[joe-frank-list] 'He hesitated'

[russellbell at gmail.com]

	Joe describes the litter on the carpet, the desk, the couch,
the mess in his bathroom, the kitchen: he's a poor housekeeper.  He
points out that, after cleaning up, it gets dirty again.  (He says he
has an incinerator, but these were outlawed before Joe moved to LA.)
His appliances malfunction; he's disintegrating himself - no matter
how well he could keep himself, he'll die.
	10:20: Joe rolls dice, announces the results.
	11:10: She (Joe's mother) saw sheep being slaughtered when she
was a girl, remembers stories of the brutalities of Russian soldiers
who invaded during WW1, when she was 3-4.
	12:10: She takes a fall in her closet.
	12:50: A local man was found guilty of killing his wife, who
had Alzheimer's.  Joe's mother thought he would get off because it was
a mercy killing; Joe disagreed.
	13:30: Her neighbor Dave had a stroke, can no longer speak.
His wife Rose called an old friend in Denver, caught up on mutual
friends, all suffering from disabilities.
	15:00: We're made of atoms.
	15:20: Joe and his mother drive to the new shopping mall; she
complains about all the new development.
	16:00: She turned down a request to run local chapter of
Jewish work-training agency.  She was unhappy running other
organizations.  She takes lots of drugs for her anxiety, considered
suicide.
	19:20: There are 3 books above her bed.  Joe takes down Chaim
Potok's 'In the beginning', reads the words, 'He hesitated.' (a 2-word
sentence) from page 172.  (It's on page 48.)  Then he turns to page
331, reads, 'He closed the door quietly.' ('She closed the door
quietly' is on page 227.)  She doesn't remember anything about the
book.
	20:30: When she's too tired to get out of bed Joe imagines a
system to automate her feeding.
	21:50: When she has attacks of pain, she puts nitro
(nitroglycerin?) under her tongue.  She remembers Mr Paoli (sp?) who
stayed in Germany: his mother committed suicide instead of going to
the camps.  An ambulance comes for someone in the development.  She
used to work in an emergency room.  She gets down on herself, calls
herself a bitch.  She attributes it to survivor's guilt, then her
hypochondria to her father's amputated leg.  (He died in 1936.)
	24:00: Joe saves some bugs from the pool; Joe's found his true
vocation, spends the day rescuing drowning insects.  Later he tries to
save ducklings from a badger, spends the night with them.  Then he
remembers how he enjoyed eating duck.
	26:40: She likes to practice chipping onto the green.  Joe
adjures himself to make his visits positive.
	28:50: Joe rolls dice, announces the results.
	29:00: Rain, car starting up and driving off, dog barking.
	30:30: Joe asks whether he is his body or in his body, then
more questions - sounds of a party in the background.
	32:40: Joe tells the story of 'The incredible shrinking man'.
	44:40: Joe imagines a party at which people interpret the
movie; Joe imitates their voices.
	48:00: Joe asks if it isn't true that we're all striving to
find peace and fulfillment, but this is an impossible goal.  We do
because we were told stories like this.  TV shows rehearse such
stories.
	53:20: 'All my tomorrows' (Frank Sinatra)

	http://jfwiki.org/index.php?title=He_Hesitated

russell bell