Defying Death in Hagerstown

by John Paul Carinci

  “Well, it’s twelve-thirty. Let’s get some lunch and you can fill me in.”

  The Au Bon Pain is a great place to eat either breakfast or lunch, and the coffee is the freshest. They bake everything right in the store, so you can have anything from bagels to muffins to sandwiches—whatever you fancy. I opted for the super-chug Colombian coffee to help me out of my near-comatose state. Graham was right there with me, and we each had ham and cheese on the tire-sized bagels they sell. After five minutes of some of the strongest coffee around, I was perked up and almost ready to run a block or two. So I filled Graham in on my eventful day.

  “Damn!” Graham snapped. “You don’t do anything halfway, do you?”

  “That boss, Glavin? He’s a real horse’s ass!” I barked from somewhere deep inside.

  “Yeah, Lou, he’s a real jerk, but he signs all the checks, so you have to play the game, you know? You’ve got to kiss up just enough to make the man think you really care. Problem is, Lou, you haven’t cared for quite a while, and it shows.”

  Graham was right. I was stuck in some kind of limbo, as if I were living on an isolated island, far away in the Caribbean somewhere. I was going through the motions but not really trying. I knew I wasn’t right on. I knew I was producing sub-par, but I really didn’t care. Now, Harold Glavin was all over my ass. He wasn’t pulling any punches this time when he threatened to fire me. He had a reputation for firing employees with no warning at all and over petty issues. Many were fired over the phone, abruptly. So when he warned me about getting fired, I knew he meant it.

  Graham was different from me. He cared. Graham needed his job. He worried about losing it, mostly because he was married with kids. Graham was a young black man who had married a Hispanic woman when he was only twenty years old, and they already had three young children. Talk about pressure! Graham worked all kinds of overtime and even did odd jobs just to make up for being the only wage earner in the home. Clearly, we were different animals. When I felt burned out, I just didn’t work hard; I stopped trying. Graham couldn’t use any excuses, with five mouths to feed. He was the most mature twenty-seven-year-old I had ever known.

  It was three years earlier when we became friends. First, it was by bumping into each other at the coffee shop and in the lobby. Then, after having a few conversations, and after Graham found out that I was a reporter, he immediately put me on a pedestal. I don’t know exactly why, but I took to the guy, and Graham soon became a close friend. We talked a lot about the sports teams we both admired, and we always had a lot of laughs, but we rarely hung out at night because he had obligations.

  “So, tell me more about this assignment Glavin threatens to take your job away over.” Graham put down his sandwich and gave me a mischievous grin.

  “Oh, that! I haven’t had a quality story to cover in ages. In fact, I can’t remember writing anything interesting in months. It’s as if I’m being black-balled by His Majesty, King Glavin.”

  “Really?”

  “Really!” I snapped. “I’ve been covering prominent obituaries, births, and unimportant petty crimes. And to boot, the clown Glavin has the balls to call me in on each story I write, tear it all apart, and make me rewrite it over and over. I feel like he was just egging me on this morning, just so I would resign rather than him firing my ass and having to pay me unemployment!”

  “Okay, so what’s the new story about?” Graham asked, genuinely interested.

  “Oh, get a load of this. The new story is sending me to a nursing home in Maryland to cover a very old lady celebrating a milestone birthday.”

  “What the . . .?”

  “I know, right?!” I said. “They give these kinds of stories to cub reporters just getting their feet wet.”

  “Why this old lady?” Graham asked.

  “It seems that this old lady is the oldest person ever to stay at this nursing home, and she is currently the oldest living person in Maryland.”

  “How old is that, Lou?”

  “The notes Gloria gave me said a hundred and ten years old. Yeah, one hundred and ten years!”

  “Holy Samoli! A hundred and ten years old? The oldest person I ever heard about was a hundred and one, and that was my great-grandmother who died just before reaching a hundred and two. I heard that on the day she died, she actually finished a crossword puzzle. She was that sharp.” Graham took a bite of his sandwich. “You know, Lou, that sounds like a pretty cool assignment.”

  “Yeah, maybe. But maybe this old biddy is cold-stone senile. Good luck trying to write a clever story out of something like that.” I laughed.

  “Hey, dude, you really got to respect anyone who’s made it to even eighty today. Think about the odds of living past one hundred. I used to think about that when they spoke about Great-Granny Mable. She never made it out of Africa. But what are the odds, man? All the diseases, accidents, and other junk that could happen to a person. Look at the old person in your story. If she is a hundred and ten, she was born, let’s see, in or around the year 1903. I that that’s awesome! She has outlasted almost everyone, or at least everyone she ever knew.”

  Back at my office, while compiling some notes, I thought about the old lady. I thought about Graham and what he had said about his great-grandmother. I wondered if, just possibly, this assignment wasn’t some kind of vengeful punishment from Constable Harold Glavin.

  I looked at the notes from Gloria on my latest assignment. The old woman’s name was Lolita Croome. She had a living relative, a daughter named Jennifer, age eighty-three, who was our contact person. I read on. Jennifer was married to a man named Guy, and both the mother and daughter were very religious and had been their whole lives. Glavin had made a note: “Watch your actions and language, Lou. Don’t embarrass the paper!”

  Don’t embarrass the paper? That’s what I’d become in the eyes of the management of the Washington Gazette—an embarrassment? I knew I was off my game a bit and uninterested in writing. Maybe I felt burnt out from writing, or maybe I was bored with the low-quality assignments I’d been stuck with for the past year or so. Whatever it was, I realized that I was at the end of the road now. Either I hit a home run with this centenarian assignment or I’d better look through the classifieds for a new job.

  For the first time in many years, I was actually scared. I sat at my desk and wondered what kind of work I could perform if not working as a writer. I went through various occupations one by one: waiting tables, driving car service or a truck, painting houses, working at Starbucks doling out caffeine hits to already-nervous people. As I slowly analyzed each scenario, it caused a slight eruption of acid production in my stomach. I realized that I already had the job best suited to my expertise and personality, and one that could pay my bills fairly easily. I sat there for twenty minutes longer staring at the nameplate on my desk, the one that reminded me where I sat, where I belonged each morning, and where I wanted the nameplate to remain for many years to come.

  According to Gloria Finn’s agenda, I was to arrive in Hagerstown, Maryland, on Wednesday to get acclimated and settled in, and then on Thursday at noon I was to meet Lolita, the subject of my story. The assignment was probably the worst possible assignment I could ever work on at the time. Why couldn’t I work on the auto industry, or the building industry, or even unemployment or crime? Anything would be better to get me out of my self-imposed rut than interviewing a centenarian. Boredom is the worst thing for a writer, while inspiration is the exhilarating surge a writer needs. It creates an adrenalin rush that spurs a writer on. Whenever I’d felt inspired, the words had flowed so easily. Inspiration had helped me write the best stories of my career. That internal inspiration had been lacking for many months. I wondered how I could possibly get up the enthusiasm just to travel to Maryland for the depressing trip to that nursing home. I hated nursing homes! The very thought of a nursing home scared me because I envisioned so many elderly people entering alive, only to be carried out as lifeless bodies. Life is really short for many, too long for
others, and blessed for a very few—like Lolita.

  It was five o’clock on Monday when I entered my favorite watering hole, Brandy’s. It is located about five miles from downtown Washington and has a nice mix of patrons. There are the sports jocks who live for every game playing on the large flat-screen TVs in the bar. They root for anything being played: soccer, boxing, baseball, even women’s softball. Then there is the younger crowd that is basically there to meet new people; they drink all night just hoping to get lucky with the opposite sex. I often watched some of the young male players vying for an opening to make moves on young women who didn’t want to be picked up anyway. It was quite comical and entertaining, almost like a sporting event itself. Then there are the older men who seem to be slowly wasting away at the bar, no doubt widowed or divorced, and clearly too old to be attractive to younger women who want to meet their next romantic interest.

  Finally, there are guys like me, a breed of their own, men who drink out of boredom as a way to pass the time and to drown their sorrows, drinking enough to numb the pain of a deep heartache; men who want to be numb enough to fall asleep easily in the wee hours of the morning and sleep like a zombie rather than twisting and turning all night long.

  Brandy’s features a century-old, solid mahogany bar that is horseshoe shaped and runs about seventy-five feet in length. The bar is historic to Washington, DC, and has been around for ages. Not too many politicians make it into the bar; they frequent the more elaborate ones closer to the Capitol.

  I sat at my usual spot with my back to the doorway. The large screens all around the huge bar were showing replays of baseball and golf tournaments. The bar was pretty empty at pre-rush-hour. The bar stool felt good as I settled into it, like an old glove. I had made a good friend of my stool for the past several months. That stool had kept me from falling as I drank too much on far too many occasions. It’s a lonely life when a drinker has to leave his stool and face the four unforgiving walls of his home.

  Carl is the main bartender. He’s always friendly and very knowledgeable in world, business, and current sporting events. Carl is a great listener, and when you vent your troubles to him, he truly cares; he’s not faking it. Most drinkers don’t vent; they just try to deaden a deep-seated pain and escape home, numb to life’s problems.

  I stared at Carl, his back to me while he served drinks on the opposite side to two elderly men. Carl is a huge man whom no one would want to test in a wrestling match. He stands about six four and weighs about two hundred fifty pounds. He is quite cheery for a bartender, almost jolly. I only remember him losing his temper once, against a young punk who was too rowdy. Carl’s booming voice raised to a lion’s roar, and the punk quickly shut up—he was scared quiet.

  “Carl, just a Heineken on tap,” I said when he made his way over to my side of the bar.

  “Ah, no scotch today?”

  “No, not today. I’ve got some real thinking to do.”

  “I see.” Carl winked. “I hope she’s gorgeous!”

  “No. Oh, no, it’s not like that. It’s business.”

  “I see.” Carl smiled and waited for more.

  “Yeah, I’m kind of on probation on the job. The boss really laid into me for my lack of interest.”

  “You’ve been out of it for a while?”

  “Well, according to the head honcho, my writing has been sub-par for many months. But, you know, Carl, they’ve been giving me the worst writing assignments for a long time now, and now he’s threatened my job over one last crap story. It’s a dog of a story about an old lady in a nursing home.”

  “I see. It’s a story that no one else wants, or is it a form of punishment?”

  “Both! The woman is a hundred and ten freaking years old in a nursing home in Maryland .”

  “Really? She’s that old? Can she hold a conversation still?”

  “According to the newspaper, she is cognizant, but she is physically impaired. But they could be lying just to set me up!”

  “You know, Lou, that sounds like a story I would like to read—all the history in that woman’s life. Can you imagine what her eyes have seen over all those years? All the pain, the joy, the life . . .”

  “Carl, you want to go write it for me? I’ll gladly fill in for you behind the bar.”

  “Oh, yeah, that would work real well. We’d have no liquor left for the customers!” He laughed. Then he leaned on the bar, looked straight and long into my eyes, and said, “No, really, Lou, I think you can turn out a quality story there.”

  “Well, let me put it this way.” I smiled nervously. “Either I write a killer story here, or I’ll be waiting tables somewhere, and I’ve never waited tables in my life.”

  “I’ll be right back at you,” Carl said as he spun around and rushed over to the other side of the bar where he worked as quickly as a juggler, mixing, cleaning, pouring, washing down, talking, and sipping his own drink of sparkling water with a twist of lime. Carl never drank a drop of liquor. He told me once that his father was an alcoholic and used to beat his mother when he and his brothers and sisters were young. Carl’s father died a slow and painful death from the liquor and heavy smoking. Carl vowed as a teen to never drink a drop. I kidded him once about working at a bar, and he said, “That’s precisely why I am perfect to tend a bar. Besides, I can stay sharp and listen to my customers’ many problems.”

  And he was right. Carl always sipped his sparkling water and waited on the next story a patron might feel the need to get off his chest, and there were plenty.

  Carl moved like a well-oiled machine, almost robot-like. He reminded me of the robots that build cars in Detroit, fast and precise. And he never seemed to spill a drop or over-pour the head of a beer. In five minutes flat, Carl took care of five people, sipped his drink, and was back in front of me focusing once again on my current dilemma. The other patrons at that moment were clearly not conversationalists. They were drinking scotch shots and elaborate martinis, but they were not interested in talking.

  As if on autopilot, Carl filled my glass, including a perfectly finished beer head, and then topped off his sparkling water. Carl had kind blue eyes, and could have been a professional football player. He was about fifty-five years old, had been married some thirty years, and had five children—a real family man. He once stated that he was a lot like a psychoanalyst, a great communicator with a habit of listening far more than preaching. I’ve heard him give advice to widowers who have recently lost their spouses and to older men whose wives were gravely ill. He put everyone at ease.

  While he looked me in the eyes again, Carl said, “You know, Lou, I want to make a few friendly observations, if I may. I hope you’ll accept them in the vein in which they are intended.”

  Without waiting for me to respond, Carl said, “Lou, you’ve been coming here for a few years now, and honestly, I’ve seen a big change for the past several months now, ever since you broke up with your girlfriend.”

  “Carl, you don’t have to do this . . . .”

  “Lou, I do. I owe it to you as a friend.”

  “I know I’ve been a little off lately,” I said.

  “Lou, you’ve been walking around in a daze. Your boss is right, there’s no fire in your belly. You have lost your enthusiasm for life. For months now, you’ve been coming in here not to have a good time, but rather to get plastered and kill some inner pain. I like you, and I realize it’s been only three months since you lost your girl, but it’s time to get on with life and stop self-destructing. You know, there’s a fine line between social drinking and becoming an alcoholic. I must warn you, right now you are well on your way to becoming an alcoholic. Wake up before it’s too late.”

  “Maybe I do drink a little too much, okay, I’ll admit that, but alcoholic? No way!”

  “You said that your boss gave you one last shot to retain your reporting job. I am confident that you can turn things around, but you must get serious.”

  “I’m over Alicia now. She’s a distant memory.”
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  “Lou, Alicia isn’t a distant memory—don’t kid a kidder. I see it in your eyes as you slowly get loaded each time. It will get better, but you’ve got to let go, or you will be sleeping in the streets and killing yourself over someone who has moved on with her life. Move on, Lou!”

  Carl was right on. He knew the pain I wore on my face over Alicia, whose picture was etched into my brain. I could see her as if she were standing in front of me. I saw her tall, slender figure at five-seven, with her long silky dark hair. I saw her hazel eyes that captivated me throughout our yearlong relationship. It was true that I had been devastated when Alicia broke up with me for a physician’s assistant at a local hospital. After all, we had planned to marry within a year. Carl had it right: I’d been like a zombie for months, just going through the motions but devoid of passion for the job and for life in general.

  Alicia was all I thought about. Sure, I kept telling myself that I was fine, that I was over her, able to move on. But I wasn’t. Carl went on to confront me with the fact that when I did meet a woman at the bar, my only goal was to get her to bed and then drop her. And he was right. No woman meant anything to me except as a sex object. And after I had slept with one of them, the inner pain quickly returned. No one could compare to Alicia, and sleeping with the few I had slept with since breaking up with her had convinced me of this.

  It finally dawned on me while talking with Carl that my heart had turned as cold as ice. I didn’t care for any other women because none of them were a match for the woman I had put high on a pedestal. My job, my life, even my own family meant very little to me anymore. A part of me was dead. Carl was right: zombie was the right word for how I was going through life each day; I was like a robot—without a heart.

  But after speaking with Carl, after his telling me what I already knew full well, I realized I had to snap out of the funk I was deeply caught in. After an hour or so, I left the bar and went home to my apartment. With tears in my eyes, I finally had the courage to tear up the eight-by-ten photo of Alicia on my dresser. I used to stare at her picture every night and then fall off to sleep. Even after we broke up, I’d stare for an hour at a time. I was consumed with Alicia. It didn’t matter that she had broken my heart, that she hadn’t lived up to the perfect angel I had envisioned her to be. My heart had been permanently damaged by that woman. I was sure I would never fall in love that deeply again. More importantly, I could not possibly love that wholeheartedly again, because my heart, I was convinced, was dead. After all, how many times can a man fall that deeply in love?