We go to lunch. Bob's at the lunch table.

"I look around at these two guys," he says, "And I wonder, 'Are they ever gonna be included in something as big as this?'"

The food arrives and Bob looks my way.

"I don't really want this," he says, and starts laughing.

I take this opportunity to ask him about his tattoo. Was it from his military days? He doesn't answer the question. It's the only time he's ever seemed to evade a question, or appearing to do so. He starts talking about his son fixing up houses. "They were small hands but many," he says. Then, "That's one thing I like about this place. It's clean."

I listen to lunch room sounds. One of the CNAs is encouraging one of three Helens (in this case, the mayor's daughter) to eat her food. Helen replies in her soft-spoken manner, "I'd better not. I don't want to throw up here. Everyone will look at me." The only thing she eats is the ice cream.

Then, a commotion from out in the hall, a racket.

"What the...?!" Bob exclaims. "It sounded like about two or three horses or something." Then he sneezes. "Oooh, that one came out fast," he says.

Bob ate the garlic bread, a little bit of pasta, and the ice cream. "Ice cream's ice cream," he says. "But this is pretty good."

I went over to the main dining room and got a plate of my own. Pizza spaghetti they call it. I ate everything on the plate save one pepperoni. My dad ate everything except one slice of zucchini. It's the Patsy Cline CD playing today. Bob knows these lyrics, some of them. He sings along. When the last song on the CD stops playing he says, "So there."

Genevieve, the 98-year-old woman hunched over in her usual windbreaker outfit makes her way out by taking tiny steps with her dangling wheelchair feet, quiet as a cloud except when she catches one of the CNAs on her way out and asks for a Honey Nut Cheerios to go.

"We enjoyed lunch with you, Bob," my dad tells his lunch mate.

"When was that?" asks Bob.

"Today," says dad.

"Oh, ha. Ha ha. Thank you, thank you very much," says Bob.

But we don't get going just yet. It's quiet now in the lunch room. The sound of wind chimes comes from outside, past the glass. My dad is starting to doze off. Bob is picking at his teeth, wiping clean the glasses he lost for a few days last week.

"I think I'm gonna go downstairs," Bob says. "I don't know if I've been down there. I thought I had. I'll probably make a new, or I don't know. As far as I knew, we hadn't used that, or we wished it away. I'm goin' downstairs. Anybody left? Hello, hello. I'm goin' down..."

Further Notes from the Shrine, from March and April 2024, click here for the full post ...