Shane fished out his wallet and handed Brian his credit card. “I’m Shane Bellamy, by the way,” he said. “You’ll be seeing me around more often, so I might as well become one of your regulars.”
“Good to meet you Mr. Bellamy,” Brian said, swiping Shane’s card. “You should go talk to my Grandpa sometime. He could tell you stories about that old place. You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff that’s happened out there. You know they used to have other artists come out there and spend the summers? One of them lived in a teepee in the woods for two months straight, wearing Indian war-paint and smoking peyote. Artists, eh?”
Shane smiled and nodded. “Speaking as one of them, you don’t know the half of it.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised,” Brian said, handing Shane back his card and a pen. “I’ve heard plenty of stories. You paint too?”
“I do.”
“I used to draw, but I gave it up. I’m in college now, over in Webster Groves. History major.”
“Good luck with that,” Shane said, signing his name to the little slip Brian pushed toward him. “And I would be interested in talking to your grandfather sometime, actually. Does he live here in town?”
“Just around the block, at Denny Acres. He’s always around, except for Friday nights. That’s when he goes over to the Moose Lodge to meet with his war buddies and play pinochle. His name’s Earl, last name Kirchenbauer, just like me. He’d be glad to talk to you, I bet, especially now that the big house has been torn down.”
Shane hefted his plastic bags, preparing to leave. “I imagine he was pretty sad to see it go,” he said. “Seeing as he used to work there and knew the place.”
“Not at all,” Brian shook his head, laughing a little. “Grandpa hated that place. He would’ve burned it down himself, if he’d been able to. He about danced a jig when the paper announced the city was demolishing it.”
Shane frowned, confused, and Brian shrugged. “He hated the old place,” he said again. “Not the cottage, where you live, but the house, even though he spent all those years keeping it up. Must have trimmed one too many hedges or something back in the day, I guess. Wilhelm was a tough guy to work for.”
“I can sort of imagine that,” Shane replied thoughtfully.
“Look grandpa up,” Brian said, beginning to swipe the next load of groceries over the scanner. “Number fifty one. He’d love to talk to you about it, believe me. What’ll it be today, Mrs. Baker, paper or plastic?”
Shane stood in the sunlight, holding his groceries in their white plastic bags. After a moment, he turned and stepped on the black ribbed matt in front of the automatic doors. They hissed open, letting in a gust of still-cool morning air, and Shane walked out into the parking lot, wondering what in the hell “Denny Acres” was.
One block east of Main Street, Shane pulled his truck into the narrow lot next to a white sign that read “Valley Acres Retirement Community”. It didn’t appear to be much of a community, really. There was only one building, made of white brick, single story but sprawling, dotted with identical, mostly curtained windows. There was a circle drive in front, curving under a teasingly grand façade, complete with statuary and a long burgundy canopy. Shane avoided the curved drive, parking instead on the side of the building, in a slant space between an EMS van and an immaculate Chevrolet Caprice with a fake Shih-Tzu dog glued to the dashboard.
As he got out, he saw that the retirement home shared a parking lot on this side with an old but well-maintained Denny’s restaurant. That pretty much explained the nickname, at least.
There were doors between some of the windows, but none of them had numbers on them. Even if they were doors to interior hallways, they’d surely all be locked. Shane walked around the corner to the front of the building, entering the shadow of the canopy. The entrance was a set of double glass doors, flanked by a pair of somewhat unhealthy-looking decorative trees. As the doors shuttled open, Shane read the small white letters just below the name of the facility: No Smoking – Oxygen in Use.
Shane’s mother had worked in a nursing home. She’d never liked it, even though she’d met her best friends there, friends she’d kept for years after retiring from the big assisted living facility in Hoboken, friends who’d stayed with her right up until her death. Most of them had been at the funeral, and Shane thought that they’d looked even sadder than he had. Probably it was just that women in their sixties were much more comfortable with expressing their emotions than were thirty-something-year-old men, even if the man in question was an artist.
Years after she’d retired, Shane’s mother had told him stories about her night shifts at the nursing home. Some of them were funny, like the time old demented Mrs. Kubrick had raved for days about how she’d won the lottery and was going to buy the home and fire all the nurses, and everyone had merely rolled their eyes at her, until one of his mother’s friends, a first shift nurse named Norma Rigby, had actually found the winning ticket stuck in Mrs. Kubrick’s latest Jacky Collins paperback as a bookmark. As it happened, she’d only won a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which wasn’t enough to buy the nursing home. It was enough, however, to get her a room in a much more cushy retirement community in Aspen, Colorado.
“Take that, you skinny bitches!” old Mrs. Kubrick had cackled as they’d wheeled her out for the last time, under the big hand-painted banner that read CONGRATS AND GOODBYE LOIS KUBRICK. “Take that! I told you, didn’t I? That’ll teach you to change the channel in the middle of Jeopardy! I told you I’d see you put out on the streets!” She laughed and laughed, and most of the nurses laughed with her, waving and shaking their heads.
Some of the stories that Shane’s mother told, though, weren’t funny at all. Some of them were sad, and some of them were just plain creepy.
The one Shane remembered most was the one about the home’s oldest resident, a hundred-plus year old woman named Mrs. Jerzyck. She lived in a room in the back corner of the top floor, an area the nurses secretly referred to as “the Waiting Room,” since it was the place residents were moved to when they were deemed terminally ill, or when their dementia or Alzheimer’s had progressed to the point that they no longer recognized their family, or even themselves when shown a mirror. In the nurse’s lounge, one nurse might ask another about a suddenly empty bed in the home’s main residence, and her friend would answer, “Oh, Mr. Herbert was moved to the Waiting Room this morning. Took his number from Dr. Gordon. The cancer’s spread to his lungs.”
Shane had learned that places like nursing homes were full of that sort of black humor. It was a basic defense mechanism against the ever-present reality of human decay.
Once residents got moved to the Waiting Room—once they “took their number”—it was only a matter of time, usually measured in weeks rather than months, before they “graduated”. That was another black humor term they used around the nurse’s lounge. Nobody ever died in the Waiting Room; they merely graduated, as if all of life thus far had just been a tedious school term meant as preparation for whatever happened next.
Mrs. Jerzyck, however, hadn’t graduated, even by the time Shane’s mother herself had retired. She’d lived in her little nook in the Waiting Room for sixteen years, floating in and out of lucidity like a waterlogged tree stump bobbing occasionally to the surface of a river.
When she was awake and alert, Shane’s mother had said, Mrs. Jerzyck was very sweet. She was chatty and pleasant, if a little dotty, sometimes believing it was 1951 and she was living in Poughkeepsie, other times knowing what year it really was and asking to read the newspaper to see how her beloved Ronald Reagan was faring. Late at night, however, regardless of whether Mrs. Jerzyck had been lucid or not during that day, she’d talk to herself in her room.
“I always hated doing my rounds down at that end of the top floor,” Shane’s mother had told him. “It was dark down there, because it was in the oldest part of the building and none of the lights had been updated. Her door would be closed, and you’d only hear her just
a little, only when you walked right by, but she talked all the time at night. She must have been doing it in her sleep, but it was still an eerie sound.
"And then, one night, my curiosity got the better of me. It was around three in the morning, and I was passing by her door. I heard her, and I leaned in close to listen. She wasn’t just talking to herself; she was having a conversation. And the worst part was, she was speaking in different voices. She was herself, as a child, and then she was her mother, and then, worst of all, she was her father. When she spoke in his voice, her old lady’s voice turned rough and deep, and I could have sworn there was someone else in the room with her, carrying on his end of the conversation.
"The voices were arguing, fighting over something, and then Mrs. Jerzyck let out a scream. She did it in her little girl’s voice, as if she’d been slapped. My instincts kicked in and I pushed the door open, running in to see what had happened. Mrs. Jerzyck was sitting up in bed in the dark, and I saw her head turn toward me. I asked her if she was all right, and she just looked at me, her eyes confused and bleary in the light from the hall.
"And then, in her little girl’s voice, she said, ‘who’s that lady, Mama?’ And then the father’s voice came out of her mouth, making it big and sort of liver-lipped. ‘Make her go away. Get rid of her or I’ll do it myself,’ it said, and Mrs. Jerzyck’s mouth grinned at me. It almost leered.
"I couldn’t help it. God forgive me, but I ran. I just backed out of the door, turned on my heel and ran all the way back to the elevator. I never listened close to that door again, I’ll tell you that. I took as wide a berth around it as I could from that night on.”
Shane had been a teenager at the time, morbidly interested in his mother’s creepy tale. He’d asked her if she thought Mrs. Jerzyck was crazy, and she had shaken her head.
“There’s more out there in the world than we understand, Shaney,” she’d answered. “More than I care to know, and that’s the truth. I don’t think Mrs. Jerzyck is crazy. She’s demented, yes, but I think maybe she is being visited in the night. Not by the ghosts of her parents, mind you, but by things. Things that take pleasure in tormenting people when they’re at their weakest.”
“Demons?” Shane had asked, borrowing a term from the Baptist church he and his mother attended sometimes.
“Maybe,” she’d answered dismissively, flapping her hand as if the technical terminology was unimportant. “Maybe not. Maybe they are ghosts, but not human ghosts. Humans don’t need to stick around here in this world once they’re time is over, unless maybe something keeps them here, some serious unfinished business. And even then, I suspect they’d have better things to do than have ninety-year-old arguments with their still-living relatives.
"No, I think the things that torment poor old Mrs. Jerzyck are just mean-spirited imps, preying on the living when they’re at their weakest, when they’re too feeble or too out of it to fight them off. Just a bunch of invisible bullies, if you ask me. In the end, how much you want to bet that God kicks all their scrawny, invisible rear ends straight to Hell’s front door?” And she’d grinned at Shane, a crooked I-wouldn’t-say-that-to-anyone-else grin, and Shane had smiled himself, and then laughed.
As Shane entered Valley Acres Retirement Community, he found himself approaching a large, round desk, busily manned by nurses in gaily colored scrubs, not at all like the old white jumper and cap his mother had worn during her third shifts.
All around the nurse’s station, clustered like barnacles, were wheelchairs populated by residents. Most leaned in various stages of morning doze, mouths open or chins on chests, but a few looked up at Shane, their eyes bright and avid. One woman waved a skinny, liver-spotted hand at Shane, beckoning him over, her mouth turned up in a hopeful, toothless smile. He smiled back, meeting her eyes, and angled towards her.
“Be a dear and fetch me a cigarette,” she said, reaching up and taking his hand. Her fingers were cold, brittle-feeling, but strong. “There’s a machine in the restaurant if you don’t have any with you. I have money.”
“I don’t think you’re allowed to smoke, ma’am,” Shane replied, leaning over so she could hear him. She was still gripping his hand. “The sign on the door says—”
“Never mind that. Just bring me my goddam cigarettes. I’ve asked you at least a dozen times, now. The money’s in my purse, hanging by the back door.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Shane said. He pulled his hand gently away and she let go very reluctantly, seeming to sink into herself as she did, still mumbling. He glanced up at the nurse’s station, to see if anyone had observed this interaction, but no one was paying any attention. One of the nurses, a young man with greasy black hair, was apparently listening to an iPod.
“Excuse me,” Shane said, approaching the desk. “I’m looking for a resident.”
The man with the iPod headphones plugged into his ears ignored him, but a fat woman with very thick glasses spoke up. “Name?”
“Oh,” Shane said, surprised. He hadn’t even noticed her sitting there; the counter had hidden her until he was right next to it. She stared at him, unsmiling.
He cleared his throat. “I’m looking for Earl. Earl, uh…” Suddenly, he couldn’t remember the last name that the kid in the IGA had told him. “Er, he’s in room number fifty one.”
“You a relative?” the woman asked, typing quickly on a keyboard.
“No, but I was sent by one. Guy named Brian. He works at the grocery store one block over. Kirchenbauer,” he said, blurting the last name the moment it came to him. He hoped he’d remembered it correctly.
The fat woman didn’t respond. She stared at the screen, chewing a piece of gum. Finally, she said, “You a solicitor? Insurance or funeral planning or anything like that?”
“No,” Shane answered, feeling strangely guilty. All he wanted to do was ask the old guy about the history of the cottage, but suddenly he felt shifty, like he should lie about his name or produce a phony badge or something. “No, I just want to talk to him. I’m sort of a friend of a friend, I guess.”
“No solicitors allowed,” the woman said, not really listening. “He’s in room fifty one. Go down the hall on your right, take a right at the cafeteria, and then a left at the first corridor. Better hurry, though. Lunch is in a half hour.”
“I’ll be sure to beat the rush,” Shane said, turning away.
The retirement home seemed to be divided into two sections; assisted living in the east wing, and independent living in the west. Apparently Mr. Kichenbauer, despite his age, resided in the independent living wing. There were less wheelchair-bound sleepers here, and the few doors that were propped open showed small, tidy apartments, most with the televisions turned on, displaying soap operas or The Price is Right.
Bulletin boards adorned the walls between the doorways, all of them colorfully decorated for the holidays. He passed one framed in scalloped brown construction paper with cutouts of pilgrim’s hats and pumpkins stapled to it. In the middle, a sign-up sheet proclaimed the upcoming “THANKSGIVING DAY DANCE”, complete with “LIVE MUSIC” and an exhortation to “GOBBLE UP THE FREE CIDER AND COOKIES!”
To Shane, the bulletin boards looked disconcertingly like they belonged in a grade school hallway rather than a retirement home. As he reached the cafeteria, he passed a woman with a walker, grimly making her way into the unmistakable odor of boiled green beans and macaroni and cheese. He glanced up at the numbers on the plain metal doors, counting up. After a left turn into a narrower corridor, he finally found number fifty-one. It was cracked open, propped with a rolled up issue of TV Guide. Shane knocked lightly.
“Mr. Kirchenbauer?” he called softly. He could hear the sound of the television. It was loud enough that he could tell what was on. The eleven AM news was just starting on channel five. Shane pushed the door open a little and peeked inside. “Mr. Kirchenbauer?”
There was a very old orange Laz-E-Boy recliner in the corner by the little kitchen, but no one was sitting in it. A coffee cup
and a crossword magazine lay on the side table, which reflected the glow of the wall-mounted television. Shane pushed the door open further. On the nappy carpet in front of the chair, looking like a Rorschach ink blot, was a splatter of dark liquid. An alarm bell began to go off in Shane’s mind.
Had something happened to the old guy? Should he go and alert the nursing staff? He could imagine how that would go. Crack team that they were, they’d surely rush to the rescue by sometime that afternoon, at least once lunch was over and they’d all finished their smoke breaks. Instead, he decided to check on Mr. Kirchenbauer himself.
He entered the small living room, allowing the door to ease shut behind him, closing on the rolled up magazine. There was a door in the back of the living area, across from the kitchen. It was mostly shut, showing only a bar of shadowy dark: probably the bedroom. Shane inched toward it, afraid of what he might find when he opened the door. He reached out for the handle, and when his fingers touched the cheap metal it was very cold. And then, shocking him so that his knees nearly unhinged, a toilet flushed almost directly behind him. It was so loud and so sudden that it sounded like an F-18 launching from an aircraft carrier.
Shane spun on the spot just in time to see movement in a second doorway, kitty-corner from the bedroom. A small, antiseptic bathroom lay beyond, complete with bright fluorescent lights and a thick, stainless-steel handbar next to the toilet. A small man was crossing the living room floor, hitching up his pants and ignoring Shane completely. Shane struggled to settle his heartbeat, and grinned at his foolishness. The small man eased himself into the orange chair, sinking into it so that his knobby knees poked up like dock pilings. He eyed Shane with no surprise, his eyes magnified behind a pair of horn-rimmed glasses.
“Well, get on with it, why don’cha?” he declared, flapping a large, knuckly hand. “What’re you waiting for? A written invitation?”