The Free (P.S.)

by Willy Vlautin

  He looked at his watch and got up and went to the window that overlooked the hospital parking lot. There were over a hundred cars below and he couldn’t believe there were so many for such a small town. He went back to Leroy and put on his coat. He leaned over him and put his hand gently on his arm. He felt the warmth and the softness of Leroy’s skin. “I’m sorry you didn’t make it, Leroy. I know that’s not the right thing to say, but I’m sorry you didn’t.”

  3

  The nurse looked at her wristwatch. She had forty minutes left in her shift. She was nearly done charting and the night meds were taken care of. She kneeled down and re-tied her shoes and then walked down the hall to her last patient, Mr. Flory. He was a thin, weathered old man with stage IV stomach cancer. He lay on his side staring out the door into the hallway. He smiled when he saw her come in the room.

  “You haven’t gone home yet?” he asked.

  “Almost,” she said. “I’m at the finish line. You’re my last, Mr. Flory. I save my best for last.”

  Even though it hurt him to do so, he moved on his back so he could see her better.

  “How’s the pain?”

  “Well . . . ” he said.

  “Well what, Mr. Flory?”

  “I hate to ask, but is it time yet?”

  “You’re in a lot of pain?”

  He nodded.

  “If you were going to rate it from one to ten, what would it be?”

  “I’d say about an eight.”

  “You always say eight.”

  “It always seems about the same,” he said.

  “I’ll see what I can do. I’ll call the doctor again, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Where’s your wife?”

  “She had to go home and take care of some things.” He tried to stay on his back, but the pain was too much. He moved to his side and cried out in pain.

  “That bad, huh?”

  “I just get tired of lying on my side, but I guess I have to.” With his left hand he tried to comb back his thin, gray hair. “Is your shift almost over?”

  “In thirty minutes,” she said.

  “What are you doing tonight?”

  “I have a big date.”

  “Who’s taking you out?”

  “Donna. But we’re staying in and watching TV.”

  The old man laughed. “Donna’s your rabbit, correct?”

  The nurse nodded.

  “Did I tell you that my sister had a rabbit when we were kids? She used to bring it to the dinner table.”

  “I bet your parents didn’t like that.”

  “My mother didn’t like it, but if my dad had his way we’d eat every meal with the animals. What color’s Donna?”

  “Black and white.”

  “A Dutch rabbit.”

  “I think so.”

  “You had her a long time?”

  “Maybe a year,” she said and went to the computer and looked at his chart. “My neighbors moved out of their apartment one night. They skipped out and left most of their stuff, including Donna. She’d been alone in her cage for two weeks when the landlord went in. They’d left a big bowl of water in the cage but I don’t know how long she’d gone without food. She was in rough shape. The landlord brought her to me ’cause he knows I’m a sucker.”

  “Maybe he just thought you were kind.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I never got used to people mistreating animals.”

  “It makes me mad. That’s for sure,” she said as she charted.

  “If I saw a guy mistreat his dog or a horse, I never hired him again. When you see that you know what’s in his heart. You know that’s the way he sees the world. And I never liked seeing it that way.”

  “You’re pretty smart for a guy living out in the sticks with a bunch of cows, Mr. Flory. Alright, buster, down to business. Are you thirsty?”

  “I’m never thirsty anymore.”

  “You should try to drink more water.”

  “It just never sounds good anymore.”

  “I bet if I had an ice-cold beer you’d drink that.”

  “I quit drinking years ago.”

  “Good for you.”

  “I wasn’t the best drunk,” he said.

  “Most people aren’t.”

  “But I liked it.”

  “Well, you can always imagine.”

  “Maybe . . .” He looked at her and then closed his eyes. “I wish I could get out of here.”

  “I know the doctors want to get you home. It won’t be long. Are you getting tired?”

  “Guess all this talking is doing me in.”

  “You’ll be asleep soon. When you wake up Rhonda will be here with new instructions from the doctor. I’m sure they’ll be able to increase your pain meds and you’ll be able to get some real rest.”

  “Alright,” he said.

  “Good-night, Mr. Flory,” she said.

  “Good-night, Pauline.”

  She clocked out at 11:00 PM and walked down to the parking lot and got into a dented, green four-door Honda. She started the engine and scraped the windows and left. She drove to a grocery store and bought twenty-four cans of chicken noodle soup on special, a pint of chocolate ice cream, a container of fat-free coffee creamer, and two glazed donuts.

  She left the soup in the trunk of her car and walked up the stairs to her apartment with the rest. Inside she turned on the TV, let the rabbit out of its cage, and sat down on the couch. She put the rabbit on her lap and gave it small bites of donut. She opened the ice cream and watched TV until she fell asleep.

  The next morning she drove to a rundown suburb on the opposite side of town, to the small tract home she had grown up in. She parked in the driveway, took a laundry basket full of clean clothes from the trunk, and set the case of soup on top of it. She carried the basket to the front door and knocked on it with her foot.

  “Come on,” she yelled. “It’s me. Hurry up.”

  She could hear rustling from inside but there was no answer.

  “Come on. It’s heavy!”

  She kicked three more times and then set the basket on the ground and looked through her purse and found the keys. She unlocked the door and went inside to see her father lying on the old military cot in the living room. He was underneath an electric blanket and a sleeping bag and was watching TV.

  “Didn’t you hear me?”

  He lifted his head. “I wasn’t sure who it was.”

  “Who else would it be?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why is it so cold in here?”

  “They shut off the goddamn gas.”

  “Who did?”

  “The gas company.”

  “Don’t lie to me, buster. I paid the bill and you know it. Anyway, all your mail comes to my house, and you never check your messages so you’d have no idea.” She went to the thermostat and turned it to seventy. There was a click, a hum, and then warm air began coming through the floor vents. “You can lower it when I leave but I’m not going to freeze just to cook you lunch . . . I did your laundry so I want you to take a shower and change your clothes. It’s cold in here but I can still smell you.”

  “The hot water heater’s broken,” he said half-heartedly with his eyes still on the TV.

  “You’re getting on my nerves already.” She took the case of soup into the kitchen and set it on the counter. She turned on the water and put her hand under it. “Don’t burn yourself in the shower. I’m gonna do the dishes and you’re going to wash your body and hair with lots of soap. Then you’re going to get dressed in clean clothes. I’m not going to argue. You either get up and get ready or I’m going to call Uncle Jeff again.”

  The old man sprang from the cot. He was dressed in a sweatshirt and urine-stained long underwear. An electric blanket and sleeping bag fell to the floor as he stood. He was a bony man in his mid-sixties with thick, gray hair and six-day-old stubble. His eyes were small and brown and sunk back in his head.

  “Why do y
ou always got to call him?” he yelled. He picked up the basket of clothes and began walking toward his bedroom.

  “I call him because you won’t listen to me, and because he’s your brother and he’ll put you in your place. He’ll come down here and kick your ass.”

  “Goddamn it, don’t call him.”

  “Then do what I say.” Pauline came from the kitchen. “Stop right there.”

  “What now?” he said and turned around.

  “I want you to shave, too. And I’ll be listening for the shower. If you don’t smell like shampoo when you come to lunch, I’m dialing his number.”

  “This is bullshit.”

  “And when you get done, you’ll eat lunch and we’ll go for a walk.”

  “I don’t want to go for a walk.”

  “You need to and I need to. I’ve gained six pounds since November and I don’t like walking alone. It wouldn’t kill you to leave the house once in a while.”

  He went to his bedroom and slammed the door behind him. Pauline washed a sink full of dishes and opened a can of soup and turned on the stove. In the cupboard were three boxes of saltines. She found one open, took out ten crackers and put them on a plate. She chopped iceberg lettuce into bite-size pieces, put the salad in a bowl, and went into the living room and watched TV and waited.

  He came out twenty minutes later. His hair was combed back and wet. Bits of toilet paper covered a series of shaving cuts on his neck and chin. He wore brown pants and a flannel shirt.

  He pointed to the cuts. “Are you happy?”

  “If you’d use the electric razor I bought you then you’d never cut yourself. Then you wouldn’t hate shaving so much,” she said.

  “I don’t trust electric razors.” He went into the kitchen and sat. She poured the soup into a bowl and set it in front of him.

  “It looks like you keep losing weight.”

  “Don’t be a nurse,” he said and began eating. “I don’t like it when you talk like a nurse.”

  “Alright,” she said. “Fair enough. What do you want to talk about?”

  He looked up from his soup. “What?”

  “What’s going on with you?”

  The old man slurped the soup into his mouth and stared at the table. Broth leaked out his lips and dribbled down his chin.

  “What are you going to do this weekend?”

  He took two saltines and put them in his mouth and began chewing.

  “What are you going to do this weekend?” she asked again.

  “What do you think?” he said and put his face back down to the soup. He held the spoon like a knife and began shoveling it in and again broth fell to the table.

  In a man’s voice she said, “What about you, Pauline? What are you going to do this weekend?”

  “I don’t know really,” she answered in her own voice. “Maybe I’ll go to New York and become a prostitute.”

  “Isn’t New York cold this time of year?” she said in the low voice. “Maybe you should wait until it’s spring.”

  “Spring, you think?”

  “Yeah, spring’s a good time to walk the streets.”

  “Thanks for the advice, Dad. You really are something. You’re always such a help.”

  “That’s why I’m here,” she said in the man’s voice and hit the table.

  Her father stopped eating and looked at her. “Okay, I’m sorry.”

  “You’re an asshole.”

  “I didn’t mean to be an asshole.”

  “When you’re an asshole, you’re an asshole. It doesn’t matter if you want to be or not. You just are. The trick is not to be.”

  He pushed the bowl away. “Okay, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s alright,” she said and sighed. “I guess I’m just in a bad mood. You done?”

  “I’ll finish the rest later.”

  “What about the lettuce? You’ve only had one bite.”

  “I hate vegetables.”

  “I don’t think you can consider iceberg lettuce much of a vegetable.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “So you’re finished?”

  He nodded and she took the dishes from the table and set them in the sink. “Now put on your shoes and let’s go for a walk. I only have an hour before I have to go to work.”

  “Can I bring my cigarettes?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I started again, so you’re off the hook.”

  4

  Leroy Kervin woke up to the sound of the TV. There was a Western on; a kid was AWOL from the cavalry and was killing Indians. A man with one leg was trying to stop him, but he was having a hard time. He watched the show for a moment then fell back to sleep. The next time he woke it was to the sound of crying. He opened his eyes to see a brown-haired nurse in the corner of the room. She stared out the window into the parking lot. It was night and the main room lights were off. He could hear her sobs and could see her wiping her tears while she looked at her wristwatch. He heard a voice from the hallway call, “Pauline.” The brown-haired nursed replied that she would just be a minute and again looked at her watch. He tried to keep his eyes open, but couldn’t.

  When he opened them the next time it was daylight. He could see the sun from the window and could hear people talking. He saw an old man using a walker go down the hallway and nurses walking past. He could remember that a nurse named Pauline had been in the room crying the last time he was awake. He could remember that a Western was on TV. He still had his memory; he still had clarity. Nothing made sense anymore. He tried to move his hand to hit the call button to let them know the pain he was in, but his fingers wouldn’t move. Everything felt as heavy as concrete. And then the pain worsened. He tried to speak, to scream for help, but nothing would come out. His mind became hysterical while his body lay lifeless.

  His thoughts grew darker. It would be more hospitals, and this time it was his fault. He’d failed; he was to blame. It would be this room and then another and then another and then finally, if he were lucky, he’d be back where he started: at the group home in the suburbs, stuck away forever.

  The pain seemed to stop time. Had he been waiting like this for minutes or hours or days or weeks? It was too much to take and he was so tired of being in pain. He decided then that he would give up, that he would run his mind as far away as he could. He would lose himself inside himself. He would disappear from the world.

  It was early morning as he walked down the crowded city street. It was cold and most of the people wore green-and-gray military uniforms. There were hundreds of them passing by in all directions. Leroy looked out to the sea and military ships filled the bay, and on the streets black-and-green military vehicles lined the curbs. He was dressed in his uncle’s Pendleton wool coat as he walked to the National Guard recruiting office. As he drew closer, he saw a woman in a blue parka knocking on the front door. She was slender, in her twenties, with black hair.

  “Do you know why they aren’t open?” she asked. Her pale face was red from crying.

  “No,” he told her. “They’re supposed to be. They’re always open.”

  “Oh, I hate this place.”

  “What’s wrong?” he asked her.

  “My friend’s disappeared,” she cried. “I begged him not to join but I think he did. I used to see him every day but now I can’t find him. I’m hoping they’ll tell me where he is. Why are you here?”

  “I’m joining,” he told her.

  “You’re joining?” she said in horror.

  “Yes.”

  “But why?”

  “My boss wants me to. He’s a captain in the Guard. It sounds crazy, but I know I won’t get laid off if I join. He’s let half of the crew go already, but he likes me. I’m an electrician. Jobs are hard to find where I live. No one’s building anymore. There’s two guys that have more seniority than me, but I know he won’t lay me off if I join. He thinks of me as a son. Someone to carry on the business when he gets old. I don’t mind. I just want to keep my job. Anyway, he said I can be
an electrician for the National Guard so I won’t have to go overseas. I won’t have to be in the wars.”

  “I think they’ll send you wherever they want to send you,” the woman said. “That’s how it works. It has nothing to do with what you want or what you think.”

  “They won’t send me to the wars,” he said.

  “You’re wrong,” she said and wiped her eyes with a Kleenex. They waited for nearly twenty minutes, staring at the closed brick building. It began raining and grew colder. Wind began howling against them.

  “I’m starting to get hungry,” Leroy said and turned to her. “Are you hungry?”

  “Me?” she said as she leaned against the glass door.

  “Yeah, you.”

  “Worrying always makes me hungry.”

  “There’s a restaurant up the street. I think it’s called Paul’s Place.”

  “That’s the last place I want to go,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “I work there, but you should go. The food’s pretty good.” For the first time she looked at him. She had green eyes and a small face with freckles and a nose that sloped upward. He thought she was about to smile when across the street a group of twenty soldiers walked past them. They were dressed in new uniforms. One of the soldiers at the back of the pack, a haggard man of forty, noticed her and stopped. He walked across the street toward them and lit a cigarette. When she saw him coming, tears filled her eyes and she moved closer to Leroy. “If you walk me home, I’ll make you breakfast.”

  He looked at the soldier. “He makes you nervous?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then let’s go,” Leroy said and put his arm around her. When the soldier saw this and that she was crying he turned around and jogged back to his group.

  “Everything is falling apart. So now it seems like all I do is fall apart. I’m sorry I keep crying.”

  “It’s alright,” he said. “You should see what I’ve been like. You should see where I’ve been living.”

  “My name is Jeanette.”