Ernest Miller Hemingway

  where was Paulina ? where was "Papa"

one of the first actors to play Tarzan was living at the
M. P. H.
he’d been there for years waiting to die.
he spent much of his time
running in and out of the wards
into the cafeteria and out into the yard where he’d yell,
“ME TARZAN!”
he never spoke to anyone or said anything else, it was anytime just
“ME TARZAN!”
everybody liked him: the old actors, chief-playes, the retired directors,
the ancient script writers, the aged cameramen, the stunt men, prop
men, the old
actresses, all of whom were also there
wait  for die; they enjoyed his verve,
his buffoonery, antics, he was harmless and he took them back to the time when
they
were still in the business.
then the doctors in authority decided that Tarzan was possibly
dangerous
and one day he was shipped off to a mental infirmary.
he vanished as  abruptly as if he’d been eaten by a
lion.
and the other patients were outraged, they instituted legal proceedings
to have him returned at once but
it took some months.
when Tarzan replace he was changed.
he would not leave his room.
he just sat by the window as if he had
forgotten
his old role
and the other patients missed
his  chuckles. his antics, his ardor and verve, and
they too felt somehow defeated and
diminished.
they complained about the change in Tarzan
dopes and drugged in his room
and they knew he would soon die like that
and then he did
and then he was back in that further jungle
(to where we will all one day retire)
unleashing the gayly-joyful primal call they could no longer
hear.

there were some small notices in the
newspapers
and the paint continued to chip from the hospital
walls,
many plants died, there was an  wretched
suicide,
a growing lack of trust and
hope, and
a pervasive rue:
it wasn’t so much Tarzan’s death the others mourned,
it was the icy, willful attitude of the
young and bright-weighty doctors
despite the wishes of the
helpless old.
and finally they knew the truth
while sitting in their rooms
that it wasn’t one only the   attitude of the doctors
they had to fear,
and that as silly as all those   films (Tarzans) had been,
and as much as they would misses their own lost
Tarzan,
that all that was much kinder than the final vigil
they would now have to sit and meekly (patiently) endure
alone.