There is nothing in this world on which we can rely except the truth of impermanence. It is an old Buddhist teaching, one of oldest, if that matters.
I first experienced the slippery nature of existence when I was four years old. We lived in Texas then, about as far south as you could go on the gulf side and still be in Texas. And as I recall, it was hot even when it rained. I suppose air conditioning had been invented, it may even have been common somewhere else, some where the need was less desperate. I doubt I had even heard of air conditioning, quite certain I had never experienced it; I would have remembered. No, it was hot and we lived with it, taking a certain amount of pride in our misery. Being barefoot poor, we had little refuge from reality.
My mother earned a little money taking care of an old man named Captain. He lived in a small row house, one room; what you might call a motel, or would, if it had been larger, or if anyone there had had a car. She would visit him, bring him food, do his laundry, things he wasn’t well enough to do for himself. I wasn’t real clear on this last point, having no concept of being old, or memory of being ill, well not personally. My father was a fisherman like the Captain, or was before he broke his back one night in a storm. I figured my mother was in the business of taking care of those broken by the sea and didn’t give it much thought. Anyway, one day she took me with her to see the Captain. Now it is possible I went with her every day and this day was simply the only one I remember. It is hard to say, it was long ago and most of what I remember was likely lies I heard later, except my mother was there and she was Pentecostal and short with liars.
I remember the unpainted wooden step, the screen door, and the sound of flies coming from the darkness inside. He lay unseen on a high bed against the wall. From the darkness his voice rumbled, dry as a dusty paper bag. I didn’t understand much of what he said, speaking as he did in a long rumbling wheeze. I think young children accept the world around them pretty much as they find it, when it doesn't seem to require anything of them, being full of themselves with little room for others. I mean I can't say that I was paying much attention beyond that inside it was dark and somewhat cooler while outside it was glaring, and hot. My mother bent down to me and whispered that Captain wasn't feeling very good and wanted an ice cream cup from the store.
The store wasn’t far, just round the corner. I held her hand as we walked back; watching the brown paper sack in my mother’s other hand. It was a small sack with a flat bottomed, round paper cup of vanilla ice cream inside, the kind with a round paper lid. I watched my mother reach across the store counter for it, watched as she dropped it into the paper sack. I pulled on my mother’s arm trying to make her hurry. It wasn’t far, still, I was worried about that ice-cream melting, harboring a fantasy, hardly a hope, of the smallest taste. She seemed oblivious of my concern, walking in her slow stately way, saying, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.” She said it slowly, over and over in that reverent southern Pentecostal way.
We had not been gone long, though time passes at different rates, and to me, it seemed like forever. However long it was, it was long enough, because by the time we got back, Captain had died. My mother said something like, praise the Lord, something like that. The she gave the ice cream to me, pushing me outside as I hesitated, not believing my good fortune. I remember my disbelief more than any sense of elation, I mean, ice cream? My mother said it was alright, the captain wouldn’t be needing it. So I found that flat wooden spoon, and dug carefully into the hard whiteness. It was a bright, hot south Texas day, still the ice cream had been frozen hard and we hadn’t walked far, for only the surface had softened. Ice cream, and well named to my mind, being cold and creamy sweet. It may have been the first ice cream I ever had; it was certainly the first I remember. I gouged at it, pushing through the softness to the cold hardness below, catching the creaminess against the rounded side of the cup, tasting the coldness and the sweetness. I can still remember the smell of artificial cold, the smell of artificial vanilla. I remember being terribly conscious of the thin feel of the empty paper cup in my hand, at how quickly life can change. Looking back, I think Captain was a kind man.
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