Terminal House

by Sean Costello

  That got the place laughing again.

  But Ben had lost interest, his eyes scanning the room now, hoping for another glimpse of Roxanne.

  * * *

  When she got home that night at twelve-thirty, Roxanne was surprised to find her grandmother still awake, reading a novel in Gramps’s easy chair with her feet up on the ottoman. She looked up as Roxanne came in, saying, “Hi, sweetie. Long day?”

  Setting her backpack by the stairs, Roxanne said, “Yeah, Gram, and I’m pooped. It was a good day, though. The formal part in the morning was a bit stiff, but the talent show was a hoot. I’m glad I took the double shift.”

  Gram said, “You must be so hungry,” and started to get up.

  Roxanne said, “No, I’m fine,” and Gram eased herself back in the chair. “I stuffed myself at the buffet.” She sat on the edge of the ottoman now, taking her grandmother’s hand. She said, “I stopped in to see Gramps today,” and Gram’s hand tightened around hers. “To say goodbye.”

  “Oh, honey. So you’ve decided?”

  Tears flooded Roxanne’s eyes and she could only nod. Gram drew her close, cradling her head as she had so often in the past, soothing a skinned knee or a broken heart. She said, “It’s the right thing to do, my darling. He was such a good man, I can’t bear to think of him suffering.”

  She stroked Roxanne’s hair for a while, humming some nameless tune, and Roxanne felt the guilt melting away. It was the right thing to do, and she was glad she’d found someone to help her make the decision.

  Sitting up now, she snatched a tissue from the dispenser on the lamp table and said, “I met a neat old guy today. A retired doctor who used to work at the Foundation.”

  “Mm-hmm?”

  “I heard a speech he gave at the ceremony, and I talked to him about it later. He helped me decide.”

  “Then I’m very grateful to him.”

  “Me, too,” Roxanne said, yawning now. She patted her grandmother’s knee and stood. “I’m gonna say goodnight now, Gram. We’ve got that meeting in the morning and—”

  Gram caught her hand as she started away. “Listen, sweetheart. You don’t have to go to the meeting. I can handle it on my own. You don’t even have to sign the consent. My signature’s all they need.”

  “No. I want to. We’re in this together, okay?”

  “Okay, hon.” She squeezed Roxanne’s hand. “You try and get some sleep now.”

  Roxanne said she would, but she barely slept a wink.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Wednesday, May 31

  RAY GALE, SEVENTY-NINE, strode up to the admissions window in the admin building with a single suitcase in his hand, moving with the same short-statured, barrel-chested vigor he’d possessed as a teenager. Anticipating a tiresome wait, he was pleasantly surprised when the gum-chewing clerk said, “Of course, Mister Gale, we’ve been expecting you,” and slid two white key cards through the half-moon opening in the Plexiglas. “We’ve got you in the South Tower,” she said, pointing to a bank of elevators across the lobby, “which you can access right over there. You’re on level twelve, apartment twelve thirty-three.” Smiling, she asked if he’d like a porter to carry his bag and show him to his quarters. Ray thanked the girl and told her he’d be fine.

  The ride to level twelve was quick and smooth and Ray stepped out onto plush teal carpet, a sign on the facing wall pointing him left toward his new digs. Moving along the narrow corridor, he thought about who he should visit first. He knew his old high school buddies were all residents here now, and he wanted to hang out with each of them in turn. But he decided to see Ben first. They would have the most to talk about, and he wanted to get the more awkward bits out of the way as quickly as he could. There were fences that needed mending. Then he had a huge favor to ask the man.

  The door to 1233 opened with a sigh, the air inside hot and stale, and Ray was annoyed to find the windows all sealed. Probably afraid of suicides, he thought, a concept he’d brushed shoulders with more than once in the past. He found a thermostat and adjusted it from 72° to 64°. There was an immediate rush of cool air from a ceiling vent and Ray thought, Okay, good.

  The apartment was small but conveniently laid out, a narrow kitchenette opening onto a combined living-dining area, with a single bedroom and bath branching off a short corridor. After living in fifteen-hundred square feet of bungalow for the past ten years, it was going to take some getting used to. But, he reminded himself, he wouldn’t be staying very long.

  A familiar spike of pain ambushed him now, taking him in the lower back, and within seconds he was tacky with sweat. He lowered himself onto the edge of the bed and fished a couple of pain pills out of his suitcase. Grimacing, he dry-swallowed the pills and leaned forward to relieve the spasm.

  Once the pain backed off, he hoisted the suitcase onto the bed, thinking how sobering it was that seventy-nine years of life could be compressed into a single piece of luggage.

  Then he called the reception desk and asked for Ben’s apartment number.

  * * *

  When the knock came on his door at 9:20 that morning, Ben assumed it was Quinn. The man could be a real nuisance, always with some hare-brained scheme that involved either spending Ben’s money or breaking a bunch of the Center’s ironclad rules. Or both.

  But in that first instant as he opened the door, Ben believed he was experiencing another of those jarring dislocations. Because instead of Quinn, his best friend Ray was standing there in faded jeans and a black T-shirt, grinning through his perpetual horseshoe moustache.

  Still unsure if the man was real, Ben said, “Faggot?” and Ray said “Homo!” the way they’d greeted each other since they were kids.

  It was Ray all right, but a much older version than Ben remembered. The usually jet-black moustache was snow-white now, the male-pattern fringe of hair the man had always so meticulously coiffed almost gone, only a few thin wisps left, also snow-white.

  Ben stood frozen for a long moment. Then Ray pulled him into a huge bear hug and Ben smelled his cologne—always Old Spice and always too much—and felt the man’s bristly cheek against his own.

  Tears filming his eyes, Ben said, “Ray?”

  “None other,” Ray said, nudging him out to arm’s length now, looking him up and down. “How are you, man?”

  “Much better now that I know you’re real,” Ben said, delighted to see his old friend. He moved out of the doorway. “Come in. Jesus, man, come in.”

  Noticing Ben’s wet eyes as he stepped inside, Ray said, “Are you crying?”

  “Maybe a little.”

  Grinning, Ray said, “I always said you’d make a nice little girl,” and it was like they’d last seen each other only yesterday.

  Without asking, Ben fetched a beer for each of them, saying, “To hell with it. The sun’s over the yardarm somewhere on the planet.”

  He sat next to Ray on the couch, noticing only now a grayness under the man’s usually robust complexion, and a startling loss of muscle mass, most remarkably between the bones of his hands. Ray had labored hard with those hands his entire life, and had always had the grip-strength of a vice.

  Sipping his beer in this comfortable silence between friends, Ben admonished himself for donning his doctor hat within minutes of Ray’s surprise visit, reminding himself the man was a decade older than the last time he’d seen him. He thought, Time takes its toll, and decided to quit being such a worry wart.

  Ray took a long pull on his beer, bugging his blue eyes at Ben, making him grin. Growing up together, Ray had always been the funny one, Ben the more serious of the two. Looking at Ray now, acting the fool, Ben recalled occasions in their teens when he’d literally had to beg the guy to stop screwing around—usually after they’d smoked a chunk of hash—certain if he didn’t, the outcome would be the first fatality from uncontrollable laughter in the history of man.

  God, it was good to see him again.

  They chatted a while, small talk and nonsense mostly, exchanging a
few rude jokes they’d heard. Then Ben asked Ray what had prompted his visit after so many years.

  Visit?” Ray said, laughing. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily, Benji. I’m your goddamn new neighbor.”

  Delighted, Ben got teary-eyed again, telling Ray how much he was going to love it here and promising him a VIP tour. They talked about how much fun it was going to be to sneak up on those other two happy assholes, and Ben spilled the beans about Wilder’s covert horticultural activities.

  The mood grew somber after that, and Ben said, “About the last time we spoke…”

  Ray raised a hand. “Put it out of your mind, okay, man? I was in a dark place back then, Angie threatening to leave me every five minutes. But I knew you were hip-deep in your own shit at the time, and I realized only later how selfish it was of me to lay all that crap on you then.” Ben tried to interject and Ray said, “Please, man, just listen. All that talk of suicide? I thought about it. I really did. Had the shotgun in my hand one night.” He laughed. “But you know what stopped me?” Ben shook his head. “A Cheech and Chong movie. Up in Smoke. Can you believe it? It was on the tube, and I’m sitting there on Angie’s precious Lexington salon sofa—she was out shopping for matching end tables with money we didn’t have—hoping I’d get brains all over her figured damask draperies, and there’s that low-rider coming down the highway with smoke billowing out the windows, and I started to laugh—like you used to when you thought you were gonna die from laughter, remember?” Ben told him he’d just been thinking about that and Ray said, “I laughed and laughed, and when Angie got back an hour later, I was still laughing, laughing so hard I was puking all over her vintage Persian rug. I laughed all the way to the loony bin.

  “All this to say…I was clinically depressed. That’s all. Nothing you could’ve done about it. Nothing any amount of talking about it could’ve done. I was in a locked ward for three months. Psychiatrists, ECT, experimental drugs. The whole nine yards.

  “But in the end, this cute little gray-haired shrink lady comes in and writes me a prescription for a new anti-depressant. Then she tells me to leave my wife. Now get this. She writes her phone number on the back of the script and tells me, after I leave my wife to give her a call.”

  Ben was grinning now. “So did you?”

  “Damn straight I did,” Ray said, pausing to drain his beer. “Left the wife, the house, the car and the debt and moved in with the little shrink lady.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “Scout’s honor. Happiest six years of my life.”

  Ben said, “Six years? But that was a decade ago. What…?”

  “Bella got cancer and died,” Ray said. “Bella was what I called her. I have no idea why. Her real name was Claire Wedgerfield. Sometimes I called her ‘Wedgie’. She preferred ‘Bella’. Had it tattooed on the back of her neck.”

  Now Ray’s eyes were wet, but Ben knew better than to say anything about it. What he did say was, “Jesus, I’ve missed a lot.”

  Smiling, Ray said, “Indeed you have, my friend.” He cuffed the tears from his eyes and said, “Now who do I have to blow to get another beer?”

  Ben said, “That’d be me,” falling easily into the adolescent banter that had always been their way, having fun with it.

  He opened the fridge and shouted, “I’m out of beer. Cider okay?”

  “What kind you got?”

  “Strongbow. British Dry.”

  “You realize only a pansy’d have that shit in his fridge.”

  Ben chuckled. “You want one or not?”

  “Bring it on.”

  Ben tucked one bottle under his arm and tried to twist the cap off the other, then remembered Strongbow didn’t have twist-off caps. He set the bottles on the counter and opened the utensil drawer, annoyed to discover the talking Simpsons bottle opener a friend had given him was missing. His annoyance flared to rage and he ran the drawer shut so hard the maple front-plate jumped its attachments, striking him on the knee before clattering to the floor. He thought, Quinn, and roared, “Fucking klepto.” The bastard was here last night, raiding the fridge like he always did, and he was constantly going on about that opener, saying how much he wanted one. He must’ve pocketed the damn thing before they left for the variety show—

  Someone came into the kitchen from the living room now, a mean-looking bald guy with a bandit’s moustache, and Ben grabbed a butcher knife out of the busted drawer and brandished it at him, saying, “Who the fuck are you and how did you get in here?”

  The guy raised his hands, saying, “Hey, man, quit screwing around. You’re going to hurt yourself with that thing.”

  Was that…?

  Ben said, “Ray?” and lowered the knife.

  “Who else would it be? Are you kidding me right now? Because it isn’t funny.”

  Ben put the knife on the counter and opened the next drawer over, yanking it out to the stops, then slamming it shut, saying, “Fucking Quinn. That prick. He stole my Simpsons bottle opener.”

  Ray said, “What are you talking about?” He pointed into the living room. “It’s on the coffee table.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “See for yourself.”

  Ben moved past Ray into the living room, startled when his friend shied away from him.

  The opener was on the coffee table.

  Ben sagged onto the couch. “But I thought…”

  Ray picked up the bright red bottle opener, inadvertently triggering the voice button. Homer said, “D-oh!” in a tinny voice and Ray put the opener in Ben’s hand. “It’s a cheap plastic toy, Benji. You can pick one up at any Dollar Store. And Quinn wouldn’t steal a kiss. Look up honest in Webster’s and you’ll find a picture of that fuzzy primate grinning back at you.”

  “But I thought…”

  * * *

  Ray sat on the coffee table in front of his friend, forcing him to make eye contact. At first he saw only vacancy, reminding him of his last view of the bedroom he’d shared with Bella, all the furniture and adornments that had made it special sold at auction. Then, gradually, the shine of presence returned to Ben’s eyes and Ray said, “What’s going on with you, bro? You scared the hell out of me just now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Ray said, “You gotta be shitting me.” Then it dawned. His mother had succumbed to dementia in her eighties, confusion and hair-trigger fury consuming her gentle soul. He stood now, saying, “Come with me.”

  Ben put the opener on the coffee table and followed Ray into the kitchen, stopping short when he saw the broken drawer, confusion pinching his features. He said, “Did I...?”

  Ray nodded. “Jesus Christ, Ben. Are you—?”

  “Going insane?”

  Ray could see Ben was more or less himself now, and he did what he always did, tried to make light of the situation. “I was going to say batshit crazy, but yeah. Is that what’s going on here?”

  Ben stared at his feet, embarrassment creeping up red from beneath his collar. “Yeah,” he said, barely above a whisper. “That’s exactly what’s going on.”

  * * *

  Though Ben felt centered now, the details of the past several minutes still lay jumbled in his brain. His last clear memory was of going to the fridge.

  But as he surveyed the damage in the kitchen, fragments of those scrambled minutes flashed like subliminal movie frames in his mind: trying to twist the cap off the cider; slamming that drawer; fury overwhelming him…

  Jesus. This is bad.

  Shaken, he returned to the couch, averting his gaze when Ray sat next to him, shame still burning in his face. Deciding to fess up, he said, “On and off for about a year now, I’ve been having these…episodes. At first I passed it off to daydreaming or simple absentmindedness. But I worked with the elderly for a long time, Ray, and I knew full well what was happening to me had little to do with daydreaming. So I saw a colleague of mine and…” He drew a breath and released it. Then he locked eyes with Ray. “It’s Alzheimer’s, man.
Fucking Alzheimer’s. Right now it’s episodic, worse when I’m tired or stressed. But the disease is progressive. To be perfectly blunt, my brain is shriveling. A nice plump grape becoming a raisin.”

  “But what about the treatment you discovered, the anti…”

  “Anti-aggregates. Aggrecene. You know about that?”

  Nodding, Ray said, “Bella told me. Showed me an article in a medical journal. Aren’t you on it?”

  “You told her about me?”

  “Of course.”

  Ben flashed on the day eight months ago when the treatment he’d helped to develop took a savage turn on him, almost ending his life. He said, “Turns out I’m allergic. Ever heard of anaphylaxis?”

  Ray nodded. “I have a cousin allergic to peanuts. Has to carry an EpiPen. She almost died a couple of times.”

  “Well, that’s what happened to me.” He chuckled, a dry, humorless sound. “How’s that for a grim irony.”

  “Isn’t there something else they can try, though? There must be some other way to…”

  “Hey, man, I didn’t mean to upset you. Most of the time I’m fine.” He gave Ray’s knee a congenial pat. “And you know what? I’m glad it’s out in the open between us—and I’d like to keep it that way, if you don’t mind. Between us.” Ray gave him a nod. “At least now you’ll know what’s going on if I say or do something inappropriate.”

  Ray said, “So what’s Quinn’s excuse?”

  Ben chuckled, feeling better for having leveled with his friend. He said, “My grandmother had the same problem. She was in a seniors’ home toward the end, after you moved to Toronto. Most times, like me, she was fine—sharp, funny, proud of her grandson the doctor. But every once in a while, right in the middle of a sensible conversation, she’d look off to one side and say something to my long-dead grandfather, like, ‘Albert, shut that goddamn barn door’. Then she’d be fine again. I used to wonder what that was like. Now I know firsthand.”