Lonesome Point (2 page)

Leo said, “The second.” He turned to Martin, the other mental health technician. “Unless you want the second… .”

“I’ll take the last. I had a good rest today.” Martin was at the desk preparing patients’ charts for the next day. Mindless work: filling the charts with paperwork, checking off boxes, signing your name, over and over. Martin was new on staff, so Leo happily gave him the practice.

Leo wheeled the geriatric chair from the TV room into the hallway, parked it a couple of feet from the nurses’ station and covered it with a sheet. He slipped his sweatshirt on. The floor was kept freezing at night under the belief that it encouraged patients to sleep. Leo cracked back the gerri chair; with feet up and his writing pad in hand he could relax and maintain a watch on both the men’s and the women’s sides of the floor. Oh, how rough the night shift could be.

He’d gotten nowhere with his latest poem. He stared at the line he’d written almost two days before and hadn’t the foggiest what would come next. Moments like this made him wonder if he was a phony, how a handful of published poems didn’t mean jack when you sat down to write again. You’re
not
a poet and you don’t know it. Or maybe he did know. He’d not published in almost two years, couldn’t even place a poem in one of those obscure literary journals that paid in free copies. At least he wasn’t writing about Belize anymore and the mistakes he’d made and all that mess he’d said farewell to years ago. At least he could count that as a success.

Time to look for some inspiration. He turned to the door. “Hey, Martin, I’m heading out for a quick cigarette.”

Martin came to take his place in the chair.

Leo headed down the hall to the women’s side, opened the door with a key and stepped out into the warm stairwell. He trotted up to the fifth floor, where a plastic chair waited by the window. The fifth-floor ward had closed down a couple of years back so there was nobody around to spy on him. Leo took a plastic baggie from his pocket, and from the baggie he removed a book of matches and a roach. He sparked it. Sucked deep and held that potent
smoke in his lungs. Repeated the process, then blotted the stub against the window frame, smoke curling from his lips.

Man, it was a warm night. Middle of February and the heat wouldn’t let up. But he was beginning to feel comfortable, all sweet inside. He turned a lazy gaze out the window to the parking lot below. He watched the gate rise and two cars pull out and head up Twelfth Avenue, probably evening-shift nurses going home. Where he wanted to be. In bed with Tessa… . He sat back, let his thoughts wander.

Something across the street caught his attention, somebody standing under the lamppost, a black guy in a suit, staring up at the building. Leo observed him awhile. The man glanced at his watch and glided on, until he was out of sight. Odd. Jefferson Memorial smack in a rough neighborhood like this and a guy in a suit strolling the streets so late?

The intercom crackled, and Leo thought, Shit, here we go.

“Stat team to Crisis. Stat team to Crisis.”

Leo sighed, gathered himself, popped a Dentyne into his mouth. Last thing he wanted to do right now was deal with some wacko the cops were bringing in fresh off the street.

Martin was already slipping on latex gloves when Leo reached the nurses’ station.

Leo said, “You got this one?”

Rose said, “I’d prefer if you go with him. Since he’s new.”

Leo said, “You sure?” Knowing hospital policy required at least two staff members on the floor at all times.

Rose nodded and said to Martin, “For now just stand back and watch the other techs, okay? Only get involved if they need you. See how they do it first.”

“It’s highly complex,” Leo said. “One must employ keen observation.”

Rose rolled her eyes and swiveled the chair back to the desk.

Going out the door, Leo told Martin, “Every call from Crisis Intervention is considered a red code. Been on a red yet?”

“A couple blues only.”

“Expect anything on a red. Like they told you in training.”

Out in the lobby they waited for the elevator. The door behind them had a small window with iron mesh inside the glass, and beside it was a red phone with no dial or buttons. Above it was a sign:

Leo jabbed the down arrow two more times. “Probably giving trouble again. We might have to take the stairs.” Or so he hoped. Then the door slid open and he braced himself before they entered. The door closed, the elevator jerked and started down, and Leo’s mouth went dry.

For years he’d been working on his claustrophobia and just couldn’t beat it. He’d improved his ability to manage it, but the fear never went away completely. He stared at the floor. And this was the elevator that gave trouble, too. Martin asked him a question, but he couldn’t answer. Until he stepped out into the cold, sweet air of the ground-floor lobby.

“No, I’ve never been hurt on a call.” He swallowed, inhaled deeply. “I mean, except for a sprained finger or a couple bruises, I
haven’t been injured or anything. Guy on the fourth floor, day-shift nurse? Patient broke his jaw a few weeks back.”

“I heard about that. Hey, you okay?”

They walked around the corner, past a few despondent-looking souls slumped in chairs. “Yeah, why?”

Martin shrugged. “You look … kinda pale. You sure you’re okay?”

“Course I’m sure,” an edge to his voice. He opened the door to Crisis Intervention. “After you,” leveling his tone. They went in, a few disheveled people watching the TV in a high corner, or gazing into space. Leo lowered his voice. “People here, people outside, they’re waiting to see the triage nurse.” He pointed to an empty Plexiglas booth set diagonally in one corner. “That’s triage. The nurse is away from the desk right now but she’s the person who interviews them, sees if they require hospitalization. Now, this door here, we don’t have a key for it. We’ve got keys for all other entrances but not for Crisis.” He hit a button on the wall, and a few seconds later a tech in green scrubs opened one side of the double doors.

At the end of the bright hallway two uniformed cops with empty holsters stood next to a bare-chested Hispanic man with hands cuffed behind him. Leo led Martin past the nurses’ station and conference rooms. Two techs from Crisis joined them and by the time they reached the cops, techs from other floors were streaming in, tugging on latex gloves.

“The goon squad,” one of the cops said, smiling at them.

Nobody smiled back. Pablo, the Crisis night-shift head nurse, asked him, “So who do we have here?”

“This here is Reynaldo Rivera. Reynaldo was dashing across
1-95 traffic, no shoes, dressed like this. Said he was just waiting for a cab, isn’t that right, Reynaldo?”

The bare-chested man grunted. His feet were filthy and he smelled swampish.

Pablo said, “You know if he has a history?”

“Used to be a patient at Locktown Community Mental Health Center, he says.”

“That’s Dr. Burton,” a female nurse standing by said. “He’ll be here in the morning.”

Pablo gestured to the group of techs. “Let’s take him in the back.”

Two techs held Reynaldo by the upper arms while the cops uncuffed him. Then they led him to a door with a huge window, while another tech opened the door with a key. They guided him into an area surrounded by seclusion rooms, big Plexiglas windows in all the doors. In a couple of the rooms patients were sleeping, restrained to their beds.

The nurse hurried ahead with a sheet to a vacant room, tossed the sheet over the bed, tucked it in. They undressed Reynaldo quickly, slipped on hospital pajamas. Before they laid him down, they gave the restraints a tug to make sure they were buckled tight to the bed. They slapped them around Reynaldo’s wrists and ankles, started locking them with keys.

Reynaldo jerked a leg loose and stamped wildly, catching a tech on the shoulder. Another tech leaped onto the leg, trying to hold it fast to the bed. Reynaldo reared up as far as he could, bucking, neck veins bulging, face red. “Let me go, mothafuckas, I didn’t do nothin’! Let me go!”

“Easy there, easy,” Pablo said.

Leo and another tech grabbed ahold of Reynaldo’s arms and pushed him back down.

His wrists pulled at the restraints. “Don’t do this to me, I’m innocent!”

A nurse rushed in with a syringe, dragged his pajama pants down and stuck the needle in a thigh.

Reynaldo bucked a few more times, swinging his head from side to side. Leo turned his face away, sensing what was coming.

Reynaldo spat. Leo felt some on his neck. The techs at the feet released him and backed out of the room, Leo and the other tech following, the next gob splattering against glass as they slammed the door.

Walking back outside, Leo wiped himself down with a paper towel and said to Martin, “See how they get? The second they know you’re not gonna hurt ’em, when they feel the worst you have is four-point restraints, they lash out. Happens all the time, just be careful.” Leo nodded in greeting as they passed the other techs chatting in a loose circle, peeling off gloves and dumping them in a wastebasket.

Martin said, “You’re not going back up?”

Leo had stopped by the lobby doors outside Crisis. “Just a quick smoke. Tell Rose I’ll be up in five.”

The night air felt comfortable after the arctic chill inside. Leo walked the curb past the Crisis police entrance, where a big red sign said NO FIREARMS ALLOWED BEYOND THIS POINT.

He stopped by the gate to the parking lot and smoked a cigarette, only his third for the day. He’d been cutting back for the last four years. He figured that by age fifty he should have his habit licked, or cancer. He preferred the go-slow attitude in
most things. Maybe that’s why he was still at Jefferson two years after he’d declared the job a dead end. He looked up at the sky, a few stars dim in the city lights. He thought one day real soon he’d have to make some life changes, with a baby on the way, bills growing, his career options shrinking as he grew older. Man, changes were overdue.

A man appeared out of the darkness.

He was on the corner down the street, the man in the suit. Leo stepped on his cigarette, watched him approach.

Then he knew what it was that had piqued his interest earlier on: He recognized this guy’s walk. The guy was short, slim. Grinning. Somebody he knew.

Then Leo recognized him, and all he wanted to do was turn on his heels and walk away far and fast from this dude who could only mean trouble.

Freddy Robinson came out of the past, extending a hand. “Hey, hey, what up, Lee?”

Leo grasped the hand of his onetime buddy and tried to return a smile. They shook hands, embraced, and stood back to look at each other, and Leo hated to admit it, but it
was
kinda interesting seeing Freddy again, how he looked now. The charmer was still handsome, trim in a sharp suit. “You look great, Freddy.”

“Clean living,” Freddy spreading his arms, “exercise, fresh air, fruits and vegetables.”

“And strong white rum to wash it all down.”

Freddy laughed, clapping Leo’s shoulder. “You don’t look too dusty yourself.” He stroked his chin. “What’s up with this?”

“Going for the scruffy intellectual look.” Leo patted his stomach. “Even started early on the middle-age spread.”

Freddy stepped onto the curb beside him. “Still writing the poetry?”

“Yeah, yeah. How ’bout you, still selling auto parts?” Meaning
stolen
parts.

Freddy shook his head, a smile twitching the corners of his lips. “I’m outta parts sales. No money in it. More money in poetry probably.”

Leo chuckled, looked away. Guy was still the same. “So what brings you here, Freddy?”

“Had a date. Was in the area, decided to come by and visit you.”

Leo pushed his hands in his pockets, trying to appear relaxed. Seven years ago he and Freddy had parted on difficult terms, so Freddy saying he was coming by to visit was heartwarming bullshit. “How did you know I work here, Freddy?”

“Easy, dawg. I just asked around. Contacted people we used to run with back in the day. Ask this one, he tell me to ask that one, that one gave me some info, like that.” Freddy gestured to the construction project across the street. “What’s that they’re building?”

“A new mental health annex. This one behind us here, it’s gonna get torn down. Been around since the sixties.” Freddy wasn’t even listening.

“So how you been keeping, Lee?”

“Fine, fine. So was it my brother told you where I work?”

Freddy angled his head and smirked.

Leo said, “Okay, stupid question.”

“Patrick still the same pompous asshole?”

“Careful there, that’s my brother you’re talking about.” Then, “Yeah, of course he is.”

“Just so you know, I don’t hold anything against him anymore. Or against you. I’m over that. I did some thinking. When I was incarcerated. I had time to reflect and I said to myself, Freddy, dawg, let the past fade. Go out there into the future and seize your opportunity and make something of yourself. So that’s what happened. No time for grudges, know what’m saying? I’m through with that, strictly positive vibes I deal with now.” Freddy stretched out his fist for a pound.