As Luck Would Have It (23 page)

In my dream, the flight attendant had served spaghetti, my favorite food, just like I would have ordered at Angelo’s.  There were little red checkered cloths on the tray tables and a bottle red wine there too.  It was just like the restaurant only up in the sky.  I heard music and then a guitar player came down the center aisle and the passengers started singing along with him, then dancing and laughing until the pilot came on the intercom and said there was an emergency, everyone please fasten your seatbelts.

There appeared from nowhere a large opening on our side of the cabin and when I looked outside, I realized my parents had fallen from the airplane and were in the water below.  I panicked when I saw they were gone, but they were waving to me and calling out, come back Clifford, we’re here, come back.  I yelled to them but they could not hear me, we were flying further and further away.  Clifford, wait, don’t leave us here.  Mom, Dad, please don’t go away, I’ll come back when the plane lands,
wait for me!
 
There
was a spinning sensation and the
n
we were surrounded by flames,
just before the plane crashed into
the water.  But the fire kept burning and people were screaming for help.  Everything was on fire; I would be burned alive for sure; help me, please Mom, don’t leave me.  Clifford, wake up, you’re having another nightmare, we heard you in our room.  I felt someone shaking me, wake up.  I opened my eyes and I saw her at the side of the bed, blurred by the night’s dim light and my tears.  Mom, is it you?  I looked again and saw that it was Aunt Doreen in the room with me.  Go back to sleep Clifford, it was just another bad dream.

I tried to force myself to stay awake for another two hours until it was time to g
et up and get ready for school.  I couldn’t keep doing this
;
I
knew that the only solution was suicide, but how would I summon
enough
nerve
to actually do it?
  I would skip school today and put an end to this misery finally
.
There was no purpose served by me continuing to be tortured this way
.
I couldn’t live like this anymore; I
would
kill myself
as soon as I could figure out the best and least painful means to put an end to the unbearable pain that was my existence
.

I woke up suddenly and sat up and looked around.  The sheets were damp from sweat and I suddenly felt very cold.  I got dressed and went downstairs and saw that it was already 10:30 and realized that it was Saturday and there was no need to decide whether to skip school or not.  Joseph was sitting at the kitchen table with my aunt and a cup of coffee.  We didn’t want to disturb you Clifford
;
figured you could use the sleep.  I sat next to him
, pass me the cream, would you?
  I’d forgotten about our plan to get an early start at the mall and catch the one dollar matinee at the theater there.  We were going to see
Airport
with Dean Martin and Burt Lancaster.  Maybe I’d wait for another day to do myself in; I’d been wanting to see that movie for a long time.

The nightmares were to diminish with
time, but had never entirely gone away, even before the events that took place on my 60
th
birthday brought them back full force yet again.  I’ve
learned
to accept the reality that the late night is not my best time and that bad dreams and sleep disturbances were destined to be part of my life, like migraines or poor eyesight, something you just learn to live with.  Over the years, I’ve taken various medications that the doctors have
prescribed
, but they don’t stop the terror and they leave me feeling groggy and disoriented.  I’ve tried
every other conceivable treatment;
exercises, meditation, image rehearsal, herbal teas, yoga, warm baths, melatonin,
cognitive therapy, white noise, warm milk, kava-kava; all well intentioned
remedies
I’m sure, but none any good for someone like me.  None can discourage the nighttime demons who persist in breaking into my house and into my brain when I am asleep and not in a particularly good position to fight them off.
 

*****

Mr. Casslemond’s wife was born in a tiny rural Illinois town, 250 miles south of Chicago near the Kentucky border.  Of course then she was not a Casslemond, but part of the Kraszinski family, her paternal grandfather deciding to leave Poland for hopefully 
greener pastures
, arriving first in New York, then eventually settling in the Midwest a few years after the Civil War ended, where jobs working in railroad construction proli
ferated.  The senior Kraszinski, as well as all four of his sons, including Mr. Casslemond’s wife’s father Stanley, all labored for years laying the rails and ties that were to form part of the great transportation network of the
ir
time.  How green the pastures actually were would be difficult to ascertain; the work was
very hard
and none of the men were to live long enough to see their 65
th
birthday.  But the family did manage to grow larger over the decades, despite the abbreviated life spans of the men anyway, and by the time Mr. Casslemond’s wife was born in 1904, Stanley and his wife Garlinda had eight children.
Mr. Casslemond’s wife was to be the youngest; Garlinda having made the ultimate sacrifice in bringing her into the world, and not making it through
the
complicated labor to see her newest daughter.  Stanley would never remarry and Mr. Casslemond’s wife was to be attended to mainly by two
of her
elder sisters, Paulina and Julia.

As the weeks made their way through the winter of 1976, I was to spend a good deal of time with Mr. Casslemond’s wife.  I’d see the family frequently on weekends and sometime
s
I would go there after school to visit with just Mr. Casslemond’s wife.  She talked often of childhood memories and how she loved being the youngest in such a large family, doted on by her father and siblings alike.  She was particularly fond of Julia, who had quit school after completing
the 9
th
grade to take on the primary responsibility as the woman of the house, with her father working six days a week or more and her mother buried in the cemetery behind the old frame house.

I was fascinated hearing the stories of her rural existence after the turn of the century, so much different than my grandparents
’
experiences growing up in their South Chicago neighborhoods. 
They had a small plot of land that they farmed
in the summers
and the children helped with the chores each morning before school and when they returned
in
the afternoon.  In the winter, the house was heated
by
just a single coal burning stove
i
n the center of what we would consider the family
room
, where everyone would gather for dinner, and sometimes sleep there as well if it was cold enough.  She claimed that she was perfectly happy with such minimal accommodations and obvious lack of
extravagance
; no one she knew then had lived any differently.  Even now, with the Casslemond’s being quite comfortable, well off actually, she claimed that she missed the old
days
from her childhood;
the simple life as she like
d
to refer to it.

I too longed for the simpler life
of my earlier childhood, for as we have seen, the life of a fifteen
-
year
-
old orphan can get quite complicated, particularly living with my obstreperous aunt and trying to survive the final months of middle school.  No wonder Julia decided to call it quits when she was just my age; who knows what hell the middle school teachers in her day might have cooked up.  By the end of January, Doreen was back at home, rarely speaking to me directly, but arguing still quite frequently with my uncle.  Despite
the
therapy and medications, her depression did not seem to be improving from my perspective, and I was as unhappy as ever with my living situation.  But you know from what has already transpired that by now, nearly 14 months after my parents were taken in that awful crash, that luck
was ready to intervene on my behalf, its unexplained appearances starting to take hold for real now.

How do you know luck even exists?  If you can’t see or touch it, could it just be something we humans invented to make us feel better, or to explain unusual occurrences, or even miracles?  Can belief in something so intangible actually be real, or is luck merely a fantasy, nothing more than an imaginary force that doesn’t really do anything, even if we insist that it does?  Is its omnipresence sufficient to form an unshakable certainty in our minds that makes us say yes, it must
exist;
h
ow else to explain things that could not possibly happen the way they do merely by chance?

I never believed so
fervently
in luck either, that is until one day Mr. Casslemond’s wife appeared unannounced at our house while I was at school, and in her usual warm and comforting way, invited my aunt for an afternoon of lunch and shopping.  It was late when they returned, nearly time for dinner, and as usual my uncle was still at work.  They came in together laughing about the movie they had seen, like old friends.  They spread cartons of carry-out Chinese food on the coffee table and poured drinks for us while I just stared disbelievingly at them.

Aunt Doreen opened some wine and the two of them drank and gabbed away while I poked at my eggroll.  What was happening here; I’d never seen Mr. Casslemond’s wife touch anything with alcohol in it, though Doreen was known to enjoy her gin and tonics now and then; a bottle of white wine
occasionally
as well.  But she was holding her
own
this evening
,
refilling both of their glasses
when my aunt nodded to indicate that they should have more.  Two hours later, after the second bottle had been uncorked and largely consumed, Uncle Jack returned home and offered to drive Mr. Casslemond’s wife back to their house since she was certainly not in the best condition for driving.  I helped my aunt with the dishes after they left and she told me she understood better now why I liked spending time with the Casslemonds; they must be wonderful people to take me in the way they did, despite all that had happened.  Maybe we could have Mr. Casslemond and his wife for dinner in a week or two; I should invite Christian too, what a nice young man he is.

I searched for clues for what they had talked about and how this improbabl
e
about face might have happened, but Doreen wasn’t giving up much information.  I respected her privacy, but still I had to wonder what Mr. Casslemond’s wife had said and how she had pulled this off.  When I asked her directly, she didn’t reveal much either, just that my aunt had been caused to suffer so much from the loss of her sister, that only time, patience and love could help her, or maybe God if she felt inclined to go to him for help, but probably not the psychiatrist and almost certainly not the meds.  How
she could
know this,
I had no idea,
it seemed that she had evaluated and summed up the situation quite well, even if she came from a somewhat backward rural environment and with a limited education.  How was it that these two women, opposites in every observable way, Mr. Casslemond’s wife patient and compassionate, Aunt
Doreen impulsive and judgmental,
were
able to come to terms so quickly, become friends even after just eight hours together?  Invite them to dinner, sure that sounds great, what should we serve?  It became clear to me that neither of the women was to provide any degree of insight, but I suggest to you that luck had its hand in this matter, as it would for many more in the future, that there was more here than meets the eye, something else moving things around a bit so the pieces would not only come together, but fit quite nicely, for me at least.

I say this in hindsight of course, because in 1976 I had minimal experience with luck, not much to distinguish bad luck from good luck.  But after 46 years of luck shadowing me closely, not ever straying far from my side, I can see how its influence had to intercede with respect to the relationship between my aunt and Mr. Casslemond’s wife.  How it managed this we can’t possibly know; its mysterious ways a well-kept secret
.  Maybe it
sensed my anguish, my conflicting emotions, my lonely days and painful nights; alright Clifford
,
it m
ight
have said, you’ve suffered already, let’s see if we might fix things up
and make them better.

Don’t get me wrong, Aunt Doreen was never going to turn into a saint, but she had changed plenty as far as I was concerned. 
The arguing with my uncle had nearly ceased; the angry stares and frequent criticisms had as well.  She abruptly quit her therapy sessions, claiming that the shrink was nuttier than any of us and was much too expensive.  Suddenly, her bitter sarcasm had turned into a quick sense of humor and she seemed almost as happy as she had before my parents died.  This was luck, swaying and manipulating the course of events, I was sure of it.  She made good on her offer to make dinner for the Casslemonds, even suggesting that I invite Joseph, without the slightest hint of anti-Semitic disapproval.  Where has he been Clifford
;
why hasn’t Joseph been around lately, she asked.  He’s a nice boy
and
smart too, his parents did good by him.  Was she serious?  The Jews did good, come on, you can’t possibly believe that Doreen’s attitude was adjusted this far to the left by just a day of grandmotherly advice.  No, something steered Mr. Casslemond’s wife’s car in Doreen’s direction that afternoon and somebody or something made her listen for a change rather than argue with the old lady, nice as she was, but still vulnerable as she had been a few months earlier to Doreen’s anger and verbal assaults.