Editors Note: This was the beginning of the great decline. It is still amazing to me that Mac was still so vital and engaged even as the end was beginning. It is particularly poignant as the holidays come crashing down around us. Gobble gobble!

– Vic

Frozen in Amber

It was the beginning of fall- early October. I was over at Mac’s place at The Madison to have a chat and catch up for the week.

After I signed in, Paris the attractive young woman at the desk, permitted me access to the elevator and the ride up to the fifteenth floor. Mac had the door propped open to his unit, though I knocked on the frame to announce my presence.

“Come in, come in!” he shouted. I strode into his main room and fished my notebook out of my backpack and sat on the couch next to him, wincing as my left leg twitched and lower back flashed with pain. By comparison, Mac was in good shape. He had his oxygen tube strong under his nose, but a sharp sport jacket.

“Were you out today?” I asked. “You look great.”

“Yep. I was at the hospital to see my oncologist for a follow up on the radiation treatments. I got a clean bill of health, since it worked. The pain is gone.”

“That is fabulous news, Admiral,” I said. “I think that calls for a glass o wine, if you have some.” As it turns out, there was a charming bottle of ’06 Chardonnay on the counter with the appropriate tools out to open it. Mac used his walker to accompany me to the kitchen, the hose to his oxygen snaking ominously close to his feet as he traveled.

“Well, it is sort of a clean bill of health,” he said. “The Doc said I was essentially on hospice care.”

“That is absurd,” I said. “You have more energy than I have seen in weeks.”

“Depends on which Doc. I have an oncologist, a pulmonary physician and cardiologist.”

“Wow,” I said. “I had a drive by with orthopedics this year, but you have the Royal Flush.”

Mac gave a merry laugh, and it is good to see his eyes sparkling in amusement. He kicked the jam from beneath the front door to allow it to swing closed as we returned to the living room.

We eventually wound up seated again on the couch, and we talked about drugs, the history of the Naval Intelligence Designator, and the role of Fleet Admiral Nimitz had in institutionalizing a career path for the intelligence folks who made him a believer in the value of OPINTEL

I marveled at the direct impact of Admiral Nimitz in what became my life’s work- and of course, Mac, who was the 21st of the New Class of intelligence officers selected in the very first Board to be held after the conclusion of World War Two.

I am not going to burden you with it. The details are of interest to a fairly narrow bunch of people, and many of the more interesting ones are long gone. I have my notes, and they will go in the book when I get around to it. Mac was sitting alert and listening for Doug-the-Building-Manager to appear.

“I need to collect my wine glasses, since I am entertaining more these days at home. They are across the hall, and Doug said he would get me in to look for them.”

“Is the owner away?” I asked.

“Well, yes, you could say so. She died.”

“Oh,” I said. We had been talking about Wyman Packard, a departed colleague, who erroneously claimed to have been the first Naval Intelligence Officer selected, when Mac could prove he had made his designator transfer the year before he did. I was writing when an assertive knock hit the door.

“Must be Doug,” said Mac, and shouted for whoever it was to come in.

I put down my notebook and took a sip of Chardonnay. A very tall man with a shaved head and a broad grin entered the apartment and hook hands all around. “This is Doug, the Mayor of the Madison,” said Mac. “The Grand Poobah.”

I told him I was pleased to meet him, and he in turn told Mac he was ready to go across the hall if that was convenient. Mac said it was, and almost bounded out of the room, if that is something you can do with a walker. “You can come, if you want,” he said, and I followed dutifully out into the hall.

The unit just kitty-corner from Mac’s was the same anonymous beige in color, and Doug opened it up. There were no lights on. An envelope was on the floor. The last Steig Larsen murder mystery was on the counter. Pictures of a couple grand-daughters were on a nice oriental cabinet by the wall. The light was dim, the blinds drawn.

Doug and Mac went into the kitchen and began opening cabinets. I watched in interest, since they looked exactly like Big Mama’s did at Potemkin Village when my brother and I arrived to clean them out. The difference was that there were no wedding rings on the bureau near where she had collapsed, the EMT tech thoughtfully removing them from her lifeless finger when they took her away. His disposable gloves were in the trash.

I resisted the temptation to look in the wastebasket here.

The apartment was as if frozen in amber, the last moment a still life life.

Rooting around, Doug found approximately twenty-five coffee cups from the dining room in the cupboard above the sink, and a dozen or two of the industrial grade stemmed glasses for wine or water. He said he would collect them later, and I saw one mug that had actually belonged to the previous owner. It was emblazoned with the words “Sexy Senior Citizen.”

Eventually, the real wine glasses with the elegant stems were found in precisely the last place they looked. There were four. I took three carefully, and we left the strange time capsule across the hall from Mac’s place. I put them next to the sink to be washed by hand, a quality that Mac values since they do not fit in his little dishwasher.

“When did she die?” I asked. “This week?”

“No,” said Doug, preparing to go get a cart to collect the Madison’s assorted crockery. “She has been gone about a year. There is a son someplace, but he has never even come to look at the place. I need to go down to the courthouse to file some papers and get rid of it all if he doesn’t do something pretty soon.”

Frozen in amber, I thought. Very strange.

I finished up my glass of wine as we talked about the coming sale at the PX and the various aspects of crock-pot cooking. Mac had become quite the chef when his wife Billie was ill, and he intended to keep his hand in now that the chill winds of Fall have arrived.

“I will see you next week, “ I said, collecting notebook and pen and throwing them into the backpack. “Be safe in the meantime, and if you need anything, just call.”

Mac looked for the remote to go back to election coverage, and I got up to shake his hand before I got any of that campaign nonsense lodged in my ears.

The elevator was slow in coming, and when the doors slid open, there were six elderly women with a variety of canes, walkers and support devices heading down from above to the dining room. Their men are apparently all gone, but they seemed to be persevering pretty well.

This life thing I definitely not for sissies. When I was back on the street, I pondered if I should go home and cook something sensible for dinner, or walk across Fairfax Drive to Willow for another glass of wine.

I think you know what I did. Did I mention that Old Jim has got another haircut? He is looking like a retired Marine Gunnery Sergeant these days.

Life is good, I thought, considering the alternative.

Copyright 2016 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com