Final Stroke Read online

  To Marjorie Gianetti, life could be frustrating. Bad enough when words didn’t do what they were supposed to do, what really frosted her was when something was happening and she had no idea what it was.

  Like now. Here she is being escorted down the hallway by a young man who obviously knows her quite well, and trees from the woods are marching around in her head like skinny priests in black robes so that no matter how hard she tries, she can’t think of the young man’s name.

  She tried to ask his name, but was aware, even as the question came to the surface, that she shouldn’t have done this, because the words that bubbled out, like vile odors from a sewer, were, “Fuck the Pope.”

  The smile on the young man’s face, when she paused within the confines of the walker and glanced up to him, seemed inappropriate. Not because of what she’d said. After all, she was a severe right-brain stroke victim, everyone who ever came to her or washed her or walked beside her in this place knew that. Saying what she said about the Pope made sense to her because these were words from the past, and words from the past had a way of spewing out of her mouth before she could stop them. Not that she’d made a habit of cursing the Pope. No, that wasn’t it at all. But because she’d been a devout Catholic, and because the word fuck was a curse her late husband—God rest his soul—had used in every other sentence, “Fuck the Pope” had simply popped out. Words erupting from a stroke victim’s mouth were sometimes crazy mixes of what had once been there. It was as simple as that.

  Although Marjorie Gianetti could not think of her late husband’s name at the moment, she did recall one particular time he used the F word. He’d been sitting at the dining room table and that nice black lady who worked for them—if she couldn’t remember her husband’s name, how could she be expected to remember their maid’s name?— had just brought in his favorite dessert—cannoli or something—and he looks at it and smiles and says, “Fuck, that looks good.” Even when smiling and happy as a clam he used the F word. It made no sense.

  And now, here was something else that made no sense. Here was a smile from this young man accompanying her down the hall, this young man who could never know how it felt to be a stroke victim. A “no-stroker” they sometimes called them in their group therapy ses sions on the second floor. But wait. It wasn’t simply the young man’s smile in reaction to her cursing the Pope that puzzled her. It was the nature of the smile, the underlying meaning of the smile. Goodness gracious, there had to be an underlying meaning because …

  Because what? She didn’t know. She’d already forgotten where this pesky choo-choo train of thought was headed. Mama Mia, now the train of thought became one of the miniature trains her late hus band played with Sunday afternoons in the basement. If only thoughts were like those trains she could pluck them off their tracks and hold them in her hands and examine them for clues as to what she was try ing to think of or say from one moment to the next. But, although she sometimes tried, she could not grasp her thoughts in her hands and they slipped through her fingers like … like when she’s in the kitchen helping make dessert on one of those Sunday afternoons and she can smell cigar smoke from the basement and hear the miniature train whistles, one of those Sunday afternoons when she cracks an egg into the palm of her hand to separate yolk from white and the egg white slips through her fingers slowly but relentlessly. That’s the way it was with the distant past since her stroke. The moment she thought she had hold of something from the past, it would slip away. Sometimes she heard train whistles and smelled cigar smoke from the basement, other times she heard the sounds of barbells dropped to the floor. But most times she heard and smelled and saw and felt nothing.

  Ahead. She continued ahead down the hallway, moving her walker ahead a few inches at a time, stepping ahead until one thigh then the other made contact with the crossbar between the handles. She con tinued ahead trying in vain to think of the young man’s name and his relationship to her. The effort to maintain forward movement was getting mixed up with her thoughts. Perhaps a pause would enable her to sort out the jumble in her egg noggin. Walking ahead like this, and trying to think of the name of the young man accompanying her, the only word that came to mind was the word ahead.

  Was the young man wearing a uniform? She’d forgotten since that moment ago when she glanced toward him. If she were in her wheel chair instead of being forced to respond to this damn walker she might be able to close her eyes and concentrate. But walking like this …

  Suddenly a name drifted into her consciousness, pushed the word ahead aside. Mr. Babe. Yes, perhaps the man walking by her side was that nice Mr. Babe, her paisano in second floor rehab where they some times shared foul language with one another. Mr. Babe holding her right elbow and helping her along. Perhaps they were on their way to the elevators.

  No, Mr. Babe was much younger than her. He was here for stroke time rehab, not a permanent resident like her. His room was on the third floor in the main building, so there was no way he’d be down here this time of night.

  But wait. Perhaps it was earlier than she thought and she was ac tually on the second floor. She’d just gotten off the elevator and Mr. Babe was accompanying her. Perhaps she would again try to express a joke they had shared. Marjorie Gianetti and Steve Babe putting their heads together to see if they explode because, like opposite charges in the clouds of their brains, she had a right-brainer and he had a left brainer and maybe together they could make a no-brainer.

  She could almost see the smile on Mr. Babe’s face as she tried once again to express the joke they had, a few days earlier, succeeded in tell ing the speech rehab therapist. Mr. Babe was such a happy man, such an inspiration, even though he denied it. According to him, when he was able to get it out that first time by writing it down, he’d always been a melancholy fellow. The stroke had made him a cheerful son of a bitch, he’d written, and he knew of no reason why he should be cheerful in a place called Hell in the Woods. After writing this down, Mr. Babe had smiled the most beautiful, endearing smile she had ever seen in her life.

  Before her stroke, Marjorie had been an incessant talker. In pre-stroke talk, she might have said something like, “That Mr. Babe, when I first met him—I mean when I introduced myself to him his first day here—you wouldn’t believe the smile on his face. Some might won der why I like him. That’s only because they don’t know him, and think he’s laughing at them. He’d have to be a snob to do that, and Mr. Babe is no snob. It would have been easy, at first, to assume he was laughing at my ideas about this place. But he convinced me, even though he can hardly get a word out edgewise, that he never laughs at me, but with me. The first day I met him, I thought I’d cheer him up, and here he was cheering me up.”

  No, the man escorting her down the hallway could not be Mr. Babe because Mr. Babe would never smile like she’d seen this man smile. And another reason, this man was too young. Although Mr. Babe was definitely younger than her, he could not really be consid ered a young man. Middle-aged perhaps, but not young, except to the cataracted eyes of some of the near centenarians at the far end of the skilled wing. Besides, Mr. Babe was partially paralyzed on his right side, and this man held her left arm with his right hand.

  And of course it couldn’t be that speed-walking aide with red hair. Even though some residents said the speed-walker was a bull dyke, that didn’t make her a young man. No, not the bull dyke. She’d been fired some time ago when she walked away from Janine in a too-hot whirlpool because she thought Janine had squealed on her for not put ting a fresh absorbent pad on Janine’s bed. Marjorie had tried her best to convince Janine not to threaten aides because you get more flies with honey, but Janine was a rebel and there was always an aide per fectly willing to make it a little rough next time they transferred you from bed to wheelchair.

  Mostly the aides were agreeable, except of course during one of those state inspections when it seemed everyone in her wing had been overmedicated. But who could blame them for conspiring to keep down the whining and moaning tha
t would have started the minute some residents got wind the state inspectors were in from Springfield?

  Oh, how she wished the man walking beside her was that nice Mr. Babe, because suddenly she had so many things she’d like to say to him. She probably tried telling some of these things to him in rehab. If she could she’d repeat it all over again. She’d tell him about the overmedication during state inspections and about Janine’s turning into a used tea bag in the whirlpool. If she could get the words out, she’d tell Mr. Babe these things because, before he had his stroke, Mr. Babe had been a private detective. Unlike others in this place, who never read mysteries, and didn’t know the meaning of the word conspiracy, and probably thought things simply “happened” in this world called Hell in the Woods… Yes, unlike them, Mr. Babe would understand.

  Like a while ago when she and the young man passed poor old Bill’s room and she saw the sign on Bill’s door that said, “Spending Our Children’s Inheritance,” with the “Our” crossed out and “My” written in above it. The sign was once a bumper sticker on the motor home Bill and his late wife lived in. Bill peeled the faded bumper sticker off the motor home before he came here, and now it’s taped to his door as a reminder to his children that, rather than spending down his cash and moving into a cheaper Medicaid room, he’s opted to use his savings for a private room.

  This was only part of what she’d tell Mr. Babe. The main thing she’d tell him is that Bill confided to her he knew his children were doing their damnedest to shorten his life in order to inherit his sav ings before he spent it all at, as he called it, “this hell-hole.” Accord ing to Bill, his children visited at odd times and even late at night and purposely startled him. That’s why he had his television moved next to the door, so he could see when someone came into the room. Bill says his children sometimes called the doctor and made false reports so that suddenly his medication was changed and he’d be out like a light for a couple days. Last time it happened, Bill said they stuffed him full of Dilantin to prevent seizures he never had. “There I was, out like a goddamn light again,” said Bill. “On my back with fluid build ing up in my lungs. They tried to give me pneumonia, but I got wise. Flushed the goddamn Dilantin down the toilet!”

  Bill’s situation wasn’t the only thing she’d tell Mr. Babe. Now that she was at the far end of the wing and was reminded of it, she’d tell Mr. Babe about the scam some aides had going. They’d steal equipment from the wing and report that visitors and family members walked off with it.

  Imagine, stealing the basic things that help keep poor old folks halfway comfortable in their so-called golden years, then blaming their kids. But that wasn’t all. After stealing the stuff, they had the audacity to sell it back to the place. She knew this because sometimes the very same equipment would end up here in her wing. Like the wheelchairs parked there in the corner. She’d taken it upon herself to make a scratch with her diamond ring in the metal just beneath the armrest every time she used a wheelchair. Then, after a bunch of wheelchairs were reported missing, she inspected the supposedly brand-new replacements and found that one of them had her scratch mark on it. She figured there was a conspiracy amongst some of the aides and that they had a partner on the outside who ran a medical supply company.

  Oh, if Mr. Babe were only here she’d rattle on about things. Take the skilled wing. All those expensive beds to keep filled and all the money the Hell in the Woods accountants would stand to lose if any of those beds stayed empty too long. Like one day last September, everyone across the hall from her room is healthy as a horse, the next day they’re on their backs in the skilled wing. “Call me a crazy dago,” she’d say to Mr. Babe, “but those folks were doing fine until the end of the third calendar quarter. After that they looked overmedicated to me. I hate to say it, paisan, but some of the ones I knew personally were in drug overdose, and the only reason was to keep them in cost lier beds so the quarterly statement stayed in the black.”

  Unfortunately, she wouldn’t say any of this to Mr. Babe, nor to anyone else, because her stroke would never allow her to talk this way. She wasn’t even sure if this was the way she spoke before her stroke. All she knew for sure was that she used to talk a lot. Mama mia, she used to talk a lot. And now? Now she could only resign herself to the fact that she would never again be able to express in words the things she could sometimes think in words at odd moments like this. Even though she’d been able to tell Mr. Babe a lot during their sessions at group therapy, she certainly was never able to say things in such clear and concise terms.

  She couldn’t even talk about simple things, like how quiet it was tonight, being that no jet planes were taking off overhead. For a mo ment she wondered why there were only certain times jets took off overhead and had the feeling she should know why. In fact she had the feeling someone had recently told her. But that’s how it was with this damn stroke. Sometimes it was like waking from a dream. When you wake up you have a vague recollection of having dreamed, perhaps you even know what it is you dreamed about, but the details are lost through the hair net.

  Thinking of a hair net reminded her of Mr. Babe again. Mr. Babe telling her recently that he hooked his portable computer up to the In ternet in the rehab lab. Mr. Babe telling her she should try it and that it didn’t matter if she hits the wrong keys because half the people on the Internet don’t know how to spell anyhow.

  A hair net was much more real to her than the Internet. She could visualize a hair net. A dark brown hair net made of fine material like her mother used to wear whenever she was in the kitchen. It was one of the few things she recalled vividly, perhaps because it had to do with a net encompassing the head and, therefore, the brain. As if a net could have held in her thoughts during the stroke, at least the larger thoughts. But maybe all she’d ever had were small thoughts, insignifi cant ones that didn’t mean much and that’s why so many found their way through the net.

  Yet another word came, dragnet. And exactly what was that sup posed to mean? That’s the way it was with words. She could recall the situation—Mr. Babe telling her and Georgiana something about a dragnet in rehab—but she could not recall what he had said about the word in response to Georgiana’s prompting.

  Georgiana was the prettiest therapist in the rehab center. Even without makeup, and even with her brown hair cut short like a little boy’s hair, and even considering that most everyone in the center in sisted on calling her George, she was the prettiest. Sometimes Marjo rie watched when Mr. Babe helped with the tape recorder and could see the sparkle in his eyes when he looked at Georgiana.

  Mr. Babe had gotten to know the tape recorder quite well. And of course he was doing much better with his words than she was. He even made up the term brain bullet for their strokes, saying that, for her, the bullet simply plowed through a different place and that just because she spit out nonsense words and swear words more often than she’d like, it didn’t mean she was any less intelligent.

  Goddamn stroke anyway. Maybe that’s why she said, “Fuck the Pope” so often. Who could blame her? None of her visitors seemed to be shocked anymore. Not her son or her nephew. Good thing she wrote her will before the stroke or she probably would have dictated that “Fuck the Pope” be inserted on every other line. Good thing the will was written and sealed a long time ago when she still knew the family secret.

  Secret. Why couldn’t she remember the family secret? Did it have something to do with family accounts? Or the accounting of her fam ily? Or something buried in the basement? No, there was only her husband and one son, and neither of them had ever buried anything in the basement as far as she knew. Did it have to do with some kind of keys? But if so, why not simply one key? Why so many keys jin gling like bells in her husband’s pocket? She and her husband in the car stopping at so many places with the keys …

  Perhaps the family secret had to do with her husband never seem ing to be satisfied with what they had. He always wanted more, and had, shortly before his death, when she asked why he was upset, sai
d, “I’m fucking upset on account of these fucking dishonest cops and on account of not having grandchildren at my age!”

  Like any man who begins to feel his age, her husband criticized the young men of the day. He gave up cigars and purchased weight lifting equipment. He complained while pumping iron on the mat next to the train table in the basement.

  “These young punks got nothin’ but time on their hands. Even in the military they got time on their hands because there’s no damn war to keep ‘em busy. Thank God for Reagan and for what he’s doin’, but sometimes we could use a war. Without a war to go to, punks got plenty of time to exercise. These days, instead of making something of themselves, they build up muscles, making their arms into telephone poles while their brains turn into mush. And the fuckin’ thing of it is the way the military mixes the races. Wops and kikes and spooks and spics pumpin’ iron together, drippin’ sweat all over one another like a bunch of fairies! Yeah, pumpin’ iron while they wait for their fuckin’ discharge! Get it? Discharge!”

  Marjorie was always disgusted when her husband spoke like this, even if he had good reason to be upset. Of course now, being she was a stroker, she couldn’t remember what in the world had upset her hus band so much.

  They should do something in rehab to help her remember things. She tried to tell this to Mr. Babe the other day. They should do some thing more so all that knowledge up in their egg noggins wouldn’t be buried with them.

  Rehab. Perhaps all this walking late at night was a new type of rehab. Perhaps this hurried walk—the young man did seem to be hur rying her now—was the next phase and soon she’d be jogging up and down the hallways of Hell in the Woods in her slippers.

  That was odd. Why was she wearing her furry pink slippers in stead of her Buster Browns? She never wore her slippers out of her room, not only because they weren’t apropos for the hallway, but be cause of their slippery bottoms on the slippery hallway floors. And now, with this man hurrying her along, her slippers were slipping along. Yes, slippers slipping along, slip-slip-slipping along. Just like one of those silly old songs some residents insist on playing on the organ in the activity room.