Amigoland

13

The morning light shined brightest in the far corner of the therapy room. One of the girls had stopped to buy pan dulce, and the white bag lay torn open on the kitchen table. The pink cake had been the first to go; someone was still picking at the chocolate mollete and had left most of the sugary crumbs on a paper napkin. The boom box atop the refrigerator was tuned to a Tejano station, which was loud enough to be heard at the other end of the room.
Don Fidencio sat next in line to The One With The Hole In His Back. Earlier he had been first in line, but The One With The Puffy Cheeks came up and said that The One With The Hole In His Back had to go first because he wasn’t supposed to be in his wheelchair too long on account of his wound. Don Fidencio had to do as the man said and move over. Never mind that he had made special efforts to be there early, wolfing down his tasteless oatmeal, limiting his time on the pot, pushing his walker there ahead of time. And for what? So The One With The Hole In His Back could cut in front? It wasn’t fair, but he had come to understand that very little was fair if a man happened to live in a prison. He ate only when the aides told him to eat; he watched his baseball games at the volume he wanted only until one of them came around and told him his neighbors were trying to sleep, no matter if it was extra innings or not; he bathed only when it was time again for them to wash his parts, and never as good as he would have done it himself; and he was allowed out of the main building by himself only to sit on the back patio for a smoke, and only during certain hours of the day.
Of the eight people waiting in line, he was the one person sitting in a regular chair and dressed in clothes decent enough to be worn out in public: black orthopedic shoes, khakis, checkered flannel shirt, red suspenders, red-and-black Astros cap. The One With The Hole In His Back wore his usual maroon pajamas and tan moccasin slippers, but now also with his beige cowboy hat that normally hung off the headboard.
He motioned for his roommate to come closer.
“WHAT DAY IS IT TODAY?”
Don Fidencio pulled away when he remembered the volume of his roommate’s voice. “Tuesday.”
“EH?”
“Tuesday. Today is Tuesday,” he said a little louder.
“TUESDAY?”
“Yes,” he answered, and nodded at the same time. “Today is Tuesday.”
“ARE YOU SURE TODAY IS TUESDAY?”
Don Fidencio stared at his watch, focusing on the enlarged numbers and the date. “Yes,” he said more confidently. “Tuesday, the first of February.”
“THEY BROUGHT ME IN ON A TUESDAY.”
“Pues, that must have been another Tuesday.”
The One With The Hole In His Back raised his cowboy hat and scratched his head, pushing the wisps of white hair to one side.
“LAST TIME I ASKED THE NURSE WHAT DAY IT WAS, SHE SAID TUESDAY. EVERY TIME I ASK, THEY TELL ME THE SAME THING: ‘TUESDAY. TODAY IS TUESDAY.’ YOU TELL ME, HOW MANY TUESDAYS CAN THERE BE? ARE THERE NO MORE DAYS OF THE WEEK? DID THEY CHANGE THE CALENDAR SINCE THEY PUT ME IN HERE? HOW CAN IT ALWAYS BE THE SAME? TUESDAY, TUESDAY, ‘TODAY IS TUESDAY,’ THAT’S ALL THEY EVER TELL ME.”
Don Fidencio looked blankly at him.
“Ask tomorrow and I bet you get a different answer.”
The One With The Hole In His Back flicked his wrist as he turned away.
This was the only time of day Don Fidencio saw his neighbor outside of their room. They served him his meals in bed and he didn’t spend any time in the recreation room or out on the patio. While in the hospital healing from his hip surgery, he had developed a bedsore on his backside. By the time he arrived at Amigoland, the bedsore had worsened enough that his body now needed to be rotated from one side to the other in order to relieve any pressure on the wound. Every two hours an aide came to turn him partially onto his side and then slip a couple of thick pillows under him so he would stay propped up in that position. The One Who Likes To Kiss Your Forehead stopped by once a day to change the dressing. A few weeks earlier, she’d come around, given The One With The Hole In His Back his usual kiss on the forehead, and forgotten to shut the retractable curtain all the way. Don Fidencio barely had to lean back to see the bedsore was located near the tailbone and appeared to be about the size of a fist, with the exposed meat infected around the edges, as if a small animal with very sharp teeth had spent the night gnawing out a hole. He winced as he pulled away from the curtain, cursing himself for not minding his own damn business.
“Okay, Mr. Cavazos, it’s your turn now.” The One With The Puffy Cheeks crouched down and pulled the old man’s wheelchair closer.
“LEAVE ME ALONE.”
“Come on, Mr. Cavazos, this is going to be fun,” The One With The Puffy Cheeks said, stretching his big face into a smile. “Don’t you want to have fun?”
“THIS IS FUN FOR YOU, TO TORTURE AN OLD MAN?”
“We just want to make you feel better, sir.”
“THEN YOU SHOULD LEAVE ME ALONE.”
It took both therapists to lift him from his wheelchair up to the specialized walker. They helped him place his forearms on the padded armrests and wrap his hands around the two foam-covered handles. Once he was positioned, he gazed down at his fluffy moccasins.
“You have to look up, Mr. Cavazos. Up at me,” The One With The Puffy Cheeks said, facing him, ready to walk backward. The second therapist was standing behind the walker, holding on tightly to the cinch they had strapped around the old man’s chest. “With your head up, Mr. Cavazos, like you and me are dancing a polka.”
“YOU THINK THIS IS EASY?”
“Nothing comes easy, Mr. Cavazos. We all have to work hard to see results.”
The old man sighed and took a couple more tentative steps.
“Spread your legs out a little, sir, and stand up more straight. You’re leaning too much on the walker.”
“DON’T BE TELLING ME WHAT TO DO.” He took another two paces, stepping pigeon-toed, and barely moved beyond where they had started. He was leaning most of his weight on the armrests and his back end was hanging low, as if he were carrying an anvil inside his diaper.
Don Fidencio stood up to leave. If he was going to waste his morning sitting around, he preferred to do it in his own room. He had already grabbed hold of the walker when The Filipina Who Looks Like A Boy came up to him and stood a couple of inches from his face.
“And good morning to you, Mr. Rosales. How are you feeling today, sir?”
“Good morning,” he said as he strained to read the name stitched on her baggy scrubs. He had never met a person named Mandy, but he guessed it must be a woman’s name. She was small, like a woman or a frail boy. The scrubs were too big on her and he couldn’t tell if she had a pair of chiches in there somewhere.
The Filipina Who Looks Like A Boy helped him sit back down, then gave him a long rubber cord with handles on both ends. He held one of the handles in his right hand as she hooked the other handle around his right shoe.
“You remember how we do these, Mr. Rosales? These are the ones for your arms.” She demonstrated by standing in front of him and curling her skinny little arm toward her chest. “It’s easy, right? Can you do ten like that for me, sir?”
He nodded, not really sure what the girl had just asked him, but he agreed so she would stop with all her questions.
“One… two… three… very good, Mr. Rosales, very good… four… five…”
He continued on when she turned to help one of the other therapists with a resident. He wasn’t quite sure how pulling a rubber cord up and down was going to help one bit; the problem was with the strength in his legs, not his arms. But this was about the only thing there was to do at this hour, unless he wanted to go back to the recreation room to watch the talk shows with their guests that didn’t interest him, or take part in some silly group activity like playing volleyball with a balloon, or singing and clapping with The Jesus Christ Loves Everybody Women who came around every morning, tempting people with their free doughnuts. At least here he thought he could show the therapists how much he had improved, and then, God willing, they might tell the other ones to give him back his canes. And if he got his canes back, he was that much closer to leaving this place.
“So good, Mr. Rosales. Very strong,” The Filipina Who Looks Like A Boy said, leaning in close to his face. “Can you do ten more for me now, the same way?”
If she wanted him to do twenty, he didn’t know why she didn’t say this from the beginning. She needed to make up her mind, instead of expecting him to follow her commands like some trained animal.
“Eight, nine, and… ten! Very good, sir!”
Next she wanted him to keep his arm curled and extend his leg, stretching the rubber cord in the other direction. This didn’t feel any more strenuous than the first exercise.
“Three… four… way to go, Mr. Rosales… five… six…” She patted him on the arm. “You’re doing very good, sir.”
After a while he lost himself in the singsong way she counted off the repetitions, and then counted them off again when he did the extra ten she asked for. He could have been up to fifteen repetitions or he could have been up to seventy-eight, he knew to stop only because she told him to and took away the cord and replaced it with something else, like the big yellow ball that he was supposed to hold between his legs and squeeze, over and over, as if he were a chicken laying an enormous yellow egg. None of it made any sense to him, the squeezing, the curling, the extending. All he knew was there was a time when his arms and legs were so strong that he could walk the whole day, sunup to sundown, even if he’d had to deliver the mail while carrying this skinny filipina on his back. And now here he was, doing these exercises so he could hold on to what little of him was left and maybe someday take this with him when he got out of here.
“Last exercise, Mr. Rosales,” she said suddenly. “Over here, sir, on the table.”
Her voice had startled him. He looked up when she took away the big yellow ball and gently grabbed hold of his hands to help him stand.
“Don’t forget your walker, Mr. Rosales. Remember, no walking without the walker.”
He shuffled across the room toward the matted table. He parked the walker to one side and sat on the edge of the exercise station, waiting for the girl to help him lift his feet so he could lie flat.
“I’m going to take your baseball cap and put it right over here so you don’t forget it, Mr. Rosales.”
He lay still as she hung the cap on one of the handles of the walker. The mat felt just as firm as his mattress back in the room.
“Almost done, sir,” she said a little louder. “Don’t fall asleep on me, okay?”
She lifted his left leg off the mat, then gently bent the leg in the direction of his chest, stopping when he moaned, then extended it a ways and lifted it up a few inches.
“Can you move your leg down, sir? Pushing against my hand?”
He tried to nod but found it difficult with his head on the mat. After struggling for a moment, he managed to push his leg down an inch or two. He could feel the tendons stretching and coming to life with every little bit that she moved his leg back up.
With all the bending and extending, his khakis had risen and The Filipina Who Looks Like A Boy was now touching his bare skin. Her little hands felt soft from the lotion she must have rubbed on them that morning. He tried to remember the last time a woman had touched him. The showers and sponge baths didn’t count as touching since the aides were wearing gloves and working so routinely that at times it felt as though he were going through a car wash with a half dozen other old men waiting in their wheelchairs behind him.
“Very good, Mr. Rosales. Getting stronger every day.”
The Filipina Who Looks Like A Boy moved his bent leg slowly backward, stopping when she saw him straining, then extended it a ways and bent it forward only slightly. He liked the way she smelled, the scent of her hair, even if it was cut so short like a boy’s. After a while he relaxed a little more and allowed her to move his body through the exercises.
It wasn’t Petra who had touched him last, that he knew. She barely got next to him and didn’t so much as sleep in the same bed those last few years she was in the house. He couldn’t say exactly when this had started, though he had an idea it had something to do with one woman or other he’d been seeing so long ago that it shouldn’t have mattered anymore. She never actually caught him, only suspected or heard talk of him here or there. He wanted to remember being with a woman who lived near the highway, on the 78520 side. Earlier he’d had her up on the kitchen counter, until this wasn’t working for him, and he had carried her that way, his work pants still caught between his ankles, so they could get down to the carpet on the living room floor, where after a few minutes he finished with a furious thrust that made her scream out and then laugh loud enough to be heard in the next trailer.
“And that?” Petra asked later that night.
“I fell walking up some steps.” He had just taken off his pants and tossed them on the chair.
“Did you get hurt?” She came to take a closer look, but he turned as if he needed some privacy to pull up his pajamas. Even after washing himself off again in the restroom at the post office, he knew he couldn’t be too careful around her.
“It was nothing, just a little scrape.” He yanked back the covers and climbed into bed.
“To both knees, and it was nothing?”
“Leave it already.”
“Why won’t you show me?”
“I need to go to sleep.”
“You’re acting like you do when you want to hide something.” She was still standing at the foot of the bed.
“Yes, Petra, I am always hiding something from you. That’s why I get up at six o’clock every morning, to hide things from you.”
“Then tell me how you could fall and not get hurt.”
“Turn the light off and come on to bed.”
“And not just one knee.”
“You try walking around all day carrying the bag, see if you don’t fall down sometimes. I wish you could, just so you would know. Maybe one of these days I’ll pull you away from the sofa so you can come see what I do all day, what I like to hide from you.”
“You never fell before.”
“And how do you know?”
“You never said anything.”
“Y qué, I have to report this to you? ‘Petra, today I fell because a big dog was chasing me and I couldn’t run with the bag.’ ‘Petra, today I fell because they sent out the Sears catalogs.’ Like that, is that what you want?” He shook his head at her ideas.
She turned off the light and climbed into bed. He rolled onto his side, away from where she was fluffing up her pillow. Finally some peace, he thought. He reached down under the covers and felt where he had scraped the skin off his knees. Tomorrow morning, while she was still asleep, he would rub some ointment on the burns and in a few days they would heal up like new. By then she would let it go. He rolled back over, squinting, when the light came on again. Petra was standing next to the chair, holding up his uniform as if presenting a piece of evidence to the jury.
“He falls, scrapes both knees, but somehow he doesn’t tear his pants,” she said, and turned off the light.
Never mind that he had walked mile after mile, year after year, and always come home with his paycheck, for her, nobody else. And after paying the bills, she could spend it however she wanted. With nobody looking over her shoulder, asking so many questions, as she did to him. She chose to forget that part when she finally went to live with their daughter. Afterward he wondered if she had ever been happy, maybe at least for the first few years. He would have asked her, but he was afraid of what she might say, and then the next time he saw her was years later at her funeral.
“Eh?”
“I said, ‘This far is very good for a man your age, Mr. Rosales.’” The girl was moving his leg up and down, up and down, like she was changing a flat with a tire jack. “These exercises are going to help with your flexibility.”
Maybe it was one of the young waitresses at the cafés he used to go to after he retired. They were tricky, that he remembered. It wasn’t so easy knowing which of them might be interested and which were talking to him, patting him on the shoulder, letting their hands linger a bit, only so they might get a more generous tip. He wanted to recall being parked to one side of a café, around from the grease disposal, and she still being in her uniform and scooting over next to him. He’d gone to the flea market to buy a gold-plated bracelet and have her name engraved on it, as a way of getting her to come outside during her break. What her name was, what she looked like, what she smelled like, what her mouth tasted like, how she kissed him or undid his pants or what might have happened after that, or if anything did, was lost to him now. He must have been still in his sixties, before women started treating him as if he were a harmless old creature and what he had once carried between his legs had now shriveled up and fallen off, which was only slightly better than those who avoided him altogether, as if his advanced age were contagious.
Don Fidencio closed his eyes and tried to think of what he could do to fill the rest of the day. It was still another two hours until lunch, which was long enough that he could easily fall asleep for a nap. He didn’t like wasting his day in bed, though. Maybe he could go sit on one of the sofas near the nurses’ station. If he dozed off there, at least he wasn’t in bed. There were some days that the mail came in before 10:30, the time when everyone started moving toward the mess hall for lunch. He was waiting for the day when they would switch mail carriers and get one with a more pleasant nature who wasn’t always rushing off and didn’t mind sitting for a while to talk.
“How does that feel, Mr. Rosales?”
He opened his eyes, and the girl was gently lowering his leg, cradling his calf in her little hand.
“Good, it feels good,” the old man said, straining to make out the name on her scrubs.