Sorta Like a Rock Star(44)

CHAPTER 29





After a month or so, Old Man Linder pays me a visit on behalf of the entire Methodist Home.

Donna comes into my room and says that I have to come down to see Old Man Linder because he can’t walk up steps. Donna’s murder trial ended a week or so ago and she has taken some time off from work to care for me, which I told her not to do. She dotes on me now, even though I hardly talk to her.

“I only go down once a day to check the mail,” I tell Donna. “Tell Old Man Linder he’ll have to come up here if he wants to talk to me.”

“The man has tubes running up his nose and is attached to an oxygen—”

“Yeah, I know him,” I say, like a total cat.

“He can’t walk stairs. He said it could kill him, but he really wants to talk to you, Amber. I don’t think he leaves the home much. Please just come down. He’s an old man and I think it might be good for you to—”

“No,” I say. “Tell him he can come back tomorrow around one fifteen when I’ll be checking the mail. That’s when I will next come downstairs.”

“Amber, what’s happening to you?” Donna says in this really dramatic fashion that pisses me off.

When I don’t answer, she leaves.

Ten minutes later, Donna returns and hands me a cup of hot cocoa and a Snickers bar, and then shakes her head at me before exiting my poetry cocoon.

I hear Old Man Linder breathing really hard on the steps.

One footstep, clunk, heavy breathing.

One footstep, clunk, heavy breathing.

One footstep, clunk, heavy breathing.

His oxygen tank makes an awful clunk each time he sets it on a higher step.

“Mr. Linder,” Donna says, “perhaps—you really shouldn’t—”

“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do! I’m old enough to be your grandfather, thank you very much!” Old Man Linder says, and then sucks in an awful breath like he has been underwater for the last two hours or something.

He and Donna fight about whether he should be walking up the steps for another few minutes before I yell, “Donna, your making him yell isn’t helping!”

And then I only hear footsteps, clunking, and heavy breathing.

When Old Man Linder reaches the top of the stairs, he looks like he might fall backward and die. His face is completely white, which makes me feel like a total cat, so I walk into the hallway, grab his arm, and escort him into my room.

When he squeezes my shoulder football coach–style, I know that he is going to be okay—that he probably won’t die in my room.

He points to the Snickers and cocoa on my dresser. “Compliments of Door Woman Lucy.”

I nod.

“How you holdin’ up?” he asks me, and then sits down on the wooden chair that goes with the desk Donna bought for me.

I shrug.

I can see that his clear air tubes look sorta fogged up, and I wonder if that is bad.

“What are all those papers on your wall?”

“Haikus.”

“Hi-whats?”

“Short Japanese poems.”

“You can read Japanese?” he says.

“They’re written in English,” I say.

“By you?”

“No, by Private Jackson.”

“Who’s Private Jackson?”

“He was in ’Nam back in the day. Now he writes haikus. He’s my favorite poet.”

“I’m not going to get into all that, kid,” Old Man Linder says, adjusting the nozzle on his oxygen bottle, which produces a hissing sound. “I know you’ve suffered a horrific, senseless, and cruel loss, and while I won’t pretend to know what that must feel like—I will say that I’m old enough to know that life throws you a few nasty blows before she’s done with you, but each time you’re knocked down, you have to pull yourself up by the bootstraps, and—”

“Please don’t,” I say to Old Man Linder. “Please.”

He looks confused.

He’s wringing his hands.

He’s so old school.

He’s so out of his league.

“I was nineteen years old when I lost my best friend in World War Two. I never did feel the same—”

“Please stop.”

He shakes off my request, smiles knowingly, and says, “We miss you down at the home. Joan of Old wants a rematch. She’s still contesting your last battle. Stating that the kiss was a violation of the damn rules, not that Old Man Thompson will ever side with her.” Old Man Linder forces a laugh. “But some of the older feebleminded broads have taken Old Joan’s point of view. If we don’t make some sort of public statement quickly, the fans will think—”

“It was just a stupid game. It wasn’t real.”

“The Wednesday Afternoon Battles are something to look forward to and—”

“I’m retired. Joan of Old can have the title by forfeit.”

“Forfeit? Retired? Are you kidding me? You haven’t even begun to peak and you—”

“I’m done making old people smile. It’s over.”

He pauses for a second, gathers his thoughts.

So softly, Old Man Linder says, “Amber.”