Liars table, p.6
Liars' Table, page 6
I’d gone to Abe’s Market that morning. I let them tell their jokes about me and a black bear. I didn’t care. The best lie I had ever had with them was the one I didn’t tell.
9
With Wyatt’s discovery of my car’s location and our planned Sunday road trip to Knoxville, my Saturday afternoon schedule cleared. C.J. attempted to persuade me to file the police report, but I resisted. The sheriff himself had said the main purpose was to notify neighboring agencies so they would know it was stolen if they stumbled across it. If my missing car was over in Knoxville, that wasn’t needed. If Wyatt’s friend was wrong, then I could file the report Monday morning.
C.J. relented when I suggested we go trout fishing instead, his favorite thing to do besides the Liars’ Table. With the hot afternoon ahead, he readily agreed to standing in a cool mountain stream, casting our flies. We escaped the heat of summer many days this way.
Fishing was a tough sport to explain to those who didn’t indulge. People would always ask, “How’s the fishing?” They didn’t really want the answer because they would follow up with the wrong questions. Were the fish biting? How many were caught? How big were they? Success wasn’t defined by the size or number of your catch, but by the fun you had as the time passed.
With our hip waders pulled up high and our feet growing numb, we told stories and kidded each other. My best friend and I laughed and joked the afternoon away in Coogan’s Cove. With that distraction, I didn’t worry about my stolen car, Shelby’s health, or Wyatt’s past.
How was the fishing?
We didn’t catch a thing.
The fishing was great.
As the afternoon approached evening, we packed up our poles and drove back into town. C.J. dropped me off at the front door of the Mountain View Nursing Home, a sprawling one-story redbrick facility on the edge of town.
Like the rest of the citizens in Miller County, the people who lived here were working class. They didn’t have deep pockets of savings or private insurance to pay for their long-term care. Medicaid paid the bills. The meager government reimbursements barely covered the cost of medical care and food. The employees did everything they could to keep the buildings maintained on a limited budget. Paint peeling from the eaves and the splotchy roof testified to the challenge.
Groups in the community volunteered to make the place as pretty as possible. The local Rotary Club planted and maintained a rose garden at the entrance. An Eagle Scout project installed a pair of benches on either side of the flowers. Church groups gathered donated clothing for the residents. Drawings by local students decorated the hallways. The building looked better through those efforts, but, underneath, it was still old and decaying.
I waited until C.J. was out of sight to face the closed double front doors. No matter how many times I entered this building, I needed to brace against the coming assault on my senses. I rested my hand on the handle and paused to gather myself. With my nerves steeled and a deep breath of fresh outdoor air, I pulled it open and stepped into the dim hallway.
The floor shimmered with wax, testament to the efforts the workers made. The pine scent of cleaning supplies hung in the air but did little to mask the smells of sickness and impending death underneath. No matter how hard the employees strived to keep the place clean, they couldn’t overcome the age of the building or the incontinence of many of the patients.
The young lady talking on the phone behind the glass of the reception area smiled and waved a hello. I was too frequent a guest to require further inquiries to my right to be in the building. I passed her station and came to a crossroads of sorts.
The hallway to the right housed younger patients rehabilitating from factory injuries or automobile accidents. They were down but not out. The chattering noise floating from the rooms testified that they would one day leave and rejoin society, perhaps with a limp or a wheelchair or missing limb, but alive.
A cluster of people waited outside a computer room to use one of the three computers that still worked. A sign on the wall beside the clock read Fifteen-minute Time Limit. They waited their turn to email their families or simply surf the Internet, something my Shelby could no longer do.
To the left was a wing filled with the healthiest of the seniors, the newest arrivals who needed assistance from time to time but largely lived on their own. They dressed each day and cared about their appearance. Some gathered in the brightly lit dayroom for games and activities. Others headed outside to enjoy sunshine and fresh air. They chatted with frequent visitors or other residents.
As evening approached, book readers filled the chairs. Dinner was served in a dining area at the end of the hall, a cheerful spot to enjoy a meal. The tables didn’t have linen tablecloths or candles flickering in silver centerpieces, but none of us had those things at home either. What they did have was the camaraderie of others of the same age and situation.
While this part of the building was lively and hopeful, few of its residents would ever exit the building and go home. As their bodies and minds weakened, they would exchange their rooms for ones deeper in the building. The halls grew quieter the farther back you went, the sounds of nurses’ shoes squeaking on the floor prominent. The residents were older, sicker, and declining. Those fortunate enough to still be mobile needed walkers or wheelchairs. The less fortunate were bedridden.
Rather than having meals in common areas, they ate food brought to their rooms and served on bed trays. The caring nurses and aides worked hard to make their stays positive and comfortable, but a hush blanketed the space. Visitors were less frequent and less bubbly. The reality permeating everyone was that the next step for the patients was slipping away to death.
I, unfortunately, headed even farther into the building. With a smile plastered on my face, I nodded to both staff and patients. As a daily visitor, I knew all their faces. I was surprised when I saw a new resident. I was dismayed when I could no longer locate a longtimer.
Without having to ask directions, I followed the maze of hallways to the rear of the building. A pair of locked doors blocked further movement. A sign read Restricted Access. A large red button was mounted to the wall.
The patients beyond suffered from severe dementia of one sort or another. While Alzheimer’s was the most commonly known, the variety of names was astounding, an education I wish I had never received. Regardless of the specific cause, the result for the mind was quite similar.
The cases here were not mild where the person might forget something—plenty of the patients in the front sections of the building had that. These advanced stages caused a person to wander and potentially hurt themselves or others. They could become combative or violent, or they could withdraw into a shell. Unlike the rest of the patients, who were generally free to wander the halls or the gardens outside, these patients left their wing only with a family member or medical escort.
I took another deep breath to steady my nerves. With a shaking finger, I depressed the button and looked directly into the security camera aimed at my face. Seconds later, I was rewarded with an electronic buzzing and the click of the locks releasing. I stepped through the door and waited until they clanged shut behind me. A loud snap indicated the lock had reengaged.
Shortly after Shelby had moved into the unit two years earlier, I learned the hard way the proper protocol of waiting for the locks to reset. I moved too quickly, and a man slipped past me and through the doors. Alarms sounded, and staff caught him before anything catastrophic happened, but I was left shaken by the possibilities I had created with my relaxed attitude. Now I knew better than to leave the exit unguarded.
The dayroom beyond was brightly lit with childlike artwork taped on the walls. Bedrooms circled the main room, their doors all visible to the central nursing station. At first glance, the room seemed a happy and cheerful place, but a careful look around told you about the patients.
In one corner, a man stood conversing with a smoke detector mounted securely on the wall. He seemed convinced the device had cheated him in a card game and demanded his money back. To his increasing consternation, the machine denied everything, though my ears were deaf to the inanimate object’s argument. An orderly was doing her best to distract him before he became too agitated.
To my left, two men in old armchairs debated baseball, a quite normal thing. The topic, however, was whether the Milwaukee Braves should be allowed to move to Atlanta after they had already moved from Boston. I could have joined in the conversation since my friends had wrestled with the same topic when we were kids. We were as mesmerized in 1966 about the Southern city gaining such a storied team as these two men were now.
A pair of women in wheelchairs whispered conspiratorially, planning how to escape their house for a high school dance without their parents knowing. I doubted their parents used electronic security systems and monitoring bracelets, but pointing out such inconsistencies was a fruitless exercise. I had learned long ago to go with whatever the conversation might be.
Standing in the calm oasis of the nurses’ station just inside the entrance, a heavyset woman smiled when she saw me. “I was worried you were going to miss dinner.”
“Never.”
“Good for you. Your nightly visits mean so much to her.”
I wish I believed that. Most of the time, I doubted Shelby remembered my visit the night before. “How is she today?”
Teresa Peters shrugged her shoulders wearily but kept the bright look on her face. “Good days and bad. You know how it goes.”
I understood what she wasn’t saying. “Guessing this isn’t a good one.”
“She’s had better.” Teresa tilted her head toward the back of the dayroom.
Shelby sat on the couch, a blanket covering her lap, and stared at the blank TV screen mounted on the wall.
“I’ve tried to get her up and walking, but she won’t get off the couch. I’m hoping you can entice her.”
I knew from long experience how difficult that challenge would be. I noted that the television was off. “Was she watching her soap operas? She used to love those things. I couldn’t interrupt them except in the direst of emergencies.”
Teresa snorted and shook her head. “Morning shift tried to turn it on, and a puff of smoke rolled out of the back. Maintenance messed with it for a while, but they think it’s done for.”
The plots of TV shows might be too complicated for most of the patients in this wing to follow, but the flickering lights of the screen and the sounds coming from the speakers could soothe them. Cartoons worked as well on them as they did on kids. The staff counted on the distraction to make their jobs easier. “When is a new one being installed?”
“I wish soon, but I doubt it. We sent the requisition in, but we don’t have much hope. Rumor mill says it won’t happen until the new budget year. The last of the contingency fund was used up when they had to patch the leaky roof on B wing.”
I was incredulous. “They can’t afford one TV?”
Teresa tsked. “It’s not just one. There are at least a half-dozen busted TVs in front of this one on the list. Plus, they need to replace some of those ancient computers in the rehab dayroom. Maintenance is doing everything they can, but fixing broken wheelchairs and beds has to come first.”
I wondered how Wyatt would feel if he came home and discovered I had taken our TV and brought it out here. “What about a donation?”
“They’ve asked, but no luck so far. The churches are pretty stretched and already help us with extra clothes and personal items for some of the patients. That’s easier because they just convince people to pull their old clothes out of their closets, but most people around here don’t have a spare TV sitting around.”
I watched the patients milling about the large room, no TV noise to keep their attention. It wasn’t fair. Wyatt might just have to read a book. “If I found an old one and brought it in, can I make sure it comes in here?”
“If you can do that, I’ll hug your neck.” Teresa smiled. “You already do too much. That picnic table and those benches you and C.J. built for the yard have been a huge hit.”
I felt my face burn and tried to shrug it off. Good deeds were meant to fly below the radar, not to be trumpeted. “Just some old scrap lumber we found and slapped together. Not a big deal.”
“It’s a very big deal. The patients love getting outside into the fresh air when we have the time, but they need places to sit. Little stuff like that gives them freedom.”
I sighed and watched my wife. “I wish she could enjoy that freedom more.”
Teresa reached out and squeezed my arm. “On those good days, you get to take her out there. But on the bad ones… well, maybe not all who wander are lost, but Alzheimer patients who wander get lost.”
I was conflicted. If she couldn’t go outside, there was no danger Shelby would figure out our car was missing. On the other hand, I enjoyed the nights she was well enough for us to walk around and pretend things were normal. “So, dinner inside?”
“Sorry. You’ll see for yourself, but no outdoor pass tonight.”
I crossed the linoleum floor, dread in my heart but a smile fixed on my face. I nodded and spoke to patients in wheelchairs and those perched on furniture as I passed. The faces here rarely changed, so I knew them all by name. Some I remembered as vibrant souls long before they’d come here, but even the ones I met in this building I took the time to speak to.
Sadly, visitors were even less frequent here than in the previous sections. The patients’ personalities were often quite different than they had been in their earlier lives. Long-kept secrets could be blurted out without warning. Well-known family history would be forgotten, ignored, or—worst of all—disputed. Social norms and decorum, which were expected in the outside world, were often forgotten since the mind no longer kept bad thoughts at bay. Some people couldn’t handle the dissonance of a grandmotherly figure cursing like a sailor or a kindly grandfather firing off racial epithets.
Some of the patients never received any visitors at all. Their families had given up all hope and stopped coming, some with excuses and others without. It was just too much to see their loved ones disappear into themselves. For those patients, I was one of the few people they saw outside of staff, patients, and other patient families. I made it a point to be nice to them, to pause and speak if they wished, to participate in whatever fantasy world they found themselves. I could ignore the impure thoughts and improper statements. I couldn’t ignore the people suffering the isolation of their dreaded diseases.
Once through the gauntlet, I approached the couch where Shelby sat. Some days, she never swam out of her fog enough to acknowledge me, but tonight her head turned toward me. She didn’t draw away in fear. Maybe, I hoped after my rough day, my Shelby would appear for a while. Sometimes memory came back slowly. Other days, it was like a switch being flipped.
“Good evening, darling.”
I held my breath for her response. She smiled warmly at me. She patted the cushion beside her and invited me to join her. “I do like a man who calls me darling.”
No clear sign one way or the other of whether she knew who I was, but I hid my disappointment that she hadn’t called me by name and hoped for more. I settled onto the couch but resisted taking her hand. Sometimes my touch was welcomed, but other times it frightened her. Once she screamed that I was hitting her when all I had done was brush her hand with my fingertips. It took two nurses to calm her down, and I had to leave before she ate. I had learned to move slowly until I knew her mood. “Have you had a good day?”
Her face scrunched in puzzlement. Short-term memory was always the hardest. Sometimes, she even forgot the question seconds after I asked it. She appeared to be processing her memories of the last several hours for an answer to my question. With a smile, she leaned toward me. “With a handsome man like you sitting beside me, how can it be anything but good?”
I held my breath as she looked around the room. I prayed this was going to be one of the good nights.
She returned her attention to me and scooted a bit closer across the couch. With her voice barely above a whisper, she said, “My name’s Shelby. I thought I knew everyone, so you must be new in town. I haven’t seen you here before. What’s your name?”
My chest tightened in disappointment, but I had learned long ago to take whatever I could get. “My name is Purvis. It’s great to meet you, Shelby.”
10
If I were a romantic man, I’d tell you we fell in love at first sight.
That would be a lie.
The truth was we grew up together. We had some of the same classes, hung out with the same people, and when we were old enough for such things, went to the same parties in high school. I could say the same thing about almost everyone my age in Millerton. Small town. Small school. We were simply friends with a small f. We said hi to each other.
I liked fishing, hunting, and camping, like most of the guys, but I was never going to be a sports star. I was small for my age. Heck, I’m still a small guy. I don’t know if it was because of that or just how I was, but I preferred reading anyway. I read Tolkien, Bradbury, Asimov, Salinger, and everything else I could get my hands on.
Shelby, however, was into the sporty type. Horace Pearson, to be exact. Played football, basketball, and baseball and was good at all of them. Always said “sir” and “ma’am” to adults but then was snarky behind their backs. He ended up being student body president our senior year and was now on the County Commission. Still slick. I had never voted for him, not even back in high school. But Shelby thought he was the bee’s knees.
She and I did go out once. It wasn’t a disaster, but it wasn’t magical either. She spent most of the time telling me about how bad Horace was since she had broken up with him a week earlier. This wasn’t shocking news because they broke up and got back together more times than I could count. A week after our date, they were a couple again. As I said, ours was not a magical date that changed our destiny.
