she would call the police. Maybe she had heard something the last time he was here when he told the Fat Man he would kill him if he didn’t hold on to Mama until he could find her another place. But he hadn’t seen her that day, and he’d kept his voice low when he explained things to the fat bastard. Maybe she was around somewhere listening. Maybe she wasn’t. There was nothing he could do about it. He didn’t have any options left.
“I’ll just go on back there to the parlor and visit with Mama until he gets back,” Fleck said.
“Oh, she’s not there anymore,” the receptionist said. “She fights with the other ladies all the time. And she hurt poor old Mrs. Endicott again. Twisted her arm.”
Fleck didn’t want to hear any more of that kind of talk. He hurried down the hallway to Mama’s room.
Mama was sitting in her wheelchair looking at the little TV Fleck had bought for her, watching some soap opera which Fleck thought might be “The Young and the Restless.” They had her tied in the chair, as they did all the old people, and it touched Fleck to see her that way. She was so helpless now. Mama had never been helpless until she’d had those strokes. Mama had always been in charge before then. It made Fleck unhappy when he came to see her. It filled him with a kind of dreary sorrow and made him wish he could get far enough ahead so that he could afford a place somewhere and take care of her himself. And he always started trying to think again how he could do it. But there was simply no way. The way Mama was, he would have to be with her all the time. He couldn’t just go off and leave her tied in that chair. And that wouldn’t leave him with any way to make a living for them.
Mama glanced at him when he came through the door. Then she looked back at her television program. She didn’t say anything.
“Hello,” Fleck said. “How are you feeling today?”
Mama didn’t look up.
“I brought you some licorice, Mama,” Fleck said. He held out the sack.
“Put it down on the bed there,” Mama said. Sometimes Mama spoke normally, but sometimes it took her a while to form the words—a matter of pitting indomitable will against a recalcitrant, stroke-damaged nervous system. Fleck waited, remembering. He remembered the way Mama used to talk. He remembered the way Mama used to be. Then she would have made short work of the Fat Man.
“You doing all right today, Mama?” he asked. “Anything I can do for you?”
Mama still didn’t look at him. She stared at the set, where a woman was shouting at a well-dressed man in poorly feigned anger. “I was,” Mama said, finally. “People keep coming in and bothering me.”
“I guess I could put a stop to that,” Fleck said.
Mama turned then and looked at him, her eyes absolutely without expression. It occurred to him that maybe it was him she meant. He studied her, wondering if she recognized him. If she did, there was no sign of it. She rarely did in recent years. Well, he would stay and visit anyway. Just keep her company. All her life, as far back as Fleck could remember into his childhood, Mama had had pitifully little of that.
“That girl there’s got on a pretty dress,” Fleck said. “I mean the one on TV.”
Mama ignored him. Poor woman, Fleck thought. Poor, pathetic old woman. He stood beside the open door, examining her profile. She had been a good-sized woman once—maybe 140 pounds or so. Strong and quick and smart as they come. Now she was skinny as a rail and stuck in that wheelchair. She couldn’t hardly talk and her mind was not working well.
“How about me giving you a push?” Fleck asked. “Would you like to go for a ride? It’s raining outside but I could push you around inside the building. Give you a little change.”
Mama still stared at the TV. The angry woman on “The Young and the Restless” had left, slamming the door behind her. Now the man was talking on the telephone. Mama hitched herself forward in the chair. “I had a boy once who had a four-door Buick,” she said in a clear voice that sounded surprisingly young. “Dark blue and that velvety upholstery on the seats. He took me to Memphis in that.”
“That would have been Delmar’s car,” Fleck said. “It was a nice one.” Mama had talked of it before but Fleck had never seen it. Delmar must have bought it while Fleck was doing his time in Joliet.
“Delmar is his name, all right,” Mama said. “The Arabs got him hostage in Jerusalem or someplace. Otherwise he’d come to see me, Delmar would. He’d take care of me right. He was all man, that one was.”
“I know he would,” Fleck said. “Delmar is a good man.”
“Delmar was all man,” Mama said, still staring at the TV set. “He wouldn’t let nobody treat him like a nigger. Do Delmar and he’d get you right back. He’d make you respect him. You can count on that. That’s one thing you always got to do, is get even. If you don’t do that they treat you like a goddamn animal. Step right on your neck. Delmar wouldn’t let anybody not treat him right.“
“No, Mama, he wouldn’t,” Fleck said. Actually, as he remembered it, Delmar wasn’t much for fighting. He was for keeping out of the way of trouble.
Mama looked at him, eyes hostile. “You talk like you know Delmar.”
“Yes, Mama. I do. I’m Leroy. I’m Delmar’s brother.”
Mama snorted. “No you ain’t. Delmar only had one brother. He ended up a damn jailbird.”
The room smelled stale to Leroy. He smelled something that might have been spoiled food, and dust and the acidic odor of dried urine. Poor old lady, he thought. He blinked, rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes.
“I think it would be nice for you to get out in the halls at least. Get out of this room a little bit. See something different just for a change.”
“I wouldn’t be in here at all if the Arabs hadn’t got to Delmar. He’d have me someplace nice.”
“I know he would,” Fleck said. “I know he’d come to visit you if he could.”
“I had two boys, actually,” Mama said. “But the other one he turned out jailbird. Never amounted to shit.”
It was just then that Leroy Fleck heard the cop. He couldn’t make out the words but he recognized the tone. He strained to listen.
