How to Say Goodbye in Robot

by Natalie Standiford

  “You’d make a real cute couple,” Myrna said. “What are you waiting for?”

  “Myrna, I’ve got bionic hearing like the Six Million Dollar Man, and I can hear every word you say,” Larry interrupted. “What are you bothering that girl for? She don’t want a boyfriend, she don’t need to be pushed. She and Ghost Boy will fall in love when they’re ready.”

  “But they’re meant for each other,” Myrna said.

  “Sure, like crabcakes and crackers,” Larry said. “I didn’t say they wouldn’t get it on sometime.”

  “Isn’t it the Bionic Woman who has super hearing?” I said.

  “I wouldn’t know,” Myrna said.

  I glanced at Jonah. He was deep in a baseball argument with Don Berman.

  “The O’s are the Devil’s team, that’s why they don’t win,” Don said. “They’re on the side of Darkness. And Darkness never wins in baseball.”

  “You’re crazy,” Jonah said. “What about Steinbrenner and the Yankees? You ask me, Steinbrenner is the Devil.”

  “Steinbrenner is just a good businessman,” Don said. “And don’t call me crazy again. I’m touchy about it.”

  “Sorry, Don.”

  “Don Berman.”

  “Sorry.”

  “‘Sorry, Don Berman.’ Say it, kid, before I punch you in the face.”

  “Sorry, Don Berman,” Jonah said. “Jeez.”

  “Are you taking Our Lord’s name in vain?” Don Berman said. “No wonder the O’s stink. It’s the people of this city. Your souls are lacking! Lacking, I tell you!”

  “Keep it down, Don Berman,” Larry said. A strand of spaghetti stuck to his chin.

  “Tell your boyfriend to stay away from Don Berman,” Myrna said. “He starts fights with everyone.”

  “He’s not my—oh, never mind.”

  When the plates were cleared, Myrna said, “I need to tinkle. Come with me to the little girls’ room?”

  I didn’t have to tinkle, so I said no, thanks. Myrna got up and flounced away on her high heels, jangling with every step.

  “She wears a lot of jewelry, doesn’t she?” Larry asked me.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I like that. What about a wedding ring? You notice one?”

  “No, just a really big blue cocktail ring,” I said.

  “She’s one fine woman,” Larry said. “I wonder if she likes blind guys. We’re the best lovers, you know.”

  “Makes sense, I guess.”

  When Myrna came back, I whispered to her, “I think Larry from Catonsville likes you.”

  Larry tapped his right ear. “Bionic.”

  “Next time you have to tinkle, we’ll talk in the ladies’,” Myrna said to me. “You can’t hear through walls, can you?” she asked Larry.

  “Maybe I can and maybe I can’t,” Larry said. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  “I’ve got nothing to hide,” Myrna said.

  “I don’t believe that for a second,” Larry said. “Any woman worth the time’s got plenty to hide. That’s what I like about women.”

  “You don’t want to know my secrets,” Myrna said.

  “Yes, I do, and I’ve got ways of finding out,” Larry said. “Let’s show these kids how it’s done, Myrna. Go out with me.”

  Myrna didn’t say anything.

  “I should warn you, I don’t drive,” Larry added.

  “I don’t date people I only know from the radio,” Myrna said.

  “What better way to know someone?” Larry said. “I listen to your voice every night and think, That’s a good woman, cheering people up with poems and funny little ideas. And with a voice like that she must be fine-looking too. Is she, Robot Girl?”

  “Very,” I said.

  “I knew it,” Larry said.

  “Well, you’re not so good-looking,” Myrna said. “You’re no Elvis, I tell you that. You’re not even Tom Jones.”

  “Elvis is a pretty high standard to hold a man to,” Larry said.

  “Too bad,” Myrna said. “That’s my standard. Elvis is my ideal and I’m sticking to it.” She set her mouth in a firm ruby-red line.

  Larry was quiet for the rest of the lunch. During dessert I heard him humming “After the Lovin’” under his breath. Myrna heard it too.

  “Don’t count your chickens, Larry,” she warned.

  After lunch, riding home through the city in Gertie, Jonah said, “Are you disappointed?”

  “Disappointed?” I tugged at a nylon thread poking out of the vinyl upholstery. “No. Why?”

  “To meet those radio people in person,” he said. “To see what they look like. To watch them interact in real time, with food between their teeth and moles on their chins and white canes to help them walk and cheap brown shoes.”

  “Well, I—” Some of the Night Lights did look different from the way I’d imagined. But once I saw them, my imaginary pictures popped like cartoon bubbles and their real selves solidified in my mind. “I could tell by his voice that Don Berman wore cheap brown shoes.”

  “But you never actually thought about it, right?” Jonah said. “You never thought, I bet his shoes are ugly. If I asked you, Do you think Don Berman wears cheap brown shoes? you’d probably say yes. But unless someone mentioned shoes, all you thought about was what he was saying. What the world inside his head must look like. That’s what I did.”

  “Not me,” I said. “I pictured apartments and houses and clothes and hairstyles for all of them. I imagined Burt’s Amoco station and his oil-stained gray workshirt…Of course, I was wrong about a lot of it. I thought Myrna would be a redhead, for some reason. I thought Herb would be handsomer. And I didn’t guess that Larry was blind…Are you disappointed?”

  “I don’t know,” Jonah said. “I like them all—it’s not that. But I’ve been listening to the show for four years. This is the first time I’ve seen any of those characters. In my mind, they were almost mythological, like pirates or fairies or witches.” He shook his head, as if to shake the visions away. “It’s my own stupid fault. My brain’s all messed up.”

  “The show will be just as good now, you’ll see,” I said. “Maybe even better. Before, the other callers were like characters in a play. Now they’ll be like family.”

  “Maybe that’s what I’m afraid of,” Jonah said.

  “Oh.” I slumped in my seat, realizing what I’d just said. “You’re right. Well, we won’t let them be family the way we know family. They’ll be characters…in a movie we live in.”

  “That’s better,” Jonah said.

  We were quiet the rest of the way home, lost in our own thoughts. I was thinking about Myrna, wondering what she’d say if she ever met Mom. I didn’t know what Jonah was thinking, but he was probably thinking about Matthew and our visit the next day. When he pulled up in front of my house, he said, “I’ll pick you up at noon tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be ready,” I said.

  Matthew was less than a day away.

  CHAPTER 13

  The St. Francis Home occupied the grounds of an old estate in Baltimore County. The main building was a rambling stone mansion, ivy-covered, manicured, and elegant except for the iron gates on the windows.

  On Sunday afternoon, Jonah and I approached a nurse sitting behind glass in the reception area. “My name is Jonah Tate, and I’m here to see my brother. Matthew Tate.”

  The nurse looked up, surprised. She riffled through an appointment book. “I don’t see your name here—”

  “I didn’t call,” Jonah said. “It’s kind of a spur of the moment thing.” Jonah was afraid that if he made an appointment to see Matthew, his father would find out and try to stop us.

  “You should have made an appointment,” the nurse said.

  “I know, but I’m an impulsive guy,” Jonah said. “Come on, it’s Christmastime. See that wreath? Hear those carols? My poor brother is lonely.”

  “Just a second.” The nurse disappeared into a back office. A few minutes later she reappeared and said, �
��Dr. Kramer will be with you shortly.”

  We sat on a bench under a giant wreath and waited.

  “Will he look like you?” I whispered. “Are you identical?”

  “We are,” Jonah said. “We’ll find out what I’d look like without motor control.”

  Dr. Kramer walked toward us down the long hall, her heels clicking on the waxed floor. She was a thin, neat woman with stiffly coifed hair and a tidy brown tweed suit. She carried a file under one arm.

  “Jonah?” We stood up. She offered him her hand to shake. “This is a surprise. I’m Dr. Kramer. I’m the supervising administrator of St. Francis.”

  “This is my friend Beatrice Szabo,” Jonah said.

  “Where’s your father?” Dr. Kramer asked.

  “He didn’t come.”

  “I see. Do you have his permission to be here?”

  “Do I need it?” Jonah asked back.

  “You’re a minor, aren’t you?” Dr. Kramer opened the file and ran a finger along a page. “Sibling: Jonah Martin Tate. You’re Matthew’s twin brother, correct? So you’re only seventeen.”

  “I’ll be eighteen in the spring,” Jonah said, and a note of plaintiveness crept into his voice that I’d never heard before.

  “Perhaps I should call your father and ask his permission,” she said.

  “He’ll say no,” Jonah said.

  “Well, he’s in charge of Matthew’s care,” Dr. Kramer said. “We have to respect his wishes.”

  “What about Matthew’s wishes?” Jonah said. He brought out the Christmas card. “He sent this to me. I know he wants to see me.”

  Dr. Kramer took the card and looked at it. “This isn’t from Matthew. I don’t know how you got this, but Matthew has no way of sending mail.”

  Jonah pointed out the bit of Catso’s fuzz. “It is from him. This fuzz comes from his favorite toy. I can prove it.”

  “That’s not necessary.” Dr. Kramer returned the card.

  “Has my father come to visit Matthew?”

  “Not for a while,” Dr. Kramer admitted.

  “Please let me see him,” Jonah said. “Just for a short time. What harm could it do? Dad never has to know. Who’s going to tell him?”

  “You could,” Dr. Kramer said. “Or your friend.”

  “Trust me, we won’t,” Jonah said. “Have you ever met my father?”

  “No, I’ve only spoken to him on the telephone.”

  “If you had, you’d know that behind his back is the best way to deal with him,” Jonah said.

  “Dr. Kramer,” I said. “He reached out to Jonah. Matthew reached out.”

  “He can’t reach out. It’s some kind of mistake.” She frowned at the card. She looked at me and Jonah, sizing us up. Jonah straightened his posture.

  “He’s in the dayroom,” she said. “But prepare yourself, Jonah. It looks calm and pretty in the main building but the patients…most of them are neither calm nor pretty. You might get upset.”

  She called a nurse. “Will you please take Mr. Tate and his friend to see Matthew Tate in the dayroom?”

  The nurse nodded. Dr. Kramer said to Jonah, “If you would like to speak to me afterward, the nurse can bring you upstairs to my office. Good luck. And don’t stay long.”

  “Thank you,” Jonah said.

  We followed the nurse through an enclosed walkway to another building. This one was no mansion, more like an elementary school.

  A buzz grew louder as we walked down the hall. The nurse opened the door to a large, gym-like dayroom, and the buzz became a roar. Sunlight filtered through high, gated windows that ran along the ceiling. The dayroom reminded me of a cafeteria, full of squirming, shaking, shouting, muttering people, many in wheelchairs with helmets on their heads to protect them from falls. Most of them were adults, but there were a few children and teens clustered together at a table around a hunk of yellow clay. An aide stood nearby, keeping a girl from stuffing the clay into her mouth. No matter how many times the aide told her no, the girl wouldn’t stop trying to eat it.

  A boy sat at the table in a wheelchair, helmeted and propped up with straps. He pounded a lump of clay with one hand. Before the nurse said a word, I knew it was Matthew.

  Scraps of blond hair peeked out from under the helmet. His bleary, unfocused eyes were a familiar white-gray color, but they lacked the sharpness, the bite of Jonah’s. If Jonah’s eyes were pond ice, Matthew’s, in his slack face, were skim milk. You could tell they were twins, yet Matthew didn’t really look like Jonah at all.

  “Here he is,” the nurse said, leaning toward Matthew. “Matthew, this is your brother, Jonah. He’s come to visit you.” She straightened up and said to Jonah, “I don’t know if he understands or not. He can’t talk or communicate in any way, so it’s hard to tell.”

  But Matthew’s eyes sharpened slightly. He recognized Jonah.

  “Hi, Matthew. Merry Christmas,” Jonah said. “I should have brought you a present, but I didn’t know what you’d need.”

  “I’m sure your visit is a present enough,” the nurse said.

  “But he might like something, as a treat,” Jonah said. “Something special. A book, maybe? A book with pictures?”

  “I don’t know how much it would mean to him. He loves pounding clay. And he loves that stuffed cat. He brought it with him when he arrived. It’s practically falling apart.”

  The stuffed cat—small, dirty, yellow, with black tiger stripes and worn fur—sat in Matthew’s lap, leashed to the arm of his wheelchair. It was the negative image of the Evil Miss Frankenheimer, only much more worn. Jonah reached for it slowly.

  “Catso,” Jonah said.

  Matthew jerked. “Uh! Uh!”

  “I think he understood you,” I said.

  “I don’t know,” the nurse said. “Sometimes it seems like they understand you, but they don’t. It’s just a coincidence. Or they’re reacting to something else.”

  “That’s crazy,” Jonah said. “Of course he knows Catso. Matthew’s had him since he was a baby.”

  He picked up Catso and danced him around in front of Matthew as if he were fencing an invisible opponent. Matthew watched carefully, then jerked again and shouted, “Uh!” He hit the yellow clay.

  “Catso and the Evil Miss Frankenheimer used to sword fight all the time,” Jonah said. “Matt loved it.”

  The other patients watched Jonah play with Matthew, their faces slack, their eyes following Catso’s every move. Jonah looked different in the fluorescent glare of the dayroom: more solid, somehow.

  An aide appeared beside the nurse and said, “I’m taking Matthew. It’s time for his medication.” The aide stood behind Matthew’s wheelchair, ready to roll him away. Jonah jolted.

  “We just got here. Give us a few more minutes. Please.”

  “We’re on a strict schedule,” the aide said. “You can visit him another time.”

  “That’s the problem,” Jonah said. “I don’t know if I can. I haven’t seen him in ten years.”

  “Really? Huh,” the aide said. “Then you can wait a week or two before you see him again. Come on, Matthew.” He wheeled Matthew away. Catso’s leash pulled taut and Jonah tossed him onto Matthew’s lap. Matthew didn’t turn around to look at us. Maybe he couldn’t. He just kicked his legs a little.

  “Is he coming back soon?” Jonah asked. “From medication time?”

  “No. Visitor’s hours are over,” the nurse said. “Would you like to see Dr. Kramer?”

  “Not now,” Jonah said. “I’ll be back soon. What are the visitor’s hours on Saturday?”

  “I think he remembered me,” Jonah said in the car on the way home. “Do you think he remembered me?”

  “I know he did,” I said.

  “Everything is going to be different now,” Jonah said.

  CHAPTER 14

  On Christmas morning, Mom fell down the steps, ripping the garland of holly off the banister. Then she threw up.

  She seemed okay after that. “Just let me rest he
re a minute,” she said from the hall carpet. “Then we can open our presents.”

  Dad and I drove her to the emergency room, anyway, to make sure she didn’t have a concussion.

  “Your mother’s a wreck,” Dad said. We sat in the hospital waiting room on yellow vinyl chairs. Mine was torn. I picked at the tear, making it grow.

  “What tipped you off?” I said.

  Mom didn’t have a concussion. Her ankle hurt a little. The doctor figured the vomiting was a coincidence. She’d been throwing up a lot lately, and she just happened to do it again after she fell down the steps.

  We drove home and continued our Christmas customs (after I cleaned the puke off the rug) as if everything was normal. We sat by the fire and opened our presents one at a time, taking turns, while Bing Crosby played on the stereo. Then we had breakfast, even though it was two-thirty already. Our Christmas was running late because we’d spent so much time waiting at the hospital.

  We called my aunt and uncle and cousins in Denver to wish them a Merry Christmas. We called Gran in Florida. At six o’clock it was time to eat. We always ate Christmas dinner at six.

  But we weren’t that hungry, because we’d just had breakfast. And the turkey wasn’t ready. It was pink inside. Dad said we couldn’t eat it yet or we might get violently ill. “I think we’ve had enough illness for one day,” he said, and put the turkey back in the oven.

  “We should have made chicken instead,” Mom said with teary eyes.

  I banged my head on the table. Dad patted my hair. “I sympathize,” he said. “But don’t hurt yourself.”

  At eight, I fixed myself a plate of stuffing, mashed potatoes, and creamed spinach and went into the living room to watch It’s a Wonderful Life. I could watch that movie a million times. I could watch it every day for the rest of my life and never get sick of it.

  People think It’s a Wonderful Life is a sappy movie, but they’re wrong. It’s sad. George Bailey is no saint. He’s angry. He hates his family. He wants to travel the world and have adventures, but his family keeps stopping him. He even says to his wife, “Why do we have to have all these kids?” People tell themselves George doesn’t mean that, he’s just upset at that moment. But he does mean it. Sure, he loves his wife and kids, in that helpless way people love their families. He’s stuck with them, so he makes the best of a bad situation. He’s a hero because he makes something good out of a life he doesn’t want. I’d like to be able to do that. I hope it’s something you can learn.