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George’s Gold Nugget

George’s Gold Nugget

– Autofiction by Pat Mullarkey –

Homemade Insanity

Tommy sniffs me at the door, the scruffy dog more polite than enthusiastic. One of his jobs is door monitor. He races back to the man lying in bed in an adjacent room.

I cross through a living room that holds a solitary, wooden chair and then enter the bedroom. The old miner lies on a twin bed, struggling with emphysema. A barely touched Meals on Wheels lunch sits in a white, plastic container on the nightstand. He cradles the little gray-white dog in his arms.

Oh Tommy, you’re a good boy, Tommy.

“You’ve got great gams,” George wheezes.

He is like a yellowjacket in early fall, angry at its impending death, delivering a last sting to prove it is still virile. His cheap flirt attempts to show, despite his fragility, he is still a man. But then George sees the look on my face.

“Sorry, ma’am.”

The 79-year-old doesn’t want to threaten our genial relationship. I am his case manager, one of the few people who visits on a regular basis.

A volunteer delivers daily lunches. He leaves George for last on his rounds. The reason involves stories. The miner reminisces about towns in rural Washington that bloomed and faded along with the economy. Panning for gold on pristine rivers full of salmon while eagles watched from whitebark pines and larch trees. Or the years George spent in deep tunnels with grim thoughts while lode mining for the bright, noble metal. Anecdotes tumble out rowdy and reverent. An infamous poker game when Jack Idaho lost his eye in a fight over a one-eyed Jack of Clubs. George recalls, in a trembling voice, a fearless woman with a wide grin, who died of tuberculosis. It is a world out of sequence, a past glimpsed in bursts of memory. What a piece of history lies here dying of emphysema and heart disease.

But George, an old miner, drinker, all around good-timer holds Tommy with as much tenderness as I would hold my child.

Tommy, bring me your ball. Oh Tommy, you’re a good boy, Tommy.

My job is to help the frail elderly stay at home. I coordinate services, make sure needs are met. Dread of a nursing home hovers over their last refuge of independence. I ask George about tasks for the home health aide. She spends a few hours a week doing chores and buying food.

I also keep an eye on Tommy’s well-being. He was a stray who followed George home about five years ago. A time when George was still mobile. I suspect under that mass of curls a mix of poodle and cocker spaniel. I look for a neighborhood boy or girl to walk him. I take him to the veterinarian on my own time and dime.

The dog loves George. Tommy entertains, listens to complaints, stays close when George is afraid. There’s a terrible look in George’s eyes when he coughs too hard, tries to catch his breath.

The miner intones with pride, Tommy this and Tommy that.

Tommy takes care of me. Want to see his new trick? Fetch the stick, Tommy. Oh Tommy, you’re a good boy, Tommy.
George hobbles to the door between short breaths to let out the patient dog. That, and going to the bathroom, is the extent of his exercise. The visiting nurse encourages more activity. She writes down suggestions. George rolls his eyes when I ask about it.

He became my client after someone called the police. His plants sat on a windowsill soaking up the sun. Neighbors were upset over the cannabis visible from the street. The situation embarrassed the police officers. They saw this frail bedbound man with the watery eyes of glaucoma. They took his plants, then called my office.

George told me: “Crazy cops. It’s for a poultice for my eyes. I’m an old man trying to soothe his eyes.”

I asked about the last time he saw an eye doctor.

“Don’t worry. Not going to do that,” he said.

George opened a drawer in the small nightstand. There sat a matchbox full of seeds.

“I’ll just grow more.”

I suspect he worries if he goes out the door he will never return.

Sit down. Bark. Roll over, Tommy. Oh Tommy, you’re a good boy, Tommy.

Tommy is smart. He performs with the expertise of a circus dog.

I walk in one day and George is crying. Tommy’s gone. He didn’t return. No quick barks outside the door to let him in. I look into George’s eyes afraid my sorrow will seep out and feed into his misery. My gut says his nephew has something to do with it. He hates the burden this man’s impending death places on him. He resents my interference. And he hates Tommy. The dog and I conspire to keep George alive. The nephew grumbles about having his own problems.

Tommy deserves better. I look for Tommy, call the dog pound. I ask the neighbors. They also resent the frail man with his cannabis and dog.

“Good. That mutt is never on a leash,” says his neighbor.

She fails to see the dog’s value. Tommy is the bright gold nugget the miner found in the last years of his life.

The next day I call George. His voice sounds weak and raspy.

“George, what’s going on?”

“Not doing so hot, lady,” he says, tries to catch his breath.

I call for help. The nurse arrives with an ambulance.

“We’re moving him to a hospital,” she says on the telephone.

I track down the nursing station after several hours.

He’s in intensive care, the nurse says.

“Can I come see him?”

Can I comfort him, a poor substitute for the loyal dog? Not today.

I call the next morning for the room number. George died about 4 a.m., the nurse tells me.

I write final notes on his file, a handkerchief close by.

Oh Tommy, you were a very good boy, Tommy.

Pat Mullarkey

About the Author – Pat Mullarkey

Pat Mullarkey is a retired newspaper editor living in Spain, who spends many evenings watching K- and C- dramas on Netflix. She recently stumbled upon some short stories tucked away in an old folder and rediscovered “George”. Her story, “I Have Been a Stranger in a Strange Land” Exodus 2:22, ran in Dreamer’s March 2021 issue.

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