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Forget-Me-Not
Katelyn Kernan
In the humid haze of August, heat thun- happening.
Words Buck used daily would vanish
der sounded in the distance. It was Buck's 67th
arbitrarily from his memory. He could re-
birthday, and there he sat on the front step of member what things were used for, but not
his house like a five year old child, waiting pa- the terms for them. He'd tell us to "close those
tiently for the ice cream man. A weak breeze sheets" when speaking of the curtains, or ask
fluttered his last few silver hairs from their for some "bread, cooked ... you know, brown"
comb-over placement on his shiny scalp, but instead of toast. On other occasions odd words
he didn't notice. When the daffodil and cream would crop up in his conversation. "Esoteric"
colored Good Humor truck arrived, Buck put he said once, while watching a Celtic/Rang-
out his hand for money, which Nana counted ers soccer game. He forgot the names of his
?ut into his palm. Rooney had been the area's garden tools, but he could recite huge chunks
Ice-cream man for going on thirty years, and of Bums, Yeats, and Shakespeare. "Today is
he knew Buck well - he had sat on the stoop called the Feast of Crispian," he would recite
everyday for the last two years running. Buck to us through the snow on a red plastic sled.
sat back down on the cement step with a large "He that outlives this day
Drumstick cone, sucking comes safe home ... II
the nuts off the top, and He sat on the step Us kids would laugh
h~mming, letting the va- and sigh and roll our eyes
nilla melt down his arm. waiting for his ice when he did that to us. He
Buck was my pseu- creanl, singing, longing could recite "Henry V" for
dO-~andfather on my fa- hours, even after he forgot
ther s side. My biological lor Inoleskin pants. how to get home.
grandfather had died of
a heart attack in his early He seemed clear
40. 's, and just before my
bIrth Nana remarried to Buck. As far as I was headed just before his birthday, so when my
concerned, he was my grandfather ~ at least sister asked what he wanted he thought for
a moment and said, clearly and with convic-
he Was until he stopped being himself. Buck tion: moleskin trousers. We looked at each
had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's when other, choking on our own breaths. Buck is a
he turned 65. Some days he knew us, but short, rotund man - as wide as he is high -
other days we were strangers. On really bad a humpty dumpty of a man, like one of those
days he mistook me for my Nana; apparently toddler toys that are impossible to knock
':hen she was very young she looked much over.
like myself. Those times he would whisper "Moleskin?" my sister whispered, her
rlttle endearments in my ear, or quote Robert eyes sparkling with tears from trying not to
laugh. "I thought, moleskin was what failing
Browning and call me Teresa. Blushing from movie stars, tired pop singers, and flaming
gays on Santa Monica Boulevard wore. Where
embarrassment I had a list of excuses to leave did he even HEAR of such a thing?"
th e. room whene'ver that happened. I would
Walt ten minutes or so in the wall-to-wall por- "Corduroy," Nana intervened. "You
celain bathroom, and by the time I came out
mean corduroy."
he would've forgotten all about it. Nana only He looked ashamed, but he forgot about
yelled at him once ... but she felt awful for it,
knOWing he had no control over what was
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