Tuesday, December 31, 2002

My uncle Bern is a

My uncle Bern is a remarkable man.  In his mid-90s, he still golfs (badly), drives (dangerously), visits my incompetent grandmother at Lochaven and keeps up quite well with the news and the market.  He gave up cigars but his teeth are random chunks of discolored bone and his speech is accompanied by a spray of saliva and pieces of unswallowed food.  He’s funny as hell, loves Mahler with a true romantic’s passion, tends to forget his cane.  My very dear friend, my grandfather’s brother, who stood on his head for us when we were children. Good old uncle Bern. 

None of us knew how dedicated he was to his wife until she was slowly taken from us - from him - by a series of strokes that left her progressively debilitated.  He learned to do her work, to cook and clean and keep house as tidy as she ever had… and when she died he left things as they were, as they had been for untold years.  Their bedroom held two twins pushed together; a single afghan warmed them both but they were separately made up beneath it.  It’s how they used to sleep together - man and woman, husband and wife, and on the opposite wall hung photos of the two of them from decades long ago.

I stayed with Bern once when I visited to see my grandfolk in the home.  We did both of the things there are to do in Lima - cooked in and ate out.  We spoke at length on many subjects, and I enjoyed myself immesnely with him over crystal cups of Turkey 101 and Das Lied von der Erde cranked up to 11.  And in the study was a fold-out sofa where I expected to retire.  But Bern had other plans for me - I would sleep on Ruthie’s bed, lay beside him in the dark.  He’d fed and entertained and hosted me so graciously - I acquiesced without argument.  But it felt like something strange was happening when we shut down the room for the night.  Maybe something wrong. 

And so we slept together under dark Ohio skies.  I could feel him just beyond my skin, restless and clacking in his fitful dreams.  Once his raspy breathing caught and stopped, and I lay breathless too until he gasped spontaneously and went deeper into Morpheus’ grasp… I was wide awake by then, feeling the small shallow space that Ruth had hollowed on that mattress, tiny woman, lying still for all those years, and I was smothering her beneath me, as her husband rattled out a breath he borrowed from the crypt.  He got up several times to drain the pickle, slowly and laboriously, grunting and sighing with every move he made to leave the bed and bedroom, as he did his business, as he kicked the dresser coming back and muttered curses falling once again into the bed we shared…

I awoke unrested, ready for my grave.  Bern cooked breakfast, cheerful as ever.  I scored a lot of points with the family for enduring Bern’s bed.  And now I can say unequivocally that I know what it’s like to sleep with a man.  It’s stress-inducing.