Page 36

36

A Misunderstanding

Let’s refresh: Having made some progress in their brainstorming session in the Liberty Park pavilion, having caught sight of Britta watching them through binoculars, the three amigos had heard a voice telling them the next clue would be found at the hospital. A sense of urgency overcame them, a compelling need to recall what happened at County Memorial on Thanksgiving Day, twenty-one years earlier.

So now, on this warm summer day, Spencer piloted his Genesis SUV toward the hospital while remembering the Sunday before that Thanksgiving when Rebecca, looking like a goddess, walked out of the chilly night and into Adorno’s. Meanwhile, the movie star and the novelist were in the back seat, trying to recall where they had gone once inside the hospital on that long-ago holiday. By the time they arrived at County Memorial, they were certain only that the place they sought was somewhere on the third floor.

Three people, prowling a hospital for they knew not what, were sure to draw unwanted attention, especially when one of them was a famous movie star. Spencer suggested a plausible cover story. To equip themselves for it, the amigos ventured first to the gift shop. A tall cooler with a glass door displayed a limited selection of small flower arrangements; Rebecca chose one with red roses, white chrysanthemums, and fern fronds. A collection of helium-inflated foil balloons did not include any that were personalized, but Spencer took one emblazoned with the words the lord lifteth me, which seemed to be the kind of thing that would be carried by the most innocent of visitors with no intention of snooping around. Bobby the Sham chose a balloon without words; it bore just the smiling face of Kermit the Frog, the most endearing of the Muppets.

The sixtysomething woman at the cash register had white hair in tight curls, a cherubic face, rosy cheeks, and the bubbly manner of a Welcome Wagon lady who had been sitting in her kitchen, sipping sherry, waiting for the new neighbors to show up so that she could greet them with a gift basket in the name of everyone on the block and induce them to become part of her gossip network. “Well, just look at you three darlings. The very sight of you would make any poor, sick person feel better. Would you like a talking get-well card to go with all of this?”

“No, thank you,” Bobby said. “I think we can do without a card.”

“Nothing encourages wellness like a talking card,” the clerk said. “We have some with the most heartwarming messages. Your loved one will listen to it over and over again until the little battery fails.”

Holding the flower arrangement, Rebecca said, “Our loved one isn’t the sentimental type. He would mock a greeting card.”

“I know the type you mean, dear. They respond to humor, not to compassionate sentiments. In that case, we have another line of cards sure to get a laugh. Everyone needs a laugh, especially those poor souls who are ailing. Our most popular number of that kind, one that amuses everybody—when you read the front and then open it, the card makes vomiting sounds.”

“No card,” Spencer said.

The clerk looked at his hat, and it seemed she was intimidated by it when she relented on the card. “What about a box of candy? We have Russell Stovers, of course, but also sophisticated chocolates made in France.”

“That would be wonderful,” Rebecca said, “but our friend is diabetic.”

“In that case, we have sugar-free chocolates containing only unsaturated fats.”

“We’ll take a box,” said Bobby, just to get their purchases moving along expeditiously.

The clerk turned to a wall of shelves behind her, plucked one of the boxes stacked there, and placed it on the counter. She winked at Bobby. “This is just the thing to lift his spirits.” She patted a stack of small hardcover gift books beside the register. Before any of the amigos could claim their loved one was illiterate, the clerk continued, “A joke book about bodily functions, perfect hospital reading. Statistics show that if you laugh a lot while in hospital, you’re able to be discharged one point six days sooner. If you laugh about your symptoms and your prospects for recovery, they’re less depressing. The chapters on constipation and diarrhea are especially hilarious.”

Before visiting hours could come to an end, Bobby said, “Sounds like fun. Give us one.”

Thus laden and then some, they departed the gift shop. In the lobby, Michael Z, the guard with whom they’d shared an elevator the previous day, was interrogating a boy of about ten. The child stood with his back pressed to a column and his hands in the air. Neither Bobby nor his amigos suggested an intervention.

They rode the elevator to the third floor, where nurses were busy with carts from which they were serving dinner trays. It was only 5:30, but dinner was served early in hospitals, perhaps out of consideration for people who were going to die later and miss their last chance at more pudding.

Confident that they appeared no more suspicious than others who were visiting sick friends and relatives, the amigos walked boldly along the main hall and, without hesitation, into room 315. Spencer could almost believe that they had traveled back in time twenty-four hours, because Butch was sitting up in the nearer bed, glowering at his dinner, as personalized helium-filled foil balloons tied to the bedrail bobbled above him.

Referencing the patient’s head, Rebecca said to Spencer, “You were right—just like a mortar round.”

Looking up from his dinner, scowling at the balloons and the flower arrangement, Butch said, “He bit the big one.”

Without context, none of the amigos could make sense of that statement. In the interest of acquiring additional information that might lead to comprehension, Bobby said, “Why?”

Butch regarded him with an incredulous frown. “ Why? You don’t have any choice, pal. When the big one comes, you bite it or you bite it, and that’s all there is.”

“Big one?” Rebecca asked.

Apparently agitated that he’d been interrupted while glowering at his meal, Butch said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, big one. What’s bigger? Nothing’s bigger than the big one.”

Realizing he had used the wrong interrogative, Bobby switched to a pronoun. “Who?”

“ Who? ” Butch asked, frustrated by their thick-headedness. “You want to know who?”

“Yes, please.”

“You come here with all that shit, even a balloon says ‘The lord lifteth me,’ and you don’t know who?”

To Bobby, Rebecca said, “I’ll try another one.” She smiled at Butch, favoring him with that special smile she had practiced for years, in case she ever got a chance to play a nun. “What? What is the big one?”

Butch was now red-faced. “Don’t give me that smutty smile, lady. I’m not that kind of guy. I’m not talking about anyone’s pecker. What’s wrong with you people?”

Spencer stepped into the fray. “All we want to know is who bit the big one, what the big one is, and why he bit it.”

“Are you a smart-ass?” Butch demanded. “If I could get out of this bed, I’d kick the hell out of your smart ass.”

In spite of humankind’s enduring difficulty understanding one another, a confusion like this will come to an end sooner or later. In this instance, the end hove into sight when Spencer looked at the empty bed that stood beyond Butch and said, “What happened to your roomie?”

“ He Bit the Big One !” Butch roared. “He doesn’t need your fancy flowers. He had terminal cancer. You know what ‘terminal’ means, you jackass? It means a lot more than where you get a bus.”

“Ahhh,” the three amigos responded, and then Bobby said, “Sorry about the confusion. We didn’t come to visit him, whoever he was. We came to visit you.”

Butch’s face accommodated a look of perplexity while still half-possessed by anger, which made him look like an enormous pouting baby. A dangerous baby. “Me? You came to visit me?”

“You,” Bobby repeated.

“I don’t even know you two. I don’t really know this jackass in the hat, either. He came in here yesterday to take my wheelchair.”

“Borrow your wheelchair,” Spencer said.

“You said ‘borrow,’ but you never brought it back.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

“They had to get another wheelchair to take me to treatment this morning. They gave me the stink eye.”

“The what?”

“The stink eye. Like I must have stolen the damn wheelchair myself.”

Rebecca said, “How could you have stolen it when you need assistance to get out of bed?”

“You’d think the idiots would figure that out, wouldn’t you?” Butch complained.

Recognizing an opportunity for reconciliation, Rebecca tried the nun smile again. “That’s why we came to visit. To say we’re sorry about the wheelchair.”

“You brought me balloons, flowers, and candy because you stole the hospital’s wheelchair?”

“Borrowed,” said Spencer. “We left it in the parking lot.”

If Butch was quick to take offense, he was equally quick to forgive and forget. “Gee, that’s sweet. I mean, who does something like that these days?”

“We do,” Bobby said. “It’s just who we are.”

Butch smiled at the flower arrangement Rebecca had put on the nightstand. “They’re real pretty.”

“I hope you like roses,” she said.

“I love roses.” He turned his attention to his dinner tray and grimaced. “Will you look at this stuff.”

“I’d rather not,” Bobby said. The food tray was on a wheeled table. At Butch’s request, he rolled it away from the bed. “I’m Bobby, this is Rebecca, and the man in the hat is Spencer.”

Rebecca said, “Butch, you’ve got to eat, keep your strength up.”

“I’m not eating that slop.”

“Do you like pizza?”

“Who doesn’t?”

“What about Adorno’s pizza?”

“It’s the best.”

“Would you be allowed to have it?”

“I’m not on a special diet. I’m here for my toe.”

“I’ll call Adorno’s and have them deliver whatever pizza you like. Plus they can sneak you a couple of beers, if you want.”

“They’d deliver to a hospital room?”

“They will for me.”

“That would be fantastic. You must he somebody important.”

She shrugged, and he told her what he would like, and she made the phone call.

As planned, now that they had ingratiated themselves with Butch and established themselves as visitors, Spencer went on a tour of all three wings of the third floor, as though looking for another friend to visit. If he found something that jarred his memory as to what had happened here on Thanksgiving many years earlier, he would return with that news and then sit with Butch while Bobby or Rebecca continued the investigation.