Anyway, I put ‘em on, and guess what? They fit me perfect. Was like walkin’ in cotton. Unbelievable.
Course, they did have the tendency to pinch when they got dirty, so I learned real quick to keep ‘em clean.
Oh, sure. Wear cast-offs and new shoes, and the shiny pups will get you attention, ‘specially from other street folk that ain’t as ethical as Yours Truly. I wore my trousers long to hide ‘em. As a side benefit of that, it also kept ‘em clean. Kept ‘em from pinching.
No, I don’t have ‘em anymore. These are my seconds.
Sure there’s a story behind that. Don’t care to tell it, though.
Why? It’s a sad story. Brings up bad memories.
No, I just don’t care to tell it.
Look, I haven’t finished this beer yet. Don’t need another.
No, if you want to hear the miserable story, it’ll cost you coin-o’-the-realm.
I’m not depressed. Right now, I’m legitimately crabby.
Five? What a cheap bastard you are.
A ten? Well ...
All right. Thanks.
Well, give me a minute. I try to keep this outta my mind, and you’re askin’ me to drag it all up again.
Okay.
Y’know, when you’re on the street, you’re a target for police, for do-gooders and for the lowest kinda scum who think you got somethin’ they should have.
A couple months ago, Benny and I were walking down Breslaw in the Wexley district. I told you before I wasn’t depressed, but Benny was. Now the shrink at the county clinic gives me pills, and for weeks I’d been givin’ Benny the meds I never took, with the story that they were dreens—that they’d give him a mild high.
Oh right. Report me to the AMA. Anyway, the stuff did Benny some good. His mood had improved to the point where I was this close to gettin’ him to see a real doctor.
And then I had to go screw it all up.
No, strictly speakin’, it wasn’t my fault. But I still blame myself. When you’re on the street, you can never let your guard down. You’ve got to be alert all the time.
And there we were, walkin’ down Breslaw, in what ain’t exactly the choicest part of town, and without takin’ the time to scope the street, I hand Benny a fresh batch of my meds.
Next second, three goons block our way. They want Benny’s “drugs.”
One thing about depression, least the kind Benny had. It makes bein’ reasonable real difficult for those that have it.
So Benny wouldn’t give up the pills.
I tried pleadin’ with him, tellin’ him I could get more. I even put my hand into Benny’s jacket, tryin’ to get the vial, but he jerked away and tried to run. Two of the goons caught and held him, and the third guy—a real sour-faced pot-bellied ex-wrestler type—slammed Benny with his Number 9 fist. Caught Benny in the gut and across the face before I could even jump the guy.
He flicked me off like a bug. I landed on my back and had the wind knocked outta me. Couldn’t move. Saw Benny take a couple more hits and watched Pot Gut pull the meds from Benny’s jacket.
And then—and then—he could’ve just walked off, y’know? He had what he wanted. There was no need for more. But he pulled his fist back, ready to smack Benny again when I finally got enough breath back to say, “Stop! Don’t hit him and I’ll give you my pups.” And I pulled up my trouser legs and showed him the wing-tips.
Pot Gut turned, looked at me and laughed. He said, “You got a deal—If they fit.”
I got to my feet, took off the pups and handed ‘em over. Pot Gut put them on and looked surprised. “Damn nice,” he said.
And then the bastard turned and hauled off a haymaker anyway.
That’s right. That’s how it happened.
Shit. I think Benny was dead before he even hit the ground.
Excuse me. Gimme a moment.
Thanks—Thanks for the handkerchief. Skonk.
All right, I’ll keep it.
What’d I do? I got mad. Madder’n I’d ever been. Dragged up some curses I hadn’t used in twenty years. Dunno if Pot Gut even understood ‘em all. And then I said I was goin’ to the cops and turnin’ his fat ass in. He said he’d kill me first. I told him he’d have to catch me first.
He charged, and I barely dodged under his arms. The guy was huge, like a tent, but quicker than you’d give him credit for.
I ran across Breslaw. The cobblestones and pebbles cut into my socks, but I hardly felt it. I dashed up an alley that I knew would dump me out on Melbourne. I looked back and saw Pot Gut falling off, so I slowed up just a bit.
Why? I was mad, that’s why.
The other two guys? Last I saw, they were stripping Benny down, getting all his stuff and his clothes, too.
No, I’d never seen ‘em before.
No, I haven’t seen ‘em since. Now you wanna hear the rest of the story or not?
All right, then.
So I ran out on Melbourne and turned left, toward Solon Park. Pot Gut’s still with me, but I slowed down even more to make sure he didn’t get discouraged.
Yeah, pardon the sarcasm in my voice.
I stumbled once as I entered the park, but that was for show, just to keep Pot Gut’s appetite whetted. I needed to make him think I was gettin’ as tired as he was.
I led him across the jogging trail, past the willows, over the creek bridge and up to the duck pond.
Now the duck pond’s shaped like a big “C”, and I’d run into the mouth. Behind me, Pot Gut’s chuggin’ like a ‘68 Pinto on three cylinders, and ahead of me is nothin’ but water.
What most people don’t know is, you can wade that pond. Hardly goes above waist high.
So I slogged on in.
I turned around after a bit and saw Pot Gut standing at the edge, wonderin’ if he should follow. I blew him a raspberry and mimed a needle bein’ poked in his arm.
That’s all it took. He waded in after me.
It was delicious. Every few steps I’d turn around and tell him what a pus-ridden loser he was, how he didn’t have enough sense to know the difference between a mirror and pile of crap. He kept comin’.
Now a duck pond’s a pretty dirty place. Ducks leave a lot behind, wherever they go. The pond’s not well drained and the bottom is slimy and sucks where you step.
Remember how I said that when the shoes got dirty, they’d pinch?
Yeah, I see it in your eyes.
And now the shoes were in a really dirty place. Dirtier than they’d ever been. Up to the heels in mud an’ duck guano. Ten steps into the water, Pot Gut finally realizes somethin’s goin’ on, but he doesn’t understand it. He keeps followin’ me, staggerin’ now, with his arms way out like some sorta B-movie mutant.
He was whinin’, too, and his eyes bulged like a pair of bloodshot billiard balls.
I was climbin’ up the far side of the pond when he fell in.
He came up sputterin’. Then he went under again, deliberately this time. I think he was tryin’ to get the shoes off.
He popped up again, shriekin’ like a baby getting’ its boosters. I backed up, out of the water, and just watched.
He dunked himself again and again, tryin’ to get the shoes off. Nothing worked. But this was one tough dude. He managed to half-swim, half-crawl to shore before passing out from the pain. His legs still dangled in the water, but I wasn’t about to pull ‘em out for him.
Passive-aggressive, y’know.
I high-tailed it out of there. Whatever finally happened to the wing-tips, I don’t know. Whatever finally happened to Pot Gut, I don’t know either.
But you know, don’t you?
Of course you do. Street livin’ teaches a guy the smell of blue pretty quick. And anyway, nobody buys me beer to hear about the wonderfulness of a street mugging.
So what are you? A detective wannabe lookin’ for the answers to our town’s little mystery?
Oh. A detective already. My apologies. So what happened?
Ah. The ambulance techs had to
cut the shoes off. Makes sense. Bet his feet were black by that time.
Really? And he lost his mind over it, too? Too bad. Benny lost his life.
So where’s Stumpy now?
County mental. Hmmph. At least he gets three squares a day.
Good beer, by the way.
Buy me another?
Afterword
“The Practical Meek” is an example of a first-person, one-side-of-the-conversation-only story. Pieces like this are usually short and often poignant or sarcastic. Here, I’ve tried to intermingle these two main flavors just a bit.
If I’ve succeeded, you can buy me a beer.
Edges of Memory
Nurse Supervisor Gladys Brill had two things going for her: A capacious memory and the ability to fill in the Times crossword in under four minutes.
So when the sister of old Dan Greavey—who was really not the sister of old Dan Greavey—came to visit him that day at the Logan Institute, Gladys Brill was the only one who noticed.
True, the woman posing as his sister bore a remarkable resemblance to the woman who had visited him six months before. And not even the sharp-eyed Nurse Brill would have caught on, except that Greavey’s real sister had visited twice every month, until that six-month hiatus, and Nurse Brill had gotten to know the woman. Sort of.
For Greavey’s sister had parried all attempts by the nurse to glean personal details about her. Their chit-chats had been of inconsequential matters—clothes and current events, perfumes and panty-hose.
The woman wouldn’t even talk about her brother, Dan Greavey. And relatives of patients always talked about their loved ones. Still, Eleanor Greavey had had a certain charm, a certain warmth, and Brill had gotten to like the woman.
Brill did not see the new Eleanor Greavey sign in at the visitor station, and only a chance remark by an assistant nurse that “Mr. Greavey’s sister was back” made her go to 7 South to say hello.
The commons area in 7 South consisted of four rooms at the end of the hospital wing. The walls of the rooms had been knocked out to make the commons, and sunlight poured through barred windows into an area filled with tables and chairs. In one corner, a drink machine dispensed sodas in soft, non-lethal paper cups.
Two tables were occupied. At one, a man and a woman played cards. At the second, the new Eleanor Greavy sat with her brother. The woman looked up when Brill entered the commons, and a vague sense of unease passed over the nurse.
“Gladys!” The woman smiled—too broadly—and extended her hand. “How good to see you again! It’s been some time.”
Gladys Brill had worked for several years as an OB nurse, delivering babies. Among those deliveries had been numerous unfortunate, malformed infants, and Brill had learned to hide emotion, even surprise, under circumstances that would have demanded at least an audible gasp.
Here, a woman who was clearly not the Eleanor Greavey Brill remembered pretended not only to be that woman, but also to be a knowing acquaintance of the nurse.
So Brill commanded her arm to accept the woman’s hand, and her arm complied. But behind the physical movement, Brill’s mind struggled to understand the deception.
The woman who sat as Eleanor Greavey did bear a remarkable resemblance to her. Both women were tall and big-boned. Both had dark hair streaked auburn and gray. The Eleanor Greavey who shook her hand now wore a sharply-cut, charcoal-gray business suit almost austere in its simplicity. It was a suit that had made an impression on Brill before—a suit that the other Eleanor Greavey had worn—and Brill worked hard to keep her lips from frowning at the implications of that fact.
The natural-sounding modulation of Brill’s own voice surprised even her. “It’s good to see you also, Ms. Greavey.” Nurse Brill glanced at the brother. “I heard you’d come to see Dan, and since I hadn’t seen you in some months, I thought I’d stop by.”
“I’ve had some problems of my own, Gladys. A fall, and some broken ribs.” The new Eleanor Greavey grimaced as she sat back in her seat. “This is the first I’ve felt up to visiting again.”
Brill sat down in the table’s third chair and turned to the brother. The whiskered old man showed his age more than his supposed sister. Brown spots dotted his sunken cheeks, and the crow’s-feet around his eyes ran all the way to his temples. “It must be nice,” Brill said, “to have your sister here again.” The warmth in her own voice sounded so sincere, Brill thought for a moment she would laugh out loud.
But if Brill stifled her laugh, Dan Greavey didn’t. He cackled and said, “Yes, yes. It’s wonderful. I don’t get many visitors, you know.”
Dan Greavey looked the nurse in the eyes for a moment, and Brill saw awareness in his old yellow globes. Greavey knew this wasn’t his sister. And he didn’t seem concerned about his real sister’s fate.
Brill considered. The new Ms. Greavey seemed friendly enough, but the demeanor was a shell. Of the three at the table, only Dan Greavey seemed not to be playing a part. In Brill’s mind, this made the tableau even more bizarre.
Brill traded small talk with the Greaveys for several minutes. During that time, Brill studied the woman’s features—all the while trying not to stare—and noted the pale, stretched areas across her cheekbones. Her resemblance would have been even more remarkable, Brill thought, if she hadn’t had that face-lift.
But altogether, the new Ms. Greavey was superb in her role as impostor. She had picked up the face and hand mannerisms of the original perfectly, and she referred in her speech to matters Brill and Eleanor Greavey had discussed months ago.
From time to time, Brill glanced at the woman’s large black pocketbook. As prepared and rehearsed as the Greavey woman was, no doubt she carried credentials credible enough to pass even a detailed muster.
So, despite the righteous itch in her belly, Gladys Brill suspected that any direct attempt to expose the woman would fail. And result, perhaps, in the loss of Brill’s job, as the Institute squirmed to avoid a suit for slander.
Gladys Brill left the commons at 7 South with a slight wobble in her step. Although she had played her own part well, so she thought, the encounter with the imposter had shaken her.
As she passed through the security checkpoint, Gladys Brill tossed back her head and sucked in her breath. She had intended to return to her work station after saying hello to Eleanor Greavey, but now she turned down another corridor, the one leading to the records room. And with the decision, her step firmed.
—
The Logan Institute, as a mental facility, fell somewhere between the very best the country had to offer and the very worst. It paid its nurses more than the standard rate for such work. It paid its custodians more than minimum wage. And it made certain its patients were treated with as much respect as considerations of health and safety would allow.
On the other hand, the tiles in the hallways of the building had worn smoothly into the tiles that had lain before. Areas of new paint merged garishly with areas of old. And tables and chairs, while functional and comfortable, rarely matched anything else in the wing in which they were found.
So the records room was hardly an automated affair. Newer admissions were entered into a secondhand computer system the Institute had purchased, but older patients had all their information kept on paper.
As she pulled open an olive green file drawer marked G, Brill contemplated the benefits of fraud. Fraud as it applied to Daniel J. Greavey. For Greavey himself, Brill had little feeling. Greavey was a killer, having done away with both his father and brother many years ago. At the Institute, Greavey had behaved himself—at least under Brill’s watch—but in the back of her mind she knew he could be dangerous.
So fraud. What other reason would a woman have for pretending to be his sister? Brill knew nothing about Greavey’s family; perhaps they were wealthy. Perhaps a trust fund terminated for disbursement once Dan Greavey died. Perhaps Greavey himself had money, and the woman wanted his fortune.
It had been years since Brill last looked into Greavey’
s file. But now, as she opened the gray manila folder and eyed the portion of Greavey’s records that dealt with finances, the more her thoughts ran in favor of the trust fund angle, for Daniel Greavey’s room and board was paid, every three months, by a check written through a law firm located two time zones away.
Brill paged over to Patient History.
Dan Greavey had been born and raised in Irving, Texas. At the age of fourteen, he had shot and killed his father in a hunting accident. That was 1958. Following the event, one would have expected difficulties for Greavey, both in schooling and in socialization, but Greavey had blocked the incident out of his mind so completely that no apparent aftereffects were noted by his psychiatrist. He was diagnosed with atypical traumatic amnesia and released to the custody of his mother.
Then, in 1965, Greavey killed again. This time the victim was his older brother, Timothy. There had been a violent quarrel the topic of which was not given in the record. Again, Greavey blocked the incident out of his memory. Again, he was diagnosed with traumatic amnesia. But this time he was adjudged dangerous to others and became the Logan Institute’s 117th resident. A court order restricted Greavey’s visitors to his mother, his sister and his legal representatives.
Following two attacks by Greavey on an orderly and on his attending physician, guidelines had been issued for staff not to talk to Greavey about his past or about any contentious issues of the day. Brill had been aware of the guidelines but paused to read the passage again. Given his history, she had no doubt Greavey could attack an orderly or a physician, but these were incidents about which she knew nothing.
As Brill parted the drawer’s folders with her left hand and returned Greavey’s folder with her right, a cloud passed, and the sunlight which had poured through the window-bars was replaced, abruptly, with a cold dark gloom startling in its swiftness. Brill stopped and blinked. Just as swiftly, orange light returned, and a sunbeam fell on the gray manila folder and the word “Greavey,” and Brill blinked again. And this time she wondered.
Elizabeth Sargan was another long-time resident of the Institute. Gladys Brill opened the “S” drawer and noted the woman’s tattered yellow folder and her number: Patient 109. George Kelly was another. In the I-J-K drawer, as Patient 225, he too had a much-dogeared yellow folder. Nurse Brill hesitated. She would soon be missed from her station. Still—
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