Megan Abbott - Detroit Noir

Was he speaking some foreign language, fragments of a tribal vocabulary that had been suppressed over the years? And then the stroke problem? She turned to find the head nurse. She wanted to know where this man was from. Maybe she could figure out a way to understand him if she knew the language he was speaking.

She found her by the central station. — Ms. Nurse, Ms. Nurse, she called out. Ms. Nurse was preparing meds for distribution.

— That man doesn’t talk. I ain’t got time now to fool with his grunting; gotta pass out meds. Let me see, does he get anything now? Nope.

And Ms. Nurse shuffled to the room at the other end of the hallway to begin distributing medications.

— Whan go, whan go, whan go.

— I can’t understand you, sweetie. What do you want?

Back and forth they went, the old man and the young woman. A janitor on the way to take the exit stairs passed by the two. He listened to their exchange for a couple of minutes then interjected, — You’ll never understand what he’s saying. Then he opened the exit door and disappeared.

The young woman and the old man continued their frantic exchange. Realizing something was really bothering him and that he was trying to say something important, the young woman leaned over and addressed him face to face, almost exchanging breaths with him.

— I’m trying to understand. What do you want, sweetie? She put her hand on his shoulder.

He turned his face away from her and stared at the opposite wall. He was trying to call up a vision of him sick and then him doing much better. Him playing cricket in Oronuevo and him eating pelau at Belle Isle. For a moment he was perplexed. What was happening to him? He slipped into a deep stillness to ponder yet again the smell of freshly turned funeral soil, so far from where his navel string was buried.

Finally, she remembered that he was wheeled to the window every day after lunch. Who knows how that ritual began, but he sat in that same spot almost daily, beginning with the first winter he arrived and then spring and summer and fall and winter and again and again, once more, until he had marked a little over three years by the window. Through frost and snow and spring rains he watched out of it while he finished digesting his food. He followed the pedestrians heading to the liquor stores and other notable neighborhood destinations and absently glanced at cars crossing the Kercheval intersection on the way to perhaps Belle Isle? He contemplated navel strings and final resting places.

Maybe that’s what he wanted now? she thought.

— Do you want to go to the window, sweetie?

Gratefully, the old man looked up at her and nodded. Finally, she understood and smiled back at him.

Now how to get him there, since she couldn’t lift him by herself to put him in the wheelchair and everyone else was so busy. Conveniently, the one-ton white crane used to lift residents was already in a corner of the old man’s room, likely in readiness for his afternoon window appointment. Luckily, she had been trained to use it yesterday. So confidently she marched over to get it. With its boom pointed toward the floor she maneuvered the lift near the old man’s bed and removed the halter left dangling on the hook. He was almost smiling as she leaned over him to place his arms through the halter, pull a strap between his legs, fasten it in the back, and check the placement of the loops for the hook.

Then she stood back to look at him.

— You’re a mess, sweetie. At least let me wash your face. He nodded, a crooked little smile developing.

After she washed his face and combed his few strands of hair, she wheeled the chair by the bed and locked it into what she thought would be the perfect spot to receive the old man when she was ready to lower him.

She was almost ready with everything and then …

— Oh my God, sweetie. I bet your diaper needs changing. She rolled the wheelchair aside and unfastened the halter. His crooked little smile turned into a look of alarm.

— Don’t worry, sweetie, I know what I’m doing, and she began to change and wash him with the adroitness of an old pro.

He closed his eyes at the feel of the young hand covered by a warm washcloth wiping Mummy’s territory. There’s nothing there anymore, Mummy. It’s all gone.

With the halter and wheelchair back in place, she moved the crane into position parallel to the bed. All of this activity occurred over and around the sunray, now angled slightly off the bed. The young woman darted in and out of its range as she prepared the crane without paying any attention to the motes traveling up and down the ray and the intermittent sunshine that caused her to squint. At last she felt the sun’s warmth.

— Hey, sweetie, you’re going to have a warm day at the window. You may not even be able to stand it.

She placed a pillow on the wheelchair seat for comfort and rolled him on his side. Now she was ready. She turned the directional knob on the lever to move the boom up and pumped the lever until it reached a good level for hooking the halter. Then she slid the base of the crane under the bed and pumped again, gently lifting his once-hefty body, guiding it all the way. He was now almost facedown and moving his heavily wrinkled arms and thin legs as if he was winding up in the yard to bowl to Toli.

— Hold on, sweetie. Don’t move so much. I’m going to roll you over to the chair. We don’t have far to go; hang in. Oh, you know what I mean.

He nodded, his smile having returned.

As she positioned the old man over the wheelchair, she pulled his legs down and around to make sure his bottom hit first. She reached to change the directional knob so that she could now lower the boom when she pumped the lever. It was jammed. It wouldn’t move at all, not to pump up, not to pump down.

— Oh my God, what am I going to do? She looked up at the man, who was moving his arms left over right and right over left, his legs in running formation and said firmly, — Be still until I figure this thing out.

She was able to reach the emergency cord by his bed and pulled and pulled and pulled. But no one came to the room. The room had no phone because no one ever called the old man. She began yelling.

— Ms. Nurse, Ms. Nurse! Someone! Help!

No one came. All she heard were responses from other residents. — We’re here, they yelled out. One lady down the hall began screaming. The young staffer yelled back.

— Everything is fine; don’t worry.

So she patted the old man on his shoulder and said, — Okay, sweetie, don’t let them upset you. You’re going for a ride now. And she rolled the entire contraption, Sweetie and all, over to the doorway and looked up and down the hall. No one, not a soul was in sight. She yelled again, — Ms. Nurse, Ms. Nurse, someone!

No one.

The nursing station was midway in the hall. She thought to roll the crane to the station and use the phone to call for help, but the machine’s pivot wheel suddenly locked tight. She pushed her foot on the wheel lock, then lifted up on it, then kicked it. She kneeled down to jiggle it, but it wouldn’t loosen. So now the crane wouldn’t move out of the room or back into it.

— We’re stuck, sweetie. She smiled. He smiled too, and nodded, but thought to himself, Man must live .

She realized she had to chance it at this point. He wasn’t so high up in the air; things looked relatively stable if she could get him to keep absolutely still.

— Sweetie, I have to call for help. You have to be real good and be still. Don’t move your hands or feet. What are you doing anyway? You look like you’re pitching in a baseball game. Be still; I’m going to call for help.

He hung there, his brown body against the white crane, and watched the young staffer rush down the hall.