“No buts about it. Get out and take that collar with you. Not another word. Just do it!”
In a huff, DF removed the collar then went to the door, “You’ll see,” he said before slamming the door behind him.
My thoughts were like scattered pieces of a jig saw puzzle. The escape plan dimmed. What the hell were Cat and Bob going to do, cut off my arm? Let me bleed to death. I took a few deep breaths and calmed myself. I needed information.
I turned to Mrs. Gerard, apologized for my outburst and thanked her for getting DF out of my room.
She smiled and said, “You’re welcome. Now, as I was saying, the insertion of the implant will be a painless procedure. The most uncomfortable thing will be a pinprick from the needle I’ll use to inject the anesthetic and perhaps some soreness later on. I’ll leave some mild pain medication in case you need it. Before I begin, are there any questions?”
“I have a few,” I said earnestly.
She nodded, “Yes, dear?”
“Once you insert the implant, can it be taken out? I mean if it needs servicing.”
“That’s very unlikely,” she said. “It should last at least five years.”
“What if I’m not dead in five years?” I laughed.
“Oh, forgive me. I didn’t mean that,” she apologized.
I went on, “What if the thing breaks, let’s say next week or next month?”
“Well,” Nurse Gerard explained, “We’ll give you another injection of anesthetic, make a small incision and remove it. It’s not brain surgery, you know,” she chortled like she’d just thought of that worn out metaphor all on her own.
“What kind of anesthetic?” I asked.
“The same thing I’ll give you today, a local anesthetic,” she answered, lifting a small syringe from a row of syringes labeled “Lidocaine.” “It’s preloaded all ready to go.”
I acquiesced. Nurse Gerard readied herself for the procedure. I rolled up my sleeve. Nurse Gerard sat opposite me on a folding stool she had slipped from a bracket on the side of the cart. Resting my arm on Nurse Gerard’s muscular thigh, she gave me a shot of the anesthetic. “There now,” she said. “Let’s give it a few minutes for that to take hold.” She gave me a motherly smile. “May I get you anything?”
I pouted, “May I have a glass of water, please?”
“Of course, dear.” Nurse Gerard replied. “I could get you some orange juice if you like?”
“That would be great,” I answered.
“I’ll be right back,” she said. As soon as Nurse Gerard left the room, I quickly nabbed one of the preloaded syringes and, like a seasoned card-shark, slipped into my pocket.
Ten minutes later, the implant was inserted, and I was alone, my hand caressing the pocketed syringe like it was the key to a lost kingdom. The staff at Sunset could certainly learn a lot from Nurse Gerard. I was a patient to her, nor was I client; I was person in need of professional and even loving care. I hope that she doesn’t get into trouble for a missing injector. My guess is it won’t be missed. And, I want to believe that she’ll say a little prayer for me once I escape.
THURSDAY, JUNE 28
At precisely nine-thirty a.m. on June 28th, I was standing outside the basement door. “You there?” I heard Cat say from behind the door. I gave a light knock.
A metallic click and the door opened. Squeezing past Cat, I quietly descended the darkened metal staircase. Cat hung back to relock the door. Meeting me at the bottom of the staircase, Bob led me through a maze of workbenches, storage shelves, boiler pipes, refrigeration compressors, lockers, a tool crib, and finally a stack of grey metal boxes that looked an awfully lot like coffins, then to an open area next to the outside exit door. Tethered to a post, a large black dog jiggled and squirmed, greeting us like long lost buddies. “Meet Kingdom,” Cat said, coming from behind to unleash the dog. My few pats on the dog’s head were returned with leaps and licks.
Bob reached into a tool bag he had placed next to the basement door, withdrawing a large hydraulic cutter capable of taking down the Brooklyn Bridge. “Leg up,” he commanded. “Let’s get that strap off.”
With Cat listening in while kneeling next to the ganglia-driven, over-enthused dog, I told Bob, “The strap’s gone.” Rolling up my sleeve, I removed the bandage and showed them the ugly black and blue area on my arm which was the size of a silver dollar.
“You get vaccinated?” Bob asked. “What the hell for?”
All Cat said was “Like way cool.”
“It’s an implant,” I said, “and it has to come out.”
I reached into my pocket and withdrew the syringe of Lidocaine. “Let’s be real quiet,” I said. “We have to get this thing out fast before some goon checks the GPS locator screen.”
“Worry not,” Cat chimed in, “Ashley’s baby blues are a lot more interesting to security than some computer screen.”
“Great,” I said. I had no idea that Cat had recruited Ashley into the escape plans. I injected the anesthesia, capped the syringe and put it back into my pocket.
While we waited for the bruise on my arm to get numb, I told them how Nurse Gerard tossed DF out of my room and how she had inserted the implant. After a few minutes, I tapped the area around the insert. Feeling partially numb I said, “I’m not waiting any longer, it’s time to get rid of this thing.”
“Let’s do it then,” Bob said, pulling out his pocket knife. He flipped open a razor sharpened blade, its edge glittering menacingly in the dim light.
“No, no, no, no,” I repeated. “We don’t need that, it’ll come right out! It’s been in less than a day.” A bit pouty, Bob reluctantly closed the blade and put the knife back into his pocket.
“Like, what about Kingdom? Do we still need him?” Cat asked
“I don’t know,” I answered. “I haven’t thought that far. Let’s just get the damn thing out.”
Using my thumb, I began nudging the implant out of the small opening Nurse Gerard used to slide it under my skin. The implant stuck, so I nudged harder. Pop! The damn thing flew out like a watermelon seed squeezed between a thumb and forefinger. Shaking free of Cat’s arm from around his neck, the dog made a mad dash around the grey boxes. “No, Kingdom,” Cat called out chasing after him. But it was too late. The dog lapped up the capsule the moment he found it. “Shit!” Cat yelled leaping over the grey boxes, “Don’t die on me boy! Oh, Kingdom, man, like you’re the best dog. Such a good boy.” Cat wildly petted the happy black dog.
“Don’t worry about it, Cat,” Bob consoled the boy. “The dog’ll just crap it out in a day or two. It’s nothing to worry about.”
“Yeah, thanks, man,” Cat said sincerely. “I sure hope so. But, boy, my uncle’s going to be real pissed when he finds your alarm thing in a Kingdom turd. Dad will ground me for the rest of my life.”
“Your uncle? Who’s that?” I asked.
“I call him Uncle Dan,” Cat said sadly. “You call him DF.”
I stood there astonished, not able to say a thing. Bob broke the silence. “Let’s beeline the hell out of here.”
Back in escape mode, Cat herded Kingdom toward the outside exit, “I think I need to get old Kingdom outside. Like, forget letting her loose upstairs. See you guys. Give a call sometime.” He turned to leave, but caught himself. “Hey, dude,” he said, handing me a folded note. “My cell number. Use it!” Cat and Kingdom quickly disappeared up the outside basement steps into the sun.
Bob grabbed his tool bag. “Where’s your stuff?” he asked.
“In my pocket,” I answered. The only thing I wanted with me was a picture of Lori and me posing in front of the carousel in Central Park, taken during our last vacation together. “Now, let’s go!”
Once outside the basement entrance, we walked nonchalantly across a grassy area to the parking lot to where Bob’s Rent-A-Wreck, a dark blue Camry was parked. In a matter of minutes, we were heading to Interstate 81 south. Next stop, HSBC bank, Syracuse, NY.
The air was crystalline.
It was like I was breathing for the first time. Big deep breaths. Pure spring air. A feeling of freedom, as if life could go on forever. What little hair I had left twisted and twirled in the rush of wind. I hadn’t felt wind on my face for months. The brush of wind seemed to erase years. I was a kid screaming down a steep hill, my Monarch’s 28-inch tires revved to the hilt. In my mind, my hands clutched the handle bars like there was no tomorrow, which at the time, there wasn’t. I stuck my hand out the window using my palm as an airfoil like I used to do riding in my 1930 Ford. My body reveled in its magnificent return to childhood. Any thoughts of Sunset Nursing Home were washed away by the high tide of boyhood recollection. I looked over at Bob. He gave me a thumbs-up. We were two kids playing hooky. Damn, everybody should be lucky enough to feel this way when they’re in their eighties. Then I thought of Emma. Her quiet smile. Her withdrawal to her lover and a yacht. Maybe her escape was as real as mine. I turned around to look at the empty back seat and pictured her there, smiling.
Bob interrupted my reverie, “Any cops back there?” he joked.
“No,” I answered, “only Emma.”
“Who?”
“Never mind, Bob, not important.”
Nearing Syracuse, I gave Bob directions to the HSBC branch on Harrison Street. My memory was right on. We parked next to the entrance. I took off my right loafer, lifted the insole and withdrew a long thin key. I held it up to show Bob. “I’ll be right back,” I said.
Is this what it’s like being reborn? Decades tumble away. Your step is livelier. Things are new again. I wondered how old I looked. Baggy pants, a wrinkled shirt, unkempt hair. Did it matter?
By-passing the line at the teller windows, I made my way to a cubicle occupied by someone identified as Charlotte Keats-Emory, Assistant Branch Manager. A middle aged woman with short brown hair wearing a white blouse sat bent over a computer keyboard. The keys clicked against her manicured fingernails, longer than I’ve ever seen. They were painted red with swirling white lines running from cuticle to tip. I knocked lightly on the side of the panel. Ms. Keats-Emory looked at me and said cheerfully, “How may I help you?”
My request to get to my safe-deposit box was answered by her request for some form of identification. From my shirt pocket, I withdrew a leather fold-over. On the inner right side was the picture of Lori and me with the Central Park Carousel in the background. On the left side in a concealed pocket, was my passport which I withdrew and handed to Ms. Keats-Emory. She looked at the photograph, then to me, then back to the passport. “It’s about to expire,” she observed. “You’ve got a few months left.”
“I hope I have more than that,” I quipped, which got a smile but nothing more.
Handing the passport back to me, she stood and said, “Follow me.” I secured it back into the leather fold-over and put it back into my shirt pocket.
Ms. Keats-Emory led me to box 1443 in a tidy vault located in the basement. She inserted the bank key and turned the lock. Then I inserted my key and the box was in my hand. Leaving the vault, we entered a small ante-room where Ms. Keats-Emory left me behind a locked door. I set the box on a small mahogany table and sat down in a comfortable upholstered arm chair. Offering a peaceful respite from the turbulent escape, the softly lit room was elegantly decorated with flocked light green wallpaper, dark woods and soft brown carpeting. My stomach was fluttering with a flock of butterflies. No, make that dragonflies. I mean, I was really shaking. My life was in that dark green metal box. Gingerly, I lifted the lid. Inside was a note that I wrote to myself. It read, You son-of-a bitch. I hope life’s good. Signed, Your loving self. I smiled. “It sure is,” I chuckled.
Under the note was a stack of bills: One-hundred-six-thousand-dollars in denominations of hundreds, fifties, and twenties. I reverently placed the tidy stacks on the small table. I closed my eyes. This was my secret. Lori knew nothing of it. My kids would never get it. The people who had given it to me were either dead or too old to care. At the bottom of the box was an envelope containing four labeled keys: Binghamton, Scranton, York, and Annapolis. I folded the envelope and put it in my pocket and closed the empty box.
A stack of bills amounting to over a hundred thousand dollars was larger than my pockets could hold. I didn’t bring a briefcase or a gym bag, or anything to put it in. I couldn’t leave the self-locking door and I sure as hell didn’t want to use the intercom to ask for help. Even with my pockets stuffed full, I still had a lot of bills to deal with. With no other apparent solution of how to deal with them, I took off my pants, slid off my boxer shorts, tied them into a makeshift bag, and stuffed them with the remaining money. I had a bit of a time scrunching it all together, but in the end I was able to jam it under my arm and exit the bank without a wisp of impropriety. I had to rap on the car window to get Bob’s attention—he could fall asleep at the blink of an eye. He hit the unlock button. I slipped into the car seat, underwear dangling from my left hand. “Have an accident?” Bob asked, eying the bulging boxer shorts.
I spread the elastic. “Does this look an accident?”
“Holy shit!” Bob exclaimed. “Did you rob the place?”
“I thought we already talked about that,” I answered. “Of course I didn’t.”
“But Charlie, there’s a lot of money there, that is if it’s not all ones or fives.”
“One-hundred-sixty-thousand.”
“I’m glad I’m carrying.”
“Carrying what?”
“A 38 special. Under the seat.”
I shook my head. “I should have guessed, Bob. But, I don’t think we’ll need it.”
“Never know.”
“Okaaaay,” I said, “let’s leave that subject for later. Next stop, Binghamton, sixty miles, south.”
“Negative,” Bob declared, taking on CB radio lingo. “Utica, to get my truck.”
I had forgotten about his truck.
Bob’s F150 made the nondescript Camry look like a Bentley. Think rust. Dents just about everywhere. A faded green bed-cap with a ladder rack bolted askew to the truck body, a rear bumper fashioned from a hand-hewn log. Some wire dangling underneath. Complete with a coat-hanger radio aerial. I knew this truck when it was new. That was over twenty years ago. Picking out the one positive thing, I said, “New tires.”
“No sense running down here on the bald ones,” Bob said proudly.
Rent-A-Wreck paid, we hopped into the truck. Though worn, the cab was clean and orderly, the one exception being strands of dog hair clinging to the grey velveteen covered seat. He explained that the hair was to remind him of Faithful, his dead German Shepherd. Bob inserted a worn key into the ignition. Expecting a coughing rumbling roar, I was relieved to hear instead the quiet power of mechanical perfection. My recollection of Bob’s engineering prowess assured, I fastened the seat belt, set the underwear bag of money between us, and asked, “Can we take the path less traveled by?”
“No interstate! That’ll be a pleasure.” From under the seat, Bob retrieved his Garmin. Expertly fiddling with a few buttons he programmed our route to Binghamton—two-lane back roads except for a few miles of interstate as we neared the city. After clicking the GPS into a bracket that was suction cupped to the windshield, Bob slid the shifter into Drive. Turn left in 300 feet,” a monotone electronic female commanded as we pulled out of the parking lot.
FROM RIBS TO WRANGLERS, announced the roadside billboard, JUST SOUTH OF DOG HOLLOW. We were about midway between Syracuse and Binghamton. “Time to get you some underwear,” Bob suggested.
“And a few other things,” I agreed.
Fat Joe, the clerk’s preferred moniker, led me from shoes to pants to shirts to socks to underwear. Choice of Hanes and Carhart and of course, Wranglers. I traded geezer wardrobe for farmer/construction worker/truck driver. Bob picked up an army surplus duffle bag. “For the money,” he whispered. A rack of succulent ribs completed the deal. I handed Fat Joe two one-hundred dollar bills, my first contribution to small business, courtesy of the graft and corr
uption associated with our deep-pocketed defense industry.
Let me tell you what the taste of freedom is really like: Chewing on a smoky rib after months of nursing home food, that’s what it is. With Bob driving, I tore into those ribs like a hungry hyena. My hands and face were covered with BBQ sauce. Bob said I looked like a high-chaired kid eating a bowl of spaghetti. And I suppose I did. I sure felt like one sitting there belted into that pick-up’s seat, a stack of napkins to my left, a tub of ribs on my lap and a smile a half-a-mile wide. Eyeing the accumulating mess, Bob suggested that we pull off the road to eat. I informed Bob that if we were to make the banks in Binghamton and Scranton, we had to hustle. He agreed, although to Bob that meant going the speed limit instead of five miles slower.
Unlike my clear recollection of HSBC’s location in Syracuse, my geographical memory of the Key Bank of Binghamton’s location was nonexistent. Bob wasn’t one to ask for directions. The Garmin was no help. So we cruised downtown Binghamton. Granite blocked fortress-like bank buildings anchored corners like stentorian guardians of bygone prosperity. They weren’t banks anymore. They were restaurants, discos, clothing stores and in some cases, just empty shells. We found a Key Bank in a ranch-style building that looked more like a drive-in restaurant than a secure place to keep money. Jeremy Gettinger, the appropriately necktied and suited bank-manager spent a few minutes on the phone before directing us to a branch office just south of downtown. With the exception of the olive-drab duffle bag replacing the polka-dot boxer shorts, the procedure for getting my money mirrored Syracuse: this time two hundred fourteen thousand dollars, again in denominations of hundreds, fifties, and twenties.
Retrieving the money from Scranton was easy once we found the bank. Thank God for extended banking hours. In my day they closed at three. The Scranton First National had morphed into The Bank of America. We hit the bank just before closing where I added another one-hundred-eighty-six-thousand dollars to my kitty. Buying a good boat was looking better and better. We stayed overnight in a dingy motel near Wilkes-Barre. Dinner was a Big Mac. If they served these fat-laden things at Sunset, clientele turnover would triple. On the other hand, why not? Why the need to regulate every damn morsel of food? To keep us alive? How many weeks or months would any one of us give to have tasty food?
That Good Night Page 5