Amigoland (4 page)

Don Fidencio could tell his daughter didn’t believe that the stroke, however minor, wouldn’t happen again and instead believed
that if he wet himself once, what was to say he wouldn’t wet himself again? And after a while even he started questioning
whether it had actually been an accident or if this was simply what he could expect from his worn-out body. Maybe he should
be happy that he was only pissing himself and not more. Once or twice he had barely wet the front of his pants, but this he
blamed on the slight tremor in his hands. It had happened one morning when he was out having breakfast and went to the restroom
to make water. That time he’d marked his pants just below the crotch and had to go hide away in a stall for close to half
an hour, until he dried off. Now he sat on the pot to avoid having any other accidents, the way Amalia and The Son Of A Bitch
were so convinced he would.

After he adjusted himself on the seat, he grabbed the section of the newspaper he had left down by his pants. He stretched
his arms out slightly to get a better look at the photo. The woman seemed too young, only fifty-four years old. In the next
column it was easy to see this was an older photo and the man was wearing a navy uniform, probably from World War II. He had
to read the paragraph twice before he saw that the man was from 1923, fourteen years after Don Fidencio. Another woman, this
one wearing a mantilla, looked younger than the first.

“Mr. Rosales, are you in there?” The One With The Flat Face knocked once, then cracked open the door.

“And somebody tell me why it is a man cannot have some privacy around here?” he said, yanking back on the handle. “Never will
I understand why there are no locks on these doors.”

“I need to ask if you have Mr. Cavazos’s newspaper,” she said. “He likes to read it before he goes to his therapy.”

“Who?”

“Mr. Cavazos,” she said. “You know, your neighbor here in the room?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” he responded, though he really knew him only as The One With The Hole In His Back.

“Mr. Cavazos pressed the emergency-call button because he said someone had stolen the front section.”

“Do you mean the part with people who have died?”

“If the obituaries are in the front section, yes,” she said. “Do you have it, Mr. Rosales?”

“This is the only part I want to read,” he answered. “The rest of the news I have read too many times — nothing new happens
anymore.”

“Yes, but the obituaries is the part that Mr. Cavazos wants to read this morning.”

“Does he think his name is in there?”

She didn’t respond, but he could hear her saying something to The One With The Hole In His Back, then his roommate shouting
something in that booming voice. After a few seconds, she came back to the door.

“Mr. Cavazos said to tell you that your name would come out long before his.”

“I checked, but it wasn’t there,” Don Fidencio said. “Maybe tomorrow.”

“Okay, Mr. Rosales, that’s enough,” she said. “I need to open the door now and get the newspaper.”

“Wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“So I can be decent.”

“Mr. Rosales, I saw you in the shower yesterday morning, remember?”

“The shower is different.”

“How can it be different if you don’t have any clothes on?”

“For God’s sake, I’m sitting down in here.”

“You sit down over there, too,” she said. “Remember, in the plastic chair, when we wash you?”

“Here I do different things when I sit down.”

“Please, Mr. Rosales, I have other work I need to do and Mr. Cavazos won’t stop pressing the call button.”

“What do you want, for me to walk outside half dressed, like an indio?”

“At least open the door to give me the paper.”

“Can you wait long enough for me to be decent?” He pulled himself up so the flush wouldn’t splash onto his cheeks. Never would
he understand how these women did it every time they had to go.

“Then just slide it under.”

“How do you mean,
under?
”

“Down here, Mr. Rosales.” And suddenly her fingers appeared from under the door like hungry worms.

The old man held on to the railing as he leaned over, tottering close to the floor. He fed only the edge of the paper into
her hand before she snatched the rest of it from him.

When he reached the doorway, he made sure to look both ways before pushing out into the hall. He stayed close to the wooden
railing and had no interest in the pastel paintings on the pastel wall. With his eyes focused on the tile floor just ahead
of him, he kept shuffling along, one foot in front of the other, one foot in front of the other, the whole time leaning on
the walker. He couldn’t tell if the specks on the floor were part of the tile or if they just hadn’t done a very good job
of cleaning that morning. A few more paces, and he spotted a tiny wrapper of some sort that was probably one of his, left
behind by these workers who came around only to steal his chocolates. Near the first corner, he veered into the center of
the hallway to avoid a linen basket someone had left in his way. A few of The Turtles were parked along the wall outside the
showers. The Redheaded Turtle wore a shower cap since she had been to the salon the day before and wanted her coloring to
last before it faded back to the shade of her fluttering white eyelashes. She waved at him with her good hand, but he didn’t
have time to be waving back at Turtles; he was more concerned with keeping the walker’s wheels going in one direction.

He was still getting used to pushing it around. They had given it to him at the rehab center, and at the time he figured it
would be only for the two weeks that he was scheduled to be there. After that he was sure he would go back to using one of
his canes. And maybe this would’ve been the case had he gone to live with Amalia and The Son Of A Bitch, but here they insisted
that he continue using the walker so he wouldn’t have an accident. You don’t want to have an accident, do you, Mr. Rosales?
It seemed these women were just waiting for him to pull one of his canes out of the closet. Then one day the canes disappeared
altogether. We put them away for you, Mr. Rosales, in a safe place. You don’t want to have an accident, do you? And how was
he supposed to answer a stupid question like that? He was lucky to still be walking, period. Why would he want to have an
accident and risk ending up like The One With The Hole In His Back? If only they gave him a chance, he would prove to them
that he was okay to walk with the cane. He knew what they were doing, trying to make him into a useless old man. They wanted
him to become dependent on them for everything, helpless, so that eventually he would forget how to bathe himself or how to
take his own medication or how to eat without getting half his food on his shirt. Look, here comes The Useless One.

And
why?
So he wouldn’t go anywhere, that’s why! They weren’t fooling him. If he had to push around this wheel-barrow to get anywhere,
then what chance did he ever have of leaving on his own? He had made his first attempt only a couple of weeks after arriving.
He’d been smoking his afternoon cigarette under the covered archway where the cars stopped to pick people up. Only two of
The Old Turtles had left during the half hour he’d been out there. One Turtle they lifted in the special van used to transport
the residents to their doctors’ appointments; the other Turtle sat still as her grandson lifted her out of a wheelchair and
set her down in the front seat of his pickup like a duffel bag full of used clothes. After that it was quiet for a few minutes
until the ambulance came wailing up to the nursing home. Two burly paramedics rushed into the building with a gurney and their
bags of equipment, and from there they followed one of the girls down the hall. So much excitement, everyone running around
like a bunch of crazies. Don Fidencio stood up like he might follow them and then suddenly turned into the parking lot and
kept going, pushing the walker because by then they had already taken away his three canes. This is where his daughter had
come to leave him, to die, in a place where they stole your canes when you weren’t looking.

Since there was no sidewalk, he was forced to make his way along the shoulder of the road. At least he was walking against
the traffic and could still save himself if some drunk were to suddenly swerve in his direction. He would’ve been more than
happy to sacrifice the walker. Ten minutes later he had covered two blocks and was now only one block from the bus stop. All
he had to do was climb on board and wait until they reached some part of town he recognized. If he could get across the intersection,
he’d be a free man. He pressed the pedestrian button and kept his eye on the signal that would tell him when to walk. After
what seemed like five or ten minutes of waiting, the symbol of the little walking man appeared. Don Fidencio pushed forward,
but two or three seconds later the little man turned back into a big red hand telling him to stop. He wasn’t even halfway
across the first lane before he had to turn around to avoid the oncoming traffic. Twice it happened to him that way, until
he finally decided to take his chances. He was only waiting for the little man to come out again when one of the girls took
hold of his arm and guided him back to the nursing home. And from then on they had barred him from going out the front door
to smoke and later extended this to include the lobby area when one of The Turtles reported that he’d been asking people for
rides.

He veered the walker into the center of the hall again, this time to avoid a food cart loaded up with the trays of those residents
who couldn’t leave their rooms to eat in the mess hall. A little farther up he had to do the same thing for a hamper and a
dust mop that one of the cleaning people had left propped up against the wall. When he turned the corner, he found that the
therapy room was still locked. He leaned back on the wooden railing and parked the walker to one side. There was no getting
away from it. If they hadn’t made him so afraid of falling down, he would have left it behind somewhere, gone on without any
help.

He held on to the railing with one hand and walked toward the hamper. A few nights ago he’d seen an old black and white about
an innocent man who finally escaped prison by hiding inside a pile of dirty laundry that was later loaded into a delivery
truck. When no one was looking Don Fidencio peeked inside the large container, then jerked away when he caught a whiff. What
a way to die. They needed to drive it out into the country, burn whatever was inside there. He released the foot brake on
the hamper and gave it a good shove, sending it rolling toward the end of the long hall. The walker was next, though it traveled
only a few feet before it skidded off and collided with the railing along the opposite wall. Before he picked up the dust
mop, he thought about sending it off in the same direction. The wooden handle felt as solid as if he were lifting a shovel
to dig a deep hole. He set it down, leaning his weight against it.

He meant to push it only a few steps, maybe clear away some of the specks he could still see on the floor, twinkling like
little colored stars, but after a while he turned the dust mop toward the nurses’ station. He kept his eyes focused on the
tile floor ahead of him and changed direction only to negotiate his way around this Turtle or that Turtle who didn’t have
anywhere better to be than in the way of a man trying to do some work.

“Mr. Rosales, where did you leave your walker?” one of the aides said when he reached the living area. “You need your walker,
sir.”

“Now we don’t want to have an accident, do we?” The One Who Likes To Kiss Your Forehead said as she rushed out from behind
the nurses’ station. She took him by the arm, and he had to yank himself away from her and her smelly perfume.

“That’s okay, Francis.” The One With The Big Ones watched from the doorway of his office. “Just let him for now. He seems
to be making it okay.”

“¡Teléfono!”

A few more aides had gathered by the time the old man circled the nurses’ station. “Eloy’s going to get mad if you take away
his job,” one of them said, and they all laughed.

“¡Teléfono!”

He was about to complete the wide circle and head down the long hall to the right. Just then The Turtle With The Fedora inched
forward in her chair, causing him to jig to one side. “This one thinks that somebody’s going to pay him so he can buy more
of his dirty cigarettes.”

“¡Teléfono!”

“You’re doing an excellent job there, Mr. Rosales,” The One With The Big Ones called out. “Keep up the good work.”

Don Fidencio focused on the space ahead of him and pretended he hadn’t heard any of their comments. They thought it was all
so curious and funny, an old man cleaning the floors. Never mind that he was doing them a service, something they should be
doing themselves. Instead it looked like they had cleaned the floors with their feet. What kind of place were they running
here anyway? So much for their rules and regulations. He pushed the dust mop out in front of him. There were three more halls,
just as long, and after that the mess hall and recreation room. Wait until they saw the work he had done, then we’d see who
was laughing.

T
he old man opened the #3 shoe box for his cigarettes and lighter and stuffed these into his pocket. Then he pulled out the
pack so he could count how many were left. The over-bed lamp reflected off the darkened blinds and onto the ruffled sheets
across the mattress. He staggered back to the closet, leaning against the edge of the bed for support, and retrieved the #1
box and placed it on the overbed table with the other box. He did the same with the #2, #4, and #5 boxes. It was part of his
morning routine now to do an inventory count at the start of every day. How else was he going to know when these people were
dipping into his shoe boxes for another piece of chocolate or to take one of his pens or simply to move things around in an
effort to make him think he couldn’t keep track of his things? The One Who’s Losing His Mind.