It sucks being fifteen, Tommy thought as he sat in his boring tenth grade history class, drawing little faces in circles on a piece of paper in front of him, paying no attention to the teacher droning on about something, listing the names of the kings of some country. Margaret Garfield was two rows in front and one row to the left. Her long, thick black hair was most of what he was able to see of her, also a little bit of the side of her face, some of her long straight nose, and a bit of eyelash. He had her pretty much memorized, though.
He wanted to say he was sorry, for the things he had said about her in the story that went through his mind. He didn't really mean any of it. He even liked George Capelli, her boyfriend, the captain of the school baseball team. Capelli was really good. He could hit a line drive like nobody's business, and then he was fast, really fast. Tommy wished that he was George Capelli. He wished he was anyone else. It was why he told stories. It was why he spent most of his time living in daydreams. Anywhere but here.
Anywhere but here.
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Eight
"It's not what I wanted!" Tommy shouted.
"Poor old coot." That would be Jimmy, sitting there in the hallways, clucking his tongue and trying to catch the attention of a nurse, any nurse. Maybe that's why he was even there in the first place. Did Jimmy have a thing for nurses? Was he lonely? Was he dying for a little attention, a little affection? There in the hospital were all those nurses, a captive audience almost, nearly all female and having to work to get out of the way, stay out of the way of unwanted attempts at conversation. They were plenty good at it, though, and down at the nursing section they'd already talked about Jimmy, best to ignore him, keep moving, move along. Jimmy straightened himself up in his seat and thought that maybe he should have brought a magazine or even a book but now it was too late because if he got up for even a moment, he knew that they would seize the moment, and seize the chair, and then what would he do? Maybe the old man would just die already.
"I knew you were watching me," Margaret said, "how could I not know? All I had to do was turn around, look over my shoulder, and there you were. That one year, you were even outside my apartment building half the time where you didn't belong, pretending like you were going somewhere, or visiting someone else, or had something to do on the block but you didn't. You were staking me out. Gaping at me in the cafeteria. Poor little Tommy. Poor little Tommy Turtle, because even though you weren't so little anymore like you'd used to be, you were still kind of little inside of your head. Am I right? You still felt small, and weak, and maybe even invisible, like no one could see that you were standing right there, walking over there, doing this and doing that. You got tall but only on the outside, and you were still pretty damn ugly. Not me. I was right there. I was perfect, and everybody knew it."
"You were perfect," Tommy repeated. "Every time you noticed me I pretended you didn't. I kept up believing it was all in my head. A whole lot of stuff was all in my head at the time, so why not you seeing me too? I could have told a billion stories about you, and I did and they were all in my head. I made up your life story a hundred thousand times, about the college you went to, or never did go to, about the children you had, or never did have, about your lovers and husbands and friends and enemies, about the people you met, the jobs you had or never did have, the lifetimes you lived and all your regrets. If I couldn't have you, and I couldn't, then what chance did you have? You see? If you were all mine, then the story would work out all right. We'd get married and then we'd have a boy and a girl. The boy would be first, because then he could protect the girl as she needed him to later on. He'd be a really good boy, a boy boy, big enough and strong enough and smart, really smart, but not so brainy that he wouldn't have friends. The girl, now she would grow up to be exactly like you. Perfect in every way but maybe not as sexy. Beautiful but wholesome, right? You know what I mean. Everyone would want her, but only the right guy could get her. Like me getting you. That's how it went in the one version that could never be real."
"Instead, you turned out all wrong because you didn't choose me. Junkie and whore. I don't know where that skater guy came from. Why'd I ever think of a skater dude?"
"Because you never could do that?" Margaret suggested.
"I was never any good at any of that stuff," Tommy agreed.
"You especially sucked at baseball," Margaret added.
"God, don't I know it," Tommy said. "The only thing I ever wanted to be good at, too. How I loved it! I saw myself, standing up there at the plate, taking my time and aiming my bat at deep center field, right where I was going to knock that ball right over everyone's head, and then I was going to run, run like you wouldn't believe, an inside the park home run every time. Every time! I didn't want the easy glory or bashing it over the fence. No, and anyway I knew that I wasn't that strong. A nice, sweet line drive right over their heads and then running, all me making it happen, all around the bags, in the bottom of the ninth of course, a tie game and two outs and two strikes and all that. Inside the park all the way."
"You didn't even make the team," she helpfully reminded him.
"I never even made any team," he corrected. "Because somehow the bat never wanted to come close to touching the ball. I was too small, and too weak."
"Even when you weren't anymore," she said again, "you still thought that you were."
"All my life," Tommy said. "I kept thinking that way. It's crazy how strong your self-image gets stamped in your head. You can go around believing for yours that this is how you are, and you're not."
"I didn't like that version," Margaret said. "The one I just told you. The one you made up in your mind. Or the earlier one either. Why couldn't I have a normal, boring life? Why couldn't I be a chemist, or a pharmacist, or a university professor? Why couldn't I have a house in the suburbs and take the train in to work every day? Why couldn't I be like your niece, with a book full of appointments and things I like doing, too busy to check in on the dying old uncle that none of us really liked anyway? I did have a brother named Jimmy, you know."
"I know," Tommy said. "That's where this one came from. I never liked your little brother. He was a weasel, always whining and wanting more. More of everything and more all the time. He'd come up to you in the school cafeteria and if you offered him half of your cookie he'd take the whole thing. And nothing was ever good enough either. He'd be munching that whole cookie and complain that it tasted like crap."
"I loved my little brother," Margaret said.
"No, you didn't," Tommy told her.
"Now you're telling me how I felt, how I feel."
"Why not?" he nearly shouted. "Why shouldn't I? I'm making it all up, aren't I? Don't I even get to choose what you're like? In my story you're mine, and you'll be what I want you to be. You'll feel what I want you to feel. If I say you're a slut, you're a slut. If I tell you to bend over, you do that. If I say that you hate your own brother, then you hate him. That's the whole point of it, isn't it?"
"Is that how it ends?" she asked. "Is that your idea of love?"
"No," he replied, after he thought for a minute. "I just want you so bad."
"We're only still kids," Margaret said.
"I know," Tommy said. "I guess I've been watching too much TV. All the drama, you know. Their idea of love is conflict resolution. People get passionate, like they ate too much chocolate. They're buzzing around all intense. You look at your own life and it seems nothing happens, it's too slow and not at all like a show, where emotions run high and violence is the path and the way and the truth. There's this dark side we're all required to have! If you don't have a dark side, then hell, you're a joke."
"Most of our dark sides aren't really that dark."
"No, they're not," he agreed. "They're pretty much beige, like the buildings we live in. Predictable, arranged, all part of a plan, designed by leading experts and affordable too!"
"Ghosts do not live in mold," Margaret said.
"As if there even are ghosts," he said to himself. As if hospitals even have mold on the walls. As if they even let people lie out in the hallway to die. Well, maybe they do. I know that they do. I've seen it myself. That's where I got the idea."
"Poor old coot." That would be Jimmy, sitting there in the hallways, clucking his tongue and trying to catch the attention of a nurse, any nurse. Maybe that's why he was even there in the first place. Did Jimmy have a thing for nurses? Was he lonely? Was he dying for a little attention, a little affection? There in the hospital were all those nurses, a captive audience almost, nearly all female and having to work to get out of the way, stay out of the way of unwanted attempts at conversation. They were plenty good at it, though, and down at the nursing section they'd already talked about Jimmy, best to ignore him, keep moving, move along. Jimmy straightened himself up in his seat and thought that maybe he should have brought a magazine or even a book but now it was too late because if he got up for even a moment, he knew that they would seize the moment, and seize the chair, and then what would he do? Maybe the old man would just die already.
"I knew you were watching me," Margaret said, "how could I not know? All I had to do was turn around, look over my shoulder, and there you were. That one year, you were even outside my apartment building half the time where you didn't belong, pretending like you were going somewhere, or visiting someone else, or had something to do on the block but you didn't. You were staking me out. Gaping at me in the cafeteria. Poor little Tommy. Poor little Tommy Turtle, because even though you weren't so little anymore like you'd used to be, you were still kind of little inside of your head. Am I right? You still felt small, and weak, and maybe even invisible, like no one could see that you were standing right there, walking over there, doing this and doing that. You got tall but only on the outside, and you were still pretty damn ugly. Not me. I was right there. I was perfect, and everybody knew it."
"You were perfect," Tommy repeated. "Every time you noticed me I pretended you didn't. I kept up believing it was all in my head. A whole lot of stuff was all in my head at the time, so why not you seeing me too? I could have told a billion stories about you, and I did and they were all in my head. I made up your life story a hundred thousand times, about the college you went to, or never did go to, about the children you had, or never did have, about your lovers and husbands and friends and enemies, about the people you met, the jobs you had or never did have, the lifetimes you lived and all your regrets. If I couldn't have you, and I couldn't, then what chance did you have? You see? If you were all mine, then the story would work out all right. We'd get married and then we'd have a boy and a girl. The boy would be first, because then he could protect the girl as she needed him to later on. He'd be a really good boy, a boy boy, big enough and strong enough and smart, really smart, but not so brainy that he wouldn't have friends. The girl, now she would grow up to be exactly like you. Perfect in every way but maybe not as sexy. Beautiful but wholesome, right? You know what I mean. Everyone would want her, but only the right guy could get her. Like me getting you. That's how it went in the one version that could never be real."
"Instead, you turned out all wrong because you didn't choose me. Junkie and whore. I don't know where that skater guy came from. Why'd I ever think of a skater dude?"
"Because you never could do that?" Margaret suggested.
"I was never any good at any of that stuff," Tommy agreed.
"You especially sucked at baseball," Margaret added.
"God, don't I know it," Tommy said. "The only thing I ever wanted to be good at, too. How I loved it! I saw myself, standing up there at the plate, taking my time and aiming my bat at deep center field, right where I was going to knock that ball right over everyone's head, and then I was going to run, run like you wouldn't believe, an inside the park home run every time. Every time! I didn't want the easy glory or bashing it over the fence. No, and anyway I knew that I wasn't that strong. A nice, sweet line drive right over their heads and then running, all me making it happen, all around the bags, in the bottom of the ninth of course, a tie game and two outs and two strikes and all that. Inside the park all the way."
"You didn't even make the team," she helpfully reminded him.
"I never even made any team," he corrected. "Because somehow the bat never wanted to come close to touching the ball. I was too small, and too weak."
"Even when you weren't anymore," she said again, "you still thought that you were."
"All my life," Tommy said. "I kept thinking that way. It's crazy how strong your self-image gets stamped in your head. You can go around believing for yours that this is how you are, and you're not."
"I didn't like that version," Margaret said. "The one I just told you. The one you made up in your mind. Or the earlier one either. Why couldn't I have a normal, boring life? Why couldn't I be a chemist, or a pharmacist, or a university professor? Why couldn't I have a house in the suburbs and take the train in to work every day? Why couldn't I be like your niece, with a book full of appointments and things I like doing, too busy to check in on the dying old uncle that none of us really liked anyway? I did have a brother named Jimmy, you know."
"I know," Tommy said. "That's where this one came from. I never liked your little brother. He was a weasel, always whining and wanting more. More of everything and more all the time. He'd come up to you in the school cafeteria and if you offered him half of your cookie he'd take the whole thing. And nothing was ever good enough either. He'd be munching that whole cookie and complain that it tasted like crap."
"I loved my little brother," Margaret said.
"No, you didn't," Tommy told her.
"Now you're telling me how I felt, how I feel."
"Why not?" he nearly shouted. "Why shouldn't I? I'm making it all up, aren't I? Don't I even get to choose what you're like? In my story you're mine, and you'll be what I want you to be. You'll feel what I want you to feel. If I say you're a slut, you're a slut. If I tell you to bend over, you do that. If I say that you hate your own brother, then you hate him. That's the whole point of it, isn't it?"
"Is that how it ends?" she asked. "Is that your idea of love?"
"No," he replied, after he thought for a minute. "I just want you so bad."
"We're only still kids," Margaret said.
"I know," Tommy said. "I guess I've been watching too much TV. All the drama, you know. Their idea of love is conflict resolution. People get passionate, like they ate too much chocolate. They're buzzing around all intense. You look at your own life and it seems nothing happens, it's too slow and not at all like a show, where emotions run high and violence is the path and the way and the truth. There's this dark side we're all required to have! If you don't have a dark side, then hell, you're a joke."
"Most of our dark sides aren't really that dark."
"No, they're not," he agreed. "They're pretty much beige, like the buildings we live in. Predictable, arranged, all part of a plan, designed by leading experts and affordable too!"
"Ghosts do not live in mold," Margaret said.
"As if there even are ghosts," he said to himself. As if hospitals even have mold on the walls. As if they even let people lie out in the hallway to die. Well, maybe they do. I know that they do. I've seen it myself. That's where I got the idea."
Friday, May 24, 2013
Seven
"They weren't all middle-age," Margaret said, "and they weren't all men, neither."
"What?"
"You heard me. That's why what they said about me isn't true. Middle-age men and all. Of course there were some of those too, the ones who paid the best. And the mormons. Bring 'em young, they say. They liked me young, not so much later on, but high school was a premium for those guys. Sure I took their money. Why shouldn't I? What'd I get from George Capelli? Nothing, that's what. It's why I did it, why I started doing it, I mean. I figured I might as well get something. They were going to get theirs, so why shouldn't I get mine?"
"I guess," Tommy started to say, but Margaret didn't stop to acknowledge his remark. She was going now.
"So I heard some girls talking and they said the best places were the commuter stations down the line, out there in the neighborhoods, you know, outside the center city. There the guys, and women too, were the loneliest and the horniest and the ones most ready to pay. Downtown you were asking for trouble, violence even, for sure getting ripped off. Out there in the open they didn't dare. Someone might see. Someone might talk. But there was no harm in giving a ride home to a schoolgirl, it was friendly even, being a decent citizen. Young maiden in distress out there by the tracks without a ride. I'd wear my shortest skirts and tightest tops, just a little bit of lipstick to look like I was still, you know, learning the ropes, becoming a young woman, blossoming or blooming or whatever. All innocent like. Twirling my hair around my finger, stepping up to the edge and stepping back, didn't take long for someone to get to talking. What's a nice girl like you and all that kind of thing. Men coming home from the office, but not so eager to get straight home, and why should they be? Back there they knew there was that woman who'd been cooped up all day watching the kids or just watching the tv, slowly going crazy and just waiting to take it out on the man who at least got to get out in the world, meet some real people, have some lunch with friends or whatever. And the kids, if they were little, would be all over the poor guy, couldn't even get a minute's rest before he'd have to crawl around on the floor and play horsey or play with blocks, or if they were older listen to them complain and bitch and moan about that asshole at school or those idiot teachers or too much homework and nobody cares and nobody listens, and if they were even older then it was money and plans and the car and parties and boyfriends and girlfriends and him being just a clueless old man who was hopelessly out of touch and utterly pointless. Better to put it off for a while and fuck some pretty schoolgirl and give her the money he might have otherwise just given the damn kids. And she'd make him feel better, all right. She'd suck him like the wife never did anymore and let him do most anything he wanted, but not everything, of course, even if there was a lof of cash on the table because after all, a girl has got to make the rules or else she might as well be a fucking robot."
"With the women it was worse. I always hated it, but they were lonely too, I guess, and sometimes just for the sake of variety I'd let one eat my pussy and I'd go down on her with my eyes shut tight and my mind on the drugs I was going to buy that night. I wasn't a junkie, not exactly, but I liked my high, and I tried to keep it going as much as I could, which was most days, now I think of it, most days for about seven years, from fifteen to twenty one or so, when I had my first baby. That's when I gave it all up. All of it. I don't care what they told you about me after all that, because I only lived that life until my first one came around. She totally changed my life. After Angel was born there was no way I was going to do any more drugs, or any more drinking or even smoking and I even stopped eating meat, did you know that? Did the vegan thing for a long time after that. Kept myself all skinny and hungry all the time, just to remind myself, just to stay who I was for as long as I could."
"I never told you about their father, now did I? You might have known him. Cameron Hawk his name was. He was a skater dude. Really fucking good at riding a skateboard. Pretty fucking useless at anything else. I liked his body, I really did. He smelled awesome and he looked good, always got me hot. I could have had more than the three kids with him because I never let him use a rubber, always wanted him raw inside me, huh. Always wanted him, you know. He got sick of all that after a time, left me for some brutally ugly fat chick who didn't like to fuck as much, so that's what made him happy. Never had much money. Not from him, not from anyone. We lived on the government, pretty much, me and my kids. I could have still been out there working, you know, but I had my babies to look after, and I wasn't going to let anybody else do that. I loved it. I really did. Didn't need much money. We had our little old one bedroom down below street level. The kids had the bedroom. I had the rug on the living room floor. Lived like that a long time, you know. It's funny how we never met after high school. Did you move away? I pretty much stayed around the whole time."
All the time she was talking, Tommy was picturing her story in his mind. It was easy enough to do. He'd seen a lot of it, after all, seen her at those railroad stations, seen her getting into those cars. It was what she didn't know but she'd know now if she really could read his mind. He determined to say nothing of it. That way he'd find out for sure. What did she know about it? How he'd spent half a year doing nothing but staring at her, or looking for her in order to stare at her, and thinking about her, and dreaming about her, always dreaming, whether asleep or awake, about her and her long black hair and the way she would twirl it around her finger just like she said. He could make up stories forever about Margaret Garfield, the way she looked, the outfits she wore, the places she went and the people she met and the things she did with the people she met, and what happened after she passed out of view, and how she'd take her clothes off, bottoms first for some reason in his active imagination, skirt or pants, then panties, then socks, still with her top on he'd picture her narrow ass and her slick sparse bush, though he had to admit that the state of her pussy was always varying in his mind. Sometimes she'd have more hair and sometimes it'd be all wet, and sometimes there'd be none at all, and sometimes she'd be pink, then red, then glowing, and really tight or wide, wide open, depending on how she'd position herself, how the guy would want her to be. The middle age guy. It usually was, he knew, no matter what she said now. He'd been there often enough. He'd seen them following the same pattern. Usually they knew it from each other, they passed her on from one to the next, talked about her on the morning train, deciding which one would get her on the return trip later that day. They called her names, affectionate pet names like "the cunt", or "the little slut". He listened in on them on his way to school in the morning. They were all such creeps, with their oily hair and their salesmen shtick and their stupid frat-boy faces. Twenty. Twenty bucks was all it took to get her to suck their dicks in the alley behind the men's room at the station. Tommy had twenty bucks but he didn't have the nerve. He'd never had the guts. And after all, he was in love with her. That wasn't at all what he had in mind.
"What?"
"You heard me. That's why what they said about me isn't true. Middle-age men and all. Of course there were some of those too, the ones who paid the best. And the mormons. Bring 'em young, they say. They liked me young, not so much later on, but high school was a premium for those guys. Sure I took their money. Why shouldn't I? What'd I get from George Capelli? Nothing, that's what. It's why I did it, why I started doing it, I mean. I figured I might as well get something. They were going to get theirs, so why shouldn't I get mine?"
"I guess," Tommy started to say, but Margaret didn't stop to acknowledge his remark. She was going now.
"So I heard some girls talking and they said the best places were the commuter stations down the line, out there in the neighborhoods, you know, outside the center city. There the guys, and women too, were the loneliest and the horniest and the ones most ready to pay. Downtown you were asking for trouble, violence even, for sure getting ripped off. Out there in the open they didn't dare. Someone might see. Someone might talk. But there was no harm in giving a ride home to a schoolgirl, it was friendly even, being a decent citizen. Young maiden in distress out there by the tracks without a ride. I'd wear my shortest skirts and tightest tops, just a little bit of lipstick to look like I was still, you know, learning the ropes, becoming a young woman, blossoming or blooming or whatever. All innocent like. Twirling my hair around my finger, stepping up to the edge and stepping back, didn't take long for someone to get to talking. What's a nice girl like you and all that kind of thing. Men coming home from the office, but not so eager to get straight home, and why should they be? Back there they knew there was that woman who'd been cooped up all day watching the kids or just watching the tv, slowly going crazy and just waiting to take it out on the man who at least got to get out in the world, meet some real people, have some lunch with friends or whatever. And the kids, if they were little, would be all over the poor guy, couldn't even get a minute's rest before he'd have to crawl around on the floor and play horsey or play with blocks, or if they were older listen to them complain and bitch and moan about that asshole at school or those idiot teachers or too much homework and nobody cares and nobody listens, and if they were even older then it was money and plans and the car and parties and boyfriends and girlfriends and him being just a clueless old man who was hopelessly out of touch and utterly pointless. Better to put it off for a while and fuck some pretty schoolgirl and give her the money he might have otherwise just given the damn kids. And she'd make him feel better, all right. She'd suck him like the wife never did anymore and let him do most anything he wanted, but not everything, of course, even if there was a lof of cash on the table because after all, a girl has got to make the rules or else she might as well be a fucking robot."
"With the women it was worse. I always hated it, but they were lonely too, I guess, and sometimes just for the sake of variety I'd let one eat my pussy and I'd go down on her with my eyes shut tight and my mind on the drugs I was going to buy that night. I wasn't a junkie, not exactly, but I liked my high, and I tried to keep it going as much as I could, which was most days, now I think of it, most days for about seven years, from fifteen to twenty one or so, when I had my first baby. That's when I gave it all up. All of it. I don't care what they told you about me after all that, because I only lived that life until my first one came around. She totally changed my life. After Angel was born there was no way I was going to do any more drugs, or any more drinking or even smoking and I even stopped eating meat, did you know that? Did the vegan thing for a long time after that. Kept myself all skinny and hungry all the time, just to remind myself, just to stay who I was for as long as I could."
"I never told you about their father, now did I? You might have known him. Cameron Hawk his name was. He was a skater dude. Really fucking good at riding a skateboard. Pretty fucking useless at anything else. I liked his body, I really did. He smelled awesome and he looked good, always got me hot. I could have had more than the three kids with him because I never let him use a rubber, always wanted him raw inside me, huh. Always wanted him, you know. He got sick of all that after a time, left me for some brutally ugly fat chick who didn't like to fuck as much, so that's what made him happy. Never had much money. Not from him, not from anyone. We lived on the government, pretty much, me and my kids. I could have still been out there working, you know, but I had my babies to look after, and I wasn't going to let anybody else do that. I loved it. I really did. Didn't need much money. We had our little old one bedroom down below street level. The kids had the bedroom. I had the rug on the living room floor. Lived like that a long time, you know. It's funny how we never met after high school. Did you move away? I pretty much stayed around the whole time."
All the time she was talking, Tommy was picturing her story in his mind. It was easy enough to do. He'd seen a lot of it, after all, seen her at those railroad stations, seen her getting into those cars. It was what she didn't know but she'd know now if she really could read his mind. He determined to say nothing of it. That way he'd find out for sure. What did she know about it? How he'd spent half a year doing nothing but staring at her, or looking for her in order to stare at her, and thinking about her, and dreaming about her, always dreaming, whether asleep or awake, about her and her long black hair and the way she would twirl it around her finger just like she said. He could make up stories forever about Margaret Garfield, the way she looked, the outfits she wore, the places she went and the people she met and the things she did with the people she met, and what happened after she passed out of view, and how she'd take her clothes off, bottoms first for some reason in his active imagination, skirt or pants, then panties, then socks, still with her top on he'd picture her narrow ass and her slick sparse bush, though he had to admit that the state of her pussy was always varying in his mind. Sometimes she'd have more hair and sometimes it'd be all wet, and sometimes there'd be none at all, and sometimes she'd be pink, then red, then glowing, and really tight or wide, wide open, depending on how she'd position herself, how the guy would want her to be. The middle age guy. It usually was, he knew, no matter what she said now. He'd been there often enough. He'd seen them following the same pattern. Usually they knew it from each other, they passed her on from one to the next, talked about her on the morning train, deciding which one would get her on the return trip later that day. They called her names, affectionate pet names like "the cunt", or "the little slut". He listened in on them on his way to school in the morning. They were all such creeps, with their oily hair and their salesmen shtick and their stupid frat-boy faces. Twenty. Twenty bucks was all it took to get her to suck their dicks in the alley behind the men's room at the station. Tommy had twenty bucks but he didn't have the nerve. He'd never had the guts. And after all, he was in love with her. That wasn't at all what he had in mind.
Monday, May 20, 2013
Six
"What? What did you say?"
"Nothing," Tommy hurried to add. "I didn't say anything."
"You hear that?" Jimmy Blanks reached out and caught the bulky nurse by the hand to make her stop and pay attention to his uncled for a second.
"I didn't hear anything," she replied, pulling her hand free and moving along.
"I know what you said," the voice identifying as Margaret Garfield snapped. "Who said that, huh? Who said that about me?"
"Nobody," Tommy tried to backtrack again. "Um, I mean, I don't know. I don't remember. Nobody. It was nothing. I don't know why I said that," but he did know why he said it, because there were only a few things he remembered about Margaret Garfield. Her hair, mainly, and that she called him Tommy Turtle and was his lab partner in eighth grade science class, and that she'd gone out with the Captain (like every other girl in the class or so it was said), and that later he'd heard these rumors about her, that she'd gone on heroin, that she was selling her body to middle-aged men down beneath the railroad bridge, and that she'd had some abortions and that during one of them she died, and that was all he knew, the sum total of all the accumulated stories about her.
"I'm sorry," he said, "it's just the way I am. I say things I shouldn't say. It's probably why I never had a girlfriend that stuck around. Saying the wrong thing. Not thinking. Not using my head."
"I don't care about any of that," Margaret said, "I want to know who said those things about me, and yes, those other things too. Middle-aged men? Abortions? What's all that about?"
"I didn't say anything like that," Tommy protested, meaning he didn't say any of it out loud, but he had no idea what he was saying out loud and what was only thinking.
"Where do you think I am?" she snorted. "I'm inside your brain, genius. I don't know if you realize that."
"I've seen flashes," he said, guessing that maybe those peripheral lights were actually her.
"Of course they are," she answered. "I know everything you're thinking, everything you've ever thought, which isn't saying much, you know. I've been in some brains you wouldn't believe, full of formulas and heavy thoughts, meditations even. There was this buddhist priest they had dying in here one time, man that was deep. I could almost wish I'd been in some kind of coma like that myself. Talk about taking it to another level! And there were cops, you woudn't want to know the things they've seen, but I saw them too. Maybe you'll get your turn. Maybe your luck will run out and you will end up dying right here, and then you'll be like us, waiting around, just waiting for someone familiar, and then when you find them, maybe they'll say mean things about you like you just said about me. I hope you do. Then you'll know what it's like."
"I'm really sorry," he said again. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."
"Feelings? Who's got feelings anymore? I'm just annoyed by the factual misrepresentation. Is that real phrase? I think I picked it up from some old lawyer's brain. You do get an education floating around in some of these heads that come in here."
"It was the Captain," Tommy tried to deflect the blame.
"No it wasn't," she sneered. "I just told you, I'm right here inside your head. I know when you're just making stuff up. You're a terrible liar, by the way. You ought to know that. You were right the first time. You don't remember where you heard it, any of it, about me being a junkie and a whore and all that. You don't even remember. Somebody said something mean one time and it just stuck in your head like a post-it attached to my name. Every time my name comes up, there it is, those other things, they come up too, and it's been that way for what now? Sixty years?"
She was quiet for a few moments, and Tommy began to worry that maybe she'd gone away, flown out of his nose like the rest of them had. He was racking his brain for the right thing to say, knowing that she'd know what he was trying to do and coming up with the words before he even knew what they were. When she did speak again, it was in a calmer and quieter voice, more like the tone she'd originally used to contact him.
"It's the same thing with me about you. Every time your name comes up it's Tommy Turtle all over again."
"My name comes up?" was his immediate thought, and he imagined he could hear her instant laughter.
"Not so much," she replied, "but when it did. I'm just saying."
"I don't want to die here," he sighed.
"I can't blame you, honey," said the bulky nurse on her way back from wherever it was she kept going to and coming from. "Do you know your name?" she asked again.
"Tommy," he said. "Tommy Turtle."
"Tommy Turtle?" That would be Jimmy guffawing. "Did you hear that?"
"I heard Tortelli," the nurse said. "That is his name, isn't it? He still knows it. I didn't think he did. I thought he was a lot farther gone than that."
"He's a tough old coot," Jimmy said. "He's been hanging in there a long time now. Beat cancer three times already. Had skin cancer, prostate and liver, and none of them could bring him down." He sounded proud of his mother's older brother. She hadn't even made it past a single one.
"You just rest easy," the nurse was saying to Tommy, patting him on the arm. "I'll bet they'll be sending you home before you know it."
"Wouldn't surprise me none," Jimmy said, somewhat dejected. The moodswings were wearing on him almost as bad as that rotten cup of coffee he'd snagged from the place they called a cafeteria downstairs. That was when he was sure the old man's time was almost up, and he was prepping for the transit home. If they did release the old guy now, he'd have to fork out for another taxi and go even farther out of his way. He might even be up all night. It was driving him crazy.
"Make up your mind," he muttered at the potential corpse lying beside him.
"I don't want to die here," Tommy was thinking again.
"Nothing," Tommy hurried to add. "I didn't say anything."
"You hear that?" Jimmy Blanks reached out and caught the bulky nurse by the hand to make her stop and pay attention to his uncled for a second.
"I didn't hear anything," she replied, pulling her hand free and moving along.
"I know what you said," the voice identifying as Margaret Garfield snapped. "Who said that, huh? Who said that about me?"
"Nobody," Tommy tried to backtrack again. "Um, I mean, I don't know. I don't remember. Nobody. It was nothing. I don't know why I said that," but he did know why he said it, because there were only a few things he remembered about Margaret Garfield. Her hair, mainly, and that she called him Tommy Turtle and was his lab partner in eighth grade science class, and that she'd gone out with the Captain (like every other girl in the class or so it was said), and that later he'd heard these rumors about her, that she'd gone on heroin, that she was selling her body to middle-aged men down beneath the railroad bridge, and that she'd had some abortions and that during one of them she died, and that was all he knew, the sum total of all the accumulated stories about her.
"I'm sorry," he said, "it's just the way I am. I say things I shouldn't say. It's probably why I never had a girlfriend that stuck around. Saying the wrong thing. Not thinking. Not using my head."
"I don't care about any of that," Margaret said, "I want to know who said those things about me, and yes, those other things too. Middle-aged men? Abortions? What's all that about?"
"I didn't say anything like that," Tommy protested, meaning he didn't say any of it out loud, but he had no idea what he was saying out loud and what was only thinking.
"Where do you think I am?" she snorted. "I'm inside your brain, genius. I don't know if you realize that."
"I've seen flashes," he said, guessing that maybe those peripheral lights were actually her.
"Of course they are," she answered. "I know everything you're thinking, everything you've ever thought, which isn't saying much, you know. I've been in some brains you wouldn't believe, full of formulas and heavy thoughts, meditations even. There was this buddhist priest they had dying in here one time, man that was deep. I could almost wish I'd been in some kind of coma like that myself. Talk about taking it to another level! And there were cops, you woudn't want to know the things they've seen, but I saw them too. Maybe you'll get your turn. Maybe your luck will run out and you will end up dying right here, and then you'll be like us, waiting around, just waiting for someone familiar, and then when you find them, maybe they'll say mean things about you like you just said about me. I hope you do. Then you'll know what it's like."
"I'm really sorry," he said again. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."
"Feelings? Who's got feelings anymore? I'm just annoyed by the factual misrepresentation. Is that real phrase? I think I picked it up from some old lawyer's brain. You do get an education floating around in some of these heads that come in here."
"It was the Captain," Tommy tried to deflect the blame.
"No it wasn't," she sneered. "I just told you, I'm right here inside your head. I know when you're just making stuff up. You're a terrible liar, by the way. You ought to know that. You were right the first time. You don't remember where you heard it, any of it, about me being a junkie and a whore and all that. You don't even remember. Somebody said something mean one time and it just stuck in your head like a post-it attached to my name. Every time my name comes up, there it is, those other things, they come up too, and it's been that way for what now? Sixty years?"
She was quiet for a few moments, and Tommy began to worry that maybe she'd gone away, flown out of his nose like the rest of them had. He was racking his brain for the right thing to say, knowing that she'd know what he was trying to do and coming up with the words before he even knew what they were. When she did speak again, it was in a calmer and quieter voice, more like the tone she'd originally used to contact him.
"It's the same thing with me about you. Every time your name comes up it's Tommy Turtle all over again."
"My name comes up?" was his immediate thought, and he imagined he could hear her instant laughter.
"Not so much," she replied, "but when it did. I'm just saying."
"I don't want to die here," he sighed.
"I can't blame you, honey," said the bulky nurse on her way back from wherever it was she kept going to and coming from. "Do you know your name?" she asked again.
"Tommy," he said. "Tommy Turtle."
"Tommy Turtle?" That would be Jimmy guffawing. "Did you hear that?"
"I heard Tortelli," the nurse said. "That is his name, isn't it? He still knows it. I didn't think he did. I thought he was a lot farther gone than that."
"He's a tough old coot," Jimmy said. "He's been hanging in there a long time now. Beat cancer three times already. Had skin cancer, prostate and liver, and none of them could bring him down." He sounded proud of his mother's older brother. She hadn't even made it past a single one.
"You just rest easy," the nurse was saying to Tommy, patting him on the arm. "I'll bet they'll be sending you home before you know it."
"Wouldn't surprise me none," Jimmy said, somewhat dejected. The moodswings were wearing on him almost as bad as that rotten cup of coffee he'd snagged from the place they called a cafeteria downstairs. That was when he was sure the old man's time was almost up, and he was prepping for the transit home. If they did release the old guy now, he'd have to fork out for another taxi and go even farther out of his way. He might even be up all night. It was driving him crazy.
"Make up your mind," he muttered at the potential corpse lying beside him.
"I don't want to die here," Tommy was thinking again.
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Five
The voice that said it was Margaret Garfield, and the face that went with the voice, were swimming around in his brain now. At least it felt like it was swimming around. He tried to follow its movements with his own inner eye, but he only caught glimpses, like one of those peripheral vision tests where they never tell you where the little green light is going to flash next, but you see it, here and there, now and then, as it briefly appears. So too with the voice that said it was Margaret Garfield. He didn't know whether or not to believe it. After all, so far it had only told him about things he knew, the things he remembered about her specifically. He would have to ask her some questions, that only she would be able to answer outside of his knowledge. The trouble was, the questions he wanted to ask her weren't necessarily pleasant, and he didn't want to upset her.
"Tell me about you," Margaret said, but Tommy didn't want to talk about himself.
"I didn't do anything ever," he said and it made him feel sad. "It seems like nothing ever turned out the way that I wanted it to."
"We're all facing an ending we're not going to like," she said. "Believe me. You're probably ahead of the game. Happy endings aren't for living creatures."
"How did?" he started to say, but then he stopped himself. She guessed at the question.
"Cancer," she said. "Skin cancer. I guess I must've gone out in the sun way too much, or something like that. I spend a whole lot of time trying to be tan. Pretty stupid, huh? Well, I was pretty damn tan when I died. Fifty seven years old but tan as could be."
"Fifty seven?" he asked. "You don't look that old."
"Thank you," she said, and it seemed like she genuinely meant it.
"That would have been what? Sixteen years ago now?"
"You could tell me," she replied. "I've got no way to know. I'm just here. Apparently you stick wherever you are when you go. That's the rumor among us. No one really knows."
"Damn," Tommy said. He was already annoyed at his nephew for not letting him stay home and die like he wanted in the peace of his own proper surroundings. He was missing his couch and his own traffic noise. He didn't like all the sounds going on all around him in there, and the smell, except for the lavendar, was making him want to throw up.
"I know," Margaret said, "I wanted to die in my own bed, too, but my daughter, she thought they were going to fix me right up. She said 'never lose hope, mom, never give up'. I say give up and lose hope. It's easier that way. The ending's going to suck either way so you might as well grow a pair and deal with it. Sorry to be vulgar. I get riled up just thinking about it. Kids never listen. What about yours? Is he?"
"My nephew," Tommy said.
"Almost as bad," Margaret told him. "Believe me, it's worse when your own kid does it to you."
"I never had any," Tommy said.
"Oh, that's too bad," Margaret said, contradicting herself. "I mean, I enjoyed being a mom when the kids were still kids. It was later, once they began to grow up, and they wanted to take over. Especially when I got sick. Then it was all them trying to boss me around."
"I never knew you had kids," Tommy said, carefully broaching the subject of her past, promising himself to tiptoe around the possible bad stuff, the stuff that he thought that he knew about her.
"Oh yeah, right after high school. Me being stupid again. Married at nineteen, mother at twenty. Then again at twenty one, and twenty three. After that, who had any time to do anything else? Stayed at home, raised the kids, volunteered at the school, drove a pack around to all those 'activities' that were supposed to make them all healthy and well-rounded and stuff. Mostly it just filled the time. Next thing I knew I'm there in my forties and nothing, I mean nothing, to show for it all. Thought about maybe I should go back to school, to do what? But anyway, that couldn't happen. Had to get a job all at once. Husband, you know. Dear old hubby, found himself a new life, even tried to put it on like he was doing me a favor. Sorry again. You don't need to hear all this? Bitterness just goes with being a ghost."
"I guess I should just grow a pair and deal with it then," Tommy joked. She continued to flash around in his skull.
"Can't you sit still?" he said.
"What do you think I've been doing?" That would be Jimmy Blanks. "I've been sitting here all night."
"They said you were a junkie," Tommy blurted out all at once, "and a whore."
"Tell me about you," Margaret said, but Tommy didn't want to talk about himself.
"I didn't do anything ever," he said and it made him feel sad. "It seems like nothing ever turned out the way that I wanted it to."
"We're all facing an ending we're not going to like," she said. "Believe me. You're probably ahead of the game. Happy endings aren't for living creatures."
"How did?" he started to say, but then he stopped himself. She guessed at the question.
"Cancer," she said. "Skin cancer. I guess I must've gone out in the sun way too much, or something like that. I spend a whole lot of time trying to be tan. Pretty stupid, huh? Well, I was pretty damn tan when I died. Fifty seven years old but tan as could be."
"Fifty seven?" he asked. "You don't look that old."
"Thank you," she said, and it seemed like she genuinely meant it.
"That would have been what? Sixteen years ago now?"
"You could tell me," she replied. "I've got no way to know. I'm just here. Apparently you stick wherever you are when you go. That's the rumor among us. No one really knows."
"Damn," Tommy said. He was already annoyed at his nephew for not letting him stay home and die like he wanted in the peace of his own proper surroundings. He was missing his couch and his own traffic noise. He didn't like all the sounds going on all around him in there, and the smell, except for the lavendar, was making him want to throw up.
"I know," Margaret said, "I wanted to die in my own bed, too, but my daughter, she thought they were going to fix me right up. She said 'never lose hope, mom, never give up'. I say give up and lose hope. It's easier that way. The ending's going to suck either way so you might as well grow a pair and deal with it. Sorry to be vulgar. I get riled up just thinking about it. Kids never listen. What about yours? Is he?"
"My nephew," Tommy said.
"Almost as bad," Margaret told him. "Believe me, it's worse when your own kid does it to you."
"I never had any," Tommy said.
"Oh, that's too bad," Margaret said, contradicting herself. "I mean, I enjoyed being a mom when the kids were still kids. It was later, once they began to grow up, and they wanted to take over. Especially when I got sick. Then it was all them trying to boss me around."
"I never knew you had kids," Tommy said, carefully broaching the subject of her past, promising himself to tiptoe around the possible bad stuff, the stuff that he thought that he knew about her.
"Oh yeah, right after high school. Me being stupid again. Married at nineteen, mother at twenty. Then again at twenty one, and twenty three. After that, who had any time to do anything else? Stayed at home, raised the kids, volunteered at the school, drove a pack around to all those 'activities' that were supposed to make them all healthy and well-rounded and stuff. Mostly it just filled the time. Next thing I knew I'm there in my forties and nothing, I mean nothing, to show for it all. Thought about maybe I should go back to school, to do what? But anyway, that couldn't happen. Had to get a job all at once. Husband, you know. Dear old hubby, found himself a new life, even tried to put it on like he was doing me a favor. Sorry again. You don't need to hear all this? Bitterness just goes with being a ghost."
"I guess I should just grow a pair and deal with it then," Tommy joked. She continued to flash around in his skull.
"Can't you sit still?" he said.
"What do you think I've been doing?" That would be Jimmy Blanks. "I've been sitting here all night."
"They said you were a junkie," Tommy blurted out all at once, "and a whore."
Four
"A lifetime," she said. "And you? You're so old. How did all that time go by? How does any time go by at all?"
"Last time I saw you," Tommy thought, "was in high school, I think. You were going out with Captain. That's what we called him, anyway. I forget what his real name was."
"George Capelli," she said, and he thought he felt a smile in her voice.
"All those names," he sighed, "who can ever keep track? We meet so many people, here in the city. We see them by the hundred, by the million, every day and every one of them has a name, and they come and go so fast, and you never know their story, certainly not the whole of it. Don't you ever wonder? Don't you ever imagine how it could possibly happen? Each and every person you meet has come a whole lifetime to that point of contact and you could never track back the lines, and even the fact of you meeting them could have been prevented or avoided by any one of a billion tiny actions and reactions and rearrangement of the elements. That you and I even knew each other once upon a time is almost, almost but not quite, impossible."
"I remember you from science class," she said. "We were partners, remember? Lab partners. That's when I called you Tommy Turtle."
"Everybody called me Tommy Turtle," he replied, "because I was always so slow, and because of my last name too, of course."
"I thought I made it up," she said and he shook his head. On the outside Jimmy Blanks noticed that shaking and shook his own. The old man's dreaming, he said to himself.
"Maybe you did," Tommy told her. "Who can remember?"
"It was because of your glasses," she said, "you had those tortoise shell glasses. I think you were even the only kid in our grade to did wear glasses. It made you look smart."
"Fooled you, huh?" he wanted to laugh. So that's why she volunteered to be his lab partner. He had thought that maybe she liked him. That's what had set the whole thing off, the dreams and daydreams, the fantasies and hopes, the million hours up there in his head where he and Margaret Garfield would be kissing or at least holding hands so that everyone in the school would see, but it was only because she thought he was smart, because he wore glasses, when really the reason he wore glasses was that he just couldn't see very well. It had nothing to do with intelligence. She must have figured it out sometime, because they both did really lousy in that class. The experiments never went well. Either he'd set something on fire or stuff would blow up. The things that were supposed to turn blue overnight never did. They never even turned anything.
"I guess I dragged you down," he wanted to apologize.
"I was just as dumb as you," she confided. "Probably dummer. I didn't care about anything in school. All I cared about then was whether or not George Capelli had noticed me that day. I was after him for years. You're right, though. I finally did get him, in high school, for about a month, until I let him go all the way. Boy, that was stupid. That was the last time I ever 'had' George Capelli."
"He was like that," Tommy said.
"I know!" she replied, "I even knew it then. He'd done the same thing to every other girl who let him. Still, he was the captain."
"All aboard," Tommy muttered, and Jimmy Blanks shook his head once again.
"Still nothing?" asked the prettier nurse, the one who didn't try to run him over every time she came by.
"He's just mumbling nonsense," Jimmy told her.
"Hey," he called out before she got away, "did those blood tests come back?"
"Yes," she said, "the doctor has seen them. You'll have to ask him."
"Where is he?" Jimmy asked, looking around.
"He got called into surgery," she shrugged. "Be back in a while."
"That's just peachy," Jimmy sighed after she left. "I sure could use a cup of coffee," but he didn't get up. He was certain that someone was guaranteed to swipe that chair if he so much as stood up once again, and he was damned if he was going to let that happen.
"I'm not going to stand here all night." he declared.
"Last time I saw you," Tommy thought, "was in high school, I think. You were going out with Captain. That's what we called him, anyway. I forget what his real name was."
"George Capelli," she said, and he thought he felt a smile in her voice.
"All those names," he sighed, "who can ever keep track? We meet so many people, here in the city. We see them by the hundred, by the million, every day and every one of them has a name, and they come and go so fast, and you never know their story, certainly not the whole of it. Don't you ever wonder? Don't you ever imagine how it could possibly happen? Each and every person you meet has come a whole lifetime to that point of contact and you could never track back the lines, and even the fact of you meeting them could have been prevented or avoided by any one of a billion tiny actions and reactions and rearrangement of the elements. That you and I even knew each other once upon a time is almost, almost but not quite, impossible."
"I remember you from science class," she said. "We were partners, remember? Lab partners. That's when I called you Tommy Turtle."
"Everybody called me Tommy Turtle," he replied, "because I was always so slow, and because of my last name too, of course."
"I thought I made it up," she said and he shook his head. On the outside Jimmy Blanks noticed that shaking and shook his own. The old man's dreaming, he said to himself.
"Maybe you did," Tommy told her. "Who can remember?"
"It was because of your glasses," she said, "you had those tortoise shell glasses. I think you were even the only kid in our grade to did wear glasses. It made you look smart."
"Fooled you, huh?" he wanted to laugh. So that's why she volunteered to be his lab partner. He had thought that maybe she liked him. That's what had set the whole thing off, the dreams and daydreams, the fantasies and hopes, the million hours up there in his head where he and Margaret Garfield would be kissing or at least holding hands so that everyone in the school would see, but it was only because she thought he was smart, because he wore glasses, when really the reason he wore glasses was that he just couldn't see very well. It had nothing to do with intelligence. She must have figured it out sometime, because they both did really lousy in that class. The experiments never went well. Either he'd set something on fire or stuff would blow up. The things that were supposed to turn blue overnight never did. They never even turned anything.
"I guess I dragged you down," he wanted to apologize.
"I was just as dumb as you," she confided. "Probably dummer. I didn't care about anything in school. All I cared about then was whether or not George Capelli had noticed me that day. I was after him for years. You're right, though. I finally did get him, in high school, for about a month, until I let him go all the way. Boy, that was stupid. That was the last time I ever 'had' George Capelli."
"He was like that," Tommy said.
"I know!" she replied, "I even knew it then. He'd done the same thing to every other girl who let him. Still, he was the captain."
"All aboard," Tommy muttered, and Jimmy Blanks shook his head once again.
"Still nothing?" asked the prettier nurse, the one who didn't try to run him over every time she came by.
"He's just mumbling nonsense," Jimmy told her.
"Hey," he called out before she got away, "did those blood tests come back?"
"Yes," she said, "the doctor has seen them. You'll have to ask him."
"Where is he?" Jimmy asked, looking around.
"He got called into surgery," she shrugged. "Be back in a while."
"That's just peachy," Jimmy sighed after she left. "I sure could use a cup of coffee," but he didn't get up. He was certain that someone was guaranteed to swipe that chair if he so much as stood up once again, and he was damned if he was going to let that happen.
"I'm not going to stand here all night." he declared.
Three
"I'm Margaret," she said, "Margaret Garfield."
"Of course you are," he replied, "Of course. How could I forget?"
But he had forgotten, and she didn't look like Margaret Garfield, not the Margaret Garfield he remembered, that face was not her face, the face he must have spent a thousand hours staring at while pretending to be paying attention to Mr. Scorpio, their eighth grade science teacher. That Margaret Garfield was the most beautiful girl in the world. How he'd dreamed about that face, dreaming while wide awake, a practice that became the source of all his later troubles in life. Does not use time wisely. Does not seem to possess the ability to focus. Reckless and careless. Not to be promoted. Not to find his place in the world. Story teller. Mischief maker. Liar. A fool.
He was a fool about Margaret Garfield and he didn't care he knew it, as long as they didn't tell HER! At thirteen, Tommy was still the shortest kid in class and the tallest kid was, you guessed it, Margaret Garfield. It seemed her long black hair was even taller than he was, and she had it all, everything a girl that age could want. She was the first to arrive at every stage of development, and the way she carried herself you would have thought she was in high school already. Rumor had it she had a boyfriend who was sixteen, but when it came to Margaret Garfield, rumor had a lot of things. As he considered it now, rumors were all he knew about her after that one year they were in the same classroom.
"Whatever happened to you?" he mumbled.
"What are you talking about?" That would be Jimmy Blanks. "What do you mean, whatever happened to me? Is there something you don't like about me now? What a surprise! You never did give me any credit, and look who's here, look who's right by your side, who checked in on you, and brought you here, and stayed with you, and now you're giving me this? Whatever happened to what?"
The old man didn't say anything, didn't even know he'd spoken out loud. Jimmy got up and paced a bit as best he could in the crowded and hurried hallway. The whole place was lined with these portable beds that orderlies and nurses kept shoving this way and that, as patients were hustled in and out of rooms and doctors shouted orders. Jimmy had grabbed a desk chair with wheels from behind one of the nurses' stations and now that he'd jumped up and stalked about he saw that one of the nurses was eyeing the thing, so he scampered back and plopped his ass back down on it before she came and took it back.
"Whatever happened to YOU?" he grumbled, reminiscing. Uncle Tommy was one those people, the kind you could never be too sure about. Everybody thought he was a secret drunk, but Jimmy had scoured the old man's apartment more than once and never found any alcohol or even narcotics in the place. He kept to himself and in public was never known to drink or even swear too much. He always looked like he was waiting for a conversation to happen, a conversation about something interesting, but since the people he hung around were all stupid and boring it never did take place, and Tommy had to settle for small talk, gossip and idiotic opinions about unimportant things. That group of guys he stuck with, year after year and their once a week card game, Jimmy never knew what his uncle saw in them, or what they saw in him for that matter.
There was Larry Moscone, best friend since childhood, sanitation engineer par excellence. This was a guy who seemed to know all there was to know about every back alley and every lousy neighborhood across the five boroughs, though as far as Jimmy knew, he'd circled the same old route in Queens for something like forty years. It was like he'd made a study of bad things and where they'd happened, and marked his own mental map with little red squares and never forgot a thing, like he was some kind of elephant of urban crime. He also had a thing about fire hydrants, and which ones smelled like piss.
Ricky Bourbon - not his real name but who the hell knew what his real name was - was also known as The Fat Guy. Larry was Larry, but Ricky was The Fat Guy, and Ron was The Straight Man. Between The Fat Guy and The Straight Man you got to hear every freaking joke that was ever told on the Tonight Show through generations of lousy monologues. The Fat Guy, at least, was a corporate lawyer, very smart and successful in life, with three kids, all of whom went on to get doctorates in various branches of science, and The Fat Guy's wife was a member of the City Council a couple of times. You might have thought at least The Fat Guy would come up with some scrap of interesting conversation, but Tuesdays were his brain's night off from everything, and as far as Jimmy knew, Tommy never saw him on any other occasion, not even a wedding or a funeral. Tommy was just a prop in The Fat Guy's life. At least Ron was more of a friend, but Ron was the first to go, struck down by the Q32.
"Whatever happened to Ricky Bourbon?" Jimmy Blanks said to his uncle once he'd reconquered his seat and swung it around so his face was close to the old man's, but Tommy said nothing. He was flat on his back, his big old nose sticking straight up in the air and his wide open eyes were gaping up at the ceiling as if there was something to see. There wasn't. Jimmy had checked. At least the ceiling didn't seem to be as filthy as the walls.
"Don't they ever clean those walls?" he asked a passing nurse, gesturing at the line of mold that might have passed for decoration, even wainscotting in the right light. She sniffed and didn't bother to answer as she brushed by, and maybe that subtle collision between her left hip and his right shoulder was no accident.
"They want me to go," Jimmy thought. "Like I'm in their way, like I'm causing trouble for THEM! Who lost the blood samples, huh? Who had to take them again? Who's taking forever to get the results? I'm just doing the right thing here. What right have they got?"
"Whatever happened to you?" he snorted.
"Of course you are," he replied, "Of course. How could I forget?"
But he had forgotten, and she didn't look like Margaret Garfield, not the Margaret Garfield he remembered, that face was not her face, the face he must have spent a thousand hours staring at while pretending to be paying attention to Mr. Scorpio, their eighth grade science teacher. That Margaret Garfield was the most beautiful girl in the world. How he'd dreamed about that face, dreaming while wide awake, a practice that became the source of all his later troubles in life. Does not use time wisely. Does not seem to possess the ability to focus. Reckless and careless. Not to be promoted. Not to find his place in the world. Story teller. Mischief maker. Liar. A fool.
He was a fool about Margaret Garfield and he didn't care he knew it, as long as they didn't tell HER! At thirteen, Tommy was still the shortest kid in class and the tallest kid was, you guessed it, Margaret Garfield. It seemed her long black hair was even taller than he was, and she had it all, everything a girl that age could want. She was the first to arrive at every stage of development, and the way she carried herself you would have thought she was in high school already. Rumor had it she had a boyfriend who was sixteen, but when it came to Margaret Garfield, rumor had a lot of things. As he considered it now, rumors were all he knew about her after that one year they were in the same classroom.
"Whatever happened to you?" he mumbled.
"What are you talking about?" That would be Jimmy Blanks. "What do you mean, whatever happened to me? Is there something you don't like about me now? What a surprise! You never did give me any credit, and look who's here, look who's right by your side, who checked in on you, and brought you here, and stayed with you, and now you're giving me this? Whatever happened to what?"
The old man didn't say anything, didn't even know he'd spoken out loud. Jimmy got up and paced a bit as best he could in the crowded and hurried hallway. The whole place was lined with these portable beds that orderlies and nurses kept shoving this way and that, as patients were hustled in and out of rooms and doctors shouted orders. Jimmy had grabbed a desk chair with wheels from behind one of the nurses' stations and now that he'd jumped up and stalked about he saw that one of the nurses was eyeing the thing, so he scampered back and plopped his ass back down on it before she came and took it back.
"Whatever happened to YOU?" he grumbled, reminiscing. Uncle Tommy was one those people, the kind you could never be too sure about. Everybody thought he was a secret drunk, but Jimmy had scoured the old man's apartment more than once and never found any alcohol or even narcotics in the place. He kept to himself and in public was never known to drink or even swear too much. He always looked like he was waiting for a conversation to happen, a conversation about something interesting, but since the people he hung around were all stupid and boring it never did take place, and Tommy had to settle for small talk, gossip and idiotic opinions about unimportant things. That group of guys he stuck with, year after year and their once a week card game, Jimmy never knew what his uncle saw in them, or what they saw in him for that matter.
There was Larry Moscone, best friend since childhood, sanitation engineer par excellence. This was a guy who seemed to know all there was to know about every back alley and every lousy neighborhood across the five boroughs, though as far as Jimmy knew, he'd circled the same old route in Queens for something like forty years. It was like he'd made a study of bad things and where they'd happened, and marked his own mental map with little red squares and never forgot a thing, like he was some kind of elephant of urban crime. He also had a thing about fire hydrants, and which ones smelled like piss.
Ricky Bourbon - not his real name but who the hell knew what his real name was - was also known as The Fat Guy. Larry was Larry, but Ricky was The Fat Guy, and Ron was The Straight Man. Between The Fat Guy and The Straight Man you got to hear every freaking joke that was ever told on the Tonight Show through generations of lousy monologues. The Fat Guy, at least, was a corporate lawyer, very smart and successful in life, with three kids, all of whom went on to get doctorates in various branches of science, and The Fat Guy's wife was a member of the City Council a couple of times. You might have thought at least The Fat Guy would come up with some scrap of interesting conversation, but Tuesdays were his brain's night off from everything, and as far as Jimmy knew, Tommy never saw him on any other occasion, not even a wedding or a funeral. Tommy was just a prop in The Fat Guy's life. At least Ron was more of a friend, but Ron was the first to go, struck down by the Q32.
"Whatever happened to Ricky Bourbon?" Jimmy Blanks said to his uncle once he'd reconquered his seat and swung it around so his face was close to the old man's, but Tommy said nothing. He was flat on his back, his big old nose sticking straight up in the air and his wide open eyes were gaping up at the ceiling as if there was something to see. There wasn't. Jimmy had checked. At least the ceiling didn't seem to be as filthy as the walls.
"Don't they ever clean those walls?" he asked a passing nurse, gesturing at the line of mold that might have passed for decoration, even wainscotting in the right light. She sniffed and didn't bother to answer as she brushed by, and maybe that subtle collision between her left hip and his right shoulder was no accident.
"They want me to go," Jimmy thought. "Like I'm in their way, like I'm causing trouble for THEM! Who lost the blood samples, huh? Who had to take them again? Who's taking forever to get the results? I'm just doing the right thing here. What right have they got?"
"Whatever happened to you?" he snorted.
Friday, May 17, 2013
Two
They came rushing into his mind like wind through a tunnel, like individual pieces of a strong summer breeze was the way he would have described it, and then they scattered throughout his body, each one seeking a home in a blood cell or a skin cell or otherwise occupying their own little space. At first he thought it was the result of some injection. The nurses had probably stabbed him again with one of their crazy notions of helping ease the pain, as if he were so close that he could feel it. That old body was a hundred miles away by now, but this, this particle wave of disturbance that rippled within him had started at the nostrils, yes, at the very nose hairs he knew had to be sticking out all over like they always did in public. He'd breathed them in, and in they came, so many of them, and it was as if they were all over his innards all at once and all of them trying to make themselves heard, they were shouting.
"Do you know your name?"
"He doesn't even know where he lives." That would be Jimmy.
"I thought I saw him open his eyes there for a moment," the passing doctor muttered, glancing with annoyance at the man sitting there beside the gurney, checking his cellphone and taking up space.
"He does that," said the man, who had to be Jimmy. "He goes in and out, you never know if he can hear you or not. Been like that for a long time now. Sometimes I'm sure he's just pretending, just putting on a show of being deaf or something. Easier for him that way, acting like he never did nothing, like an innocent child. You can get away with anything when you get up there, like people don't remember, like nothing ever happened, like he never did nothing."
Like you, Tommy snarled for a moment, you who really never did do nothing, not for anyone, not for anything, but let it go, he told himself, let it all go. What are these things crawling around inside my skin? They were talking too, babbling like Jimmy and he couldn't quite make out what they were saying, or even if they were really even there. Maybe they turned on the air conditioning, he thought, and it's all just goosebumps, but he never had goosebumps beneath his skin before, especially not ones that got around like this, and the ones who'd made it up inside his head, now rattling around inside his brain were making louder noises, whispers and almost words like hissing, like snakes curdling through the grey matter, flashing about and talk about putting on a show. It felt like fireworks and tasted like lemon thyme.
"Maybe I know you?"
"Haven't we met?"
"What time is it?"
"What year is it?"
"You ever seen my Ricky? You would know him."
"Over this way."
"I never forget a face."
"Do you have a light?"
"What are the odds?"
"Can you hear me now?"
Every particle, every beam, every shaft of light shimmering across the hemispheres of his brain had a question for him, each in a different voice, a different tone. Some of them sounded familiar. Others were clearly strangers. Some spoke other languages, not even English. They all seemed anxious, hurried, worried, but they couldn't stick, couldn't stay still but flitted about, no sooner coming close than scattering away, like flame-crazed moths frightened off by the heat. It was like being tickled all over inside. Tommy didn't know how to answer them back. They were firing too fast and then they were gone, replaced by others rippling through. Then, as suddenly as they'd swept in they ushered themselves back out, as quick as an inhale and an exhale, and then there was only one.
"I remember you," a soft tone hushed inside his ear. "Sure I do. You're Tommy Turtle."
Who was it? She sounded familiar but no more so than the young lady at the corner coffee shop who took his drink order on a Sunday morning.
"Nobody calls me that," he thought, "not in a long time. Not in a very long time."
"I used to call you that," she said. "When we knew each other. Do you know my name?"
"How's he going to know your name?" Jimmy Blanks blurted out. "He doesn't even know his own!"
"Just thought I'd try something different," the nurse shrugged. "You don't have to stay here, you know."
"They told me I should," Jimmy said. "In case of the worst, you know."
"They could call you," she suggested.
"Yeah, right. Then I'd have to come all the way back out. No, I'm here so I might as well stick it out. Is there any more news? Anything from those blood tests? They lost the earlier sample, they said, so they took some more. I was waiting to hear."
"Nothing yet," she told him. "The lab's awfully backed up. It could be a long time. He doesn't look like he's going anywhere. Vitals stable. Breathing easy. Probably ought to be at home resting."
"They said he only had hours if that."
"Even so," she said. "Might as well be there than here in this old dump."
"They said just in case," Jimmy mumbled. "You know."
"Okay," the nurse said. "It's up to you. I'll be back around in a bit."
Wait, what? Tommy thought. When you knew me? When we knew each other? I don't think I ever knew a particle before.
"We're always hoping to find someone we know," the voice gently said. "I'm not sure why. We all have each other all the time, but we don't seem to want that. We want someone we used to know."
"There were a lot of you," Tommy nodded inside his mind. "Where did the others go?"
"They didn't know you, and you didn't know them, so they couldn't stick. You couldn't ever see them."
"I can't see you either."
"Here I am," and then, just like that, there she was, he saw her vividly and completely, but still he didn't know her. She looked to be in her forties, just a little gray sprinkled among her long and thick black hair, some beginnings of crow's feet around her eyes, her sharp and dark brown eyes. Those he knew, or it felt like he knew those eyes, but he couldn't place a name to them, to her. He shook his head inside his mind.
"You didn't know me then," she said. "We knew each other in elementary school. I can't show you what I looked like then. When we die, we're the age we were then. We're always that age."
"I wondered about that," Tommy thought. "Like in the afterlife. If I was to see my mom, would she be the mom I knew when I was six? That's how I'd want to see her, but maybe that's not the age she'd want to be in the afterlife. Or my grandma. I'd want her to be around sixty, but wouldn't she rather be sixteen in heaven? But if she was sixteen in heaven, than she'd know nothing about being my mother's mother and of course nothing about me. She'd just be some stupid kid, not my grandmother. It never added up to me, you know. I couldn't work that out in my mind. Unless there were like an infinite number of heavens and every one was perfect just for one person at one age, like my six-year-old self's heaven wouldn't be anything like my thirty-year-old self's heaven. All the people in it would be different, and the feelings too. But then if it was like that, would there be any authentic afterlife or would they all just be like different seasons of a television show? Like, you know, the heaven where Bugsy's rabbit had an adventure, or the heaven where Harry met Sally?"
What am I saying? Tommy wondered, and there was no answer. Did I scare her off? Or bore her away more likely? The silence continued and Tommy felt a swelling of several emotions rising within him all together, confused. Now I'll never know who she was? How could I be so stupid? I used to always talk too much, that was one of my problems. Did I say the wrong thing? Where'd she go. What'd she mean "we". What did she mean "always"? Why was I talking all that nonsense instead of asking about her? Women always like it when you ask about them? I never had any luck with women, probably because I'm an idiot.
"I don't know how many heavens there are," she said, "or even if there are any at all. I've just been right here since the day I died. We all have."
"Here?" Tommy remembered to ask her a question.
"In the mold," she said. "We live in the mold."
"Do you know your name?"
"He doesn't even know where he lives." That would be Jimmy.
"I thought I saw him open his eyes there for a moment," the passing doctor muttered, glancing with annoyance at the man sitting there beside the gurney, checking his cellphone and taking up space.
"He does that," said the man, who had to be Jimmy. "He goes in and out, you never know if he can hear you or not. Been like that for a long time now. Sometimes I'm sure he's just pretending, just putting on a show of being deaf or something. Easier for him that way, acting like he never did nothing, like an innocent child. You can get away with anything when you get up there, like people don't remember, like nothing ever happened, like he never did nothing."
Like you, Tommy snarled for a moment, you who really never did do nothing, not for anyone, not for anything, but let it go, he told himself, let it all go. What are these things crawling around inside my skin? They were talking too, babbling like Jimmy and he couldn't quite make out what they were saying, or even if they were really even there. Maybe they turned on the air conditioning, he thought, and it's all just goosebumps, but he never had goosebumps beneath his skin before, especially not ones that got around like this, and the ones who'd made it up inside his head, now rattling around inside his brain were making louder noises, whispers and almost words like hissing, like snakes curdling through the grey matter, flashing about and talk about putting on a show. It felt like fireworks and tasted like lemon thyme.
"Maybe I know you?"
"Haven't we met?"
"What time is it?"
"What year is it?"
"You ever seen my Ricky? You would know him."
"Over this way."
"I never forget a face."
"Do you have a light?"
"What are the odds?"
"Can you hear me now?"
Every particle, every beam, every shaft of light shimmering across the hemispheres of his brain had a question for him, each in a different voice, a different tone. Some of them sounded familiar. Others were clearly strangers. Some spoke other languages, not even English. They all seemed anxious, hurried, worried, but they couldn't stick, couldn't stay still but flitted about, no sooner coming close than scattering away, like flame-crazed moths frightened off by the heat. It was like being tickled all over inside. Tommy didn't know how to answer them back. They were firing too fast and then they were gone, replaced by others rippling through. Then, as suddenly as they'd swept in they ushered themselves back out, as quick as an inhale and an exhale, and then there was only one.
"I remember you," a soft tone hushed inside his ear. "Sure I do. You're Tommy Turtle."
Who was it? She sounded familiar but no more so than the young lady at the corner coffee shop who took his drink order on a Sunday morning.
"Nobody calls me that," he thought, "not in a long time. Not in a very long time."
"I used to call you that," she said. "When we knew each other. Do you know my name?"
"How's he going to know your name?" Jimmy Blanks blurted out. "He doesn't even know his own!"
"Just thought I'd try something different," the nurse shrugged. "You don't have to stay here, you know."
"They told me I should," Jimmy said. "In case of the worst, you know."
"They could call you," she suggested.
"Yeah, right. Then I'd have to come all the way back out. No, I'm here so I might as well stick it out. Is there any more news? Anything from those blood tests? They lost the earlier sample, they said, so they took some more. I was waiting to hear."
"Nothing yet," she told him. "The lab's awfully backed up. It could be a long time. He doesn't look like he's going anywhere. Vitals stable. Breathing easy. Probably ought to be at home resting."
"They said he only had hours if that."
"Even so," she said. "Might as well be there than here in this old dump."
"They said just in case," Jimmy mumbled. "You know."
"Okay," the nurse said. "It's up to you. I'll be back around in a bit."
Wait, what? Tommy thought. When you knew me? When we knew each other? I don't think I ever knew a particle before.
"We're always hoping to find someone we know," the voice gently said. "I'm not sure why. We all have each other all the time, but we don't seem to want that. We want someone we used to know."
"There were a lot of you," Tommy nodded inside his mind. "Where did the others go?"
"They didn't know you, and you didn't know them, so they couldn't stick. You couldn't ever see them."
"I can't see you either."
"Here I am," and then, just like that, there she was, he saw her vividly and completely, but still he didn't know her. She looked to be in her forties, just a little gray sprinkled among her long and thick black hair, some beginnings of crow's feet around her eyes, her sharp and dark brown eyes. Those he knew, or it felt like he knew those eyes, but he couldn't place a name to them, to her. He shook his head inside his mind.
"You didn't know me then," she said. "We knew each other in elementary school. I can't show you what I looked like then. When we die, we're the age we were then. We're always that age."
"I wondered about that," Tommy thought. "Like in the afterlife. If I was to see my mom, would she be the mom I knew when I was six? That's how I'd want to see her, but maybe that's not the age she'd want to be in the afterlife. Or my grandma. I'd want her to be around sixty, but wouldn't she rather be sixteen in heaven? But if she was sixteen in heaven, than she'd know nothing about being my mother's mother and of course nothing about me. She'd just be some stupid kid, not my grandmother. It never added up to me, you know. I couldn't work that out in my mind. Unless there were like an infinite number of heavens and every one was perfect just for one person at one age, like my six-year-old self's heaven wouldn't be anything like my thirty-year-old self's heaven. All the people in it would be different, and the feelings too. But then if it was like that, would there be any authentic afterlife or would they all just be like different seasons of a television show? Like, you know, the heaven where Bugsy's rabbit had an adventure, or the heaven where Harry met Sally?"
What am I saying? Tommy wondered, and there was no answer. Did I scare her off? Or bore her away more likely? The silence continued and Tommy felt a swelling of several emotions rising within him all together, confused. Now I'll never know who she was? How could I be so stupid? I used to always talk too much, that was one of my problems. Did I say the wrong thing? Where'd she go. What'd she mean "we". What did she mean "always"? Why was I talking all that nonsense instead of asking about her? Women always like it when you ask about them? I never had any luck with women, probably because I'm an idiot.
"I don't know how many heavens there are," she said, "or even if there are any at all. I've just been right here since the day I died. We all have."
"Here?" Tommy remembered to ask her a question.
"In the mold," she said. "We live in the mold."
Monday, May 13, 2013
One
"If you're waiting for the world to get it,
if you're waiting for the world, forget it.
I'm not waiting for the world"
Swervedriver (She Weaves a Tender Trap)
Tommy Tortelli finally found true love where he least expected it, in the moldy corridor of an old hospital emergency room. The timing wasn't so good either. He'd been brought there to die. That should have been enough for one day. It was his nephew, Jimmy Blanks, his dead sister's boy, who'd taken him there, and even though Jimmy couldn't wait for the whole thing to be done with, and didn't mind saying so, over and over again, all the way across town, Tommy didn't blame him for that. He knew from personal experience just how much dying could be a real pain in the ass for the living. His dead sister, for one. He'd done his share of carping about that so that now, lying there half-conscious in the gurney in the hallway, with the hustle and bustle of the sick and the injured and the nurses and the doctors and the visitors and the families and the boy Jimmy bitching about how long it was going to take him to get back home, especially if the old guy kept hanging in there, it was already past eleven and he could feel in his very bones the gaps in the bus schedules after midnight, Tommy would have smiled if the muscles in his face would have let him.
He was ready to die, been ready for a long while by then. He couldn't hardly stand up by himself anymore, or do anything, really, and he was a guy who'd been on his own since the age of fifteen, never needing any help from anybody, well, never much anyway. Hadn't he gone running off to see the world and hadn't he seen a whole bunch of it too. Enough, at least, so when he came back to the city and found the groove he never ventured from the next fifty years he didn't mind at all, didn't complain about his lot in life one bit. Work hard and you'll work hard, that was his own grim motto, and he did his share. He hauled and he lifted, he carried and he fetched, he stocked and he drove, he helped the products of the world find their way around in it, from factory to warehouse, from warehouse to store, from store to dwelling, from homes to landfill, the cycle of life in cardboard and plastic and metal. Tommy had lived alone, almost always. Now and then a cat came and went in and out of his life. Family on holidays. Friends on a weekend and of course Tuesday nights. From where he sat, from where he stood, the planet seemed to grow and grow like a weed all around him, open spaces getting filled, then getting tall, then blotting out the sky. He'd have to go a longer and longer way to get past all the concrete, out somewhere that trees outnumbered cars. Once or twice a summer he'd seek that out and, sitting by a lonely creek in the woods in a hundred degrees of sweat and mosquitos, he'd try and remember his childhood. Faces came out of the past and hovered over his face, shouting, it seemed.
"Do you know your name?"
"He doesn't even know where he is." That would be Jimmy.
"Do you know your name?" she was yelling again and he could feel her unexpectedly sweet breath on his face. He wanted to tell her, not tell her his name because if she wanted to know that she could read the damn tag on the side of the bed, but tell her what he was thinking, what he was feeling, all of the words rushing down from his brain and out through his toes, the trickling alphabet abandoning his mind one by one. Most of all he wanted to tell her to stop bothering with him, but she was just doing her job, he could tell by the blur of light blue that surrounded her puffy wide face.
"He was like this when I found him today," reports Jimmy Blanks for the fifty ninth time, as if the nurse wanted to know. "Nobody else even checks on the guy," he continued. "Only me. You'd think that my sister, who lives down the block, down the very same fricking street, and who used to borrow money from him all the time, you'd think that one time, just even one time when I asked, being nice, to look in on her uncle, just to see, that maybe but no, she's too busy, she's got her chiropracter to see, she's got her toenails to do, she's got laundry out the ass, so it's me, only me, all the way out in Hoboken, that's who. Nobody else. Naturally, I get there and he's exactly like this. So what do I do? I bring him in here, that's what I do. Could have just called and let the EMT have him, but he's family, and you know what they say about family."
She might have known what they said about family, but she'd already walked off in the middle of his speech, just turned on her heels and off to the next helpless sucker in line. It was busy that night, or maybe it was busy like that every night. Tommy didn't know. The thing of it was, he'd been born in that very same place. That was the kicker. Seventy three years and the mold on the wall was probably even older. It was looking all pale green and fuzzy against the dirty gray walls. He thought he could smell it, like lime or maybe it was the color that was fooling him about the smell. If he could just turn his head he could get his big old beaker right up next to it and take a big whiff, and then he would know. He concentrated on that effort, but somehow his neck would not obey his commands and he inwardly sighed. It was the same with his whole damn body. It just wouldn't do what he wanted. He strained, holding his breath as if that would help, then scolded himself for being so stupid as to be holding his breath as if that would help. He was helpless, and hopeless. Here he was, minutes or maybe even moments from death, and all he longed for was to breathe in the odor of the mold on the wall, just to know what it was like. If there is a God, he was thinking, and right then some fat slob, maybe it was even a nurse, came waddling past and bashed into the side of his gurney, causing him to roll over and nearly smack his head against that very wall. Before his head could snap back he struggled to sniff as hard as he could and for just an instant he caught the scent of it. Surprising, he thought. It's like lavendar.
if you're waiting for the world, forget it.
I'm not waiting for the world"
Swervedriver (She Weaves a Tender Trap)
Tommy Tortelli finally found true love where he least expected it, in the moldy corridor of an old hospital emergency room. The timing wasn't so good either. He'd been brought there to die. That should have been enough for one day. It was his nephew, Jimmy Blanks, his dead sister's boy, who'd taken him there, and even though Jimmy couldn't wait for the whole thing to be done with, and didn't mind saying so, over and over again, all the way across town, Tommy didn't blame him for that. He knew from personal experience just how much dying could be a real pain in the ass for the living. His dead sister, for one. He'd done his share of carping about that so that now, lying there half-conscious in the gurney in the hallway, with the hustle and bustle of the sick and the injured and the nurses and the doctors and the visitors and the families and the boy Jimmy bitching about how long it was going to take him to get back home, especially if the old guy kept hanging in there, it was already past eleven and he could feel in his very bones the gaps in the bus schedules after midnight, Tommy would have smiled if the muscles in his face would have let him.
He was ready to die, been ready for a long while by then. He couldn't hardly stand up by himself anymore, or do anything, really, and he was a guy who'd been on his own since the age of fifteen, never needing any help from anybody, well, never much anyway. Hadn't he gone running off to see the world and hadn't he seen a whole bunch of it too. Enough, at least, so when he came back to the city and found the groove he never ventured from the next fifty years he didn't mind at all, didn't complain about his lot in life one bit. Work hard and you'll work hard, that was his own grim motto, and he did his share. He hauled and he lifted, he carried and he fetched, he stocked and he drove, he helped the products of the world find their way around in it, from factory to warehouse, from warehouse to store, from store to dwelling, from homes to landfill, the cycle of life in cardboard and plastic and metal. Tommy had lived alone, almost always. Now and then a cat came and went in and out of his life. Family on holidays. Friends on a weekend and of course Tuesday nights. From where he sat, from where he stood, the planet seemed to grow and grow like a weed all around him, open spaces getting filled, then getting tall, then blotting out the sky. He'd have to go a longer and longer way to get past all the concrete, out somewhere that trees outnumbered cars. Once or twice a summer he'd seek that out and, sitting by a lonely creek in the woods in a hundred degrees of sweat and mosquitos, he'd try and remember his childhood. Faces came out of the past and hovered over his face, shouting, it seemed.
"Do you know your name?"
"He doesn't even know where he is." That would be Jimmy.
"Do you know your name?" she was yelling again and he could feel her unexpectedly sweet breath on his face. He wanted to tell her, not tell her his name because if she wanted to know that she could read the damn tag on the side of the bed, but tell her what he was thinking, what he was feeling, all of the words rushing down from his brain and out through his toes, the trickling alphabet abandoning his mind one by one. Most of all he wanted to tell her to stop bothering with him, but she was just doing her job, he could tell by the blur of light blue that surrounded her puffy wide face.
"He was like this when I found him today," reports Jimmy Blanks for the fifty ninth time, as if the nurse wanted to know. "Nobody else even checks on the guy," he continued. "Only me. You'd think that my sister, who lives down the block, down the very same fricking street, and who used to borrow money from him all the time, you'd think that one time, just even one time when I asked, being nice, to look in on her uncle, just to see, that maybe but no, she's too busy, she's got her chiropracter to see, she's got her toenails to do, she's got laundry out the ass, so it's me, only me, all the way out in Hoboken, that's who. Nobody else. Naturally, I get there and he's exactly like this. So what do I do? I bring him in here, that's what I do. Could have just called and let the EMT have him, but he's family, and you know what they say about family."
She might have known what they said about family, but she'd already walked off in the middle of his speech, just turned on her heels and off to the next helpless sucker in line. It was busy that night, or maybe it was busy like that every night. Tommy didn't know. The thing of it was, he'd been born in that very same place. That was the kicker. Seventy three years and the mold on the wall was probably even older. It was looking all pale green and fuzzy against the dirty gray walls. He thought he could smell it, like lime or maybe it was the color that was fooling him about the smell. If he could just turn his head he could get his big old beaker right up next to it and take a big whiff, and then he would know. He concentrated on that effort, but somehow his neck would not obey his commands and he inwardly sighed. It was the same with his whole damn body. It just wouldn't do what he wanted. He strained, holding his breath as if that would help, then scolded himself for being so stupid as to be holding his breath as if that would help. He was helpless, and hopeless. Here he was, minutes or maybe even moments from death, and all he longed for was to breathe in the odor of the mold on the wall, just to know what it was like. If there is a God, he was thinking, and right then some fat slob, maybe it was even a nurse, came waddling past and bashed into the side of his gurney, causing him to roll over and nearly smack his head against that very wall. Before his head could snap back he struggled to sniff as hard as he could and for just an instant he caught the scent of it. Surprising, he thought. It's like lavendar.
Thursday, May 9, 2013
notes
the idea came from a dream, that i'd written a love story between a dying man and the ghost of a girl he knew as a child (though she died as a grown woman, after a life he knew nothing about, except rumors)
something touching on themes of the movie 'dead man' and the novel 'the hour of the star' in some ways
in and out of consciousness
in and out of drugs
wheelchaired around the grounds
on a gurney in the hallway
flashing back and flashing forward
memories and dreams
visitations
other hospital residents
also the old man on the gurney in the new york hospital and his visiting nephew - some of that floating in and out
her name was margaret garfield
his name?
every time they ask him if he knows his name, he comes up with a new one (un-vocalized) which launches into a new story
All about daydreams
Do ghosts sleep
How did they get stuck
something touching on themes of the movie 'dead man' and the novel 'the hour of the star' in some ways
in and out of consciousness
in and out of drugs
wheelchaired around the grounds
on a gurney in the hallway
flashing back and flashing forward
memories and dreams
visitations
other hospital residents
also the old man on the gurney in the new york hospital and his visiting nephew - some of that floating in and out
her name was margaret garfield
his name?
every time they ask him if he knows his name, he comes up with a new one (un-vocalized) which launches into a new story
All about daydreams
Do ghosts sleep
How did they get stuck
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