In the Walled City

by Stewart O'Nan

On the return trip, he joked with Mr. Fergus, played the radio for Mr. Johns, and told Clara everything was fine; but that night, in bed, all he could think of was death. He didn’t want to worry Christine, so he lay awake, dreading morning and the van, their doomed smiles in the mirror.

  While Christine showered, he called in sick. He left the apartment at nine, but instead of heading for work, he drove to Woods County Courthouse and searched the bulletin boards for job notices. There were none. He called Personnel at Nabisco. Finally he stopped at Waynoka Ford and talked with Floyd Bannister. There was no way back without losing money or the van or both. He filled the tank at a self-serve and drove away the afternoon, cruising the unknown streets south of town.

  The next morning Mr. Fergus asked him if he was feeling better. Willie T. said he was. At lunch he bought a paper and looked through the classifieds. The schools wanted drivers but supplied their own vans. Other than that there was nothing.

  As the days passed, he grew desperate. He was sure one of them would die soon, merely because he knew they had it. He scanned the classifieds and bulletin boards for the one opening that would free him.

  Week after week he drove, and soon he stopped searching for another job. The shock worn off, he blamed himself for overreacting. They would outlive him. While they were with him in the van he could think like this, but at night the fear returned.

  Then Mr. DiSilvio began to fade. His skin broke out in blotches, rust-brown lesions crusted with an ointment the Home’s doctor prescribed. On hot days it soaked through his shirt like grease. He spoke less, and when he did, he complained. Mr. Fergus’s jokes fell in silence. Mr. Johns ignored Glenn Miller. The girls sat tight-lipped in back, their eyes pleading with the mirror. He still hadn’t told Christine.

  Night again. Willie T. recited, held a shield of words. He could quit and Nabisco would rehire him. He could sell the van at a loss. He could drive for the schools and sell the van at a loss. He could quit. They would die one by one, and he would drive the empty van to the Care Center and tell Eddie, “Nothing today,” and drive back. Mr. Johns would be the last, his big bands blaring from the speakers, a trio of singers in matching skirts and hairdos swaying, soldiers on leave dancing with USO girls. The light gauzy with cigarette smoke, a clarinet snaked through to Mr. Johns, buckled in his seat, staring past Willie T. into the onrushing dark. The dark where Willie T. lay, breath roaring.

  The lesions grew worse. The orderlies struggled to fit his hunched body into his seat. In the new silence he sometimes moaned, low, drawn out sighs of pain. Willie T. kept his eyes on the road.

  He worried about the others. Grim, they sat in their places each day while Mr. DiSilvio paled and worsened, the lesions spreading, joining like glaciers. His moans rose in pitch, trailed off like echoes. The ointment stank. Willie T. drove, imagining them asleep in bed, alone, the black of the Sunrise Home broken by the nurse’s call buzzer, the muffled rush of rubber soles. Trays, needles. When they woke, the room across the hall would be empty, an orderly’s mop sloshing.

  At the end of Willie T.’s first three months, Mr. Binstock called him into his office for an evaluation. A manila folder lay open on his desk. He flipped through it, stabbing facts with his eraser. “Yes … yes … yes.” Willie T. sat straight in the chair, kneading Gar’s stiff gloves. Now was his chance to quit. The six were safely home, the van waited by the curb, ready for a getaway. He wouldn’t have to see them ever again. Or if Mr. Binstock gave him a poor review. Mr. Binstock closed the folder. “Excellent, Mr. Tillman, positively excellent. Punctual, courteous, mindful of our residents’ needs. Despite your relative inexperience, your work here is coming along fine. We are prepared to offer you a permanent position here at Sunrise, at a competitive wage, of course.” Willie T. nodded, staring at the gloves. They were curled and hard, like shells. “I’m sure your decision will take some consideration. Regardless, you may expect an increase in your check beginning this month.” He rose and stretched a hand toward Willie T.

  Willie T. rose and shook it. “Thanks a lot.”

  “Keep up the good work.” Mr. Binstock smiled.

  They were five that Friday. Mr. Binstock gave Willie T. a new passenger list. The orderlies helped them in, and Willie T. pulled away. No one spoke. In the mirror, Mr. DiSilvio’s safety belt lay on the vinyl seat. Willie T. eased left across traffic.

  When they came to the intersection where Mr. Fergus made his first navigator’s decision, Willie T. waited for the tap on his shoulder, but it never came. The light changed, and he drove straight ahead. The next light was green. He slowed, waiting for Mr. Fergus to choose, but again, nothing, and he pressed the gas pedal. South out of town along 281, across the Cimarron, then east on 15, and across again. Mr. Johns didn’t ask for the radio.

  Eddie said, “You can’t get involved. They come in and they leave and sometimes they don’t come back. You gotta get used to it, otherwise you might as well sell this thing.”

  Clara threw up on the return trip. Willie T. heard her, but didn’t look back. 15 west, the river, 281 north, the river, and into Waynoka. They were quiet for a while, and he raised his eyes to the mirror. Above their bright sweaters gray skin sagged, eyes red pouches, cheeks scarred and folded. Scalp shone through Mr. Johns’s remaining hair, through Mr. Fergus’s. Willie T. met his own eyes and drove on.

  He stayed in Saturday and Sunday and watched the Rangers beat the Yanks twice. The classifieds lay untouched on the dining room table. He sank into his stuffed chair and let the tide of ball-strike counts wash over him. He knew he could not last. He would sell the van and go back to Nabisco. Outside, Sunday afternoon bled into Sunday night, the threat of Monday caught in long, reaching shadows.

  In the morning they were six again, Mr. DiSilvio’s seat filled by Mr. Paulsen, a short, wide man with no hair. The attendants buckled everyone in and slid the door shut, and Willie T. coasted the Econoline down the drive. Behind him, Mr. Fergus told the newcomer a dirty joke. The girls tittered despite themselves. “Really, Mr. Fergus,” Miss Flynn scolded. Mr. Johns sat staring blankly, his hands folded in his lap. The river twice. From time to time Willie T. glanced hopefully in the mirror. Mr. Fergus had the girls leaning forward to hear his punch lines. In the aisle seat Mr. Johns still sagged, resigned. Mr. Paulsen hooted, the girls giggled. Willie T. steered the van into the Care Center’s drive. A line of orderlies stood at the curb, legs apart, hands behind, heads raised as if for inspection. In the late morning sun their white uniforms shone. Like angels, Willie T. thought, like angels at-ease.

  While the orderlies helped the six out, Eddie came over to Willie T.’s window. “How you doing, Willie T.?”

  “Getting along, how about you?”

  “Can’t complain. Just wanted to see how things are.”

  “Hanging in there,” Willie T. said, but he was lying. The rest of the week he and Mr. Johns rode together, separated from the others by silence. He swore he could smell Mr. DiSilvio’s ointment. Like horseradish, or ammonia.

  Mr. Paulsen roared at Mr. Fergus’s jokes and told some of his own. Mr. Johns loomed in the mirror, his face gray, his eyes set. Willie T. drove.

  He explained it to Christine. She thought he should quit. “It’s not good,” she said. “You’re gonna end up like them, not knowing when to laugh or cry.” Their discussions lasted through dinner, TV, all the way to bed. But Christine was a regular sleeper, and each night her words stopped in the dark, left Willie T. alone, adrift.

  The next Thursday Mr. Binstock asked Willie T. to see him in his office after the return trip. He knocked on the door. “Yes?” said Mr. Binstock. Sitting across from him, Mr. Fergus turned to watch Willie T. Have a seat, Mr. Binstock gestured.

  “Mr. Tillman,” Mr. Binstock began, “We have a serious problem here. Mr. Fergus has informed me that you are not happy. Need I tell you how important it is for someone in your position to project a positive attitude? That is one reason why Mr. Fergus accompanies your group —to keep them happy.”


  Mr. Fergus nodded at Willie T

  Mr. Binstock continued: “At first your work was fine; excellent, in fact. But there was no reason why it wouldn’t be. Now, when you should be the most supportive, you mope through your duties. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Yes, sir, but they’re dying. How’m I —”

  “Mr. Tillman,” Mr. Fergus interrupted, “you don’t have to stop them from dying, or even thinking about dying. All you have to do —what I do —is help them enjoy living.”

  “You see,” Mr. Binstock said, “when someone knows they’re dying, they’re apt to refuse to live.”

  “Like Mr. Johns,” Mr. Fergus added.

  “Exactly,” Mr. Binstock said. “But all you have to do in that situation is stress how enjoyable life is. There’s nothing sadder than people who give up and simply wait. Like our Mr. Johns. As you’ve seen, the others are in no better shape. Physically, that is. Mentally they’re far healthier.”

  Willie T. looked at Gar’s gloves, turning them over and over.

  “You can do a lot,” Mr. Fergus said, touching Willie T.’s arm. “Start with the radio. Talk, swear at the other drivers —anything. We can pull Mr. Johns out of this.”

  “Some of these people are going to die,” Mr. Binstock said. “But they can do more than sit around and wait for it.” He paused, waiting for Willie T. to respond, then said, “Next month I’ll be asking you to join our fulltime staff. I thought I should inform you of our philosophy.”

  Willie T. said nothing.

  “All right then, that’s all.”

  That night over dinner, Willie T. told Christine about Mr. Fergus. “Like a spy,” she said. “I guess he’s right though. Makes a lot of sense, really. Think of that! It’d make you more important than any old bus driver.”

  After she fell asleep, Willie T. worked out what was right, what was possible and what he would do. Before work the next day he washed and vacuumed the van. At work, driving, he spoke with his passengers and sang along with the radio. For two weeks he did this, and with the help of Mr. Fergus and the natural cheer of Mr. Paulsen, Mr. Johns returned to his normal self.

  But even as his passengers laughed and joked, Willie T. never forgot they were going to die. Acting as if there was nothing wrong was easier than believing it. Christine was proud of him, Mr. Binstock was proud of him, Mr. Fergus was proud of him. To fight their combined respect, regardless of the money, would have been stupid. So he drove, terrified, unbelieving.

  Sometimes when the radio played a certain song, or when Mr. Johns tried to scat with Ella Fitzgerald, or when Mr. Fergus got the girls giggling, Willie T. could believe. An automatic moment which, appreciated, vanished immediately. He smelled the ointment, saw the shirt translucent as waxed paper, the blotches spreading like spilled wine. “Everything’s OK,” he told Eddie. “Work was fine,” he told Christine. “Looking good,” he told Mr. Binstock. But he could not fool Mr. Fergus.

  One summer day, after the return trip, Mr. Fergus dismissed the orderly and stayed in his seat. “Where to?” Willie T. joked.

  “You’re scared, Mr. Tillman. I can tell. It’s in your eyes, it’s in your voice. I’ve seen it before, I know what I’m seeing.”

  “These people are dying and I’m supposed to be glad all the time?”

  “Here,” Mr. Fergus said, shoving his arm over the seat. Below his wrist a red sore burned like a star, and below it, another. On the inside of his elbow yellow skin ringed deep blue bruises. “You don’t have to be scared, Mr. Tillman. No one has to be scared.” He withdrew his arm and rolled the sleeve of his Sunrise sweater over it. Then he held up both hands, fingers splayed apart, and smiled. “See? All gone.” He showed Willie T. the palms and backs like a magician. “Nothing to be afraid of, right?”

  Willie T. shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be, there’s no reason. Think of it this way: when you see something coming, you get ready for it. You plan around it. Most people worry about when it’s going to come. Christ, that’s what kills half the people here.”

  Willie T. did not want to be in the van with Mr. Fergus. He was thinking of the salter and coffee break and walking with Gar. Mr. Fergus faded in and out. He was trying to give Willie T. something.

  “So we’ll look at it tomorrow, all right? Mr. Tillman?”

  “I don’t want nothing.” He turned away and hid behind the headrest.

  “You’ll need it, Mr. Tillman. Believe me, you’ll need it.”

  “I don’t want it, I don’t want anything.”

  Mr. Fergus patted his shoulder. “You get some rest. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  After work the next day, while the others tottered back to their rooms, Mr. Fergus stayed in his seat. “We can do it today or we can do it tomorrow,” he said. “It’s up to you.”

  Except for his meetings with Mr. Binstock, Willie T. had never seen the inside of the Sunrise Home. He followed Mr. Fergus down stucco hallways, across bright linoleum floors. They turned a corner and passed the curved counter of a nurses’ station. The rooms were open, and inside, residents sat in groups, playing cards on hospital beds. In a darkened room an air-conditioner hummed. Mr. Fergus stopped, opened a door and let Willie T. enter first.

  Black-and-white photographs of Mr. Fergus covered the walls. Dancing in tails, a cane and tophat held in flying hands. As a hobo, fondling a huge bottle of moonshine. Willie T. thought he recognized a young Bob Hope. As he went from wall to wall, Mr. Fergus rummaged through a dirty kitchenette. Harry James, Mae West, Groucho. A framed playbill signed by the cast of “South Pacific.”

  “Didn’t know I was famous, did you?” Mr. Fergus thumped a cardboard box down on a coffee table and waved Willie T. over. “I still sell a gag once in a while. Only to the big guys, the new stuff’s beyond me.” He popped the lid off the box; inside sat a stack of paper. Mr. Fergus riffled the stack. “These I’ve never used, not really anyway. You got your blue material, your one-liners and rim shots, heckler put-downs, wife routines.” He pointed to a rainbow of section dividers. “Your drunk jokes, your moron jokes, your New York and L.A. jokes. Let’s see, fat, ugly, Irish —you got to laugh at yourself, right?—Black, Polish, Italian, Jews. You got Democrat stuff, Republican stuff, hippies, rednecks, animal bits. You got it all.”

  He patted the stack and looked at Willie T. “Remember, anyone can be funny. You practice hard enough, you can be really funny. But it’s in here that makes a comedian a comedian. Because you can’t make fun of people. You’ve got to give them room. I’ve seen people with great material bomb, not because they didn’t know people, but because they didn’t like people. And you like people, Mr. Tillman. That’s why you need this, that’s why I’m giving it to you.”

  Willie T. took the box and the lid and fit them together. It was obvious to him that Mr. Fergus was crazy. “Thanks a lot,” he said, tucking the box under his arm and backing away. “I’ll be seeing you tomorrow.”

  Mr. Fergus followed him out, calling after him, “Don’t forget, Mr. Tillman, it’s all in here.”

  “I got you,” Willie T. called back.

  He hid the box under an old pair of boots in the bedroom closet.

  The following weeks Mr. Fergus seemed fine. He told his jokes and laughed at Mr. Paulsen’s, slapped the back of Willie T.’s seat when Mr. Johns sang. He did a play-by-play of Clara’s vomiting and teased Mrs. Ryerson and Miss Flynn about their new summer wigs. But Willie T. knew he didn’t have long. His sleeves came to his wrists, and the smell of ointment grew so strong that even on the rare cool mornings Willie T. kept the windows open.

  Soon the orderly had to lift him from his seat and carry him out the door. He arrived early each day so the others wouldn’t see him, and when they left he stayed in his seat and talked with Willie T. until the orderly wheeled the chair to the curb. He spoke of his childhood, his adventures as a young man, his career, his marriages. History poured out of him. Willie T. tried not to judge. As Mr. Fergus grew weaker, his r
amblings took in his whole life. One minute he’d be talking about the wharves in Brooklyn, the next the rotten food in the cafeteria. He repeated episodes and forgot important details, and yet he seemed to be concentrating, correcting himself, as if every new version were the last and had to be perfect. Willie T. never interrupted. He told himself that the urgency in Mr. Fergus’s voice was natural.

  And one August morning they were five again. They crossed the river south, the river east, silent. He told Eddie how brave Mr. Fergus was.

  After dinner, Christine left Willie T. to himself. He sat in his stuffed chair and drank beer, ignoring the TV, and by bedtime he was drunk. Christine turned off all the lights and asked, “You coming?”

  “In a while.”

  The beer was warm and sour going down. He slouched in the chair, the blue ghosts of the TV racing around the walls. He went to the kitchen for another beer, came back and watched the ceiling flow. It was two o’clock when he finished the last one, the national anthem long past, the screen a blur of grinding static.

  Barefoot, he crept into the dark bedroom. The closet door squeaked. He dug through boots and shoes to the box. In the living room the glare of the TV flashed like summer lightning over the walls. He flicked the bathroom switch, set the box on the toilet, and sat down on the lip of the tub. A grainy Mr. Fergus smiled up at him. Willie T. took the first sheet from the box, held it above the sink, and began to read. In the mirror his lips moved, his voice soft in the cold, tiled light, murmuring as if in prayer.