Final Stroke

by Michael Beres

  Sometimes when Jan visited, she wheeled Steve down to the televi sion lounge on his floor. Not so they could watch television, but be cause of the windowed alcove overlooking the entrance and the park ing lot and the woods that surrounded the place. The alcove reminded Steve of the living room at his and Jan’s apartment in Brookfield. Al though Jan had since moved into a wheelchair-friendly apartment on the first floor in preparation for his arrival home, the new apartment was directly below the old apartment and shared the same view. Like the windows in this alcove, it looked out at parking lot and woods be yond. The Brookfield Zoo was near the apartment complex hidden beyond a small wooded area. Sometimes on still evenings, when he and Jan had been on their way in from the car, they’d hear one of the elephants, a trumpet being practiced in the distance by someone learn ing to play. Whenever this happened, Jan would make a comment about the elephant sounding the way he sounded when they made love. And he would say he sounded that way because, before he met her, he used to climb the fence at night and have his way with many of the creatures in the zoo. And then she would say something to the effect that she knew this and his hairiness was part of the reason she married him. And he would tell her a joke from grade school about an elephant meeting up with a naked man and saying, “It’s cute, but how do you breathe through that little thing?”

  It wasn’t all coming back, but bits and pieces were. Except, why these memories? Why recall the sound of an elephant’s call and his and Jan’s playful comments? Because these were the truly important memories?

  Learning. Relearning. That was something Jan said he would have to do. She had been there from the start. The moment he opened his eyes in the hospital and didn’t know who the hell he was or who the hell she was, she had been there. The moment he opened his eyes to this world with its dubious past, she had been there. He was able to remember some of the things Jan told him. Like the elephants in the zoo, or like that morning she was in bed beneath the blankets and he came riding down the hallway and into the bedroom on her bicycle wearing nothing but her riding helmet. That was before they were married, and before they’d become so-called middle-aged citizens.

  He’d still been in the hospital when Jan told the story. He remem bered her sitting in the chair beside his hospital bed holding his hand. He remembered her eyes and her beautiful hair that had not gone gray but remained the same sandy brown it had been when they met. Al though at the time he did not think he could recall the incident in which he rode naked on her bicycle into the bedroom, Jan’s words had made the night come alive.

  She awoke from a dream in which she’d been riding her bike down a long hill. The road wound through a wood. Cool, calm, al ways downhill, the rear sprocket on her bike click-click-clicking as she coasted.

  She opened her eyes. The room was dark. She reached out.

  Gone. He was gone. Yet another one-night stand …

  But wait, a noise. Was he just leaving? A light on in the hallway, a shadow. A clicking like …

  Then he appeared, his hand at the light switch as the light came on. He coasted awkwardly into the room. He was naked and smil ing, wearing only her bicycle helmet. He coasted around to the far side of the bed, the front wheel jerking back and forth as he struggled to maintain balance. He got off the bike and leaned it against the dresser, his back to her.

  When she stopped laughing, she noticed red marks on his back where she had held him during the night, where she had scratched him. Then she saw redder marks on his buttocks. The marks caused by shrapnel when the window glass in his office had been blown in by a tossed bomb.

  “You’re a detective, Steve. You were a detective ten years ago when I hired you to find out who killed my first husband Frank. When we met, you’d just come off a case that got you in trouble with Miami hoods who came to Chicago and threw a bomb through your office window. Abortion clinics had been bombed and your investigation of a Miami bomb maker, who apparently did work for the mob down there, was not appreciated. Do you remember? After you started the case I was picked up by those men in the van who threatened me. They took off the police guard because that detective named Al Car roll didn’t believe me. You stayed with me that night. You’d picked up dinner at Szabo’s Hungarian restaurant. We fell in love that night.”

  Jan told the bicycle story again and again at the hospital, and again and again here at Hell in the Woods. She also told the story of his past without her. His past without her seeming even more removed because the only person he trusted and loved was doing the telling. Jan was the one who told him that before they met he had been dating Tamara, the same Tamara who visited him several times in the hos pital and here, the same Tamara with whom he exchanged e-mails as part of his therapy. Jan said that he and Tamara had met while he was a detective on the Chicago Police Department, and that Tamara was still with the Chicago Police Department, a lieutenant in homicide.

  Jan told these stories from the past here in the alcove where the windows gave a view of the entrance, parking lot, and the cold rain-soaked woods of March. Here in the television lounge with the large screen television throbbing in the far corner. Here in the television lounge where, just a moment ago, Brenda, one of the evening nurses’ aides, told him that she’d just gotten word from the first floor nursing facility that his friend Marjorie Gianetti had moved upstairs, which meant she was dead.

  He’d wanted to say something to Brenda about Marjorie. He turned the words over and over in his mind. Those damn backward upside-down inside-out words that were impossible to say. He’d wanted to say there was something not quite right about Marjorie’s death because he remembered Marjorie warning him of the danger posed by those polished tile floors in which you could sometimes see your reflection.

  He still wanted to say something. He wanted to ask how Marjorie had died. And when he wheeled himself out of the television lounge and into the group of others parked in their wheelchairs at the nurses’ station, the Hell in the Woods grapevine provided some answers that made him into Steve Babe, the detective, once again.

  Marjorie had fallen in the hallway near the entrance to the first floor nursing home facility activity room. At this time of evening the activity room was empty, and so was the long hallway leading to the room. The only other things down the hallway were the wing’s kitchen facilities and the loading dock, which was locked and alarmed in case a resident should try to walk out. Nobody knew why Marjo rie had wandered down that hallway so late in the evening. If a staff member hadn’t gone down the hall to retrieve something she’d left in the activity room, Marjorie might have lain there all night. She appar ently ventured there alone, walking without assistance and without her wheelchair. For some reason Marjorie had ventured out alone, walk ing, and had slipped on a wet spot in the middle of the hallway where another resident in the nursing facility wing apparently had an “acci dent” earlier in the day.

  The news was delivered by an elderly non-stroke resident from the first floor nicknamed So-long Sue. Sue was in her late eighties and, except for having to get around in a wheelchair, seemed in pretty good shape. Her hair, which should have been completely white, had been curled by the first floor beauty shop to a translucent lavender bushiness, except in back where it was “bed-head” flat as with most first floor women. When So-long Sue spoke, she made moves in her wheelchair much like someone trying to explain a complex matter to a small child. Steve had parked his wheelchair where he could listen to Sue, yet be able to listen in on the reactions of the nurse and aide at the station.

  “They call her So-Long Sue because the only way to get rid of her is to say so long and leave,” said the nurse.

  “She’s got a captive audience now,” said the aide. “That’s why she comes up here when there’s gossip to spread.”

  “What’s the gossip today?” asked the nurse.

  “One of the elderly ladies fell and hit her head and died before she got to the hospital,” said the aide.

  The nurse and aide stopped talking to listen to Sue
, who was be coming more animated.

  “It’s scandalous,” said Sue. “Two hours and the damn thing’s still there. They want us to think one of us made a puddle that big. If Marjorie were here instead of moving upstairs, I would have said to her, ‘Goodness gracious, Marjorie, if they think one of us girls did it, all they’d have to do is put their ears to the door when we take a pee. Then they’d hear for themselves.’ No matter how much they com plain about prostate, I bet it was one of the men.”

  The group of strokers reacted to this by looking to one another and smiling. But Steve did not feel like smiling, and listened intently as Sue continued.

  “Can you imagine it? An elderly resident who has also suffered a stroke like you poor people—but at least you young people have time to do something about it—slips in a pee puddle and dies and nobody even bothers to clean it up. They just send for the meat wagon and shovel out the body and everything’s back to normal. I can under stand them being short on staff, but this is ridiculous. A woman’s died and someone should have the decency to clean up the floor. If I were younger and worked as an aide down there I certainly would have done it. That was the way it was in my day. Women taking care of things after someone passes. Women putting things back the way they were.

  “Don’t they realize doing a day’s work in this place is better than old people sit and stretch exercises? Idiotic. You get old and end up a zoo monkey doing monkeyshines for peanuts. And with my dentures, I can’t even eat peanuts.”

  Sue shook her head and sighed. “Too bad about poor Marjorie.”

  After this final statement, Sue turned quickly and caterpillar-walked toward the elevators at a good clip.

  Marcia, the youngest women in the group of strokers waved so long to So-Long Sue, then said, “Now what?”

  Paul, another short-timer like Marcia, said, “We stare at our crotches. It’s what we do.”

  After a few chuckles, Marcia turned to Steve. “Steve? Your speech partner?”

  Steve nodded sadly as strokers caterpillar-walked past and gave their condolences. A new patient named Phil who had the room across from Steve was last to give Steve his condolences.

  Phil turned his wheelchair so that he was facing Steve, leaned for ward, and with great effort and apparent sincerity, said, “Jesus fuck.”

  Steve accepted this with the same nod of thanks he’d given the others and watched sadly as Phil wheeled away. It was the first time in a long time he’d been able to suspend the Pavlovian smile the stroke had given him. As the others in the group headed down the hall, he stayed behind and listened to the nurse and aide.

  “Under normal circumstances, talk like that might turn a few heads,” said the aide.

  “We had to put an ankle bracelet on Phil his first day because he tried to walk out,” said the nurse. “Rather than the usual problem coming up with words, that’s the only thing Phil ever says. Some resi dents think he probably used the phrase, “Jesus Fucking Christ” a lot during his lifetime and only two words of it are left.”

  “No shit,” said the aide.

  This time of evening there were usually a few procrastinators in the television lounge or wandering the hallway. But tonight, perhaps be cause of the news of death on the first floor, the hallway in the third floor stroke wing was completely empty.

  Steve had on his day clothes, not yet having changed into his pa jamas, but figured there was no way he could pass himself off as a handicapped visitor. Security was tight on the first floor at night. But what the hell, he’d take a chance. Yeah, he’d take a little roll down to the first floor and size up the crime scene, or the scene of the accident, which this probably was. And being that it most likely was an acci dent, there would be nothing at all suspicious about the ambulance whisking Marjorie Gianetti away and things getting back to “normal” so quickly.

  No one got on the elevator with him and it did not stop at the second floor. On the first floor, one of two things would happen. The passenger elevators faced the long reception counter in the lobby, and either a guard or one of the staff at the counter would recognize him and he’d be sent back to his room like a child, or the staff and the guards would be busy closing up for the night, waiting for the night shift guards who manned the counter until morning, and no one would notice him. It could go either way, the lady or the lion, but not much of a lady or a lion, not much risk at all. Laughable, in fact.

  When the elevator door slid open, he quickly wheeled out and around the corner using his good left hand, which he felt was becom ing stronger to make up for the atrophy of his right hand. He rolled away from the reception area and, apparently not being noticed by the busy staff behind the counter, headed down the long hall connecting the nursing home wing to the main building.

  Although Steve still had trouble recalling things from before his stroke, he was getting better at recalling things from the recent past. He knew that the activity center was a huge room at the far end of the wing. He would have to travel the entire length of the wing. First would be the intermediate nursing home patients, ones like Sue and Marjorie who could still get around. After intermediate he’d have to circle the nurses’ station in the center of the wing. Finally he’d have to pass through skilled care where most patients were bedridden. He assumed that at this time of evening, the wing staff would be busy, as they had been on his floor, helping residents who could not get them selves ready for bed.

  The hearsay at Hell in the Woods was that the nursing home wing turned into a block-long tomb quite early in the evening. But all was not quiet in the nursing home wing. He’d made it through the auto matic double doors and rolled the length of the intermediate section when he heard voices being raised. Apparently a few of the staff were in a room across the hall from the nurses’ station. As he approached the sound of the voices, he kept glancing behind him. He figured someone would come up from behind and he’d be sent back upstairs. But, so far, that hadn’t happened.

  When he got to the doorway from which the voices emerged, he paused, trying to think of a good reason for being here. But mostly, he wondered what had made him come here.

  The last time Jan visited, and they’d finished their usual emo tional greeting, which sometimes resulted in her closing the door and propping the guest chair against it so they could have a little privacy, she’d spoken again about the case he was on when they met. She had hired him to find out who killed her husband and someone else. Yes, someone he knew. Sam Pike. When Jan questioned him about the case, all he could remember at the time was that it had something to do with kids. He had no idea whose kids or how many kids. He sim ply remembered that the case had something to do with kids.

  Jan was quite excited about this, saying he was getting much bet ter at remembering things. For the few weeks since he’d been at Hell in the Woods, this is how it had gone with Jan. She would prompt him until he recalled some tidbit from the past—or from something she’d said on a previous visit, he wasn’t sure which—and she would use this recollection to begin telling him the details of an incident. When he’d recalled that the case involving Jan’s husband and Sam Pike had something to do with kids, she told what seemed like a tall tale, but insisted that every word of it was true.

  The part of the tale he recalled now was that there were some kids being held on an island and that they were in danger. Young men with automatic weapons guarded the island and it was up to him and Jan to help the kids get away. Apparently those responsible for her hus band’s and Sam Pike’s deaths were holding the kids. The kids were not related to him or to Jan, but someone had to help them. Jan said they took a rowboat out to the island in the dead of night. And some thing else. Jan said he had his violin with him. Crazy. Jan insisted he used to play the violin, and when she brought it into the hospital shortly after his stroke, he had to admit that, although he could not recall ever having played the violin before, he was able to make sounds on it. But they were terrible sounds, and when Jan said that was how he’d always played, he asked her
how she could stand it, and they both laughed like hell.

  But there was something more to this island story. Jan said what he did that night showed he was unwilling to let things go, that he was a detective through and through and always would be. Then she said something about him being honorable and that it was in his blood. This, of course, made him laugh. But Jan did not laugh. Instead, she said she would also be a detective, her first case being to help him re discover his world.

  So that was the answer, down here in the nursing home wing be cause finding out for certain if Marjorie had an accident or not was in his blood.

  Voices still came from the room across from the nurses’ station. As he inched nearer, he could tell they were women’s voices. Although he could not hear complete sentences, he heard one of the women screech out, “Eleven-inch dick! Really! Really he does!” This was followed by laughter and one of them stomping her foot and someone else having a coughing fit.

  He decided to take advantage of the moment. Last time he looked he didn’t quite measure up, so he knew they weren’t talking about him. As he pushed hard on the wheel with his left hand and swung his body to the left to correct the wheelchair’s direction, the laughter continued, but the voices seemed closer to the door. He pushed harder, sailing along, a breeze in his face that smelled like soap and bed linen and al cohol and urine. The end of the hallway was coming up fast and he slowed, using left hand on the wheel and left foot on the floor. A shat tered image from boyhood flashed by. Memorial Day out in the back yard with the radio propped in the kitchen window … Yes, listening to the Indianapolis 500!