Swinging his head, he seemed to be thinking long back. He hadn’t touched the beer. “Still, she could’ve stopped him, said something. Could’ve come late at night with a glass of water. They never even let me have water.” He choked as if his throat were dry, then looked about helplessly, not seeing me. He hadn’t shaved for a while. His beard was sparse, his eyes puffy and red. He was a grieving middle-aged adult in brown cords, plaid shirt, and dull brown clodhoppers, but I swore he looked five. The television burned its ancient cheery childhood scripts. For the second time in four minutes Dick Van Dyke fell on his ass.
I said nothing, not even sure he was aware I was in the room.
“I feel no relief,” he said, his voice pinched with anguish.
I nodded.
“I wanted to tell her something before she died.”
“What did you want to tell her?” I said gently.
His face contorted in confusion, he twisted his head around so that he was staring into the kitchen with one eye, the eyebrow above it tangled as old wire. “I wanted to tell her to go to hell.” He cracked a mean yellow grin. “But I figured she was going there anyway.”
“Do you think Eichmann went to hell?”
He shrugged, disinterested in the fate of the infamous Nazi war criminal.
“Anyway,” I said. “You don’t believe in hell.”
“Oh, I believe in hell all right,” he said, spreading his arms. “I’ve seen it, man.” He roared with laughter and finally took a healthy slug from his can. “I tell you about this woman that came along, came out of nowhere and started taking care of my mom?”
“No.”
“She had this hairdo like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and she wore these white bellbottoms and a lime-green plaid blouse. I thought she worked for the hospital, but she didn’t. Then I thought she was a friend of the family or a neighbor. She wasn’t. Then I thought she might be a ghoul, but what kind of ghoul comes to a hospital and helps an old lady dying of cancer? She kept smiling at me like she knew.”
“Knew what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe she was an angel.”
“I don’t know why it wasn’t him that died.”
Now I heard talking again, down the hall.
Shelly didn’t seem to hear it. My beer was gone. I was the nervous drinker now. Shelly stared wearily through me. He’d lost at least ten pounds. Now something broke down the hall, followed by a cry.
Shelly set his teeth, whispered “Jesus,” set down his beer, rose, and marched away. I heard a “Shut up, will you? I’ve got company. Just sit down.” A radio clicked on, the song “Venus,” by Shocking Blue. “Play with this.”
He returned, shaking his head and offering no explanation. “Keep thinking about that woman with the bee-doo hair,” he resumed, hands on hips. “You know what she was?” He stared at me intently, the first time I’d felt as if I existed in the room.
I flicked up my shoulder.
“My real mom. The mom I should’ve had.” He wiped his mouth with the palm of his hand. “I even thought about, you know, going with her, but then again maybe she was from down there. Had to show Mom the way. Because the minute my mother died, and that lady was right there holding her hand, well she was gone. I looked for her too.” He scratched his head, hauled from his beer, finishing half the can in one tilt.
“You want to get out of here?” I asked. “Go someplace and get a couple of beers?”
He looked up, considering the offer. He might’ve aged two years. He was honestly perplexed by the woman with the bee-doo hair. “No, man, I gotta get my business back up. I’ve got about a hundred orders I need to fill. Couple of pissed off people called.” He glanced down the hall. “Lucky I don’t speak Japanese.”
“How about Santa Anita on Sunday?” I suggested.
“Hell,” he said, his barrel chest heaving with a sigh. “I’ve even lost track of the nags.”
“We can drop in on Marvelle.”
His eyes glinted for a moment, but then whether it was his mother or his guest or the thought of being obliged to a flesh-and-blood Marvelle, the light in his eyes subsided.
“I’ll give you a call,” I said.
“Yeah, all right,” he said, already raising his right hand to close the door behind me.
18.Martha at the Apollo
ANOTHER WEEK PASSED BEFORE I HEARD FROM SHELLY AGAIN. HE called me on the phone. I thought he’d finally caught up on bookwork and was a go for live racing at Santa Anita and a little sidetrip to see a Girl in a Heart-Splashed Blouse. I was ready for him to say, “Let’s hit the track, babe.”
He said instead, plainly distressed, “Can you come over?”
“Now?”
“Yeah, if you can. I’m in kind of a bind.”
I jumped into my truck and drove the thirty miles inland, six miles an hour over the speed limit. Both the gate and the front door were open when I arrived. Shelly was standing in the living room, waiting for me, hands clasped in front of him.
“My father is sick now,” he said. “The same cancer as my mother.”
“Wow,” I said.
“I’ve got to go back again. Can you watch my business for me?”
“Your business.”
“Yeah. I can’t let it fall apart again. I’ll go under.”
“I don’t know anything about it, babe.”
“Who sang ‘Jimmy Mack’?”
“Martha and the Vandellas.”
“See?”
“Yeah, but I don’t know what label. I don’t know the prices. I don’t know what gown she wore at her
