Bruce Wagner - Memorial

Chess saw more of his sister than he had in years. When Joan 1st told him about the scammers he exploded with rage. He wanted to get his hands on them, for real. He didn’t think anyone was pissed enough, including the cops.

Laxmi volunteered to help take care of Marj but his sister politely declined, having arranged for RNs during the day. Someone came to stay at night if Joan couldn’t herself. The feeling he got was that she didn’t trust him to sleep over, not alone anyway. That was cool. He’d rather not but the vibe was galling. Whatever. Let her do her princess controlly thing. He just wanted Mom to be comfortable — the woman had been through hell. If Joanie needed a lot of warm, hired bodies around, so be it. As long as they didn’t steal anything, no problemo. If he caught anyone stealing, heads were definitely gonna roll. There would be blood on the tracks. Still, he didn’t dig the posturing. She’d actually told Chess not to smoke weed “in front of the caregivers” and that was weird. Like that was his big plan. He started thinking Joan didn’t want him to spend the night for fear he was going to nod out while Mom aspirated or whatever. The thing that did bother him was Joan’s attitude toward Laxmi, who was nothing but a fucking Good Samaritan. Joan was a bit condescending, not that Laxmi even noticed, but Chester did, and he was ready to mix it up with little sis before realizing the whole thing was probably about age difference. What a drag it is getting old.

Laxmi was hot and Joan was not (so much anymore, anyway) — so he let it slide.

MARJ made sure someone continued going to Riki’s for lottery tickets chosen from the fortune cookie numbers. It was the highlight of her day. The doctors said that Marjorie was depressed (she was now on Adderall, which Chess cadged when he was bored: he thought he could make a killing with Speed Thrills T-shirts) and that whatever gave her pleasure was a good thing. If Joan or Chester couldn’t make it to the liquor store, Cora or one of the helpers went.

Mr P had taken a turn for the worse and was hospitalized again — if you listened to the neighbor, he was the Lance Armstrong of Doggie World. She was down in the dumps herself; running little errands and reading the tabloids aloud to Marj were pleasing distractions. She was a nice lady and all, and Chess could see how it cheered her up just to hang with someone who was so much more fucked. But that was cool. Just human nature. Even though he didn’t feel that way when he hung with Maurie.

The situation with his mom was a distraction for Chester as well, and he visited Maurie less. He slowly understood that seeing his friend wasn’t such a healthy thing because it emanated not from compassion but rather to assuage his own conscience and even monitor the invalid’s progress — to see with his own eyes if by some fluke Maurie was getting closer to being able to articulate what Chess may or may not have tearfully confessed. (If he were getting better, the consequences could be both wonderful and terrible.) He still dallied with the idea of telling the police what happened but that fantasy was getting tired. Chess had even gone online a few times, nearly presenting his case (anonymously) à la “this is what went down with ‘2 friends I know,’ and I was wonderin what y’all out there think, blah,” though he always chickened out and just sat staring at the screen. It wasn’t safe, even if everybody lied about everything, on- and offline, and no one really cared; nowadays keystrokes could be traced with spyware, and that would be Chess’s karma — to get busted for testing the waters. There were people monitoring email just to see what your likes or dislikes were, and they didn’t even need a subpoena. For all he knew, his buddy Captain PT-109 Servano might already have had his suspicions and be a member of some medical watchdog association, logged on to his keyboard and connecting the dots whenever Chess went surfing. Like that guy Pellicano: the phones he tapped supposedly rang in his own house so he’d be able to eavesdrop from the comfort of his own bed or shitter. Chess remembered the story of the guy who copped to a murder during an AA meeting and everybody thought about the moral dilemma (anonymity, right?) for like 3 seconds before snitching. There was another AA guy who wrote a letter to some chick he sorta raped way back when as part of his amends. She snitched on him too and even though he changed his story, it was too late and his overly contrite ass was headed upriver. Still, the confessional scenario did bounce around in his head and he thought that as long as Maurie hadn’t died (it bothered him to even go there), the authorities wouldn’t come down too hard. And as long as he didn’t die, Chess probably wouldn’t cop, but he knew that if Maurie passed, he wouldn’t be able to hold his mud. What could they charge him with? “Death by Viagra”? Like fuckin bad Agatha Christie. That would be tough. He could already hear the jokes on Leno and Letterman. Maybe they’d give him probation or, say, a year in the tank, at worst. But what did he know — he’d planned the thing, right? Motive could definitely be proven, revenge and jealousy demonstrated: 2 classics. Lady Justice didn’t look too kindly on premeditated crimes, no sir. And if Maurie did die — because face it, healthcare workers fucked up aplenty, it was almost a rule of thumb, a given, people croaked from routine errors every day, patients were fucking offed, and Chess was pretty sure that most of the time no one ever found out (aside from the nurses who were serial killers, and most of them probably hadn’t even been caught), there was so much incompetence at so many levels, he’d just read an article in the paper about a drunk surgeon who went ballistic because he had to wait too long for sterilized instruments and was wrestled to the ground outside the operating room by 5 cops, and for someone like Maurie — look at Chris Reeve — well, quads always got pneumonia or complications or whatever, they wound up circling the drain no matter how much money they had or how famous they were, except maybe Terry Schiavo, she’d have lived to a hundred if they hadn’t executed her, so why was he beating himself up? — he couldn’t even remember his train of thought. If Maurie did crap out, say, as even an indirect result of the original incapacitation, Chess was thinking he would definitely be charged with homicide. Then he had an epiphany. How stupid am I? It wouldn’t be homicide, it’d be manslaughter. He’d watched enough TV to be pretty sure. Maybe he’d suck it up and visit a free online legal clinic to ask a hypothetical, couching it in whatever. He’d have to think of a way that wouldn’t sound too suspicious because even online lawyers could smell shit; might be worse than a chatroom. But they could never prove intent to kill. Since when was Viagra a weapon? Anyhow, maybe it hadn’t even been Viagra, plus he didn’t exactly overdose him; he’d only given him one. I mean until the Supreme Court rules stiff dicks to be weapons he was in the clear, there never was a weapon, Chess would consent to a thousand lie-detector tests, and happily take the stand. Swear on a stack of Schiavos. Half the jury would probably laugh before letting him off. If Robert Blake was innocent, Chester Herlihy was a fucking saint. A capital charge would be insane. That would be equivalent to saying the Friday Night Frighters had premeditated murdering Chess himself. No way would homicide stick. Maybe he could attract a celeb attorney, fuck Remar, Remar was a bush-league bush baby, he’d be able to get one of the big boys, because the case would be such a media magnet. Might even make a good little movie on Showtime — or something classier, with Ed Norton as Chess and the pudgy guy from Capote as Maurie and someone like Lindsay Lohan as Laxmi. He started to breathe easier; he’d gotten all worked up. For nothin. Maybe the charge would be something even less than manslaughter, like “reckless mischief” or “marauding” or “annoying” or whatever, there were all kinds of funny little obscure statutes (like the one about “bothering” children). They could probably get him on slipping someone a controlled substance without their knowledge. Yeah, that one was a bitch. That one he couldn’t dodge. But if the controlled substance led to the person’s death…