Final Stroke (17 page)

TE
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As Steve waited for Jan to pick him up the morning of
Marjorie Gianetti’s funeral, he couldn’t help thinking of the words
im
paired
and
crippled
and
disabled
. After putting on his trousers over the brace, he sat on the edge of the bed and used his handgrip exercisers. Instead of alternately squeezing one grip with each hand like he was supposed to in order to get his bum right hand to respond, he paired the grips in his left hand and squeezed the two of them repeatedly and angrily. As he did this he thought of the black dude from the janitors’ closet and imagined he had the guy down on the floor of the closet and that his left hand was around the guy’s neck. But trying to take out his frustration this way didn’t work because the guy resembled Percy, one of the physical therapists here at Hell in the Woods.

He put aside the handgrips, finished dressing, wheeled himself to the alcove of the television lounge down the hall from his room, parked his wheelchair at the window, and looked up at the sky. It was sunny after days of overcast. The weatherman on the television at the far end of the lounge was saying something about enjoying the weather while
you can because there was a cold front on the way that would bring a couple days of cold rain. The winds would be from the southeast dur ing the rains and he knew that meant planes from O’Hare would be taking off directly over Hell in the Woods, giving yet another reason for the place to deserve its nickname. But at least for today, until the cold front came closer, there would be some sun and poor Marjorie wouldn’t be slipping in any puddles on the way to the funeral.

He hadn’t mentioned his suspicions concerning Marjorie’s death to anyone except Jan, partially because he wasn’t one-hundred percent sure, and partially because if he did try to say something to anyone but Jan, they’d figure half of what he said was simply lingering verbal apraxia from his stroke. They wouldn’t be completely wrong. Jan was the only one who understood him. Even Georgiana in speech rehab wouldn’t understand what he was trying to get at because Georgiana’s job was to help him communicate on a basic level. Jan was the only one who knew him and could ask the right questions. When he and Jan were alone seemed the only time he could really communicate. In public, like at a funeral, he best keep his mouth shut.

Because it was bright outside he couldn’t see his reflection in the window. He hoped he wasn’t smiling. Sometimes, since he’d become such a cheerful son-of-a-bitch, he’d catch himself smiling or even laughing at the oddest times and he hoped to hell he wouldn’t do it today. He recalled reading a piece by Mark Twain recently in the Hell in the Woods library, a piece about etiquette at a funeral, Twain say
ing something about not stepping on your neighbor’s toe at an inop
portune time during the eulogy. Now he knew he was smiling, he just knew it. So maybe it would be best to let Jan do the talking and trail along behind like … Yes, like his sister Renee trailed along behind his mother when they visited.

Although he had no idea who the two women were when they first
came into his room, he now knew his mother lived in Cleveland with his retarded thirty-year-old sister. Crazy. A guy loses his memory and people come into his room and want him to believe his name is Babe and he used to be a cop, that he became a cop because his girlfriend was killed during a robbery years earlier, that he once studied for the priesthood, and that most recently he’d been a private detective who once had a bomb thrown through his window by the mob. Who in his right mind would believe it? If it wasn’t for Jan, he wouldn’t have believed it. But Jan had a way of bringing it all back. And now, after weeks of fishing around in his noggin with Jan’s help, he actually thought he could remember some of it.

Like recalling that summer Dwayne Matusak was after him and he watched Joe Friday on Dragnet and tried to make himself cool and collected like Joe when it came to dealing with Dwayne. Now, as he thought about Joe Friday, he could see the 714 badge blown up to screen size at the start of the show and in walks the woman who visited the other day. In walks his mother and says he can’t watch the show tonight because they have to go to a wake. Can’t remember whose wake, but now he remembers being there. Not much about it, just that at one point, after the priest finishes reciting a bunch of prayers and touches the body like he’s saying a personal goodbye, a woman in one of the cushier front seats runs up and leaps into the coffin so that it takes both the priest and the funeral director to get her out. It was one of those childhood memories you can’t forget. And now he remembered it!

He’d be sure to tell Jan about the woman leaping into the cof
fin. But he’d wait until after Marjorie’s funeral. Better to wait until the appropriate time to tell some things. That’s what he’d been tell
ing himself when it came to the episode in the janitors’ closet. Better not to tell Jan about it right now because she’d only worry about him.

And, because of his inability to explain the subtleties, she might jump to conclusions and think he thinks the bastards in the closet killed Marjorie. And if she thought that she might do something that would put her in danger.

The guys in the closet might have killed Marjorie, but even if they did, there was more to this than a couple of scumbags caught in the act by an old lady. There was simply more to this. He knew so because lately there’d been other things going on. Like that new aide named Pete with his out-of-style long sideburns who happened to pop into speech rehab one time too often. It was a gut feeling he had, some
thing from his past. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he knew Pete was there not only to help folks out, but also to get information and to give it to someone else, someone on the outside.

According to one of Steve’s therapists in rehab, the stroke had caused him to have trouble keeping his mind focused. He’d see some thing and this would remind him of something totally unrelated, and that would remind him of something else, and so on. Case in point— down in the parking lot below the window, he sees an old car drive in and park. It belongs to one of the housekeeping staff, a woman he’s seen changing bed linen. The car is maroon, but the maroon is faded. This reminds him of the heat from the sun, and that reminds him of someone being burned on the beach, but the burning doesn’t show up until that evening when the burned person is going to bed and rubs against recently-laundered sheets. This reminds him of sheets hang ing on a line in a stiff breeze. That reminds him of the wind off a car passing by quickly as he stands at a curb. A faded maroon Chrysler Corporation car passing by quickly as he stands at the curb somewhere in the past. In this vague memory from the past, if that’s what it is, he’s not the only one standing at the curb. There are men in busi ness suits on either side of him. Men who should know better than to
manufacture a car that will fade so easily, or men who should know better than to pollute the air so heavily when they made the steel for the car, men who pollute the air and get a President to call what they do the Clear Skies Initiative, men who should know better than to stand by while the ozone layer is depleted …

Yes, that’s the way it was in the stroke world. Things popping into his mind at key moments and making him forget his original train of thought. He was thinking about Marjorie’s death and the incident in the janitors’ closet and the new aide named Pete who seemed to be nosing around in rehab a little too much. No, he couldn’t tell Jan about the closet just yet. Outside the window, down in the parking lot, the sun glinted off the finish of another car, this one shiny and bright red. Jan’s Audi had turned into the entrance of the parking lot. Jan arriving to take him to Marjorie’s funeral. And then there was an
other car. But this car parked farther back in the woods where all the employees parked. A Hispanic woman he’d seen talking to nurses on his floor hurried toward the building.

Was the woman following Jan? Of course she was following Jan, you crazy bastard. Both Jan and the woman who worked at the damn place wanted into the building. So why wouldn’t they both be headed toward the nearest entrance?

Steve spun his wheelchair around and headed back to his room for his jacket.

The casket had been selected by Marjorie Gianetti’s son. It was fin ished in West Indian mahogany. A subtle but intricate motif of grape leaves and bunches of grapes was carved into the fishtail just below the lid panel and on the lugs to which the pallbearer handles were
mounted. The handles themselves were gold-plated.

The mattress, lid overlay, pillow, and interior panel were done in antique cotton linen. The embroidery on the interior panel depicted a peaceful garden scene that seemed three-dimensional. Within the garden, surrounded by hedges made up of elaborate loops of various green threads, were several small trees and an arbored bench. The bench, within the shadows of the arbor, was empty. A winding path led to the interior of the arbor, apparently inviting the departed, who would have to look at the inside of the lid for a long time, to come in
side and sit down for a much-deserved rest.

The cloth that had been draped over the open casket to keep dust from settling on Marjorie’s face had been removed, but the overhead pinkish flesh-tone recessed lights had not yet been turned on. Several flower arrangements late in arriving were being set up by two funeral home workers. The legs of the many easels holding the arrangements crisscrossed at the front of the parlor as if the flower arrangements were the bodies of a flock of birds and the legs of the easels were the legs of the birds.