Eleanor: Part 4

When we took her grocery shopping it was easy to see that the refuse on the floor of the Airstream was at least knee deep throughout the entire place. More came into the tiny structure than ever came out of it.  She slept in the living room because the bedroom was too full of trash. Conditions had deteriorated gradually over the years. By May of 1998, the septic line was backing up and exposed. She no longer had running water. The electrical system was faulty, only supplying enough power for an oscillating fan and a small portable television which itself eventually gave up the ghost.

As summer approached there was a draught and wildfires raged throughout the state. The temperatures reached record highs nearly every day. One by one, the doves she kept were dying in the heat, their little tongues hanging out of their beaks desperate for water and cool, fresh air. She told us all of this, weeping, through the door on nights when my mother would beg her to come out and accept some help. Despite the heat and the inadequate living conditions, Eleanor chose to remain sealed up inside that aluminum sarcophagus, all alone except for the birds. My mother sought to have her involuntarily institutionalized via the “Baker Act” but this course of action failed. The Sherriff declared that she was neither mentally ill nor a harm to herself or someone else in the eyes of the State of Florida. She was a grown woman and free to remain in her own home if that was her choice.

Never mind the fact that she had blocked out all light and air with a combination of black garbage bags, newspaper, and tinfoil over all the windows. We worried that the wildfires would reach our neck of the swamp and she would refuse to leave even as the flames threatened to engulf her entirely. For weeks, we pled with her to at least come sit with us in our trailer for a little while - to enjoy the air and a nice shower. Even as the temperature rose, each day she politely and steadfastly refused.

Eventually, my mother gave up. No one was concerned about the situation, least of all the woman herself, so what more could my mother do? She stopped walking over to talk to Eleanor through the door. Throwing her hands up in despair, Mom took to her chair to silently worry while chewing on the remnants of her nails.

The tension in the house was palpable. I lived for Tuesday and Thursday mornings when marching band practice provided me with my only means of escaping the house. I was twelve years old; it’s not like I could drive. On those afternoons I did my best to use up the rest of my day in the company of my best friend Heather. At her house I could escape the scene that had grown unmanageable. At my house, I felt safe in her shadow.

June 18, 1998 was a Thursday. Heather had come home with me. I thought I was safe. We were doing what middle school girls did in Crescent City – chatting about high school boys and listening to Usher. That day, in addition to what I can only assume was yet another discussion of boys, Heather was teaching me some new techniques for making friendship bracelets. She had been making them for years, her graceful fingers deftly weaving differently colored silk threads into flat, geometric patterns. Works in progress were always pinned to her purse for easy access, leaving the unwoven threads to trail behind her as she walked. I could not seem to learn the technique that Heather was trying to teach me. That afternoon, as the seventh grade loomed before me, my greatest concern was that I only knew how to create a rudimentary style with a rib running in a spiral up the side of the rounded chord.

At some point we foolishly decided that we might venture out of my bedroom into the living room. I can’t imagine why. Maybe we heard my mom and dad talking about Eleanor and our emergence was an attempt to diffuse what was sure to become a tense situation. Even if that was not the reason – it became the subject when my dad asked us to run next door to check on her. We gladly accepted.

While I was intensely uncomfortable with the climate the Eleanor situation had wrought under my roof, I was still intrigued by the situation itself. I had no idea how serious it really was. Eleanor would be fine. She had always been there. Eventually someone would get her to come out. Why shouldn’t it be me and Heather? We would be heroes.

The afternoon hot, but cooler than the morning had been. The sky was overcast, threatening to deliver much needed rain. The air was wet and thick with smoke from the fires. We bounded over the Airstream with light hearts. If nothing else, it would be fun to talk to Eleanor for a moment, and I felt some sort of pleasure in performing a job from which my mother had informally resigned. We leaned our heads into the hot metal and I knocked on the door.

Silence.

I knocked again. “Eleanor? Are you okay?”

Silence.

Heather and I looked at one another. Fear began to creep upon us. I knocked louder. “Eleanor, it’s Joyce and Heather. You remember Heather? Her boyfriend is George?”

Silence.

I pounded on the door and waited, holding my breath. I heard a faint cough. I waited. Speech was usually precluded by these faint coughs. She was like a bird in that way, cooing before she spoke. I looked at Heather. She looked at me. Then we heard a crash.

We hauled ass back to the house, swearing panicky oaths under our breath.