I swiped my hand across my mouth, trying to get the rust taste out, and nodded.
“John, Mary, Joe, Malcolm.”
“Mary, Mary, Joe, and Malcolm.”
“Good. Now I’d like you to repeat them again.”
Again? I blinked. “Uh, Mary, Mallory, and Joe, and uh, uh.” I slammed my fist on the table.
“There’s no need to get upset, Peter. I know you may feel frustrated, but remember, we’re here to help you.”
I rested my chin on my hand.
Rombauer handed a sheet to me that had twenty randomly numbered circles. “I want you to start at circle number one and draw a line as quickly as possible from one circle to another. Now you have to go in numerical order, one, two, three, etcetera. Locate the first circle, and we’ll begin.”
This I could do. I mean, it was just like counting. I put his pen on the first circle, and Rombauer clicked a stopwatch.
It took just shy of two minutes for me to slam down the pen and a smiling Rombauer to slide the test back across the desk into a drawer.
Rombauer presented another sheet to me. “We’ll do one more and then take a five-minute break. I want you to read the three sentences aloud, but the point is to remember the last word of each sentence.”
“The swan is on the lake. Is the soup ready? Throw me the ball.”
Rombauer took the paper. “Okay, what were the last words?”
“Throw the ball.”
“The last word of each sentence.”
“I—I.” I sighed heavily. “Let me read it again.”
“It’s okay—”
“Give me the fucking paper!”
Rombauer calmly stood and smiled. “Let’s take that break now.”
***
The following day Rombauer called Vinny.
“I’m pleased that you had the foresight to bring Peter in before his regular appointment. I’ve had a chance to review his latest test results against the last couple of series.” The doctor took a breath. “Your brother has slipped in a number of areas, primarily in the memory area.”
Vinny sighed. “I knew it. Here we go again.”
“Well, let’s not jump to conclusions here.”
“It’s the only thing I’m good at.”
“I see. Well, as I was attempting to express, Peter’s memory facility, more specifically, his episodic and semantic capacities—”
“What?”
“His ability to retain facts and autobiographical information: what he did, when he did it, with whom, all the details and recollection.”
“Now what?”
“I’m going to change some of his medications. It may be that he has built up a resistance to some of the nootropics, the memory-enhancing drugs. There are a number of studies that support such a thesis. In any event, I’ve made several changes. Now, keep in mind this may be trial and error, and we’ll need to retest frequently to see what’s working and what’s not.”
Vinny rolled his eyes at the thought of more tests, as the doctor continued.
“Vincent, your eyes are going to be critical to the process. We’ll need to know as early as possible of any changes in his behavior, memory, anything. It’ll take some time to identify the right combination of drugs and then more time for the medications to build up to an effective level.”
“What’s a realistic time line?”
“Well, that’s difficult to predict. The brain is continually building new links, and a drug’s efficacy is impacted . . .”
Rombauer droned on. Vinny had heard it all before.
***
Vinny watched closely, hoping the change in medications would get his brother back on a path of recovery. Within days, however, Peter seemed to be falling asleep more often, and his memory certainly didn’t improve. Vinny called Rombauer.
“Doc, I gotta tell you, I don’t think the new pills are working. He seems to be getting worse.”
“What signs do you believe indicate the new regimen is not effective?”
“Well, he’s falling asleep easily during the middle of the day.”
“Yes, that can be a side effect, and while we should keep an eye on it, I am reluctant to make changes at this point.”
“Yeah, well how about this, two times this week he asked me when we were going to eat.”
“An increase in appetite is—”
“Hold on, Doc. He asked within an hour of having eaten. When I tell him we just ate, he seems to have forgotten completely. I’m telling you, it’s gotten worse. I’m real concerned, as I’ve got to take a trip soon, and I just can’t postpone it.”
The doctor agreed to change course and prescribed different medications.
Chapter 7
I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I knew I’d slipped, causing a dilemma for Vinny. You see, not only was his lease up in Texas, but the hold on his regular job was slipping away. He didn’t know what to do. I simply hadn’t recovered enough to allow him to move back to Texas like he wanted, so he decided to go down and move his stuff into storage to buy some time. I felt bad. I knew he wanted to go back to his old life, or at least take me down there, but the doctors said I had to stay in a familiar area. When Vinny suggested getting a sleepover nurse, basically a babysitter to stay with me while he was gone, I fought with him, and we ended up with a compromise of sorts.
Vinny took off for Texas on a drizzly morning, leaving a list of instructions and sticky notes everywhere. It was depressing. It drove home how dependent I’d become. The meds I was taking helped sometimes, but the problem was that I needed damn reminders all the time. I turned on the TV and plopped on the couch with a notepad he had tagged with a giant, lime green identifier. After checking the date, I started to read the day’s instructions but got caught up in The Price is Right. I loved that show.
The doorbell rang a few times, and I trudged over, opening it for Melika, a Russian lady Vinny hired to check on me. She eyed me up and down, frowning.
Then she drummed in her hand the newspaper I’d left outside. “It’s three thirty, and you’re not dressed yet?”
I looked down my robe to my bare feet and pulled the belt around me. “I, uh, was—”
“You gonna let me in?”
I stepped aside. She rushed in, flipped on the lights, and shut the TV. Then she told me—no, commanded was more like it—to get dressed.
When I came down, she was tidying up. She frowned with her hands on her hips.
“No shower? What did you have for lunch?”
“I, ah, um, I didn’t have anything, yet.”
“What about breakfast?”
I couldn’t remember if I ate or not and stood there thinking as she stormed into the kitchen. I plopped back on the sofa and started to read the pad of notes Vinny left. Halfway down the first page I read something that made me smile. Thank God Tony was coming tomorrow. It would give me a break from the gestapo bitch for a day.
Man, it was gonna be great to see Tony again. He visited twice or maybe three times when I was in Walter Reed, but it’d been a while. I couldn’t remember how long since I last saw him.
***
My buddy came right before lunch, carrying subs and salads from Dearborn Farms.
“Yo, bro!”
We embraced for a long while, and a couple of tears plopped out.
“Man, you’re looking good, Petey!”
“I don’t know . . .”
“How you feeling?”
“Uh, sometimes good, but the frigging memory—I don’t know. It seems to be getting worse by the day.”
He pointed to his eyes. “What’s with the specs?”
I shrugged. “Lifesaver, man, they help me with, you know, the, the, uh, what’s it called? You know, how far things are . . .”
“Depth perception?”
“Yeah, see, I told you. Can’t remember a frigging thing. This short-term memory crap—”
“Don’t sweat it, bro.”
“It’s funny, I can remember things f
rom a long time ago. Like when we were in the fucking hellhole, Afghanistan, clear as a picture, but remember to brush my teeth?”
“What do the docs say?”
“Bunch of mumbo jumbo. Anyway, they gave me another couple of pills to help. Let’s see if it works.”
“How about the ear thing?”
I shrugged. “Kinda the same. I can live with it most of the times, but sometimes—”
“Come on. Let’s have some chow. I’m starving.”
You know, they’re right, service buddies are friends for life. After being filled in on what some of our buddies were doing, we caught up on the romance end of things—Tony telling me he’d met someone he felt he’d marry, and me telling him I thought things were getting a little bit better with Mary.
The afternoon flew by, fueled by more stories of our time in Afghanistan. We were somber at times, but the joy of being home together drove the day into evening. Tony reminded me he was staying overnight to celebrate his brother’s birthday before heading back to Cherry Hill.
“I gotta get going, Petey.”
“Sure.”
“Hey, why don’t you come to the party tonight? You know Joey.”
I’d met his brother a few times. “I don’t know. I’d feel funny, and Vinny wants me to stay in.”
“Come on, man. You got to get back in the swing of things. What you gonna do, watch frigging TV?”
“Who’s gonna be there?”
“Just some family. No big deal—you gotta eat anyway.”
“I—I don’t know, Tony. How am I gonna get back and forth? Vinny’ll kill me if he knows I drove alone.”
“I’ll pick your ass up at seven.”
***
I was glad I went. There weren’t a lot of people there, and their mother was nice and a great cook. After we ate, they had a birthday cake, and it quickly quieted down. Joey was meeting up with his friends at the Lincoln Lounge on Route 35 to continue, or should I say, start the celebration. Tony pushed me to go with them, saying it was on the way to my house anyway. He promised to take me back after a game or two of pool, and knowing Mary went there sometimes, I quickly agreed.
The Lincoln Lounge was an old neighborhood bar with pool tables. The bar reinvigorated itself by bringing in a DJ to play dance music after the old-timers went home. Joey’s friends were shooting pool and hoisting beers when we came in.
“Yo, birthday boy!”
“What’s up, old man? What are you, like, forty?”
“Fuck you.”
I scanned the place for Mary as bear hugs and fist bumps erupted.
“This is my bro, Pete. We served together.”
“Yeah, sure. You’re Vinny’s brother. Good to see you on your feet, man.”
I nodded and shook a few hands as a familiar face cut in.
“Hey, Pete, how you doing, man? Heard you got injured.”
It was an old classmate with red hair whose name I couldn’t recall. “Okay, I guess.”
Tony said, “Okay? Man, you should’ve seen him! I hate to say it, Petey, but I really didn’t think you’d make it. He was hooked up to so many fucking machines.”
I peered over Tony’s shoulder for any signs of Mary. I moved outside the circle for a better view as a barmaid took our party’s drink orders.
As she began to move to the bar, Tony said, “Don’t forget my man, Pete. You remember him, no?”
“Yeah sure. You used to go with Mary before she hooked up with Billy.”
Used to? “I—I, we still, uh, I mean, we’re—”
“I hear she and Billy are getting hitched soon.”
I froze and leaned on my cane.
“So, what can I get you? A beer?”
My mouth was slammed with the taste of rusting iron and my mind with confusion.
“Is Heineken okay with you?”
I barely nodded. “Uh, Billy? Billy who?”
“Wyatt.”
I collapsed into a chair as images of my nemesis taunting me in the first-grade schoolyard flooded my head. It was the start of the end of my relationship with my brother. A year older, Vinny didn’t intervene when Billy Wyatt, my age but six inches and twenty pounds heavier, punched me in the belly and I lost my breath. I was hunched over, hands on my knees, trying to gulp air as tears streamed down my face. A circle of first and second graders watched as Billy pushed me to the ground.
Mrs. Murphy rushed through the throng of kids and pulled me to safety as my brother said, “Get up. Don’t be a sissy.”
I refused to go back to class, and they called my mom to get me, serving to embarrass me further. The tear flow exploded when I saw her. I told her what happened and that Vinny didn’t help me. She comforted me and confronted Vinny when he came home. I listened from the hallway as he lied, saying he didn’t see what was going on and only came when he saw Mrs. Murphy running. But my mother knew, as moms do, when their kid is lying. She punished him, but it didn’t help. In fact, it made things worse as he blamed me for having to stay inside the entire weekend.
Vinny and Billy Wyatt became inseparable through middle school, and I didn’t trust either one of them. When it came time for high school, Vinny and I went to Middletown South, and Billy to North. However, the fierce rivalry between the schools’ sport teams did nothing to damage their relationship. Vinny hung out with Billy and the kids from North, while I hung with my South classmates. I kept my distance from Billy, who’d built a huge reputation as a bully. I longed for the day someone would put him in his place.
Becoming the quarterback for the North’s varsity team fed right into Billy Wyatt’s aggressor karma and led to another humiliating experience for me in front of almost everyone I knew. The two Middletown football teams had a scrimmage against each other at our home field. Since we had a heated rivalry going, the practice game was well attended. After the scrimmage, we were headed to the locker rooms when I was hit above my ear with a football. I turned around, and the throng of kids parted, leaving a smirking Billy as the obvious prankster. I searched for the coaches, but they were inside already, so I marched up to him, but before I could say a word, he swung his helmet into my gut. I doubled over, and like ten years before, had the breath knocked out of me. The humiliation I suffered led me to search for a way to restore my pride, but the opportunity always evaded me.
The barmaid tapped my shoulder. She took a bottle of Heineken off her tray and held it out.
I banged my cane on the ground and pulled myself out of the chair and into the tray. As the bottle crashed to the floor, I stormed over to Tony.
“I wanna go.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. Take me home.”
“But we just got—”
“Now, goddamn it!”
Tony threw up his palm, put his beer down, and we left.
Tony tried to figure out what was wrong, but I wouldn’t open up. Simmering as he drove, I fingered the cell phone in my pocket with a trembling hand. I closed the car door as Tony made plans to visit again.
I pulled out the phone on the way to the front door.
She answered on the second ring.
Chapter 8
Monmouth County Prosecutor William Stanley had called a meeting with John Cline, an assistant who headed the county’s Major Crimes Bureau, and County Sheriff, Bob Meril. A troubling rise in murders to four a month versus one in years past, combined with an alarming rise in burglaries, were testing their ability to keep the peace. The media was running multiple stories a day, scaring residents, while providing Stanley’s opponents with plenty to campaign against in his reelection bid.
Stanley, a wiry man with steel-blue eyes and a creased forehead, was known as a man of action but also as incredibly stubborn. The prosecutor wanted to tackle the increase in burglaries, which often tracked an uptick in drug use. He flopped open a file.
“The rise in drug use is almost all attributed to the increased use of crystal meth.” He tapped the table with his forefinger. “This
meth is wreaking havoc on our communities.” He offered a sheet to his associates. “Addictive Services reports there are no available beds, with a nine-month wait for inpatient treatment and a minimum of four months for outpatients.”
The sheriff slid the report back, grumbling. “I donno how they smoke that crap.”
Assistant Prosecutor Cline offered, “The traditional law enforcement response would be to increase surveillance, bust street-level dealers—”
Stanley furrowed his brow. “Sure, choking availability would reduce the meth supply, but it would drive up prices.”
“And a junkie’s desperation,” Sheriff Meril added.
“Exactly where I was heading, Bob. Everything we know tells us that meth abusers become psychotic and extremely aggressive. I’m concerned these addicts will get even more violent, desperate in their pursuit to satiate their cravings.”
Cline nodded. “It’s something I witnessed when I was with the DA’s office in New York. We had a crack cocaine epidemic, and it was nasty. Crackheads were popping dealers left and right to get their hands on that junk.” He held up three fingers. “We had three bodies a day to deal with.”
Stanley said, “I’ve been thinking, maybe we ratchet enforcement up a bit. Hit the projects, parks, wherever the dealers are.” Stanley looked at the sheriff for a second. “Not too much, Bob, just raise it a notch. At the same time, I’m going to lean on the governor’s office for a substantial funding increase in treatment dollars. Any way we can get these addicts off the street . . .” Stanley left it hanging and searched his associates' faces.
“It’s worth a shot.”
The sheriff grinned. “And the upside is it won’t suck up my overtime budget.”
“Good, then I’ll leave it to you, Bob. Just not too heavy a hand. If we can tamp this down a notch or two, it’ll fall out of the papers.”
The group finished the meeting by discussing how most of the new wave of homicides involved robberies, and a fair share exhibited patterns pointing to the possibility that one person or group was responsible for up to a third of the crimes. They agreed to keep an eye out for patterns, and left Stanley’s office.
Stanley was hopeful, calling in a favor with the state police to get twenty troopers and their vehicles to patrol in Monmouth. But he had to go to the freeholders to get the funding for the show of force and increased treatment dollars. He scanned his email before putting on his jacket and heading to see two freeholders at town hall.
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