Most people I know, especially in the Kootenays, 75, it's middle aged. I think of my Father - older, sure, but not that old. Or Dagmar, 75 years old, bitching about not having sex for 18 years, her choice, she doesn't really like her partner, smoking a joint behind the restaurant, then tearing off to chain herself to a tree or protest something or another, 75 years young, you'd look at her and guess late 50's, tops, she's still a beauty, with more energy than most women half her age.
So it's a bit of a disappointment when I track down Batshit, 75 years as well, in his squalid apartment in Nelson. It's been a few months, good to see him, but not like this. His apartment filled with junk, boxes, he's sprawled on a tangle of sheets, chip wrappers, food tins, the place is a hole - he's hung a bed-sheet in front of the window, the entire winter he's not gone out, bathed, showered, filthy, unflushed shit in the toilet, watching old movies on the TV beside his bed...
I knew this move to Nelson was a bad idea. He's glad to see me, totters about getting dressed, the place stinks, there's no way to describe it, the mess, and his movements, slow, confused, complaining about every imaginary ache and pain, he's the worst picture of 75 years old you can imagine...
We go for coffee, catch up, he's got some scrolls for me. And he needs cigarettes, and a bag of stone ground coffee, and I order him a sandwich which he nibbles briefly on and then demands a take-out bag for, he'll eat it later, then he wants a bottle of liquor, and a toy in the antique shop window, and he wants some farm fresh eggs and thick sliced bacon and some canvas and it goes on and on and on and it's too much, I can't afford this shortest of visits, get him back to the car, he's complaining, tottering, doesn't want to walk up the hill, I'm pissed, he's become lazy, old, way before his years and I'm not playing this game, don't want to enable this charade of untimely old age...
...a lady watches me in horror as I drag him up the hill, swearing at him all the way - "Elder Abuse" I explain gently as I pass, he's got me annoyed, he's down a little self-pitying well, but I can tell he liked this little foray into downtown, me, not so much, I'll see him maybe again in the spring if he lives but it's become a duty, not a pleasure...
He's been adding the postcards I've been sending into his artwork...which is good...
