Memorial

by Bruce Wagner

  Suddenly, Servano PT laughed.

  He switched off the churning and motioned Chess to come over. He pointed in the water—Maurie had a hard-on.

  “Now that’s a good thing! See it? See how the water’ll do ya? Now that’s bad ass. That’s badass healing chakra, the roadblocks are liftin! That’s like the Red Sea parting! See? That means he’s feelin better already, that’s his way of tellin us about it! Isn’t it, King? H2O’ll do that to ya. Get you excited about shit again. And when the body starts to feel itself come alive like that, it’s all good. That’s the lower-body chakras workin and that leads to the heart and head chakras, all that’s gonna be flowin. Sorry, Maurie! Ramona don’t have no shift today!”

  He laughed and winked and flicked on the churner. The visitor leaned against the wall, his mood plummeting. After a few more minutes of bullshitting, the PT asked Chess if he was aware that Medicaid was reimbursing rapists and child molesters for their Viagra prescriptions.

  Servano said he thought that was a crime.

  Why is he telling me this?

  “The state does all kinds of crazy shit. See, Maurie, he’s one of the lucky ones. It don’t look like it but it’s true. See, most these places are warehouses, but the doctors here are pretty good. We gotta pretty good level of care. Hell, prisoners get better treatment than civilians on the street. I mean, the jails are in bad shape, man. They got TB and syphilis and AIDS and now they got drug-resistant staph—everybody walkin around with boils on their faces filled with pus—guards too. Prisons are a natural breeding ground. Worse than kindygarden. But instead of cleaning up their act, they spend millions transporting these rapists. Know where they take em when they get sick? Beverly Hills! I am serious, Chester! They get breast implants too! I’m not shittin you, man! Hell, that nurse killer? What was his name, Speck? Speck kills 8 nurses, then goes and gets himself implants, on the taxpayer’s expense. Now ain’t that a bitch? Guess I should’ve said, Ain’t he a bitch.” He laughed at his joke. “I’m pretty sure he’s dead now. Maybe his knockers got all infected or they were too heavy and smothered him in his sleep! Triple Ds! Stupid mother fucker—the state probably would’ve paid for a breast reduction. Naw, I think somebody killed him. I remember reading that. Or whatever. That was one fucker who deserved to die. I’m sorry to use bad language, Chester, hope you’re not offended. But a man who shows no mercy should be shown no mercy. They should have thrown a nurse’s outfit over those tits and hunted him down like he did those poor young girls. Candystriped his sick ass. I’m tellin you there’s hundreds of these guys in jail, serial killers, baby rapers, cold bitches like the Green River Killer or the BTK, they’ll never know how many lives they took and you know what? They get their teeth fixed in Beverly Hills cause if they don’t, they can sue the whole system, they get their little pills for herpes and antidepressants when my sister can’t even afford the copay on Effexor. Hell, just talkin about it makes me want to go all Prozac! But the BTK? He don’t need no copay!”

  THE disgruntled lawyer was still opposed to settling out but Chess was adamant and Remar had no choice other than to concede. He said he’d get word to him soon.

  The moment he hung up, Chess’s phone rang—someone from an offshore pharmacy. They’d taken to calling at all hours to see if he wanted to renew his Vs: Vicodin, Valium, and Viagra. (They sent emails too: “FEEL BETTER TODAY!!!”) Why had he given out his cell number? That was insane. And why the fuck did I ever order online. They got my credit card now too. Yesterday, the person from “Support Team 24” sounded like a righteous gangbanger. The cellphone flashed UNKNOWN CALLER and when he picked up, a Mexivoice said, “How ya doin, man?” The salesman/homeboy quickly corrected himself: “I mean, how are we doing today, sir?” There was a big turnover among the refill drones, and people were obviously being recruited from streets and malls. The most loyal Internet customers were the readily identifiable dope fiends; every 2 weeks Chess was alerted that it was discount week, and he was “good to go.” What a farce. As a goof, he’d taken to saying, “Mr Herlihy overdosed—he’s dead.” But they just kept calling. He was in the machine now. Scary.

  A piece of mail awaited, from New Horizon Credit Recovery. They were acting “on behalf of the US Department of Education” regarding a student loan Chess took out 25 years ago. He couldn’t believe what he was reading. The collection agency was demanding 83 dollar monthly payments in lieu of “garnishing wages.” They said it was in their power to seize tax refunds and even Social Security payments if he didn’t comply. Chess panicked—the loan came to almost $27,000, including 7% interest. What if they found out about the FNF settlement? They were probably onto it already: that was their stock-in-trade. He got paranoid, and popped an Inderal/Vicodin/Xanax combo.

  The timing of the letter was strange, to say the least. Maybe he was in a secret database of people who were about to get windfalls. He wondered if that was something he should consult Remar about but the lawyer wasn’t too happy with him right now, and might use it as another reason why Chester should hold out for a jury. A fleeting thought occurred that Remar was actually in cahoots with New Horizon, or even that the “recovery center” was a “dummy” entity the law firm resorted to using with hard-head clients. It didn’t really make sense—that would be totally illegal, and he doubted if Remar would so actively jeopardize his livelihood. But if New Horizon were real, maybe the lawyer had been in touch, promising them X amount on the dollar, and was soon to leverage the debt as a tool to force Chess to hang in and sue for everything FNF’s parent company was worth.

  He pushed the weird notion from his head.

  He lay down and smoked a joint, drifting back to that 1st time he was alone with Maurie after the “incident.” It was at the desert hospital: Chess cried and told his friend he was sorry. At least, that’s what he thought had happened. He distinctly remembered something. Still, much of it was a blur. (Chess figured he probably had a little PTSS goin on.) He couldn’t perfectly recall if, in a seizure of guilt, he had actually said something to Maurie about having pill-Punk’d him. The more stoned he got, and the more he obsessed, both false and real memories became deeply plausible. Why did he have such a big mouth? If Levin did get better, and was finally able to write or speak—even if he was still wearing a diaper—it would definitely be the major thing on his mind to share with the world, i.e., hospital staff and police—every fiber of his being would be marshaled to ask Chess what the fuck he’d meant by his weepy bedside apologia, or even likelier, stealthily bypass the man who had paralyzed him and wheel his drippy ass right to the authorities, or Servano PT, or whoever was handy.

  Chess was seized by vertigo. He gripped the mattress and waited a few minutes for it to pass. He washed down 3 Compazines with a can of Squirt then idly picked up the letter from New Horizon. At the very bottom was a paragraph that said the debt would be canceled if a physician signed a form stating the borrower was “totally and permanently disabled.” Yeah well there’s my “out” right there. Maybe I should just change my name to Maurie Levin. It was almost funny.

  He left the bed, steadied himself, and sat in the den to do a bit of Googling. There were chatrooms devoted to articulate people victimized by “credit recovery scams” long after falling on hard times. The collection agencies supposedly added 20% to whatever you owed. If the company going after you was legit—and your debt was remotely tied to some defunct government loan program—there was no way to dodge paying it back, not even through bankruptcy.

  “These people are like the Sopranos,” wrote TheLoan-Deranger. “You’d have to enter a witness protection program to get away, and even then it wouldn’t help”:

  the principal cellist of the Louisiana Philharmonic owed a hundred thousand dollars and the lawyers said he should cut back on expenses like Internet access and gym membership and his cat. They actually told him to get rid of his f-ing cat!!!!!!! This is a musician who teaches at Tulane but only makes 20K a year!!!!!!!! Because that is what AMERIKA pays its artists!!
!!! So a judge threw the case out but it was overturned and a fed appellate court said he should go find a job as a music store clerk. He can’t even visit his sick mother anymore!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  He got depressed and went back to bed.

  He was running low on cash. Remar said that once the settlement was agreed on, it would take “around 2 weeks to cut a check.” Before that happened, Chess would have to sign a release. Maybe he’d call the firm and ask the secretary if he could come in and take care of that early, to save time. She probably wouldn’t know anything about it and would put him through to Remar. He doubted if the guy’d even take his call, unless it was explicitly about reversing engines and going ahead full steam with the suit. He thought about asking for an advance but remembered the lawyer saying he would only do that if his client promised to go all the way. That was out of the question now. Still, Chess was convinced he was doing the right thing.

  He decided to go visit his mom again.

  LXVIII.

  Marjorie

  AT home, Joan tried getting into the bathroom but it was locked.

  “Estrella?”

  “Si,” came the shyly muffled voice.

  “Jesus,” said Joan audibly. She stripped off her clothes right then and there. “I really need to get in, Estrella.”

  After a minute came a flush. The maid emerged with a tight smile. There was a stench.

  “I’ve told you,” said Joan. “If you have to use the shitcan—which you always seem to—don’t do it in the master bath. Is that so difficult to comprehend? Is that asking too much? Because you can find another job. I can find you a job where all you do is clean huge office building lavatories, so that when nature calls—and nature seems to call a lot!—you can go do your business without disrupting your workday. OK, Estrella? Comprende? Comprende? Bueno.”

  She was taken aback by her own fury.

  She drove to her mother’s, on the phone with Barbet most of the way. He was tender and supportive, pissed at Freiberg for stringing them along. Her partner swore (not that she needed reassurance) the Calatrava thing wouldn’t happen because Lew was a mercurial Perelmanian headcase. Then he actually said she should “have the kid” (not that she needed his advice), but Joan didn’t want to get into any kind of a thing about it, not on that level, and not now. She didn’t want this sacred being tainted by his throwaway spite. She knew where Barbet was going next: she’d better have the lawyers put something on paper guaranteeing the child’s future, something exceedingly in her favor. Joan wasn’t worried—she would have the baby, and it never had anything to do with getting or not getting the Mem (Barbet informed her he was having a tattoo inked on his left shoulder, the traditional heart-pierced-by-arrow, only with MEM instead of MOM inside), it had to do with the fact she was almost 40 fucking years old and this was how God happened to have said Ha. Still, she let him rail on. She knew he was hurt and only masking his disappointment.

  They wound up talking about another job coming down the pike, a Demeulemeester boutique in Belgium. When Barbet said he’d make sure Fathom was on its way back safe and sound, Joan told him Lew loved the model so much that he wanted it “on permanent exhibition” in the gallery Richard Gluckman was building in Mendocino. Barbet laughed out loud.

  “Let him have it! For a hundred-and-50,000. It’s no longer a maquette, now it’s art, right? Keep it, baby! But send the check! We’ll invoice Guerdon.”

  WHEN she got to Marj’s, the old Imperial was in front, the window on the driver’s side wavily broken.

  It looked like there was blood.

  Joan ashened.

  Cora approached, holding the King Charles in her arms. It yapped and she shushed, nuzzling its half-shaved crown. Shocky and breathless, Joan asked what happened and the neighbor said Marj was at the hospital.

  Which hospital.

  “Midway.”

  When.

  “Last night.”

  Is she—

  “I talked to her on the phone this morning.”

  That was the extent of it.

  Joan got back in the Range Rover. Cora ran after to exclaim through the passenger side that she had been the one to find her mother, right here in the driveway. What happened. She said Pahrump was “acting funny” and she was going to get Marj’s opinion about whether to call Stein or just take him to the vet but no one answered the door, and on her way home she saw, or thought she did, someone sitting in the car like a mannequin—it was Marj. She’d been assaulted. What do you mean. Cora said she was careful not to “disturb” anything before running to the house to dial 911. Then she returned with a damp towel, but didn’t know what to do with it, and suddenly thought that the people who were responsible for this unspeakable act might still be “lurking.”

  She jerked the car into the street and headed up Robertson, speeddialing Barbet to tell him what was going on—he didn’t answer and she left a message—then started to call Chess, before pressing END. Why bother?

  The usual mindlessly galling, passive-aggressive encounters with testily indifferent functionaries and grinning eunuchized volunteers ensued, a tangle of nerves, short circuits, and wrong information, before mother and daughter reunited. Marj looked so awful. She smiled valiantly then collapsed in tears; the women held each other and Mom whispered, “I was so afraid they had hurt you!” Joan, uncomprehending, said she was fine and stroked the old woman’s hair as they wept. An RN came to check vitals. She casually said that whoever had done this had broken the jaw and it would need to be “wired.” Marj was half-naked. Joan reworked the cheap gown to cover her. She said she wanted to be alone with her mother and when the nurse ignored her, Joan insisted on speaking to a doctor. The Angel of Mercy, suddenly churlish, said she “would have one paged but they’re very busy.” Joan noticed wet bedsheets and the nurse assured her she was aware of it and would have them changed as soon as an orderly was free. Joan said if she would bring linen, or show her the linen closet, she would change them herself. The RN said she would have to wait and Joan said, Do not fuck with me, I want those sheets changed, do you understand? At that moment the nurse didn’t have what it took to go up against her.

  She was trying to digest it all. She sat holding her mother’s hand. The orderly came with fresh sheets. He spoke to Marjorie as if she were a child, and it was tender and comforting to behold. Joan helped him put Mom in a chair. She told Marj she was going to make a few phone calls but the helper gently cautioned not to leave her because she might fall. The orderly said he could “loosely” tie her to the chair but Joan said no, she’d wait till the sheets were changed, and they could put her back in bed, with the rails up. At least he was a human being.

  When it was done, she caught her breath outside the room. Who to contact 1st? She found the number of the FBI agent but it had been disconnected. (Joan didn’t have the chance or even the inclination to check in from Mendocino. She’d been so blackjacked.) That gave her a funny feeling. She was digging in her wallet for that lady Cynthia’s Wells Fargo card when a different nurse came in and handed her the name and number of a cop. Joan dialed and got right through—a direct line. Short introductions were made. The detective said he had just been heading to the hospital for a chat with Mrs Herlihy. He asked how her mother was doing (shorthand for Do you think she’s up for an interview?) and Joan said not too well. He said that was understandable and wanted to know if Joan would be there when he arrived—that would be helpful—she said of course. The detective told her it would be 45 minutes or so depending on traffic. Joan wondered if it’d be OK to go to the house and pick up some things for her mom, and he said that was a great idea. See you soon.