Just north of the zoo Parker cut west so he could pass through the memorial grove that sheltered the company markers honoring the men of the 307th Infantry who were lost in World War I. Kevin’s grandfather’s name was there, etched into the brass marker on the boulder centered in the memorial grove.
Parker brushed his fingers lightly over the letters of Kevin’s family name, Trumbull. The two of them had visited the marker so many times over the years. Now he remembered how Kevin had explained that it was a name that spelled big banking and a town house in the East 70s. It meant a summer cottage at Newport and race horses in Kentucky and power politics. Yet, in the Argonne, it had offered no protection from the lethal gas as it crept through the shattered forest and seeped through the muddy trenches into the officer’s mess.
For Kevin, the name provided privilege and private schools, Harvard and, finally, Columbia Law School. But when he started modeling, the family asked him not to use their name. Later, the family rift widened when Kevin, although passing the bar exam, chose to work with handicapped children at the little school in Yorkville.
Kevin had said, “Now I’m like you. An orphan.”
Parker had looked quickly away, taking a deep breath. Slowly turning back to Kevin, giving himself enough time to put a smile in his reply, he said, “Not quite. You don’t ever want to see the inside of an orphanage. Don’t you understand, you’re my family now.”
* * *
Parker was suddenly tired again and shivered as his sweat-streaked shirt dried in a damp chill against his skin. He untied Kevin’s jacket from his waist and pulled it around his shoulders. He tried to remember exactly what Doc had said about his medications. There was something else. Something about being worried and missing Kevin. Then Parker remembered, he had to talk to Kevin. Tell him what he had tried to say in the hospital when Kevin was so ill. Parker was certain that when he explained to Kevin, that would stop the people from oozing through the telephone. Somehow the two were connected.
Parker walked quickly up the slight rise toward the Mother Goose statue. He could rest now, and he sat and leaned back against the statue. He was so tired and his eyes closed as he slipped into sleep.
He dreamed that Kevin was there and then, suddenly, he felt Kevin’s warm embrace. Parker squinted, trying to focus more clearly. Everything was so hazy.
“I’m sorry I’m late.”
“Not to worry, I waited for you.” Kevin continued by quoting a favorite old saying just the way Parker knew he would. “In a hundred years, we’ll never know the difference.”
“You know, I waited for you, too. Lots of times.” Parker hated that he had just blurted it out. He’d meant to soften it, not to sound as though it was an issue over which they had argued. “I told you in the hospital, but you were so drugged. I wanted you to know.” That was better, he thought. It was important to tell Kevin this, to get it off his mind.
“What? Tell me what?”
“Our adventure nights. When we took our Saturday night away from each other every month.” Parker hesitated. He didn’t want to sound petulant. “I always waited for you.” There. He’d said it. It hadn’t been so bad. He felt all right.
Parker watched as Kevin hunkered down on the top of the slate steps, his arms clasped around his knees.
Parker continued. “When we’d go our separate ways, I’d just wander around. Go to a movie maybe. Bars don’t make it since I quit drinking. Sometimes I’d sit on the waterfront at Christopher Street or take long walks if it wasn’t too rainy or cold. Or I’d take the subways or buses. All over the city. Clear out to Coney Island or up to Pelham Bay.”
“You’re telling me you didn’t go out to the bars?”
“Un huh. I followed you once into one of those back rooms and I watched you. I stood close to you and watched your face and I heard you call my name. You were with some guy but you called my name in your excitement.”
“What?” Kevin had moved along the playground wall to stand with his arm around the pedestal topped by the statue of the little girl.
“But that was wrong. My watching you. It was your privacy and so after that I just waited for you. Killing time around the city. Waiting.”
“You watched me? Come on.”
“I saw you in a cubicle—down the steps from the pool table.”
“Where?”
“The Lair. I pretended you were with me. Then you called my name and I freaked. I knew you couldn’t see me but it scared the hell out of me. You must have been thinking of me to call out my name like that and—it made me feel ... so empty, not being with you. I just ran.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was afraid you’d think I was spying on you. Afraid of losing you. You wanted your adventure nights, so I agreed.”
Parker felt dizzy again watching Kevin. He moved about so much. Now he was standing beside Mother Goose again.
“We should have talked. And why did you worry? I told you we’d never split. Never happen. Not with us.”
Parker leaned closer as he watched Kevin slowly trace the outline of Humpty Dumpty carved on the side of the statue. He felt dizzy and leaned back against the statue. Finally, he weakly managed, “But you went away.”
“Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.” Parker, his face so close, whispered, “And all the king’s horses and all the king’s men ... “
Parker reached to pull Kevin’s face closer but he had moved away to the top of the stairs leading to the playground. Parker started to get up but felt dizzy again and sank quickly back. He was so tired.
Kevin’s voice continued. “I miss the kids so much.” His voice sounded far away, barely audible. “I miss you, too, Parker.”
Parker sat up, “You do?”
“A lot. And you know that I’ll wait for you. Always.”
Parker watched as Kevin climbed astride the Mother Goose statue, his chin resting on the billowing cape, staring at the empty playground.
He flinched as Kevin jumped from the statue and landed, softly as a cat, on the steps beside him. He could feel Kevin’s warmth, pressing himself closer like he used to do, begging to be cuddled. Parker tried to raise his hand to pull Kevin closer. And then Kevin was leaning over him, their foreheads touching. Softly, Kevin kissed him, his golden hair falling in a gentle cover over Parker’s eyes. Parker moved his face slowly back and forth, letting Kevin’s hair caress him. He was happier than at any time since Kevin had gone away. He felt safe again. Unafraid. He wanted to tell Kevin about the telephone. Kevin would understand. Parker tried to speak of all the whirling thoughts, darting shadows in his mind. Instead, he only yawned. He was so tired. Parker pulled Kevin’s jacket close about him and curled up against the Mother Goose statue and slipped quietly into sleep again, happy that Kevin was with him.
* * *
Children’s laughter awakened him. Parker was stiff from sleeping in his cramped position and now he rubbed his legs to ease the spasm of pain as he tried to stand. He looked at the Mother Goose statue and she was still flying determinedly towards the East Drive but Kevin was gone. Parker slowly got to his feet and limped to the statue. He traced the outline of Humpty Dumpty just as Kevin had done, murmuring, “... Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.” Suddenly he smiled as he remembered Kevin’s words—“I’ll wait for you.” It was going to be okay and Parker began to smile and the smile broadened into a wild shout of joy. Kevin had not abandoned him. He was waiting. It was like a long Saturday adventure night. And Parker began to laugh, flooded with relief that Kevin had said he would wait for him. His laughter pushed him on his way as he careened wildly across the East Drive and along the walks toward Fifth Avenue. Kevin’s jacket flapped around him in his haste, as though it, too, was in a hurry.
Parker had to get to work. All the way downtown on the bus, he held tightly to the metal bar resting on top of the seat in front of him. It was as though his very grip could make the bus go faster.
Parker paused outside the shop, eyeing the pay telephone on the wall. He didn’t trust getting close to the telephone even though the receiver dangled at the end of the cord from the broken cradle.
Tony saw him through the shop window and walked quickly to greet him.
“Hey, old buddy. You saw Doc, right?”
Embarrassed by his reluctance to enter the shop past the broken telephone, Parker began to trace his fingers over the shop letters painted in bright green and red on the window—‘Tony’s Cabinet and Woodworking.‘ Then, breathing slowly and deeply, he answered, “Yeah. I saw Doc.”
Tony waved his hand toward the broken telephone. “I called the telephone company and they’re sending a guy to take it out.”
Parker stopped his tracing of the painted lettering and looked up at Tony in surprise.
“Claire and Andy were here looking for you. We talked it over so the telephone comes out for now.” Tony gestured toward the shop, “Everyone can use the phone in the office.”
Parker smiled. “You know it’s only when I answer that it happens. And, I’m okay. Doc says it’s probably just a reaction to my medication.” It was so much easier to talk about it now that he’d seen Kevin.
“We figured that. Doc called me. Now, you gotta get back to work. On the chair and the new cabinet orders.”
Parker smoothed the jacket as he hugged himself, waiting for the tension in his back to subside, remembering Kevin’s touch. He breathed deeply, relaxed his arms slightly and hugged the jacket about his shoulders again, stretching the tiredness from his back.
“Sunday you’re comin’ out to the beach for dinner. Claire and Andy and the kids will pick you up. Marie says to tell you to choose the menu.” Tony gently touched his hand to Parker’s shoulder.
“Oh, that’s great. Great. Tell Marie I’d love her spaghetti with the bacon and onion sauce.” Parker glanced quickly at Tony and then turned toward the doorway of the shop. “I guess I’d better get back to work.”
Parker sidled past the broken telephone but stopped inside the doorway. The telephone no longer seemed threatening. He reached to touch the cord and then the dangling receiver. He wasn’t afraid of it any longer and he heaved a deep sigh of relief. With a smile to Tony and a wave of his hand, he walked quickly back to his workbench. He smoothed the wood on the table, carefully aligned his work tools and then turned to look at the rocking chair. Parker moved slowly to caress the arms and the high, rounded back of the chair. He ran his hands across the spindles, touching them lightly as though playing a harp. He removed Kevin’s jacket and placed it carefully on the back of the chair, smoothing the jacket sleeves along the arms. Then Parker moved around the far side of the chair, a tiny smile curving his lips. He touched the rocker lightly with his foot to set the chair in motion. Parker watched it for a moment and then stepped to his work counter. He picked up a half-finished cabinet door frame and began to sand it vigorously, turning every so often to smile at the chair as it continued to rock gently back and forth.
__________
Garrison Phillips is a Korean War Veteran, a graduate of WVU, and a retired actor. He writes a blog, Everyday Strolls, for Senior Planet of OATS (Older Adults Technology Services) which teaches the Internet free to senior citizens. He has had articles and letters published in the quarterly journal of the Allegheny Regional Family History Society, The New York Native, The SAGE Newsletter, monologues in By Actors, For Actors, and a short story in Apalachee Review.