Chapter 3
We weren't all killed. In fact, by the time
we finally got to Fair Brook Nursing Home and Convalescent Center the rain had
let up some. It was a good thing because we had an awful lot of junk to bring in
from the car. The trunk was loaded with paper plates and napkins and cups, bags
of chips, a big bowl of potato salad and -- most important -- my cake and
presents.
The bad part about having my birthday the same day as
Great-grandpa's was that I never got it to myself. The good part was a lot of
relatives were usually around on that day and they felt like they had to give me
at least a little something.
For the past couple of years it had been money. Nobody gave
me a lot of money but a lot of people gave me a little money so it was okay.
That's more than I can say for Fair Brook. It was a one-story
brick building that had hallways spreading out every which way. Walking around
inside it felt a lot like being swallowed by a spider.
"Hold your breath," Robert whispered to me and he
took a couple of deep breaths and headed for the main door. It was supposed to
be a joke. Fair Brook didn't smell really great inside.
We all had stuff to carry and we all knew where to go, inside
the main reception area and down the hall and to the right. That was where the
sitting room was. It was like a big recreation room. We knew that much because
we had been coming here every Christmas and birthday for as far back as I could
remember.
I mean every Christmas and my birthday.
Probably about 150 people live at Fair Brook. Most of them
live in a room with one other person and all of them are either so sick or so
old they can't take care of themselves too well.
"WHO'S THIS PRETTY GIRL?"
We were just in the front door when an old lady started
yelling. We knew she was talking to Mom.
"HELLO, MISS CRENSHAW," Mom yelled back and went
over to her. The lady was slumped in a wheelchair over by one wall. She liked to
sit by the front door and keep track of who came and who went. I don't think she
was as old as Great-grandpa but she was pretty old. She had been there a long
time.
"WHO'S THIS PRETTY GIRL?" she asked again.
"MARY FARRELL," Mom answered. "I'M CHARLES
FARRELL'S GRANDDAUGHTER."
I used to think Miss Crenshaw was mad at us. I mean, she was
always yelling. Mom explained to me that she just didn't hear well and so she
thought she was talking normally.
She wasn't.
"MR. FARRELL'S DAUGHTER?" Miss Crenshaw asked and
Dad laughed softly.
"GRANDDAUGHTER," he said and knelt down on one knee
in front of her so they were eye-to-eye. "IT'S MR. FARRELL'S
BIRTHDAY," he said. "HE TURNS 100 TODAY."
"HE'S OLD," she said and laughed at her own joke.
Dad laughed, too.
"YOU COME DOWN A LITTLE LATER TO THE SITTING ROOM FOR
HIS PARTY," Dad said. "WE WOULD LOVE TO HAVE YOU."
"HE'S OLDER THAN I AM," she shouted, "AND I'M
OLDER THAN DIRT."
"No," Robert muttered. "You don't look a day
over a thousand."
"Yes, she does," I muttered back and she looked up
right at me. I was sure she couldn't hear me but she looked right up at me and I
felt as if I had to say something.
"Hello," I said.
"WHAT?"
"HELLO."
"HELLO." She gave me a little wave and her bathrobe
fell open. I could see she was wearing a hospital gown underneath. She was all
skin and bones. All wrinkles and bones. Her hair was so thin she was almost
bald. She had on pink knee-high socks.
"WE HAVE TO GO, MISS CRENSHAW," Mom said.
"I'LL SEND ONE OF THE BOYS DOWN A LITTLE LATER TO GET YOU WHEN THE PARTY
STARTS."
Gee, I wondered who was going to get stuck with that
job.
Then we started out again and I tried not to look in people's
rooms as we walked by. A lot of people were in bed. They were in hospital beds,
the kind that have a motor underneath and can have the head or the foot raised.
Some of them were hooked up to medical equipment that gave them oxygen to help
them breathe. Others had intravenous needles and lines in their arms to give
them medicine. And some had other stuff attached up through their private parts
so if they had pee to they just peed and it came out a tube and collected in a
plastic bag hanging on the side of the bed.
Some had all three.
There was a lot of stuff I didn't want to see but I saw it
anyway. There wasn't a lot of privacy.
And there were a lot of TV sets going, blaring. There was one for each bed and a
lot of people kept them on most of the time and a lot of people didn't hear any
better than Miss Crenshaw did.
Sometimes I would walk by a room and I would swear that the
person in the bed by the door -- he would be hooked up to all kinds of medical
junk -- I would swear he must be dead or at least almost dead and then he would
open his eyes and give me a little smile.
It was all kind of spooky. It was more spooky when I was
younger, when I was 11.
That morning there were some old people and some sick people
in the halls, too. Some were walking around with canes or crutches or aluminum
walkers. Some were in wheelchairs. Some of the people couldn't use their hands
or arms to move their wheelchairs and so they were scooting along by pushing
with their feet. They had to go backwards to get anywhere.
"Gridlock," Robert said. "Traffic jam."
Up ahead, where two hallways met, about a half dozen
wheelchairs were stopped. Some people coming down one hallway had met some
people coming down the other and now nobody was going anywhere. A nurse's aid
was trying to untangle the mess.
"RUSH HOUR," Dad said and some of the people
laughed. "EVERYONE'S TRYING TO GET TO THAT FARRELL BIRTHDAY PARTY."
"We want to get there early so we get good seats,"
one lady joked.
"We're bringing our own seats," a man kidded
I didn't see how they could make jokes like that.
"You just eat a pickle?" another lady said to me. I
wondered if she had some form of dementia, if she had lost her mind. Some people
at Fair Brook had.
"What?" I asked.
"You're standing there looking so solemn. Face all
puckered up. Look like you just ate a sour pickle."
"I... I..." I stammered.
"Watch out, Florence," a man said. "Face like
that he could be a funeral director."
"Not yet!" the pickle lady squealed and a bunch of
them laughed some more. I felt myself blush and I looked around quickly, trying
to find some way to escape.
I didn't have much luck. Standing in the doorway to the
recreation room was my grandfather's sister, Great-aunt Beth. Great-aunt Beth
has the world's biggest... bosom and I'm sure she goes through a tube a lipstick
in a single day. Great-aunt Beth loves to give hugs and kisses.
"There's my little birthday boy!" she sang out and
spread her arms wide.
Go to Chapter 4.
