Dead Heat with the Reaper

by William E. Wallace

  ***

  “Hey, Frank,” Sam Jorgensen said. “Where the hell you been? We had a little birthday party all put together for you, with cake and everything. Nobody could figure out where you were.”

  Jorgensen was at the back table in Pete’s, the one under the sign “Geezers Only.” With him were Ferdie Gonzales and Bill Habersham. The three old-timers had worked with Trask at the steel mill for at least 20 years and all three were also early retirees. Except for Joe Brundage, the bartender, they were the only people in the joint. That figured; it was just 3:30 p.m.

  Trask stopped at the jukebox long enough to put in money and punch numbers from memory. He pulled a chair over from one of the other tables and sat down with a grunt as John Fogerty began singing “Who’ll Stop the Rain?”

  “I took a header out front of the Carlson and ended up at Highland,” he said, pointing to the bandage on his forehead before signaling Joe to bring a round for the table.

  “Oh, man!” said Ferdie, who lived on the second floor. “Right in front of the hotel? I asked Mrs. Hung where you were and she said she didn’t know. Didn’t anybody see you fall?”

  “Nope,” Trask said. “The people at Highland told me a passing cab driver saw me go down and had his dispatcher call 9-1-1, then hung around until the paramedics got there and took me to county. It was probably around 9:30 in the morning. There’s never anybody on the street that time of day.”

  “Yeah, the crackheads all sleep in until at least noon,” Habersham said, finishing his beer as Brundage brought the fresh drinks.

  “I couldn’t help but overhear you, Frank,” Joe said. “You okay? I see you got a wound on your gourd. You were gone for what? Like three-four days or something? You spend the whole time at the hospital?”

  Trask nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “They ran a bunch of tests on me and shit. I guess I was out for most of the time there. They kicked me out when I finally woke up.”

  “Did somebody whack you or something?” Habersham asked. Bill packed a gun most of the time. He thought everybody in West Oakland was a crook or worse. He lived in terror of being robbed by some junkie looking for drug money.

  “Naw,” Trask said as Brundage set a Seven and Seven in front of him. He could smell the whisky in the drink; Joe had a generous hand. “I was already out when I went down. They told me I got this ding when I banged my head on the way.”

  Jorgensen peered at him closely. “Why’d you conk out, Frank?”

  Trask figured the best way to give them the bad news was just the way Johnson had given it to him: just put it out there straight, no chaser.

  “The doc told me I got what they call end-stage liver cancer,” he said, quietly. “Cirrhosis. My liver’s the size of a peanut, all scar tissue and shit. That’s what made me pass out. There’s nothing they can do for me,” he added, spreading his hands in a gesture of indifference. “My ticket could get punched just about any day.”

  For a minute, nobody spoke. Ferdie was the first to break the silence.

  “Oh, man!” he said. “That’s the shits, Frank. What you going to do?”

  Trask gave him a slight smile. “I’m going to fucking die, Ferd, that’s what I’m going to do. I don’t see any way to avoid it.”

  Brundage, still standing next to the table, looked at Trask’s cocktail. Frank hadn’t touched it yet. “Cirrhosis, huh?” he said. “Maybe you want me to take the booze away, then?”

  Trask picked up the glass with a grin and took a sip. “Fuck, no. She told me it didn’t make any difference if I stopped drinking now or not, I’m too far gone.”

  “She?” Jorgensen asked.

  “My doctor. First woman doctor I ever had. Looks like she’s gonna be the last, too.”

  “Women,” Habersham said dismissively. He’d had a bad divorce ten years ago and was still dealing with the legal fallout. “What do they know?”

  Trask laughed. “This one knows a hell of a lot more than any of the knuckleheads sitting at this table,” he said. “She’s young, but she didn’t diddle me around. She said every test they gave me confirmed it: I’m dying. Could be days, could be as much as a month or two, but I’m going. She just told me straight, the way I did you. She’s all right. Young, maybe, but she’s okay.”

  There was another minute of uncomfortable silence.

  “What a fucking bummer,” Jorgensen said, picking up his beer and draining a third of it in one long swallow.

  Trask shrugged and had another taste of his drink. “We all gotta go sometime.”

  Jorgensen smiled at Frank’s matter-of-fact attitude. “You always were a tough sonofabitch. I remember the time the I-bar they were moving with that winch came loose and broke your arm. You just told the line supervisor you needed medical and went to the lunchroom and sat down. You didn’t even say ouch.”

  Trask rolled his eyes. “There’s a difference between being tough and being in shock, Sam.”

  Jorgensen snorted. “Shock, my ass. The first thing you did was shut down the line and tell Livy to secure the loose beam. That’s pretty clear thinking for a guy in shock.”

  Trask snorted with exasperation. It annoyed him to have people talk him up. Made him feel warm and fuzzy. He preferred things hard-edged.

  “Yeah, well if I hadn’t, the next person it hit might have caught it in the head,” he said. “Then it would have been a workplace fatal instead of an injury. That means a shut-down while OSHA investigates. None of us could afford to have the mill sit idle.”

  Jorgensen swigged some beer, his smile lingering. “That’s what I’m talking about,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Your arm gets broken and you’re more worried about the rest of us losing a few days through down-time. I don’t know what you call it, but to me, that’s tough.”

  Trask decided to change the subject.

  “I see that prick Cliff smacked Natalie again while I was gone,” he offered, taking a sip.

  Jorgensen grinned. Beneath his gruff exterior, Trask was a soft touch. The only people he didn’t genuinely like were real assholes like Natalie’s husband, Cliff. You had to earn Frank’s enmity by being a total shit—and if you did, you had a hell of a time getting him to give you a second chance.

  “If I was twenty years younger, I’d kick that miserable sonofabitch’s ass,” Trask growled, the muscles in his jaw pulsing as he ground his teeth in anger.

  “Man, if I was twenty years younger, I’d spend two weeks at Mustang Ranch getting my ashes hauled all the way to Winnemucca and back,” Habersham offered blandly.

  Everybody laughed.

  “Oh, man!” Ferdie said as he used his pocket handkerchief to wipe tears of laughter from his eyes. “Say, you know what? I think you could probably take Cliff even now, Frank. He’s about your height and weight, even if he is younger than you. I remember when you backhanded the biker with the Mohawk two years ago. You know, the guy that was bothering Krystal? That guy must have had 40 pounds on you and six inches of reach.”

  Trask scowled at the memory. Krystal Calloway was the cocktail waitress on weekends. She was full of energy and ambition, supporting a ten-year-old son on the tips she earned at the bar. Ever since she had started at Pete’s, he’d wished he’d had a daughter like her. Of course, if you want to win the lottery, you have to buy a ticket, and Frank had never married.

  He admired women like Krystal and Natalie. They faced the worst the world could hand them without whining about it. They weren’t complainers like some men he’d known. To Trask, they were the tough ones.

  Jorgensen chuckled. “That was one surprised sonofabitch. I didn’t know you could move that fast, Frank: Bam—quick as a fucking snake. He went backwards off his stool and cracked his head on the floor. I think there’s still a mark there in the linoleum where he hit.”

  “That’s only because nobody here ever mops the place,” Habersham said with distaste.

  Ferdie and Jorgensen both laughed again.

  Trask sighed. “Yeah, you guys can yuk i
t up now, but it wasn’t so funny when the cops showed up. That goon got a concussion. He could have died. I thought they were gonna charge me with felony assault.”

  “Yeah, but everybody saw him provoke it,” Brundage said. “He had his hands all over Krystal, even after she told him to piss off. The cops finally got it sorted out and left you alone.”

  “Yeah,” Habersham said. “And he hasn’t been back since, either. I think he’s afraid if he runs into you again, you’ll kill him.”

  Trask allowed himself a small smile. “I’d do it again in a New York minute if I had to. I hate seeing a prick get away with stuff. Since I’m a short timer now, maybe I ought to carry a gun like Bill here does and start wasting these street punks. Do a Charlie Manson on ’em, like Death Wish, that picture he was in.”

  “You mean Charlie Bronson, Frank,” Ferd said with a grin. “But when you get your blood up, oh, man! You’re a little bit like Charlie Manson, too—kind of crazy, if you know what I mean.”

  ***

  Frank slept in his skivvies so when he heard the knock on his door at 3 a.m., he had to pull on his pants to see who was there. To his surprise, it was Natalie, in her nightgown, robe and slippers. She looked like she had already been crying for a while and was getting ready for more.

  “Hey, kid,” he said gently, “what’s wrong?”

  “Mr. Trask, I hate to bother you, but it’s the baby,” she said, her lower lip quivering. “She’s got a horrible fever. I’m afraid she’s d-dying.” At her last word she burst into tears, her narrow shoulders shaking as she sobbed.

  “Now, now,” he said, putting his arm around her. “Where’s your husband?”

  “Cliff went out of town again looking for another job,” she said between sobs. “I wouldn’t bother you, but I have... nobody else...”

  “Let’s see her, Natalie,” Trask said, steering her back toward her apartment.

  The baby was barely stirring. Frank put his hand on her forehead and she was burning up. He gave a low whistle.

  “We have to get her to the hospital, like right now, Natalie,” he said. “Whatever is wrong with her is serious.”

  The distraught young woman sobbed even more violently. “But I have no money, no car.”.

  He put his hands on her shoulders. “Don’t worry, kid,” he said. “I’ll have Mrs. Hung call us a cab. You get some street clothes on while I put on my shoes and grab my coat.”

  ***

  The intake staff at Highland must have had a soft spot for kids. They bumped Lucy up to the front of the queue waiting for treatment, so she skipped ahead of the other thirty people in the emergency room. The nurse practitioner called in a duty physician after the toddler registered a 105-degree temperature. Frank waited in the ER lobby while Natalie and the baby were hustled into a treatment room.

  The clock on the wall said it was 6:17 a.m. He yawned; he probably would have been getting up in another hour anyway. This hospital coffee is piss, Frank decided, pouring most of his second cup down the drinking fountain drain with a scowl.

  Down the hall, Natalie emerged from the treatment room talking with a young black woman in greens. They walked slowly toward the lobby together and Trask realized the other woman was his own Dr. Johnson.

  “Don’t you ever go home?” he asked her as they stopped in front of him.

  “Sometimes,” she said, giving him a weary smile. “All I have waiting for me there is my cat, and all she cares about is having me open one of her little cans of food.”

  Natalie had the confused look of somebody who had walked in during the middle of a conversation.

  “Do you two know each other?” she asked.

  Frank smiled. “Yeah, our season tickets to the ballet are right next to each other. She keeps sneaking my popcorn when she thinks I’m not looking.”

  Natalie looked even more confused.

  “No, Natalie,” he said with a laugh. “I just met her here the other day. She’s my doctor.”

  “Are you okay, Mr. Trask?” Natalie asked.

  Frank waved a hand. “Yeah, no problem,” he said, winking the physician to silence. “I was just in for a checkup, that’s all.”

  “What are you doing here?” Dr. Johnson asked.

  Frank nodded at Natalie, who seemed on the verge of collapse. “I brought her,” he said. “She lives next door and she didn’t have cab fare. I figured whatever was going on with Lucy wasn’t going to wait until the 57 bus started running this morning. How is she?”

  The doctor turned to Natalie, smiled and squeezed her hand. “She’ll be fine,” she said. “It’s a simple viral infection. Her fever should break in an hour or so.”

  Frank felt relief. He knew nothing about babies, so he assumed the worst when they got sick.

  “We’re going to keep her here for a day or so to make sure no complications set in,” Johnson said. “A 105-degree temperature in a child is pretty frightening. You were right to bring her in.”

  “How are you doing?” the doctor asked.

  He shrugged. “You told me I’m dying,” he said, keeping his voice low to avoid alarming Natalie. “I guess I’m pretty doing good for somebody with one foot in the grave.”

  She sighed and glanced at her watch. “I have to get back,” she said. She put her hands on Natalie’s shoulders. “Why don’t you go home and get some rest, honey? You worry me more than your baby does. How did you get the big bruise on your eye?”

  Natalie touched her shiner as if she’d forgotten it was there. “Oh, this?” she said. “I, uh—I walked into a door.”

  “Girlfriend, you have got to watch out for those doors,” Johnson said, glancing at Frank in a way that made it clear she didn’t believe a word of it. Frank shrugged to show he didn’t believe it either.

  “Take her home, would you, Mr. Trask?” Johnson said. “She can come back tomorrow afternoon after she’s had some rest. Lucy will be in the pedo ward.”

  “Sure,” Frank said as the doctor turned and strode back down the hallway of the ER, disappearing into another treatment room. He smiled to himself. For some reason, he liked it that she remembered his name.

  ***

  Frank reluctantly got up around noon and after a shower, shave, a soft-boiled egg and coffee, decided to pay his money a visit at the credit union. He wanted to check the balance on the VA and savings accounts to see what they totaled.

  Malea Ticsun, the nice middle-aged lady at the counter, told him he could easily access his account information on his home computer. He told her he didn’t have a home computer. When she said he could use the one at the public library, he held up his hand.

  “Ms. Ticsun, I’m 67 years old,” he said. “I’ve never sat down behind a computer. It took me two months to get straight on how to use the ATM machine. So could you please just tell me what my balance is?”

  She left for a moment and came back with a computer printout. “Here you are Mr. Trask,” she said, pronouncing it “mee-ster” in a way that reminded him she was from the Philippines.

  “This is up to date,” she said handing him his latest statements. “But it does not include interest for the last two days. Also, it weel not show any deposits or withdrawals you have made since midnight.”

  “That’s okay.” Frank smiled. “I haven’t made any since midnight, anyway. Thanks a lot, ma’am.”

  As he glanced at the spreadsheet, she prattled on, talking about something called a Roth-IRA and reminding him that the credit union manager had talked him into transferring his straight savings accounts into a pair of them a couple of years earlier.

  She enumerated the tax advantages they offered and gave him a lot of other technical information he would have needed a business degree to understand. The one thing she said that he did follow was that he could withdraw the money at any time without any penalties because the taxes on it had already been paid.

  The bottom line was good: altogether, the VA and savings money totaled $442,389 and change. Plus there was an additional $15
,000-plus in a small account he’d forgot opening when he and his buddies got a bonus in 1987 for breaking all the company’s productivity records without a single industrial accident.

  Frank could take a long trip with that kind of dough. Well, maybe not such a long trip, considering he was day-to-day, but a luxurious one, anyway. He could go to Europe and live it up in fancy hotels until he croaked. Or he could buy something really nice, some new clothes or something. The things he could do seemed limitless, even if the time he had left wasn’t.

  He was turning toward Pete’s to read the paper and have a beer when he saw the stoop boys from next door sitting with a brown paper bag between them, laughing about something. Bob spotted Frank and gave Lenny a nudge, pointing Trask out. They both jumped to their feet leaving the bag on the steps behind them.

  “Hey, Pops!” Lenny said. “You okay?”

  Trask looked at him suspiciously. “Why? Are you looking to borrow some money?”

  “Fuck no, man,” Lenny said, looking a little bit embarrassed. “I was just wondering, you know, how you’re feeling and all?”

  “I’m okay, kid,” Frank said. “Why? What’s up?”

  “Ferdy, that guy that lives in the apartment building with you,” Bob said. “He told us you got some kind of liver disease. He said you were real sick and had to go to the county hospital. Len and me, we were just worried about you is all.”

  Trask smiled tightly. He wanted to kill Ferd for putting his shit out on the corner like that. He should have been clearer about wanting to keep his condition quiet.

  “Boys, don’t sweat it,” he said. “I’m okay. Ferdy just overdramatizes stuff, that’s all. I’ll probably live long enough to put both of you meatballs underground.”

  Lenny patted him on the shoulder. “I thought it might be something like that,” he said but his skeptical smile showed he was unconvinced. Lenny and Bob weren’t as dumb as Frank had thought they were.

  “Well, if you need anything, let us know, huh old timer?” Lenny said. “You know—groceries picked up, whatever. Hate for you to get a hernia or something doing a bunch of bending or lifting.”