What a pig, what a slob, how could a woman let herself go this way, how could she let her house get away from her like this? Blah blah blah. All this junk, all this rubbish, why would anyone want to live with these broken dolls and old newspapers? And look at the plates, the food still encrusted on them, rotting there. Blah blah blah. And the smell, who could stay in a house with such a smell in every room? Blah blah blah.
Someday I might read the newspapers. There’s plenty of interesting articles in them, if I ever get around to it. No reason not to hang onto them for when the time comes. Same with the books and magazines. I don’t read much these days, but it’s something I might get back to, and when I do the books will be there for me, and the magazines, and the newspapers.
And yes, a lot of the dolls are broken, but they could be fixed. Why, there’s doll hospitals that do nothing but repair broken dolls, because they recognize the importance of preserving treasured memories. Even as they are, the dolls and other toys bring back memories. I bought the Raggedy Ann for Tricia, the Storybook dolls for Maxine. And there were Barbies, so many of them, that I bought for all three of the girls. And Chatty Cathy, how Little Debby loved that doll! Of course the voice is gone, and there’s no string to pull, but Cathy’s still there, and if you pick her up and look at her you can almost hear her little voice again, almost hear Little Debby parroting the phrases right back at her.
And some of my stuff is worth money. All those Jim Beam decanters, they’re scattered all over the house, but they’re here somewhere, and a few of them are genuinely rare, and worth good money to a collector. The Colorado Centennial one? You think that’s easy to find? Or cheap to buy when you do find it? Walter was a Scotch drinker, but he was a good enough sport to switch to bourbon when they came out with those decanters, and in a sense they never cost me a cent, because he had to drink something and he said it might as well be bourbon. And didn’t he say he’d got to prefer Jim Beam to the Cutty Sark he used to drink?
What’s he drinking nowadays, wherever he is? Did he go back to Scotch? Or did he stay with Jim Beam?
What’s it they say? One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Just ‘cause it’s trash to you don’t make it wrong for me to cherish it. But it’s all empty bottles as far as these two are concerned, John and Thelma, all empty Pepsi cans and beer bottles.
Trash and treasures. If I ever opened a shop, that’s what I’d call it. Dolly’s Trash & Treasures. Which is which? Well, that’s up to you, isn’t it?
And then there’s the bottle caps, and don’t ask me how many of those I’ve got. I decided I could make earrings for the girls, they’d be cute and cost next to nothing, so I started saving bottle caps, and I bought a box of the posts you mount the caps on, and got the right kind of quick-setting glue, and no, I haven’t actually made any earrings yet, but who’s to say I won’t one of these days? With the girls run off there’s not much point in making earrings now, but who’s to say they won’t come back?
Nehi Orange, that was always Little Debby’s favorite. And somewhere I know I’ve got a pair of orange bottle caps set aside, and wouldn’t they make perfect earrings for Little Debby?
“I’m just not getting through to her. What do we have to do, throw her in the back of the Sheriff’s car and haul her off to the nuthouse?”
“John!”
“I know, I didn’t mean to use the word. I find this stressful, I admit it. I’m sorry.”
“John, let me try. Dolly, at this point you only have two choices, and—”
“Dorothy.”
“I thought you said people call you Dolly.”
“My friends call me Dolly.”
“Ouch. I gather you don’t think we’re your friends.”
“If you were my friends you wouldn’t be trying to force me out of my own house and home.”
“Oh, I love it. A home? It’s a home to vermin and unidentifiable rodents, not to a human being.”
“John—”
“And it won’t even be a house much longer either, with the structural damage you’ve got going on there.”
“John, this isn’t helping.”
“Sorry.”
“If you could just allow me to—”
“I know, I know. I won’t say anything more.”
“Now Dolly, as I was saying, you’ve got two choices, and you’re the one who has to make the decision. The first possibility is that you allow us to relocate you to a really beautiful county facility for assisted living.”
“A nuthouse.”
“No, Dolly, and if John used that expression it was a mistake.”
“A loony bin.”
“Not at all. The people are perfectly nice and the staff is wonderful. My own mother is there, as it happens, and she’s truly happy. Would I let my mother go there if it wasn’t a good place?”
“My children moved away and left me all alone, but at least they never put me in a loony bin.”
“Oh, Christ.”
“John! The other choice you have, Dolly, is to allow us to clean your house. We’ll get a crew in here to clean it top to bottom.”
“And throw out all my things.”
“A lot of what you’ve got here is trash, Dolly. We know that and you know that. Old newspapers, empty pizza boxes, paper plates with food on them—”
“I guess some of it’s trash.”
“See? If it wasn’t such an overwhelming chore, you’d throw out a lot of it yourself.”
“There’s times I’ve wanted to. But I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“Well, that’s where we’ll be able to help you. We’ll bring in a full crew of trained professionals who’ve been through all this more times than you could imagine. They’ll know where to start and they’ll be able to see it through to the finish.”
“It sort of got away from me, you know. It wasn’t like this when I moved in.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t.”
“And I didn’t set out to make it like this. But, you know, I like things, and I don’t want to part with my memories. And throwing out useful things is wasteful.”
“Well, that’s true, isn’t it?”
“And if these men start throwing away all of my good things—”
“Dolly, you’ll be here the whole time. The things you want to keep, you just say so, and they’ll be put in boxes to be saved. Or if it’s too tiring, we can make some of the decisions for you. And before you know it you’ll have a clean house, a home you can take pride in.”
“It’s not so bad the way it is. And I have some wonderful things here.”
“Oh, Christ.”
“John—”
“I mean, it’s my house. I’m the only one here. Why can’t you all just leave me be?”
“Dolly, let me explain it one more time...”
All these people. There must be twenty men, all dressed alike with royal blue shirts and navy blue slacks. Their first names are embroidered in gold braid on their shirt pockets. The only names I’ve managed to read are Harry and Ben. I keep reading those two names over and over, Harry and Ben, Harry and Ben. Maybe there are ten Harrys and ten Bens, or maybe I just keep seeing the same two young men over and over. They all look the same anyway, with those white masks covering their noses and mouths. Like the air in here would kill them.
Going through my things. Picking up a Little Debby cake box or a book with the cover missing, holding it out, rolling their eyes. They don’t think I notice what they’re doing.
They’ll throw out some things I’d like to keep. I know that. I do what I can, I tell them no, I want to save this, put it in a box to be saved. And sometimes the woman talks me out of saving it, or else she agrees and they put it in a box, but how do I know what will happen to all those boxes? If I let them, they’d take everything I own and cart it to the landfill.