All Gone (14 page)

you not to do—” “You told me and you told me and now I'm here doing it on one foot and soon I'll be out on both, or not so soon but a lot sooner than any of my kids' lifetimes so far and later everything will be forgotten and the same. Except I probably won't be doing those things again, that's for sure, but you'll still be hocking me about it till I'm dead. In fact your hocking will make me dead. Look, you want a divorce, it's yours, on a platter. Take the house, the kids, the platter and whatever you find in the mattresses. You find another kid there, take that one along too.” “Don't give me what I don't want. When you get out and if you still want it, we'll talk. The children will be a little older then and maybe more able to adjust to it. But not now.” “Why not now? Why not? Why not?” The guard on her side comes over. “Anything the matter?” “Nothing's the matter, thank you.” “She says nothing but let me tell you what she wants me to do,” tapping the glass to the paper on the table in front of her. “He knows, they all have to know. It had to be screened before it got to you.” “So good, everyone knows. But did you know,” he says to the guard, “she wants to force me to do it? She thinks I'll bend, because prison somehow has weakened me, but not me, sir, not me.” “Please, Simon, let it ride,” she says. “Okay, it'll ride, to please you. Everything to please you, except that goddamn name change.” “Let that ride too.” “I'm afraid to say your time's about up,” the guard says to them. “That's what I really came over to say.” “Okay, okay, thanks, but just a few seconds more—How's the new dentist doing in the office?” he says to her. “Better than the last. He seems to be busy, mostly older people—plates, extractions, primarily, from talking to a few of them going in and out.” “Just like me then. I pull out about ten teeth a day here and does it ever feel good. And some of these guys are
bulvon
, with teeth like dinosaurs'—I'll pull out yours too, Mr. Carey, if you want me to—no charge.” “Thanks but no. Ones I don't need I let fall out.” “Smart guy. And I know you're Carey because you got it stitched on your jacket. Don't let me fool you.” “You didn't.” “But no plates here,” he says to her. “They won't shoot for it for the prisoners. But I already said that. I'm repeating myself when I've only got seconds left. I'd like to be making them. Keep my hands in so I don't get rusty. Does he pay the rent on time?” “First of the month. And for the summer, when he was going to a dental convention in Chicago and then on to a vacation somewhere—Denver, he said; the Grand Canyon to hike and ride horses—” “Lucky guy. Not the hiking, but I used to ride horses. Once in army training, then in Prospect Park a couple of times. I've pictures. You've seem them.” “—he gave me two months in advance. I think he'll be there for as long as we like.” “Tell him not to get too tied to the place. Or why not? I'll open an office someplace else. It doesn't always have to be in my own home.” “Time's really up,” Carey says. “Now we're all breaking rules and can be penalized. Your wife, with shortening her visits. You, because of that. Me, in that they don't like me being this lenient at the end of a visit and I get a talking-to—” “Can I kiss her hand through the bottom hole here?” “Afraid not.” “Right now she wouldn't go for it anyway.” He stands. “Goodbye, dear,” she says. “I mean it: please call and write as often as you can. And try to forget most of what we went over today—what might disturb you.” “The kids. Give them each a big kiss on the head from me.” Carey signals a guard behind the glass, who goes over to her husband. “Tell them I love them like nobody does but don't tell them where I am.” Carey shuts the speaking hole. “Gerald knows.” Her husband cups his hand to his ear and his expression says “What?” “I don't want to get you in trouble here,” she says louder, “but Gerald knows.” “Yeah, I know, I know,” he shouts, “but not the others and tell Gerald not to tell.” Carey opens the hole and says “Everything all right, Yitzik?” Yitzik waves that everything's fine, puts his hand on her husband's shoulder and says “Please don't make a fuss.” “Me? A fuss? You hear that, Pauline? This nice guard here thinks I'm going to make a fuss.—Not good-time Simon, sir. Not a chance,” and without looking at her or back at her he goes with the guard through a door. She puts the paper back into a manila envelope, winds the string around the tab in back to close it, goes through her door, is asked if anything was slipped to her by the prisoner and is given her pocketbook back, calls for a cab, leaves the prison, takes the cab to town, goes to a bar near the train station and has two strong drinks, something she only started doing every day once he went to prison and which she has one or two more of and never has supper or lunch the day she visits him.

 

“So we've come right down to this,” I say.

“Right down to it,” she says.

“Then I'm going.”

“Please do.”

“You were always so polite.”

“Please isn't a dirty word, as we used to say.”

“We used to say ‘is not, is not.' Anyway, I'm on my way.”

I try opening the door.

“The door's locked,” I say.

“Unlock it.”

“I mean the fucking catch in the middle of the damn lock's jammed.”

“You know I don't like the word damn.”

“The epithet, don't you mean?”

“The expletive's more like it.”

“Expletive is really what I meant instead of epithet.”

“Though it could also be epithet, I think. I'm sorry. I'm not sure.”

“You don't mean ‘not quite sure'?”

“Just not sure.”

“But expletive we're both quite or just sure about, correct?”

“At least I am.”

“Then the expletive damn.”

“No, epithet I think is more precise.”

“One or the other: make up your mind.”

“I don't think my choice has to be as decisive as that.”

“I'm sure you meant definitive then.”

“What I meant was that there are other synonyms for the words expletive and epithet. Oath, for instance.”

“Oath, indeed,” I say.

“I meant for the word expletive or epithet—the noun.”

“Expletive or epithet can also be adjectives or exclamations.”

“Damn can, not expletive, oath or epithet. And I'm not even sure if damn can be an adjective. But foul invective's another nounal synonym I'm thinking of for oath. And cuss word, sailor's blessing—plenty of them. Profanity also comes to mind.”

“My dear.”

“To me now that sounds like a profanity—your ‘my dear.'”

“I was only being satirical. No, satirical isn't the word.”

“You're not thinking of ironic?”

“Caricatural—that's the word.”

“Of who?”

“If caricatural's the right word.”

“Even if it isn't, who were you being it of?”

“Ridiculous is the word,” I say. “Though not quite ridiculous, but ridiculing. Though that doesn't sound like the right word either. Help me. What's the word I was being of people before?”

“Which people? That was my question before in slightly different words.”

“You mean ‘what people,' though actually either of our terms could work. But I meant of people who say damn is a profane word. With that certain pinch-nosed, upper-crust, highfalutin accent. You know—the ‘my dear' kind of people. ‘Fancy that, my dear. Nasty weather out, my dear.'”

“Oh, nasty weather in?”

“Nasty weather outside, I meant. But out is acceptable.”

“Inacceptable.”

“Unacceptable.”

“Out isn't acceptable for the word outside. You either say ‘nasty weather outside' or just ‘nasty weather.' If the people you're saying either of these to are inside or outside, they'll know what you mean when you say ‘nasty weather,' as the weather can't be nasty inside unless there's a huge hole in the roof or no roof. And if there is no roof or a very big hole in the roof, then I'm sure their main concern wouldn't be the nasty weather but in getting that roof repaired and possibly a place to sleep that night or for as many nights as it takes to get that roof repaired.”

“I was saying those expressions with the ‘my dear' in them before like a person I'm not—that's all.”

‘“As a person I'm not.'”

“No, you're wrong on that. Absolutely. Maybe I was saying ‘my dear' such as a person I'm not, but definitely not as a person I'm not.”

“Absolutely? Definitely?”

“Almost absolutely or definitely.”

“Well I think you're wrong,” she says.

“You're quite sure, my dear?”

“Quite.”

“Like a person like that. That's all I meant. Like someone who uses the word quite just like you just did.”

“You mean ‘such as a person such as' or ‘as a person such as' or ‘such as a person as that.'”

“Sure about all that?”

“Not quite sure. Not at all. But you were going, did I hear you say?”

“You did. I was going when I found the door was locked. Not locked, I later found, but the hold-and-release catch in the lock was jammed.”

“You also found the door, am I right?”

“I didn't have to find the door. Standing anywhere in your house I know instinctively where's the door.”

“You mean ‘where the door is'?”

“I know instinctively where your door is, yes.”

“And ‘instinctively.' You don't mean ‘intuitively' perhaps?”

“Intuitively and automatically and the rest of those and you be fucking damned let me add.”

“You know I don't like the profanity damn.”

“I said damned.”

“That too.”

“Not ‘that also'?”

“Also or too, either one. You know what I don't like though.”

“I know quite well what you don't like, my dear, and I couldn't give a goddamn.”

“Please go,” she says.

“Nor do I like or appreciate your pleases. They don't mean anything.”

“Then just go.”

“That's better. But your hold-and-release catch, if it is called that, in your rim lock, and I'm sure it's called that, is jammed and the door won't open.”

“Then try and fix it.”

“I can't fix it. And if you can't fix it or find some way to release that catch immediately, I'm going to kick down your door.”

“If that's the quickest way to get you out of here, then please do.”

“I please will.”

“Will you please go?”

I kick the door lock with my heel a few times. The catch spring breaks and the door swings open.

“I'm leaving,” I say.

“Good riddance.”

“You don't mean ‘goodbye'?”

“I mean good riddance and goodbye and all the other vale-dictums, leave-partings and fare-thee-wells.”

“You don't mean valedictions and farewells?”

“I meant and mean them all. Goodbye, good riddance, goodnight forever, ex-partner, and if I never see you again may that be time enough.”

“You don't mean ‘If I never see you again may that be soon enough'?”

“I mean something like that and much more.”

“Well, you know—and I think I can say that ‘you know' even if I don't think I've ever said this to you before—I'm kind of glad to be rid of you too.”

“You haven't quite rid yourself of me yet.”

“Once I leave this house, I mean.”

“The feeling's mutual.”

“That's what I meant.”

She turns her back to me.

“You've nothing more to say?” I say.

She shuts the door.

“Your door can't lock,” I say. “I said your door can't lock. Your door doesn't lock. You'll have to get the door fixed if you want it to lock. I mean, the door lock fixed if you want the lock to lock. Or just another rim lock put on, which means your door fixed if you want your door to lock. Or if I kicked your door too hard when I broke the lock and by doing so also broke your door, then both your door and lock fixed if you want your door with this lock to lock.”

She throws open the door and comes at me with a candlestick. Not “comes at me,” but races toward me with the candlestick. Not “races toward me,” but it's too late as the candlestick comes down on my head. Not “comes down,” but came down and maybe the candlestick came down on my head many times or came many times down on my head or just came down many times on my head, for when I did come to or out of it or out of unconsciousness as it can also be said, I was on a bed in a hospital room, a bandage around my head. And I was trying to remember, so I could make sure I still had the power or ability or facility or faculty or capacity or capability or whatever it is of memory, what it was or why or how I got to this hospital in the first place. What it was about me that was instrumental or whatever the word is that helped bring me here, just so I won't do it again.

 

The nurse. She bathes and dries me. Shaves me and dresses me in my very best. My suit. My white shirt and even has my shoes shined. But she doesn't know how to make a tie right. That's okay. “Just tie it a little tighter at the knot,” I say. She does. “Not so tight,” I say, “or they'll get you for choking me to death and not for letting me expire in a more proper medical way.” She laughs. They like me here. Doctor Sweet Guy I've been nicknamed. That's okay. Undignified expression maybe, but something I've gotten to like. I'd maybe like anything today because it's my third day out of intensive care and a Sunday. And on Sundays everybody has visitors and no matter how many times I've said nobody has to visit me if they got anything else they want to do that day, I'm glad I'm in a room where I can have all I want. My son. My daughter, who's bringing my wife. My sister who lives two blocks away even, though with her who knows? “Two blocks can be the last mile for me,” she said over the phone yesterday. My former longtime patients who some of them I'd really be happy to see.