by Carlos Colon
Dominic curses in frustration as I climb back out into the yard. He probably doesn’t even give a shit that my head was just used as a piñata and that I have a few choice words of my own.
His cell phone vibrates in his pocket. Dominic pulls it and reads the caller ID. It’s Jessie. His eyes meet mine. We’re thinking the same thing.
Dominic answers. “Jess?”
“Uncle Dom?” There’s heartache in my daughter’s voice. I can sense the tears streaming down her face.
I don’t need to hear anything more. Everything my little girl is saying can be made out from the film of tears welling up in Dominic’s eyes. His voice cracks. “I’ll be right there, honey.” He places his cell back in his coat pocket.
Los Ruidos emerge. “I’m going with you.”
The tears flow liberally from Dominic’s reddened eyes. “You can’t.”
“Dominic, she’s my wife! I have a right.”
“Right? You have a right? Mira, este hijo de puta! What right do you have? You’re dead! You don’t have any rights! You don’t belong here! Don’t you understand that? You’re dead!” With revulsion, his eyes dissect the apparition that is me.
Do I understand?
Yes, Dominic, I do understand.
If you only knew how much I really do understand.
33
They’re all here, family members I haven’t seen in decades, all from Stefanie’s side. Her uncle Tito, Ramona’s perpetually unemployed younger brother, must have driven in from Connecticut. The last I heard about him was that he was living comfortably off a widow whose deceased husband’s assets left her well taken care of. Claudia la puta, Stefanie’s slutty cousin, is also here. Having fought over boys back in high school, they became close as adults, laughing about those days at family gatherings. She’s about Stefanie’s age, in her late sixties now, still wearing too much makeup and still assaulting my nostrils with her perfume.
She’s crying hard.
This is goodbye.
Stefanie’s room at ICU is more crowded than a bus terminal at rush hour. Jessie is at the doorway being comforted by Rippey, who’s stroking her hair as she cries on his shoulder. He’s doing his best to avoid weeping openly but it’s not working, he’s matching her tear for tear. What he is succeeding at is fulfilling his role as the comforting father—the role that should have been mine. If happiness, stability, and normalcy were all that I could wish my family after I had left them, Rippey was more than up to the task. For that reason, alone, I probably shouldn’t hate him. But I do. And it’s for the same reason.
Artie and Ramona are holding each other, suffering the unbearable sight of their motionless daughter being kept alive by some electronic contraption whose incessant rhythmic beeping is echoing throughout the room. Next to his abuelita is Davey, covering his face with his hands, crying louder than I’ve ever seen him, even as a child. Abuelita Ramona rubs his back softly. She has always been overprotective of Davey, having been a big part of his recovery when he fought off his demon of alcohol abuse.
When Dominic barreled into the room minutes ago, he unleashed a loud, gut-twisting bawl upon seeing his little sister breathing weakly with the aid of a ventilator. He didn’t even notice that his daughters Aida and Penny were in the corner of the room, holding each other in tears. They’ve grown into two lovely young women who took on the best of Patti’s features. Neither of them gets to see their father much these days. Aida’s married to a car dealer in Connecticut, and Penny’s raising a family with her mortgage-broker husband upstate. But both are here to be with the family at this terrible hour. They always deeply loved their Aunt Steffy, and their hearts are shattered just like everyone else in the room.
The intangible curtain that shields me holds on as I stand at the foot of Stefanie’s death bed, but barely. My incommodious tenants Los Ruidos are doing everything they can to break and expose me.
The only woman that has ever lived in this heart for the thirty-eight years that it functioned will never rise again. She has fallen victim to a predator of another kind, a cancer that has taken over her brain. There is nothing else the doctors can do. For the last two and a half plus decades, Stefanie’s last mental vision of her first husband was him spending his last living moments dishonoring her. To try and disprove that I would have had to expose her, and everyone else, to the horrors that make my current existence possible.
Stefanie was the one that saved my life, plain and simple. She was the answer to the prayers I made as a child, kneeling beside my mother at Church. On those Sundays, I prayed that the day would come when Mami would love me again the way she once did. Knowing that those chances were slim, I also prayed that if she didn’t, someone else would. And now the woman that did bring that love back into my life, is lying before me, taking her last artificial breaths, thinking that seventeen years of her life were wasted on an unfaithful scumbag. But why flatter myself? She probably hasn’t thought of me for years. She’s been married to Rippey longer than she was to me. He saved her life the way she saved mine.
The song of Los Ruidos gets fierce and merciless, making the sobbing around me barely audible.
A woman’s gasp breaks through—it might have been Ramona. The room turns silent. Everyone focuses on the bed. Was it a moan? Dominic brings himself closer to Stefanie. His head jolts back! This time several of the women in the room gasp. It was very slight but everyone saw it, a barely discernible twitch below Stefanie’s left eye.
Her head makes a slight move to the left.
“Oh my God!” cries Jessie, choking in her tears. “Mommy?”
The relatives and friends outside the room, not having seen what happened, begin to buzz with curiosity. They’re shushed by someone inside the room.
Stefanie’s breathing turns erratic, as if she’s fighting the ventilator that’s keeping her alive. Her head moves more noticeably, jerking to the left and to the right.
“Get a nurse,” calls Rippey to no one in particular.
Davey sobs helplessly in his grandmother’s arms. The family members close in around the foot of the bed. I am still out of sight but any second now someone is going to feel the space my body is taking up.
Her movements stop. The beats of the life support system turn radically inconsistent. Family members clear a path for a nurse, entering the room.
There is rapid eye movement underneath Stefanie’s eyelids.
The beeps grow farther apart.
A doctor comes in and places his stethoscope over Stefanie’s heart.
The beats grow faint. She’s fading.
Dominic is sweating so much his clothes look like he just came in from the rain. “Do something!”
Another moan from Stefanie. It brings the room to a stop.
Rippey’s tears drip on to her pillow. “Honey, I’m right here,” he whispers. “I’m right beside you.”
“Sis?” Dominic is near convulsions. I’ve never seen him like this.
Stefanie’s eyeballs continue to wander aimlessly under her fluttering lids. Is she trying to open her eyes? How is this possible? How can she—?
They’re open! Her eyes are open! And she’s looking straight ahead...
...fixated in horror...
...at me!
She closes her eyes, turning away from the frightful sight. Her hands shake. Rippey takes the one closest to him and holds it against his face.
This is much too painful for a woman of Ramona’s age to have to see. “¿Mi hija, que pasa?”
Artie, whose cheerful air never failed to put a smile on anyone’s face, does his best to soothe his wife, but he can use some comforting of his own.
The shaking stops. Stefanie’s hands are now still.
The beep from the monitor turns in to a long dreadful tone, droning on in the same exact pitch, the same exact sound, as the noise I’ve been hearing in my head for over fifty years.
Combined, their force is overwhelming.
I have to leave.
Now.
How much pressure does it take for an egg to crack? Not much. How much does it take for the dead, or at least one cursed with genetic resistance? I just found out.
As much as I was able to hold out in the hospital room, once the tone from that monitor joined in unison with Los Ruidos, my presence risked exposure. Without consideration for any of its inevitable ramifications, I pushed my way out of ICU, leaving family members wondering what unseen force brushed up against them. Superstitious as some of them are, I’m sure they’ll probably agree on some kind of spiritual explanation.
Miraculously, I managed to remain unexposed as I reeled out of the room into the hospital corridor. But the monitor and Los Ruidos were showing no mercy. The farther I got, the louder the tone. Halfway down the hall, I spotted a stairwell and ducked in, closing the door behind me. I had no fight left. The monster wanted to come out.
A harrowed wail escaped my deflated lungs, echoing up and down the stairwell. Seconds later an orderly opened the stairway door to find Death sitting against the wall with tears streaming down the cracked paths of his pallid face. The sight knocked the shrieking young man back into the hospital corridor where he was unable to explain what he had just seen. Others had heard the haunted cry as well but when one of the other concerned coworkers opened the door again, there was nothing nor anyone to be found.
None of this mayhem mattered in and around the room where Stefanie had taken her last breath. Incognizant of the hysteria by the stairwell, Torres family members and friends grieved and consoled each other. In the days ahead they would continue to comfort one another and mourn together. They will share memories and promise to be there in time of need.
Lucky enough to get away from the hospital, just being seen by the faint-hearted orderly, I and my newfound tears stayed away from the wake in Scarsdale. No need to possibly create another scene there. As for the funeral, that was during the day so it wasn’t even an option. What was the point, anyway? I couldn’t mourn with everyone. To those who at one time loved and admired me, I was long gone. Dominic was right. I didn’t belong. The living mourn together as family and friends. The dead mourn alone.
#
Practically every possibility in Nassau County had been exhausted by Dominic in terms of abandoned factories and foreclosures with dank molded rooms and empty halls echoing memories that he never experienced. Repeated exposure also began having side effects on his psyche. He was starting to imagine the sounds of whispering voices from the past or movements stirring in the areas surrounding him. As a believer (in the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit) Dominic never before had any patience for anyone who spoke of any ghost or paranormal bullshit.
His tune has now changed.
How could it not?
Dominic has seen many deviations of late that would distort anyone’s perception of reality. The impossible and the ridiculous have now stared him too many times in the face for him to deny their authenticity. If everything that he had recently witnessed was now possible, what now was impossible?
Dominic’s serum-induced capabilities have had him targeting the Queens/Long Island border where he had last sensed Simone’s presence, but none of his treks have been productive. Frustration was taking its toll. Still, Dominic remained relentless in his search despite working his regular shift, helping Rippey out with Stefanie’s funeral, and of course, grieving—all this with infected blood. I don’t know how the guy was even walking.
Dominic can be stubborn. His determination can sometimes drive him beyond his own physical capacity, but today even he had to concede that he was pushing himself too hard. He’d been running on fumes. His usually sharp deductive skills were starting to lag.
His weakened sixty-eight-year-old body, which could only take so much, was joining in with everyone else that had been telling him, “Go home, Dominic. Get your ass in bed and get some rest.”
For a late December afternoon, it had been a relatively nice day with temperatures in the upper 40’s, but he finally resisted the temptation to stay out any longer and picked up the entrance to the Meadowbrook Parkway.
Traffic was a little busier than usual for that time of day. He attributed that to holiday shoppers and moms picking up their kids from school. With the cruel string of events that had been crowding his mind over the past few weeks, Dominic hadn’t even given any thoughts to the holidays. Normally it was his favorite time of the year, dressing up as Santa at the precinct, giving out gifts, and taking the suit home to celebrate Christmas with the family.
Not this year. With Aida, Penny, and Jessie scattered throughout Connecticut, Long Island and upstate New York, Stefanie and Rippey’s house was always the central spot for the holidays for the grandkids to come and meet Santa. Future holidays will have to be celebrated elsewhere. And with the venom running through Dominic’s system, they’ll probably be needing a new Santa in the coming years, as well.
Heading home on the parkway Dominic saw the sign for the Greenwood Boulevard exit. It was a quarter mile ahead. He had passed it several times over the past couple of days but never paid it any mind until today when he recalled a documentary he had seen on Netflix. It was about a mental facility called Greenwood State Psychiatric Center that closed in 1995 after reports of patient abuse and neglect. Not having yet canvassed that area, Dominic wondered if the hospital was still there. Given our current horseshit economy, maybe there was no budget for any new projects or renovations in the area. If that were the case, the hospital could still be sitting there, boarded up, having gone decades without a soul walking inside its walls.
It was 3:30 p.m. with not a lot of daylight left. With only a second to make a snap decision, his detective’s lack of will power won over. There’d be plenty of time to sleep later. Dominic swung over and took the Greenwood Boulevard exit ramp.
The boarded-up stores and empty strip malls on Greenwood Boulevard confirmed Dominic’s expectations, the post 2008 years have not been kind to the area. He made a mental note of all the additional spots he’d now have to come back to check on.
A half mile from the exit, approaching Garner Avenue, Dominic stopped at the traffic light. To his right was a distant campus, partially obscured by a forest of leafless trees. Behind them was a row of barren medical buildings.
So much for getting some rest.
The sign at the intersection said “NO TURN ON RED”. “Fuck that, I’m a cop,” said Dominic, making a quick right, searching for a road or an entrance that would take him past the trees. There were no residences down the stretch of road on Garner, nor any businesses, populace or other signs of civilized life—just trees. Less than a mile from the boulevard, the road bent towards the direction of the buildings. A broken gate materialized a couple of yards ahead with the arched iron sign above it reading:
“GREENWOOD STATE PSYCHIATRIC CENTER”.
Oh yeah, definitely not getting any rest tonight. He took out his cell and sent a text to his undead brother-in-law. This search was definitely not going to be a one-man job.
Past the gate was a long solitary road through a forest that was deep enough to keep the crazies from straying too far. At the end of the road was a circular driveway that led towards the buildings. The disheveled grounds, the “NO TRESPASSING” signs, the boarded windows—how many of these has he seen over the past few weeks?
Dominic’s senses stirred, but not from the injections. This time it was the detective doing the sensing. The grisly publicized accounts of former patients and workers brought a cloud of eeriness to Greenwood State, a place most people of sound mind would prefer to stay away from. It was perfect. Not even junkies or squatters would be desperate enough to hole up in there.
Rather than start at the main center, Dominic chose to begin with one of the side buildings, cursing yet another board that he had to pry from a window. Once the board came off, Dominic looked into the room, which was partially lit by the late afternoon sun. Broken chairs, tables and desks were among the rubble. It appeared to
have once been a group therapy room.
Upon climbing in, Dominic immediately gagged and fell into a coughing fit from the molded, rotted stench in the room, which overwhelmed the lungs he had already beaten down with decades of Marlboros and neglect. So much remained in the room from the days when the hospital was a functioning facility; file cabinets, shelves, books, bulletin boards, lamps, even clothes. It looked like somebody yelled fire, causing an immediate evacuation and no one bothered to come back. At the other side of the room, Dominic saw a doorway to the hall. The door itself was lying in the rubble. With the sunlight not reaching out into the hall, Dominic pulled a Maglite out of his coat pocket.
He also pulled out his gun.
The hall being completely black, Dominic flicked on his light, sending a litter of rats scrambling for cover towards a door with an “EXIT” sign. The door led to a stairway. He concluded that if there were going to be any night walkers in the building, they would be at the lowest possible level to avoid any trace of sunlight and any squatters with balls enough to seek shelter there.
Dominic navigated through the herd of rats and opened the door to the stairway, following the beam of his flashlight downstairs with a firm grip on his Glock 22. He was ready to fire at any unwanted surprises. On the lower floor, a tilted “B” sign hung to the left side of a closed door. Another set of steps led to a level below. If this is the basement, what’s below the basement?