Lloyd walks slowly toward me. He’s got a walker that he navigates well enough through the crowd; one of the fancy walkers, the kind with the seat built-in for a quick rest on the road.He’s smiling at me for as long as it takes him to approach, which over the fifteen feet of terrain could be as long as thirty seconds. He turns and sits on his walker throne and smiles even more broadly. “Slow today.”
Lloyd walks slowly toward me. He’s got a walker that he navigates well enough through the crowd; one of the fancy walkers, the kind with the seat built-in for a quick rest on the road.He’s smiling at me for as long as it takes him to approach, which over the fifteen feet of terrain could be as long as thirty seconds. He turns and sits on his walker throne and smiles even more broadly. “Slow today.”
And it was. We were working the Salem Women’s Show, a showcase for all things feminine. The expo center hall was filled wall to wall with hawkers of miraculous elixirs and jewelry re-conditioners and the natural alternative to Spring Water and panties. In Portland, the same event earlier in the year pulled close to 7,000 professional women, age 32-40, making 45-70k a year. Of course, with them came their mothers, daughters, and disgruntled husbands, fingering racks of toys and the occasional undergarment. The Salem event was different, though, lonelier. It hardly commanded the draw of Portland, leaving the vendors to mingle with one another and stare at the ladies who straggled through, who were more confused than anything else, most of whom found more security in the Antiques show just next door.So there I was, sitting with Lloyd Lund at the Women’s Show in Salem. Everything on the man was slow, tired, down to the long, wispy comb-over blowing listfully in the gentle breeze of convention traffic. “You have a family?” Yes, I do. “You’re wife feed from the boob?” Yes, she did. Lloyd and I talked of colostrum, the magic component of a mother’s breast-milk that’s rife with anti-bodies to protect new babes from the diseases of early childhood. Having just had a child myself, I knew most of this, but had it been news to me, I would have bought Lloyd’s story hook, line, and walker.”Wouldn’t you like to benefit from this stuff?” he asks me. Now, I see it. This old shill is working me right in the booth. He comes for a chat, lures me in with his wispy comb-over and turbo-walker and then drops the sale. “Yes, Lloyd. I suppose all adults would benefit,” I tell him, not a little sarcastically. And true enough, he has a pill for the very thing. His wife does all the selling, of course, he doesn’t do a thing. He tells me it’s too much damn work. But he does take the stuff religiously: three pills every three hours, every day of his life.”Does it work for you, Lloyd?” Listening to myself, I’m not treating the old man with respect here, and after I say it I’m hoping to God he doesn’t catch it. “See, I’m suffering from what they call the ‘Aggressive Prostate Cancer’ that’s been eating me up,” he says, “And without this stuff, I wouldn’t be here.”My face was stuck there, in that same sardonic smile I’d painted on while I was ribbing him, and now it was grotesquely inappropriate. After a beat, “Jesus, Lloyd, this shit has worked on your cancer?” “I don’t know,” he says, “But it beat the shit out of that radiation they tried to kill me with. Or those damned LU shots.” I don’t know what the “LU” shots are, I can only assume some sort of chemotherapy. “That sonuvabitch doctor tried to kill me,” he’s still smiling as he’s saying all this, “Rot me from the inside out.” He reaches down and holds on to his belly.He tells me that the therapy for the cancer nearly killed him. I’ve heard that before. Cancer is the ultimate Catch-22: you may live a long enough life dwindling slowly to nothing in pain, or you can try to cure it and die of the treatment in no time. Risk and reward, and Lloyd chose to quit. At 81 years old, Lloyd was going to take the gamble. “The diarrhea,” he says, “the diarrhea nearly killed me alone.” We share an uncomfortable chortle. “Doctor asked me if I wanted something for it, to plug me up. ‘No way,’ I said to him. ‘I want that shit out!'” We laugh again.After a trip to a naturopathic physician with his beautiful wife, Kay, they discovered this treatment. And now, Lloyd, at 84, is up and walking around at the Salem Women’s Show. Kay, at 63, looks not a day over 40 and sells this stuff herself. It’s a network marketing gig a la Nikken, and it’s kept them in food and shelter for three years.”I been shot, too,” he says to me. Shot? “In World War II,” He’s raising his hand to his head and I can see it shaking. The last words come out of his mouth in breath alone, “Shot in both knees, right hand, and head.” Now I can see it, the faint pink patch in the receding grey. It’s about three inches long, narrow at one point, spreading to a trident at the far end, higher on his head. He’s having trouble pointing to the spot and I can see his right hand is fixed straight. Lloyd’s eyes are a deepening red, and he falls completely silent for a minute as I stare.Somewhere there my rapier wit fell away revealing little more than a kid, embarrassed at my gross inappropriateness, ignorance. Lloyd looked embarrassed. I’m thinking, what on earth could possibly make this man embarrassed to tell his story? What could have turned him inside out such that his injuries are suddenly taboo? I want to hear more, to understand his role in the Great War, to see where he fit in such a radically transformational time in our geo-political history. I want to put his story here, to somehow honor the sacrifice he made; the sacrifice of his legs, his hand, his head, the friends he undoubtedly lost in battle. I want to celebrate great gains in the wake of his losses.Of course, I didn’t tell Lloyd any of this.The rest of the weekend, we passed one another several times. He looked tired. I would give him the conventioneer’s nod and we’d smile at one another, me walking briskly to my booth, him sitting not-so-comfortably on his walker. I’m going to call Lloyd and tell him I’d like to bring him some coffee, that I’d like to hear his story, that I’d love to try the pills he’s taking. I can only hope he’ll do me the honor.Thank you, Lloyd Lund. For everything.