“He’s fine, Raymond, really—we’ll have the homecare nurse take a peek once a week—but otherwise, he’s absolutely ready to go.” Sharon, the discharge planner at Apple Valley rehabilitation center in Napa California declared. She was a veteran well versed in letting folks go—the steward of parade waves as another shriveled elder clung to their walker shuffling out of the door.
“But he only has two cans of ensure and one cola a day.” Ray protested. “He lives alone, can’t cook, can’t hear, can barely see–and I don’t have the time or money to take care of him. He needs fulltime supervision.” Raymond sighed, envisioning Norman’s dilapidated home. Norman had not cleaned the place since his first turn of the key back in 1952.
“Well, I’m sure the homecare nurse can send out a dietician. There’s simply nothing more we can do for him here—he’s graduated—you know how Medicare is. We wouldn’t want to burden Norman with a huge bill.” Sharon snorted, squinting her eyes as if the sun were shining into her lifeless grey office. She winced a half smile and glanced at her newly polished nails—she had just had a manicure the night before. Sharon kept a strict schedule dividing her day into sessions of texting, shopping online for plus size dresses and eating tootsie rolls she stashed in the dull beige file cabinet sandwiched between her desk and the wall. She hated most people, especially those that were desperate and in need of social services. They annoyed her.
“Okay. I can be there by eleven to pick him up.” Ray whispered. He felt nauseated by the thought of Norman coming home. He’d have to cut his workday in half, drive an hour to Apple Valley, and once again gather Norman’s walker, catheter, glasses, hearing aids and teeth. Then there would be hours of sorting out pills and settling in the 85 year old man who had no family, other than him—a grandson of the man who hired Norman nearly fifty years ago.
Norman was an only child and his mother died when he was five—no cause of death was ever determined. His father, a hollow nomad who was chronically unemployed dragged Norman around like a blanket feeling inadequate for the last time–he shot himself in the face and left Norman alone by the age of fifteen. For the next two years Norman drifted from one stale job to the next, he left school behind like a pair of pants he’d outgrown and at seventeen he joined the army. It was war time—WWII had ended but the Korean War was well underway and Norman all one hundred and twenty-three pounds, found himself donning weapons he had no inkling to fire. But it was the first time since he could remember that he knew when his next meal would come and where he would lie his head—he was no longer alone. Two years later, the war ended and once again Norman dropped back into the role of a drifter. When the plane bobbled down the runway in San Francisco, Norman wondered if he could find work in Napa California. Napa was a place his buddy Charlie had talked about returning to; his family owned a ranch there. (Napa in those days was made of ranches and farms—wine making had remained tucked in corners of Sonoma county, no one back then thought much about it.)
Charlie was shattered into fragments from a grenade–his remains scattered like sawdust– Norman never got to say good-bye; there was nothing left except a shard of steel from Charlie’s rifle that was sent home with a medal of honor. Norman decided he’d go and find that ranch, maybe Charlie’s folks could use him for something—he had just turned twenty-one. Norman sat on the porch of the slipshod house sagging as if it had survived hundreds of years on the corner of Willow Street and First street east. Napa being an agricultural community was riddled with manure and the scent of hay blowing from one ranch to the next. It permeated the air like darkness in a film noir. Norman lingered on the paint peeled porch for three days getting up only to drink, eat, or use the outhouse. It was a blazing one hundred- and three-degree day– the sun was busy scorching the mud into dust– when a rusty old ford rattled up the driveway.
“Boy, you been a setting there for near a week—what do ya want,” Seth the owner of the property asked as he slammed the truck door shut. Seth owned the house but no longer lived there. He had rented it out to a couple who had left for the gold country several months prior.
“I’s lookin for Charlie’s people. We was in Korea– soldiers together—he told me…” Norman said looking down at the dust on his shoes as if he were reading a script.
“Charlie Rizzo?” Seth interrupted.
“Yes sir.” Norman raised his eyes slightly but remained in a servile like stance. Flies buzzed around the porch posts eavesdropping on the conversation.
“Hell– that was a terrible thing, terrible thing. Look son, those folks left east—couldn’t handle bein around– once word came of Charlie’s death. He was their only son. Know anything about machines?”
“A bit, yes sir.”
“Well come on then. I need a mechanic bad. What you don’t know I’ll teach ya.”
And that was how Norman came to work for Raymond’s grandfather, Seth McGrath. Now, sixty years later and still alone—Norman had no one to look after him, other than Ray. He had worked hard for Seth to the point he’d transformed into a sought after master mechanic. The entire valley was familiar with Norm’s know how with motors. But age robbed him of his eyesight and returned to steal what little dexterity he had left in his fingers. Norman, at age 82, tossed his tools in his truck and brought them home where they have rested ever since—inside the living room mainly–like antiques to be admired. Seth had helped Norman buy the stout cape-cod style home in 1952 when prices were reasonable and life made sense, hell he rarely latched the front door back then. Norman had an innate fear that someone would come take the house from him—the bank—the government—someone. He imagined they’d sneak off with it like a bandit on a midnight run. It was the first place Norman could refer to as home—the kind of home some folks grow up in and bring grandbabies back to. He paid it off in twenty-five years, three months, and one day and by age fifty-three it was his. When the homecare nurse, Kim called to say she’d be at Norman’s house around 2pm, Ray told her he’d try to make it there as well, but he couldn’t guarantee.
“Just knock and go on in it’s open—he’ll be sitting in his chair and probably won’t hear the door,” Ray explained.
“No problem.” Kim assured him she had plenty of patients that for various reasons were unable to amble to the door. Kim was fairly new to homecare but always enjoyed the elders. She had worked in hospitals for most of her fifteen years as a nurse–when babies came along her desire for a flexible schedule made visiting nursing the perfect alternative. And besides, Kim adored older folks, their stories were like reading a history book.
“Oh, and one other thing; he’ll act as if he is eating– but he’s not. He has two cans of ensures and one cola a day.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
When Kim got to the house just as Ray had predicted, Norman was sitting in his deteriorated recliner sipping a glass of cola. She knocked and rang the doorbell, but the only response was a feeble voice squeaking through the door, “No thank-you.” Kim hesitated and then gently opened the door.
“Hi Norman, my name is Kim–I’m…”
“Who er ya?” Norman squinted as he spoke. His voice sounding as if he was in the middle of gargling.
“Kim—a nurse. I am here to check on you Norman make sure you’re doing alright. You were just released from the hospital yesterday, right?”
“Oh sure, yes. I’m fine though—just have a cough that’s all. I’m home now. Just tell them folks you saw me and I’m fine.” Norman said as he heaved a dry cackle his chest and ribs quaivering. The house was in utter ruins littered with boxes and tools and broken lamps. There was a small creek like walkway that ran through the mayhem of mix matched rubbish that was strewn about. A bag of unopened cleaning materials lay on a rocking chair that was missing an arm and a fifty year collection of dust. To the left stood a scratched silver tv tray with bottles of pills, a urinal, a urinary catheter bag, and two clean socks—white ones. The dingy walls were lined with medals Norman had accrued in Korea. Beside the medals hung model planes and a shelf of model cars Norman had constructed long ago. They sat as witnesses to his youth—it was as if they could speak– as if they had insight and could explain to a person on the life Norman had never had. Norman sat with enormous glasses sinking into the crest of his cheeks causing little shelf like indents. He had sprouts of white hair jutting up the middle of his scalp and several wisps that were slicked back above his ears—ears that were practically the size of his face. His eyes were a sparkling green but underneath were dark patches like thunder
heads under a clear sky. He was a frail 138 pounds of sagging skin draped over a five-foot eleven frame. He wore threadbare mechanic pants and clipped to his pocket was his catheter. Norman suffered from prostate problems and could no longer urinate on his own. The skilled nursing facility had showed him once how to empty the catheter and crowned him an expert.
“Are these the pills you take Norman?” Kim asked putting on a pair of gloves. There was a peculiar stench that permeated the house, and she didn’t want to take the chance of bringing home any weird infection to her children.
“Whatya say?”
“Are these your medications?” Kim shouted this time.
“I suppose so. Haven’t taken any though. I’ll get to em later.”
“Not a one?”
“One what—you gotta speak up miss.”
“You haven’t taken any of your pills at all?” Kim yelled into his left ear.
“Naw—too tired. This cough is keeping me up all night.”
“Okay, well—I’m gonna put them in your medicine box—this one here.” Kim held up a pink plastic pill organizer.
“Ray usually fills that damn thing.” Norman sputtered in between fits of coughing.
“You coughing anything up Norman?”
“Naw. It’s fine just a nuasence.”
Just at that moment an old jalopy pulled into the driveway and a man about Norman’s age, 85, hobbled to the door using a wooden cane. He sauntered through the front door without knocking and shoved his cane in front of him like a rutter, maneuvering through the piles of stuff.
“Here ya go Norm—got ya some cough medicine. I’ll just set it here on the tray. How you makin it?” The man asked. He was slightly hunched but had remnants of a strong muscular build. His shoulders were square, and his hands were massive, confident—a working man not afraid of a hard handshake.
“Fine just fine.”
“Can you be sure he takes this miss—I gotta go?” The man said to Kim.
“Sure—do you help him with…?”
“I help as much as I can but ya know he don’t listen—he’s too sick to be living here alone. Damn shame—never had no family—he’s a war vet—no reason he should be left alone like this,” the man said with his back facing Norman. He turned back around and gave Norman a spry handshake good-bye and a pat on the back.
“You be nice to this pretty nurse—I’ll see ya in the morning Norm.”
“Okay.” Norman said lifting his right hand two inches above his thigh before another coughing episode had him gasping.
Kim was feeling uneasy about the cough and the general condition that Norman was in. It sickened her that an old war veteran would be refused services—Raymond had explained that because Norman was never injured in the war, he received very little in the way of finances.
“I need to take your vital signs Norman.” Kim explained.
“My what?”
“Your temperature, blood pressure, pulse.”
“They’re all fine but go ahead if that’s yer job.” Kim reached into her bag and pulled out her thermometer and plopped it under Norman’s tongue.
She had begun to suspect that Norman had pneumonia.
“Norman, you have a fever of 102.2. I need to call 911.” Kim said feeling her throat constrict. She felt eminent signs of anxiety brewing.
“No. I just got home damn it—I don’t want to go back to that place.” Norman said as he set his head back on the chair as if it weighed a hundred pounds. Small beads of sweat spread across his forehead.
“I’m tired, Kim that’s all…just tired. Don’t make me go back there.” Norman said softly closing his eyes.
“I’ll call Ray, Norman, okay?”
“Yea, call Ray—he’ll know what to do.” Norman said. His pale complexion looking as if he was half dead already. Kim noticed a growing tremor in his hands and feet. She felt pinned in as if she had to choose between jumping off a bridge or dodging oncoming traffic. She had to decide whether to respect the old man’s wishes—or toss her nursing license in jeopardy for not doing anything for a sick patient. She phoned Ray and dialed 911.
“Norman is there someone I can call at the Vets place you go?” Kim asked hoping she could try to speak to a case worker and explain the desperate situation Norman was in; maybe there was an alternative to him living alone. But there was only one recording after another—she left a message and sat down beside Norman on a shredded brown ottoman.
“Norman, listen the ambulance is going to be here—I am sorry but you’re really sick. They won’t take you to the last place you were at—that was a rehabilitation place. They’ll take you to the hospital–the Napa Regency Hospital—it’s a good place. You’ll be home again in no time after a few antibiotics I bet.”
“Ray can take care of me here—if I gotta go he’ll take me.”
At that moment Ray pulled up with the ambulance and fire department practically attached to his bumper. Ray burst into the house and began spewing.
“Look Norman, you gotta get better—grandpa wants you to visit—can’t do that until you’re well right?” Ray said patting Norman on the shoulder. “Seth is nearin a hundred he can’t get around so good—so he’s countin on you.”
“I suppose—but can’t you just bring me up ere if need be?”
Four EMT’s pushed open the front door and began questioning Kim. They took Norman’s heart rate which had raced into the 130 zone and worked quickly to move boxes around in order to wheel the gurney in.
“Look fellas I appreciate you but Ray here–he can get me up ere. Can’t ya son?” Norman wheezed in between fits of coughing.
“Mr. Brooks, once we’ve been notified, we are obligated to take you…”
“I can refuse,” Norman gasped out.
“I’ll ride with you Norm—I can fetch my car later—I’ll call the wife,” Ray interrupted. “Take it easy, it’ll be fine.”
While the EMT’s took down information Ray explained to Kim that he was the closest thing to family Norman had. He and his wife on many occasions spent weeks cleaning and rearranging the house—but it always disintegrated back into disarray within days.
“He’s been depressed since not being able to work,” Ray spoke to Kim in a hushed voice. “Work and this house is everything to him—it’s all he has.”
“Who will take care of it when he’s gone?” She asked.
“He left it to me and my wife—we’ll honor it for him.”
Norman was secured on the gurney—strapped down and covered in blankets. Kim bid him good-bye and wished him well. She reassured him with words and a touch to his hands that he’d be home again soon—a false hope perhaps but none the less sincere.
“Ray you don’t gotta ride with me—I’ll just see you up ere at that place later, I’m fine.” Norman said in a voice that sounded muffled as if echoing over a vast canyon.
“I’ll be right behind you Norm. You hang in.”
As the ambulance sped away, Raymond and Kim chatted about the injustice of it all—a man worked hard all his life and then in his time of need no-one there to help him. He’d run out of benefits and existed on next to nothing. The government didn’t care—he was useless now—couldn’t fight any more wars, couldn’t pay any more taxes. Only thing he could do was collect the pittance owed to him—his money really—money paid into a system not equipped for retirement.
It was a few days later when Kim received a call from Raymond. Norman had died—it was pneumonia just as Kim had predicted. One thing good about his death—it was the first time Norman did not have to go it alone. Ray and his wife were with him—one on each hand. As Norman passed he had someone there to say good-bye to. It was a few weeks later that Kim received another call from Raymond. It was discovered that Norman’s house had been a historic one. After records were recovered and read through–they revealed that Norman’s home was the first house that the infamous wine maker, Tomas Zamoroni had built long ago. Zamoroni was the first to build a winery in Napa—and created the stage for all those that followed. Norman’s house was pronounced a landmark—no one could ever buy it, tear it down, or destroy it any way. It would stand as a legacy and Norman would finally have the overdue company he longed for.