by E. J. Olsen
"You sure didn't help matters."
"I'm not here to change the course of fate," said Mrs. O'Leary.
"Did you discuss anything you didn't get on this tape?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"As me great-grandmother used to say, 'He wasn't the talkin' sort.'"
"Well his trap's sure zipped now," said Cheap Suit.
"We found this in his coat pocket," said Necktie as he held up a small white business card. "Where do you suppose he got it?"
"Me cards are there on the table," said Mrs. O'Leary, nodding. "Who's to say?"
Necktie then unfolded the front-page Free Press article describing the murder of Victoria Lanni, the wife of MGM casino CEO Terrance Lanni, with a tiny corner photograph of her very handsome killer, Bruce Donegan.
"Maybe," he said, "this will jar your memory."
She stared at the photograph, then touched it. "Nothing," she said.
"So he thought Mrs. Lanni was gonna kill him," said Cheap Suit as he wiped his eye with a yellowed handkerchief. "Why do ya think she'd do a thing like that?"
Mrs. O'Leary shrugged.
The detectives glanced at each other. "You never saw him killing her?" said Necktie, and I felt Mrs. O'Leary staring at me through the thick wooden door, her voice softening to a whisper.
"I just saw death," she said.
"Strangulation?" said Necktie. "Trench coat belt?"
"No. Dirtier, nastier. I don't know what. And I saw it on him. All over him."
"Well, you're good then," said Cheap Suit. "'Cause Lanni's got some dark pals in prison."
When the detectives left, I rushed from the kitchen to find Mrs. O'Leary still seated at her favorite table near a pile of magazines she'd quickly gathered when she saw them enter.
"I only needed her dead," said Mrs. O'Leary. "Poor lad."
She shifted the papers before her, and that's when the image assaulted me. That's when I saw the article I'd read the month before only to satisfy her, the one in which casino chairman Terrance Lanni's wife denies having an affair with a handsome local, the one that speculates she will lose her fortune if the affair is confirmed, the one that's wrapped around a color photo of a woman with a thick bowl of black hair sprouting from a sharp widow's peak, blunt red talons, a smile like a blade in her teeth.
Did Mrs. O'Leary know that the following month Ter-rance Lanni would resign as MGM Grand's CEO after his wife was strangled to death in their Riverfront Towers apartment, that Bruce Donegan would bleed to death in a dark corner of the prison's laundry room after being stabbed twenty-six times? "It was bound to happen," was all she'd say, though I still wonder if things would have been different had I not turned that fateful card, if I'd refused to continue the reading, left my post at the table and ran home under a black sky that would bleed ice for the next two days. If, if, if. Despite her visions and machinations to save Detroit, the following year Mrs. O'Leary's tearoom closed as the casinos opened, and she packed her china sets and her wooden plaque for the long journey back to Cork.
Her obituary said she was a member of the Gaelic League and a secretary of the local Preservation Society, known for the cuisine she served at her long-term Irish tearoom in Cork-town. She will be missed, the article stated, for her kindness, her generosity, and her willingness to help everyone who crossed her doorstep. Mrs. O'Leary died yesterday, and today I can tell a different story.
PART IV
EDGE OF THE PAST
OVER THE BELLE ISLE BOUNDARY
BY LOLITA HERNANDEZ
East Grand Boulevard
for Pops
All of the Antilles, every island, is an effort of memory; every mind, every racial biography culminating in amnesia and fog. Pieces of sunlight through the fog and sudden rainbows, arcs-en-ciel. That is the effort, the labour of the Antillean imagination, rebuilding its gods from bamboo frames, phrase by phrase.
—Derek Walcott, The Antilles: Fragments of Epic Memory
(Nobel Lecture, December 7, 1992)
It was a hot sun and breezeless day. Solar rays pressed relentlessly against the fourth-floor nursing home window facing East Grand Boulevard. The home really had no recourse from the sun in its treeless section of what was called convalescent row only a spit north of Belle Isle. The rays penetrated the panes, boldly thrusting themselves far down the hall, some almost to the utility room. Some reached just to the nursing station, located midway on the floor, weaving over and under papers and medications on the countertop. Others lingered on the edge of the bare ceiling-almost-to-floor window where all of them had entered. Some settled by the exit door just by the window. But one wide and gentle ray curled around the corner of the first resident room, where it crept up on the bed of a sleeping fawn-colored old man and flopped across waiting for him to rouse.
As it waited, strands of it began wrapping around the old man's toes and his fingers and caressing his lightly whiskered face. He whispered, Ooooh aahhh, and rubbed eyes crusty where the sands of sleep lodged; he hadn't been bathed yet. He passed his hands up and down his cheeks and for no reason at all called out softly to his wife, the woman he called Mummy in life and in death, and she called him shuga-plum. She had been wife and mother to him and was good to their only child, a son who had become a world traveler; Lord in heaven knows where he is now. Mummy, you see how I come? Dog betta dan me.
But if Mummy were alive, not even she could have understood his stroke-slurred speech, further hampered by a tongue lightly purpled and slightly swollen from lack of use. The stroke took him quick and left him slumped and drooling in a pool of his own urine in the stairwell of the building he migrated to after his wife died. Tang God for the man who came by and found him.
Mummy would have said, Tang God, but that's not what he thought through stroke-laced brain waves as the ambulance personnel arrived to carry him off. Oh Mummy, how could you leave me like this?
Then, as they strapped him on the stretcher, Oh Lorse, take me now, he silently pleaded with the heavens.
I comin, Mummy, as the ambulance rolled toward Henry Ford Hospital. I comin by you.
But he didn't meet Mummy then. The medical staff kept him from her, tidied him up and released him to the nursing home, where he hasn't spoken one single intelligible word to one living soul since, except for silent prayers to his Mummy, beseeching her to come for him. He spoke not an intelligible word to the rotating crew that fed him the nursing home pap through his feeding tube and changed his dydee after feeding, not to the head nurse who often came in to pinch his big toe for a sign of life. In response he would grunt words she couldn't understand, What de ass you want in here now? To the Catholic priest who came weekly to pray with him, he moaned. But he communicated fluently to the motes that swirled around in his room on sunny days as he mumbled messages for them to carry to Mummy.
More awake now, he blinked; the sun was so bright. Wait, nuh, where am I? Is as if, wait, nuh; where de hell am I? he asked a cluster of dust that settled on the back of the wide sunray; then he slipped into a dream of pelau on a Sunday beach and the crab he would catch between platefuls of the rice dish. He was seeing himself in this dream, nice and slim and handsome, catching the eye of a young Mummy rushing out to meet the waves at Mácuri Beach, between his legs getting hot as he chased after her, and just then a crab came from nowhere and bit his toe.
—What are you smiling at old man? It was the nurse pinching his toe.
He cheups. Why de ass she can't leave me alone?
She scanned the room as he eyed her through slits. Ah, chut, what she want now? Then he drifted off again to rejoin Mummy on the beach; she was dishing out the pelau and he was holding a bottle of peppa sauce waiting to dash it on the rice. It was he and Mummy for so long. She giving the peppa; he getting the sauce. And now he was on this bed in this shit-ass nursing home waiting to rejoin Mummy.
All of a sudden the dream shifted to the dusty yard of his boyhood home in Oronuevo Village. His brother Toli comes along with a
flat stick whittled from the coconut tree in the front of their house, and running up to him is their friend Alfonso, bowling a ball he had fashioned from a rock and some twine. Toli hits the ball but Winston, another friend from down the road, picks it up, pivots magnificently, and breaks the wicket. Well played, bhai! Alfonso yells out to Winston. Well played. Yuh finally break a wicket, bhai. The three of them, all early teenagers, smile big at the sexual innuendo and wave at the old man. Then Toli says, You're up, brother, and the old man, who appears in his youth, is now batting. He is younger than Toli and taller; Toli is fairer; both are slim. Alfonso turns his back to the old man in the bed and begins running toward the young man, chest thrust forward, head high, ball in his right hand, left touching it, and almost leaps into the air to begin the hand-over-hand movements that add thrust to the bowl. Perfect, perfect. Yes, buddy, I can well remember those days as if dey were yesterday.
The Young Terrors of Oronuevo consisted of eleven regulars and a few alternates. Both he and Toli batted, they were usually in partnership. Toli was a better batsman. In truth, Toli was better than him all around in cricket. Winston Ram-keeson and Alfonso Luces from the other side of the junction practiced cricket with them in the front yard morning, noon, and night when school was out. They played at school during recess and after school. Alfonso was their star bowler, but they all switched up batting and bowling and playing the field. Winston was another all around player. At any one point, one of them might brag after a good play, Worrell ent have nuteeng on us, yuh know. Yes, cricket is a sunshine game and a hot sun day like today always reminded the old man of airborne bowlers, broken wickets, and dramatic overs.
Yes buddy, is a nice game, nuh, a nice game. Oh, what I wouldn't give to see dose boys again, Toli, Alfonso, and Winston. It was eleven of dem in all. Dey made deir own pitch right dere to practice in de yard and made the wicket from dat same coconut tree. Well, in de first place, since cricket is played with two persons at de same time against all eleven of de other team, Toli and me were de lead batsmen. So whoever was de bowler would bowl to us first. You hit de ball and according to de distance you hit de ball you can make one run or two runs, or three runs or four if it roll on de ground and hit one of de boundary. When Toli hit dat ball and it go over de boundary, dat's a six. It's a game you really have to understand but it is a real nice game.
He tried many times to explain the game to Detroit people, but they never understood.
Yes, buddy, three men, six wickets; three wickets on dis end and three on de other end no, two wickets and six stumps. Yes, dat's it. And when de bowler hits de wicket dat man is out and he hits de ball and it goes up in de air and it didn't go far enough and one of the fielders pitching dat man is out, and if he hit de ball and don't, ah, if he hit de ball … What de hell am I talking about?
Just then his eyes flew open, fully connecting him with buzzing activity in the hallway just outside of his room. While the sun played with the old man and he followed the shadows dancing across his memory, the nursing staff bustled up and down the hall, stepping over rays, walking right through them, completely oblivious as they cleaned every corner and reorganized this and that in anticipation of a surprise walk-through visit from the State Certification Board. Mainly, they wanted the joint to smell good, so bouquets of silk flowers sprayed with a potpourri scent appeared everywhere to brighten things up and help camouflage the urine odor that had sunk into the walls, under the paint, and behind the baseboards. Every staff member practiced sporting a wide smile while changing the loaded dydees of old and forgotten souls, vacant faces with drooling mouths. Staff cooed lovingly to them as if they were newborn darlings, deftly cleaned bottoms, switched stained or heavy dydees for fresh ones, and then made airplane noises to the darlings as encouragement to eat the colorless pap that would soon refill the dydees.
Not one hint of urine smell would escape from this home on this Sunday morning, certainly not on the fourth floor where staff prided itself on being the most efficient and most attentive team in the entire building. Staff squirted extra deodorizer in corners along the bed edges, in utility closets, and wherever used dydees congregated.
A young woman staffer, starched and pleasant with hair slicked into a neat little bun, entered the old man's room, brushing past the section of the sunray that hugged the door frame. She quickly arrived at his side at the point the ray began its ascent to the bed. Whistling an elevator tune through bright red lips she stepped directly on it, startling the old man. He squinted up at her. She smiled cheerily at him.
—Good morning, sweetie.
It was the last day of her first week of employment there, and her first solo dydee change. But with eight brothers and sisters under her, she had performed enough diaper changes to feel absolutely confident that she could handle this resident. In addition, she had received a day's worth of training on the art of changing adults.
Still, she wondered if the coming weeks would find her searching for another job. The nursing home, where her mother had worked for years, was hopefully a temporary stop for her on the way to community college and later maybe university. She wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer, someone successful, anyone but an aide in a nursing home where she was beginning to realize old people steal whatever years they can from young people. Look, in only one week, some of her had aged. She certainly felt it. How could she enjoy her youth looking at those old faces every day?
—Come on, sweetie, it's time to clean you up. She patted him on his arm, while surveying the room to see what she would need for his sponge bath.
By this time, the old man's reverie took him down East Grand Boulevard to Belle Isle. That's where he and his wife spent many summer Sundays observing cricket matches with others from the small West Indian community in Detroit. Mummy would carefully wrap a cast iron pot full of pelau in an old dish towel, lovingly securing the four corners of the towel with a large safety pin. She would nest a couple of avocados in the corner of the picnic basket, along with peppa sauce, sweet cakes, and utensils. Others would bring fruits, rum and sugary drinks, ice, cookies, chips, and so on. One time someone brought a manual ice cream maker and everyone took turns churning. But always his loving wife would bring the pelau, her specialty, long-recognized as the best in the Detroit island community.
Ah, those were the days, when the cricket teams would come in from all over—Windsor, for sure, and as far as Chicago. Toledo and all had a team back then. All those brown bodies clad in white flannel and white shoes on the green field. They bowled and batted, broke wickets and often sent balls way over the boundary of the cricket field by the casino to shouts of, Well played, bhai, well played!
When the cricketers took a break for liquids and food, the fans gathered at the picnic tables clustered across a small path east of the field. The men dribbled peppa sauce on platefuls of pelau, drank the rum straight with lime, and rehashed the innings just played.
When fielders returned to the field, and batsmen and bowlers returned to the pitch, the fans retook their positions on the bleachers by the river side to cheer all of the players on without real team allegiance; after all, they were now all citizens of this island in this city. So, they shouted out appropriately to whichever team: Good running, or, Cool down, bhai, cool down. It's a bowler's game.
Well, maybe luck's allowed, maybe, maybe. I'll be able to go to Belle Isle one of dese days to see another game. Yeah, buddy. Yeah. Yuh run with de bat when one guy hit de ball, he's going to run to try and score as many runs as he can. It depends on how hard yuh hit de ball; if yuh hit it real hard, it go over de boundary, dat's a six. If yuh don't reach to de end, dey run yuh out; dey call it runout. Some of dem bhais can't make it. Dey try to make one run and sometimes dey don't; dey don't make it. Den dey want to make two runs and so on. And when one guy hit de ball and he don't hit it hard enough and he hit it in front of one of de fielders and he have to run with de bat in he hand and he run, run, and what de hell, yes, buddy, run, run.
And he began groaning
. —Whan go, whan go, whan go.
—What, sweetie?
Louder and louder. —Whan go, whan go, whan go.
Was he speaking some foreign language, fragments of a tribal vocabulary that had been suppressed over the years? And then the stroke problem? She turned to find the head nurse. She wanted to know where this man was from. Maybe she could figure out a way to understand him if she knew the language he was speaking.
She found her by the central station. —Ms. Nurse, Ms. Nurse, she called out. Ms. Nurse was preparing meds for distribution.
—That man doesn't talk. I ain't got time now to fool with his grunting; gotta pass out meds. Let me see, does he get anything now? Nope.
And Ms. Nurse shuffled to the room at the other end of the hallway to begin distributing medications.
—Whan go, whan go, whan go.
—I can't understand you, sweetie. What do you want?
Back and forth they went, the old man and the young woman. A janitor on the way to take the exit stairs passed by the two. He listened to their exchange for a couple of minutes then interjected, —You'll never understand what he's saying. Then he opened the exit door and disappeared.
The young woman and the old man continued their frantic exchange. Realizing something was really bothering him and that he was trying to say something important, the young woman leaned over and addressed him face to face, almost exchanging breaths with him.
—I'm trying to understand. What do you want, sweetie? She put her hand on his shoulder.
