Waffle House at Night

 

I walked through the door from the garage after a typical day’s work at the hospital, took off my shoes, and set my keys on the desk in the den.  Standing in the opposite doorway with the front door behind her stood my wife, a large box at her feet.  She had a curious smile on her face that threw me off.  It is a particular expression that I am not used to getting from her.  She gestured at the box and asked me what it was.

I had no idea what it was.  She and my daughter are the ones who get packages through the mail, not me.  I acted nonchalant about it but was intrigued.  When she left to pick up our daughter at school I double checked the label to make sure it was for me.  The sender was a friend and fellow psychiatrist which dialed up the intrigue for me even further.  We share common interests in writing and art (clues perhaps?).

I picked up the sizable box and took it to the dining room to begin the unboxing process.  It was securely taped and took some doing to get it open.  Inside was bubble wrap surrounding another box, also securely taped.  The suspense was building as I broke taped edge after taped edge.  Inside the inside box was more bubble wrap.   Was it something made of glass?  The wrapping materials were all over the table.

After what seemed like several minutes of careful work I found a 12x12 black square that turned out to be the back of a frame.  I gingerly flipped it over and found an image of my friend’s Waffle House painting that I’d admired from afar on Instagram.  My first thought was that he’d framed a print as a thoughtful gesture, but then the light glinted off it’s uneven surface and I realized it was the painting itself.  No way!

I let out a loud bark-like laugh and then just took it in: the brush strokes, the lit interior details, the glowing effect of street lights at night.  I took me back to days spent with Kevin McCarty, my friend and godson, in his studio apartment that was literally an art studio with paintings stacked against the walls and his easel in the middle of the room.  I would breathe in the smell of turpentine and walk over his paint-speckled floorboards.

The Waffle House holds special meaning for me.  My daughter and I flew to Florida a few years back for a field hockey tournament and we arrived at the hotel some time after midnight.  It was unseasonably cold; we were hungry and tired.  Across the parking lot was a Waffle House.  Inside was an elderly man at the cash register who peeked over his newspaper and pointed at a booth.  A waiter came 30 minutes later.

It was an odd slice of life that she was not familiar with at her young age considering the late hour, the dingy booths, the greasy food, and the paucity of employees.  Kevin liked visiting these kinds of places and befriending whoever might be there.  He even convinced a local greasy-spoon owner to let him set up his easel and paint some patrons who volunteered to sit for it.  So much caught up in so little a painting.  

***

Waiting for a Storm

Waiting for the storm to arrive on this island vacation getaway

(the family sleeping in, maybe dreaming of the coming deluge)

  

Strange feelings are surfacing listening to 

Wish You Were Here

“two lost souls living in a fishbowl, year after year”

and thinking of Kevin,  

wondering where he is right now,

understanding place and time are problematic 

once someone has passed out of this waking life 

where it seems an inordinate amount of time 

is spent simply waiting for a storm, 

hunkered down in a bubble of fleeting calm 

before it hits and the skies cry.

***

 

“McCarty”

 

The soldier screams

while Idu broods and

the books gather dust.

Memories of Kevin

pulse in the dark,

his signature glowing

in the light of Grandma’s

lamp that grounds me 

in a spiritual metaphor.

***

In thinking of Kevin, life invariably becomes a canvas and beauty reveals itself.

My friendship with him had a very brief flowering before I left for the Army at the start of my senior year at Indiana Wesleyan.  I had loaned him a book for a Dr. Martin class which may or may not have been “Western Intellectual and Social History” which we fondly referred to as WISH.

He was living in the studio apartment below me and Jacob Isang.  Jacob was a dashing and popular soccer player from Nigeria and friends with Idu Ikadabu who was a fellow soccer player also from Nigeria.  Idu later sat for a portrait with Kevin while I was gone which now hangs in my office.

Kevin was quick to make our acquaintance as new neighbors though I’m not sure Jacob knew what to make of this half-blind artist dude.  My memory is sketchy but I seem to remember my last glimpse of Kevin was from the back elevated porch of my apartment as he disappeared around the side of the house holding the red book.

I spent the next two years in Korea as an infantryman before returning to Marion, Indiana and reconnecting with Kevin which blossomed into a bona fide friendship.  We bonded over books, music, and intellectual pursuits spending untold hours talking about art, political ideologies, philosophical systems, and metaphysical conundrums as well as some downright silly stuff which may or may not have included all of the above.

After graduation I had to make special trips up to Marion to hang out with him or take him on some adventure as he could not drive due to his poor eye sight.  I found my way into the Orthodox Church through that time period and that increasingly became a topic of conversation between us which lead to him becoming an OC fellow traveller.  

And eventually he fully lost what little sight he had due to a reoccurrence of the cancer that he had been born with.  This drug out over an extended period of chemotherapy and surgeries but his embracing of a Faith grounded in being and experience (as opposed to ideas and intellectualism) deepened him in ways I could have never imagined possible in the years we had spent together thinking lofty thoughts and talking deep into the night but mostly just running in circles.  

The books had gathered dust but his soul was gathering light and life in his latter years.

The Little Prayer Rope That Could

 

About a month or so ago I was tying my shoes in the morning to get ready for work and the shoe string broke.  As I held the broken piece in my hand I was reminded of Kevin’s prayer rope that he’d made out of a boot string all those years ago.  I ended up putting it in my pocket instead of throwing it away and went about my day.

Later when I was home from work the association grew stronger in my head and then in my heart, so I started tying knots into it.  It was long enough to make seven knots in a row with little tails on either end.  A traditional prayer rope is circular and typically includes 33 or 100 knots, but this one would have to do.  

And I couldn’t stop looking at it and moving it around in my hand.  I ended up snipping off the excess part on one end and dabbling some Elmer’s glue to keep it from unknotting which made it harder than the other knots when it dried.  Starting at the knot below it I would say the Jesus Prayer* on each knot, down and back.

This ended up being a cycle of 12 and then the last hardened knot became my “Rejoice…” knot to start the cycle again.  In less than a week I’d lost it which made me sad.  I made another one with 7 knots with some old Army 550 cord I had from back in the day but I quickly lost that one too.  It was very frustrating.   

After a week or two I was getting out of my car in our garage and noticed something on the concrete that turned out to be that original prayer rope smashed flat by my wife’s van’s tires.  I picked it up and brushed it off and worked on the knots to unflatten them.  I promised myself I would be more diligent this time.

But after a few days I once again lost it.  It too easily comes out of my pocket when I pull other things out, like my keys. It is small, narrow, and brown which doesn’t help.  So, at least two more weeks go by and this time I assume I’ve lost it for good.  So silly, anyway, right?  I think maybe God is telling me not to bother.

Then this morning I’m thinking about it again as I pull into the parking garage at work.  It hits me that I don’t necessarily need a prayer rope to say the Jesus Prayer.  I get out of my car and walk past several cars headed for the stairwell.  As I round a corner I start to say the Jesus Prayer and glance down at the ground.

At my feet is the little brown prayer rope once again smashed flat by the tires of cars coming and going from the parking garage and I let out a kind of bewildered laugh.  What are the chances?  I picked it up and started squeezing the knots once again to unflatten them, promising myself to do better this time, again.

________________________

*The Jesus Prayer is a meditative practice in the Orthodox Church typically done with the assistance of a prayer rope.

Leaving Grant

Tomorrow the photos on the bulletin board at Grant Medical Center come down after spending the month of February on display.  During that time I have flip-flopped week by week from Riverside to Grant, Grant to Riverside, and back over the past few months in transition.  April will see the end of that and I’ll be full time at Riverside after a fifteen year run at Grant.

Those photos are a glimpse of my time there.  They are the beauty that I saw in the people and the environs day by day, season by season, year by year.  It’s appropriate that so many of them are funny and quirky alternating with images that are beautiful and melancholy.  They really are a visual summation of my time at a place I’ve looked forward to going to every single day.

Today was special in that four different people from four different parts of the hospital stopped me and specifically mentioned the board and what photo most spoke to them.  They included an ICU nurse, an elderly maintenance man, a Trauma NP, and a clerk all of whom I’ve known for years.  There was a kind of sparkle in their eyes as they described what they saw.

The maintenance man was particularly moving.  We’ve had brief moments of interacting over the years in the hallways and he always radiates kindness.  He stopped me and told me how special those photos were and his favorite was the one with “rain drops on the window”.  He said he wished he could do something like that and I had the “eye of an artist”.

I think it hit me so deeply and unexpectedly because that is exactly what my godson Kevin had said to me years ago before he’d passed.  He was an actual artist and it had shook me up then and even more so now.  This sweet man had seen something of what I’d tried to convey through creative outlets: expressing feelings of beauty, kindness, sadness, and love.

And tomorrow those photos come down and a little more than a month from now I will no longer be going to Grant as my day to day job.  At this very moment it is like nothing is different  or has changed because I am still doing the same things and talking to the same people this week enjoying their company until that day when it is not pictures going away, but me.  

***

Shattered Personae

Dreams of the shattered personae

Attracting

Repelling

Melding

Looking for a longed for unity 

Exclusive

Obtrusive

Elusive

The struggle continues in earnest.

***

Painting of Idu Ikadabu

 

Idu Ikadabu was one of those people that others would say about him, “Everybody loves that guy!” And it was true.  He was a soccer player from Nigeria attending my college and good friends with a fellow Nigerian soccer player who happened to be my roommate, Jacob Isang.  Both of them were well known personalities at my school in the few years I was there.

Idu was a very tall and imposing figure except he always had a huge smile on his face and a booming voice with a laugh that would energize the room.  In this regard you always knew where he was if he was anywhere in your vicinity.  I can still hear his African accent that carried the brilliance of the sun and echoes of a faraway culture.

While I was away from college serving time as an infantryman in Korea my friend and future godson, Kevin McCarty, had Idu sit for a painting.  Idu was quite enthusiastic about it per Kevin and wore his traditional Nigerian garb.  They were both gifted gabbers and unique human beings.  I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall while this painting was being created!

When I returned to college from my two year stint in the Army I was greeted by Idu’s painting leaning against the wall in Kevin’s studio apartment.  I loved its arms extending into branch-like fingers.  Because of his extremely poor eye sight Kevin was a very slow painter and Idu was not known to be someone who could sit around for very long.  He was too dynamic.

So the painting was unfinished but magnificent nonetheless.  Idu’s imposing figure comes through, though it is a bit weird to see his expression so serious.  Kevin didn’t know what to do with it and considered reclaiming it for another painting, but I talked him into a barter instead.  I had a cheap jangly guitar that Kevin decided he wanted and a swap was proposed.

The painting went with me to Indianapolis for 4 years of medical school and then out to  Washington DC for 4 years of residency.  When we finally moved to an actual house in 2006 Idu went into storage in the attic.  Two more moves later he continued on sealed in a box until today when I finally busted him free and put him in my new larger office at the hospital.

***

Hearts Shine Through

Seeing Kevin in a dream

but Vincent is there too.

The world transformed

by their vision

nearly blind - mentally ill

but somehow 

their hearts shine through.

***

Shannon, Friend of Kevin, Artist

She is an artist, a friend of a friend who was also an artist and also happened to be my godson.  I met her through him back in my college days and after he died we shared stories of Kevin.  He was missed.  He was loved.  His heart and artistic vision were appreciated.

We continued on as friends through Facebook over the years.  I appreciated her insightful comments, especially when it had to do with my attempts at doing something artistic.  She became a single Mom of teenaged kids and worked hard to make a home for them.  

I admired her from afar as she struggled in a distant town, but then I realized just this past week that she had not commented on any of my posts in quite awhile and vice versa.  It was a Facebook memory with one of her comments that alerted me to the gap in communication.

I started reading the most recent posts on her account and a creeping dread mixed with sadness began to take hold.  Friends posting about missing her, about praying for her kids.  I messaged one of those friends who informed me Shannon had died in her sleep in February.

February!  I felt bad I hadn’t figured it out sooner.  She had gone to the ER not feeling well and was evaluated but then sent home.  Her kids found her in the morning, dead of an apparent heart attack, the subtle signs of female cardiac symptoms lost on a night shift ER staff.

But then today in the blue garage at work I noticed a peculiar sight.  Someone with a baby blue Lincoln Continental had custom-attached a blue-winged angel ornament on their hood.  It made me think of Shannon and her quirky artistic nature detaching itself from corporality.

***

Kevin’s Friends

 

I’ve had a large art folder with some of Kevin McCarty’s charcoal sketches stored away in a closet for over a decade and I’ve been meaning to pull them out and put them in their poster protectors. The few times I’ve stumbled upon this folder it has always seemed like there would be time at a later date to make it happen. Well, today is finally that day.

As I’ve handled them I realize the paper has thinned and dried out into a brittle dark beige that is turning brown in spots. The poster protectors that they were meant to be placed in have sat unused and still shrink-wrapped with the sketches all these years. None too soon I have unwrapped them and carefully slipped the large pieces of sketch paper between the thin particle board back and clear plastic cover.

The thing that stands out to me is that three of the four sketches are of one person. The remaining one is of three people in various stages of completion sitting in chairs and at a counter. I recognize the setting as The Country Shed which was a greasy spoon restaurant in Marion, Indiana where the locals hung out but was torn down when the bypass was expanded.

Initially I did not realize the three men in separate sketches were the same person, but then on closer inspection it became clear: beard, large glasses, baseball cap, dark sleeveless shirt, and coffee cup. The different iterations looked different to me because he is drawn from three different angles. This kind of sketching was typical for Kevin in preparing to create an oil painting. It allowed him to understand what he was seeing with his one weakened eye and lack of depth perception that most are afforded by virtue of having two eyes. Maybe even more important than the visual aspects was the process itself which gave him time to talk to his subjects and get to know them on a more personal level.

I’m sure for Kevin it was a win-win situation. He loved talking to people and could spend hours going back and forth about any number of topics though he had a preference for existential questions. I never specifically asked him about it but as someone who has knowledge about retinoblastoma and sarcomas from medical school I wondered if his elevated risk for cancer recurrence as an adult and related increase in mortality was always somewhere in the back of his mind.

And here I sit at this desk surrounded by his long hidden works trying to give them their due. His eye has become my eyes trying to understand this man from decades passed when The Country Shed was a place to experience the connections that bind us all together.