A long road ahead

In the earlier stages of my mothers dementia she would get lost on thought tangents that could keep her focused and busy for weeks on end. For a while she only wanted to shop for new underwear, and when we would go to the store, she would buy 10 pairs of old women underwear, same style as the week before, no difference, and that was it. On the way back to her home, she would be so proud of herself, because in her mind, she had set up this plan, you know, to get to a store to purchase these underwear, because, in her mind, these were valuable and getting to a store was an adventure.

It was, in a word, adorable. For a while she did the same sort of behavior with pineapple slices. On Tuesday she would begin talking about pineapple slices and how nice it would be to have some. By Thursday she would be needling me to take her to the store, there was something she needed was all she would say. Once there, she would walk, aisle to aisle, looking at the various products, buying some things, discarding others. She would find the fresh cut pineapple slices and buy a container. On the way home she would crack open the plastic container, fish one out with her long painted fingernail and stuff it in her mouth and look at me with the look of a child and smile a giant pineapple smile. It was sublime.

And then she got pissed off at Benson and Hedges.

See, my mom was a lifetime smoker, nothing wrong with that, it's legal and if the advertisements are to be believed, and really who doesn't believe advertising? Anyway, for as long as I knew her, she smoked. She really liked Benson and Hedges and the scary thing started one day when I stopped by her apartment and had lunch and she asked me, really just kind of out of the blue, "who makes Benson and Hedges cigarettes?"

I told her I did not know, which was the truth. I went home later and Googled it and when I stopped by later that night to bring her a chocolate and a glass of wine, I told her that Philip Morris manufactured her cigarette of choice. Why I asked. "I'm going to kill the president of Philip Morris," she said, sipping her wine, setting it on the table, taking out a Benson and Hedges Slim, lighting it and inhaling deeply. I knew then that this was going to be an adventure.

A few days later I stopped in to check on her and she was in the activity room, surrounded by giant maps of the United States. I saw my mother, sprawled on the floor, a giant crayon in her hand, circling the state of Virginia. She looked up at me, a bit surprised, "we're going to Richmond," she proclaimed.

Well, to be honest, my first thought was I had never been to Virginia, it would be a nice place to visit. My mom walked up to me and said we needed to talk. She grabbed my arm like only a mother can do to a son and dragged me a more out of the way table, we sat. "We'll need a gun," she said, seriously. "No doubt," I said. "You have one?" "I do. In fact, I have two." We both smiled. I told her, "I'll have to get the car tuned up, also kennel the dog, this should not be more than a week, right?" My mother nodded, knowingly, like she drove to Virginia on a monthly basis to kill a CEO of a major American company.

Highly unlikely.

For a few days we plotted. She had called the main office to find out if the President of Philip Morris would be in Richmond. There were calls made to hotels, all along the expected travel route. We decided it would be wise to leave on a Monday, less traffic and with any luck, we would be pulling up to the employee parking lot at Philip Morris on Friday morning, walking into the executive lobby, reading a magazine until the President walked in and then shooting him, leaving and driving home. Two weeks max.

I picked her up at six in the morning, Monday. We took to the highway and we were about 300 miles in when I realized I had not really asked my mom why we were on our way across the country to murder the president of Philip Morris. So I asked her. "He lied to me. He lied to me about cigarettes."

That's all she said. Then there was this uncomfortable silence, which I can not replicate here, although if I go off on an uncomfortable tangent and wander off for a few words, you will spend as much time reading this gibberish as I spent wondering what the hell she was trying to say.

"What the hell are you trying to say?"

"Matthew, when I was younger, Philip Morris sold me on smoking because I could be sexy and sophisticated."

"Oh come on, you were never that naive."

"That is not the question. When you are a young person and everyone is doing something, like smoking, and all these big companies keep telling your that is helps you sleep at night and keeps your skin looking younger, you start to feel like you should smoke too."

"That's what advertising is."

"But everything Philip Morris did and said was a lie. For that, I am going to kill the president of the company."

"OK."

We drove on.

Thursday night we stayed at a wonderful hotel in downtown Richmond. The Jefferson is an old hotel, but up to date, grand and stylized and old southern in every possible way. The massive lobby was bristling with well dressed men and women, drinks in their hands, gabbing about something important. As I looked around, I could see the old south in the complexion and demeanor, you did not need to hear the accent. What I also noticed was that look of some of the men, almost leaning to the right a little bit. I would have guessed mom and I were not the only ones carrying weapons that night.

We ate well, we slept well and at seven in the morning we were parking in the guest parking space outside of the corporate office. We sat silently in the car. We had spent a few minutes at some point during the drive vaguely talking about the actual plan. Mom said that the president arrived at the office every morning at 8, we could take him in the parking lot, or walk in, read a magazine and shoot him in the reception area. Either plan worked for me. So far, at 7:15, we were in the car, so we were going with the parking lot option, so far.

At 8:15 Mom grabbed the pistol laying on the cushion between us and opened her door, "I'm going in."

I did the same, closed my door, but left the keys in the ignition and my door unlocked, because after shooting the president of Philip Morris, I thought mom and I might need to make a quick getaway.

We walked into reception at 8:20 and immediately an older woman behind a massive wooden desk asked if she could help us, my mother, without missing a beat, said we were there to see "Cooper, in accounting."

I was shocked. First, brilliant move on Moms part. I mean, in a large corporation, chances are there is a Cooper somewhere. Then, so quick to have any answer at all from the receptionist . If I had bothered to speak up I would have yammered, "umm, we are here to kill the president."

The older woman behind the desk picked up a phone and spoke silently into it. In a moment she set it down, looked at my mother and said, "there is no Cooper in accounting."

With that my mothers eyes looked around. It was a large reception area, trees against a far wall, plaques and awards on the farthest wall away from us, a window wall that showed acres of well tended grass. Mom sized it all up. Letting the news of Cooper sink in. Without a word, she turned and walked out. I looked at the woman behind the desk, mouthed the words "I'm with her" and followed closely behind my mother.

Somewhere around Texas I asked my mother, if we had seen the president of Philip Morris in the parking lot, would she have shot him? "Yes, of course. Would you?" "Solely based on the harm he has done to you, yes."

My moms decent into Alzheimers continued for a couple more years. She would not make any more trips out of the area again. She would not threaten to bring vengeance down upon the evil. She slowly deserted us.

I think about that strange trip every now and then. I wonder how the president of Philip Morris got so lucky. I also wonder if these people in our world who lie and cheat and steal and plunder, if they ever wonder if someone that they have wronged will someday just show up and make things right.