Conrad Jones And The King Of Prussia
Everyone says he has Alzheimers. That's the first thing a person will say if you mention his name. Oh yeah, Jones, has Alzheimers. Sanders has a bump on his dick. Anderson has a boil on his ass. Crenshaw has a uni-brow.
I do not really know him that well to compare what he was like before people started describing him as an Alzheimer victim. He acts in a way that to me could only be described as marginally odd, and exhibits behaviour that could just as easily be described as folksy. There are certain criteria to meet in order to be a bona-fide Alzheimer sufferer. If you don't meet them your behaviour is then described by a non proper noun like dementia. Bob has dementia, Rick's demented, Sandra is deranged.
I heard recently the positing of an interesting concept--that the world of imagination is not that place to which one escapes when life presents challenges but rather the psyches ultimate destination. The place you are meant to be. Not a way-station or a tool or a means to an end but that very thing which the seeking and cultivation of perhaps answers the question, why are you here? So if someone ever says to you in response to something you are feeling strongly about--that you are imagining things, you say, I certainly hope so, even though the saying of that will possibly convey exactly the opposite of what you mean.
Guests were packing up on Monday. Sparkle came in after a trip to the car and said to me that Conrad Jones was in the driveway and wanted to talk to me. She seemed moderately disturbed, saying Jones was asking her things that she had no answers to and at one point said to her that he needed a friend. That's when she said she would go get me. Sparkle's husband, Jesse, says she is a dementia magnet, attracting odd types where ever she goes. I thought she was kidding that Jones was in the driveway. I didn't really get the joke though. I wanted to play along but I wasn't sure how to act. What is my character's motivation? I wanted to ask the director but there did not appear to be one. It was then that I realized, by reading the crease in Sparkle's brow, Conrad Jones, who had never before stopped by for a visit, was now visiting.
He introduced himself and I said who I was, even though we have met a couple of times before. He was concerned about something that each time I tried to make him specify what that thing was he would retreat back into the folksy good neighbor character who was just stopping by for a visit. I'm not sure he was clear as to my role up here and so I contemplated making one up for the occasion. Nice to meet you Conrad, I am Dave, the King of Prussia, and I have come here to claim this hill for my mother country and make of you locals, adoring subjects.
He said I have a good head on my shoulder or he may have said I seem to have a good head on my shoulder and the latter of those two I believe to be the more accurate.
From here, you can't really hear the traffic on the nearby state highway, except like now, when there is what sounds to be four hundred motorcyclists passing through on their way to the Shenandoah Park.
It is not so much that the motorcyclists are noisy as it is that the quiet you previously took for granted becomes, after they pass, something new.
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