Twice a Child

by Ann Elia Stewart

  “He’s saying something, sounds like ‘chair,’ it’s a ‘ch’ sound. He looks like he’s shielding his eyes from the sun, see his hand over his eyes? Jesus, it’s nighttime.” Eddie walked over to the window, his hands firmly jammed in his pockets. If this were a scene in one of his movies, he’d put this poor guy out of his misery. He let his mind wander as he peered out among the tops of the hospital’s buildings, blank canvasses for his overactive imagination where a clot of zombies crouched behind that smokestack, eyeing up the window, another random group approached from the far right, their slow, steady gait giving way to a limb or two tearing from their bodies, but still pressing forward, driven by the smell of a live human—and here lies their prey.

  “Tina, what do you think he’s doing with his hands and mouth? Why is he doing that?” He tried to calm himself, found the edge of his shirt and rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger. He did not like this one bit, cursed them for finding him and now this.

  “He looks like he’s smoking a cigarette. And he’s smiling, too.” Tina adjusted the baby onto her other hip. “Still saying something that starts with ‘cha.’”

  Eddie sat down next to her. “How long you planning on nursing him? They get accustomed to it you know. You don’t want a four-year-old sucking your teat.”

  “I can tell already he’s ready for more. He’s growing like a weed, look at those chunkers.”

  Eddie reached over and lightly pinched a ringlet of baby fat on Joshua’s thigh. He was a cute little guy, he had to admit it. There was a family resemblance, especially around the eyes, large, round, dark. His own eyes were the first thing women noticed about him. Like Paul McCartney, they would say, deep and soulful. Boyish. Except his were blue like Mom’s.

  “He’s saying it again. Look—” Tina tugged at his sleeve.

  Frank pantomimed drinking with one hand and smoking a cigarette with the other. He smiled throughout, his eyes firmly shut.

  A lump formed in Eddie’s throat and he gazed past his father toward the window again where the zombies, in his mind, had now figured out a way to unlatch the lock.

  How long was this going to go on? Was Pop going to snap out of this?

  He had resigned himself to his father’s and daughter’s presence; he figured once he’d wrapped the shoot he’d have a little more time, maybe take them to see Universal Studios, Knott’s Berry Farm, the touristy shit. And then send them back to Pennsylvania, all neat and tidy, everyone got to do what they had set out to do: reunite as a family, spend a little quality time, all that crap.

  Eddie bent close to the old man, trying to avoid the rank odor of his breath. He fought a tremendous urge to pick him up by his shoulders and shake him, shake him until he woke up, until he was his father again. What he wouldn’t give to hear him growl at him, to be called “lazy ass” or “daydreamer.” Why, he’d even have a laugh over it.

  “Sounds like ‘china.’” Eddie glanced again at the window. The zombies fled. They didn’t much care for reality, he guessed.

  “China?” Tina spread a blanket over the vinyl lounger, and placed Joshua there next to his wiggle worm. He grabbed it and promptly stuck its head in his mouth. “Has he ever been there?”

  “Not that I’m aware of. Hell, he’s never been anywhere outside good ol’ Lep-nun, P.A.”

  “That’s not true. He told me about going to New York to visit his brother, Charlie.”

  Pop’s eyes opened wide.

  “Hey,” Eddie said.

  He grinned. “Why’d you go get that fine girl of yours pregnant when you’re getting ready to ship out?”

  Eddie stayed still. He looked so together. Except for the oxygen tube spread across his face, Pop looked like he was going to get up, put his clothes on and get out of there.

  “Oh sure, look like you don’t know what I’m talking about. She comes over every night, to the house, just to see Pop. Says he reminds her of you. The waiting isn’t so bad then, she told me.”

  He closed his eyes and brought his hand up to his mouth, his thumb and forefinger pinched together as if he were holding a stemmed glass. He puckered his lips and sipped, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “Papa sure knows how to pick out his Chianti.” He drew his other hand to his mouth and took a drag from an imaginary cigarette, blowing the smoke expertly away from them.

  “Pop, where are you?” Eddie found his father’s pantomime fascinating, if not a bit eerie.

  Without skipping a beat, he said, “You know where he is, Charlie. He’s at home. What kind of question is that? You know he can’t get out of bed.” He started to cry, the tears running from beneath his closed eyes. “You’re gone, you don’t have to hear him cry out at night. I can’t believe you’d ask where he is when you know where he is: he’s in the room next to ours, and he’s in pain so what do you do? You run off and join the Navy, leave that beautiful gal of yours. Well, you know what? I want to marry Mamie, too, but you saddled me with all this—” He grew more agitated with each breath, his eyes still clenched shut.

  Eddie nudged his shoulder, just enough to get him to open his eyes.

  “Pop. FRANK. Wake up.”

  The old man’s eyes flickered beneath his lids.

  Tina rushed over and wiped his cheeks. “Grandpa, wake up now. Please.” She met Eddie’s eyes, which reflected the worry now clawing at her gut.

  Eddie started to sit down on the lounge chair.

  “Pick up the baby first, for God’s sake!” Tina shrieked.

  He was so startled that he moved across the room to the window, leaving Joshua as surprised as he.

  “It’s okay, baby. Grandpa—what should I call you?”

  Eddie had found a piece of curtain to rub. “Call me?”

  Tina gestured to the baby who had resumed his play with the wiggle worm.

  “Oh. Eddie. Just call me Eddie, okay?” He bolted toward the door. “I’ve got to check on something.”

  “Oh no you don’t. You can’t just up and leave like that, not again. There’s too much to do, all this and I have to find a better place to live and—” She sat on the edge of the bed, sniffling back the flood she knew would come if she didn’t maintain some self control. She ripped the mask from her face.

  Pop started to rise from his bed, his eyes now wide open.

  “It’s about time you got here. They were getting ready to shoot me. I don’t know what kind of place they’re running here, but they pay you for shit and work you like a dog.” He had one leg over the bed. The alarm sounded.

  Eddie stood frozen in the doorway, watching his daughter try to talk his father into lying back down. It was too surreal. Like a scene from one of his own movies. His father’s eyes were even red-rimmed. He glanced at the window again, positive the zombies tapped at the glass, trying to discover a weakness in the pane, trying to get in to eat their brains.

  That’s what this was.

  This thing that was fucking with Pop’s head—it was eating his brain while he was still alive. Taking tiny portions, leaving others intact; a random game with a voracious appetite.

  He hit speed dial on his phone as he continued to watch the scene before him.

  “Beverly Hills Squire.”

  Tina eyes shot to the doorway where Eddie remained frozen.

  “Shit.” Eddie fumbled with the buttons. In his haste, he had hit the loudspeaker.

  “Excuse me,” one of the nurses pushed Eddie aside and immediately began checking on the tubing, glancing at the monitors. Throughout her activity, she asked, “What happened here?”

  “I—I—we got kind of loud. It set him off. He started talking out of his head.” Tina held Joshua close to her chest. “I don’t think he could take the argument.”

  “Look, you two can take your disagreement elsewhere. We’re trying to stabilize this man, and you’re not helping.”

  “Don’t let them,” Pop cried out.

  Don’t let them what? Eddie was beside himself now, his stomach a mass of knots. “Uh, yes, Lil
lo. Single. One night.”

  He had come here to try and talk with Tina, have his father for back-up, but he realized now that wasn’t going to happen.

  In fact, he had no idea what was going to happen.

  “By the way,” the nurse said, “we will be needing this bed. We’ve taken rehab as far as we could—have you found a home for your grandfather yet? We’d like to move him as soon as possible.”

  twenty seven

  Sex was always better in the bungalow, but tonight no one returned Eddie’s calls, not even Ricki who usually gave in whenever he called, knowing the next movie would be hers, and all the power of a title that went with it.

  Little bitch.

  Bet she was the one that planted the live ammo, who else could it have been? Ever since he’d made it his mission to bed Riley Andrews, Ricki had been acting strange. She’d forget a critical element of a scene, like the stage blood needed for the windshield. Lots of apologies, promises to update her set list every day, but it wasn’t like her. And then that thing with Derek’s ear, shit, it could have been his head. That was going to cost a bundle.

  He pulled into the Beverly Hills Squire, tossed his keys at the valet and checked in. He knew how it worked. Register, call back the service with the room number, and in the time it took to shower and chill a bottle of wine, a beautiful young thing would be knocking on his door.

  This would set him back a couple grand. But he couldn’t meet her at some dive. He stifled a laugh when the receptionist said she’d send Uhura to his room.

  “You don’t mean Lieutenant Uhura now do you?”

  “Excuse me?”

  Apparently not a Trekkie.

  Eddie’s cell phone indicated that he had received a message while he was in the shower. His blood pressure started to rise. If they were pulling a bait and switch on him, he’d raise holy hell.

  It was Tina.

  Okay, so he shouldn’t have run out on her like that, but he did promise to help her move Pop tomorrow. She said she’d find a place for him to go, that was her job.

  “I have good news and bad news, Eddie. You need to call me back when you get this message.”

  He wore his towel when he answered the door. Why bother to change now?

  The wine was chilled to perfection, and he dimmed the lights for added measure. His cock was already thickening at the prospect of large brown lips wrapped around it, and he imagined dark, pert tits capped in nipples as shiny as oil. He intended to devour her from head to toe, right after she got him off with those luscious pillow lips.

  She slapped him across the face as soon as he opened the door. “You should have called me back, asshole.” Tina ran to the elevator, Joshua bouncing in his pack, watching his grandfather, eyes wide with amusement, as if they were playing chase.

  Uhura came up behind them.

  Eddie knew the right thing to do. Put on some clothes, run after Tina, bring her and the baby back. He could ask for Uhura another day. Wait. He had already paid for her. And when was Tina invited to crash his life?

  “You must be Eddie.” The statuesque beauty surveyed him, top to bottom, her eyelids painted gold, her lips the color of Peach Melba, glossy. Wet. The business suit she wore clung to every generous curve, and there was an ample amount of those.

  Eddie checked down the hall to see if Tina had left yet. He heard the elevator doors close and though he did feel a slight twinge of guilt, he knew nothing could be done about this whole mess tonight. Pop was safe in the hospital. Tina and her baby would go back to their place and tomorrow would be a whole new day to figure something out.

  “Is your name really Uhura?” he said, ushering her into the suite, double-checking the hallway to make sure Tina and the baby were not lurking about.

  “As real as what’s under that towel. Let’s have a look.”

  twenty eight

  Tina cracked open a Corona, the second of a six-pack she picked up on the way back from the hotel. She took a mental inventory of the past several weeks as she watched her baby sleep.

  Grandpa needed to be moved—somewhere—tomorrow.

  He needed twenty-four hour nursing care.

  Eddie solved his problems by running away from them.

  She still needed to find a job and a new place to live—or, gather up Grandpa and just go home.

  Tina watched the cloud of smog settle over the buildings in the twilight. Why had she come to L.A. again?

  Grandpa. Bound and determined. That’s why.

  After tonight’s episode at the hotel, she knew she couldn’t count on Eddie. The look on his face when he opened that door, in a towel, and found her standing there—the true Eddie, the need for self-gratification his number one priority.

  This was lunacy.

  It was questionable whether Grandpa even recognized his own son, since no sane words had yet to be exchanged between them.

  The baby’s chest rose and fell softly with each breath, his long lashes caressing his face softly like lace. Tina took one of his hands into her own, delighting in the feel of his dimpled knuckles, the smooth satin of his new skin.

  This was her reason to move forward: her son. She knew as long as he could ride on her back, she’d be able to figure it all out. With certainty beyond her years, she knew, too, that Eddie was a lost cause. He’d continue to bury his head in the sand—or some starlet’s crotch—avoiding anything that resembled responsibility.

  She checked on the baby again before stepping outside to make the call. It had been weeks since she last talked to her mother, and then it had been an argument about coming out here.

  It would be after eleven there, but her mother would probably be up, scrolling through her friends on Match.com, maybe even setting up new dates for the week. Tina marveled at her mother’s capacity to unearth suitable dates, some even hung around for a few months. But she quickly tired of them, finding any remote reason to dump them and move on to the next guy. And those reasons inevitably reflected some flaw of Eddie’s. It wasn’t too difficult to come up with one of those.

  Four rings and her mother’s phone transferred to voice mail. Tina shut her cell. As she plucked another Corona from the refrigerator, her phone buzzed in her pocket.

  “Did you just call?”

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Why are you whispering? Is everything all right?”

  She couldn’t help it, could no longer keep it in. It was like a levee spilling over, such an unbridled force she allowed to simply break. But instead of one great, satisfying purge, it assumed more of a spurt like a garden hose set to spray but kinked along the way.

  “He . . . won’t help.”

  “Where’s Joshua?”

  “He’s inside, we got an apartment, well, if you can call it that.”

  She heard typing.

  “I’m so sorry I’m cutting in on your dating time, Mom.”

  A young couple holding hands sauntered by Tina. The boy carried a skateboard and the girl displayed a variety of piercings and tattoos. Tina guessed they were close to her age. She looked at herself: athletic shorts, t- shirt, sneakers. Nothing that cried, “Available!” She couldn’t attract a man now even if she wanted to.

  “I had to finish up this little note, dear. There. I’ve shut it down. Did you hear that, too?”

  “Mom, I’m so tired.” That was an understatement. She could have curled up on this sidewalk and slept for a hundred years.

  “How is Grandpa?”

  “Grandpa’s had a stroke, well, at least that’s what they think. A mini-stroke, they call it, but they don’t tell you anything positive. He’s in Cedars-Sinai, in the rehab facility.”

  “You know I noticed at the funeral that he had not been walking straight, almost like he was drunk. I just figured he and your Grandma had been together for so long that the idea of spending his old age without her—” her voice cracked.

  “That’s what I figured, but it has gotten worse. He’d get up in the middle of the night, one time he got as far away
as across a major highway, stepped on a scorpion and didn’t even know it.”

  “I hope he wore shoes—”

  Tina laughed at the memory of seeing Grandpa in his t-shirt and underwear, sneakers and shoes: a heartbreaking image, but funny. Funny. Like a snot-ball-riding-someone’s-nostril funny.

  “Luckily, he remembered to put those on.”

  The silence between them made her sad, as if they were mere acquaintances exchanging stories about their day. She would never let Joshua down, ever. She’d be there for him. Always.

  “Mom, I—I don’t know what to do. Grandpa needs care. I know I’m a nurse, but he needs full-time care, like, he can’t be left alone. They’re giving him Aricept—”

  “That’s a drug they give Alzheimer’s patients, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but they’re not calling it that. His symptoms are sometimes like Alzheimer’s—the forgetfulness, the wandering and the gibberish that comes out of his mouth—but he’s also presenting symptoms linked to Parkinson’s disease. He can’t walk without a walker anymore, and not just the normal kind. It’s this big contraption he hates. He says he feels like he’s in jail, like he’s in a cage.”

  She cracked the door open to listen for any whimpering, but Joshua slept soundly.

  “Have you found your father?” The question held loaded caution.

  Tina knew her mother was holding at bay any acrimony she must feel toward him. She could hear her words, so long ago, as she hugged her, sobbing when she had read Eddie’s good-bye note, gathering her five-year-old daughter to her: “He’s your father, Tina. You must always love him, no matter what.”

  “I’ve seen him a few times. It’s like he keeps this distance, like we’re contagious.”

  “Is he still with that French woman? What was her name?”

  “Vi? God, no. That broke up a while ago.”

  “But the roses at the funeral—”

  “It’s just the way he is, Mom. All show. I see that more and more. He lives on the beach, in this little . . . house. Nothing grand, but it’s ocean front.” She mimicked her father’s pomposity. “And, he’s got a ponytail.”