Hel-lo? Hel -lo?
Son? Son? Son? Son?
Sidelong my brother regarded me gauging how I was taking this, knowing me for a risk. His hand on my arm guiding me. He’d warned me not to look yet I could not not look. For the voices were calling to us, pleading. My instinct was to stop, to stare. An elderly woman with white hair lifting from her skull like electrified wire filings, a sunken-chested elderly man with a singed-looking face, a gnome-sized individual of no evident sex leaning on a walker and piping like an eager parrot, Hel-lo? Hel-lo? while the elderly woman began to scold, Dear? Dear? Here I am, dear! and the sunken-chested elderly man teetered forward on a cane managing to position himself in front of the others, blocking their entreaties pleading, Take me? Take me? Boys? Sons? I’m ready now. My things are ready. Take me with you? On his bony skull thick-lensed glasses were secured by an elastic band. The smell of them was acrid as goats. The befouled wettish-rotting straw in which goats dwell.
My brother yanked at me. Jesus! I told you come on.
Yet somehow in that instant I stood stone-still, unmoving. For these elderly strangers seemed to know me—how? They were pleading, scolding, bleating. Their faces were familiar to me in some way I could not comprehend. The white-haired woman had a fattish fallen body soft as a pudding but her eyes were vigilant, alert to insult. Here was a mother’s voice—Dear? Dear? Come back here! Don’t you walk away while I’m talking to you! Don’t you walk away while I’m talking to you!—you could not ignore. And the others were crying to me, calling me Son. Son!
My brother pulled me away. Blindly we walked along the corridor. Even now I wanted badly to look back. I wanted to explain, apologize. I’m not your son, I am no one you know. My face burned, I was ashamed of myself. A deep visceral shame. To turn away unheeding from another who begs you. Those strangers with weirdly familiar faces. Ruins of faces. Desperation in those faces. It seemed to me that I did know, I’d once known, the sunken-chested old man with the singed face, but my brother was muttering in my ear, Keep moving. They won’t follow us. They do this with everybody, I told you. It shook me up the first time, too. But you get used to it. They won’t remember, see. They won’t remember five minutes from now. Already they’re forgetting. When we leave it will happen again, for them it will happen for the first time because they won’t remember us. Just don’t make eye contact with them and you’ll be fine.
I pushed my brother’s fingers from my arm. Coldly I said, I don’t like to be rude to old people.
We’re not being rude for Christ’s sake! It’s what you have to do.
I was pissed, my brother had put his hand on my arm.
I asked if the old people were anyone we knew.
My brother bared his teeth in a savage smile. Not really. Come on.
THE VISIT WITH Dad. My first at the Manor.
I’d stayed away for as long as I could but now I was here. Hadn’t prepared for the visit beforehand and now it was too late, I was here. Of Dad I will not speak. Of Dad I refuse to speak. Of the visit I can say, yes it happened. On our way driving to the Manor my brother remarked casually that Dad had tried to escape, at first. This remark was met with silence. It might have been a sad, or a stunned, or a confused silence. It was not an indifferent silence and yet I didn’t inquire how many times Dad had tried to escape nor did I ask what tried to escape literally meant. How much effort, with what emotion, cunning, desperation, force. Nor did I inquire with what force tried to escape was met by the staff.
Dad, hi! H’lo Dad.
Hi Dad! Hey. Looking good Dad…
Dad this is Norm, I’m Vince. You know…
Your sons. Hi Dad.
Your sons, Dad. Hey this is quite a place. Quite a…
In this way the visit with Dad began with ebullient spirits and raised smiling voices. Within seconds my mind detached itself from the scene. I was damned impressed: my brother who’d always been three years younger than me was now at least three years older. His eyes were older. The terror between us was This isn’t Dad. This elderly man. Not Dad any longer. We could not look at each other, our eyes could not meet out of dread of Then we are not brothers, either. For we have no father any longer.
I went to the window to open it. Having trouble breathing suddenly. Like trying to suck oxygen through clots of greeny phlegm not your own. Help! Sweated through my fresh-laundered white cotton shirt, underwear stuck in the crack of my ass. The smell of wettish goat wasn’t so powerful in Dad’s room but there were other smells. Only one window, and it was stuck. My brother said, Hey: that window doesn’t open. Grinning at me like it’s a joke. I looked down and saw for Christ’s sake the window is inset in the sill like concrete. You could rupture your guts trying to shove it open.
Where my brother and I were, we were in the E-wing. Visiting Dad in the E-wing of Meadowbrook Manor. From the two-lane country highway out front Meadowbrook Manor more resembled the campus of a well-financed community college than what brochures call an assisted-care facility. Seeing the Manor from the highway you wouldn’t guess how certain of its wings were under tight security and guarded as a prison. You wouldn’t guess how if any patient in these wings tried to escape confinement or through mental confusion appeared to be trying to escape alarm bells were triggered. E-wing patients like Dad were outfitted with unremovable bracelets around their left wrists with metal tags that, if brought through electronic detectors without clearance, set off alarms through the facility.
My brother had told me he’d heard the alarm once. Ear-splitting it was.
My brother had told me that Meadowbrook Manor was the best assisted-care facility within one hundred miles.
In fact my brother was saying now Dad is a favorite here. All the nurses say what do the nurses say Dad the nurses say every time I come to visit what a sweet old gentleman your dad is.
What I was noticing was the Manor was brightly lighted as a stage set. Furniture in bright pastel vinyl. Nurses and nurses’ aides mostly black women in dazzling white uniforms smiling often at us who were visitors. My brother spoke of doctors, too. Of course my brother had met with doctors. This is the best place for Dad my brother said. His smile was a brave smile and infectious.
In my vinyl chair as we visited with Dad I was wondering how many times Dad had tried to escape, and when had been his last, or his most recent attempt. I was wondering how far the old man had gotten before the alarms went off. Before he was restrained. And how exactly was he restrained. Were physical restraints involved. Did strait jackets still exist. In his loud voice my brother spoke of the nursing staff. Very nice they were. Very sincere. Genuinely attached to their parents my brother said, then laughed at himself saying I mean patients: genuinely attached to their patients.
In his loud voice my brother asked me if he’d told me Dad is a favorite here.
At the highway beyond the wall, the unmovable window, the lawn greenly svelte as a golf course, a diesel truck thundered past.
I would not ask where Dad believed he was escaping to. The old house was gone. The past in which Dad had lived was gone. Nothing remained. An elderly doomed man might wish to escape to the years in which he was neither elderly nor doomed but those years are gone. You wake up one morning, those years are gone. There’s a comfort in this fact perhaps. I want to think that there must be comfort in all facts we can’t alter.
Shit, said the man with Dad’s voice. Bullshit.
TIME FOR A walk?
My brother was on his feet. I saw that his jaws were stubbled and that the stubble glinted gray. My younger brother, no longer young! My own jaws were clean-shaven. Out of anxiety I shaved twice a day. I wasn’t certain if Dad had spoken as I’d seemed to hear him. I wasn’t certain if Dad had spoken aloud. In the Manor, voices tended to be louder and higher-pitched than normal. There were mirage voices, that possibly didn’t exist, like upside-down and reversed images at desert horizons. And beneath these voices the murmurous quietly laughing TV voices. When I spoke, which had not been often in Dad�
�s room, my voice cut the air like an awkwardly brandished blade, a machete perhaps. I was remembering who the sunken-chested man was, I thought.
Who the sunken-chested man had been.
Three of us on our feet. My brother led the way. We walked slowly. There was no hurry in the E-wing. In Meadowbrook Manor there was no visible hurry. My brother who knew the way led us past the TV lounge and the upright piano and the resident fat dog sprawled in sleep. My brother led us past a nurses’ aide putting soiled diapers into a black plastic bag on a cart. The double door to the garden was unlocked. The garden was a secure place though you could not see the seven-foot chainlink fence through the dense hedge of wisteria. If there were video cameras trained upon every square inch of the garden you could not see them. My brother was saying in his loud cheerful voice, Dad is one of the best gardeners here. Dad, show us your tomatoes.
The tomatoes were indeed lush, staked to a height of four or five feet. There was really no need for Dad to show us, we were looking at them already.
Dad, show us which flowers are yours. Zinnias?
The word zinnias confused. The word zinnias met with no visible response.
We were circling the garden slowly. A graveled path, which we took counter-clockwise. Though we were on a more or less level plane it felt as if we were struggling against gravity on this path. For in this place time had virtually ceased. Perhaps between one heartbeat and the next time had in fact ceased. There was the danger of falling sideways in time, as when you pedal a bicycle too slowly, you fall sideways. In my right hand, somehow related to this strange cessation of time, was an elderly man’s hand. It was a bony hand, unresisting. My brother gripped the elderly man’s other hand in his left hand. A strange word, zinnias! I seemed to be hearing it for the first time. A combination of sounds like hot coiled wires that might spring suddenly out, and sting. Zinnias. There was a sound here too of wasps. I wished my brother wouldn’t repeat in his unnervingly loud and buoyant voice Zinnias! See the giant zinnias these are Dad’s zinnias! Almost, if you were wearing an electrically sensitive bracelet, you might think that zinnias was a code word or a means of torment.
Dad’s hand trembled yet remained unresisting, like a hand made of slightly crumbling clay.
We were not alone in the garden. Other grown children were visiting with elderly adults. There were visitors, usually women, or couples. Never more than three individuals in a party, for too many visitors confuses the elderly residents of the E-wing. By chance we were all walking in a counter-clockwise movement on the graveled path. We did not glance at one another. An instinctive dread of glancing into a mirror. We don’t see you, you don’t see us. We really have no idea what we look like. Before my brother had punched in the code to open the E-wing doors, he’d told me that Dad no longer recognized himself in mirrors, so don’t expect him to recognize you.
I had not that expectation.
I took my cue from my brother, I smiled. I had no expectations to be thwarted or mocked.
The season was fall. Yet hot as August. Air quivered in a sinister tangle of near-invisible filaments like those in a gigantic lightbulb. My eyes blinked, blinded. Yet I was calm recalling: the sunken-chested man with the singed face, Mr. M—who’d taught junior high math. He’d taught me, he’d taught my younger brother. More than thirty years ago he’d taught us. Mr. M—was not a name I wished to recall. Nor would my brother wish to recall Mr. M—. For Mr. M—had graded my brother more harshly than he’d graded me who had been an honors student even in math which became my hated subject under Mr. M—’s instruction. Mr. M—had taught at Yewville Junior High for a long time before they’d made him retire. That was the local story, Mr. M—had been made finally to retire. Under threat of a lawsuit, or an arrest. He’d touched a boy too intimately, you had to surmise. Too lingeringly. He’d teased a boy to tears. He’d pinched, tickled, slapped a boy. He’d twisted the tender earlobe of a boy just a little too hard and left reddened prints in the flesh for an astonished parent to discover. Or he’d playfully locked a boy in his homeroom after school. Or not so playfully: “for discipline.” The color rising in his face that had been fattish then, a moon face in which veins and capillaries glowed with an interior pulsing heat. During class you sat very still in your seat trying not to be seen by ever-vigilant Mr. M—. His eyes behind the black plastic teacher-glasses prowling the rows of desks. Eyes that were faintly bloodshot yet shone with a youthful vigor at such times. If you stared blinking down at your desk top Mr. M—would see and know you were hoping to escape his scrutiny. If you dared to gaze at him guileless and unblinking Mr. M—would see and know you were hoping to escape his scrutiny. For there was no escaping Mr. M—.
Certain boys were Mr. M—’s targets. You could see why certain boys were not Mr. M—’s targets for he never dared single out any strong-willed or defiant boy, or any boy from a prominent family, and boys of limited intelligence he ignored; but you could not always predict which boys, out of a number of possibilities, he would choose to torment. Vulnerable boys, shy boys. Shyly stubborn boys. Smart boys. Small-boned boys. Boys with girls’ faces. Rarely homely boys. Never handicapped boys. Never Italian or Negro boys. First he’d call on you in class and if you gave the right answer he’d call on you repeatedly until at last you gave a wrong answer. You stood at the blackboard trying to solve a problem, chalk trembling in your fingers. Mr. M—’s scorn was so playful, his mockery so comical, you weren’t always certain why you were being laughed at by even your friends. Your face burned, your eyes stung with moisture. You felt your bladder pinch with the need to pee. Once summoning me forward to his teacher’s desk at the front of the room. Making of me a witness to his red-inked pen darting and swooping over my math test like a miniature deranged hawk. I had mis-numbered the questions! I was a careless boy! Might’ve had a grade of ninety-eight but now had a grade of forty-eight and this would be duly noted on my midterm report card to be sent home for my mother’s signature. Tears welled in my eyes. My nose ran. Disgusted Mr. M—tossed a tissue at me. It might have been a used tissue, out of his baggy pants pocket. Wipe your nose, Mr. M—said. Stand up straight, Mr. M—said. What a careless boy you are, not nearly so smart as you think you are, I’ve got your number. For it was so, there were boys (but never girls, and we never wondered why) of whom Mr. M—could boast I’ve got your number.
Almost time for dinner, Dad. My brother spoke brightly as if he’d made a new discovery, and it pleased him.
Dad? It’s that time.
We re-entered the E-wing. We’d circled the garden not once but twice, slowly. The tomatoes had been admired, and the mysterious zinnias. I had forgotten that time wasn’t fixed like concrete but in fact was fluid as sand, or water. I had forgotten that even misery can end.
Got your number, got your number. Just ahead the sunken-chested old man with the singed face, the thick-lensed glasses taped to his head, was leaning on his cane. Again we must pass close by him. For he would not give way. For he wished to block our way. The white-haired old woman was gone. The gnome-sized individual was sitting, back against the wall. Here was Mr. M—wizened as a scrawny child. His face had lost its fat, his cheeks were papery thin and flushed as if with fever. I saw how, as his eyes lighted upon us, Mr. M—’s expression turned hopeful, shrewd. For the first time I saw how his dentures glared like cheap porcelain. Boys? Take me with you? Take me with you? He lurched near me, his palsied hand groped for my arm, and I shoved him from me. Mr. M—’s fetid breath in my face, that made me gag. Don’t touch me, I said.
Shoving him from me I said, You’re not going anywhere with anyone, you old bastard. Your place is here, you get to die here.
My brother turned an incredulous face to me. Yanking at my arm to pull me away from the tottering old man who gaped at me as if he hadn’t heard a syllable of what I’d said.
Norm! For Christ’s sake.
My brother was so rattled, he had trouble punching in the code to unlock the doors.
Second time, he go
t it. There was a bleating and pleading behind us we ignored. As soon as the doors opened we stepped through. We walked swiftly along the corridor to the lobby not looking back. My brother was cursing me under his breath. I’d never heard him so angry at anyone. God damn, God damn you, are you crazy, God damn you.
Why didn’t you warn me, I asked my brother. You knew who he was.
Who who was? What? That pathetic old guy? He’s nobody.
You knew. You know. God damn you.
We burst through the lobby doors. We walked to my brother’s car in the parking lot without speaking. Without glancing at each other. Not a backward glance at the Manor. Inside the car it would be hotter than hell. My brother had insisted the windows be shut, the doors locked. At Meadowbrook Manor! Disgusted my brother threw himself behind the driver’s wheel not looking at me and I had a choice, to climb inside that car beside him or to walk back to his house which was at least three miles, and along the country highway in the sun.
It wasn’t much of a choice.
Aiding and Abetting
THERE!—THE PHONE is ringing.
The call usually comes between six and seven, weekday evenings exclusively. Steven will hear the phone and Holly, in the kitchen preparing dinner, will answer it quickly, before Steven or their eleven-year-old son Brandon can get to a phone. He’ll hear his wife’s urgent voice, an anxious hello and then subdued murmurs of sympathy or encouragement, finally silence, for the person on the other end of the line is doing most of the talking.
The conversation will never last less than twenty minutes. Once, Steven recalls, it lasted nearly an hour, and might have gone longer if Steven hadn’t come into the kitchen to interrupt.
I Am No One You Know: And Other Stories Page 4
