An Absent Mind(29)

I asked him how many police cars there would be.

He said, “At least two.”

I said, “That’s good, because there are probably a lot of bad guys.”

He asked me if I would be okay until then. I told him it was hard to tell, because if those same guys who were holding me here against my will got through the barricade I had set up against the door, there was no telling what they might do. He said his officers were on their way and should be here in a moment.

I told him I heard loud banging on my door. He said that must be his men and that I should remove the barricade and let them in.

I said, “What if it’s not your men?”

He said he was sure. And he was a policeman—not only a policeman—but a sergeant.

So I laid the receiver on the table and moved the bureau away from the door.

Sergeant Lacolle is a liar.





Monique





Day 185—Music


Saul was sitting in his favorite chair, dressed in a polo shirt and cardigan sweater, gazing out the window—watching nothing. He looked up and smiled when he heard the door bang against the wall as it opened. I pulled out a container of yogurt from my bag and asked him if he wanted any. “No, never,” he said. So I put it in the small fridge by the bathroom and took a seat in the brown leather chair opposite him.

“How are you feeling today?” I asked.

“How are you feeling today?” he repeated.

“Did you have a good sleep?” I asked.

“Sleep,” he said.

And that’s how it went for the few minutes we spent together, until one of the orderlies came in to remind me that they were having a sing-along in the lounge. I asked Saul if he wanted to go downstairs and spend some time with the other residents. He stood up without answering. I took him by the arm and guided him toward the elevator.

The lounge was full when we arrived. There were tables covered in red plastic lined up neatly across the room. Most of the residents were in wheelchairs, many of them slouching forward, their eyes closed. I guess they were the zombies from the third floor.

We took a seat on a bench in the back. A young woman, maybe twenty-five years old, with straight blond hair down to her waist, was singing and playing an acoustic guitar that was hanging from her neck on a bright yellow cord. Saul seemed more interested in checking out the others in the room than in watching her.

In a way, I’m glad we waited this long to bring him here, because he would be mortified if he knew he was in a room with people who were so far gone. He is one of the sanest here. No, that’s not the word I mean. He is one of those who are not yet in the final stages of the disease. Sometimes, when I think of that, I feel blessed that I will have him around longer. But then I look around at some of the others and realize that he will end up just like them. And then I think, What will it be like for him? And what will it be like for me?

The young woman handed out tambourines to a few of the residents and began singing “When the Saints Go Marching In.” She stopped in front of a man who held one of the tambourines in his hand. He was just staring at it. She took it from him and started banging on it. The man smiled as she handed it back to him, and she watched as he hit the tambourine against the table. Then he began to sing the words out loud, a huge grin on his face, like a child who had done something he was proud of. The woman moved on, cajoling many of those in the room to join her as she played one song after another.

The man beside me seemed comatose until she sang in French. Then his eyes opened and his head bobbed from side to side. When she started singing in English again, he went back to wherever he had been.

As she approached Saul, he stood up, ever the gentleman, even in his state. She began to sing “Shine on Harvest Moon.” Saul put his arm around her shoulder and started harmonizing. He had been a member of a barbershop quartet for years, and that was his favorite song. Saul may be—what’s that expression?—down on the canvas—but don’t count him out yet.





SAUL





DAY 185—THE BARBERSHOP


Went to the barBers today with … you know … the one with the kNockers …Sang the moOn song. It was fuN.





Joey





Day 197—Scary


You have to hear this. I went to see Dad today. He was sitting in the small lounge by the elevator on the fourth floor, talking to another patient. From what I could tell, they were speaking mostly gibberish. So I walk up to him—and you have to believe me on this one—and say, “Yo, Pops, what’s going on?”

He stands up, takes my elbow, and motions me back toward the elevator. Then in a firm voice he says, “Look, I’m in a meeting now. Would you mind coming back later?”

I did everything in my power not to break out laughing. It was amazing. I’m not making fun of him or anything. I mean—come on—he’s my father, for Christ’s sake! But some of the things that come out of his mouth now …

And wait, it gets better. When I left—which, by the way, was not when he told me to leave, because within a few seconds he had forgotten that he even said it—I hailed a taxi at the front entrance.

As a deliveryman was leaving the side entrance, a woman dressed in a bathrobe came flying past him out the door and grabbed me through the open window of the cab.