Kevin O'Brien - One Last Scream

She had Karen on speed dial.

“Frank, you need to put down the knife,” Karen said in a firm, unruffled tone.

Everyone else around her was going berserk, but she tried to remain calm and keep eye contact with the 73-year-old Alzheimer’s patient. The unshaven man had greasy, long gray hair and a ruddy complexion. His T-shirt was inside out, with food stains down the front. The pale green pajama bottoms were filthy, too. In his shaky hand he held a butcher’s knife. He looked more terrified than anyone else in the nursing home cafeteria. Just moments ago, he’d accidentally knocked over a stack of dirty trays from the bus table. He’d bumped into the table, backing away from an overly aggressive kitchen worker.

“Drop the goddamn knife,” growled the short, thirty-something man. He wore a T-shirt and chinos under his apron. Tattoos covered his skinny arms. He kept inching toward the desperately confused patient. “C’mon, drop it! I don’t have all day here!” He kicked a chair and it toppled across the floor, just missing the old man. “You hear me, Pops? Drop it!”

“Get away from him!” Karen barked. “For God’s sake, can’t you see he’s scared?”

Two orderlies hovered behind her, along with a few elderly residents wanting to see what all the fuss was about. The rest home’s manager, a handsome, white-haired woman in her sixties named Roseann, had managed to herd everyone else out of the cafeteria. She stood at Karen’s side. “Did you hear her, Earl?” Roseann yelled at the kitchen worker. “Let Karen handle this. She knows what she’s doing!”

But Earl wasn’t listening. He closed in on the man, looking ready to pounce. “You shouldn’t steal knives out of my kitchen, Pops….”

“No-no…get!” the Alzheimer’s patient cried, waving the knife at him.

Wincing, Karen watched the frightened old man shrink back toward the pile of trays. He was barefoot, and there were shards of broken glass on the floor.

Roseann gasped. “Earl, don’t-”

He lunged at the man, who reeled back. But the knife grazed Earl’s tattooed arm. A few of the residents behind Karen gasped.

The little man let out a howl, and recoiled. “Son of a bitch!”

One of the orderlies rushed to his aid. Grumbling obscenities, Earl held on to his arm, as the blood oozed between his fingers.

“No…get!” the old man repeated.

“It’s okay!” the orderly called, checking Earl’s wound, and pulling him toward the cafeteria exit. “Doesn’t look too deep….”

“Fuck you ‘it’s okay’,” he shot back. “I’m bleeding here.”

Shushing him, the orderly quickly led Earl out the door.

Karen was still looking into the old man’s eyes. “That was an accident, Frank,” she said steadily. “We all saw it. No one’s mad at you. But you should put down the knife, okay?”

Wide-eyed, he kept shaking his head at her. He took another step back toward the glass on the floor.

“Frank, how do you think the Cubs are going to do this season?” Karen suddenly asked.

She remembered how during her last visit with him, he’d chatted nonstop about the Chicago Cubs. But he’d talked as if it were 1968, back when he’d been a hotshot, 33-year-old attorney in Arlington Heights, Illinois with a beautiful wife, Elaine, and two children, Frank Junior and Sheila. The old man in the stained T-shirt and pajama bottoms used to dress in Brooks Brothers suits. The family moved to Seattle in 1971, where they added a third child to the brood, a baby girl. Frank started his own law firm, and did quite well in Mariner town. But he’d always remained a Cubs fan.

Though she knew it was typical of Alzheimer’s patients, Karen still thought it was kind of funny that Frank often couldn’t remember the name of his dead wife or the names of his three children and seven grandchildren. But he still recalled the Cubs’ star lineup from 1968.

“How do you think Ernie Banks is going to do, Frank?” she asked.

He stopped, and his milky blue eyes narrowed at her for a moment. “Um…you need-you need to keep your eye on Ron Santo. This is-this is going to be his year.” He lowered the knife. He suddenly seemed to forget he was holding it.

“I thought you were an Ernie Banks fan, Frank,” she said. “You know, there’s some glass on the floor behind you. Be careful.”

He turned and glanced down at the floor. “Yeah, you got to love Ernie. Who doesn’t?”

Karen felt her cell phone vibrate in the back pocket of her jeans, but she ignored it. She took a few steps toward him. “You know, you ought to put down that knife. Should we get some ice cream?”

He frowned at the knife in his hand, and then set it on one of the cafeteria tables.

“Does ice cream sound good to you, Frank?” Roseann piped in. “I think Karen has a good idea there. You recognize Karen, don’t you?”

The second orderly carefully reached for the knife and took it away. A few of the residents behind Karen sighed, and one elderly man clapped.

Karen put her arm around Frank. Between his breath and his body odor, he smelled awful. But she smiled at him. “You recognize me, don’t you, Poppy?”

A smile flickered across his face, and for a second he was her dad again. “Of course,” he whispered. “You’re my little girl.”

She gave his shoulder a squeeze. “That’s right, Poppy. Let’s get you cleaned up, okay?” She led her father toward the cafeteria doors.

Later, while the orderly got Mr. Carlisle changed and back in bed, Karen ducked into the employee lounge to check her phone messages. She’d been volunteering once a week at the Sandpoint View Convalescent Home for half a year now, and knew all the staff. It was one way to ensure her dad got special treatment, one way to keep from feeling so horrible for giving up on him and putting him in there.

In addition to her volunteer day, Karen saw her father at Sandpoint View about twice a week. She’d been driving over to visit him this afternoon when the call had come from Roseann, saying her dad was having an “episode.” Frank had slipped out of his room and under their radar a few times in the past; he’d even wandered off the grounds once. But this was the first incident in which he’d posed a threat to anyone.

Karen knew Roseann would have to take some measures after what had just happened in the cafeteria. They’d probably start him on a new medication, which would make him even more dopey and unreachable. Or maybe they’d move him into Ward E with the severe cases.

Karen didn’t want to think about that right now.

She nodded hello to a nurse, sitting at the table with her iPod and a sandwich. The small lounge had one window with the blinds lowered, and yellow-painted cinderblock walls that someone had decorated with these sappy, inspirational posters entitled Achievement, Friendship, and Tranquility. The photos of people watching the sunset, goldfish in a bowl, and kites flying against a blue sky were fuzzy and the poetic sentiments were written in script. Someone had scribbled BLOW ME in the top corner of the sunset Tranquility poster. There was also a slightly tattered brown sofa, a mini-refrigerator, and a vending machine, along with a coffeemaker on the counter, not far from the sink.

Karen poured herself a cup of their rotgut coffee. She leaned against the counter and checked her cell phone. Amelia Faraday had called.

She had thirty-one clients, and Amelia was the one she cared about the most. At first, Amelia had reminded Karen of someone else, someone she’d lost. Karen figured that maybe by helping Amelia solve her problems, she could help herself. It wouldn’t raise the dead, but maybe she could make some of her own pain go away.

She pushed a couple of buttons on the cell and played the voice mail. Amelia’s slightly shrill, panic-filled voice was like an assault: “Karen? Karen, I left you a couple of messages at home…” She let out a little gasp, then started to cry. “God, Karen, I’m in trouble. Something terrible has happened. I really need to talk with you. Please…please, call me back…”