Final Stroke

by Michael Beres

  In the closet Steve recognized many of the dresses Marjorie had worn to rehab. Whereas most nursing home residents wore sweats, Marjorie insisted on dresses. If she was so formal, what made her go down to the hallway outside the activity room in her nightclothes? Along with the rumor that she’d fallen because of someone’s “acci dent,” he’d heard she was in nightclothes.

  There were several pairs of shoes, but no slippers. He searched the entire closet, inside dresser drawers, and even crawled down from his wheelchair to search beneath the bed, but could find no slippers. They were furry and pink. He’d never seen them but could visualize them because Marjorie had said in rehab that she never wore her furry pink slippers outside her room because they were too informal and too slip pery to be trusted in a waxed tile hallway once you let go of the hand rail. “Like crossing ice on butter feet,” she’d said.

  A good metaphor, according to Georgiana. Buttered feet on ice. It had been a happy session, all three of them laughing it up that day. And then something turned off Marjorie’s laughter. A word. A single word had turned off Marjorie’s laughter like turning off a faucet.

  He looked to the photographs on the windowsill. The son. Some thing about the son not known by the father. A word that had turned off Marjorie’s laughter. A word Georgiana had used to describe a happy son-of-a-bitch stroke victim. Gay.

  Back in the hallway. Rolling silently toward the nurses’ station where a nurse faced the other direction staring at a computer screen. Non-glare screen, he hoped. Not like in a movie directed by a fat man who said, “Good evening,” in a deep voice before his television show, a movie in which the hero, trying to sneak along a balcony, is seen by the housekeeper in the reflection on the screen.

  A nurses’ aide arrived—subtle difference in uniform color—and both nurse and aide stared at the computer screen. He rolled closer and lowered his head. The counter at the nurses’ station was about four feet high and he rolled to it sveltely like a clever gunman in an old western hiding behind a convenient boulder. The entrance to the station was on the far side and as long as neither nurse nor aide crossed over to this side he’d be safe. They spoke.

  “Bill thinks he’s being overmedicated again.”

  “Did you show him the chart?”

  “He ignores it. Says the same thing that got Marjorie’ll get him.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Says she was overmedicated and didn’t know what she was doing. Says she probably slipped in her own pee.”

  “I doubt it. Marjorie was too straitlaced. Most likely she was walking in her sleep.”

  “What about the puddle?”

  “Someone else from earlier, after last activities. Lasix kicked in too far from the john and nobody noticed to clean it up.”

  “Beverly’s up late telling her joke to the wall again.”

  “Which joke is it tonight? She has several.”

  “The one about bananas.”

  “Haven’t heard it.”

  “She says, ‘I might be old, but physically I’m doing just fine. Of course I don’t keep green bananas on my windowsill anymore.’”

  “Oh yeah, I did hear it.”

  “You just wanted to hear me repeat it like an idiot.”

  “Right.”

  He held his left hand over his mouth. The laugh, from deep down inside, threatened to encircle his neck and choke him. I don’t keep green bananas on my windowsill anymore. He held his breath, took his hand from his mouth, pushed his chair along the counter. He had to take a chance, get the hell out of there and find a place where he could laugh, where he could breathe.

  As he pushed off down the hallway toward the far end of the wing he could only hope the two at the station would not see him. He heard them laughing at something else behind him and this made the pres sure to laugh even greater, like that time shortly after he arrived at Hell in the Woods when he stopped in at a chapel service and laughed out loud when Marjorie winked toward him after the priest asked God’s forgiveness for everyone’s sins.

  He pushed the chair faster, jerking his body to the side to keep the chair from turning each time he gave it a shove with his good hand. When the chair almost spun around on him he glanced back and saw that the two in the station had their heads down, apparently studying something one of them held. Finally, where the hall turned toward the activity room and he was no longer in line-of-sight with the station, he let out the stale air of the laugh and took a deep breath. Green ba nanas. Very funny.

  And so, here he was again at the scene of the crime. The phrase “scene of the crime” like yet another joke, making him laugh. Crazy bastard. A woman dies and he laughs like an idiot.

  But maybe there was more to it. Maybe when he came closer to being who he’d once been, to doing what he’d once done, his brain got confused in its elation. The Laughing Detective. Damn. Jan said there’s a story with that title. But the detective he always identified with never laughed. The detective he identified with was Sergeant Joe Friday.

  The theme music pounding, Dum-da-dum-dum as Joe’s badge is magnified to monstrous size on the black and white screen. The tele vision screen on the old Motorola in his parents’ living room. Lights off so he can see out the front window in case Dwayne Matusak is there waiting beneath the streetlight.

  The puddle still unmopped didn’t surprise him. It was around the corner at the end of a hallway where no one important would spot it. Night staff would just as soon wait for the early morning cleaning crew to take care of it with their howling machines meant to wake the dead. Soon the puddle would be gone, along with any other traces. Too bad he didn’t have a tape recorder from second floor rehab so he could record his findings. He laughed at this, imagining the unintel ligible babble being played back and causing Georgiana to crease her forehead.

  The puddle still had what he assumed were dried gurney tracks leading away, but now there were newer tracks that hadn’t been there before. When he realized these were the tracks of his own wheelchair catching the edge of the puddle as Betty-who-talks-too-much pushed him away not an hour earlier, he laughed at himself again.

  He wheeled around the puddle to the ladies’ room, knocking lightly before he entered. The sink was clear, nothing moveable in sight. He wheeled to the men’s room and found the same was true there. But in the janitors’ closet, after he found the light switch and scanned the closet filled with cleaning equipment and stacked with cardboard boxes, he discovered something interesting. Even if it turned out to be nothing, even if Marjorie’s death was an accident, having this bit of potential evidence in his possession would at least make him feel he’d done what he could, that he’d covered all the bases the way Joe Friday would have done.

  The water glass sat on a ledge at the back of a deep laundry-tub sink. He knew from the puddle around the glass, and the fact there was a bit of water in the bottom of the glass, that it had been used within the last several hours. He had to push the wheelchair close to the laundry tub in order to reach the glass. He carefully lifted the glass with his good hand, holding it along the top edge, careful not to touch any other part of it. It was one of the water glasses used for resi dents at meals. Not one of the plastic cups used in resident rooms, real glass, crystal clear, except this one was greasy as if it hadn’t made it to the dishwasher in the kitchen since its last use. He eased back into his chair, placing the glass safely between his legs. He thought of tucking it beneath his robe, but he didn’t want to wipe anything off the glass. Joe and his partner would have been proud, the partner saying some thing about delivering the glass to the lab boys.

  In a way, all of this was like floating in space. Like one of those moments in life when you say to yourself, “What am I doing here?” One of those moments you could never have predicted even if you had a billion monkey brains working for you. The stroke was one thing, distancing him from reality the way it did, making him ques tion whether Steve Babe had ever existed. But this—inside a janitors’ closet where there was a p
erfectly good mop and bucket on wheels to clean up the puddle outside and still no one had bothered to do it, and him with a water glass held close as if it contained secrets to unravel ing what was left in his noggin—this was insane. Any minute they’d bring the strait jacket, and when he mumbled his protests, saying he simply wanted to get the glass in case it had fingerprints on it the way Joe Friday and his partner would, they’d laugh like hell and he’d laugh with them.

  He turned his wheelchair toward the open door and shut off the light. When he did this he again recalled the dark living room when he was a boy looking out the window and seeing Dwayne Matusak across the street leaning against the lamppost, daring him to come out. He sat for a moment, trembling with fear dredged up from childhood by his stroke, as he stared out at the harsh lighting in the hallway, at the world outside where everything was clear to everyone else. Perhaps it was the sound of footsteps echoing down the hallway that had trig gered the memory of Dwayne Matusak.

  A summer in Cleveland long ago. Although he had not recog nized his mother and sister when they visited, he recalled the summer in Cleveland, an entire summer consumed with fear of Dwayne Ma tusak. Visualizing himself as a boy peeking through a partially-open door before he dare go outside made him weepy. His mother visits, weeps and kisses him repeatedly, he finds out his thirty-year-old sister is retarded, and instead of weeping with them and for them, he weeps because of Dwayne Matusak. He weeps because Dwayne Matusak says he hates JFK and all Catholics and because he is Catholic, an ado lescent Catholic going to Confession almost every Saturday because he is now old enough to be tormented by impure thoughts, old enough to lust after women the way poor Jimmy Carter once admitted he lusted after women.

  Of course it was not Dwayne Matusak walking down the hallway. How could it be? But there was another name. Someone coming to save him where he lay on a lawn near a multistory building. Someone coming in a car, driving a car with a door flying off its hinges as the car skids to a stop. Gunshots. Gunshots!

  He did not close the door to the closet all the way, but left an opening of an inch. He leaned forward in his chair and pressed his face to the opening.

  The footsteps belonged to one of the male aides dressed in gray slacks and shirt, the wiry black guy not quite tall enough to have played college basketball, but still tall. He’d seen the guy once, maybe twice a day, usually in the late afternoon in his room after therapy and just before the lineup at the dining room for dinner. The guy would come into the room, replace water cup and water pitcher, check tissue and toilet paper supply.

  And in rehab. He’d seen the guy in rehab on the second floor, one of many aides the therapists trooped through every day for a week trying to get them to remember their names. After the guy came through, saying good afternoon to everyone and waving his way out, they were asked to come up with something to help them remember his name. What was it Marjorie had said? Something about the guy looking like he was drunk that day. Yes, drunk. But how would Mar jorie have said he was drunk? Not directly, because Marjorie never said anything directly. She’d said, “Tied on,” and after going back and forth with Georgiana and the other therapist sitting in on the session, they figured out that what Marjorie had meant to say was that the guy looked like he had just tied one on. Tied-one-on. Tie-on. Tie-one. Ty-one. Tyrone.

  Although he was thin, Tyrone had the beefy arms and big hands of a kid who might have gone a few rounds. Tyrone’s skin was quite dark like kids from deep inside the ghetto when Steve was a kid in Cleveland.

  Tyrone checked his watch as he came down the hallway. He stopped and glanced toward the door to the closet. Steve stayed per fectly still, holding the door steadily, being careful not to move it. After a moment, Tyrone continued ahead, veering off to the left in stead of heading toward the closet.

  Steve slowly opened the door another inch and saw Tyrone stand ing on his toes in front of the door that led to the loading dock, the door through which they’d wheeled Marjorie. Tyrone had his arms above his head and was using a screwdriver on a small metal box mounted above the door. Judging by the armored cable leading from the box to the ceiling, the box contained the switching mechanism for the door alarm designed to signal the nurses’ station or the main desk or both should someone open the door.

  After a few seconds Tyrone had the cover off and looked around

  to be certain he hadn’t been seen before putting the cover down on the floor. Then he was at the innards of the device, and Steve could see even from this distance that Tyrone had loosened a wire before replacing the box cover without screwing it into place. After this, Tyrone alternately stared out the small window on the door and checked his watch.

  The inside of the janitors’ closet seemed hotter than before. Steve could smell the stale buckets and mops, the sharp odors of cleaning fluids. The glass he’d taken from the laundry tub was still in his lap. Now that he could see Tyrone expected a visitor, Steve felt better about his speculations regarding Marjorie’s death. After a few minutes, Ty rone opened the loading dock door to let in his visitor. While the door was open, the sounds of blower motors and kitchen equipment echoed in the hallway.

  The visitor was much shorter than Tyrone, Hispanic. He wore a White Sox baseball cap with the beak facing forward. The beak of the baseball cap emphasized the flatness of the guy’s face. Whereas Tyrone’s nose looked as though he might have gone a few rounds as a kid, this guy looked like he’d been used for a punching bag.

  Tyrone and the flat-faced man glanced down the hallway that led to the main building, then came into the short hallway. They stood outside the door to the janitors’ closet and Steve moved his face back from the door but left it open.

  “Watch out for the puddle, man.”

  “Puddle? What’s with maintenance around here? Maybe I’ll fuckin’ report you guys downtown.”

  “Wake the hell up, Flat Nose. We’re not downtown out here.”

  “Hey, well, you’re still part of Saint Mel’s.”

  “Just don’t step in it, you dumb spic.”

  “Last guy called me that got his nose made like mine, only he didn’t know it ‘cause he be dead.”

  Silence for a moment as if there were some truth to the threat.

  “Okay, just don’t step in it, you dumb fuck.”

  “That’s better.”

  “Come on, you got my stuff?”

  “Yeah, I got your stuff if’n you got my stuff.”

  “It’s in there.”

  “How many boxes?”

  “Only four. We can do it in one trip.”

  “Here you go, man. You know Jesus loves you for this.”

  “Yeah, I know. Let’s go.”

  When the door pushed open, Steve backed as far into the corner of the closet behind the door as he could. One wheel stopped against something and the chair turned abruptly. He heard things sliding down the wall and before he could stop it, an avalanche of brooms and mops banged against buckets and onto the floor.

  “What the hell you doin’ in here?” Tyrone held his arm out to ward the door as if to try to stop the guy named Flat Nose from com ing in.

  But it was too late and Tyrone’s hand was held out too high and Flat Nose bobbed and weaved beneath Tyrone’s arm and pushed his face close to Steve’s face. “Yeah, motha-fuck! What you doin’?”

  Tyrone shoved Flat Nose back against the wall and turned on him. “Don’t use that language around here, man! We got residents here need all the help they can get and you talk like that?”

  “Why’s he hidin’ in here?”

  Tyrone turned toward Steve. “He’s not hidin’. You’re not hidin’, are you? Naw, he’s just wandered off from his room and done got him self lost down here in the bowels of this place. Ain’t that right, pal? He’s like the white old lady on the commercial who’s fallen and can’t get up, only he’s lost and can’t find his way out of a closet.”

  “What’s that in his lap?” asked Flat Nose, ducking and weaving in closer, an angry look on hi
s face. “It’s a glass. He’s got a glass. What you suppose he’s got a glass for?”

  Tyrone placed a hand on Flat Nose’s shoulder. “Calm down, man. He probably wanted a drink of water and got lost tryin’ to find the sink in his bathroom. Except I seen you before, man. You’re from up on the third floor and got no business down here. You oughta know that. I mean, sure, you’re a resident and all, but that don’t mean you have the run of the place. Residents especially don’t have the run of the place because it could be dangerous. Now you just give me that glass so I can put it away and we’ll take you on back to the third floor where you belong. My friend and I were just trying to decide who would get the bucket and mop to clean up after one of your fellow resi dents, and here you are in here.”

  Tyrone had been smiling, and seemed quite calm, but Flat Nose was not smiling, and when Tyrone turned and stared for a moment at the angry face of his cohort, he turned back in a different mood. His teeth were clenched, his eyes wide, and before Steve could react, Ty rone reached into Steve’s lap, snatched the glass away, and flung it into the sink where it shattered, pieces hitting the walls in the close room and scattering amongst buckets and mops and boxes.

  Tyrone shouted into Steve’s face. “Don’t you realize you scared the shit out of us? How’d you like it if next time I come into your room I sneak up on you like you snuck up on us?”

  “Dumb fuck!” said Flat Nose, taking an aggressive stance.

  It was insane. From what he overheard he’d obviously caught them in a scam, and now they were acting like schoolyard bullies, their faces contorted as if the uglier they looked the more scared he’d be. It was crazy. Earlier he really had been scared when he recalled that summer Dwayne Matusak had it in for him, but now he wasn’t scared at all.

  He tried to act scared, but was apparently not doing a very good job of it because both men seemed even angrier, especially Tyrone who obviously wanted to prove to this guy named Flat Nose just how angry he could be. Shit, he was probably smiling a really sarcastic smile, a smile with all the earmarks of someone who would turn them in. He wanted to say something simple to ease the situation, like he was sorry. But the word earmarks got overrun by the cauliflower ears the guy named Flat Nose had and instead of apologizing like any normal per son so he could make everybody relax, he laughed in their faces.