I get out of Kathryn’s car, and hope I have not gotten Bo’s appearance so far wrong as to upset Luke. But he is not even looking. He walks toward the front lawn, and I see now that he has three of the balls: one red, one green, and one blue.
When he is in the center of the front lawn between the two arms of the driveway, Luke drops the balls and starts to stretch. First side to side, then around in a circle, circling his arms, bending down to touch his hands between the toes. It is a thorough stretching regimen, and I join him because I can see that it will make him comfortable.
After several minutes of stretching, Luke finishes with some jogging in place. I do not know about his mental condition, but he seems in excellent health for his age.
After Luke is done jogging, he picks up the red ball and tosses it into the air above his head with his right hand. He catches it with his left, passes it back to his right and tosses it again. On the third toss, while the red ball is still in the air, he tosses the green up after it; and this time after he catches the red, he adds the blue into the mix. I stand back and watch, impressed with his performance. Now all three balls are spinning up and down, and Luke breaks out into a big grin. “I still got it, Bo. I might have lost my marbles, but not my skills.”
“You still got it, Luke,” I answer. “You’re doing great.”
“And how about you?” Luke asks; and without warning he snaps the red ball sideways in an arc toward me.
I do not hesitate. I grew up playing with Millie, and I know how to play catch. I easily pluck the red ball out of the air. It’s heavier than I expected—wood, not plastic.
“Well?” Luke says as he continues tossing the blue and the green balls.
“I caught it,” I say.
“I know that,” Luke answers. “Now throw it back.”
“But you’re . . .”
“I can still toss and catch at the same time. Come on!”
I study, and I realize that Luke is still maintaining the three-ball rhythm even with just two there. Blue, green, gap. Blue, green, gap. Blue, green . . . and I time my return throw so that it arrives just at the gap without missing a beat. Luke catches it with his left hand, passes it to his right, and throws it up as his left hand snaps the green ball toward me.
This time I understand Luke’s timing, and so I pass the ball from my right hand to my left, and then from my left timed to the gap back to Luke. I am just in time to catch the incoming blue ball. We make several passes like this: At all times we have two balls between us and one over his head.
I realize that we have drawn a crowd. All of the residents who had been at the gazebo are now clustered around us, watching from a safe distance.
Then Luke says, “Your turn.” I look, and he stares at me expectantly; and I guess what he means, so I toss the red ball over my head. Without missing a beat, we have changed the rhythm: two balls between us and one over my head. The crowd applauds, and we continue that for a dozen passes.
Then Luke and I start switching the rhythm, with me lobbing balls overhead, and then him back and forth. Each time we switch, the crowd gasps and claps.
Without noticeably looking at the balls, Luke grins at me. “Just like old times, eh Bo?”
I nod. “Just like old times.”
“Just like . . .” Luke replies. “Like . . . Like . . .” He misses the blue ball, and it falls. He starts to tremble and sway.
I see the red ball falling toward his head. Without hesitation, I rush toward him. With my left arm, I cradle Luke as he falls. With my right hand, I slap away the ball.
Luke shakes all over, some sort of seizure. I check that his airway is clear, and I gently lay him down.
“Mr. Lucas!” I hear a female voice shout. I turn to the east wing doors, and I see Kathryn exiting. Ahead of her, a large nurse runs toward us and drops to one knee. “Mr. Lucas . . .”
“He is having a seizure,” I say.
“I can see that,” she replies, with some annoyance in her voice. She looks at the balls. “He was juggling, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, quite well.”
“Damn!” she says. She looks at the crowd around us. “Step back, please. Give him room.” She places a hand on his forehead. “It’s okay, Mr. Lucas, you’ll get through.”
“How did juggling cause a seizure?” I ask.
“It doesn’t every time,” she answers, “but sometimes . . . He had a head injury doing acrobatic work in the circus.”
“Ah,” I say. “Perhaps a hippocampal lesion?”
“That’s right.” She looks at me. “How did you know?”
“Your facility is a memory clinic,” I explain. “A hippocampal lesion can cause loss of ability to form long-term memories. In some reported cases there can also be seizures when a patient performs in ways that involve combinations of memory and motor skills.”
“That’s right,” she says. She looks back at Kathryn. “He does know his stuff. Or she? Or . . .”
“‘It’ will do,” I say. “I try to keep up with the latest research. Does he need medical attention?”
“No,” the nurse shakes her head. “Just time. Some days he gets the seizures, but some days he doesn’t. Juggling relaxes him. I would hate to take that away . . .”
Luke starts to stir. He sees the nurse looming over him, and then he turns to me. “You called Nurse Ratched on me? And you call yourself my friend . . .”
“It’s Nurse Rayburn,” she answers. “And your friend here . . .”
“Bo,” I say.
“Bo kept you from getting hurt.”
“He’s my partner,” Luke says. “Partners always look after each other.” And then his face clouds. “Where have you been, Bo?”
“Traveling,” I say.
“With the old show?”
Nurse Rayburn shakes her head slightly, and I say, “No, just seeing the world.”
“It’s good to have you back, Bo. Nobody around this place has any act worth seeing. It’s hard to put on a decent circus with just one juggler. Maybe now, with the two of us, management can get backing to add some new acts.”
“We do have got a pretty good act,” I say.
“Yeah, help me up here.” Nurse Rayburn nods slightly, so I reach down my hand and help Luke to his feet. “Hey, Nurse Ratched!”
Nurse Rayburn rolls her eyes. “Yes, Mr. Lucas?”
“Isn’t it about time to eat around here? I’m pretty hungry.”
“That’s a good sign,” she says.
“Come on, Bo,” Luke says to me. “The food here is better than the old chow wagon. Let’s have a bite to eat.”
“I’m not hungry,” I say. “But perhaps I could . . .” Nurse Rayburn nods. “Perhaps I can join you.”
“That would be great, Bo. It’ll be good to talk about old times with someone who was there and can appreciate life with the circus.”
I don’t want him to get his expectations too high, so I say, “My memory is kind of vague, Luke. I don’t remember a lot of that, but I’d love to hear it again.”
“Oh, yeah, you’ll remember. As soon as I start telling you the stories, you’ll remember. Life with the circus is one long uninterrupted deeeelight!”
I take Luke’s right arm, and Nurse Rayburn takes the left. We do not hold him up, but we are ready to grab him just in case.
It is pleasant to work with Nurse Rayburn. I have not worked with skilled nurses since Nurse Judy, before Mildred passed away. They have a body language, facial expressions and simple gestures based on shared experience with patients. I can tell what she means without her having to say it.
“Ummm . . . ‘Bo’ . . .” I turn. Kathryn is walking beside me. “I have to get back to work. Will you be all right here?”
Nurse Rayburn smiles at her. “He . . . It will be fine. I’ll find it a ride home after lunch. We’ll need time to talk.”
“Yes,” I say. “Thank you, Kathryn. I am grateful.” Kathryn returns to her car, and she leaves.
Nurse Rayburn and
I guide Luke into the east wing and to a dining hall that lies just inside the entry. It is a clean, well-lit place with tables spaced far apart to allow room for wheelchairs. Bright blue linens cover each table, and each place is set with matching white and blue plates and coffee cups.
Other residents are already assembling. Some are seated at tables, some are wheeling in or walking in, some of those with assist suits. Nurses move back and forth among the tables, helping residents get settled. Servers take orders at some of the tables.
“Over here, Bo,” Luke says. “You can sit at our table. You’ll be the hit of lunch.”
I look around. Each table is large enough for six diners, and we have eight—nine counting myself. “Luke, we will not all fit.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Luke says. “Pete, Linda, and I can pull another table over.” Luke goes over to the table next to ours and starts to pull them together.
“I have this,” I say, joining Luke before anyone else can. Together, we close the gap between the tables.
Nurse Rayburn says, “This is not allowed. You know that, Mr. Lucas.”
“Ah, screw it,” Luke says. “What are you going to do, throw me out? You know everybody’s going to want to talk to the guest.”
He seems to be right. As our group sits, others start coming up, and Luke introduces “Bo” around. Soon we pull a third table in, and residents crowd together as close as their assist suits and wheelchairs allow. They tell me their names; and the advantage of an android memory is that I do not forget any of them, nor their faces. All go into my emulation net.
Over lunch they share stories. I can tell through my empathy net that most of them have heard most of these stories multiple times. There is a sense of distraction, of tedium, as they listen. But as each one talks directly to me, their eyes light up, and it is like when my neural nets engage and I wake up. They tell me of the work they have done, of the places they have lived. Luke tells a number of stories of the circus, and he is a good storyteller. Even those who have surely heard these stories before laugh at all the right places.
Auralee, a thin, fit woman, tells me of her time in the space program. She was an engineer on moon flights. She still rattles off numbers, specs, dates, and trajectories as if it were yesterday. All of this data is boring the rest of the table, but I file it away. I do not know what her memory impairment may be, but it has not affected her math skills.
But the most common topic of conversation is family. Parents and aunts and uncles and grandparents, but especially children; and those stories make a complicated impression on my empathy net. There is pride, there is love, but there is also sadness—even bitterness—and I recognize this from my time with Mildred. Sadness, because they miss their families. I remember Mildred longing for people who were not there—some who would never be again. I remember emulating family members for her and how much joy it brought her to have visitors. Luke and the rest make such a big deal of me joining them for lunch. I wonder just how often they have visitors.
My emulation net starts to ripple with the possibility of emulating their missing families, but I override that. Mildred was a single patient. I could be who she needed. But here there are too many patients. Some are in good mental shape. There are some who slur their words a bit, a stutter here and there. But there are too many with diagnosable memory troubles and delusions. I imagine myself flickering from identity to identity in a futile effort to be everything for everyone; and I cannot see that ending well. Even I may emulate only one person at a time, so I remain as Bo.
But in place of emulation, I do the next best thing: I listen, and I encourage the stories. These residents miss their families, and I understand that all too well.
After an hour, android staff appear to clean up the dishes. They stand patiently by our tables. Nurse Rayburn waves them away. “We’re in no rush here,” she says. From the smile on her face, the tilt of her head, and the tone of her voice, I can see that she is happy because her residents are happy, and she cares for them very deeply. I decide that Nurse Rayburn is a good woman, but she is tired from so much worry.
Eventually all the food is gone and the android staff clear away the dishes. The residents start leaving the table, one or two at a time, most saying goodbye to me as they go. Soon the androids pull the tables to their original positions, and all that are left are Luke and myself and an old woman in a wheelchair. She has not spoken throughout the lunch. Luke looks at her and smiles. “How are you today, Mrs. Carruthers?”
Her hair is a sparse mat, straightened and colored, but it does not look natural for her. Her arms are barely thicker than the wheelchair armrests on which they lay. Her whole body is frail, like Mildred was toward the end. Her face sags on the left side, and so her words are slurred when she says, “I’m okay, Mr. Lucas.” There are many pauses in those few words.
“Did you enjoy lunch?”
“Uh,” she says. “Slop.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Carruthers. Did you want me to find you something else?”
“I’m fine,” she says.
But Luke persists. “Some Jell-O, perhaps? Let’s see if you can have some Jell-O.” He leaves the table and heads to the kitchen, and I am alone at the table with Mrs. Carruthers.
She looks at me, and the right side of her face droops in a frown to match her left. “Don’t like metal men,” she says.
“I am sorry, Mrs. Carruthers. I shall leave.”
But she continues as if she hasn’t heard me. “Not natural. Metal. I had a metal dog once. Not right. Wag its tail, sniff, and bark, but not a dog.”
“I understand, Mrs. Carruthers.”
“Not a dog! It does tricks, but it never eats. It never shits in the house. Not a dog. They told me it was, but . . .” She swallows, and continues. “I had a dog once. That was a dog. Big . . . big collie. Friendly. Wag her tail, the whole body wagged. She came up, licked my face. She loved me. Metal dog can’t love me.”
“I am sorry, Mrs. Carruthers. You are right. Mechanical devices have no feelings, but we do try to help.”
“No love. No hate. Don’t get sad.” A tear runs down her cheek. “Don’t get sad.”
She shifts her hand on the wheelchair controller, and the chair backs away from the table. She rolls out of the room without another word.
She is wrong. I find that I do get sad. For her.
Mrs. Carruthers has disappeared in the hallway when Luke returns with Jell-O. “She left?”
“I do not think she likes me, Luke.”
“She doesn’t like anybody. She’ll warm up to you in time.”
“I am not sure, Luke. She does not like . . .” I do not know how to finish.
“. . . Mechanical devices?” Luke says. He half grins at me. “You’re not from the circus. I was confused. One of my bad days. But I’m feeling much better now. You’re . . . some kind of robot, ain’t ya?”
“An android,” I correct him.
“You’re not Bo. But . . . you remind me of him. It’s . . . easier for me if I think of you as him. You have another name?”
“Carey,” I say.
“Carey.” He works his mouth as if tasting the word. “Carey . . . Sounds like a girl’s name. Nope, I probably won’t remember that. Hope you don’t mind if I slip and call you Bo.”
“If that makes you comfortable.”
Luke smiles. “Come on, let’s go take Mrs. Carruthers her Jell-O.”
“I do not know if I should, Luke. Am I allowed to visit her?”
“The more visitors around here, the better.” Luke leads me to the hallway. Mrs. Carruthers has not gone far. Her wheelchair is moving at barely a walking pace.
Luke calls out, “Hey, Mrs. Carruthers, you forgot your Jell-O.”
She does not look up. I notice her face has grown more pale in the brief time I have observed her. I grab her finger. She weakly tugs it away, so I grab it again. Her pulse ox is very low, eighty-three. “Luke, get a nurse. She needs oxygen.”
“Ve
ra!” Luke calls. “Vera, we need help here.”
Nurse Rayburn comes running. She sees me bent over Mrs. Carruthers, and she says, “Oh, you can’t touch the residents.”
“Her pulse ox.” I check again. “It is eighty-two.”
Nurse Rayburn looks at Mrs. Carruthers’s pale skin and blue lips. “Oh, my. Kathy, give me some oxygen!” She checks Mrs. Carruthers’s pulse. “Come on, Mrs. Carruthers, come on.” She rubs Mrs. Carruthers’s hands. “So cold.”
Another nurse rushes up with an oxygen tank and a mask. “Let’s get her into her bed,” she says. “We’ll have to tent her.”
The two nurses take Mrs. Carruthers away in her chair. Luke and I stand, watching. I am concerned for Mrs. Carruthers, but Luke holds out a cup to me. “Do you want some Jell-O? Nah, I didn’t think so.” Then he digs the spoon in and eats it himself.
When the Jell-O is gone, Luke says, “Feel kind of silly standing here in this hall. Let’s go to my room. I can show you what a circus is all about.”
In his room, Luke shows me old-fashioned paper pictures from the circus he once worked with. They are without a doubt the most colorfully garbed people I have seen anywhere. A few of the costumes remind me of the outfits in Belize, but even the Belizeans did not have so much variety.
Luke shows me pictures of his acrobatic act. “Juggling is just a sideline,” he says. His pictures also include his brother, his parents, and an aunt. They were an acrobatic team. “The whole family was part of the circus. No, the circus was my whole family. Some by blood and some by sweat and toil, grease paint and sawdust. And now the circus is gone. Oh, there may be a tent show here and there, but they already have all the acts they need. No one needs an old acrobat like me. No one.”
I hear a deeper sadness in his voice, and I wish I knew what to say; but before I can respond, Nurse Rayburn appears in the doorway. “Yes?” Luke asks.
“It’s Mrs. Carruthers,” she answers. I can see from the blank look on Luke’s face that he has already forgotten the incident. Nurse Rayburn senses it as well, and she turns to me.
“I can’t go into details,” she says. “Privacy laws.” I sympathize. I know all too well the limitations of privacy laws. But then she adds, “She’ll be okay for now. It’s a good thing you called us. She was getting cyanotic. We have her tented now.”
Today I Am Carey Page 15