The doctors that he flew in (another area that he had no problem splurging on) were the top specialists from exotic countries all over the world. They would examine him on a regular basis for the physical reasons of his paralysis — but despite test after test, they never found any.
During this time, Scott and Fernando started hanging out — at first because Scott wanted to play chess when he took a break from his work and would grab anybody he could get to agree — but after a while he realized Fernando didn’t play too well so they just talked instead. An uneducated Mexican from TJ and a high-powered attorney didn’t have much in common except for one thing — they both liked food (and it showed with both of them) — so that’s what they talked about most of the time; food. Occasionally, Fernando would even sneak something special from the kitchen or bring Scott a left over donut from the Nurse’s station.
It was on Scott’s birthday that Scott decided to tell Fernando his strange history, after he’d somehow managed to smuggle in some brandy and cigars and he was pretty hammered, his large round face flushed and sweaty. It was an odd story and Fernando would never forget it.
Scott said he’d been happily married for a little over two years when his undiagnosed “disease” hit. Fernando almost interrupted him and asked why he’d never seen Scott’s wife visiting but something held him back. It turned out, it was the right move.
Scott went on to tell him how he’d courted his wife for over a year before she agreed to go out with him. He said at first she told him he just “wasn’t her type” and he got the gist that what she really meant was that he was “a bit too round for her”. Fernando laughed when he heard it put that way. Determined, Scott said he started working out every day and watching what he ate. It was hard. He said he was a pressure eater and his job at the powerful LA law firm was nothing but pressure. Still, he stuck to it and eventually lost over 48 pounds.
Fernando remembered Scott’s face when he told him this part of the story. Here was this very large, round and splotchy-faced man confined to a bed but still aglow from the mere memory of when he had been different. It was like he was talking about someone else entirely — someone he used to really admire.
Scott went on and said that, apparently, his guess had been right about the obstacle to their courtship because soon after his weight loss, they started dating and soon they were inseparable. Not long after, they got married and everything about their relationship was great — for almost exactly two years.
Fernando remembered the scary darkness that covered Scott’s face at this point in the story. Scott kept shaking his head drunkenly side-to-side and mumbling and cursing vehemently between repeating the words “two years” and his face flushed a bright red — like it was about to burst. It was the first time Fernando had ever seen him so angry and out of control. After a while, he seemed to calm some and finally continued, but his voice continued to quaver throughout the rest of the story.
He told about one evening after he’d had a particularly tough day in court. He’d come home exhausted and was just aching for a little quiet time to lie down. He said it had probably been the worst day he’d ever had working for the firm, if not his life; everything had gone wrong — the opposition had sliced him up and made him look like a fool and he was sure he had lost his important case in a way that was sure to be very expensive for the firm. The exorbitant salary that he had grown accustomed to and his partnership in the company were almost certain to be things of the past and so, with only the deepest need for rest on his mind, he had gone quickly up the stairs of their shi-shi apartment to his bedroom.
At this point in the story, Fernando remembered that Scott had paused and actually apologized. He said he knew this part of the story was totally cliché but there was nothing cliché about it when it actually happened to you.
And then, with a deep gulp of air, as if he were about to dive underwater, he continued. He said that he opened the door to find his beautiful wife in bed, and actually infiligranti, with a guy he thought he recognized from the gym. How he’d been able to place him from the angle he was viewing, he couldn’t say — but he was right.
Scott had paused there and downed the last of his brandy and flashed a thin smile. He said he knew that he could’ve reacted a hundred different ways to his discovery, and that as he told Fernando, when he allowed himself to think of it (which wasn’t often, he confessed), he regretted he hadn’t been more confrontational. It was one of those ironies about himself he said he’d tried to accept — he was perfectly willing to look someone right in the eye as an attorney and proceed to rip them apart in the name of the law, but in his private life, he shied away from such things and usually took the path of least resistance. He said he could have done so many things to one or both of them — and they/she would have absolutely deserved it. Instead — he just turned on his heel and walked back down the stairs, as quickly as he’d come.
He said he remembered walking out the front door of their luxury penthouse apartment, walking down the plushly carpeted hallway and wondering if Stephanie (that was the name of his wife) had planned all this since two years was when an ex-wife really collected big-time from an ex-husband in a community property state like California. She would almost definitely know this from working at her paralegal job for almost exactly a year — which was coincidentally the time period the court used to calculate her portion of family earnings in the divorce settlement. He said he remembered thinking these exact things as he rode down in the elevator and stepped out into the elegant lobby and made his way towards the stiffly posed doorman in front of the large glass doors.
Escape, he said he remembered thinking. I just have to make it through those big glass doors and I can make my escape.
And then he said he remembered falling.
There was no obstacle, no step he didn’t see, he said he just fell — Right on his face — Unable to even raise an arm or a hand to protect himself.
He said he just laid there, dazed for a moment, like a fish that had accidentally flopped onto dry land and had no strength to return to its natural habitat. He said he hadn’t been hurt, at least not in the usual way, since the lobby carpet was nice and thick and had cushioned his impact quite well. His primary pain, one that he said was far worse than anything physical he could ever remember, was the absolute agony of all encompassing embarrassment.
Get up, you idiot! He remembered thinking, he told Fernando, but his legs wouldn’t listen and neither would his arms.
And that was that.
Scott shrugged. He never walked again, he told Fernando, the color returning to normal in his face. It had taken almost a year of therapy to get the one arm working but his other appendages remained permanently useless. Those things attached to his waist looked like legs and the other attached to his shoulder looked like an arm — but they were actually just heavy decoration; meaty dead weight.
Scott’s story, motivated no doubt by a lonely birthday confined to a hospital bed and too much brandy, bothered Fernando for days stretching to weeks.
He felt like he’d heard something maybe he wasn’t supposed to. But now that he had, his curiosity was set in motion. He found himself trying to eavesdrop on the doctors that came to visit, and he justified his behavior by telling himself that if he knew more about Scott’s situation, maybe there was some small thing he could do to help.
About a month later, Fernando managed to overhear the doctors discussing how they’d eliminated physical trauma and the West Nile virus and several other rare possibilities and seemed to have come to the conclusion that the cause was strictly mental. The idea that the brain could simply turn off different body parts was scary to Fernando — it was just one of those things that didn’t make sense to him and he had a hard time believing it…
He was still trying to work out if he should talk to Scott about it when he came to work the following Monday (he had that weekend off) and found Scott’s room empty. He asked around and found out that, sometime late Saturday
night, Scott had taken several bottles of sleeping pills that he’d somehow managed to acquire (it was being investigated), and being a smart guy who apparently wanted to make sure he got the job done, had also taken something else first so that he wouldn’t throw up all the pills.
Even now, when Fernando thought of it, he felt the loss. His odd friend in Room 36, probably the smartest guy he’d ever met, was gone, just like that. And as if that weren’t enough, he’d committed suicide — a horrible thing to do and a mortal sin. Scott’s time on earth had been short, and painful — but that was nothing compared to what he would face now in hell, for all eternity.
Fernando had a hard time coming to terms with it. There had been no warning — Scott had always seemed a jovial fellow, but obviously underneath, he felt something else. It seemed he’d wanted to get out those glass doors and escape so badly, he’d finally chosen another way — this way.
Fernando told himself after that, that he wouldn’t get attached to the patients. He needed to keep things distant, to do anything else was too big a risk.
That was a year and a half ago and Fernando had done a pretty good job of doing just that—but some patients were irresistible and over time, one just couldn’t help liking them and seeing them as friends. Like Eli and Rachel. He knew neither was probably long for this world but it was impossible to be cold or distant with them. They’d already seen enough of that in their lives and he refused to add to it.
His expression must’ve seemed odd because Frank looked at him strangely and asked if he was okay. It brought him quickly back to the present and his smile returned.
“Yeah, fine.” He replied, trying to shake off the ghosts. ”Let’s go see Rachel.”
He paused at the thought, then flashed his trademark grin with mischief in his eyes.
“Boy, is she gonna loooove you.”
***
Fernando walked Frank to the closed flowery curtain that surrounded the bed and called out.
“Rachel, remember that visitor I promised you? — He’s here.”
A cracking female voice responded from behind the curtain:
“Be out in a minute, dears.”
Fernando watched Frank scan the series of framed black and white photos on the walls.
They showed a glamorous Mae-Westish young woman posing with an amazing assortment of handsome male movie stars. In each she wore a different elaborate attire; in one a dark fur stole with the dead animal’s head draped casually over one shoulder, a matching fur cap framing her dark curled locks. In another, she wore a shimmering satin gown, the long tail splayed out recklessly behind her on the ground. In every photo she looked somehow radiant, aglow, perhaps a trick of the photographer or perhaps just the aura that youth and happiness sometimes magically create.
Fernando could tell Frank didn’t recognize Valentino, or Clark Gable, or even Howard Hughes for that matter, but he was still impressed — it showed on his boyish face — the expressions so transparent and clearly reflecting his thoughts.
“Quite a name in her day, huh?” Frank asked quietly, an unmistakable tone of respect in his voice.
Fernando nodded with a smile. “You could say that.”
The curtain rustled and Rachel emerged.
She wore a similar satin gown to the one in the photos and had heavily powdered and made up her face in an attempt to hide the fact that she was now 84 years old and no longer bore any resemblance to the young woman in the photographs. She approached Frank with her best attempt at a sultry walk, a huge lipstick smile stretching her cheeks as her eyes wandered lasciviously across his body.
“Well hello, handsome young man.” She crooned, doing her best to smooth out the years of roughness in her voice.
She turned to Fernando, eyes sparkling. “Fernando, aren’t you going to introduce us?”
Fernando almost blushed on Frank’s behalf. Maybe he should have waited on this particular introduction — He didn’t want to scare him off… But it was too late now…
Rachel waited eagerly, that huge smile swallowing her face.
“Rachel, Frank. Frank, this is Rachel.”
Rachel’s voice dropped an octave, an attempt at ultra-sexy. “Hello, Frank.”
The effect was both disturbing and hilarious. Frank looked like he’d been turned to stone; expression frozen and clearly at a loss at how to react. His eyes turned to Fernando for help and Fernando finally burst out laughing.
“Now, Rachel, you be good. Frank is taking Rod’s job.”
Rachel kept grinning and even licked her bright red lips.
“Well isn’t that nice…”
Frank swallowed thickly and Fernando watched him unconsciously cross his arms and turn away, returning his focus to the photos on the walls.
“You seem to have been in a lot of movies, Rachel. How long were you an actress?”
It was a good effort and whether she didn’t hear Frank or simply chose to ignore him, Fernando couldn’t say — although knowing Rachel, he guessed it was the latter.
“Are you married, Frank?” She asked instead.
Frank shot Fernando yet another pleading look and Fernando couldn’t restrain himself any longer. He howled with laughter, bent over and red in the face, unable to move or even continue Frank’s tour for five whole minutes, Frank standing awkwardly to the side and Rachel continuing to leer.
***
Fernando was still laughing as they walked away down the hall, he had finally taken pity on Frank and told Rachel he needed to get Frank to management at their urgent request. Rachel didn’t seem to entirely believe it, she was a smart old gal, but she begrudgingly took the hint and allowed Frank to be escorted from her lair.
Frank still looked a little shell-shocked and Fernando couldn’t help one last sotto jibe:
“I told you she’d love you, man.” He said.
Frank shot him a mildly dirty look and by then they’d come to the cafeteria.
Frank turned his attention to all the people lining the tables. Many of these were to be his charges and he seemed again genuinely interested in learning about them — the brownie points in Fernando’s book were adding up.
Fernando began pointing them out and giving their names and noticed that almost every one of them was hunched over their plates of food, guarding it protectively and not talking to those around them. When they ate, it was with tremendous concentration — not that they seemed to enjoy the meal that Fernando was thankful on this occasion he didn’t have to prepare. They ate in solemn silence as though this act meant something significant, or at least it seemed that way to him. Maybe it was just the routine of life, something they knew they needed to do to survive… He guessed he would never know for sure what went through the heads of most of them, many no longer seemed to know themselves anymore… They were fading lights, many close to going out forever…
A sharp-nosed man at the end of the table with a shock of grey hair standing straight up suddenly screamed incoherently at the top of his lungs. The sound was piercing — harsh and assaultive as it bounced off the hard walls of the room.
Orderlies and a straggling nurse walked by without paying any attention. The rest of the elderly patients continued eating, their focus undeterred, not a single one seemed to hear or care about the deafening yells.
Fernando saw that Frank was rattled. He quickly moved to him and put a guiding hand on his shoulder to usher him out of the room. He spoke loud and directly into Frank’s ear to be heard over the din.
“C’mon Frank, Larry’s freaking again.”
Frank resisted for a moment with an expression of concern and more points for this new guy went into Fernando’s book.
When they were further down the hall, where their ears were no longer ringing, Frank stopped Fernando with a hand.
“What was that all about?” He asked, worried.
Fernando shrugged and resumed walking.
“Don’t ask me. Was dropped off here by his kids ‘bout six months ago. Been screamin’ ev
er since.”
Fernando knew he sounded cavalier and it wasn’t that he didn’t care — He’d just come to realize that there were some people that couldn’t be helped — and Larry was one of these. Ever since he’d been abandoned here, something had broken and it couldn’t be repaired. In another hospital, Larry might’ve been treated differently so that he’d at least be calmer and not disturb the others. But not here. Here his outbursts were to be simply ignored until he wore himself out and came all the sooner to his inevitable end.
Fernando checked his watch. It was almost time to get back to the kitchen, he could stretch it a bit but he didn’t want to risk his job.
“Do they ever visit?” Frank asked, still bothered about Larry.
Fernando couldn’t help but find the question remarkable. This guy actually seemed to give a shit.
“Nah.” He replied. “Nobody comes to visit nobody.”
This was just an introductory visit for Frank and it was almost over. Fernando noticed the frown of pity on Frank’s face as they passed more open doors on their way back to the lobby and saw several gaunt and almost lifeless patients lurking inside. These were the worst cases, the ones that couldn’t get to the cafeteria and had to have their food brought to them.
Had Frank found this visit so disturbing he’d decided not to come back? Fernando wondered. He hoped not, he liked this guy — he wanted him to stick around.
Frank paused near the front doors for a long moment, his face sad and pensive. Fernando just waited — Whatever it was, he was having trouble getting it out. When Frank finally spoke, his voice was low and sincere.
“Tell me something, Fernando. If I told you I was just here for a while, just to do research for something I’m working on and that I needed to spend time with someone who’s close to… passing away… Would that be pretty horrible; just being a user like that?”
Ah, that was the catch! Fernando thought. There was always a catch. It was the most he’d heard Frank say and he wasn’t crazy about what he was hearing. On the other hand, at least he was being honest. And the remorse and guilt were as plain as day on his face…
After Death Page 4
