PARTING SHOT IN THE COUNTRY OF THE OLD

He has been groaning, sometimes yelling, for half an hour now. Not words, but suffocated noises like an old record played on the wrong speed, and in the slurred river of sound you can almost pick out, now and then, some syllable or half-word that comes close to human speech, and that draws your eyes to him for a guilty second before you glance away.

Nobody asked him to sit near the table. Nobody asked him to sit anywhere. Nobody asked him anything at all, because the part of him you would ask, the part that has to do with choice and intention, died years ago. It is survived by his body.

So nobody invited him. He was put here for a while until they move him somewhere else. But you cannot quite forget he was a man. Is a man. When you look at him his eyes implore you to come nearer. As if trying to struggle out of quicksand, he lunges against the straps. The effort does not bring him nearer to you; his wheelchair is fixed so it will only turn in a very tight circle. But this is his job, the only work he has left, so he continues to push against the straps.

Twenty years ago, ten years ago, he might have run a department, a division. Maybe he did deals and met payrolls. Maybe he called people in to straighten out a few details or walk him through a report. Maybe he was an architect, or a plumber, or a truck driver with someplace to be in the morning. Maybe he was a writer who burned to tell the world its secrets, and slammed his fist down on the table when he could not make the right words come.

Now he cannot make any words come. “Maybe he needs to be changed,” says a female attendant. She spends a lot of time mopping floors, but she does not feel subservient here. Why should she? When her shift is over she can walk to the front door and punch the code to open it. Nobody in a wheelchair can do that.



THE WOMAN AT THE TABLE CAN’T DO that. She said she had lived in a four-bedroom, four-bath house in La Jolla, until one day her kids were gone and she decided she wanted something to do, so she went right out that day and got a job selling real estate. So she had a career. Now something has forced her lips back in a perennial frozen grin; her hands are gnarled claws that can barely grip the cigarette the attendant gives her. She cannot have cigarettes or a lighter, not unsupervised. Her mind seems to be all right, though she repeats the story about La Jolla. But she might leave the lighter somewhere. One of the Alzheimer’s people might find it.



A STOCKY MAN STRIDES PURPOSEFULLY into the room, stops, looks around as if trying to locate something, then peers along the wall. He is dressed in street clothes, faded jeans and a pullover shirt. He might be a visitor or a workman come to do repairs. But his mouth hangs open, and he does not seem to know that he is scrunching and distorting his fece. In a moment the purpose fades from his eyes, replaced by confusion. He blinks a few times, then almost falls into the nearest chair. In a moment he is asleep, head slumped on his chest.



“THE WEATHER TODAY IS cold and clear,” says the sign on the wall near the table. Actually it has warmed up and started to rain. The next holiday, the sign says, is Valentine’s Day. Then there will be lots of visitors, even for those who don’t usually have visitors. The more visitors you get, the better they treat you, one woman says. Another agrees. Much better.



SOMEONE HAS BROUGHT FLOWERS. They’re lovely. Someone should put them in water. Here’s a vase. Those are really nice, really nice. Yes, lovely. They really do need to be cut, though, or they won’t live. You’ve got to clip ’em.

Nobody has scissors. Scissors would not be allowed. Mary, the physical therapist, said she would get some and take care of it, but she had something to do first. She may have forgotten. No, here’s Mary! Here she is! She picks up the flowers and cuts the cellophane in one smooth gliding stroke, then snips each rose. You’ve got to cut themon an angle for them to really do well. The faces study her hands as if trying to remember. They watch her steady moves, see her slide each rose into the water. It’s done, and so quickly. Now the women at the table are quiet. The flowers are nice, but there is less to talk about.



SHE IS IN HER SEVENTIES SOMEWHERE. She had a cut on her forehead and she kept scratching it when they weren’t watching until it was the size of a silver dollar and bleeding, She fluffs her hair. Do I look pretty? Yes, dear, very nice. What did I have for lunch? You had a veal cutlet, and mashed potatoes, and I think Jell-O. Was it good? Yes, you ate every bite. Now do you want your raccoon or your bear? Oh, the raccoon.



IT IS TIME TO GO BACK TO THE ROOM. IN the bright hall someone is always mopping and scrubbing. Still there is the septic, subterranean smell that clings to a place where so many have lost control in so many wavs. The woman with the raccoon sits in a chair between the beds, crooning softly and watching television. On the screen are a beautiful woman and a young man without a shirt. They embrace. The old woman looks at the couple and then at the raccoon. She does not see you. Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be; The last of life, for which the first was made!



BACK IN THE CAR, YOU TRY ONE STATION, then another. Nothing slow, nothing soft. Fifty, sixty, seventy. Just past Arlington Stadium, Dallas gleams, fifteen miles away in the twilight. Reunion and the ball, throwing back the sun. The mountain of glass shines on what is possible, what still might be. Then you find the Eagles, the guitars opening “Already Gone,” with a noise that can stand against the night. Turn it up. I will siii-ing this victory song. There is time. The spring is coming, the Rangers may win this year. There is time. Time. These fragments have I shored against my ruin. . .