by Barry Napier
Matt walked by the fountain and to the front door. When he stepped inside, he was again struck by the beautiful design of the place. He was standing in a lobby that bested those of even the most luxurious of hotels. Everything was white and a dazzling shade of light blue. The entire place was spotless and smelled freshly cleaned—but not with stringent bleach-based cleaners. He smelled lemon, faint cinnamon, and a scent like wildflowers.
A curved counter ran along the wall to his left for half the length of the lobby. No one sat behind it or the three computer consoles that adorned it. A TV hung on the wall, silently broadcasting the morning news. He then realized that it wasn’t quite eight o’clock and it might be too early to speak with anyone about the job—much less have a conversation with Gloria Clark.
To his surprise, a cheerful woman came out a door behind the massive counter and marched over to the desk.
“Good morning,” she said. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you.”
Matt resisted the temptation to look over his shoulder and see if she was talking to someone else.
“You may be mistaking me for someone else,” he said.
“You’re here to apply for the handyman position, aren’t you?”
“I was,” Matt said. “But now that I’ve discovered you’re all mind readers, I’m not so sure.”
She laughed. “You work here for a couple of months, you get to know all our guests’ relatives,” she said. “And when they’ve got someone new coming to visit, they’re so excited we hear about it weeks in advance. So either you’re here for the job, or you’re another rich tourist passing through who mistook this place for the Four Seasons. And I don’t see Louis Vuitton stenciled on your duffel bag.”
“Well, I was looking for the Four Seasons, but I guess a handyman job will do just as well.” He put out his hand. “Matt Cahill.”
Her hand, when she took his, was cool and dry and soft with powder. Shaking it was not an unpleasant experience. “Sally Jenkins.”
“Does this mean I get the job?”
“It’s not my job to give,” she said as she picked up a phone and pushed a button. After a moment, she said, “Bill, yes, I have a gentleman in the lobby who would like to speak with you about the custodian position. Yes, about taking it.”
Sally hung up and said, “Bill will be with you in a moment. He’ll tell you everything you need to know.” A bell rang in the office behind her. “And I have to get that.”
“Thanks,” Matt said, but she was already gone. He turned his attention back to the area behind him, where the lobby extended into an elegant lounge. It couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds before an older gentleman came through a set of oak doors at the other end of the lobby. He wore a dark worker’s uniform that looked as if it had been recently cleaned and pressed. He walked directly towards Matt and extended his hand.
“Hi,” he said. “I’m Bill Frasier. And you are?”
Matt took the offered hand and shook it. It wasn’t a bad hand, as hands go, but it didn’t begin to compare with Sally’s. “Matt Cahill.”
“Okay, Mr. Cahill, you’re here about the custodian position, yes?”
“That’s right.”
“Great! Walk with me for a moment and let’s chat.”
Matt followed Bill, leaving the lobby through the double doors to a small hallway, which emptied out into a large common area. Matt saw several of the elderly residents sitting at tables, watching TV, and reading books. Large picture windows revealed flower gardens and a sweeping backyard filled with more flowers, benches, and elegant tables.
Matt had taken no more than three steps towards the common area before Bill placed a large callused hand on his shoulder, and said, “You’re hired.”
“That’s my kind of chat.” Matt said. “But don’t you want to know anything about me?”
“Best way to learn about a man is to watch him work,” Bill said. “Pay’s ten bucks an hour, part-time. Stick around past the first week or so, we’ll talk about more hours.”
“Sounds good.”
“It’s not,” Bill said. “I’m going to be honest with you right here and now to save a lot of trouble in the long run. This job sucks. In the last six months, we’ve had nine different people try to fill the position. One of them lasted a total of three hours.”
“I can’t think of anything I couldn’t stand for three hours,” Matt said. “Except maybe seeing Titanic again.”
“Come on,” Bill said. “I’ll give you the tour. Then there’s all the paperwork and crap to fill out.”
Matt followed Bill through the impressive building. At no point did Matt get the impression that he was in a retirement home. The first floor consisted mainly of the lobby and the common room. Near the back of the first floor there were a few rooms that were set off from the rest of the building. These, according to Bill, were where they placed the residents who were at death’s door and weren’t expected to make it much longer.
They took a wood-paneled elevator to the second and third floors, which were both lined with more than fifty rooms. These were the residents’ living quarters. Matt thought the rooms looked more like luxury hotel rooms than the hospital-style accommodations he had seen in the few nursing homes he had been in during the course of his life. Each room had a flat-screen TV mounted to the wall and ample space to accommodate the large desk and bureau in each room.
The residents they passed during his tour seemed cheerful. In some cases, their good moods made them appear as if they might actually be too young to be staying in an assisted living home. Even the employees he met were pleasant. The nurses, aides, and receptionists all seemed happy to be there.
When they had made the rounds on the third floor, Bill brought Matt to another elevator and pressed “up.” While they waited for it to arrive, Matt looked back down the hall. Someone was laughing nearby, and farther off he could hear the chorus of Buddy Holly’s “Peggy Sue” coming from someone’s room.
“I’m fifteen minutes into my first three hours,” Matt said. “Not seeing the problems yet.”
Bill shrugged.
The elevator arrived and they stepped on. Matt realized that Bill was the only person he had seen since stepping inside Steeple Assisted Living who was in a sour mood.
“Now, the fourth floor is something special,” Bill said. “What you need to understand about this place is that it was designed and funded by a woman named Missy Crowder. She was born and raised in Steeple and then, after college, went off into the world and made a fortune in banking. Some of her rich friends, also hailing from Steeple, made donations as well. This place is pretty well-known. People from out of state try to get rooms here. It’s crazy.”
The elevator doors slid open and they stepped out into a large room that looked like it belonged in a Newport mansion. A large blue sofa sat in the center of the room with tables and lamps strategically positioned around it. To Matt’s right, four gorgeous paintings of autumnal landscapes hung on the wall. To his left, a large picture window filled nearly the entire wall, covered by elegant curtains the color of dark red wine.
Matt saw four doors spread out across the enormous room. “Is this like the VIP level or something?”
Bill pointed at one door and said, “Missy Crowder. She’s eighty-six and has been here for three years. She got really sick with some kind of cancer six years ago, and she didn’t think she was going to live to see the place completed. But she beat the cancer and has been living here since day one.”
He gestured at one of the other doors. “Gloria Clark. She’s eighty-five and has one of the worst cases of Alzheimer’s I’ve ever seen. It comes and goes. When she’s having a good day, she’s one of the nicest ladies you’ll ever meet. When she has a bad day, she’s basically a zombie.”
Gloria Clark. Chester Clark’s mother.
“I read an article in the paper yesterday,” Matt said. “Some guy named Chester Clark went on a killing spree. Any relation?”
“
That was her son. Sadly, she was on one of her good days when she got the news. She’s been in a bad state ever since she heard about it. Her doctor says she may never come out of it again.”
To their right, one of the doors along the wall opened. An elderly woman stepped out and regarded them with a smile.
Bill walked towards her with his own smile. “Miss Crowder, how are you this morning?”
“Just fine,” she said. “I thought I heard people talking out here.”
“Yes, ma’am. This is our newest custodian, Matt Cahill. I was just giving him the tour.”
Missy’s welcoming smile seemed authentic as she extended her hand to Matt. Matt shook it lightly. Her hand felt brittle in his and her arm moved like a dead tree branch when he shook it. And yet her gentle touch made him suspect that not too many decades ago, her hand would have been the equal of Sally’s.
“Missy Crowder,” she said. “Nice to meet you. Hopefully you’ll stick. So many people have come and gone in the position.”
“That’s what Bill was telling me.”
“Cleaning up after us old people is never going to be a pleasant job,” she said. “But if there’s anything the management can do to make it easier, please don’t hesitate to ask Bill or me.”
Before Bill could respond, he was interrupted by a loud chiming sound from his waist. Matt looked down and saw that there was a small walkie-talkie holstered on Bill’s belt. He gave Missy and Matt an apologetic look as he answered it.
“Tell me it’s not Mr. Hatcher,” he said into the device.
“Wish I could,” came a female voice from the other end.
“Got it,” Bill said, killing the call and returning the device to his belt. He turned to Matt. “Your three hours have just begun.”
6
When they stepped out of the elevator on the second floor, there was a slight commotion as some residents lingered in their doorways. A nurse and two aides were standing near the elevators, looking down the hallway in disgust. Matt and Bill passed them, headed for the other end of the hall.
“We’re going to see Peter Hatcher,” Bill told him. “He used to run three car dealerships. Now he likes to think he’s a howler monkey.”
They stopped in front of one of the rooms. The door was open and Bill gave Matt a “you first” gesture. Matt walked in with Bill behind him. Matt halted in his tracks so quickly that Bill collided with him and nearly sent them toppling over.
There was shit on the walls and the floor. A large splatter of it had been flung against the front wall. Some of it had hit the television. The reek of it was terrible—but not nearly as bad as the sight of the man sitting on the bed.
Peter Hatcher had his pants off and tossed to the side. His withered thighs, hands, and forearms were covered in shit. He smiled at Matt and Bill as they came into the room. “Pulp,” he said.
It wasn’t a greeting Matt recognized. So he did what a new speaker of any language would do—he repeated it. “Pulp.”
Hatcher nodded so vigorously Matt was concerned his head would snap off his papery neck. “Don’t like it in the juice,” he said. “They don’t listen.”
“I’ll make sure they will now,” Matt said.
“Thought you might,” Hatcher said.
“Mr. Hatcher, this is Matt,” Bill said. “He’s new and he’s going to have to clean this up. How do you think that makes him feel?”
“Like he’s going to remember who likes pulp and who doesn’t.” Mr. Hatcher cackled loudly at this, clutching his belly and smearing more of his feces there.
Bill looked back at Matt and gave him a blank look of sympathy. “Think you can handle it?”
“It’s still better than Titanic.”
Matt understood why so many of his predecessors hadn’t lasted in the job. It wasn’t just the stench that made cleaning up another person’s shit and piss and puke so miserable—it was the way it stripped away all illusions about humankind’s superiority to other animals. Because here was the ultimate fact of human life—beneath the beauty and the ambition and the thoughts and the dreams, we were all just sacks of flesh manufacturing filth.
Matt might have fled just as quickly as the others, even knowing as he did that this place could hold the secret to a great evil. But he’d seen all this before, done it before, and worse. He’d nursed his young wife through terminal cancer, and when the pittance the insurance company provided for home care ran out, Matt took care of her all by himself. He changed her dressings and emptied her catheter and mopped up her puke. And yes, when she got close to the end and lost control of her organs, he cleaned up her shit. And as horrible as it was, he thanked God for every day he was able to take care of her.
So he knew how to deal with Mr. Hatcher, stripping off the rest of his soiled clothes and getting him into a warm bath, scrubbing him clean, then sending him out into the common room while Matt filled bag after yellow medical waste bag. It might have taken up the entire three hours—Matt couldn’t say for sure. He’d learned how to do all these chores without letting his mind dwell on them.
Once the room was clean and Mr. Hatcher, in freshly laundered clothes, was back in his bed, Matt went to the employee showers and scrubbed his entire body with a hard brush and strong soap that Bill gave him. He wished he’d had the chance to change into his new uniform before he’d tackled the room, but he put one on now as he ran his own clothes through the facility’s laundry.
Matt was looking for Bill to ask about a new assignment when Missy Crowder appeared in the lobby. She carried that same glowing sort of warmth when she smiled at him.
“You’re still working here,” she said.
“As long as the kitchen staff stops giving Mr. Hatcher orange juice with pulp,” Matt said.
“Just wait until you hit a day when he decides he likes pulp,” Missy said. “That gets really ugly.”
“So this wasn’t the first time,” Matt said.
“For him it was,” Missy said. “As was the last time. As will be the next. I used to think it would be a blessing to live without a past, but when I see one of our residents suffering like Mr. Hatcher, I understand how terrible it would be.”
“I’ll remember that when I see him,” Matt said.
“I know you will,” Missy said. “I could see that in your eyes. It’s why I knew you were the right person for this job. Which is why you’re going to come with me right now and sign all sorts of incredibly annoying paperwork before you change your mind.”
She seized his wrist in her leathery hand and led him onto the elevator and back up to the fourth floor. She led him just as quickly and efficiently through the paperwork, although he’d filled out these same forms so many times in the last couple of years he could have filled in his standard half-truths without even looking.
“You’re all mine now,” Missy said when he had finished, and Matt could see that she’d used that same line when she was much younger and that it probably got her anything she wanted.
“And happy to be,” Matt said. “What can I do for you?”
“You could give me a hand down to the garden,” she said. “And then I suspect Bill has a couple thousand things that need doing.”
He stepped into the elevator with Missy and they rode down to the first floor. When the doors opened on the large common room, Matt was again taken aback at how peaceful the place was. There was now a table where five residents played a hand of rummy. An older woman sat in a large rocking chair reading a Norman Mailer novel. A few were sitting on the couch and other chairs watching a court show on TV.
Missy led Matt away from all this and out a glass door onto a veranda overlooking the garden. A woman in a wheelchair sat by the door, staring out towards the roses. She didn’t seem to notice as Matt and Missy came up to her.
“I know Bill is going to keep you busy, but I hope you don’t mind if I load you up with one more burden,” Missy said.
“Of course not,” Matt said.
“This is Iris Spencer,”
Missy said. “She has the room next door to mine—just as we discussed when we were ten years old. I’m sorry to say I don’t believe she remembered that promise by the time I’d finished this place, but I did. Even though she’d had a stroke, I kept my promise. I don’t know how much she understands about where she is, but she always loved to be around flowers. So every day she needs to be brought down here to sit in the fresh air. May I entrust you with that duty?”
“I’d be honored,” Matt said. He stepped around to the front of the wheelchair and kneeled down so that his eyes were on a level with Iris’. “Hello, Iris, my name is Matt, and Missy has asked that I bring you down to the garden every morning and bring you back up in the evenings. I hope that’s all right with—”
A groaning, like a drawbridge lifting from a moat, rolled from Iris’ chest and up her throat, escalating by the second.
“Iris?” Missy said, her face pale.
Iris’ head snapped up and she looked directly at Matt. She grabbed his arm and pulled him down closer to her with unbelievable strength. Her hand on his wrist was like a vise as she continued to make that croaking noise, uninterrupted and growing louder by the moment.
Iris screamed into his face then, her breath hot and smelling like a crypt. Her eyes rolled back in her head and a string of saliva spilled from her lip. She opened her mouth to an impossible width, the scream now drowning, drowning out even his thoughts.
“Iris…,” Missy shouted, shaking her. But the sound didn’t stop.
And then it did. For a moment, all was silence. And then a hideous crash of metal on metal sounded from the front of the building. Seconds later, screams.
With a glance back at the old lady, who seemed to have relapsed into her vegetative state, Matt ran towards the commotion.
