by James Siegel
“Huh?”
“I called to ask you about your wallet.”
“Huh?”
“He’s still a little groggy,” Mrs. Flaherty said. “Aren’t you, Dennis?”
“Uh-huh,” he said. “What’s your name again?”
“Tom. Tom Valle. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“About what?”
“About where you might’ve lost your wallet. About who might’ve taken it?”
“My wallet?”
“The wallet that was stolen. That turned up in a car with a dead body.”
Dennis was still rubbing his eyes; he appeared to be listing left, like someone on a sinking ship.
“There was an accident, Dennis. A car was set on fire-someone was in it. He had your wallet on him. They thought you were dead-your mom thought you were dead. Remember?”
Mrs. Flaherty reached over and rubbed Dennis’s arm, as if making sure he was actually there and not six feet underground.
“My wallet, huh?”
It was like talking to the elderly-to Anna’s father, maybe. Someone who’s misplaced their mind.
“If you give me a minute, I’ll invite you in,” Mrs. Flaherty said.
She retreated into the trailer and I heard the clatter of things being moved from one place to another. Dennis remained in the doorway, staring down at me with a slightly puzzled expression. A man walked out of the next trailer, nodded in Dennis’s direction, then leaned against a garbage can and lit up a joint.
“You said you didn’t have your wallet in the hospital. Are you sure?”
“The hospital?”
“The VA hospital.”
“I let myself out, man.”
“They didn’t officially discharge you?”
“I let myself out.”
“Okay, Dennis.”
Mrs. Flaherty reappeared in the doorway. She’d changed into a skirt that looked twenty years too young for her.
“Come on in, Tom,” she said.
When I walked inside, I was immediately assaulted by the astringent smell of household cleaner-the cheap kind they use in hospitals. She’d attempted a quick makeover to impress me.
She needn’t have bothered. Ty Pennington wouldn’t have been able to do much with the place.
It looked like a FEMA shelter. Yellow water stains trailed down the walls. A relic of a fridge emitted a constant hum. The screen door meant to separate the kitchen from the bedrooms hung half off its metal track. There was a kitchen table of sorts, but its linoleum top had mostly disappeared.
“Sit down, Tom,” she said.
“That’s all right,” I said. It was unbearably hot-not even a fan to move the fetid air from one part of the trailer to another.
Dennis had remained pretty much where he was, simply turning his body so he could keep staring at me as if I were an alien who’d shown up for breakfast.
“Would you like something to eat?” Mrs. Flaherty asked me, as if she were thinking the same thing. “You must be hungry driving all that way.”
“No, thank you. I had something on the road.” I could still taste the rancid sweetness that even hours later stubbornly stuck to my tongue. I turned back to Dennis.
“Before you went into the hospital, you said, you were living on the streets. Which ones?”
“Dunno.”
“You must know what city you were in?”
“Ummm… Detroit. I think.”
“Detroit. Great. What part?”
“By the park.”
“What park?”
“The ballpark.”
“Comerica Park? Where the Tigers play?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Okay. How long were you there?”
“Dunno.”
“Well, was it a year? Two years? Three?”
“Not sure.”
“How’d you survive-how’d you eat?”
“At the Marriott.”
“You ate in a hotel?”
“Behind the Marriott. Where they threw out the garbage.”
Mrs. Flaherty put her hand to her mouth to keep something from coming out. She probably hadn’t asked Dennis what life was like on the streets-she wouldn’t have wanted to know about that.
“Okay, Dennis. Did you have your wallet there? In Detroit?”
“Think so. Time for my pill, Mom.”
“You already had your pill, Dennis.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, son. You did.”
“What’s he taking?” I asked her. “Lithium?”
She shrugged.
“Okay, Dennis. You think you had your wallet when you were in Detroit? When you were living by Comerica Park.”
Another blank stare.
“Let’s say you did.”
“Okay.”
“Where’d you go after Detroit? Take your time. Think about it.”
“Seattle, maybe. I think.”
“How long were you in Seattle?”
“It rained a lot.”
“Yeah. How long were you there, Dennis?”
“Dunno. It rained a lot.”
“Did you still have your wallet? In Seattle?”
“Yeah.”
“How do you know?”
“I showed it at the VA.”
“You remember that. You’re sure? You showed your wallet at the VA office in Seattle?”
“Mom, I need my pill.”
“No, Dennis. You had your pill. I gave you one this morning.”
“Okay.”
“Dennis,” I said. “Why did you show your wallet at the VA?”
“I showed them my VA card. I needed help.”
“So they put you in the hospital there? In Seattle?”
“Nope.”
“You went to a VA hospital, Dennis.”
“Yeah.”
“In Seattle.”
“Nope. I need my pill, Mom. It’s time for my pill.”
“Dennis, listen. Your mom says she gave you your pill already, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Where was the VA hospital, Dennis? The one you went into?”
“Dunno.”
“It wasn’t in Seattle? You went to the VA office in Seattle. That’s what you just told me. You needed help, isn’t that what you just said?”
“Yeah.”
“What happened?”
“The computers were down. It was raining.”
“They didn’t help you in Seattle?”
“Nope.”
“Okay. Where was the hospital, Dennis? We’re making progress here-we know you had your wallet in Seattle. You took it out and showed your VA card. You remember doing that. Where was the hospital? Where’d you go after Seattle?”
Dennis was slumping, swaying with his eyes half-closed, like a music lover lost in his favorite symphony.
“He needs to take a nap,” Mrs. Flaherty said. “It’s the pills.”
“Can you stay awake a little longer, Dennis?”
“I’m tired.”
“I know you’re tired. Maybe you can stay awake a few more minutes. I need to know the name of that hospital.”
“I’m tired. I’m taking a nap, Mom.”
“Okay, Dennis.” She brushed past me and took him by the arm, leading him into the recesses of the trailer as if he were blind. As if he were still two years old and she still told him bedtime stories in the middle of the afternoon. Maybe the whole thing wasn’t as sad as it looked. She’d been deserted, by death or divorce; her son had come back to her; and now she got to be a mother again. Maybe a better one than she’d been before.
“Maybe you should go,” Mrs. Flaherty said when she reappeared.
“How long does he usually nap for?” I asked.
“All those questions tired him out. He’s not used to that. I think you should go. Okay?”
“I need him to tell me what hospital he broke out of. Maybe I’ll wait till he wakes up.”
“What difference does it make? Who cares w
hat hospital?”
She sat down at the kitchen table. She looked out the screened-in window, which was letting in the pungent smell of homegrown weed.
“Would you like some coffee?” she asked. “It’s instant-but it’s okay.”
When Dennis woke up, we took a walk around the trailer park.
It was murderously hot inside the trailer and only a little less brutal outside. The air felt like a wet towel.
Dennis said he’d been in Desert Storm and that the petrochemicals in the air had poisoned him.
“Saddam’s killed me, man.”
“Did they check you out for that?”
“Huh?”
“For chemical poisoning?”
“Don’t think so. They have no clue.”
Dennis seemed a little more coherent after his nap. Mrs. Flaherty said he had moments like this, where lucidity flooded back and Dennis seemed more or less like his old self.
“Can we talk about the hospital, Dennis?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think you lost your wallet there. Somebody stole it, maybe.”
“Could be. That marine fucker, maybe.”
“Who was that?”
“He was nuts,” Dennis said, as if he himself were perfectly sane. “Those marines are fucking crazy.”
“Why do you think it was him?”
“I don’t know. His wife went commando on him. When he was overseas, man. Eighty-sixed his kids.”
“She killed his children?”
“That’s right. Buried them somewhere along Route 80. Then shot herself in the fucking head. He went AWOL looking for their bodies for like a year. Couldn’t find them.”
“Why do you think he stole your wallet?”
“Dunno.”
“Well, why’d you say it was him?”
“I showed him my son-in my wallet.”
“So you did have your wallet there. See, Dennis-we know you had it with you in the VA hospital.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You showed him a picture of your kid. How old is your son, Dennis?”
“Dunno. She won’t let me see him. Fucking bitch.”
He was obviously referring to the other Mrs. Flaherty, the one his mother couldn’t say enough bad things about.
“What happened when you showed the marine the picture in your wallet?”
“Nothing.”
“Okay. So why do you think he stole it?”
“Dunno. Maybe he wanted the picture.”
“What would he want a picture of someone else’s kid?”
“He’s a crazy fucker-I told you.”
“Well, was he still there when you left?”
“Sure. He’s crazy.”
“So it wasn’t him, Dennis. Your wallet ended up with someone in California.”
“No kidding.”
“Was the marine black?”
“No.”
“Okay. Forget about the marine. Think about it. You had your wallet and then you didn’t. What happened?”
He shrugged.
“Did they discharge you, Dennis?”
“I let myself out.”
“You took off.”
“I let myself out.”
“How’d you get the pills?”
“Huh?”
“The medication. They gave you your dose every day, right?”
“Affirmative.”
“So how’d you get the pills? The ones you have with you?”
“Oh, that.”
“Oh that what?”
“I requisitioned them.”
“You stole them.”
“I need them, man.”
“What are you going to do when you run out?”
“Huh?”
“When you run out of your pills, where are you going to get more?”
“We have a problem, Houston.”
“Where was the hospital, Dennis?”
“Hard to say.”
“You remember the marine.”
“Affirmative.”
“You remember showing him a picture of your son in your wallet.”
“Affirmative.”
“Where’s the hospital, Dennis?”
“Dunno.”
His mind played hide-and-seek with him. Maybe it was the drugs, or maybe it was the petrochemicals from Iraq, or maybe he was just as crazy as the marine-searching the labyrinthine pathways of his cerebrum for memories, the way the marine searched Route 80 for his dead children.
“Well, we know it wasn’t Seattle.”
I thought about calling every VA hospital in America, but federal psych patients were protected by privacy and I didn’t hold out much hope they’d tell me anything. In most mental hospitals, patients weren’t even listed in the registry.
“Remember which direction you went in when you left Seattle? How did you travel, anyway?”
“My thumb, man.”
“You hitched.”
“Affirmative.”
“Remember who picked you up?”
“A man.”
“Yeah, I don’t think a woman would’ve stopped for you.”
We’d come to a playground. It wasn’t much-just two swings and a see-saw-but there were several small kids there, enough of them to make some of them have to wait their turn. A few mothers, chain-smoking cigarettes and looking old beyond their years, were standing off to the side watching them with little interest.
“South,” Dennis said.
“What?”
“The direction I went in. I went south. There’s not a lot of north left when you’re in Seattle.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
Dennis liked to read the passing road signs out loud.
“Dawsville. Exit 42. One mile.”
“Boise. Exit 59. Quarter mile.”
“Roadwork ahead. Next ten miles.”
I became used to it and eventually stopped looking at the signs altogether since I had my own human OnStar satellite system sitting right next to me.
When the distance between signs stretched for miles, Dennis would switch to reading passing license plates.
“A6572G4.”
“M87GT2.”
As traveling companions go, he wasn’t bad. Except for the near-constant drone, he remained affably calm and even drifted off on occasion-though he nearly always awoke in time for the next road alert.
When I put on some music, he told me he used to play guitar in a Metallica knockoff band, and even sang two lines from “St. Anger” in fair facsimile of James Hetfield.
There were five VA hospitals south of Seattle.
If need be, we were going to visit each and every one of them.
Dennis was my guide. It might’ve been the blind leading the blinder, but he was all I had.
It had taken some doing to get him into the car.
He’d just broken out of a VA hospital; he didn’t particularly feel like going back. Mrs. Flaherty had looked at me as if I’d turned as crazy as her son when I told her what I had in mind.
Dennis was running out of meds, I told her. That was a fact.
He was still clearly disturbed-that was also a fact.
It might not have been the smartest thing in the world for Dennis to have escaped from a federal psych ward, either. I didn’t know if having voluntarily committed himself absolved him from anything-but if it didn’t, I wasn’t going to bring it up.
I needed him.
It was the meds that convinced the both of them. She had no money for psychiatrists. She was one of the 40 million or so Americans without health insurance. Dennis needed the U.S. Army if he was going to stay on his regimen of antipsychotics.
The hospital was the best place for him-sad but true.
I would take him back there.
If we could find it.
I called Norma from North Dakota.
I’d dipped into my dwindling ATM resources again and paid for two rooms at the Sioux Nation Motel, which sported a mini-casino in the check-in area.
“I have bad news for you, Tom,” she said. “Laura passed away last night.”
Hinch’s wife.
That was bad news, but in the scheme of things not the worst thing I’d heard recently. There was that gunshot from the speeding blue pickup, for example.
“How’s Hinch taking it?” I asked.
My suspension notwithstanding, Hinch had always been good to me. He’d given me a chance when no one else on earth would’ve even considered it.
“About the way you’d expect. You know Hinch-God knows what he’s really thinking half the time. He keeps it bottled up real tight. He was pretty devoted to her.”
“Yeah. How’s Nate doing?”
“Okay. He had a little infection yesterday so they put him on stronger antibiotics. His mom’s here.”
“Yeah, I know. I saw her at the hospital.”
“No, I mean she’s here. In my house. I’m putting her up.”
“That’s nice of you, Norma.”
“The least I can do for the poor woman. Where are you, Tom? You sound far away.”
“North Dakota.”
“What in God’s name are you doing in North Dakota?”
“We’re looking for something.”
“Who’s we’re?”
“Me and my traveling companion.”
“Who would that be, Tom?”
“That would be the deceased from the car accident on Highway 45.”
“You’re scaring me, Tom, you know that?”
“Okay. He’s not actually dead. Though sometimes he appears that way.”
There was a small silence-the only sound coming from The 100 Best Songs from the ’80s on the motel TV. They were up to number 22: “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.”
“Tom?”
“Yes, Norma?”
“All this stuff you’re talking about-I heard about some of it from Mary-Beth, who heard it from I don’t know who-you aren’t making it up, are you?”
“No, Norma.”
“I’ve never asked you about, you know… New York and all that.”
She hadn’t. For a long time, I’d wondered if she even knew. It wasn’t like she read the national papers-as far as I could tell, I’d never made Us magazine.
“I know.”
“I figured if you wanted to talk about it, you would.”
“Right.”
“So, you want to talk about it?”
“Not really.”
“Okay, Tom. You didn’t give someone your gun to shoot at you, did you?”
“No, Norma.”
“Yeah, I thought that sounded kind of nuts. That’s what they’re saying, though.”