The Disappearance of Taffy Slummings

[Arroyos]

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF TAFFY SLUMMINGS

When the Yuma GM awoke the next morning, the first thing he spied was his pillowcase full of baseball cards. He was usually more careful than to leave them out where every nurse or orderly who checked on him would see them. They remained contraband, no matter how often the staff overlooked them, and to flaunt them in front of the orderlies and nurses would eventually compel someone to turn him in to Head Nurse Peters.
And that, he did not want.

So Mayberry stuffed the pillow case behind his other pillows, made his bed—so as not to attract any attention to it—and slipped his slippers on his feet and headed out the door to the bathroom down the hall.

The moment he opened the door he knew something was wrong. No orderlies, no janitorial staff, nobody. The long hallway was empty. He held his own door open a moment, unsure if he should step into a hallway when every instinct he had told him to stay put. Then he heard it.

The squeaky wheel of the gurney the doctors used to haul patients out of the Therapy Room. The squeaking made him shudder. Just the thought of “therapy” made him want to run, hide, disappear. But he held his ground. He knew what it was like to be rolled down the hallway to Therapy unseen, unnoticed by anyone. He knew it was only a small comfort, standing here and witnessing, but it was the only comfort he was capable of. So he stood and waited for the door to Therapy to open and the squeaky gurney to appear.

And when it did, and when he saw the mop of white hair hanging off the edge and heard the moans of the victim, he feared for his friend, his boss, his companion in a plot to escape.

He feared the body lying on the gurney was the man who’d come to visit him, Taffy Slummings.

Mayberry held his breath as the gurney was pushed up the long slanting hallway, every squeak making him cringe.

“Back in your room,” the orderly at the front of the gurney commanded, and Mayberry slid back inside but held the door open just a crack, just enough to see, to confirm his fears.

And when the gurney squeaked by him he looked and a huge sigh of relief escaped his lips, then a sudden clutch of guilt. It wasn’t Slummings, but rather his long-time fellow patient and occasional baseball card swapper, the one the patients all called Cook.

Mayberry leaned against his doorway and swallowed. He was lightheaded, so he stepped back inside and sat for a moment on the edge of his bed, bending to put his head between his legs. When the feeling he was going to faint passed, he looked up and asked himself, asked the room, asked no one, “So where’s Slummings?”

Ignoring the men’s room, he hustled—as much as an old man in slippers can hustle—down the sloping cement hallway towards the Men’s Ward. Pushing through the double doors, he looked for his friend with the Einstein hair. But his bed was empty. And appeared to be unslept in.

He looked around to see if Slummings had moved, but no, he wasn’t in any of the beds in the Ward. He turned to one of the patients he knew by sight but not name and asked, “Do you know where my friend, Taffy Slummings, is? Just joined us two nights ago? Big head of white hair?”

“Oh, him,” the patient finally said. “No, ain’t seen him.”

“Did he sleep here last night?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Did someone come and take him away?”

“Nope.”

Mayberry thanked the man and headed back up the hallway towards the men’s room and his own room. Maybe, he thought, just maybe, he wished, Slummings got away last night. Wasn’t that what he’d said last night when they parted? Hadn’t they bet a hundred bucks against a hundred cards that Slummings wouldn’t be here today? It was one bet Mayberry would be happy to lose.

So he hoped his way up the hallway and turned into the men’s room to relieve a bladder that was beginning to demand attention, nearly bumping into an orderly at the door. It was Sean, the guy who’d explained Merkle to him.

“Been looking for you,” Sean said.

“Me?”

“Your pal Slummings is in the Infirmary.”

“What? How? Why? What happened?” Mayberry sputtered.

“Whoa, no need to panic, he’s fine. Well, he’s feeling lightheaded, sleepy, probably a little weak—”

“What happened to him?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? It sounds like something.”

Sean smiled, then made sure the men’s room door was closed. He leaned back against it to make sure no one walked in on them.

“I gave him a sedative.”

“Why?”

“To get you guys out of here, why else?”

Mayberry’s mouth dropped open. He shook his head and looked at Sean, who was just smiling, smiling, smiling. Like he hadn’t just dropped the A-bomb.

“Get … us … outa here?” Mayberry whispered.

“Yes,” Sean whispered back, his eyes big and bright and rolling like a madman. “Outa here, dude.” Then he slapped Mayberry on the shoulder. “That’s the plan, right?”

There should have been fireworks or a 21-gun salute, bells and whistles at the very least, but nothing. Not a sound, except the deep gurgling of hospital plumbing. Mayberry turned to look at the stalls, half expecting to see Chief Bromden tearing the plumbing from the wall, but there was no one there.

The sound of water in pipes trickled away to nothing and they were left there, the old man in slippers and the young orderly with the shit-eating grin.

Mayberry shook his head, twice, then looked at Sean and said, cautiously, “There’s a plan?”

“Absofuckinglutely there’s a plan. And what a plan! It’s a beaut. Your pal told me your half of it, about the cards, and I’ve been working out the rest.”

Mayberry studied the orderly’s eyes. He wanted to believe him, but if there’s one thing his years in this place had taught him it was don’t believe anything or anyone.

Once, in his first year, he’d made the mistake of challenging a doctor’s decision to medicate him. The doc explained that it was for his own good, saying that Security had had to put him in a straight jacket to calm him down. The meds, the doc said, would do the same thing, without the straps or discomfort. Just a much needed rest.

“What’d I do?” he’d asked because he had no memory of being so upset, no memory of any straight jacket either.

“You attacked a fellow patient,” said Head Nurse Peters.

“I never—I wouldn’t,” he’d protested.

“It’s the truth,” Peters said patting the thick manila folder she held close to her chest, “even if it never happened.”

That was his first lesson in who not to believe. Others followed in the early years, until a general principle, a truth of sorts, was stamped into his brain: trust no one. Hell, he couldn’t even trust his own memory, he knew that.
Ever since his first Therapy session he’d been losing memories, forgetting where he was, even once, after a particularly highly charged session, forgetting who he was. There was simply no one to trust.

And yet here stood Sean, smiling the smile of a mad man. Patients often mumbled about how crazy the orderlies were, and here was an experienced orderly, a friendly one, talking like the craziest patient in this place. Mayberry studied his eyes. Every impulse, every intuition he had said to trust this guy, and yet …

“I know,” Sean said, “you don’t want to believe it, and there’s no reason you should trust me.” He paused and pulled something from his pocket. “Except that you gotta trust me and if you do, you’ll be out of here tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“Late tonight, yeah, that’s the plan. See?” Sean held up a card.

Mayberry’s eyes lost focus, he felt dizzy and Sean grabbed his elbow to keep him from slumping to the floor.

“Deep breaths,” Sean said, “deep breaths.”

Mayberry gulped air until his vision came back in focus. And there, before him, was the Promised Land, the card to rule all cards, the Abracadabra that would open the doors to freedom. An APBA card for pitcher John “Johnny” Antonelli. The missing JOHN card!

The sight took the old man’s breath away and he had to gulp for air again. He’d been looking for so long. With Eddie Mathews and Luke Easter safely tucked away in his pillow case, he could add Johnny Antonelli and he’d have cards for Mathew, Luke and John needing only a Mark to finish the set.

The card shimmered before him.

Johnny.png

Sean offered it to him, “Here. It’s yours.”

Mayberry took it, carefully, like he was holding a prehistoric pot or a precious jewel.

“You’ll be on your way tonight. I’ve got this plan, see, when—”

“How’d you get this? And what about Mark? We gotta have a Mark to finish the set.”

Sean held his hands up to calm the old man. “Got it covered. Mark is coming to you this evening, just after dark. You’ll be amazed who we found with—”

“But this,” Mayberry said holding the card delicately between his thumb and index finger, “how’d you get this one?”

“Ah,” Sean said, leaning back against the rest room door, “that was Slummings’ doing. You should ask him.”

“Slummings found this?” Mayberry said in utter amazement. “How?”

“Let him tell you. It’s a great story. You can share it on the train tonight.”

“Train?” Mayberry said, confused. “What train?”

“The 3:10 to Yuma, of course. What other train would be fitting to return you to your life?”

Mayberry tried to think it all through, but it was too much. He was tired already, overwhelmed, and all he wanted to do was return to his room and lay this new card next to its companions. Three cards lying face up on his desk, that would be something to see. Something he’d dreamed about for years, something he’d nearly given up hope would ever happen.

But one card remained. Mark. Some Mark, any Mark, a Mark to make a mark upon history, a Mark to mark this moment in time, a Mark to lead him away from this madness and return him, at long last, to baseball.

“Who did you say had a Mark card?”

“I didn’t,” Sean said. “You didn’t give me a chance.”

Sean smiled, Mayberry waited, and in that moment, for the first time in years, an old man in the Camarillo State Hospital believed he was still the General Manager of the Yuma Ball Club, the Arroyos, née Bulldozers.

Mayberry smiled too. “Tell me,” he said.

“Here? Now?” Sean said laughing. He pushed the door to the men’s room open. “Let’s visit your pal first. I’ll tell you both.”

[Sandgnats]