by Shawn Inmon
Mrs. Simpson reached her hand out from the bed. He took it, held it.
A new nurse came in. “Hello, I’m Barb. Tilly is tied up with another patient, but asked me to take some blood.” She tied a tube around Mrs. Simpson’s thin arm, patted her skin several times until she found a vein, then deftly inserted the needle and drew blood into a vial.
“Tilly will be back for you in just a moment. She’s taking you up to the second floor for an ECG.”
“What about my husband?”
Barb looked at Mrs. Simpson, then Mr. Simpson. “Does he need looking after?”
“He’s fine, but some days he gets a little lost. This is one of those days.”
“Don’t you worry. We’ve got a waiting room that is perfect for him. I’ll keep an eye on him for you.”
“If you could turn the television on for him, that’s all he needs.”
“Of course.”
Barb hurried out, again sliding the curtain shut.
Ada held Albert’s hand in both of hers. “Albert?”
Albert stared over her head.
She sharpened her voice. “Albert.”
He looked at her. Smiled. “Yes, dear?”
“They’re going to take me for some tests. I’ll be in a room where you can’t be for a little while. The nurse is going to take you to where you can watch the television.”
“Fine. That’s fine.”
“Do you have a pen and paper?”
Albert absent-mindedly patted the pockets of his coat.
“Check the inside pocket.”
Albert withdrew a blue Bic pen and held it in front of him.
“Paper? Check your other pocket.”
He searched the other pocket, withdrew a faded yellow piece of paper, handed it to her.
Ada Simpson unfolded it. It was a receipt for dry cleaning the coat, dated October, 1992.
Painfully, she lifted her knees, smoothed the paper out, and began to write. When she was done, she handed the pen and paper back to Albert. “Put the pen back in your coat pocket, but put this note in your shirt pocket. It’s got Suzie’s number in Seattle on it, in case you need it. If someone asks you how to get in touch with Suzie, just give them this.”
Albert did as she said. Once more, she reached for him. As he took her hand, the curtain opened, and both Tilly and Barb strode through.
“We’re ready for you now, Mrs. Simpson. I’m going to take you upstairs. Barb will get your husband settled in the second floor waiting room until he can come into your room.” She looked into Mrs. Simpson’s eyes. “Are you feeling worse?”
Mrs. Simpson nodded. “I’d like to see the doctor now.”
“Of course. He’ll be in to see you as soon as the ECG is completed.” She unlocked the wheels and pushed the bed into the hallway.
“Just one moment, please.”
The nurses stopped, looked at her.
Mrs. Simpson pulled Mr. Simpson toward her. She kissed him, her paper-thin lips barely touching his. A thousand memories of their life flooded her, threatening to swamp her.
She touched his cheek and cocked her head sideways. “I love you, Albert Simpson.”
He smiled at her happily, took her hand again in his.
“Okay, we can go now. Thank you.”
The nurses moved her away. Mrs. Simpson’s hand slipped from her husband’s.
Barb stepped in front of Mr. Simpson, said, “Let’s get you settled in. It will just be a little while.”
Two hours later, Mr. Simpson was sitting in the chair in the waiting room. He was watching a show where two men drove a van down empty highways, through small towns, then took turns digging in barns full of old junk.
A short man wearing a shirt and tie and a long white coat, walked up to him. “Mr. Simpson?”
Albert Simpson continued looking at the television. One of the two men was holding up the rusted frame of an old bicycle and smiling. Albert smiled, too. That man has such a nice face.
The short man sat down in the seat next to Albert Simpson, partially blocking his view of the television. He reached out and touched his arm.
“Mr. Simpson, I’m Dr. Lemuda. I’m very sorry to tell you that your wife has passed. We did everything we could for her, but she was having an acute myocardial infarction when she got here. A heart attack.”
Albert Simpson looked at the doctor, but gave no reaction.
“I’m very sorry. Is there anyone here with you?”
“I’m here with my wife. She said she would be done soon.”
Understanding passed across Dr. Lemuda’s face.
“Yes. I see.” He glanced around the empty waiting room.
“Do you have any children? Do they live nearby?”
“Yes. We have a daughter. Suzie.”
Dr. Lemuda took a deep breath, held it for a long moment.
“Do you have Suzie’s number?”
“Number?”
“Telephone number.”
Albert Simpson’s eyes drifted away to the television set, now showing a commercial for car insurance.
Absently, he pulled a sheet of paper from his shirt pocket.
Dr. Lemuda took it from his hand. He looked at it, then raised his eyes to the ceiling before rubbing his forehead.
The note read: Please call our daughter, Susan. Her number is 206-555-2863. She can be here in less than two hours and knows what to do.
When Dr. Lemuda turned the paper over, he saw this: Suzie – I am so sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye. This happened too fast. I always thought there would be more time. You know I will always love you. Help your father as much as you can. I will be with you both.
Dr. Lemuda swallowed a lump. “Mr. Simpson? I’m going to call your daughter. Are there any other questions I can answer for you?”
Albert Simpson focused on the doctor. For a moment, light shone in his eyes—a glimpse of the man inside. Almost immediately, that light faded. He nodded. “What’s for lunch?"
Author’s Note for The Short Goodbye
I debated whether to include this story or not. It is very short. It is really more of a vignette than it is a short story. Still, in the end, I like it, and I think you might as well. Like the similar story in this collection called One Last Cup of Tea, it deals with a simple question: what will life be like for us when the person we love most is gone?
I think I gave Albert Simpson dementia in this story because I thought that was kindest. It was a way to help him, who is a stand in for me, avoid that pain and loss. Having written a very similar story from two different perspectives, I think I can be done with it now.
The Legacy of August Wolf
I never intended to kill her. In truth, I don’t even remember doing it.
In any case, life here isn’t as bad as I expected. It is orderly, and I’ve always liked order. The food is abhorrent, and the company I am forced to keep is contemptible, but all things considered my situation could be worse. I have plenty of time to think and research my next book, and I am allowed my Underwood typewriter, which I am using to write this tale. I assume you may have read the sensationalized news reports of the unfortunate end of this story, and I would like to take this opportunity to set the record straight.
My name is Lawrence J. Culverhouse. If you are a fan of the late, great rock and blues musician August Wolf, you’ve undoubtedly heard of me. If not, more’s the pity for you–but you may rejoice that you still have his works to discover. August Wolf was Dylan before Robert Zimmerman stole his poet’s name, a pioneer in popular music long before those mop-topped Liverpudlians launched their invasion of our shores. He was creating sonic masterpieces a decade before those ill-smelling hippies began pouring out of Greenwich Village and Haight-Ashbury.
That August Wolf is almost unknown today, a mere half-century after his untimely demise, is a crime. If there were justice in this world, radio stations around the world would still be playing his music every day, and he wouldn’t be locked away in the Golden Oldies dung
eon.
Of course, there are connoisseurs of fine music, acolytes of audio, who worship at the musical throne of King August, and I am no doubt preeminent among them. The Good Lord gave me ears with which to hear–and I did, to the sweetest sounds ever to issue forth from a Fender Stratocaster.
Unfortunately, if you are aware of Mr. Wolf and his body of work, it is likely through hearing his one unfortunate concession to popular music, The 1-2-3-4, Ready to Hit the Floor Rag, from 1957. That he is known for that, instead of any of his compositions of true genius, is akin to Da Vinci being remembered for a glob of paint he dropped on the floor of the Sistine Chapel.
I’ve done what I can, of course, to remedy this paucity of knowledge and appreciation. I have written five books about Mr. Wolf, including my best known volume, Who Dat Knockin’ on My Front Door? The Life and Times of August Wolf. However, given the rather limited appeal to teenagers who would rather listen to the latest floppy-haired, auto-tuned teen idol, or adults who proclaim the aforementioned Bob Dylan “the greatest songwriter of the twentieth century,” I have not sold as many copies as you might imagine. In fact, dear reader, if you are interested in obtaining a copy, contact me and I will arrange to ship one to you for a nominal fee. I apologize for bringing the stench of capitalism into our tale, but I find it prohibitive to obtain reams of paper in my current living situation.
Now, where was I? Ah, yes. August Wolf. The great man of song. He died, poignantly, in August of 1959, at the tragically young age of thirty-one years old. Imagine the songs he would have written. Had he lived, he no doubt would have claimed his rightful spot in the firmament of stars. Instead, he died destitute and in obscurity in the arms of his muse du jour, Miss Adelaide Simper, just a few miles from where I sit.
How did such a tragedy come to pass, to one so talented? August Wolf was always a man of the people. He neither sought nor desired the hot spotlights of Los Angeles, New York, or Nashville. He instead traveled the land, breathing in America and translating it into song. He met his fate in the form of a sudden brain aneurism, in a rural American town, far from the succor and recognition he deserved.
Ever since his untimely demise, rumors had circulated that August Wolf left behind a treasure trove of recordings. Songs of love, paeans to freedom from the shackles of our humdrum existence. To be absolutely honest, as I strive at all times, I still have no idea what the songs might actually be about. No one of any import has ever heard so much as a single note. Thus, my well-chosen descriptor, “rumors.” Based on the rest of his oeuvre, I cannot believe the unreleased recordings are anything less than divine.
As you can no doubt imagine, the idea of a cache of songs from my musical obsession has fueled my dreams over the years and driven me to distraction. At times I was able to put the subject from my mind for hours at a time, but that was when I was sleeping. When I was conscious, my mind returned to the idea of the lost tapes of August Wolf as surely as a tongue probes an aching tooth.
I discovered the music of my lifetime in 1986, in a used record store called Slipped Disc in West Covina, California. I was sixteen years old, a prime example of the callowness of youth, hoping to find an unblemished copy of The Who’s Quadrophenia, when my fingers flipped across an album titled Howl at the Moon, by August Wolf. I actually flipped several albums past it in the rack before something seized my brain. Something about the cover entranced me: an epic purple splash of color, a yellowed moon, and a skinny, acned young man in a suit several sizes too large, indeed howling at the moon. I didn’t bother to take it out of the sleeve and listen to it; I bought it straightaway, influenced in part by its fifteen-cent price tag. That minor shopping spree changed my life, enriched it, gave meaning to my every breath.
After listening to Howl at the Moon nonstop for the rest of the day and night, I was back on the doorstep of The Slipped Disc when the sleepy-eyed clerk flipped the OPEN sign around the next morning. On my way out the door, I had managed to pilfer two $20 bills from my mother’s purse—all in the name of a good cause—and stood ready to purchase any and all August Wolf LPs.
I pushed through the door, ignoring the hapless clerk's yelp of objection. I beat him to the counter and tapped my fingers impatiently on the oft-smeared, rarely-wiped glass top.
“Which section has your August Wolf titles?” I asked. It was a valid question. Howl at the Moon featured the genre agnosticism that was Mr. Wolf’s hallmark. There were tracks that featured a big band, rockabilly, crying country, blue-eyed soul, and acid jazz.
The clerk narrowed his weasel eyes at me. “Who?”
“August Wolf,” I repeated, savoring each syllable as it rolled off my tongue.
“Wolf, huh? Not Peter Wolf, from the J. Geils Band?”
“God, no.”
The clerk shrugged and opened a huge catalog held in a stand behind the counter, repeating, “Wolf, Wolf, Wolf…” as he flipped through page after page. It took decades. Then: “Ah! Huh, how about that? He’s a real guy. Says here, he’s got seven albums out…Fifty August Wolf Fans Can’t be Wrong, Unchained Melody and Other Snarlin’ Classics…even a live album, Howlin’ at the Wonderland. How ‘bout that! Been workin’ here twenty years, and I’ve never heard of the guy.”
I bit my tongue to avoid pointing out to the tasteless ninny that I had bought one of August Wolf's albums from this very shop the day before. Instead, I said, “Yes. Can you please just tell me which section I can find them in?”
“Oh, we don’t have any of his albums in, unless it’s over in the uncategorized. That’s where all the cutouts and bargain bin albums are.”
“I don’t understand. I bought one yesterday. It was filed under “W” in the Rock section.”
The clerk had stuck out his bottom lip in a pose of puzzlement, which I’m sure he was forced to adopt several thousand times a day. “Oh, yeah? How much was it?”
I hesitated to answer, not wanting to name such a paltry price for such an obviously valuable find, but the question was inevitable. “Fifteen cents.”
He nodded. “Yep, yep, yep. That’s one of the prices of the uncategorized albums, the ones we think will never sell. Somebody must have been carrying it around the store and stuck it in the Rock section when they found an album they actually wanted.”
Really, he was such a cretin, I could barely tolerate looking at him. Still, he was the pusher of my drug of choice, and it wouldn’t do to burn this bridge. I disciplined my tongue. “I see. Fine; can you tell me how much it will be to order a copy of each album?” I was doing a bit of math in my head, multiplying the seven albums he had mentioned by the typical $5.99 each new album cost, wondering if I would need to nick a bit more from Mother’s purse.
“Oh, I can’t even order these for you. They’re all out of production. If you found one in here yesterday, you were lucky.”
Lucky. Such a tiny word, really, for such a monumental stroke of good fortune. I was disappointed that I couldn’t immediately satisfy my lust for new August Wolf music, but I received something far larger: an avocation.
West Covina didn’t have much in the way of used record stores. Besides The Slipped Disc, there was just one other–The Vinyl Frontier—and neither had what I was looking for. Happily, West Covina is in Los Angeles County, and L.A. had hundreds of stores to haunt. Thanks to a decent bus system, my willingness to skip school, and my single-minded determination, I had completed my August Wolf record collection before I turned eighteen.
That was only the beginning of my passion, which grew into a full-fledged mania. I memorized every note, every chord, every key change. For some years I soldiered on in isolation, but eventually found the tiny but rabid fan base for all things August Wolf. It started with meeting like-minded souls at record conventions, but really blossomed in the mid-nineties when I discovered an AOL group called The Wolf Pack, dedicated to all ephemera related to August Wolf.
Fine, fine, “group” might be overstating it slightly. After the brother and sister who had founded it, I was membe
r #3. Eventually, the group grew much larger, hitting double digits in 1995. Naturally, there were minor disagreements—who was that playing tenor sax on Who’s your Hoochie Coochie Man?—and I suppose there was a certain amount of tension as a pecking order was established within the group. Soon enough, though, I published my first book on the subject: The Early Recordings of August Wolf, Volume One. That established my position at the top of the Wolf food chain.
As e-books did not yet exist, and publishers rarely grasp the merits of such critical commentary, I was forced to publish and print this pivotal work myself at no small cost. Once again, if you’d like a copy, I can have one of the thousands in storage shipped to you for a nominal fee.
I share all of this with you so you can have some idea what a towering figure August Wolf was, albeit unacknowledged by the rest of today’s world, and my own bona fides with regard to the subject matter. It is of paramount importance to understanding the rest of the story.
The beginning of the end of our story occurred last year in the microfiche section of the Los Angeles Public Library. Now in my early forties, I managed to live quite frugally by continuing to take lodging with Mother, just as I had since birth. Limiting my expenses and occasionally nicking a few dollars when I deposited her Social Security checks allowed me to pursue my studies unburdened by employment. I was able to spend all the time I needed attending record conventions in the area, chatting up people online, and researching the dusty stacks of the excellent Los Angeles Public Library system.
Oh, I had been pressured into employment from time to time by Mother, but I had never found a position worthy of my skills. To my detriment, those talents do not include putting up with lunkheads, Neanderthals, drama queens, and the desperately needy. Each employment stint lasted only briefly, in the main because my keen insights and lifestyle counseling fell mostly on the deaf ears of dullards.
I had a search system in place, and Thursday was my day for poring over microfiche of newspapers from around the country, looking for clues of any sort to the missing August Wolf recordings.