Cheshire cats

“Dad, why are you talking to the ceiling?” I ask Dad. “Because there’s somebody up there. I’m not sure about him,” says Dad, not taking his eyes off the ceiling. “You’re not sure about him?” I ask. “Sneaky-weaky,” says Dad.

Somehow, Dad destroyed one of the two tomato plants I forgot at his apartment the other day. One is looking great on the windowsill, but the other is only a stem, with all the leaves and branches gone. When I bring it up, Dad is immediately repentant and confesses that he did it, even though he’s not too sure what he did or why.

We’re gearing up for a trip to Mohonk, one of my favorite places on earth, someplace Dad has been going for the last 50 years. By constantly talking to him about it for weeks, we’ve gotten through to him that we’re leaving on Wednesday. “What do I need to do?” he asks. “Bring your swim trunks,” I tell him, so he feels involved although it’s really Marie who will be packing his bag. “They’re not rotten are they? I don’t remember when I put them on last,” he says. I assure him that swim trunks don’t rot.

Feeling silly tonight, Dad offers me a cigar and then giggles. “Are you in a turban or a turbine?” he asks, puzzingly. “Something you wear on your head?” I ask him. “Something you wear all over,” he says. “A bathrobe, a dress . . .” I suggest. “Like a bathing suit,” he says. “I’m in a shirt and shorts,” I tell him.

“In my early 20s, I was crazy, absolutely nuts. I think I went too far somehow and never got back in line. I’ve had a wacky life, I can tell you that,” Dad tells me.

Dad is pondering his apple juice: “it never intrudes, it’s kind of mild, it’s always there,” he says.

The hallucinations are in full force tonight. “There’s red person, a head that’s been bothering me for quite a while,” Dad says calmly. “It’s a very vicious looking thing. It recedes and comes back. Four or five different ones have done it for two or three years. It always has a very snarly – like it’s going to bite you. They change every couple of years and the other one is dead.” “Do they scare you?” I ask, thinking that seeing something like that would probably scare me. “No,” he says, “because they’re not bothering me, they can’t get me, but they’re there a good deal of the time. It’s just the head, not even shoulders, just the head, but it’s very vicious looking.”

Later, I notice Dad peering at the empty center of the dining room table – noticing him looking somewhere unusual is usually my first clue that he’s hallucinating. “These cats are exactly the same size and they’re close together and now that I’m concentrating on them they don’t show up very much. When I wasn’t paying attention to them they were much, much brighter. Now that I’ve looked away I can’t even find them. They don’t want to get eaten,” he says. “Camouflage?” I ask, since that seems to be what he’s describing, but he doesn’t recognize the word. “They didn’t want to be touched,” he says. “To this moment, I didn’t know cats could do that, but they can. Have you ever had cats that have faded away like that?” he asks. “No, but there is one is Alice in Wonderland,” I tell him. “Do you think this is Alice 2?” he asks me.