Captain Pike's Ship Log II

This is one story from a series about an extraordinary woman inspired by a true to life figure in my life -- I married her.

Night at the Theatre
I met Nancy the summer I worked as a Volvo mechanic. I say mechanic but I was actually more of a “gopher”. I had owned Volvo’s and had convinced a shop owner that I could do maintenance on them. Being the lowest paid employee kind of takes the pressure off and I often shuttled customers to and from work while we worked on their cars.
Where she worked looked just like another average house in town. Sixteen Flagg avenue was a sort of ranch style house with an attached 2 car garage. Nancy was a “house manager” for a group of three middle-aged men with mental disabilities. I imagined that she cooked and cleaned and sort of baby-sat these men. My own brother is mildly mentally-retarded and I never thought much about her role either way.
As it turns out, profound mental retardation can mean that an individual is pretty-much unable to care for himself. Eating, dressing and going to the bathroom, for example all require assistance.

Nancy convinced a local community theatre to donate some tickets to “The Music Man”, and asked me if I would like to come along with her and her “guys” on Thursday night. When I showed up, she met me at the door and stood, beaming for a moment, made some comment about how nice I looked and said “are you sure you are up for this?”.

This was the first time I can remember having any fear over the idea of being with her “guys”. Just then, I heard a garbled, drawn-out yeowl from inside the house “Shut yore GOD dammed mouth!”, like an old drunken sea captain’s rant. Nancy widened her eyes an instant, the opposite of a wink, as if to say “now what do you think?”. I shrugged my indifference and followed her inside as she said, “oh that’s Nathan, he’s all talk, you don’t have to worry about him. It’s this one here that you don’t want to turn your back on, he won’t say a word, will you Sergeant-Major McGuilicutty?”. John Sergeant had seen the whole interlude on the step – my attempted suavity – and was not impressed. I don’t think he was a small man, he was rather humped over, his head was cocked oddly as he peered into me intensely. His hair was buzz-cut and he had an impressive goatee along with stony-slate gray eyes that seemed unable to betray any apprehension he might have had. He won the opening gambit - I looked down at my feet first. He blinked slowly and grunted in a cursory way as if to dismiss me. “Not nearly good enough for you dear… NEXT”, his flopping hand gesture seemed to say. Worse that that, while he permitted Nancy to flow around him on her way to the kitchen, my way was clearly blocked. It was not as if he assumed a threatening stance, but his utter lack of accommodation of my odd juxtaposition threw me completely. I moved slightly as if to indicate that I would be needing the space he was occupying for just a second to again attain my hosts coattails, had no effect on him – he was inanimate. Head still cocked, brows now knitted, John seemed bigger. “Um…” was all I could come up with as an entreaty to Nancy.
“Well c’mon John, this is Phil, let him come in, ya big lug”, she said as if we were all old college chums. He seemed to grin at this, nodding ever slightly, contemplatively, still un-moving. They say a dog can smell your fear and you must maintain the upper hand at all times to show him who is master. I scraped by him and trotted up next to this 5’6” 140 pound protector who’d so femininely met me at the door just a minute earlier.
“Shut yore GOD dammed mouth!”, roared Nathan again, to no one in particular. He was a little old man whose red tongue protruded vulgarly from his wet mouth. He shuffled about a bit, alighting quickly, like a fly, very near where he had been. It was hard to imagine that this little fellow had just been yelling.
Just then, a stout fellow emerged from what must have been the bathroom with his pants down and moved with a mission past us, hands outstretched, with a determined frustration on his face. His teeth were grit but it looked like he was almost smiling, or crying.
“You’ve got your pants off David! Go flush the toilet and wash your hands”. David looked down, his pants were wet.
“Go HOME…see mum”, David began to repeat slowly and quietly at first. He hands were less outstretched now but his facial expression seemed more strained, he was quite loud now, “Go HOOOOOME, SEEEEE MUMMMMM”, he insisted.
“You will go to the bathroom and flush the toilet… you aren’t going anywhere with your pants down.”, Nancy said calmly but firmly. “Look at my eyes David, go to the bathroom and flush the toilet, I will get some clean pants for you.”.
“Shut you’re GOD-DAMMED mouth!”, roared Nathan. John grunted aggressively and took a step toward me, still possibly menacing.

Nancy told me to go open up the van and move my car out of it’s way. The garage smelled faintly of paint thinner and pine. I found the button for the one large garage door, and while moving my car out to the street began to have some misgivings. This might put a damper on my romantic plans for the darkened theatre. This was immediately foreshadowed when Nancy again motioned me from the step as I set my parking break. “You just get in and sit way in the back, don’t look at John, he sits in front”, she said to me.

At the theatre, I thought I had done well to escort Nathan and David so skillfully into the ticket area. It seemed like forever as I stood there in my tweed jacket feeling silly until she finally, painstakingly dollied John slowly through the door and up the carpet toward me. “John has had a seizure”, she remarked calmly.
“Can we still go?” sounded so callous when I heard myself say it.
John seemed even more inanimate than before as Nancy remained with her eyes fixed on his, her head cocked a little to match his. I believe it was at this moment that she looked more beautiful that anything I had ever seen.
“You go ahead in and leave me two seats on the end, I think we’ll be in”, she said softly and evenly not looking up from John.
We shuffled easily along into the auditorium through several doors. Fortunately, I was able to guide the guys along the back row, leaving two seats open at the isle.
A muted commotion accompanied the usher’s inability to help or to give John a program as he was slowly led up the isle. Nancy handed me a what looked like a large blue bandage motioning that I should lay it in the outer most seat. She sat next to me and John was on the end. I smelled the faint odor of human incontinence as the lead began his staccato “I smell trouble”.

A grin appeared on Johns face as he followed the bright colored costumes as they danced about the stage. Oddly, the participants, as they are called, seemed calmed by the rowdy performance. After the intermission was over, David started chanting “bathroom”, which got some laughs at first from the audience. This gave way to disgruntled throat clearings by the time Nancy got him over the back of the chair and on his way out to the men’s room. I was holding my breath as I sat with Nathan and John, his gaze seemed to imply “can you handle this or what?”. I was relieved to see Nancy escorting David back both smiling. It was going ok. As David stooped to pass down the isle, his pants again slipped down, this time to his ankles. A minor cackle from nearby shifting members of the audience was no distraction compared to the out cry from David. It began with an angry scream and ended with an enduring and pitiful sob. “NO NO NO” he screamed as he catatonically fell against Nancy. She got his pants up, but mentally retarded or not, his frustration and capability for public humiliation were working just fine. It was an awful scene, and it was contagious. “Shut yore GODDAMMED mouth!”, came from behind me from Nathan, John began a loud grunting. I jumped up then sat down totally useless. From somewhere Nancy had gotten a folding chair and got David sitting in it, right in the isle where he was attempting to enter the row. This calmed him down, and Nancy sat against the wall next to this poor man who hung his head in shame. She was stroking his forehead and he was nodding appreciatively.
On the way home I thought it would be a mistake but she stopped at the DQ and got everyone a simple vanilla cone. Wow, what a treat. I never tasted something so perfect. A tear rolled down my cheek as I saw her smiling face in the mirror as we drove home.