Scenes from An American Life

Are you a doctor?

I am sitting in the examining room, waiting on the doctor to come in and tell me what I have. He walks in just like he’s God, or a reasonable facsimile. Takes a good look at my paperwork on the clipboard, then looks up at me. “I see you have gallstones,” he says.

“Are you sure?” I asked, really worried.

“That’s what it says here,” the doc shows me the clipboard.

“Well, that’s the information I gave the nurse,” I say. “That I thought I have gallstones.”

“But it’s here on your chart. It must be true,” he says to me. “These charts never lie.”

I am getting frustrated. “I told your nurse that I have all the symptoms. But I never claimed that I had gallstones.”

“Look,” he says, then asks, “are you a doctor?”

“No.”

“Then why are you putting stuff on your chart. That’s my job.”

“I’m not putting stuff on my chart,” me, even more frustrated. “Your nurse did.”

Then he hits me with, “I don’t have a nurse.”

“But the woman who took down my information.”

“You mean my receptionist? She’s not a nurse. I keep her here for entertainment purposes.” He winks.

“All I know is that I have the symptoms for gallstones.”

“Of course you do,” he says. “It says so right here on your chart.”

“Well, that’s what the internet says.”

“Is the internet a doctor?” he asks.

Before you can say two shakes, I’m getting the hell out of there. This guy is crazy. But I’m not saying so. He might ask me if I am a psychiatrist.

Wrong address

Two suits show up at my front door. They show me their badges. They are from a government agency. I am not free to say which agency ’cause I don’t want them coming back again.

Tall suit says, “Mr. So-So, we have some questions for you.”

I say, “I’m not Mr. So-So. My name is Dudley W.”

“Then we need to see Mr. So-So.” short suit says.

“He’s not here. He hasn’t lived here for ten years. He’s my wife’s brother and he only stayed here for two weeks ten years ago. Then he moved out. Moved all the way across country for all I know.”

“His mail comes to this address, does it not?”

“Yes. He put in address change with the post office when he left. But we still get some of his mail. We’ve got a closet full of it just waiting for him to pick it up.”

Tall suit reveals, “We googled his name. Google says he lives here with a Ms. Charlene W. No Dudley is mentioned at this address. So where is Mr. So-So. If we need to, we’ll get a search warrant.”

Now I own the house. My name is on the deed with Charlene. Google doesn’t show that I live in the same house as Charlene. I say, knowing it’s no use to refuse these guys, “Well, come right in. If Google says it, it must be true.”

Weather Report

I am watching the national news.

Anchor Man says, “Our next report is from Perky Weather Girl.”

A woman appears, wearing a yellow rain suit. Rain is pouring hard wherever she is. “Hey, Bob, we’re getting bad storms here.” It’s coming down so hard it looks like it’s raining cats and dogs. There are even growls and meows in the background.

Bob says, “That bad, huh?”

“Yes,” Perky says, “I just had my hair done, and would you believe?” She pulls the hood off her head. Her hair is a mess.

“It looks real bad,” Bob comments. “An umbrella won’t help?”

“No. Can you believe it? This was a $300 do.”

“I’m sure the viewers really sympathize.” Bob turns to look at the audience out in television land. “You do sympathize, Audience, don’t you? Of course you do.” Then he’s back to Perky.

She is crying. “I had to wait three months to get an appointment with Mr. Dazzle.”

“I feel your pain. But we’ve got to leave you now.”

She wipes the water and the tears from her face. “Okay.”

“Our next story,” Bob says to his audience, “the almonds are striking at the Nutso Candy Factory in Nutso, Florida. They’re wanting a pay raise. Say they can’t support a family on the peanuts that Nutso is paying them.”

A few words about Ernest Hemingway

The Old Man and the Sea, A Farewell to Arms and the short stories of Ernest Hemingway are old friends. So when I recently saw Ken Burns’ three-night documentary on Ernest Hemingway, I was reminded that maybe this would be a good time to visit with them again.

When it comes to Ernest Hemingway, I don’t love him because he loved bullfighting. I don’t love him because he loved fishing and hunting. I don’t love him because he wanted to out-macho every man, and many of the women, he met. And he was always drinking, drinking, drinking.

Many of us have seen or heard the quote mis-attributed to Hemingway, “Write drunk, edit sober.” Who could write drunk the way Hemingway wrote? Nobody, not even Papa Hemingway. Whoever came up with that that quote did not know Hemingway very well.

That was the lifestyle, the celebrity, the legend. That’s why so many readers and so many critics find fault with him. They’re criticizing his lifestyle and the subjects he chose to write about.

For me, it’s the writing. It is the writing that makes Hemingway Hemingway. From the first time I read The Old Man and the Sea, I loved how he could word a sentence.

When Gabriel Garcia Marquez saw Hemingway in Paris in the late 1950s, he could think of only one word to honor Hemingway with. “Maestro.” That was how much Hemingway and his sentences meant to Garcia Marquez. He was saying what the many writers would want to say to their Papa. Of Hemingway, Joan Didion once wrote in the New Yorker, “This was a man to whom words mattered.”

He preferred the basic Anglo-Saxon words of the English language over the Latinized words the English stole from the French. He wrote simple declarative sentences with strong nouns and even stronger verbs.

When he began writing with that style, it was a new way for writers to speak to American readers. Studying Cezanne and sitting at the feet of Gertrude Stein, the young Hemingway took on a literature that was loaded with fancy-dancy words and overly descriptive adjectives and gave writers a new way to speak to an audience.

Because words mattered to Hemingway, he was constantly in search of the “one true sentence.” Ask any writer who cares about their craft. They will tell you what a young writer told his agent, according to Francine Prose in her wonderful Reading Like a Writer. “What he really cared about, what he wanted most of all was to write…really great sentences.”

Later Prose writes, “I’ll hear writers say that there are other writers they would read if for no other reason than to marvel at the skill with which they can put together the sort of sentences that move us…”

Those are the kind of sentences Hemingway wrote. Again and again and again. And it’s why writers pay attention.

Just read the opening paragraph of A Farewell to Arms. “In the late summer of that year we lived in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. In the bed of the river there were pebbles and boulders, dry and white in the sun, and the water was clear and swiftly moving and blue in the channels. Troops went by the house and down the road and the dust they raised powdered the leaves of the trees. The trunks of the trees too were dusty and the leaves fell early that year and we saw the troops marching along the road and the dust rising and leaves, stirred by the breeze, falling and the soldiers marching and afterward the road bare and white except for the leaves.” Wonderful.

In the opening of Hills Like White Elephants, ” It’s the same poetic rhythm: “The hills across the valley of the Ebro were long and white. On this side there was no shade and no trees and the station was between two lines of rails in the sun. Close against the side of the station there was the warm shadow of the building and a curtain, made of strings of bamboo beads hung across the open door to keep out flies. The American and the girl with him sat at a table in the shade, outside the building.” So specific, so descriptive.

He can summarize a story in the opening sentence such as the one that opens the short story, The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber. “It was now lunch time and they were all sitting under the double green fly of the dining tent pretending that nothing had happened.” Again and again there is a magic to his writing that few others can give me.

Or the opening sentence of The Old Man and the Sea: “He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.”

God, I love those sentences.

Do Animals Have Souls?

What a question! Of course, they have souls. Just look into your horse’s, your cat’s, your dog’s eyes.

I know when I look into my cat’s eyes I see a soul looking back at me. Sometimes her soul is saying, “I love you. I love you a lot.” Sometimes she is saying, “What the hell do you want?” And at other times, “Man, that was a good rat. Yum.” Or sometimes, “What a great day. Enjoy, just enjoy.” Then she goes off and runs or jumps into the bird bath just for a drink of water and she enjoys her complete catness.

I am sure that if you looked into a horse’s eyes you might see those eyes saying, “Gee, I love to run. There is nothing quite like it.” Or “Man, you need to lose some weight. Everytime you ride me, my back hurts for a week.”

Or a dog’s soul saying to his master, “You may be an s.o.b., but you’re my s.o.b.” They love us unconditionally, never holding back. I remember seeing a movie called “Hachi: A Dog’s Tale”. Hachi’s master had died, yet Hachi waited for years for his master to return on the evening train. They were friends, and the dog loved his friend more than anything.

So you can’t tell me that if there’s a life after death that there won’t be animals there. I am not going to believe that. Because a life after death without my cat ain’t any kind of life at all. So there. That answers that question. So on to the next one. Do people have souls?

Maybe. Then again maybe not. At least for some.

A Day in the Life Of Martha 270

Monday, April 7, 2025.
6:00 a.m. The alarm went off inside his head. “Mr. Patterson, it’s time to wake up,” the Voice said. He rolled over on his side and said forcefully to the chip inside his head, “Leave me alone, Martha.”

6:02 a.m. “Sir, it’s time to wake up,” the Voice went off again like an alarm clock with a sharp beep that he could not put on snooze. “Okay, okay,” he climbed out of bed. He went into the bathroom and quickly relieved himself.

6:05 a.m. Patterson stumbled down to the kitchen. He poured water from the tap into the coffeemaker. “Sir, you have to use distilled water. You never know what poisons they put in the water these days.” “Yes, ma’am,” he responded. He went to the pantry and pulled out a gallon bottle of water, then poured the water into the coffeemaker. “Happy now?” he said to the Voice. The Voice came back, “Sir, please do not be smart with me. I am only doing my job.”

6:30 a.m. The Voice reminded Patterson that it was time to shower. He showered and dressed.

7:00 a.m. Patterson headed for the front door. “Sir, are we not eating breakfast this morning?” He answered, “I’m just going to stop at Krispy Kreme for a couple of donuts.” “Sir,” Voice said firmly, “donuts are bad for you. Loaded with sugar. How many times am I going to have to remind you. Now fix yourself a healthy breakfast.” He said begrudginly, “Okay, okay.” While Martha played some morning motivational music, he prepared an omelet. Once his breakfast was on the table, he opened his tablet and read the Wall Street Journal.

7:30 a.m. Bing! a soft reminder went off in his head, letting him know it was time to leave for work. He placed his dishes in the sink, did a quick brushing of his teeth, straightened his tie and went out to his BMW. He said to Voice, “Lock the house please, Martha.” The Voice obeyed.

7:35 a.m. Patterson’s BMW headed up the interstate on-ramp and followed the flow of the traffic. The robotic driver corrected the car’s speed to the flow of the other cars. The traffic eased along at a steady pace, each car driven by its own robotic driver. Thanks to technology, there were no more traffic jams or pile-ups. “Martha, could I have the market report?” he requested. The radio came on with an update of the financial news.

8:30 a.m. The BMW pulled into his parking spot at The Company. He checked his digital for the time. It was good to be early this Monday morning. He had a meet-and-greet with a major investor that afternoon. The extra time would give him a head start on his preparation.

8:35 a.m. Patterson entered the door of the office of the Vice President for Financial Affairs, his office. He said hello to his administrative assistant. “Helen, can you cancel any appointments I might have today.” It was not a question; it was a request. “I have a big meet at 3:00, and I need the time to prepare.”

Helen looked up from her work. “Yes, sir. All but one. You are to report to HR102 at 9:00.”

He said, “Cancel it.”

“No, sir. It’s an order from upstairs.”

He argued, “I’ve got to prepare for this meeting.”

Martha interjected, “Sir, you are to report.”

Shaking his head, he said, “Since it seems I have no choice, I’ll go. But there will be hell to pay if this meet-and-greet don’t go well this afternoon.”

“Sir,” the inside of the head said, “you will still have plenty of time. I can help as well.”

“Okay, I’m going.”

8:50 a.m. Patterson got on the elevator and pushed the button for the 13th floor, the Human Resources Floor.

8:52 a.m. Patterson stepped out of the elevator on the 13th floor. The receptionist showed him Room 102, better known throughout The Company as the Interrogation Room.

8:53 a.m. Patterson entered Room 102. A man and a woman, both wearing dark glasses, sat behind a table, facing the door. “Have a seat, Gregor,” the woman said. “We can call you Gregor, can we not?”

“Yes.” Patterson took his seat. “I have an important meet with a client today. Can’t this wait?”

“Not really,” the woman said, “but this won’t take long. Less than thirty minutes.” Then the man, his hands folded on the table, asked,” Are you happy with your work here at The Company?”

“I am,” Patterson said. “Quite happy.” His palms sweated.

8:55 a.m. The woman asked, “Gregor, you are happy with your office? With Helen, your administrative assistant? With the perks of your title, such as the BMW? With the support you are getting from The Company? You do like it here, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Patterson said, wondering why the third degree.

“Then what seems to be the problem, Gregor?” the man asked. There was a smirk in his voice.

8:56 a.m. Patterson looked confused. “There’s no problem.”

“Gregor, we have been receiving reports from the Martha 760 that you are not happy. She says you have been not giving her your full cooperation. You’ve been arguing with her. Is this true?”

8:57 a.m. Patterson answered, “Ah, c’mon guys. I have been following Martha’s instructions to the letter.”

“Yes, but you are not getting into the spirit of the program,” the man said.

“I am. I can assure you absolutely that I am,” Patterson said.

“We hired you,” the woman said, “right out of college to be our youngest vice president ever. We are paying you a very lucrative salary with very good benefits. I hope you appreciate that.”

8:58 a.m. “I do,” Patterson responded, “I do.”

The woman continued, “There was only one condition on which you were hired. That we implant the Martha 270 chip in your head. And that you follow her instructions to the letter and in the spirit of the program. You did agree to this, did you not?”

8:59 a.m. Patterson was starting to get scared.

“Would you like a glass of water, Gregor?” the man asked.

“No, no, no,” Gregor answered. “Yes, I agreed to that.”

“Then why are you resisting?” the woman asked.

“I didn’t think it would be so hard,” Patterson said.

“But it isn’t,” the man said. “It’s very easy. All you have to do is listen to the Martha 270 and respond positively.”

“You know,” the woman said. “You have been upsetting Martha 270. You don’t want to do that, do you?”

9:00 a.m. “I didn’t know,” Patterson said.

“She doesn’t deal well with conflict, Gregor.” The woman smiled

“You don’t mind apologizing, do you?” The man was not asking a question. He was making a demand.

“Of course not, and I promise I will do better,” Patterson said.

“Then all will be well,” the man said.

“You play your cards right,” the woman added, “you could very well be the youngest CEO of The Company. You would like that, wouldn’t you? You haven’t changed your mind?”

9:01 a.m. “No,” Patterson said, “I haven’t changed my mind.”

“Then it is settled,” the man emphasized. “You will comply with the Martha 270’s instructions. After all, Martha is looking out for your best interest. You think you can do that? Of course you can?”

The man and woman stood up. Both walked around the table. Patterson stood up. They offered him their hands and he shook hands with both. As the man was leading Patterson out to the door, he said, “Or else.”

9:02 a.m. The woman turned Patterson toward her and straightened his tie. “One last thing,” she said. “Don’t forget the party tonight. We’ve got a woman for you to meet. She’s going to make a perfect wife for a future CEO.”

The man added, “And don’t forget to apologize to Martha.”

Good Enough

“It’s never good enough,” Harry said.

“I love you,” Therese said, “and I want you to do well. That’s why I tell you these things.”

“I love you too, but it never seems good enough.”

For three hours, Harry and Therese had been at each other, yelling, screaming, slamming doors. They were in their mid-forties, married for five years.

“I’m getting the hell outta here,” he said.

“Fine. Just go,” the dark-haired woman yelled and went into their bedroom and threw her body onto the bed and cried.

“I will,” he called to her. Then he stalked out the front door, pushing the door behind him closed. He was surprised to hear it slam.

“Shit.”

He kicked the tires of her Ford and said shit again. He moved on to his blue ’57 Chevy pickup, got into its cab, and backed out of the driveway.

Ten minutes later, he pulled into the parking lot of the Alley-Oops Tavern. There was a sign above the building of a giant cave man, his right hand holding a mug of beer topped off by suds. His left was wrapped around his girlfriend Oola’s waist. Five o’clock and only two cars were in the parking lot. None of the regulars had showed up yet.

The owner Jewel with her gray “Lucille Ball” poodle cut stood behind the mahogany bar. The Drifters crooned from the jukebox. Behind the bar and above the liquor bottles was a large mural of Ted Williams at bat. It was one of several baseball oils distributed along the walls of the small pub, all done by her thirty-five year old boyfriend, Marty.

Marty was at his usual spot at the end of the bar, nursing a bottle of Schlitz and puffing on a Marlborough. He wasn’t wearing a tie. Harry had never seen him without one.

Jewel came over and reached up to Harry and gave him a big hug.

“How’s my favorite brother-in-law?” the fifty-five-year old woman asked. “Hmm, let’s see. Not good.” She released him and escorted him to one of the stools. Behind the bar again, she pulled out a bottle of Hamm’s, popped the cap open and sat it down before him.

He took a swig from the beer.

“He’s a big deal now,” Jewel motioned toward Marty. “Got a promotion.”

“Great,” Harry said, lifting his beer toward the other man. “Congrats.” He took a drink of the beer, then sat it back on the counter.

“Yep. I’m a big deal now.” Marty said.

“I knew he had it in him,” she said, smiling at Marty.

She walked over to him, patted him on the cheek, kissed him light on the mouth. At the end of the kiss, Marty took her hand into his and massaged it for just a moment. Then he released her hand. He took a last drag on his cigarette and stubbed it out in the ashtray. He lifted the beer that made Milwaukee famous to his lips and finished it off. “You want me to get you some supper?” he asked Jewel.

“Burger and fries sounds fine.” The bar didn’t serve food, only snacks.

“Okee doke. See ya, Harry.” Marty’s six-foot-three frame stood up, reached over and kissed her, and sauntered out of the bar.

Jewel walked back over to Harry. “I’d be proud of him no matter what.” She studied his face briefly. “Want to tell Jewel your troubles?” she asked. “You do have troubles, don’t you? You know I can tell from those sad, puppy-dog eyes of yours.”

“How have you and Marty been able to keep it together for fifteen years?”

“”Tain’t easy,” she said as she wiped the last of several mugs dry and sat it in its place below the counter. “We both keep our mouths shut and wait for things to pass. It took me two divorces to learn that.”

She opened the refrigerator and took out a glass of ice tea. Placing it on a coaster on the counter, she sat down across from him. Her sky blue eyes searched his brown ones as she sipped the tea. She had given up alcohol after her second marriage. That had been the one that had convinced her that she was an alcoholic.

Another swig from the Hamm’s for Harry. Elvis sang in the background.

“You know,” he said, “I don’t even remem…oh, yeah. It was over that piece of shit she calls a car. I knew it was a lemon when she bought it and I told her so. But she don’t listen. Then she says she shouldn’t have listened to me. Like I wanted her to buy it.”

Jewel took another sip of her tea.

“Damn, I hate Edsels,” he said and drank the last of the beer. “It wasn’t even that good a Ford new. And she got it used. And red too. Damn piece of shit, that’s what it is.”

Jewel handed him another Hamm’s. He started laughing. She looked at him with a what on her face.

“I was just thinking,” he said, “how much I love my ’57 red. Man, that’s a man’s ride.”

Harry looked at his watch. 6:00. He took one last swig of the beer. “And how much I love my sister-in-law.” He gave Jewel a kiss on the cheek, then made toward the door. He stopped.

“Jewel, why don’t you and Marty come over Sunday? You know, we’ll put on some steaks. Therese makes the best homemade ice cream.”

“We’ll be there,” Jewel said. “Sundays a good day for homemade ice cream.” She closed Alley-Oops on Sundays, the day she referred to as “the Lord’s Day.”

Harry walked out into the early evening daylight and over to his truck. Marty was leaning against the Chevy bed. Tears were in his eyes.

Before he could ask, Marty blurted out, “Jewel has cancer.”

“What?”

“The doctor gives her six months. Maybe,” Marty choked out. “Don’t tell her I told you.” A long pause, then, “And for God’s sake, don’t tell Therese.”

For the next five minutes or so, the two friends stood quiet and tried to think of something to say. But nothing came.

Finally Marty said, “Well, I got to go get some burgers.”

“Yeah, man.” Harry watched as Marty walked away. He pulled himself into the truck and took his time putting the key into the ignition. He started the engine and turned on the radio.

“Here’s a new one,” the d. j. announced. “It’s Patsy Cline singing ‘I Fall to Pieces’.” Harry pulled out of his parking spot and headed onto the street. The song seemed to assuage some of his grief as the voice, words and music perfectly mirrored his sorrow.

On the drive home, the people in his life passed through his imagination person by person. His buddy Frank, dead at Normandy. His mother Mavis in the small cemetery by the country church just outside of town. His no good son-of-a-bitch brother Tom, serving a life sentence for murder. His kid Jimmy, hadn’t seen him in twenty-three years. All these passed through his mind as he kept driving. And Jewel. Man, he was going to miss her. She had more spunk in her than most women half her age.

Sitting at a stop light, he remembered the first time he saw Therese. When they met, she was still on her first marriage and he was finishing off his second. She was a waitress in a small diner where he ate breakfast as he started his delivery route each weekday morning. Sitting on one of the stools and nursing his cup of coffee, he watched her body move around behind that counter and he knew he was in love.

“You doing anything after work?” he asked.

“I’m married. See,” she said, showing him her ring.

“Your husband won’t treat you as good as I will.”

“How do you know?”

“I know these things,” Harry said.

Two years later they were married, and they’d fought once or twice a week since. Disagreements, they called them. But, after five years, they were fights, and both of them knew they were fights.

Crossing the intersection, his muscles ached from the loneliness he’d feel if he gave up on his marriage. And soon he’d be sixty, seventy, and his life would be all gone. He’d return to the dirt in the ground just like his old man, all alone.

He swiped the tears from his eyes. He heard Ray Charles come onto the AM station with “I can’t stop loving you.” He listened. The words in the song cut him to the quick. He pulled the Chevy up behind Therese’s Edsel and braked and stopped. Getting out of the truck, it hit him.

His life was more than good enough. It was damn good! And he was not about to miss out on showing his appreciation for that.