by Mike Befeler
“Come on, Paul, you’re exaggerating.”
“No. Unfortunately, I’m not. I remember it as clear as a day in the desert. All the kids splashing around and me floundering. Instructor thought I was doing it on purpose. When I almost drowned, she realized I wasn’t faking.”
“Why not float on your back?”
“Other people float, I capsize. I don’t like being in the water, other than a shower or Jacuzzi.”
“Speaking of which, the hot tub’s empty now. Are you ready for a soak?”
“Fine by me.”
We plunked our bodies down in the warm water.
“Ah, that’s good,” Meyer said with a sigh.
“I can handle this,” I said. “Shallow and nothing swimming around.”
* * * * *
That night I took Marion out to dinner at a nearby Chinese restaurant. We feasted on sweet-and-sour shrimp, moshu pork, and lemon chicken, complemented with a bottle of Bordeaux. When she went to the powder room, I gulped down a pill. We headed back to her place and took up where we left off.
When she saw my drug-induced erection, she said, “Oh, my.”
Before I knew it, we were humping like teenagers. The wonders of modern medicine.
* * * * *
The next morning I ached all over but could remember everything from the night before. How much more of this could my body take?
I staggered down to breakfast.
“Hey, Don Juan,” Meyer greeted me.
I dropped into a chair.
“I don’t know if I’ve died and gone to heaven or just died,” I said.
* * * * *
Later that morning, Meyer convinced me to do laps again with the kick board. To my surprise, I lasted for twenty laps.
Afterwards, we sat in the sun.
“Marion is good for you,” Meyer said. “The evidence is conclusive now. You’re two for two on having sex and then remembering things the next day.”
“Yeah. This is a hell of a state. I’m old and lose my memory. Then I’m too old to have sex often, and sex is the one thing that brings back my memory.”
“You have to view sex as medicine.”
“I don’t know if Marion’s going to appreciate that. ‘Here, I’m ready for my next dose.’”
“From what I can tell, she’ll go along with it for a while.”
“But will I be able to keep up?”
“You’ll have to figure out what works for the two of you. If she gives up on you, you’ll just have to whack off periodically.”
I turned toward him. “I’m not going to start that again. I gave it up when I was a teenager.”
Meyer shrugged. “Maybe your doctor would have some suggestions.”
“Good old Doc Fry. My purveyor of Viagra. I don’t know if he’s good for much else.”
“Go talk to him,” Meyer said. “It can’t hurt.”
I put on my robe, and as we walked from the pool into the lobby, to my surprise I saw Detective Saito there talking to a woman in a wheelchair.
“I did it, Officer,” she said in a voice that sounded like she had gravel in her throat. “You can arrest me now for the murder.”
Meyer stepped forward and spoke to Detective Saito. “That’s Mrs. Quinn, Detective. Whenever something happens around here, she confesses to it. The staff thought some silverware had been stolen two months ago. Mrs. Quinn confessed to taking it, then it was found in the back of the storeroom.”
“And I expect to receive the reward for turning myself in,” Mrs. Quinn said, ignoring Meyer.
“She’s as guilty as I am,” I said.
Saito glared at me.
“Mrs. Quinn, why don’t you get up and show the detective how you committed the crime,” Meyer said.
“Oh, that’s not possible. I haven’t been able to get out of my wheelchair for two years.”
* * * * *
“I know for sure I’m in a nut house now,” I said.
“Just accept it as entertainment,” Meyer replied.
I offered to read to him, and we took the poky little elevator upstairs, and I resumed reading Alice in Wonderland.
“This place is like the Mad Hatter’s tea party,” I said. “I can picture Henry as the dormouse.”
We were interrupted by a buzzing noise. I opened the door and found a studious young woman, who stood there with books under her arm.
“Oh, it’s Doris,” Meyer said.
“Your date?” I asked.
“No,” he said with a chuckle. “She’s here for my Braille lesson. I forgot she was coming today.”
“I’ll butt out,” I said. “We can read some more another time. You learn to feel those bumps in a book.”
* * * * *
Later that day I went to Dr. Fry’s office. His receptionist asked the nature of my appointment.
“Just a matter of needing the doctor’s advice,” I said.
She looked at me like I was a floating turd and scribbled a note on her pad.
Thirty minutes later I was ushered into the examination room and sat on a gurney covered with a white cloth. I’ve always wondered why doctor’s offices and mortuaries looked so much alike.
After the nurse poked a thermometer in my mouth and took my pulse and blood pressure, the kid walked in.
“Weren’t you here yesterday?” Dr. Fry asked.
“You prescribed Viagra for me. I have this problem. . . .”
“Not strong enough?”
“No, that stuff worked fine,” I said. “It’s my memory.”
He wrinkled his forehead.
“It’s like this,” I explained. “As you know, my short-term memory is crapola. After sleeping, I can’t remember anything from the day before.”
“That’s not unusual,” he replied. “With some forms of dementia you can lose your short-term memory while still retaining good use of your long-term memory.”
“Yeah, I remember things fine from five years ago and before,” I said. “With the short-term memory loss, I may have stumbled upon a temporary cure. If I have sex, I seem to remember things okay from the day before. My problem is, Doc, how do I build up my sexual endurance so I can perform more often and remember?”
“If I had an answer to that, I’d be a billionaire,” he said.
“Any hope for an old poop like me?”
He shook his head. “Other than the right balance of exercise, a healthy diet, and a little assistance from Viagra, not much else I can suggest.”
I left with what I expected. Nothing. Not even an offer to be assisted by a nurse’s escort service.
* * * * *
“Dr. Fry was as useless as hair on your butt,” I said to Meyer at dinner.
“Kind of like you,” Henry interjected.
I was tempted to squirt catsup on his bald head but contained myself. Ignoring him, I said to Meyer, “I don’t have any new solution to my memory problem.”
“Guess it’s all up to Marion then,” Meyer said.
“It’s not that easy. The sex only seems to help my memory for a day or so. Then I’m back to remembering squat until I can replenish my ammo.”
Chapter 12
I woke up in a strange sterile room. The aroma of rubbing alcohol permeated the place. A white curtain pulled around my bed ran along an overhead track. I heard some voices. My head throbbed. Where the hell was I?
I tried to get up, but my back was stiff. I fell back in bed, having decided to just rest.
As I closed my eyes, I heard snatches of phrases: “Head trauma . . . no broken bones . . . dehydrated. . . .”
Sounded like a medical TV show. I opened my eyes again. I examined my surroundings. A paper cup and a push button device rested on a gray table beside my bed. There was an IV stuck in my arm. I was in a hospital.
But where?
The curtain parted, and a young man in a white coat greeted me. “How are you feeling, Mr. Jacobson?”
“Head hurts. Where am I?”
“Castle Hospital.�
��
“What happened to me?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out. What do you remember?”
“Nothing.”
He frowned. “All we know is a Good Samaritan called 9-1-1 after finding you unconscious in a ditch in Kaneohe.”
I tried to squeeze some recollection out of my aching head. Nothing.
“In your wallet we found an expired driver’s license with an address in Honolulu and a newer ID card with the address of Kina Nani on it.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“It’s the retirement home where you must live. We’ve called them, and they’re trying to find someone who might know what you were doing.”
I looked at him, my mind a blank. “I have no clue what’s going on here.”
“Get some rest.”
He sauntered away, and I closed my eyes since I had nothing better to do.
Before I could even have a dream of a scantily clad nurse, my phone rang. I picked it up to hear Denny’s distinctive voice. “Dad, what happened?”
“I don’t know. I’m in a hospital, but can’t remember why. They said I fell in a ditch.”
“What were you doing in a ditch?”
“Lying there unconscious, apparently,” I said.
“But how did you get there?”
“Good question. My soggy brain doesn’t have any answers, and it seems no one was with me.”
“Do you want me to fly out?” he asked.
“No need for that. I’ll be fine, once my head stops aching.”
He said he’d call again later.
After awhile a nurse came in and told me I had a visitor.
A man I’d never seen before walked in and said, “Paul, what have you gotten yourself into?”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Meyer. We’re friends at Kina Nani.”
“Never seen you before,” I said.
He clucked his tongue. “I was afraid this would happen. You’ve been keeping a journal. I brought it with me so you could review what you’ve written.” He handed me a stack of paper. “Read this, and then we’ll talk.”
I hunkered down and skimmed the first page. “Looks like my handwriting.” Then I thumbed through a few more pages.
“Seems I’ve been put out to pasture in a retirement home,” I said.
“That sums it up.”
“They say I was found in a ditch. Any idea how I ended up there?”
“I had breakfast with you this morning,” he said. “You had forgotten everything again, but had read your journal. You’ve been putting a note by your bed to reread what you’d written every morning when you wake up. At breakfast the only thing you said was that you needed to get some cough drops. You must have been walking to the store.”
“Why would I want cough drops? My only problem is my headache.”
“I’ll leave your journal here with you, and here’s your note to read it when you wake up. They say you’ll be here overnight for observation, so you’ll have forgotten everything when you next wake up.”
I started scanning through the manuscript. Then something caught my attention. “You know anything about this woman named Marion?”
“Yes,” Meyer said. “She’s your girlfriend.”
“I’ll be damned. I feel like I plopped down in the middle of a Twilight Zone episode.”
“Get some rest. When you get back to Kina Nani we’ll discuss your ‘cure.’”
My head wasn’t throbbing as much, so I read the rest of my manuscript and found out I was a suspect in a murder investigation.
This was all too weird.
My son called and asked again if he should come to Hawaii to help me.
“I always like to see you, Denny, but I’m bouncing back. You don’t need to make a special trip.”
“Jennifer finishes the school year on Friday, and we’re all going to be visiting you in two weeks.”
“Just go with the planned trip. Nothing required before then.”
I was too confused now anyway. I needed some time to get my life in order and digest what I’d read in my journal. Getting old wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
The young kid disguised as a doctor came in again.
“When can I blow this joint?” I asked.
He looked at his clipboard. “Probably tomorrow. All the tests so far are negative. How are you feeling?”
“Little headache, stiff, but ready to bust out.”
He smiled. “I’d like to run one more test. There is some evidence of minor strokes.”
“That’s old stuff. I can’t remember shit and have been that way for . . . well, I read it’s been five years.”
Doogie ran his test, I stared at the institutional white walls for awhile, and finally a nurse informed me that I had another visitor.
“This is getting to be like Grand Central Station,” I said.
The nurse smiled. “I guess you’re a popular guy.”
“I’ll probably have no clue who this visitor is, either.”
And I was right. A bouncy old broad in a flowered dress rushed into my room. “Paul, I was worried.” She dashed over to the bed and planted a big, juicy kiss on my cheek.
I didn’t know who this woman was. Could she be the one described in my journal?
“Everyone is talking about you at Kina Nani. Did you get assaulted?”
“I don’t know what happened. I woke up in the hospital, and they told me I was found in a ditch.”
“Did you get robbed?”
“No. My wallet’s in the drawer over there.”
“I need you,” she said with a come-hither look in her eyes.
This had to be the one in my journal.
“Marion?” I said with a quaver in my voice.
“Don’t act so surprised. Of course.”
That was a relief. Now I knew I had the right person. I’d never seen her before, even though we’d apparently been fooling around together.
“I should be able to leave the hospital tomorrow,” I said.
“I hope you’re not on restricted activities,” she said with a wink.
This was getting interesting. I played along. “Not where you’re concerned.”
She blushed and squeezed my hand.
I considered telling her what I had read about her helping me remember. No. I decided to keep that information to myself.
“I think I’ll arrange a little party to celebrate your return tomorrow night,” she said.
“Why not wait until it’s certain that they’ll release me? The doctor’s going to review the results of one more test.”
She pouted. “They shouldn’t keep you here. You look ready to go.”
“I’m with you on that. I hate hospitals. Noisy and always poking things in you.”
“As soon as I know you’re coming home, I’ll plan something,” she said.
“I don’t need a big party. You and I could have our own private little rendezvous.”
“Oh, my,” she said and her cheeks glowed again.
Imagine my amazement. I did have a girlfriend. This was like being back in high school.
She gave me a kiss and said she was off to run some errands.
I waved goodbye and lay back to consider the possibilities.
Later I asked for a pen and some paper and added to my journal. Then I placed the note Meyer left on top of the papers.
* * * * *
The next morning I woke up and saw the note. I read the journal with astonishment. I was some kind of old, sex maniac, murder suspect freak.
When a nurse came in, I asked her when I could go on parole. She checked the clipboard at the bottom of my bed and told me the doctor had approved my release. She said she’d call Kina Nani to have a van come get me.
“You’ll need to keep a bandage on your head for a few days,” she informed me. “Pretty nasty gash where your head hit the ground.”
I dressed, watched the walls a little, and then a cheerful woman in a fl
oor-length yellow muumuu came strolling into the room.
“Mr. Jacobson, time to go.”
“Do I know you?” I asked.
“Sure. I’m Melanie from Kina Nani. I’ve come to pick you up.”
I looked at her face again. Never seen her before. She had a nice smile, though. “If you’re kidnapping me, I’m ready. It’ll add some excitement to my life.”
“You’ve already had some excitement,” she said. “You were found in a ditch.”
“I like to go ditch diving. Nothing unusual.”
She wrinkled her brows. “Next time you better use our swimming pool.”
* * * * *
On the van ride back, an empty feeling seized me. It wasn’t hunger. I contemplated the subject of being old. I was still mobile, I could see as well as anyone, my hearing still worked, my teeth were all my own, no heart, lung, liver or kidney problems. It was my damned memory. Without that inconvenience I’d have been the poster boy for the AARP. They could run ads describing me as the example of vigorous health in the waning years. Look at Paul. Still active sexually (apparently), a girlfriend, guys to talk to at meals, walking around and falling in ditches. Even keeping the police hopping. What more could you ask for, unless it would be to remember what happened yesterday?
I had to get on top of this situation, clear my name, and get on with my life.
When we reached our destination, I asked Melanie what apartment I lived in.
“Six-fifteen, Mr. Jacobson.”
“Okay. And thanks for the ride.” I reached in my wallet to give her a tip.
“I can’t accept money,” she said with a winning smile.
Too bad I already had a girlfriend.
* * * * *
There was a note taped to my door. Said to call Meyer. After I put my stack of journal pages on the nightstand by the bed, I dialed the number on the note.
“Welcome back to paradise,” he said.
“It’s good to escape one nuthouse for another,” I replied. “I’m starving. When can a guy get some food around this place?”
“I’ll meet you at table eleven in the dining room in thirty minutes.”
“From what I read, you’re the old guy with a white beard.”
“I’m old like all of the people here, Paul. We’ll catch up on your field trip over lunch.”