Barry Friedman - The Old Folks At Home: Warehouse Them or Leave Them on the Ice Floe

by Barry Friedman

  I walked around the outside of the Care Center and Assisted Living building trying to see where it might be. Two sides faced streets. Since there was no outside staircase or fire escape, I eliminated them. A third side faced the Independent Living building, but here again there was no sign of a staircase. The fourth side of the building abutted a three-story enclosed garage. This had to be it.

  I went into the garage entrance. The lower floor was used by trucks for delivery of food and other supplies. At the end of the garage, corresponding to the side abutting the Care Center, was a staircase; on the second floor landing, a steel door. Assisted Living was on the second floor of the Care Center building. Ah-hah! I clanked up the stairs and cautiously tried to open the door. Locked. No surprise. But I was quite sure this was the outside of the hidden door in the Assisted Living corridor. All I had to do was open it and I’d be in Assisted Living. No problem, right. Translation: There’s a problem.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Back in my apartment, I tried to read but couldn’t keep my mind focused.

  Harriet was taking a walk leaving me alone to try and unscramble thoughts about that damn Assisted Living floor.

  If I was smart, I would just walk away, forget about the you- know- what. Even if by some sleight of hand I could pass through that door, that hidden door, what did I expect to find? Rooms full of old farts like myself except they couldn’t put on their own shoes. All I was operating on was a hunch that things there were not as they should be. Except for Chet, who I didn’t trust, the people in charge of the floor were not friendly towards me. That was no basis for conducting an investigation by an eighty-something guy whose only credentials as a detective was finding my wife’s glasses.

  The truth was, except for the Assisted Living personnel, I liked Restful Bowers. I liked the food, I liked the other residents I’d met, I liked my apartment. The service was that of a five-star hotel. Give it a rest, Henry. Fugetaboutit.

  But on the other hand…

  Just then the phone rang. The concierge was on the line.

  “Mr. Callins, your wife just fell. She’s down here…”

  I didn’t wait for the rest. I slammed down the phone and stood in front of the elevator door, tapping my foot until the door opened. I ran in almost knocking down a woman with a walker. At the concierge desk, I yelled, “Where is she?”

  The concierge pointed to the door leading to the outside. The Bowers nurse was bent over a form lying on the sidewalk in front of the entry door. Harriet. Stretched out, her forehead scraped and bleeding.

  I said, “What happened?”

  The nurse had been dabbing Harriet’s forehead with gauze. She said, “Mrs. Callins tripped over a curb. I’ve called 911.”

  Harriet turned her head toward me. “Oh, Henry. I‘m such a klutz.”

  She tried to sit up, but the nurse held her down. “She’s complaining of pain in her right hip.”

  “Is it broken?”

  “We’ll have to wait until they x-ray her in the ER.”

  A red ambulance, its overhead light rack flashing, pulled into the driveway and screeched to a stop in front of us.

  An Emergency Medical Technician jumped out of the cab, and with the driver, dragged a backboard out of the ambulance. While one EMT took Harriet’s blood pressure, the other, holding a clipboard, asked the nurse what happened.

  The first EMT was feeling Harriet’s arms and chest asking if it hurt. She shook her head. “It’s only my right hip.”

  The EMT looked at her right leg and said, “Hmm.”

  At the “Hmm,” my hand to flew to my mouth. “Is it, you know, broken?”

  Without looking up he said, “We’ll get her to the ER for x-rays.”

  They placed the backboard on the ground alongside her, and while one tech gently pulled on her right leg, they moved her over on to it. Although they were gentle, Harriet screamed. They ran duct tape around her chest and head, securing her to the backboard, then lifted her to a rack inside the ambulance.

  I grabbed the elbow of one of the EMTs. “Where are you taking her?”

  “To St. Joseph’s ER.”

  St. Joseph’s hospital was only about a mile away. I debated whether or not to hop into the ambulance with Harriet, but decided it was better to have my own car so I could drive home when the time came. I had the valet bring it up and followed the ambulance.

  By the time I had parked, Harriet had been brought into an examination room. The waiting room, separated by a door from the examination rooms, was jammed with patients and their families and friends. When the door to the examination and treatment area opened, I caught a glimpse of nurses and doctors, scurrying around. A receptionist at a desk blocked me from going in.

  “They’re awfully busy in there,” she said. “You’ll just be in the way. I’ll call you when the doctor has seen her.”

  I could see her point, and paced the waiting area until I heard her call my name.

  Harriet was in an examination room on a gurney. She grabbed my jacket. “Am I glad to see you.” she said.

  A doctor wearing a white coat with his name, A. Nelson, M.D., embroidered on a pocket, stood holding a clipboard. He appeared to be in his late forties, swarthy, slender and had the broad shoulders of an athlete.

  I introduced myself and shook his hand. “What can you tell me, Doctor?”

  “I’ve examined her. She has some bruises, but the main problem is her right hip. She’s going for an x-ray now. You can go with her. After the x-ray we’ll talk, okay?”

  “Does it look as though anything is broken?” My anxiety was still in the red zone.

  “She may have a fractured hip, but let’s wait for the x-ray.”

  I followed an orderly pushing the gurney to the X-Ray Department and did some more waiting. And worrying.

  Twenty minutes later, Dr. Nelson emerged from the room where he’d been looking at Harriet’s x-ray. He appeared somber. My heart sank.

  “She has a fractured hip, Mr. Callins. Do you have an orthopaedic surgeon?”

  I’d had arthroscopic surgery for a torn cartilage in my knee, but that was twenty years ago and I couldn’t even remember the name of the surgeon. I shook my head. “Who’s the best orthopaedic surgeon on the staff here?”

  He smiled. “We have sixteen orthopods on staff and they’re all good. But Dr. Baldwin is head of the department and his specialty is hips.”

  “If this was your wife or mother, who would you have?”

  “Dr. Baldwin.” No hesitation.

  “Call him in.”

  Nelson went to a phone. When he returned, he said, “You’re in luck. Dr. Baldwin just came out of surgery. He’ll be here shortly.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Dr. Baldwin, in a white coat over a green scrub suit, wearing a green surgical cap, arrived. He was in his fifties, over six feet tall, square jaw, and smiling eyes. We made our introductions and I waited outside the examination room where Harriet lay, while he went in. When he came out he said, “I’m going to look at her x-rays.”

  “How does it look?’

  He shrugged. “No question she has a fractured hip. How’s her health generally?”

  “She’s never had any serious health problems. Maybe a little challenged in the short-term memory department over the past two years.”

  “Well, we’ll have someone check her heart and lungs, run some lab tests. After I see her x-rays I’ll discuss her treatment.”

  More waiting and stewing until Dr. Baldwin returned with the results. We sat.

  “Well, the x-ray confirmed that Mrs. Callins has a fractured hip. The break is about an inch below the knob at the top of the femur.”

  “Let’s talk about treatment.”

  “I’m coming to that. The fracture is displaced. In other words the ends of the broken bone are separated. She’s going to need surgery. We have two or three options. One, we can try to get the bone ends together in their proper position and then hold the fracture in place with several pins, really
thin metal rods. Second, we can remove the knob portion of bone and replace it with a metal prosthesis. Third, we can—.”

  I was reminded of the guy you ask him what time it is and he tells you how to make a watch. I put up a hand. “Hold it, Doctor. I’m already in information overload.”

  I gave him the “if-this-was-your-mother” routine.

  He smiled. “Actually, in her late seventies my mother had almost exactly what your wi—, it’s Harriet, isn’t it?”

  I nodded.

  He went on. “I chose to go with the removal of the head of the femur and replace it with prosthesis.”

  “How did it work out?”

  “She was up walking with a walker in less than a week, then graduated to a cane, and in six months went back to playing golf.”

  “Sounds good to me. Let’s go for it.”

  He said he couldn’t guarantee that Harriet would respond as well, and warned me that there could be complications. Then started with a litany of things that could go wrong. Sounded like lawyer talk, but I was impressed with the guy. We went to tell Harriet.

  Chapter Twenty

  At 7 o’clock the following morning, they wheeled Harriet into the operating room.

  The night before, I had called all three of our children and gave each the bad news. Although I told them I’d let them know how things went, I was proud that all three insisted they would be on their way here as soon as they could get flights out. By the time they arrived, Harriet had been operated on and had been returned to her room from the recovery room.

  Dr. Baldwin said everything had gone well. When the first words out of Harriet’s mouth on waking up from anesthesia were a slurred, “Are you getting enough to eat?” I knew she was on her way to recovery.

  To me, her progress was remarkable. She was up in a wheelchair the afternoon following surgery, took a few steps with a walker the next day, and was sent from the hospital five days later to the Bowers’ Care Center. The wonders of modern medicine.

  We must have done something right in raising our kids. They couldn’t have been more solicitous or caring. Wendy was either at Harriet’s bedside or shopping to keep our refrigerator stocked for snacks and lunches. Ken and Andy chauffeured me back and forth to and from the hospital while Harriet was there. In addition, they fixed what was broken around the apartment. They wouldn’t let me bend to pick up anything that dropped. I felt like an old king. The “old” part was right on.

  After seeing that Harriet was settled in the Care Center, Wendy and Ken went back home to take care of their work and families.

  Andy stayed on for another day. He was a fix-it guy. His day job was as an executive in a computer company.

  While Harriet was resting, he was back with me in the apartment. I said, “While you’re here, take a look at my computer. It’s become so slow I can read a book until it responds to my commands.”

  He turned it on and shook his head. “The desktop screen is so full of icons I’m surprised you can get anything done. You don’t need all the junk you’ve got in it.”

  Any time I’d seen the internet message “Download Free,” I clicked on it. I’d used the computer primarily to keep my financial data and writing letters. I’d forgotten what most of the icons represented.

  Andy worked on it for about half an hour. His fingers flew over the keys while he was saying, “You don’t need this.” Or “Do you actually play mahjong on this machine?” He uninstalled all the junk I’d accumulated. When he was finished, the desktop looked as clean as when I’d bought the machine. I couldn’t believe the speed with which it responded to commands.

  He said, “I see you have an old scanner. You have a scanner built into your printer. What do you need the other one for?”

  “I guess I don’t need it.”

  “Let me take it. I was going to buy one for Jill.”

  Jill, his oldest, was a junior in high school.

  “Take it.” I was glad to get rid of any of the hardware that cluttered up my study.

  Andy said, “I’m going to need a tote bag for it. I just brought a small valise.”

  “I have one you can have. It’s down in my storage closet in the Bowers basement.”

  Andy was taking a plane home at four that afternoon. I told him I’d drive him to the airport.

  We went down to the room where each resident had been assigned a storage closet. I had kept a key to the lock on the ring with my apartment entry card. Now, when I looked for it, the key was missing. I had no idea where it was.

  I said, “I’ll call maintenance and have them saw the lock off.”

  Andy inspected the lock. “Wait a minute. No need to saw it off. I can open it.”

  “How?”

  “I saw a few screwdrivers in the apartment. I’ll run up and get what I need.”

  I waited. When he came back he had a small thin-bladed screwdriver and a paper clip he’d unbent.

  He said, “I’ll have the lock picked in no time.”

  “Where did you learn to pick locks?”

  “Hey, remember I’m an engineer.”

  “Computers I can understand. But picking locks?”

  “One of the courses I took was ‘How locks work’.” He jiggled the lock. “This one is a simple five-pin job.”

  “Of course.” I had no idea what he was talking about, but two minutes after he worked on it with the screwdriver and paper clip, the lock popped open.

  I knew Andy could do a lot of things, but a safecracker…?

  We retrieved the tote bag from the storage closet.

  Andy said, “We’ll have to get a new lock. You don’t have a key for this one, and I don’t think you want to pick it every time you want anything from the storage closet.”

  “Home Depot?”

  “Naw. We can get one much cheaper at the 99 Cent store.”

  This kid scared me with his multi-talents.

  The new lock we bought for 99 cents was better than the one I’d had.

  Back in the apartment, I asked Andy to show me how he opened the old lock.

  He did the lock-picking trick again, and I tried to duplicate the maneuvers. It took me half an hour with his coaching, but Voila! The lock popped open.

  “Practice on the old lock, Dad. Before you know it you can qualify as a certified thief.”

  He glanced at his watch. “I’m going to have to get to the airport. Let’s go down to the Care Center. I want to say goodbye to Mom before I go.”

  As I did with the other two kids, I sent him off with a hug and my thanks for all he’d done.

  Yes, the way they all turned out, we must have done something right.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I was spending a good part of every day with Harriet in the Care Center, watching while the therapist supervised her rehabilitation. While she rested, or in the evening after she had gone to bed, I went back to my apartment.

  Using my old storage closet lock, I was having fun practicing the lock-picking Andy had taught me. Getting pretty good at it, too. Using a screw driver and unbent paper clip I could spring the lock in about three minutes.

  It was while I was “picking,” I realized I’d been so occupied with Harriet and her recovery over the past two weeks, I hadn’t thought about what was going on at the Assisted Living floor. The hidden door flashed through my mind. I was pretty sure the outside access to it was in the garage abutting the Care Center building.

  Hm-m-m. Was there a chance that with my newfound talent the locked door was no longer a challenge? Andy had assured me that he’d used it to open the front door of his house one time when he’d misplaced his key.

  Should I give it a try?

  Nah. Even if I could open that door, what did I expect to find? Stupid idea, forget it.

  Until the next day.

  Carrying the burglary tools of my trade, I entered the garage and looked both ways to be sure no one was around. I cautiously climbed the stairs to the second floor landing. In front of the locked door I rubbed
my hands together, and flexed and extended my fingers like a concert pianist before a recital. Test time.

  Andy had taught me well. Five minutes after working the lock, I heard the deadbolt click and cracked open the door. I was in!

  Now what?

  I opened the door about an inch. Footsteps!

  I pulled the door shut, heard the lock click shut, and ran down the stairs. Outside the garage I took a deep breath.

  I guess I wasn’t meant to be a second-story burglar after all.

  Was I chicken? You bet.

  Until the next day.

  This time, I was scared away by a truck unloading provisions at a loading dock inside the garage.

  I waited across the street until the truck pulled out of the garage, then peeked in. I was alone.

  Up the stairs. Picked the lock. Cracked open the door. Just enough to see that it opened to the corridor I remembered from the last time I was in the Assisted Living facility as a legitimate visitor. No one was around. The place was so quiet, the slight creak of the door sounded to me like a cannon.

  I put one foot inside and was about to put the other in when I realized that if I was inside and the door locked behind me, I was toast. I didn’t know where the keyhole on the inside of the door was. If I had to leave in a hurry….

  I searched my pockets for something to keep the door slightly ajar. The only thing I could find was a pen. I placed it on the floor between the sill and the edge of the door and tested to see if it worked. It did.

  I crept inside. I was in the L–wing of the corridor where Chet had shown me the activities room. In fact, three feet from me was the door.

  Was there a lecture or movie going on? I listened at the door. Silence. The door was unlocked, the room was empty. I went inside to catch my breath and eased the door shut behind me. Alone in the room amidst rows of empty chairs, I tried to figure out what to do next. Before I had a chance to decide, I heard voices in the hallway.

  As my grandmother used to say, oy vey English translation: Oh shit!