by Lyle Howard
Chase scowled sardonically. “You’ve barely spoken fifty words to me, and ‘I think I’ve got to pee’ has to be six of them? What is it about me that brings out the urine in people?”
It hurt to laugh, but Gabe appreciated the old man’s effort at humor therapy. “Please … it’s too early…”
Chase squeezed his shoulder. “Jeez, I’m so sorry! I can be such an idiot sometimes. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. By the way, if you really need to go … I know for a fact that when they brought you in, they inserted one of those tubes down there for you…”
If it was true, Gabe couldn’t feel anything.
“…‘cause they keep checking to see if you’ve been filling up that bag hanging over the side of your bed, so be my guest—whiz away to your heart’s content!”
And so Gabe did … but it burned … it burned a lot.
“You want any more of this?” Chase asked, holding out the damp washcloth.
Gabe lethargically shook his head. “No thanks. I appreciate your kindness though. Since you seem to know so much about me, may I ask what you’re in here for?”
Gabe watched the old man slowly walk over to the window, pry open the blinds with two fingers, and peek out. Beyond the confines of the darkened hospital room, it appeared that the world was continuing to spin. Six floors below, the shrill back-up warning signal from a van delivering baked goods defiled the purity of the early morning calm. It was one of those sounds only a person who was awake at this ungodly hour would ever be able to hear.
As the pale light seeping in through the window blinds cast prison stripes across the old man’s face, Gabe could see a subtle change overtake his expression. It was the same expression Gabe had seen a million times while interrogating some young punk who was trying to come off braver than he really was. Bennett Chase was trying unsuccessfully to conceal his fear as he balled up the washcloth in his hand.
“I’m dying,” he said, matter of factly, as he walked back to the bed and set the washcloth on a plastic tray on the night table.
Gabe’s eyes widened, suddenly managing to snap into sharp focus on the old man’s bulbous nose. “Excuse me?”
Chase stifled a yawn as though the disclosure of his imminent death didn’t really matter that much to him. “We’ve all gotta go sometime, right?”
Gabe raised his right hand to grope for the old man’s hand on the bed’s cold steel handrail. For a long moment they just clung to each other in the gloom. “I’m so sorry, Bennett. I … don’t know exactly what to say in this situation. Isn’t there anything the doctors can do for you?”
Chase patted the back of Gabe’s hand, careful not to mess with the I.V. tube protruding from it. “Nope … it’s too late for me, I’m afraid. The big, bad C’s got me by the prostate. Not much anyone can do for me now, I suppose. Six months from now, they tell me, I’ll be landing on heaven’s runway!”
Again, the sound of footsteps grew and faded beyond the closed door. Gabe wanted to scream out to whoever it was passing by: hey, can’t one of you people do something for this poor man? “What about your family? Do you have anyone here to help you?”
Chase snickered. “Never had much time for family, what with flying all over the place. Spent 15 years with the Air Force overseas, then flying commercial planes ever since. It was only after I took ill that Southern-Air handed me my walking papers.”
Even in the dim light, Gabe could see that the old man’s eyes were beginning to tear up. “What about your immediate family? Your parents? Brothers or sisters?”
Chase reached down to Gabe’s forehead and brushed back a lock of sweaty hair. “Jesus, Gabe! I’m 64 years old! You think that if my parents would have lived to be 90 that I’d be standing here talking to you? Cancer runs in my blood like salt in the ocean. Cancer took both my parents by the time they were fifty.”
“No brothers or sisters?”
Chase pulled a tissue from a box on the night stand and sniffled to clear his nose. “Had a younger brother … Warren … died flying a sortie over Vietnam … what a fucking waste of good life that was!”
“I’m sorry.”
The old man shrugged again. “Hey, what are ya’ gonna do? But you know what really sucks about this whole dying thing?”
Gabe’s soft voice conveyed his sincerity. “What’s that?”
There was a faraway, dreamy look in Chase’s eyes. “What really bothers me is, even though I know I’m never gonna be around to celebrate another new year, I don’t get to choose the way I wanna to go out.”
“Choose? What are you talking about?”
The old man pursed his lips. “I mean, since I know I’m going to die anyway, I think they should’ve let me die with some style … some dignity. Doing something that I want.”
Gabe was astounded by the old man’s honesty and candor. He wondered if their situations had been reversed if could be as courageous. “So? What’s stopping you?”
Chase smirked. “Nah … can’t be done. Be kinda messy, to say nothing of the expense.”
“Why’s that? How would you choose to die if you could?”
A smile brightened the old man’s rugged face. “‘I guess I would have liked to have dotted my final period up in the air. You know … flying.”
Gabe nodded. “Now I understand where the expense and mess comes into the picture.”
”I can’t explain it … but it’s always felt to me like the only place I could ever really find true peace and serenity was at 35,000 feet.” The old man’s eyes took on that fanciful look once again. “It’s tough to explain unless you’ve spent as much time up there as I have. The endless blue horizon … pillowy white clouds shearing past your windshield … the way the sun glints off the wings as you bank gracefully toward the east … chasing an orange sunset that you would swear God created especially for you, as you knife your way through calm air toward the west coast. I’m telling you, Gabe: there’s nothing here on terra firma that can even hold a candle to it.”
Gabe almost felt jealous of not knowing such passion. “You make it sound so appealing.”
Chase patted him on the shoulder. “There’s nothing to compete with it down here on earth, my friend. Nothing even comes close.”
“It sounds really terrific. I’m sorry you’ve been grounded.”
Chase tried to smile as he pulled Gabe’s blanket up to his chest. “Well, that’s the way it goes, I guess. What was it some very perceptive person once said? It’s not the years in your life, but the life in your years that counts?” He winked. “You’d better get some more rest now. Nurse Ratched will be in here around seven A.M. to deliver our medication. Wait till you see this old warhorse! Man alive, I’m telling you, she’s got a face that would make a train wanna take a dirt road!”
Gabe laughed under his breath. “I don’t know how you do it.”
The old man sat down on the edge of his own bed and let his slippers fall to the floor before sliding his feet under the covers. “You think I should spend my remaining days feeling sorry for myself? Been there, done that, my friend. I’ve already cried myself a river, Gabe … and you know what’s left when the well’s all dried up?”
Gabe stared up at the blank ceiling searching for the missing hours of his life. “What’s that?”
“Jeez … a dry well. I thought you were a detective.”
Gabe swiveled his head to the right and saw the old man struggling to get comfortable. “That’s it?”
Chase flipped the pillow under his head. “You were expecting something a bit more profound perhaps?”
Gabe pressed down on the tape securing his I.V. line to the back of his hand. “Why don’t you travel? See the world!”
The old man rolled over onto his side. “You forgetting that I was a pilot? I’ve already seen more of this world than most people would in three lifetimes. Home and hearth … that’s what I crave now.”
“But you don’t have any family.”
Chase fell back onto his pillow.
“I didn’t say the plan was perfect. You’re lucky to have such a handsome son.”
Gabe put the hand that didn’t have the tube in it behind his head. “Well, except for Casey, I’m pretty much in the same boat you are. My wife and daughter were killed in a car accident a few years back. If I hadn’t been trying to pull some overtime, I would have been behind the wheel that night and things might have turned out differently, you know?” He pondered reflectively. “Then my in-laws sued for custody of Casey citing my job and I as bad influences for the boy. Can you believe it? A police detective is all of a sudden a bad influence. Sure, I work some lousy hours, but I could have worked something out.”
Chase frowned. “Boy that really stinks.”
The detective struggled with a deep breath. “The funny thing is I know what it’s like to grow up without your real parents. I never knew mine. I was raised bouncing from foster home to foster home. So, until my wife and kids came along, I was all alone in the world like you. Isn’t it ironic that we should both end up here together?”
The old man snickered. “This conversation is turning into a real bummer, you know that? I think it’s time we both got some rest—especially you. When they find out you’re awake, this place is gonna be a madhouse!”
Gabe pulled the light blue hospital blanket up to his chin. “Bennett?”
Chase was sitting on the edge of his own bed arranging his pillow. “Hmm?”
“You’re one of the good guys. I’m glad we got the chance to meet. ”
The old man smiled softly. “Me too, kid. But you’re aware, because of my prognosis, this might be the shortest friendship in the history of mankind, right?”
Gabe held up his right hand. “One lesson I’ve learned through the deaths of my wife and daughter is that it’s the quality and not the quantity of a relationship that’s most important.”
Bennett Chase pulled himself out of his bed and shuffled barefoot across the cold tile floor, and shook the detective’s hand. “Let’s stay in touch, okay?”
Gabe smiled warmly. “I’d like that.”
The old man clasped his newfound friend’s hand in both of his palms. “I would be honored to call you my friend, Detective Gabe. Anytime … anywhere … whenever you need to talk … I’ll be there for you!”
Psychoanalysts would have had enough fodder to write a thousand treatises on the bond that emerged out of the gloom of this chance encounter. There were missing father figures, dysfunctional families, death, two men exorcizing their demons and finding much more than they expected in the course of fifteen minutes. Improbable? Gabe Mitchell would have always thought so, but there was an inner strength that came with the acceptance of one’s mortality that intrigued the detective. He had a lot to learn from Bennett Chase and, sadly, very little time to learn it in. “No, Mr. Chase … the honor would be all mine.”
11
Right on schedule. At 7:03 A.M., Nurse Ethel Grogan came into the room much the same way that the Nazis stormed into Poland. Pushing a cart of prepared doses of medicine ahead of her, she had a wizened, puckered face that made her look like much older than her actual years. Even through her stark white surgical stockings you could see the road map of bulging varicose veins running up her legs to a place nobody wanted to visit. As she stepped on the medicine trolley’s wheel locks, the corner of her mouth curled upward into a devilish leer. It was as if she took a sadistic enjoyment in the early morning ritual of waking her patients out of their sound slumber.
Soundlessly, she strolled right past Gabe Mitchell’s reposing figure and headed for the snoring Bennett Chase. With all the sensitivity of a longshoreman, she reached over the bed rails and, with one of her boney hands, jostled Chase by the shoulder. “Hey, wake up, Rip Van Winkle, it’s time for your meds!”
She was halfway back to her cart to retrieve the old man’s medication when she suddenly realized he hadn’t budged from her cruel disruption of his sleep. Surprisingly spry for a woman of her age, Grogan spun around and stared for what seemed like an eternity at his motionless body. Chase, scheduled for release that morning, was no longer hooked up to any monitors, so there were no machines to confirm her suspicion. He was still on his back, the blue hospital blanket pulled up to his chin.
Gabe watched as she moved forward, pausing anxiously between the two beds, her hands growing clammier with each passing second. There was no visible evidence that Chase was still breathing. His chest remained static, his face peaceful and serene. She put her hand under his nose … nothing. Reaching under the covers, she took his wrist to feel for a pulse…
“How’s about some sugar, sugar!” Bennett Chase’s eyes popped open and he was grinning and puckering his lips like a precocious six-year old.
Grogan stumbled backward and put her hands up to her mouth. “You vile old man … how dare you!”
Gabe thought he would choke to death he was laughing so hard.
“Oh, my God! You should have seen your face!”
She took two more steps backward until the cold, steel railings of Gabe’s bed prevented her from retreating any further. “Your sense of humor leaves a lot to be desired, Mr. Chase. Has anybody ever told you that? If you weren’t leaving us today, I swear to all that’s holy, I would…”
As quietly as possible, Gabe inched his right hand over to the spot where the nurse’s corpulent derriere was bulging through his bed rails and pinched it. Grogan nearly came out of her shoes!
No matter how hard it hurt both men to laugh, if laughter was truly the best medicine, then Chase and Gabe were overdosing. Grogan turned so pale at the sight of Gabe having regained consciousness that the detective thought he might have to ring for help for her.
“Did he put you up to this?” The nurse grumbled, nodding over toward Chase with the color and antagonistic scowl returning to her face.
Gabe shook his head apologetically. “I’m sorry, ma’am. He’s the culprit … he set this whole thing up. He had you going so good … I just couldn’t resist…”
She looked warily back and forth at both men. “So you’re gonna be a troublemaker too, eh?”
“Aw, you’re loving every minute of it…” Chase chimed in. “I’m better than orange juice in the morning.”
She walked over to the medicine cart and then cast a Machiavellian glance back at Chase. “So you think you’re a real wiseacre, huh, flyboy?” She began flipping through the assortment of drug packets. “There’s gotta be an extra large suppository in here for you somewhere…”
Chase held up his hands. “Truce … truce!” He turned his head toward Gabe. “See what they give you for just trying to put a little excitement in their life?”
Grogan flipped on the overhead light and then walked over to the detective’s bedside. “Can you remember what time it was when you first woke up?”
“It was about three in the morning,” Chase called out from his side of the room.
“I was talking to Mr. Mitchell … would you mind?” she barked over her shoulder.
Gabe stared up at the nurse’s wrinkled face. No matter how gruff her exterior appeared to be, the compassion in her eyes betrayed her gritty disguise. “Like Bennett said, it’s been about four or five hours I would have to guess. I was up, and then I dozed back off until just before you came in.”
She did a quick check of all the monitors above his headboard. “I’ll notify your doctor. I know he’ll want to speak with you right away.”
Gabe reached up and grabbed her left arm. “Do they know what’s the matter with me?”
“I think your doctor should…”
“But Bennett told me they’ve been doing all kinds of tests…”
She looked across the room at the old man lying sheepishly in his bed, her eyes turning hard as marble. “Mr. Chase should learn to mind his own business! All we’ve done is run some tests and draw a little blood from your arm. Doctor Sanborn will be able to tell you more when he arrives.”
Bennett Chase stuck out his tongue at her. “You�
��re gonna miss me when I’m gone … go ahead and admit it!”
Her tongue popped out in rebuttal. “Yeah, like a bad case of hemorrhoids!”
Chase yawned and set his head back down softly onto his pillow. “Yeah, she loves me—you can tell!”
12
Doctor Kenneth Sanborn stood at the foot of Gabe Mitchell’s bed less than half an hour later. Tall, clean cut, and sporting wire-rimmed glasses, Sanborn gave the impression of an accountant rather than a practitioner of internal medicine. With his white coat buttoned professionally to the collar, and holding a clipboard protectively against his chest, Sanborn studied the information the monitors above the bed were relaying. “Everything looks pretty steady,” he said, matter-of-factly.
Gabe didn’t say a word. No use in interrupting the man while he seemed to be in heavy thought.
Gabe watched the doctor open his metal clipboard and flip through his chart. “So, when was the first time you began to experience these blackouts, Gabe? Do you mind if I call you Gabe?”
The detective shrugged. “Sure, you can call me Gabe. They started about a month ago.”
Sanborn walked around to the side of the bed and took his right wrist. He smiled sympathetically at Gabe. “Not that I don’t trust what the monitors tell me, but taking your pulse manually always reassures me.”
Gabe traded stares with the doctor.
“Your pulse is a bit high, but that isn’t uncommon for a person who might be experiencing a bit of normal anxiety. Are you feeling alright now?”
Gabe shrugged as he looked down at the doctor’s gloved hand. “Uh, yeah … I guess so.”
“You aren’t feeling any discomfort anywhere? No physical pain?”
The detective shook his head.
Sanborn reached over the railing and lifted each of Gabe’s eyelids, shining a brilliant penlight into each of his eyes. “Good. That’s always a good sign. Think you’re still running a fever?”
“I’m sweating.”
Sanborn tapped at his chart. “All the sweating indicates is that your fever’s probably breaking. That’s another very good sign. We’ve got some fever reducers pumping through your I.V. You should be back to a normal temperature by tomorrow and the sweating should stop.”
