After breakfast the captain takes me to his cabin. He points proudly to several framed photos on a wall. One is of him and a woman in a wedding dress arm in arm. Another of four beaming children sitting on the grass, with the captain and woman hugging each other behind them. Another inside a frame bordered with black ribbon is of the captain and woman and four children, all much older now, standing behind an elderly seated couple, who are kissing each other’s hands.
The captain offers me the top bunk, a brandy, pulls curtains over the portholes, puts on pajamas and gets into the bottom bunk. In the dark he says something in his language, which I suppose means sleep well or pleasant dreams. I say “Goodnight or good morning,” and the room is silent. Only the boat’s engine can be heard. For now I’ll just think and sleep. Later in the day I’ll try to find a way to end my life. A sharp fishing knife, since this seems to be a fishing boat, to slash my wrists and bleed to death in an out-of-the-way section of the boat. If there is no such section, I’ll jump into the ocean, which I assume we’re in, when none of the crew is watching, and preferably in the night. Maybe this part of the ocean doesn’t have the salt accumulation the other part had, if that was the reason I couldn’t sink. Or else maybe the reflex action or survival instinct or whatever it was that kept me flipping over on my back and stopped me from swallowing the salt water, won’t work so well this time or at all.
But suppose one of the crew finds me after I’ve just slashed my wrists or sees me in the water and jumps in and saves me? Then they’ll know I was in the water to commit suicide the first time they found me and they’ll lock me in an empty room or brig with my arms bound behind me and take me to wherever the boat’s going or to my country, but certainly hand me over to the authorities who deal with people who try to kill themselves. I’ll be locked up in jail or a mental institution till the authorities are sure I won’t try to kill myself again. That might be for weeks, maybe even years, because who knows what standards are used for releasing potential suicides in the captain’s country or even in my own. If these standards are now fair and progressive, how do I know they won’t be reversed during the years of my confinement, meaning, for example, that what would release me today if let’s say I was confined for the same reasons five years ago, might in the future, because of the new harsher standards, get me ten years, fifteen, maybe life.
Or suppose I manage to escape in the water without anyone seeing me and another boat comes along and rescues me no matter how hard I try to avoid it? Or else I get so cold in the water or frightened of being attacked by sharks I see or irrationally fearful of sharks I imagine I see because of the hallucinations that come to someone freezing to death, that I signal that boat and it rescues me and the new captain learns I jumped off another boat and probably a bridge and I’m locked up and later turned over to the authorities. Or else this new captain might not learn of my previous attempts and I again try to commit suicide by slicing my wrists or jumping overboard and I’m discovered with my wrists bleeding, or saved a third time from the water, or else they don’t see me in the water but for the same reasons of freezing or sharks real or imagined or something else I’m rescued and locked in a brig till I’m turned over to the authorities who deal with people who try to kill themselves again and again. No matter how progressive the standards are in whatever country I’m taken to, I still won’t be released because of my three to four consecutive suicide attempts till the authorities are absolutely sure I won’t try to kill myself again. That might mean, in my extreme case, the surgical removal of some part of my brain to prevent me from killing myself. Which would mean living a total hell for the rest of my life without any chance to kill myself though perhaps with occasional dim ideas I should. Or maybe the surgery doesn’t work, as my jumping and drowning attempts didn’t, and I’ll try in some way to kill myself again and this time fail because of my own panic or weakened condition brought about by the surgery. Or else the authorities might detect through some special tests that I’m going to try to commit suicide again, and they’ll order the doctors to cut deeper, pump me up with chemicals or alter my genetic code, leaving me as much dead as alive, more dead than alive, but for the rest of my life not alive enough to try to kill myself.
I never should have jumped. I should have worked out my suicide better. I certainly won’t try to kill myself on this boat and possible bungle the act, maybe even injuring myself while doing it to the point where even if no one finds out about the attempt I’ll end up physically incapable of making another suicide try. What I have to do now is contrive a foolproof excuse as to what I was doing in the water. Another as to why my car was left by the bridge. Others to cover the possibility of my being seen on the bridge or falling into the river. And once the press, public and authorities and scientists are done with me after I get to land, I must resign myself to living a quiet, modest though noticeably content existence till the next time I try to take my life.
A HOME AWAY FROM HOME.
Downstairs, his father was watching TV. Ray was in his old room upstairs trying to keep his eyes open and his mind from drifting, as there were still lots of things to take care of before he flew back to California.
His father had to be put in a nursing home, that was the main thing. He was ailing, incontinent, periodically incoherent, in constant need of attention and his condition was only getting worse. It’d be ridiculous taking him to San Diego with him, as Ray’s house was too small and he knew they’d be at each other’s throats the day they got there.
Ray had looked after him a month now, after a neighbor had phoned and said his father was too feeble to stay by himself anymore. He was tired of changing his father’s bed every day, doing all that laundry, emptying and scouring his urinals and setting them strategically around the house, tucking him into bed so he wouldn’t fall out, turning him over twice a night and waking, showering, drying and dressing him and for breakfast sticking two eggs in boiling water for three minutes when every day his father demanded they be scrambled in chicken fat or at least fried sunnyside up.
He’d only put off placing him in a home earlier because the old guy had begged, pleaded, “I’d get down on my knees if I could to stop you,” blubbered real tears as he said “Just another week. Ray. Wait till the Sunday after next, please.” Always the stall. And last night he said “I’ll die in a week’s time if I’m put in a home. I know it, sure as I’m sitting here watching TV.”
Ray went downstairs. “Pop? I’d like to speak to you.”
“Speak to me later. Ted Soloman’s got a good show on tonight.”
This is more important than Soloman. I’ve got to be getting back to California.”
“When?” He pressed the TV remote in his lap, and the sound went off. “You going back tomorrow? Good. Tonight? Even better. Not that I won’t miss you. But it’ll be nice having the house to myself again,” and he turned the TV sound back on. A comedian was still talking about his freeloading brother-in-law.
“Now this mooch,” the comedian said, and his father laughed, “is such a sponge on me that just yesterday…”
“I’m not going back tonight. Things have to be settled first. Number one, we’ve got to discuss that nursing home.”
“What nursing home?” The comedian became a raving mute again, right on a major punch line. “You going to work in one in California?”
“You’re going to a home—now, you know that. It just depends when. You’ve got to realize I teach in San Diego, and by staying here with you I’m losing all my paid sick days for ten years.”
“You sick? Take some of my medicine then. Got more than I can use in two lifetimes, those thieving doctors.”
“I spoke to the nursing home administrator today. He says they’ve a waiting list a mile long—that’s how well respected and popular this home is.”
“Popular because it’s cheap.”
“It’s not cheap. I’ll be paying more for you there than I would at Grossinger’s Hotel.”
Then send me to
Grossinger’s. There I’d at least get to meet interesting people and eat good, filling food. And what a choice. You ever see the menu they got up there?”
The food’s supposed to be excellent at this home also. And this Mr. Kramer, the administrator, told me—”
“Better food than at the Concord, Grossinger’s has. That’s a fact. Been to both resorts, and Grossinger’s is without doubt the best. I only wish you were in the resort business.”
“So do I. It’d be a nice healthy life.”
“Healthy life, my eye. Money. You’d make money. Piles of it, though you’d probably have your first stroke by the time you’re forty. And with three college degrees, those guests would give you twice the respect you get from your junior high school delinquents.”
“Junior college, and they’re good kids.”
“Whatever they are, but you won’t listen to me. You never have. So what do you say you let me watch some entertainment for a change,” and he switched on the TV.
This Mr. Kramer,” Ray said over the ad, “he says he’s held your place as long as he can. That if you don’t take it in two days, we’ll have to give it up. That I’ll have to forfeit my thousand dollar deposit besides, and he doesn’t see the prospect of another vacancy for three months.”
“Somebody’ll die before then. Old people always do, especially in nursing homes.”
“Listen, it took me a month—will you shut that thing off!” The television went dead. “A month of constant badgering to finally get you this bed, and I don’t want to give it up. I promised Mom I’d see you were well taken care of, if anything happened to you, and this is the best way I know how.”
His father looked sad, then indignant. “What’re you always going on about your poor mom for? Is it you want me to think about death?” Ray shook his head. “Well, you’re successful at it, even if before it never enters my mind, close as some people might say I am to it. All I know is that death’s my world’s worst enemy—but you? It’s always on your mind, day and night.”
“I didn’t know I was upsetting you so much.”
“Worse than that, you’re a depressing joke. Okay, we both loved her. But she’s dead and buried now and we’re left here alive with each other, so let her rest in peace.”
“Fine. Now let’s get back to what we were talking about. The only solution left is for you to try the home for a month. If you don’t like it, I’ll find you a place more comfortable.”
“You’re a liar. For you saying you’d fly East just to make me more comfortable? Once I’m in that home, you’ll forget me for good, just as you forgot to invite me to California.”
“If you mean for a visit, I was always too busy with work. But if you mean the homes there, you wouldn’t like them. Who would you know there but me? And you’d leave in a week, it gets so hot.”
“You don’t want me out there because you don’t want me around, period. That’s okay. You’re no bargain yourself. But I’m willing to admit how bad off my health is, so if that Hudson River home you got lined up for me is so important to you, have them hold my place for two more weeks. If it’s not too difficult to understand, I just want a last two weeks alone by myself here and then I’ll go.”
“Impossible.”
“Why? Just leave, that’s all. Get Mrs. Longo down the street to look in on me twice a day, and I’ll be okay. So I mess up the house a little—big deal. Then, in two weeks, I’ll go to the home, but in my own way. No help. Nothing. Just me in a cab with nobody around to make a fuss over me. Then the realty people can sell the house, the junk people can have the furniture, and with the money you get from them you can help pay the nursing home. My own Social Security and the little savings I got should take care of the rest.”
“You serious?”
“Serious as anything. Move my bed near the john and I’ll be all right. When I want groceries or something, I’ll phone and they’ll deliver. Is it a deal? Because believe me, it’s the only one I’ll make.”
Next day, Ray called Mr. Kramer and asked if he’d hold his father’s place two more weeks.
“Can’t,” Kramer said. Those beds are too scarce as it is. And I’m not getting a dime from yours, and I’ve maybe ten families hounding me to put their fathers here for the rest of their lives. What better offer could you give me than that?”
“My father will also be there for the rest of his life. And he’s a very amiable man who won’t give your staff the slightest trouble.”‘
“All my patients are amiable, Mr. Barrett. I’ve no complaints: they’re all dolls. I’m sorry, but you have to have that bed occupied by tomorrow, or it’s off my reserve list, and also gone is your deposit.”
Ray arranged for Mrs. Longo to look in on his father for the next two weeks. That afternoon, after seeing that the refrigerator was full and a bed was set up near the downstairs john, he kissed his father goodbye and trained to the New York town overlooking the Hudson where the nursing home was. He greeted Kramer in his office, said how glad he was to meet him after speaking with him on the phone these last weeks, and asked to see his father’s room.
“You want to inspect it before he comes, that it? Right this way, then. It’s really heartening to see such a devoted son,” and he led Ray to the second floor.
There it is,” Kramer said. “Even from the corridor you can see how much cheerful sun it gets.”
Ray walked into the room, said hello to the three patients there, and sat on the one empty bed. He kicked off his shoes, stretched out on the bed, and told Kramer that for the next two weeks he was going to be staying here. “I made a deal. And if you’ll hold on for a minute and not get so hysterical, I’m sure I can make you understand.”
“So how are things looking to you today?”
Ray opened his eyes. It was Mrs. Beets, an 82-year-old resident from the next room, nudging his shoulder.
“Fine, thanks, and you?”
“Terrible. My palsy’s never hurt me worse. You want to see how bad my hand shakes?”
“I was sort of taking a nap, thanks.”
“Naps you can always take, but my hand here’s shaking more than even yesterday. I think it ought to be photographed for posterity by a TV news show, just so young people can see how fast a human hand can shake.”
“Leave him alone, Beetie.” It was Mr. Spevack from the next bed. He was 78 and on his back all day, as he’d recently had one of his legs removed because of some rare bone disease.
“I was only showing him my hand.”
“Show it to the Marines.” After she left, saying she had a painting class to attend anyway, Spevack raised himself a few inches and said “Never saw such a bad palsy case in my six years here. But tell her that once and she’ll never leave us alone. Sleep well?”
“So-so.”
“Sleep, go on, don’t let me bother you. Man’s best healer, sleep.” And after Ray felt himself dozing off again: “What about your stomach? Acting up again?”
“It was never acting up, Mr. Spevack.”
“And the sugar in your blood. Very important, you know.”
“It’s perfect. On my honor.”
“How can you be sure? Check. You always got to check. You take a urine sample this morning?”
“As I told you when I got here, I’m only holding this bed for my father.”
“Why doesn’t he come visit you, your old man? Shame on him. Son in a dreary place like this and his dad doesn’t visit? It’s not right. Now, if you were my son…”
“If he was your son,” Mr. Jacobs, another patient in the room, said, “you wouldn’t have to come visit him. He’d always be in the bed beside you, talking and dreaming of his pretty ladies.”
That’d be nice,” Spevack said. “My family always around.”
“What you say?” Jacobs said. “Can’t understand you. Put your teeth back in your mouth.”
“I said it’d be nice having my whole family around. Just like the ancient Chinese.”
“What? You reminisci
ng again? Wake me up when you’re through, as I’ve heard it all.” He shut his eyes, and between snores said for them to wake him when the dinner cart rolled down the hall. “I’m starving, though who can eat the garbage they give us here,”
“I like the garbage,” Spevack said to Ray. “Doesn’t give me heart-burn, which Mr. Jacobs should appreciate the value of. He’s had four major strokes and is working on number five, because you see the way he sneaks the salt shaker from under his pillow and sprinkles it on his food like it was air?”
“So I push off tonight or a week from now,” Jacobs said. “Isn’t anyone outside who’d care except maybe the social worker chap who checks up on me here, and him you can have on a silver platter. That’s why I sleep so much. When the end comes, let it happen during a beautiful dream.”
“He’s got nobody,” Spevack whispered. “You at least got a father and a good future in San Francisco., right?”
“San Diego.”
“Mr. Zysman knows all about California also. Didn’t you once live near San Diego, Mr. Zysman?”
“You joshing me?” Zysman said from under the sheet, as he never showed his face. “I was in L.A.—literally nearer the North Pole.” He was the youngest official patient in the room—68, and up until a few months ago, if Ray could believe everything he said from under the covers, he’d been a man about town—“A gadabout with two young cuties pinned to my arms, dinner every night at Sardi’s or the 21, and still a big-time operator and heavy backer of movies and shows.” But his Fifth Avenue apartment caught fire with him in it, most of his body had been burned, and he’d sworn never to let anyone see his body and face except professional people—“Doctors and maybe a few of the prettier nurses, but that’s where I draw the line.”
What Is All This? Page 50