George Pelecanos - The Turnaround

“You want to do something? Go out there and tell people your story. Say what you did. Folks in this country are so divided right now, they need good people like you to tell them that we’re one community. That we’ve got to rebuild.”

“Don’t go putting me up on a pedestal. I’m not proud of everything I did.”

“Neither am I.” Monroe stopped working on Anderson’s arm. “Look, Sergeant. You’re gonna realize something as you get older. Hopefully it’ll come to you quicker than it did to me. Life is long. Who you are now, the things you did, how you’re feeling, like your world is never gonna be as good as it was? None of that is going to matter as you move along. It only will if you let it. I’m not the person I was when I was young. Shoot, I had an incident today… Let’s just say I had to walk a whole lotta miles to learn how much I’ve changed. Whatever you did before doesn’t matter. What matters now is how you make the turnaround. You’re gonna be all right.”

“Did you get all that off a greeting card, Pop?”

“Aw, screw you, man.” Monroe blushed. “I told you to see a professional.”

“I should have known a Redskins fan would be an optimist. Me, I don’t see any Super Bowls in your future with Coach Gibbs at the helm. What is he, ninety?”

“You think he’s old? Cowboys coach wears his pants any higher, he’s gonna choke hisself.”

“We’ll see you this fall.”

“Twice,” said Monroe.

He went back to his task. He turned Anderson’s arm over and worked the flexor ulnaris and radialis.

“You know, sounds to me like you got some real depression,” said Monroe. “You really ought to talk to the house shrink.”

“She’s not as entertaining as you.” Anderson grunted. “That feels good, Doc.”

“I’m no doctor.”

“You’re good as one.”

“Thank you,” said Monroe.

Alex Pappas arrived at the nursing home on Layhill Road and found Miss Elaine Patterson in the group dining hall, not far from the reception desk where he had signed in. An orderly pointed to an old woman with thinning white hair and eyeglasses who was seated in a wheelchair at a round table with two other women her age and a woman who was spoon-feeding her. Alex had a seat, introduced himself, and got only eye contact in return. He had bought some carnations at a grocery store on the drive out, and he told her they were for her but kept them held across his lap.

Beyond pleasantries, he did not try to engage her in conversation. He did not want to speak about the incident in front of the caregiver, an African by the sound of her accent. He wanted her to enjoy her meal, as unappealing as it appeared to be. Also, there was much noise in the dining hall. Conversations repeated, orders and requests shouted at the employees, and the sound of one woman who was cursing like a rap artist and being ignored. In a room adjoining the hall, a woman played a piano and sang “One Love, One Heart” off-key.

Miss Elaine Patterson was in poor condition. One side of her face, collapsed and sunken by time, was obviously paralyzed, the left half of her mouth slack and heavy with drool. Her left hand was a claw, her left leg swollen and without muscle tone. Her speech was halting, with long silences between words, and slightly slurred. She must have children and grandchildren, thought Alex. She is staying alive for them.

After the last bit of applesauce was wiped from Miss Elaine’s chin, Alex told the African orderly that he would wheel Miss Elaine to her room. The orderly asked Miss Elaine if that was all right with her, and she said that it was.

He pushed her down a long hall, past a nurses’ station. Going by the residents’ rooms, Alex heard game shows on televisions turned up way too loud. The smell of urine and excrement was faint but unmistakable.

Her room was private, with a view of the parking lot. He left her in her wheelchair beside the bed, and turned down the sound of her TV, which was showing a black-and-white movie on TCM. He substituted the carnations for a bunch of daisies whose edges were brown and wilted, and ran water into the vase. He replaced the vase on a stand where many photographs of middle-aged people, people in their twenties, and babies and children were on display. He pulled a chair beside her and repeated his name, which he had told her in the dining room. He told her why he was there and assured her that he would not stay long.

“Rodney… called me,” she said, telling him to get on with it.

“Then you know that I was one of the boys who came into Heathrow Heights.”

“Yes,” she said, and pointed a finger of her working hand at his face. “Charles Baker.”

“Right. I’m the boy who was beaten up.” Alex looked away from her, then back into her black eyes, magnified by the thick lenses of her glasses. “I was on the ground, facedown. I didn’t see the actual shooting.”

“Neither… did I.”

“But in court you related what you did see.”

Miss Elaine nodded. She used her good hand to adjust the dead one in her lap.

“I saw you standing on the porch of the market,” said Alex. “And then you went inside.”

“Because… there was going to be… trouble.”

“You watched from the window. And then you turned away to call the police.”

“To tell… the owner.”

“To tell him to call the police. But what did you see before you turned away from the window?”

Miss Elaine removed her glasses and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. She wasn’t upset. She wasn’t stonewalling him. She was thinking.

“I saw… the heavy white boy… get out of the car. I saw him get punched. The smaller white boy… you… tried to run. But you got kicked to the ground. One of the Monroe brothers had a gun

… in his hand. The one with the gun…”

She stopped abruptly. Alex waited, but nothing came.

“Please, go on.”

“He wore a T-shirt… The number ten was written on it. Charles was yelling at the one with the gun. Charles was… always bad.”

“What happened next?” said Alex, hearing a catch in his voice.

“I got Sal… He called the police. I didn’t see anything else. Next thing I heard… was the shot.”

“You said all of this in court?”

“Yes. I testified. I didn’t… want to. Those Monroe boys… The whole family… was good. I don’t know why that boy did… what he did. It was… a tragedy. For all of you.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Alex, looking down at his hands, balled into fists. He opened them and took a deep breath.

“Why?” said Miss Elaine.

Alex could not reply.

Raymond Monroe and Marcus returned from Park View Elementary, where they had been playing catch with a baseball on the weedy field alongside the school, at dusk. Marcus’s mother, Kendall, was seated at the kitchen table, reading the Post, when they entered her house.

“Y’all have a good time?” she said.

“Kid’s got an arm,” said Raymond, his hand resting on the boy’s shoulder.

“Go wash up,” said Kendall, “and get your reading done before supper.”

“It’s Friday,” said Marcus. “Why I gotta read?”

“You do it now,” said Raymond, “and you got the whole weekend off to relax.”

“Wizards playin tonight,” said Marcus.

“You need to read before you watch the game,” said Kendall.

“Gilbert got hurt, anyway,” said Marcus.

“We still gonna root for’em, right?” said Raymond. “I mean, would you turn down a chance to go see them play just’cause Gilbert’s not on the court?”

“To go to a game, for real? No!”

“Do your reading,” said Raymond. “When you’re done, come see me. I got a surprise for you, little man.”