Desert Discord Page 9

  The big window is the coda to the walk and the song. When he reaches the window, the circle is complete, and the walk and the music will either begin again, or a young woman will take him by the hand and lead him back to a bed in a darkened room.

  Today, Andy stops at the window for longer than usual, because something gets his attention. Some men are doing some task on the roof of the building far below. One of them is uncoiling a long green thing, pulling and pulling hand over hand so that the long thing is coming off the big thing it was rolled around and landing in a larger coil at his feet. It is a long green rope. Except … no … that isn’t the word. It’s not a rope. It’s … a thing that squirts water … a rope that squirts water … A common thing that’s used every day in … greenhouses … and … gardens. To water the plants. It’s a … no, not a rope, but it sounds like “rope.”

  The men finish uncoiling their rope-things, and then turn the … turning things attached to the other things. The two men separate and walk the length of the rooftop, one on each side, pausing at large pots in turn. There are a dozen large pots in all, and in each one is a little tree. In the center of the roof is a large blue place filled with water, and there are long chairs and umbrellas. It’s … a swimming pool. But nobody is swimming in the pool, just two men in dark blue overalls walking the length of the roof along each side, watering the little trees in the large pots. One of the men is making faster progress than the other. He pauses at each pot about thirty seconds and then moves to the next. The other man spends a lot more time at each pot, holding his … hose.

  That’s it. It’s called a “hose.”

  The young woman who was with Andy took him gently by his left hand.

  “Would you like to walk some more?” she asked. “We need to keep going. We only went around twice. There’s nothing much to see out this window.”

  Andy turned to look at her. He recognized her but didn’t know her name. She was dark and Spanish and pretty and small, and she wore a dress with stripes.

  “Overwatering,” Andy said.

  The girl in the stripy dress turned to face him with a big smile.

  “Hey!” she said. “Look who decided to start talking. What did you say?”

  “I said … he’s overwatering,” said Andy. “Look.” He pointed down at the roof of the building with the … swimming pool in the center. “See? Too much water. There’s water coming out … the bottom. But he keeps on watering. That kind of plant doesn’t need much water. He’s going to hurt them. Hurt their rooms … room … their roots.”

  “Wow,” she said. “Andy, that’s more words than you’ve said to me in a week. Let’s walk some more. The doctor says you need to walk at least twenty minutes. You can tell me more about plants.”

  Andy let the girl guide him, walking on his left side. His right arm was in a … what was it? A hard white thing. A … catch? A cap?

  They walked along the hallway.

  “Do you like plants?” the girl asked. “I can’t grow anything. My boyfriend gave me a rosebush, and we planted it in the yard at my mom’s house. It looked good for a few weeks, but then it started turning yellow and all the leaves fell off. I don’t know why. I gave it plenty of water, and fertilizer, too.”

  “The soil was probably too … I can’t think of the word,” said Andy. “But you need to put … something yellow … sulfur … in the soil. Roses like that.”

  “Sulfur?”

  “Yeah. You can get it. The … plant store.”

  They rounded the corner, and Andy saw his little sister Pauline coming down the hall the other way. He smiled, or tried to. It made his face hurt.

  “Hi, baby doll,” he said.

  Pauline’s face lit up. “Andy!” she said. She bounced over to him and hugged him gently, avoiding the arm that was in a … cast. The word was “cast.” “You talked!”

  “Your brother and I have been having a conversation about plants,” said the other girl. “He’s been telling me how to grow roses.”

  “Andy!” said Pauline. “Wait right here. No, go ahead and keep walking, I’ll be right back.”

  She ran back up the hallway and around the corner, narrowly avoiding an old woman in a robe who was rolling an IV stand.

  “Young lady! Be careful! No running!” called a woman in a white uniform. A … What were they called?

  Andy could hear Pauline in the other hall. “Mama!” she squealed. “Andy’s talking!”

  Peggy Zamara came hurrying around the corner with Pauline.

  “Hi, Mama,” said Andy.

  “My baby,” she said, and kissed him gently on the side of his face that didn’t hurt. “I knew you’d come back.”

  Come back?

  “Let’s keep walking,” said the … candy striper. That’s what she was. “We can all walk together. Lunch will be coming in a few minutes.”

  “What … time?” Andy asked.

  “Eleven fifteen,” said Peggy.

  “Eleven fifteen,” Andy repeated.

  The four of them walked.

  “Andy, do you know where you are?” asked Peggy.

  Andy thought. Ladies, white uniforms, beeps and clicks and whooshing sounds, machines breathing. Lots of people, most of them old. Pajamas.

  “The hospital.”

  “That’s right! Do you know what it’s called? I’ve told you several times.”

  Andy thought. He knew he’d been in this place for some time. He had walked these halls, and he knew there was a room with a bed, and flowers. But he couldn’t put a name to it.

  “Don’t remember,” he said.

  “That’s okay. We’re going to practice until you do remember. You’re at Connolly Rehabilitation Center. It’s not a regular hospital. It’s where people go to get better when they’re hurt.”

  “Why am I here?” asked Andy.

  “Because you were hurt, baby. Do you remember being hurt?”

  Andy thought. He had many, many memories, but they didn’t seem in any particular order, like a box full of knickknacks. “No,” he said. He looked down at his right arm, the one in the cast. “My arm is hurt,” he said.

  “That’s right,” said Peggy. “And your head. You got a bad head bump.”

  “A guy bashed your head,” said Pauline. Her mother gave her a sharp look and shook her head.

  “I don’t remember,” said Andy.

  A nurse came walking up behind them. “Serena! You want to bring him back? His lunch is ready.”

  Andy turned around. “Lunch,” he said.

  “Hey, you’re speaking!” the nurse said. “That’s great. I’ll let Dr. Faust know.”

  It was daytime. The same day? He didn’t know. Light came through the window of his room, filtered by several vases of flowers. Some of the flowers looked old and wilted. They all had cards attached to them. Andy thought that maybe they should throw away the old flowers, because they were sad things to look at. Some of the flowers were still pretty and fresh.

  Andy often heard music, but it became quieter whenever he opened his eyes and thought of something else. He looked around the room. Pauline was gone, but his mother was there. She was in a chair with her eyes shut and seemed to be asleep. Andy was in bed, a hospital bed where the back could crank up until you sat upright, and at the moment he was sitting upright. He could hear the music, symphonic music, but he decided it wasn’t coming through his ears but was inside his head. He wanted to keep the music coherent, to keep it from breaking into meaningless fragments.

  He shut his eyes, and he was in his chair on the stage at Blocker Auditorium, holding his violin up, waiting for the conductor’s signal to begin. Andy held up his left hand, but he couldn’t hold the bow in his right hand, because of the cast, so he held his bow with an imaginary hand. He imagined Dr. Dietz on the podium, holding up his baton in the ready position. What was he supposed to play? He would know in a few moments.

  Dr. Dietz gave four quick little swishes through the air, and the music began. It was Mahler’s
“Das Klagende Lied,” and Andy moved his fingers to play. He couldn’t see the sheet music, but he knew the second-violin part by heart. It was a beautiful, youthful piece, written when Mahler was only eighteen years old, and Andy heard it clearly and heard his own imagined violin clearly. As he moved his fingers, he came to feel the neck of the violin in his hand and the weight of the instrument under his chin. His imaginary right arm bowed in broad strokes.

  Da dah-da DAH, da-da DAH, the music soared. The timpani thundered boom-BAH boom-bah, and Andy played. He could make music in his head, make the fragments whole. What a wonderful discovery! Andy played and played, and the music sounded as clear as if he were sitting in his chair with the orchestra. He intended to play the entire Mahler symphony.

  “Hello, Mr. Zamara!”

  Andy popped his eyes open and the music collapsed. One or two violins kept playing for a few seconds, then stopped. That was annoying.

  It was a doctor, white coat and reddish face and puffy cheeks. Andy thought he looked familiar but couldn’t name him. Andy looked for his mother, but she had left the room.

  “I understand you’ve been talking to the nurse,” said the red-faced doctor. “I figured you would sooner or later. Do you remember who I am?”

  Andy thought. “You’re … a doctor …” He searched, but the name evaded him. He should know.

  “Faust,” said the doctor. “Dr. Larry Faust.”

  Faust. That sounded right. He knew he’d heard the name before. It made him think of Franz Liszt and the “Faust Symphony, Number 108.”

  “Hi,” said Andy.

  “It’s good to hear you speaking. I thought we were getting somewhere yesterday when I asked you what you did for a living. Do you remember that?”

  “Uh … no.”

  “You didn’t tell me, but you started humming music for me and held your hand up like you were playing the violin, so I knew the question had gotten through. I think you’re starting to recover, my friend,” said Dr. Faust. “Maybe, in your case, music is the key to triggering brain activity. Perhaps we can bring in a radio or a small record player, as long as we don’t play it too loud.” He held a long pad of paper in his hand, and he turned back a sheet. “Okay, let me ask you some questions. First, do you know where you are? I’ve asked you that question every day.”

  “The hospital.”

  “That’s right. Do you know the name of this facility?”

  “Uh … Connolly? Connolly something.”

  “Excellent! You’re in Connolly Rehabilitation Center in … what city? Do you remember?”

  “What city? Uh … Duro?”

  “No. Duro is the city you live in. We’re in Lubbock. Do you know where that is?”

  “Yes. That’s … where I went. College. At Texas Tech.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know that!” said the doctor. “I’m a Red Raider myself. We’re just a few blocks from campus. Welcome back!” The doctor scribbled some notes.

  “Here’s another question. Do you remember anything about how you got hurt?”

  “A guy bashed me.”

  “Do you have any recollection of the incident?”

  “No. My little sister told me.”

  “I see. Let me ask this. Just relax and clear your mind. What is the last thing you definitely remember? Or think you remember.”

  Andy thought. He had many memories, but he couldn’t put them into any particular order. There were so many. What seemed clearest?

  “Plants. Plants growing in the greenhouse. In rows in pots.”

  “Plants growing in a greenhouse?”

  “Yes,” said Andy.

  “What kind of plants were they? Do you remember?”

  Marijuana. Dozens of bushy little marijuana plants growing in used metal ice cream buckets. Can’t say that.

  “Red plants. Poinsettias,” said Andy. “Mom grows them.”

  “Hmmmm,” said Faust, and wrote for a few seconds. “Besides plants growing in the greenhouse, do you remember anything else?”

  Andy shut his eyes and automatically raised his left hand again. He pictured himself on stage. The lights, the conductor, the coughs and twitters of the audience.

  “The Jersey Bounce,” said Andy.

  The doctor looked at him curiously. “Is that a song?”

  “Yeah. Benny Goodman. We … were playing Goodman songs. In the orchestra.”

  “Very good. Keep thinking about music, and then try and find other things you can associate with it. Take your time, but exercise your brain.”

  The doctor rose to leave. “Anything I can get you while I’m here? Are you warm enough?”

  “My teeth are cold,” said Andy.

  “Your teeth?”

  “Yes,” said Andy, gesturing at the foot of the bed.

  “You mean your feet,” said Dr. Faust.

  “Yes. Sorry. My feet. Don’t know why I said teeth.”

  “You’re experiencing something we call paraphasia,” said Dr. Faust. “It’s where your brain substitutes similar-sounding words. It should pass with time and practice.” He tucked blankets around Andy’s feet. “I’ll see you before I go home this evening. Hey, sometime I hope I get a chance to hear you play Benny Goodman songs.”

  In truth, Andy was sorry he’d mentioned Benny Goodman. He was afraid that when the doctor went away and he shut his eyes, he would find Goodman there instead of Gustav Mahler. Today, he wanted Mahler. He shut his eyes.

  Click click went the baton. Let’s take it from the top.

  Time was an abstract thing, unrelated to Andy’s existence. There was no rhythm to the day and night. Sometimes it was dark outside the window. Other times the sunlight blazed through, and at still other times the light was soft and indirect.

  Members of his family came and went. They had work and lives and school, and couldn’t stay with him. He didn’t mind, because there was little he could say to them.

  At intervals, an attendant brought him food. It could be scrambled eggs and toast, with orange juice. Breakfast. It must be morning. Or noodles with some sort of pasty sauce, soft vegetables, a hard roll with margarine, and a little cup of wiggly colored stuff. “Jell-O,” that’s what they called it. Andy didn’t like it and didn’t eat it. But they always asked before they took it away. Do you want your dessert? Should I leave the dessert? You can eat it later.

  No, thank you.

  They took him for walks around the corridor, from window to window and from coda to coda. If they didn’t make him carry on a conversation, he could have music in his head, and he liked that. More and more, he was making up his own music and refining it. His hall-walking song.

  There were other people in the building wearing gowns like he was. Most of them were old, though a few were younger. One young man who seemed about Andy’s age had an enormous bandage on his head. He never said anything, just stared straight ahead as if he saw something in the far distance. He often had family with him who walked beside him in the hall circles. They conversed with each other, but the young man never spoke.

  One older woman did speak to Andy sometimes, when he walked his rounds. As he passed her, she always said the same thing.

  “Have you seen my son!?” She seemed frantic. Andy couldn’t help her.

  The person attending her always said, “Marilyn, your son was here this morning. He’ll be back tomorrow.” But the next time around the hall, she would ask him again.

  When Andy was in his room, they often made him sit in a chair rather than the bed. Sometimes, an older, serious woman in a regular woman’s business suit would show him pictures, and he had to say what the picture was. At such times, he felt like a little kid in church preschool, because the questions were so dumb.

  She held up a card. What is this?

  A chicken.

  And this?

  A car.

  He made a lot of mistakes. When he did, she wrote something in her notebook and kept going without telling him the right answer. She held up another card. It was a man in
a blue uniform and a hat, holding a paper envelope, carrying a bag.

  A … policeman?

  No, look at it carefully. Who is that? What is he doing?

  He’s … I … don’t know. Why can’t you just tell me the word?

  Because if I tell you, it might not stick. The words you want are there, it’s just the paths to the words that are damaged. If you get the words yourself, you make new paths, and you’ll have them forever. We’ll come back to this one. Another card.

  What is this?

  A cat.

  Yes, but what kind of cat?

  A … black-and-white cat.

  No, I mean, what sort of cat. Is it big or little?

  It’s little.

  And what is the word for a little cat, a young, tiny cat?

  It’s—Andy rubbed his eyes. What was the word? A k—

  The word wasn’t there, and Andy felt helpless and frustrated. A little cat. He knew there was a special word, a common word. Let’s see—a small, short version of an adagio is an adaggieto.

  A … kieto?

  The woman chuckled and wrote a note.

  – 17 –

  A Clear Case of Self-Defense

  Sam Rhodes was at the end of his rope. He stood over his son Chris, who sat in the center of the Naugahyde love seat, hands folded, head down like he expected at any moment he might get slapped across the top of his head. Which he might. Sam was mad enough.

  “I gave you that truck so you could get to school on your own and have a job in the summer. Maybe run some errands for your mom. Do you remember what I told you a year ago?”

  “No sir,” said Chris.

  “No, clearly, you don’t remember. Maybe you’re too stupid to remember. But what I told you was, ‘This vehicle is for getting where you need to go. It’s for school. It’s for work. It is not … not … for running around with your dipshit friends at night, getting into trouble.’ Did I say that, or did I dream it?”

  “I guess, so, sir.”

  “You guess what?”

  “I guess … you told me that.”

  Sam’s friend Ben Carr was sitting in the cloth chair across the living room. He was still wearing his dark suit, because he had come here straight from work, but his tie was loose. He was a lawyer, but he wasn’t here in that capacity, not yet. He was a family friend, trying to help.