Harry?

This is a monologue that Polly does as she is driving her husband, Harry, who has cancer, home from the VA Hospital. Anyone who has ever driven the many desert miles cross country in New Mexico will understand what Polly is talking about.

Harry?

“You ready to go, Harry? Do we need to stop anywhere else ‘fore we head back home? You got all your medicines, and stuff. Listen to this old truck rattle. Hope we get back with out any problems. Old truck barely holding together. Needs boo-coddles of work done on it, but I know we can’t afford it. Well, what did that quack of a doctor say this time, Harry? Are you gonna live for another couple of days? Heeheehee. I thought so. Sure can’t understand why we have to make this ridiculous drive ever week so’s that quack can just say ‘come back next week’. That’s what he said, ain’t it, Harry? That’s what he always says. Come back next week. I get so tired of havin’ to make this drive week after week. I have to do all a the drivin’ now that you can’t, Harry. Oh, I know, if you could you would, but you can’t, so I have, too. Sometimes I wonder if you’re really as sick with that there cancer as you and that doctor say you are.

“Don’t know why we have to live all the way out there, in the middle of this damn desert. Why can’t we be like normal folk, and live in town. Why did we ever move out here to start with, Harry? Why aren’t we still livin’ back in Milwaukee, instead of here. We still got relatives and friends there. Or I figure we do. Don’t know for sure. Ain’t heard hide nor hair from them in ever so long. Why did we come to New Mexico, Harry? Huh? We could a gone to Florida, with Alene and her husband. Alene would a took us in. She’s our daughter, for Pete’s sake. Even if her no good husband don’t like us. Or Hawaii, we could a gone to Hawaii, or California, instead of Dry Creek, New Mexico. And why Dry Creek? There’s lots of places we could live that would be a whole lot closer to that crazy V.A. Hospital in Albuquerque, rather than Dry Creek. Nothin’ there but a dozen or so trailer homes. Half a them got old, retired folk, like us, livin’ in ‘um. The rest got them lazy young kids that ain’t got no jobs, livin’ on welfare. Always drunk or stoned on those drugs.

“You listen’ to me, Harry? Would make a lot more sense if-in we was to move up closer to Albuquerque, so we don’t have to make this drive ever week. Probably just helpin’ that cancer ya got, eat ya up just that much faster, livin’ out in that heat, and sand. Hot sun always beatin’ down on ya. Dryin’ a body out. Wind blowin’ sand and dirt. Don’t never let up. And you always complainin’ you're cold. Cold. ‘I’m cold, Polly’, your always sayin’. Harry, did I ever tell you how much I hate livin’ in this damn desert. You can’t be cold livin’ in the desert, Harry, it’s always hot. Must be at least 90 degrees today.

Middle a summer, and we’re havin’ to make this here trip ever week, cause some smart ass V.A. Doc says we got a, cause you got cancer. I’m getting’ tired of it, Harry. And this here old Ford truck’s getting’ tired of it, too. Hope it don’t over heat today, like it did last week.

“Ain’t nothin’ out here in this desert but sand and sun. Sun and sand, and this damn highway. Mile after mile after mile of highway. Some times I think there ain’t nothin’ left in the whole world but this here highway. And me drivin’ on it. Two lanes goin’ north, like we did this mornin’. And two lanes goin’ south, like we are now. Mile after mile of nothin’, cut in half by this here highway. Nothin’ but us in this old truck, and all them other folk in their cars, and trucks, just a goin’ down the highway.

And nothin’ out there to even look at but sagebrush and tumbleweeds, and blowin’ sand. Feel that wind today, tryin’ to blow us off the road. Don’t know how them little cars stay on the road. You see them cows out there in the brush, Harry. Damn things are so skinny they might just blow away. Wonder there they get water. Ain’t much water out there. Nothin’ but blowin’ sand and miles and miles of highway.

“Did you see that, Harry. Crazy idiot cut right in front of that big rig. Wonder he didn’t get his butt run over. He should of. Cuttin’ over like that. Crazy people out here on this highway. Mile after mile of road. It’s enough to make any one go crazy. You think we’re goin’ crazy, Harry, drivin’ up and down this road ever week. Hey, Harry, I wonder how many times we been up and down this highway. Might be interstin’ to figure it out. Then we could figure out how many miles we done drove on this road, too. How many weeks in a year, Harry? Fifty-two or is it fifty-three. And you done had this cancer for what, two years now? And it’s ‘bout three hundred miles round trip from that itty-bitty trailer we live in out there in Dry Creek to that V.A. hospital in Albuquerque. Well that’s a lot a miles. A whole lot a miles. You listening to me, Harry? Hell, no you're sleepin’, Again.

“I do the drivin’ and you do the sleepin’. Nothin’ ever changes. I gotta stop, Harry. Rest area should be just a few miles ahead. Only be a minute. I gotta go pee. Then I’ll get you on home, Harry. Harry, you fellin’ all right? You Okay? You don’t look so good, Harry. I’ll be right back.

“Time to go again, Harry. Harry? What did that doctor tell you today? You never said. Ain’t gonna tell me, huh. Think it’s just your problem, do ya. Think I like makin’ this drive ever week, do ya. You and me, Harry. We done been through a lot these past fifty years. We didn’t have nothin’ when we got married. All that scrapin’ to get by. Then you went, and join’d the Army. Twenty five years of Army life. The kids, the movin’ all the time, the wars, finally the retirement, and our own little place here in the desert. Not a great place but at least it’s ours. Bought and paid for. And now you got the cancer. I don’t know what we’re gonna do, Harry. Do you?

Harry? Hey? Harry, wake up. Talk to me, old man. I’m pullin’ over now, Harry. Why don’t you wake up? Harry? Why ain’t ya breathin’, Harry.

“Damn it, Harry. What did you go and do that for Harry? If ya was gonna die, you could a done it while ya was at the hospital. What do I do now, Harry? Should I turn around and go back to the hospital or should I go on home to Dry Creek. Well, I can’t just turn around, ‘cause there’s no way to get across that big stretch of desert in between this part of the highway and that other part. Okay, Harry, your right. We’ll just go on home for now. It ain’t that far, then we’ll decide what to do.

“Harry, what am I gonna do now that we don’t have to drive them three hundred miles to and from your doctor ever week?

The End