A Mainer through and through, Bob Liscome was a hell of a sailor. Which means besides knowing how to tackle the wind, he knew how to fix things. Sailboats are always breaking down. There’s just too much that can go wrong. And the engine on these things can be as reliable as a drunken janitor. Bob was a fixer. An independent Mainer who built his own house, cut his own wood, fixed his own trucks, and didn’t give a rat’s ass what people did, said or thought. Each summer thereafter, we’d meet up and do some serious sailing. It was because of Bob that I regained my sailing legs. The shaking legs of storm-tossed sailors might come from fright, but they build muscle.
If he’s still alive, he’ll be living right where he always did, Bickles Island, Maine. And I’ll bet my life (not worth a lot these days) that he’ll come and get me out of this place. All I have to do is make a few phone calls—not an easy thing in a nursing home that locks its phones up like wise daddies lock up their guns.
SUNDAY, JUNE 24
Visitors are always welcome at Sunset as long as it’s between the hours of 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. on weekdays and between 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. on weekends. Patients gravitate like a huddled mass toward the lobby about an hour before the posted times. Some desperate for a visitor, others just to watch the passing parade. Emma never sat in the lobby; Damon was always with her. I was a watcher. I couldn’t venture past the red line taped on the floor or I’d set off my alarm, so I took a chair back near the receptionist’s desk to watch the world go by. My favorite place was next to a plastic fig tree, leeward of the creepy eyes of DF, who hung around the reception desk like he was about to thwart an attempt to steal state secrets.
I was sitting under my plastic fig tree when I noticed a young family pass by: quintessential American foursome—mom, dad, girl, and boy. The boy was fidgeting with a shiny black rectangle. How the hell that boy didn’t bump into anything and everything was beyond me. His eyes were glued to the thing like he was witnessing something miraculous. And, maybe he was. They signed in at reception and disappeared down the white hallway. I followed. The main hallway is an affront to any sane individual over the age of two. The best way I can describe it is by comparing it to a Sunday school corridor where pastel images of biblical scenes are pasted to the walls. Lots of lambs and stuff like that. Only here, the cardboard cutouts reflect whatever holiday is in vogue. Halloween is particularly offensive to anyone who has ever had to bear nursing home life. Further down the hallway there’s a bulletin board showing pictures of clients playing games, sewing, dancing—if that’s what you call limping around in a circle, a few mug shots of forced smiles. What you don’t see are photos of people picking noses, puking and drooling, or spilling food.
I followed the family to room 128, then strolled a bit more down the hall, turned and went back to the lobby and parked back under the plastic fig tree. Soon enough, the boy with the black plastic rectangle walked by to flop down in a chair just past the red line.
After observing him for a while, I asked curiously, “Hey, lad, what is it you have there?”
No response. I repeated myself. He looked up. “A phone,” he said.
“Why are you looking at it?” I asked.
“I’m playing a game.”
“On a phone!” I exclaimed. “Are you winning?”
“I always win,” he said with a grin.
“Can I see it?”
“Sure,” he said, not getting up.
“I can’t come over there,” I explained. “If I cross the red line, it sets of an alarm.” Lowering my voice, I said, “Just like in prison.”
That was enough to get the boy to get off his ass.
Heightening the drama, I whispered, “They can’t see us over here,” motioning toward the fig tree. In stark contrast to his parents and sister, each dressed in their Sunday best, this kid was dressed in baggy black pants, had on a T-shirt with more graphics than a comic strip, and his hair was a color I hadn’t ever seen before, hues of iridescent purple, pink, yellow, and maybe some orange. He had it all spiked up like he’d grown a nuked sea-urchin on the top of his head. He wore some pretty heavy chrome chains, too. I have no idea what they were connected to, if anything. But underneath his wild façade was Boy. Whatever these kids wrap themselves in, they’re still kids. I judged the kid to be insecure, and why not? He’s probably pressed on all sides by parents, teachers, peers, religious folks, and anybody older, bigger or in any way possessing a bit of real or perceived power. Let’s just call it social coercion.
When I was a kid, we didn’t live in a pressure cooker like today’s kids. But we had our rebellious moments. I remember my father kicked my butt like there was no end to Sunday when I came home with a buzz cut. And God forbid if he caught me smoking before I was sixteen. This kid had access to every evil out there: sex in any number of guises, drugs aplenty, access to guns, movie heroes that survive explosions that would take down the Eiffel Tower, cars that take off with g-force, and the threat of being shot on his way to school. Hell, in my day sex was so taboo that the word pregnant was never said in front of a kid younger than twenty-one. And my boyhood hero, The Green Hornet, wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of beating off a missile toting titanium robot. We seldom shot each other, too. This kid was probably fifteen years old with acne ready to bloom like huckleberries in August and scared out of his wits. Not to mention hormones making more racket than cats having sex on a hot tin roof. But he was a boy and that meant he was curious, inherently against authority, heroic, and clever as a fox. At least I hoped that he was.
“Like, what’s the black thing on your ankle?” he asked.
“It’s called an ankle monitor. It sets off the alarm,” I said, gesturing toward the red line. “I tried to escape,” I explained. “Twice.”
“Awesome!” he exclaimed, giving me a high five. At first I ducked. But then I got it and connected with his palm on the second try. I’d never been high-fived before.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Catlin,” he answered quietly.
“Great,” I said. “Do you have a last name?”
“Giffords, but you can call me Cat, everybody does.”
“My name’s Charlie Lambert. You can call me Charlie.”
I looked left and right, and then whispered, “Cat, I need a favor.”
“Go for it, Charlie,” he said without hesitation.
“I’m trying to reach an old friend up in Maine, but I don’t know his phone number. Hell, I don’t even know if he’s still alive.” Pointing to his black shiny gadget, I asked, “You think you can find him for me?”
Cat raised his black shiny gizmo like it was a wizard’s wand and proclaimed proudly, “It’s an iPhone, it can find anything.”
“Wow! I’ve heard about those but I never saw one.” Then asked, “How do you use the damn thing?”
Cat swiped the face of the phone with a finger. It lit up like the screen of a spaceship. “Name, location,” he asked authoritatively.
“Robert Liscome, Bickles Island, Casco Bay, Maine.” I responded.
Cat put his face to the phone. His fingers worked like those of some of the ladies in the home when they tatted: quick and sure, geographically precise. No sound, just fast movement. In no more than a minute, he handed me the phone, “Try this. It’s ringing.”
I took the phone without a clue of which end was which. It was a foreign object, something so far into the future that my imagination collapsed. Cat quickly took it back and held it to his ear. “Is this Robert Liscome?” he asked politely. I didn’t hear the response. Cat placed the phone to my ear, “Take it,” he said. I hesitated. “Like, c’mon, man you’ll lose it. Talk now,” Cat urged.
I did. “It’s me, Charlie Lambert,” I said.
“Yup,” came a familiar response. Bob’s rather taciturn.
“We used to sail together,” I said, hoping to jar his memory.
“I know,” came the reply. “What are you doing now?”
“I’m in a nursing home
.”
“Why?”
“Because my kids put me here,” I said honestly
“That’s not good,” he said.
“No, it’s not. You want to go sailing?” I asked.
“Sure, I’d love it. What kind of nursing home are you in? Do they have a marina?” he asked incredulously.
“No, Bob, no marina,” I laughed. “This is a bad place,” I said, turning serious. “I got to get out of here. I’d like to talk to you about that but I can’t go into detail right now, can I call you back tomorrow?” I asked, and then said, “Hold on a minute.” I held the phone away from my ear.
“Cat, can you come back tomorrow, maybe after school, so I can talk more to Bob. It’s really critical. The whole mission depends on it.”
“After school? Like, summer’s on man. I’m free to roam,” Cat said. “And don’t tell my parents. And what mission?”
“I’ll explain tomorrow. And I won’t say a word to your parents or anybody else.”
Back to Bob while eying Cat, I asked, “How about around three-thirty, tomorrow?” Cat gave me thumbs-up.
“A.m. or p.m.?” Bob asked, as if it was a perfectly logical question.
“How about p.m.?” I asked sardonically.
“That’ll work,” Bob said then added, “I cut wood in the a.m.”
“Jesus,” I exclaimed, “You haven’t changed.”
“No need to. Talk to you tomorrow.” The phone went dead.
I handed the portable space station back to Cat. “Thanks.”
“Yeah, no problem,” Cat said. “Like same place, tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow’s Monday,” I replied, “The lobby’s dead quiet on Monday. Can you come to my room? 136.”
“Like no problemo, man” he said. Then Ashley walked by. Ashley’s a teen volunteer who has every old man in the place thinking dirty and every old lady remembering bygone days. Laser-like, Cat’s eyes zeroed in on Ashley’s sexy to and fro motion. I looked too, but my thoughts were of what used to be; Catlin’s surely was on what might be. Cat aimed his phone at the vanishing figure then turned the device’s screen for me to see a well framed photo of Ashley’s cute bottom. “I’ll share this with my buddies,” he said like a trophy hunter showing off his latest kill. “You want to see my collection?” he offered. I declined.
Cat turned to leave, “See ya then.”
“Wait,” I said. “Wanna see something cool?” Cat nodded.
I walked to the red line and stuck my leg out. Almost instantly a bell rang and a red light on the wall flashed. The two white-clad goons appeared, one taking my left arm, the other my right. Marching me past Cat, the lad mouthed silently, “Like, way cool.” I went back to my room with a light skip in my step.
MONDAY, JUNE 25
Cat was right on time. He just shrugged when I asked how he got past the receptionist and security. I closed the door to my room. Cat handed me the iPhone. “It’s ringing” he said.
Bob answered with his characteristic “Yup.” I asked him about how his life was going. He told me that his wife Jennifer died eleven years ago, that he was living in the same house he built fifty years ago, that he’s lonely, that he thinks the government is too busy in people’s lives, that heating with wood is the only way to go, that his German Shepherd was killed by a pack of dogs left over from bear hunting season, that the tides are still working like they always work and that winter in Maine is just damn cruel and inhumane.
He ended by saying, “So what’s this about going sailing?”
I took some time to fill him in about my being stuck in the nursing home and that I needed his help to escape. When I told him about the security strap, all he said was, “Damn government.” Bob is a Conservative. Not a nut case one, but one who adheres to the idea that if you can’t make it on your own, you have no business holding out a hand asking for help. He doesn’t protest or go to tea parties or bang the Bible like it’s a gong announcing Armageddon. He just does for himself and expects everybody else to do the same. He willingly accepts Social Security and Medicare, understands the threat of global warming, supports women’s choice, and believes that evolution might just be true. Bob’s world is definitely not flat but it’s not completely round, either.
While we talked, Cat lay on my bed fidgeting. Without the electronic wonder to keep his hands busy, he played with his keys, ran his fingers along the shiny chains, twisted the peaks of his spiked hair, and just acted overall like a six year old in church. I tried not to pay attention.
Bob and I came up with a preliminary plan. He’d drive down from Maine; he saw no problem with cutting off the security strap. “I’ll bring some tools,” is all he said about that. We can escape in his truck. That is the plan. He asked me what kind of sailboat I had. I told him that I’d have to buy one. All we had to do was stop at a few banks for me to get the money. He told me he wasn’t into robbing banks. I told him that I had the money put away. We set the date: Saturday, June 28, just three days away. Directions to Sunset Home would be sent to him, courtesy of Cat. Just before we ended the conversation, Bob asked, “Where are you anyway?”
“Upstate New York,” I told him.
I could see Bob’s frown over the phone. “What’s Upstate New York?” he asked.
“It’s like Down East Maine, I answered, “only up.”
That seemed to satisfy him. Before we hung up, I gave him the address then added, “What’s your ETA?
“I’m leaving in the morning. I’ll call when I’m near,” he said, and then hung up the phone. Cat took his phone back and held it to his heart like a good Catholic clutching a treasured Rosary. We hung out for awhile. Cat fiddled with some game on the phone while we talked. He called it multi-tasking. We agreed to meet again to discuss the escape plan. I had no idea how to involve Cat other than I was rather certain that he’d be needed. But first we had to get him out of the home undiscovered. He suggested we practice for the escape. “I bet that your ankle monitor has a GPS unit in it. Probably tracks wherever it is. I’ll hide in the bathroom while you wander off somewhere to set off the alarm.”
“Good idea,” I complimented his genius. “But why not just do it here. If I stick my leg out of the window, they’ll think I’m jumping.”
“Cool,” he said. “You stick it out the window; I’ll hide in the bathroom. When the goons come, I’ll slip past them.”
“What if you get caught?” I asked.
“I won’t!” he declared. I was impressed with Cat’s moxie.
The window raised only about eight inches, but I managed to stick my leg out far enough to trigger the alarm. The goons came. Cat disappeared. Great rehearsal.
Besides Ashley and now Cat, there were no young people at Sunset. Oh, there were the sing-songy waitresses and other help, who were probably in their thirties or forties, but they acted more like zoo-keepers than anything else. I mean, there were simply no opportunities to develop relationships with young people. Observing a changing world through what the boob-tube offered only excited resentment and confusion among Sunset’s clients. The frame of reference here was sepia-toned memories rather than the simple fact that while the trappings of life change, little else really does. Take Cat, for instance. His chains and hair, baggy pants and loud T-shirt, were my two toned shoes, zoot-suit, and Brylcreamed hair. He seemed to know a lot more that I did when I was his age, but I sure as hell remember how confused I felt in the ninth grade about the blossoming of the girls in my class and why I couldn’t find the courage to ask one out on a date. I wonder if I would have been taking lewd photos if I could have done it without a flashbulb. At Sunset, my world had stopped spinning, Cat got it turning again.
When I worked selling highly specialized machine parts to the defense industry, there were untold ways to make a few extra dollars. Let’s just say it was something like building bridges to nowhere only the bridges might be for some Senator’s precise need for a folding toilet for his mirror-polished black Chevy Suburban, or a personalized bathroom
fixture, or whatever the guy wanted to feel bigger and better than anyone else. Fat kickbacks helped. I figured whatever was requested didn’t concern me. It kept our shop in business, which meant employment for our workers and bonuses for investors. I rationalized further that the more money we paid our employees and the more our investors pocketed the more taxes they paid, which gave politicians more money to give out in the form of earmarks. Everybody was happy. The only rub was that I couldn’t really pay taxes on my cash incentives, which I preferred to call them. I did give to charity, though, especially to the foundations that preserved nature. I figured that most earmarks went to screwing the environment in one way or another, so I tried in my own modest way to make up for it. I don’t think a judge would buy it for a second, but that’s what I did and I feel good about it. The results of my accepting these cash incentives were safety deposit boxes in a number of banks where I did most of my sales, which ran a corridor from Syracuse, New York to Annapolis, Maryland. Fortunately, I paid my three-year rental fee just before my kids tossed me in here. Maybe my mind was a bit addled, but I sure as hell remembered that.
That Good Night Page 3