Barry Friedman - The Old Folks At Home: Warehouse Them or Leave Them on the Ice Floe

by Barry Friedman

  “Yes. As long as I’m here, I want to see the Todds.”

  “Sure.”

  “I forget where their place is.”

  “Follow me.”

  He walked me down the corridor, past the Administrator’s Office and around the bend to the other wing. The Todds’ apartment was the second from the end of the corridor. Next to the Activities Room. Cattycorner from the one marked “Staff Only.”

  I knocked, but when there was no response after a few minutes, Ernie shrugged and opened the door.

  Frank and Mary were side by side on their small couch, similar to the Rogers. A blanket was draped over their legs. The room did seem rather chilly. .Both smiled when they saw me.

  “Hi, Frank. Mary.”

  “Hi.” In unison.

  “How’s the world treating you?”

  Frank said, “The world?”

  I snickered. “Just a figure of speech. Are you two doing okay?”

  Mary said, “We’re doing okay.”

  “Just okay? Not fine and dandy?”

  Frank said, “Fine and dandy. Right, Mary?”

  She nodded. “Fine and dandy.”

  “Well we’ve got that out of the way. What have you two done lately?”

  Frank glanced at Mary. “What have we done lately, Mary?”

  I had almost forgotten that Frank was getting shorter and shorter in the memory department.

  Mary said, “We haven’t done much lately. We eat and sleep.”

  Frank echoed, “We eat and sleep.”

  It seemed to me that they should arrange for some more activities for these people. After all, they couldn’t get around because of their disabilities. I know how boring it must be to sit around and look at each other.

  I said, “Aren’t there lectures and movies for the folks on this floor?

  Mary said, “There are lectures and movies.”

  “Do you both attend them?”

  Mary said, “Yes. We attend them.”

  Frank said, “Yes, We attend them.”

  Poor Frank. He was getting worse. I felt just as sorry for Mary. Crippled by her osteoporosis, there wasn’t much she could do.

  “Do you read, Mary?”

  “Yes, I read.”

  On the bed stand was a book. I craned to see the title, but couldn’t make it out.

  “What are you reading now?”

  “We watch TV a lot.”

  That didn’t answer my question, but I wasn’t about to make an issue of it.

  Frank said, “We watch TV a lot.”

  I searched my mind to find something to talk about, but Frank’s apparent increasing dementia made me uncomfortable. I just wanted out. I said goodbye after promising to come back another time.

  I left and closed the door. Ernie, my keeper, was not in sight.

  Across the hall was the Staff Room. Ernie probably was in there waiting for me. I knocked, but there was no response. I tried the doorknob, and to my amazement it was not locked. Curious as to what was beyond that door, I looked up and down the corridor and seeing no one, went into the room.

  It was divided into two large rooms. The one close to the entrance was a sitting room. A cot was against the wall, probably for one of the aides to grab a little sack time.

  The second room, separated by an archway, was darkened, but I could make out what appeared to be a long table and an array of artists’ paints and brushes. One wall held a large fiberboard square on which were as assortment of tools. A workroom.

  Ernie still hadn’t made an appearance so I took a few hesitant steps into the workroom. In the dim light I could see on the table a bulky object covered by a sheet. A body? I drew the sheet back a few inches from one end. And looked into the face of Gladys Andrews!

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  My knees buckled. I thought I was about to pass out. Or throw up. Or both. I rested my hands on the edge of the table for a moment. I shook my head to get rid of the cobwebs, and looked at the sheet for signs of breathing. I knew I wouldn’t find any. Gladys was dead. Poor Gladys.

  I immediately thought about the Sopforex, the potent sleep-inducer. She must have gotten a replacement for the tablets and took them in spite of my warning. I felt bile rise up in my throat.

  I also felt the need to get out of this room as fast as I could. I hadn’t been in it more than a minute or two, but it felt as though it had been an eternity.

  I bolted for the door, and closed it behind me—just as Ernie appeared at the far end of the corridor. He hurried toward me, glancing from the Staff Room door to me.

  “Hey, you didn’t go in there, did you?”

  I shook my head. “It’s locked, isn’t it?”

  He looked relieved. “Yeah. Finished with your visit to the Todds?”

  “Yeah. Let’s go.”

  I wanted to get out of this place, off this floor as fast as I could. I hoped Ernie hadn’t gotten a good look at my face. I’d felt the blood drain out.

  On wobbly legs, I followed him to the elevator and down to the door of the building. I murmured a thanks as he let me out.

  Back in my apartment, Harriet was, as usual, glued to the TV screen. Thank God for the boob box. She couldn’t concentrate enough to read a book, and I couldn’t be her constant companion and entertainer. Her short term memory loss wasn’t bad enough to warrant a fulltime companion. Yet it wasn’t good enough to go places outside the building unaccompanied. Besides, she’d promptly fired every person I’d hired to take her for walks and shopping.

  Because she’d been found wandering the hallways looking for the elevator, each year the Wellness Center gave her a memory test. She’d passed with colors, while not flying, they were at least indicative that she was still with it. Whatever ‘it’ meant.

  “I can spell ‘world’ backwards. Want to hear?” she said for the tenth time. This week.

  I wasn’t sure she could spell it forwards, but the letters d-l-r-o-w rolled off her tongue without a moment of hesitation.

  I said, “Gladys Andrews died.”

  “Who? And before I forget, there was a phone call for you.”

  “Who called?” I knew the answer before the words left her lips.

  “I forget.”

  As expected.

  She pointed to the kitchen counter. “I wrote the name down.”

  The memo pad I’d left was blank. “Where’d you write it?”

  Her eyes never left the TV screen. “It’s there, somewhere.”

  In the margin of a newspaper lying on the kitchen counter next to the phone, was a scribble. It looked like Gladys.

  “Was it Gladys?”

  “If that’s what it says.”

  I knew only one Gladys. And she lay on a table, lifeless. Probably waiting for an undertaker to take her on her last journey.

  “Gladys Andrews?”

  “I think so.”

  “I just told you, she died.”

  “Maybe that’s what she called to tell you.”

  I counted to ten. “When did she call?” Maybe she had called while she was still alive.

  “Just before you came in.”

  “Do you remember, or are you guessing?”

  “What’s the matter with you? It was just before you came in. Stephen Colbert had just introduced a guest on his show, and I had to answer the phone. When I came back to the program I didn’t remember who the guest was. She said to call her back.”

  “Who Gladys?”

  Harriet looked up from the screen. Her eyes hooded. “Are you out of your mind? If the note says Gladys, it’s Gladys.”

  I knew it was senseless, but I dialed her number.

  “Hello.”

  Jesus. It was Gladys’ voice.

  “Gladys Andrews?”

  “Who are you calling?”

  I stammered, “Gladys, it’s—it’s Henry. Callins.”

  “Oh. Henry! Hmm. I love Oh Henrys. The candy bar.”

  I’d heard that lame joke since I was a fifth-grader. “Heh heh
.”

  I was talking to a ghost.

  “I’m so glad you called back. I have a question. I hope you don’t mind, but I know you were in the pharmaceutical business and since I couldn’t get hold of my doctor, I thought you could give me an answer.”

  It was Gladys. Had I mistaken the dead person on the table for Gladys? I put my thoughts in reverse, back to that Staff Room. Back to the table on which she lay. Gladys’ face. Gladys’ hair. Her features were so distinguished I couldn’t be mistaken.

  “Henry, are you still there?”

  I wasn’t sure where I was, but I said, “Sorry. What’s the question again?”

  She explained that a week ago, her doctor had prescribed some medicine for her arthritis and she was concerned that it might interfere with the tablets she’d been given in Assisted Living.

  “You mean the tablets that I dropped?”

  “Uh-huh. They were nice enough to replace them. Although I bet there’ll be an extra charge.”

  “The same color and size as the ones I dropped on the floor?”

  “Henry, put your hearing aide in.”

  “You haven’t taken any yet, have you?’

  “No. I waited until I asked you.”

  Thank God! But still, if the dead person on the table wasn’t Gladys, who was it? If it was Gladys, who was I just talking to? “I’ll have to look it up,” I said. “But hold off taking them until I either call or see you.”

  Chapter Thirty

  I had to see Gladys again. The Gladys to whom I’d just spoken.

  I phoned Chet and told him I wanted to visit her.

  He said, “Gosh, This is really a bad time. They’re all at a lecture in the Activities Room. When it’s over, it’ll be time for food tray delivery. They go to bed after dinner. I’m afraid you’ll to wait until tomorrow.”

  I was disappointed, but I supposed there was no real urgency now that I’d told her not to take the Sopforex. If it really was Gladys. And the medication she’d been given was really Sopforex.

  To say I was confused would be like saying the sun would go down in the evening.

  Chet was good as his word. He phoned at ten the next morning. “Okay, Hank, you can come over to see Gladys Andrews if you still want to see her.”

  Hank? Nobody had called me Hank since I was in Little League baseball. Nothing wrong with the name, but I didn’t like it. I said, “Thanks, Chester.”

  He chuckled. “The last person who called me Chester was my father when he was about to use the strop on my behind. I really prefer Chet.”

  “I really prefer Henry.”

  “Touché. You coming over—Henry?”

  “I’ll be there in ten.”

  Chet was at the door when I arrived. He let me in and apologized for misnaming me.

  As we passed Jean’s open apartment door, I grabbed Chet’s arm.

  “Hold it a moment. I want to say hello to someone.”

  I leaned into the doorway. Jean was sitting next to a small table, wearing a long robe, filing her nails. Every time I’d seen her she was filing her nails. By now she should have filed them down to the cuticles, but from what I could see they were long with crimson polish. I said, “Hi.”

  She looked up, smiled and said, “Hi, I’m Jean.”

  I remembered who she was, but apparently didn’t remember me. “Just passing by. Wanted to say hello. And goodbye.”

  I rejoined Chet and we went on to Gladys’ apartment. She was sitting up in bed, reading. I did a double take. Gladys was alive and apparently well. Chet said, “I’ll leave you two for a few minutes. I’ve got some work to do.”

  I said, “How’s everything going, Gladys?

  “Fine.”

  “Listen. About the pills—.”

  She said, “I took them.”

  Oh Lord!

  I said, “I told you to wait until…never mind.” If she’d already taken them there was nothing I could do. But I was surprised that she didn’t look the worse for it. Maybe I’d been wrong about their effect. Maybe I’d been wrong about the dead Gladys.

  I remembered she’d been unhappy with the unpleasant attitude of the staff. Ernie and Fredricka in particular. “How are you getting along with the staff now?”

  “I couldn’t be more pleased with the service. Everyone’s so helpful and pleasant.”

  “Huh?” Someone must have gotten to them. I changed the subject. “What’s that you’re reading?”

  “A book.”

  I could see that. “Who wrote it?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  All she had to do was look at the book’s spine, but I saw no point in making an issue of it. I was still confused about the Sopforex. “You said you took the pills.”

  “I took the pills.”

  “And how do you feel?”

  “Fine. Fine, Hank.”

  Hank? Again? I’d known her almost two years. She’d never called me Hank before. First Chet, now her. I didn’t want to embarrass her by correcting her. Trying to make conversation, I said, “Any complaints?”

  “No. The food is good. I couldn’t be more pleased with the service. Everyone’s so helpful and pleasant.”

  Like all the Assisted Living residents. I felt I was listening to a broken record.

  As confused as I was, at least I’d satisfied myself that Gladys—this Gladys—was alive. Who the dead body I’d seen on that table belonged to, I had no idea. I said, “Well, I’ll be going now that I know everything is all right. Goodbye for now.”

  “Goodbye for now.”

  I didn’t go directly to my apartment. Something bothered me. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was, and I needed time to sort things out. Harriet, I knew, would be at the blaring TV and I couldn’t think clearly with some game show host shouting. I decided to take a walk and try to figure it out, step-by-step.

  I’d always prided myself as being an analytical person. I suppose what disturbed me more than anything was my inability to put things in order—at least as it pertained to what was going on in Assisted Living.

  Suddenly, I realized what it was. Tranquility. Everyone with whom I had come in contact was tranquil. They were content to the point of floating on clouds. Even Gladys, who before she’d been moved to Assisted Living was raucous with her bawdy jokes and a loud laugh. So distinctive a laugh, that even from the far end of the dining room everyone who heard it nodded and said, “That’s Gladys.” Now, she like everyone else on the floor, was subdued.

  In spite of the denial by Fredricka that these people were not sedated, I knew they were drugged.

  In my position as head of the pharmaceutical company, I had seen people, volunteers, who in the course of clinical trials of medications had received heavy doses of tranquilizers. The purpose was to see how large a dose could be tolerated. Compared to the tranquility of these Assisted Living residents, those tranquillized volunteers were frenetic.

  There was no way I could verify my suspicion—no, my strong belief—that they were given something to make them docile as lambs. And it made sense. These were people who, in spite of their disabilities, sat around with nothing to keep them from being bored to the point of tearing out their hair and yelling. Drugging them was one way to make them manageable,

  Maybe there was a way of finding out what they were getting.

  Places like hospitals and nursing homes, where medications were dispensed, stored them in medicine cabinets. I hadn’t seen any in the Administrator’s Office when I met Kurt Berman. I’d seen a medicine cabinet in the nurses’ station downstairs in the Care Center, but it didn’t appear likely that medications for residents in Assisted Living would be transported from there. My logic told me the cabinet had to be in the only other place: the room marked Staff Only.

  I had it figured out. At night, calls from Assisted Living were monitored by an aide and nurse in the Care Center. Steve had told us on the tour that night calls from Assisted Living were rare. Meaning if someone, guess who, could somehow ge
t into Assisted Living after bedtime, he or she could investigate without a staff member around to interfere.

  I fingered the lock-picking tools I carried in my pocket.

  At night, tonight…

  Chapter Thirty-One

  I was getting so adept at lock-picking, I could open my practice lock with my eyes closed or in the dark. And it took only a minute or less.

  At 10 PM Harriet was bedded down. Sleep was one thing she did well. I dressed and quietly left the apartment. I doubted that anyone monitored the elevator, so I took it down. If security stopped me I was prepared to tell them I couldn’t sleep and was going for a walk.

  The garage door was down and locked, but the door leading into it was not. Something about fire laws.

  I accepted the invitation, and two lock-picked doors later I stood in the unlit Staff Room. Using a mag light, I searched the walls.

  Voila! In the work room was the cabinet’s glass door through which I could see shelves containing bottles of tablets and capsules. I congratulated myself for the deduction.

  Before opening the cabinet, I flicked a glanced at the table on which Gladys II still lay. Or more correctly, lay still. I had no desire to see it/her again, knowing it/she couldn’t be Gladys.

  I reached up to open the medications cabinet and look for the tranquilizer I knew would be there, when a muscular arm encircled my neck in a choke hold.

  The choke hold was blocking my airway. I could smell the armpit sweat, heard the heavy breathing of the person holding me. I struggled, kicked back connecting with something hard. A shin. I heard a grunt and the choke hold tightened. The person holding me half-carried, half-dragged me back to the other room.

  My lungs cried for air and I felt myself growing faint. In the blackness before my eyes I saw colored balls. I was about to pass out. I did pass out.

  When I came to, I was seated in a chair, a band of duct tape binding me to the chairback. My captor was behind me winding more duct tape around my chest and legs. Another piece of tape was placed over my eyes, and still another over my mouth. An Egyptian mummy had less binding. I was thankful I could breath, but my heart was pounding.