The Long Happy Life of Taffy Slummings, part two

[Arroyos]

The Long Happy Life of Taffy Slummings, part two


“I’m not Jesus.”

The old lady studied Slummings. “Y’all look just like him.”

“I don’t—” Slummings started to say.

“Oh, yes,” the old lady insisted. “Just like. Sure you ain’t him?”

“Quite certain.”

The old lady was crestfallen. She shuffled back to her chair, mumbling as she went. “Fuckin’ fake Jesus, why the hell they go ’n send us some damn false idol? That’s what I wanna know.”

Slummings felt sorry for her, sorry he wasn’t her Jesus, wished he could have cheered her up. He started to say something to her, but he couldn’t figure out what to say. So he stood where he was, sighed sadly, and looked about for the GM of the newly anointed Yuma Arroyos. He worried the old GM wouldn’t know the name had been changed. Or worse, he’d be angry about it. Slummings was not looking forward to trying to talk to an angry old man.

That made him smile. Angry old man! Hell, Slummings admitted to himself, he was an angry old man. He’d watched plenty of people give him a wide berth on the streets of Yuma when he was living rough, when he kept his possessions in a grocery cart and guarded his nighttime spot beneath the fir trees behind the courthouse. He had plenty to be angry about then, before the million dollars landed in his lap like some divine lottery. Angry old man, hell, he thought, I’ll give him an angry old man. And with that, he called out across the Visitors’ Room cum tv room cum game board room, “Which one of you is Bob Mayberry?”

He waited. All those old faces turned once again to look at him. No one spoke. Then an elderly gentleman rose from his chair. He was bald, bearded, and much taller than Slummings. Figuring this was the man, Slummings headed toward him, but the elderly patient pointed across the room in the other direction. “That’s him, over there, reading some pornographic novel, no doubt.”

Slummings stopped, turned and looked. Against the window he saw another elderly gentleman, also balding, might even have a beard, Slummings couldn’t be sure from his vantage point. Slummings turned back to the gentleman who was standing and said, “Thanks,” then started across the room toward the man the standing man had pointed out.

Half way there, the man he was walking towards suddenly stood up and headed for the doors to the hallway.

“Wait!” Slummings called out. Every one in the entire room froze, then turned to look at Slummings. “Sorry,” he said quietly, then walked over to the man at the doors. “I came to talk to you,” he said. The tall old man looked puzzled. “You’re Mayberry, right?”

A smile broke slowly across the tall man’s bearded face. “Me?” he said. “Hell no, I’m not that whacko.”

Slummings gestured back toward the first man he’d spoken to, “But he said …”

The tall man laughed a very tall laugh. “Oh boy,” he said, the laughter slowly dissipating. “He got you good.”

As he turned to exit through the doors, Slummings asked, “He was lying?”

“Pulling your leg, stranger. Just giving you a yank. For the fun of it.” And he pushed open the swinging doors and stepped into the hallway, adding, “Better than tv for entertainment!” The doors swung closed behind him.

Slummings stood there, not moving, thinking it through. He was in a quandary, a conundrum of his own making, a tiny labyrinth he was not going to be able to get out of without help. He turned to look at the remaining patients in the room. Several averted their faces quickly, as if they’d been watching him. But one kept right on staring. Another old bald man—the nurse was right, they’re all old, they’re all bald!—looking straight at him from a chair near the center of the room. He took one step in that direction when the old lady who’d mistaken him for Jesus pointed at Slummings and called out, “False prophet! Phony fuckin’ fake Jesus!”

Slummings stopped. Everyone was staring now. He wanted to explain, to clear the air, remove the stigma of the old woman’s accusation. He looked from one face to another and realized there was no explanation that would suffice. He was the outsider, a stranger, bad news whatever way you looked at it. They’d never tell him who Mayberry was, or even if he was in this room. He might as well give up and go back to Yuma where, at the very least, no one mistook him for a Christian deity.

Slummings looked at the faces in the room, put his hands on his chest and said, as contritely as he could, “I’m not Jesus. Not Jesus.”

That brought down the house. Laughter rolled around the room. Voices called out:

“You, Jesus!?!”
“I should hope not!”
“If he’s the lord, we’re screwed!”
“A pitiful sort of savior he’d make!”
“What would Jesus be doing here anyway?”
“Anyone expecting a visit from Jesus?”

The laughter built until even the angry old woman started to laugh, a dry, brittle laugh that soon turned into a coughing fit, which quieted the rest of the patients down.

“Sit down, old girl.” Another elderly lady helped the first old woman back into her seat. Another voice called out, “Get Mary some water, would you?” Slummings was watching how the entire room turned to offer advice to Mary, the old woman who’d mistaken him for Jesus, and didn’t realize at first that the request for water was directed at him.

“For Christ’s sake,” an old man seated near Slummings said, “get her some water!”

Slummings noticed that the man who’d just spoken had a full head of hair, white hair in fact, and then he recognized him. The man who wanted pizza! Slummings smiled and started to say something to him, when the white haired man yelled at him. “Yeah you! Man visiting Mayberry. She needs water, get some. Now!”

Slummings spun around looking for a water fountain but found nothing of the sort. He looked back at the white haired man for directions, then heard someone else shout out, “Orderly! Get the goddamn orderly!” The white haired man was pointing to the hallway opposite the one Slummings had entered through, so he pushed his way through the double doors and started down the other hallway when he ran smack into a tall, thin young man running toward the visitors’ room. Slummings lost his footing and fell on the cement floor. “Sorry,” the younger man said as he burst through the double doors and into the visitors’ room. The last thing Slummings saw before the swinging doors closed was a plastic bottle of water in the younger man’s hand.

“Water,” he said as he sat on the hallway floor, “she needs water.” Slummings slumped against the wall and listened to the voices in the visitors’ room. They sounded relieved, a couple people even applauded, and after a moment, all commotion ceased. Slummings felt it was safe to return, but he couldn’t get up. His leg, the left one, the side he’d fallen on, refused to lift him. He sat still for a moment, then tried again, but it was no use. His right leg and right arm pushed against the floor, lifting his right side a few inches off the cement, but his left leg was useless and his left arm not strong enough to lift him off the ground. So Slummings gave up and just sat there, in the hallway, wondering how bad his injury was and whether or not a mental hospital could deal with broken bones or a damaged spine.

After a few moments, an old woman wandered down the hall toward Slummings. Healthier looking than the woman who’d mistaken him for Jesus, this crone had a full head of gray and chestnut curls and moved with a lively step. When she spotted Slummings, she slid right up next to him, looked down and announced, “That floor’s mighty hard at our age. Now when we were younger,” she said, and slowly slid her back down the wall until she was seated next to Slummings. “You remember being younger?” she asked. Before Slummings could answer, she went on, “Oh sure, everyone remembers being younger, even the young remember that, but do you remember when we were very young, probably 20 or 21, though you might have been 22 or 23 since you’ve always been two years older than me.” She grabbed Slummings’ beard and tugged his face toward hers, then gave him a close study. “You didn’t used to have this,” she tugged on the beard again, “and your hair was a lot neater back then—or maybe there was less of it, I can’t remember.” She let go Slummings’ beard to yank his full head of hair. “Not a wig, then. Hmm. Coulda sworn you were beginning to bald back then. You have hair transplants?”

Slummings shook his head and asked, “Who are you?”

She ignored his question. “The pertinent question—the pressing question—is do you remember the cement floor in that restroom off the freeway halfway between Elko and Winnemucca?”

She waited for Slummings to answer. He took a long look at her face, then shook his head again and said, “I don’t know you.”

She rocked with laughter. “Oh, baby,” she said as she chortled, “how quickly they forget!” She touched his head gently and added, “It’s okay, all our memories are slipping away like the sands of time.” She cocked her head for a moment, then asked, “Wasn’t that a soap opera back in the day?” She waved her hand as if to dismiss the idea, “How would we know? We didn’t even have a tv. But still, I’m saddened to learn you don’t remember the restroom off I-80 and the night we spent curled up in my sleeping bag to avoid freezing to death.”

She waited. “Nothing?” When Slummings didn’t respond, she went on. “We borrowed your roommate’s car—well, ex-roommate, since by then you and I were roomies—but it had no heating and the night was god-awful cold, so when we got tired of driving—I can’t remember where we were coming back from, Idaho? Oregon? Somewhere, doesn’t matter, ‘cause it was cold, blistering cold, and since we couldn’t afford a motel we pulled into the rest stop and used the bathrooms. The women’s restroom was warm, amazingly warm, so I dragged you in there, against your will, we put the sleeping bag beneath us and we got a few hours of sleep. Remember? That cement floor was like sleeping on knives, or something. Anyway, in the morning some woman came in to use the restroom, so I hid you under the sleeping bag and told the woman you were my sister. She frowned, but didn’t say anything, and when she left we dragged our asses back into the car and headed home.”

The woman slapped her thigh and laughed. “Oh, baby, that was a night to remember.” Then she studied Slummings. “You sure you don’t remember anything about that?”

Slummings shook his head yet again, then said, “Sorry.”

“Yeah, well, no skin off my teeth. It was just one night in many we shared. You remember that little railroad shack we lived in for a year or two? We could sit in our bed and see through the cracks to the street outside. That place was cold in winter too.” She gave Slummings’ shoulder a shake. “You don’t remember that either?”

Slummings shook his head one more time and then, only because he was damn tired of shaking this kind lady off, said, “I know you, I mean, we knew each other? Back in the day, as you say?”

“Yes, indeedy, we knew each other!” She leaned in and whispered to Slummings. “Biblically.” She laughed. “Repeatedly.” She roared. “Oh, shit, I’m really sorry you don’t remember all that, because we had some fun times together. Yessirree Bob, it was a short but happy life we had. Have you been happy since?”

Slummings wasn’t sure how to answer. “Since …?”

“Since we lived together. Or, since you can’t remember that, since I last saw you, which must have been, when? I know! That one visit at the airport, remember?”

Slummings refused to shake his head anymore, so he just looked down.

“Minneapolis, I think it was. You were flying to LA, I think, and I drove out to the airport and we had lunch together before your connecting flight. You don’t remember that? God, that wasn’t so long ago. Not like a whole lifetime.”

When Slummings didn’t look up, the woman’s posture slumped. She put her hand in Slummings’ and squeezed. “I’m sorry, babe, I know it happens, just never figured it would happen to you. Always figured you’d remember us the way I do.”

Slummings shrugged.

“Well,” she said as she struggled to stand, “I hope it was a long happy life you’ve had because …” she paused when she was standing and looked at the double doors, “because I do believe Jesus is waiting for you inside.”

Slummings looked up at her, puzzled.

She gestured toward the visitors’ room. “She thinks every man who comes to visit is Jesus. She’ll have forgotten your first visit so she’ll assume you’re the Second Coming, again!” The woman with the curly hair laughed. “Need a hand up?” She offered one.

“I don’t know,” Slummings said extending his arm. “My leg doesn’t seem to want to work today.”

“Upsy daisy,” she pulled him up and shook his beard again. “Just can’t get used to this,” she said.

“Had it forever,” Slummings said.

“Not quite forever.” She looked down at his legs. “They working now?”

Slummings took a couple tentative steps toward the swinging doors. “I guess so,” he said.

She broke into song, “Happy trails to you … until we meet again!” The tune was familiar to Slummings. “Happy trails to you …” She swung one of the double doors open and Slummings stepped through it.

He could hear her singing as she wandered back down the hallway. For a moment, he thought he remembered who she was.

[Borealis]

Awesomeness! I thought Taffy was done for...

[Arroyos]

Awesomeness! I thought Taffy was done for...

Give it time, Mike!