Pink Louie ...

don't know why he called them that - Pink Louie. (he being Bronislaus, or Jaja, as the kids and I called him ... father of John ... grand-father to the brood)

Pink Louie was none other than Pink Floyd ... the Pink Floyd of floating pigs, another brick on the wall and the dark side of the moon ...

It would make me laugh, not always nicely, not always politely ... at the repeated slips of an aging man. At first I never noticed anything but the incorrect name ... over time I noted the harsher tone, the spitting out of the words as though the mere taste of them was nasty ... and only near the end did I notice the pause, the catching of his breath before the harsh spit sounds of Pink Louie.

Assumptions ... I assumed he preferred the polkas that played on that radio station from Franconia Notch on Sunday mornings to the strident, plaintiff sounds of youth. I assumed that he held the same disdain for all bands that played "that ungodly noise" that wasn't music to his ears ... I assumed it was an age thing.

John was my husband ... a kind, most intelligent, happy man ... a gc (that's general contractor for those who aren't up on their abbreviations) ... an MIT drop-out ... a Lacoste Polo shirt and Levi 501 jeans wearing kind of man. He built things ... beautiful homes, full of windows and skylights. He loved clams and spaghetti. He loved the children ... with hugs, by teaching, by playing, by laughing. We fished, we boated, we ice-fished, we skated, we built things, we painted rocks ... you get the picture I'm sure ...

Something happened ... I'm not quite sure what ... but Pink Louie started playing in his black Ford pick-up truck ... Dark Side of the Moon ... and then The Wall. The music started following him into the house, onto the boat ... Pink Louie permeated his life ... and his conversations were soon peppered with facts about Roger Waters ...

At first it was fine ... and then it was not ... and my stomach knotted and my mind knotted as they tried to pinpoint from where the unease sprang from ...

John's mind split open ... spiders and snakes ... terrors in dreams ... hospitalization, institutions and meds ...

It was never the same again ... he was but a shadow of himself ... tuned in to Pink Floyd's deeper meanings that were meant just for him ...

Bronislaus (Jaja) had heard it coming ...

We started another life the kids and I ... and then another ... and John? Well John stayed behind in a world of walls and flying pigs and the dark side of the moon ... and we left Pink Louie behind.

I used to love Pink Floyd ... after John not so much ... but I could still quiet my anxiety and enjoy if a song or two found themselves drifting to my ears. I never consciously chose to listen (I actually rid myself of each and every album, cassette and CD that I owned) ...

Pink Louie ... Pink Floyd simply became another brick in the wall of my life story ...

until ...

the strains of "another brick on the wall" echoed through the house ... seeping through the floorboards assaulting my ears. The hair stood up on the nape of my neck, goose bumps the size of ostrich eggs rose on my arms as I sat up straight in bed in one staccato movement ...

here? how? who?

but I knew ... Jonathan ... son of John ... my gentle, confused, so intelligent, quiet J ... listening to Pink (spit) Louie ...