Johnny Wanders

This story of 4500 words won second prize in 2007 Scribes Valley Short Story contest.  It was published in the 2007 Anthology (Destination Elsewhere).  Rights have now reverted to me.  Hope you enjoy it.

A word drifted lazily through the rank nursing home air.  “Rose.”  Johnny heard it in his room, sitting on the edge of his hospital bed, the metal rails glistening in the warm May sun that poured through the window. 

      

Johnny looked out his window to the woods.  Three, maybe four hemlocks deep, it ran the length the home’s grounds to separate it from the failing strip mall.   

           

He turned back to the tattered photo album he had been perusing for the ten-thousandth time.  Gray young men and women smiled back at him, or gave gangster stares, or laughed.  He paused at one that showed a young man in his long wool coat leaning against a Model T, one spat-clad foot resting on the running board.  Johnny smiled.  “You handsome devil.”  A young woman draped her arm around the man’s shoulder.  She sported a flapper dress, a cloche hat, and a devil-may-care grin.   

           

“Rose,” said Johnny, touching the girl.  “God, how I missed you.  And now you’re back.”  

           

The Model T took them to Atlantic City -- what a day.  About midday, Johnny produced a  new Kodak Brownie and paid the balloon man to take a picture of them.  “I love the way you’re full of surprises, Johnny,” Rose said, draping her arm around him.   

           

Johnny glanced at the door, its path barred by a wide orange mesh strip with a bright red stop sign in the middle to deter “wanderers.”  Johnny had too much experience with them to take the strip down.  Yet it was a new Alzheimer’s patient who told him about Rose.  Mrs. Curtis was 

in the early stages of the disease, so Johnny felt sure her testimony was still trustworthy. 

           

“Rose Simmons?” she had said that first day when he welcomed her to St. James’ Nursing Home.  “Yes, she came to Ivory Arms a month or so ago.  Sweet girl, she helped me so much.  Sweet girl.” 

           

Rose Simmons, the girl whose heart he broke when he went away.  Or did she break his 

when she went down to the city to cook for that white family?  “I’d have married you, Rose,” said Johnny as he caressed the silver gray face gazing up at him with adoration. 

          

 “Help me!” came a voice outside the room.  “Will somebody help me please!  Oh help me!”  He knew it was Agnes without looking.  Soon, an aide would be at her side, shouting into her deaf ears as they always did.  

“What do you need, Miss Agnes?”   

           

“Help me.  Won’t you help me?” 

           

“I’m trying, dear.  What do you need?”  A thick splashing sound interrupted them.  

Another woman’s voice - Johnny couldn’t recognize it - cried, “Oh God, I messed myself.”  

Running footsteps neared, then two young women in their pink housekeeping uniforms and an aide in her blue flashed past his door.  Before long, the stench seeped into his room.   

           

“Geez, Dolores, you didn’t mess yourself, you messed the whole floor!  What happened to your diaper?”  Dolores did not say, but her silent answer sent them into a fit of giggles.   

           

“Oh, honey, it’s not a shoe.”  Other noises crowded out Dolores’s response.  Squeaking wheelchairs, Cora screaming “Don’t touch me!”, the incessant public address system.  A wheelchair alarm started wailing which sent more feet scurrying.  

           

Johnny sighed.  If Rose knew how he lived, she would come for him.  It would be like old times.  He just knew it. 

           

“I’d do anything for you, Johnny,” she said as they walked hand-in-hand down the boardwalk. 

           

“Anything?” he asked with a glint in his eye. 

           

A large muscular woman in a blue uniform appeared in his doorway, her broad confident smile lighting the room.  “Hi, Mr. Walker,” she said.  “Coming down to lunch?” 

           

Johnny returned the gesture.  “In a minute, Eleanor.”  She waved and moved to another room.  Maybe Rose would take him out to lunch someday. 

           

Johnny closed the photo album and placed it on the dresser an arm’s length from his bed.  He pushed himself up, grabbed his cane, the gray metal kind with a gray plastic handle, and shuffled to the mirror.  He buttoned the top button on his blue and green plaid dress shirt and 

tucked it into his black sweat pants.  “You still got it, boy,” he said with satisfaction. 

           

He joined his three best friends at a square table.  To his left sat 103-year-old Mabel who still wore her long silver hair in a braided pony tale and had outlived her children.  At eighty-two,  overweight and dour Agatha to his right seemed older.  A tall, lean, and elegant man everyone called the Deacon sat across the table.  He spoke little but had an air of serenity that made even Agatha relax. 

           

Yet the Deacon was not serene today.  Every few seconds he put on his thick plastic rimmed glasses, pulled a piece of paper from his lap and held it up so that it nearly touched his nose.  Then he gave a humph of disgust, shoved the paper back in his lap and tapped his empt plate.  “Damned brother died,” he snapped. 

           

Johnny wondered at this anger but said nothing.  Agatha had no such scruples.  “Shame on you, Deacon.  You should never speak ill of the dead.”  The Deacon waved off her comment.   

           

“He was an evil-tempered drunk.  But he was also older than me, and as long as he lived on his own, there was a chance the family might get me out.  Now they’ll just say, ‘See?  That’s why you have to stay.’” 

           

Johnny thought he ought to say something.  “It’s not that bad, old boy, is it?”  The Deacon turned on him.   

           

“Easy for you to say, Johnny.  You got no family, no nobody, and you’re ninety-two years old.  Where else would you go?  But me? I’m young--” a pause -- “sort of.  Anyway, I got family, I can move around, and --” 

           

Johnny never heard the rest.  “Where else would you go?” rang in his ears.  “Where else would you go?”  And then he knew.  He would go to Rose, the one person he still had. 

           

Beautiful Rose, walking hand in hand with Johnny amidst the summer crowd, laughing at the ocean’s spray.  That night as they lay side-by-side in the sand, she said, “I love you, Johnny.  I always will.” 

*          *          * 

           

Actually, the escape itself was easy.  As one of the trustees -- his word, not the home’s -- Johnny could freely walk the grounds.  The next morning he dressed in his usual button-down shirt but wore dress pants as well and his black leather shoes instead of sneakers.  After breakfast 

he went out to sit on the smokers porch.  “But Johnny,” said the woman at the front desk, “you don’t smoke -- and it’s bad for you.” 

           

Johnny flashed his charmer’s smile.  “Honey, by the time I get cancer, I’ll be twenty years dead.”     

           

Outside, he was assaulted by the gagging stench of cigarette smoke.  How could they put up with this stuff, Johnny wondered.  Yet this porch, essential to his plan, abutted the small woods and was relatively unguarded.  As long as no staff came out to suck some carcinogens, he could slip away unnoticed.   

           

There were only two residents, both bundled up in heavy winter coats.  Johnny in his trench coat wondered how seventy-five degrees could feel so cold.  From the front porch around the corner, he could hear the amplified voice of a volunteer nun leading Rosary Hour.  “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee...”  He looked down at the two smokers.  As expected, both had fallen asleep, their cigarettes dangling in their fingers which hung over the arms of their chairs.   

           

Now was his chance.  Fifty paces and he was at the first tree.  Up to this point, he had broken no rules.  One more step, however, meant crossing the Rubicon.  One deep breath, one quick glance to make sure he was unobserved, then he slipped into the little wood, his black coat 

blending in with the trees.  

           

Just like that night he helped Rose escape from her overbearing brother, running through the woods till they reached his Model T.  Then a hundred-seventy odd miles to Atlantic City, laughing and holding hands the whole way. “I love you, Johnny,” she said from the passenger seat.  He remembered so well.   

           

Fifty more paces and he was on the other side, walking as a free man in the parking lot of Cross Hart Plaza.  He scanned the barren landscape and felt lost. 

*          *          * 

           

The asphalt of Cross Hart Plaza was old and cracked.  Gaping fissures made walking awkward at best and implausible in the most derelict corners.  The paper lined windows formed an endless row of brown teeth, with one gap in the middle.  That was Barber Joe’s, a black void 

marked by a single bulb burning in the back like a uvula.   

           

The Ice Cream Barn, Cross Hart’s only thriving business, rose above it all.  White with a fake red barn roof stuck on top, its doors opened wide in a promise of safe haven.  Two cows standing guard in front seemed to say, “Forget everything you see around you.  It isn’t real.  Only come inside and be at home.”  Johnny turned his face toward the barn.  All he could see was its white and red.  Which is why he failed to see the chasm before him.  The toe of his tight leather shoe caught the tip of the upraised asphalt just enough to send him flying forward.  Instinctively, he threw out his hands to save his face.  Johnny’s hands and knees took the brunt of the fall, and when he sat down to inspect himself, he swore.   

          

“Damn it!” he said louder than he had said in many years.  Since entering St. James’, Johnny had been careful with his language.  The wanderers used foul language.  The nasty old men and mean old ladies nobody liked swore a blue streak.  Johnny was nothing like them.  But as he picked tiny rocks out of the palms of his hands, he had to admit, swearing felt good.  

“Shit!” he said for the fun of it.  He laughed.  Many St. James’ residents fell, but few could sit up afterwards, let alone swear and laugh about it.  “Oh, Johnny,” he told himself even as he sucked his breath at the pain.  “You’re a cut above the rest.” 

           

That’s what Rose had said back in the day.  “Johnny, you’re a cut above the rest.”  That was when she laid her head on his shoulder as she sat next to him in that blessed Model T.  They rode in the dark along the dusty roads back up from Atlantic City, one of the headlights 

blown and the other complaining.  Johnny whistled a jaunty tune while he drove.  Rose asked if he was worried about getting lost in the dark, and in response, Johnny turned off the functioning headlight.  Rose laughed and snuggled up closer.  “Oh Johnny,” she said, “You’re a cut above the rest.”  

           

To his amazement, nobody came to his aid.  But why would they?  There was hardly a car in the parking lot.  It was still early for sweets, so even the Ice Cream Barn stood in silent expectation.  Johnny spotted the sidewalk that connected the vacant stores and shuffled over to it.   Feeling more secure on the stable surface, he tap tap tapped his cane against the concrete, inching forward in baby steps.  Compared to St. James’ short halls, the path to the Barn seemed to go on forever. 

           

With two stores to go, it hit him.  Johnny had no money.   

           

He had no need of it at the home. They received small allowances to buy trinkets here and there, but what did he have to buy?  For whom?  Money was meaningless these days, as foreign a concept as all those suicide bombers he kept hearing about on the television.  Yet back 

in the day, when Rose hung on his arm, and he knocked down milk cans with a baseball to win her a stuffed bear, he loved to flaunt his cash. 

           

During the wild days of prohibition, Johnny had played his beloved fiddle at speakeasies four nights a week.  His favorite had always been the roof garden joint on the building across from the Catholic Church.  Johnny thought it odd that the priest never complained until he saw Fr. O’Hanlen at a table on the roof garden.  What he loved most about that speakeasy was that he met Rose there.   

           

She danced in the show.  When it ended, she hung a little tray full of cigarettes around her neck and went from table to table.  “How much for the whole bunch of ‘em?” he asked her with a devilish smile.  

            

“What?” she asked.   

           

“All of them,” he said, pulling out a wad.  She beamed.   

           

“Wow, then I’ll have the rest of the night off!”  

           

“Want to go to Atlantic City?” he’d asked just like that.  She laughed. 

           

In those illicit days, money meant something.  Now it meant something new -- disaster.  

           

Without it he could eat nothing, call no one and worse still, go nowhere.  How would he catch a cab to Rose?  Johnny found a battered metal bench against the faded sign of Mary’s Beauty School which must have closed ten years ago.  He rested his cane on his knees and 

lay his head in both hands.  “I’m turning into a wanderer,” he said out loud.  The words stung worse than the gravel in his palm.  

           

He looked up in the direction of the home and shivered.  “A wanderer,” he said.  “I just wandered away from the home.  Now they’ll take away my freedom.  They’ll lock me in a chair and hook me up to one of those alarms.  They’ll ask me where I’m going every time I get near the elevator.”  He had to come up with a plan.  Johnny needed to either figure out how to get to Rose or how to break back into St. James’ unnoticed.  Or at least make up a really good excuse for running away.  What he needed now was time to think. 

            

Johnny stared down at the pavement for several moments, thinking.  Then he saw it.  A greenback stuck between the bench’s foot and the sidewalk.  Money.  It sparked new life, new hope in him.  He knew a dollar wouldn’t even get him inside a cab, but it ought to be enough for a cone at the Barn, and that was something.  Clutching his cane securely to keep his balance, Johnny worked the bill out from under the bench then pocketed it and resumed his stroll.

            

An electronic beep bop sounded when Johnny crossed the threshold.  The place was freezing.  Johnny pulled his trench coat up around his neck and shivered.  How long had it been since he’d stepped inside a place like this?  Last outing he’d made with the home had been a stop at an ice cream parlor, but everyone had eaten outside in ninety degree weather.  It must be sixty here.  

A man sat at a plastic table against the left wall eating a mountain of soft serve topped with tan goo and colorful candy bits.  On the right side, a young woman wrestled with a fat preschool boy.  “Just eat your ice cream, Joey,” she said. “I don’t want to hear no more about the playground.” 

           

Johnny shook his head but then shrugged.  What did he care?  He had his dollar and right there on the wall it said, “Small Cone - $1.”  He bellied up to the bar and placed his order.  His smile wilted when the old white woman behind the counter said, “That’ll be a dollar eight.”  The 

“eight” hit him with a shock down the spine like that time with Rose when he accidentally grabbed the wrong part of a barbed wire fence.   

           

She was laughing at their escape from Marcus, her brother.  He made her come home every night after work, and he wouldn’t let her out again until morning.  Johnny sneaked through the woods and hauled her out a window with a ladder.  Then they ran for it, but as he lifted one wire of a barbed wire fence, he managed to grab a barb.  He yelped, Rose giggled, and somehow it was all right. 

           

Johnny was quick to recover. 

          

“It says a dollar.” 

“Plus tax.” 

“Tax?”

“Tax.  You’ve heard of it?”

“Don’t you have a senior discount?” 

           

“For ice cream?” 

           

“Listen, honey,” he started, “I’m ninety-two years old--” 

           

Johnny knew he had her.  He saw it in her eyes.  Probably retired from the phone company but with insufficient pension to make it and insufficient imagination to find a more interesting job.  He was just gearing up for the one-sided battle of wits, when a dime chinked onto the counter.  “Get the man his ice cream, okay?”  Johnny turned wide-eyed to see the man of the mountainous sundae standing next to him.  “I think I can afford eight cents,” the stranger said with a tired smile.  After giving Johnny a quick once-over, he added, “I’m Paul.  Care to join me?”  He motioned to the table, now covered with paper napkins.  The ice cream looked more like Mount St. Helen’s with it’s top blown off. 

          

Johnny shrugged and shuffled to the table.  Paul sat facing the door.  Johnny was glad to have his back to the door.  That way none of the nursing home staff would see him if they walked by on their way to the bus stop. 

           

“So, what’s a nice guy like you doing with only one dollar?” asked Paul in a conversational tone.  Johnny smelled an smelled an interrogation coming on.  He knew about interrogations and wanted no part of it.  

“Thanks for the dime, my friend,” he said with him most charming smile.  “I won’t forget my wallet next time.”  He rose to leave.   

           

Paul stood as well.  “Sorry,” he said.  “Stupid question.  Just trying to make conversation.  Haven’t seen you here before -- and I’m here a lot,” he added, patting his belly.  Paul had to be middle-aged, with thinning dark hair and a pair of wire-rimmed glasses.  His suit was clean but 

had seen plenty of action.  Johnny pegged him for a detective right away which presented both a problem and an opportunity.  He sat back down, his smile more relaxed though he was thinking fast. 

           

“Apology accepted, Officer,” he finally said.    

           

“How did you --?” 

           

“Your gun,” Johnny pointed to the shoulder holster.  “Either you’re a detective or a gangster, and gangsters don’t kick in tax for little old men.” 

           

“I can see you’re a sharp guy,” said Paul, unconsciously checking his holster.  “Are you really ninety-two?” 

           

“Every day of it,” said Johnny.  “The secret to long life is to never smoke or get married.”  Paul raised his eyebrows.  “On the other hand,” Johnny added, noting Paul’s wedding ring, “long life isn’t everything, is it?  Take me for example.  Ninety-two and never married.  Lost a girl once.  Worst mistake of my life.”  

           

“What happened to her?” 

           

Johnny had baited the hook.  Now to reel Paul in.  “Funny thing.  She moved away, long time ago.  But now she’s back.  We were going to meet here.” 

           

“Why here?” asked Paul.  Johnny shrugged. 

           

“It’s where she wanted.  Who am I to argue?” 

            

“How’d you get here, anyway?” asked Paul.  Johnny was ready. 

           

“A friend dropped me off on his way out of town.  I was supposed to get a ride home with Rose.” 

           

“Rose?” 

           

“The woman.  My old, uh, girlfriend.”  Johnny’s eyes became moist but he forged ahead.  “Only now I’m beginning to wonder if she’s coming.”  Johnny looked at his pocket watch.  “I was late, so maybe she didn’t wait for me.”  They stared at each other for a minute.  Paul took one last bite of his remaining ice cream hill, then stuffed the napkins into the plastic bowl. 

           

“Do you think you should call her?” he asked.  Johnny shook his head. 

           

“Don’t have the number with me and I can’t remember it.  Keep it written down in my wallet of course, but it’s at home.”  He looked at Paul with a sheepish grin.  “You, uh, don’t think you could do me a favor, do you?”  Paul gave the smile of a man who knew.   

           

“Sure.  Where do you live?” 

*          *          * 

           

Ivory Arms dominated Market Street between North Division and Assumption.  Ten stories of white brick and glass.  A canopy welcomed guests and residents.  Across the street spread a playground filled with young men.  Johnny recognized the type, and he knew they were up to no good.  After all these years, punks were still the same.  “You cops ought to do something about these guys.”  Paul snorted, but as they pulled up to Ivory Arms, he kept a wary eye on the park. 

 

Johnny clambered out of the car.  With a groan and a stretch he looked up at the imposing building and shivered.  What to do?  What if Rose didn’t remember him?  What if she hated him for never coming after her?  Hadn’t he promised?  Back then.  He turned to Paul and waved his thanks.  Paul nodded but did not move.  “I’ll just wait till you get inside,” he called through the open window. 

           

Johnny started for the Ivory Arms, still trembling, a frightened little boy.  The door felt cold and hard in his hand.  No automatic door openers here.  He entered a foyer with a bewildering array of buttons, each with a name attached.  Arndt, Attwater, Beyer.  He skipped 

down the line.  Rayburn, Rothenburg, Rugen, Satterly, Sandberg, Scott, Sharp, Simon, Skidmore, Slaughter, Slick...  He ran his hands up and down the list again.  Scott, Sharp, Simon, Skidmore. 

           

Where was Simmons?  Where was Rose?  A buzzing noise startled him.  The door that divided the foyer from the hallway was buzzing.  He pulled the handle.  Again, hard and cold, and heavy.  A woman who could have been the Ice Cream Barn lady’s twin sat at a tall reception desk and gave him a warm smile.  “May I help you?  You looked a little confused out there.” 

           

Confused?  Like a wanderer?  God, no, thought Johnny.  He tucked his fear behind his disarming smile.  “Yes, thank you,” he said.  “I was told an old friend of mine was living here, but I can’t find her name.”   

           

“What’s her name?  I can double check for you.”  He told her.  She looked through her own list on the desk and gave a small frown, flipping one sheet of paper after another, then back again.  “No, no Rose Simmons.  Are you sure you don’t mean Rose Simon?  She moved in a 

couple of months ago.  About yea tall,” she indicated the top of her head.  “She said she was  seventy-six but looks like she could be in her fifties.” 

           

Johnny’s heart sank.  Seventy-six?  No, no, no.  “No Rose Simmons about yea tall?” he asked, hand at his chin, “maybe ninety years old?”  The woman laughed.  

           

“I’m sorry sir, this is a seniors apartment, not a nursing home.  I don’t think we have anybody here that old.  Most find they need assisted living at that age.” 

           

Johnny sniffed.  “Hmmm.  Well, thank you.”  He turned and made for the door, a new kind of shaking working its way through his body.  Anger at the slight.  Blended with confusion.  And embarrassment.  And fear.   

Just like the day about a week after Atlantic City.  They sat by the Hudson River together, watching a train speed south toward Manhattan.  In one hand he held a freshly developed photograph of the two of them leaning jauntily against the Model T.  Rose squeezed his hand and said, “Johnny?” 

“Hmmm?” 

“I’m leaving.” 

“I’ll take you home.” 

“No, Johnny.  I’m moving to New York.  Marcus don’t want me to dance any more.  I’m working for a rich white family down there.  It’s good money.”  He stared at her.  A Nash 697 pulled up.  Big dumb Marcus leaned out.   

“Let’s go, girl!” he yelled.  She looked at him with a weak smile.  “You’re a cut above the rest, Johnny.”  She kissed him on the cheek and turned. 

“I’ll come for you, Rose,” said Johnny.  “Someday.”   

Johnny sat down on a bench that leaned against the building and stared off into space.  Had he been paying attention, he would have seen Paul.  But he didn’t. 

Paul plunked his considerable frame down next to Johnny.  “No luck, huh?” 

“What?”  Johnny gaped in horror at the officer.  “I thought you left.” 

Paul unwrapped a lollipop and offered it to Johnny who shook his head.  Paul shrugged and popped it into his own mouth.  “Yeah, well I thought you might want a ride home.”  Johnny jerked his head around so hard that it hurt. 

“This is--” 

“--not your home,” interrupted Paul.  He reached over to Johnny’s left wrist and pulled on the nursing home bracelet.  “Smart as you are, Johnny, I thought you’d hide this better.”  Their eyes met.  “So,” said Paul.  “It was a woman, wasn’t it?” 

*          *          * 

Johnny’s head hung as they entered St. James’.  He tapped his cane erratically on the linoleum floor.  Velma at the front desk screamed when she saw him.  “Mr. Walker!  Where have you been?”  Johnny noticed how Velma’s long dark bangs danced along her forehead when she got excited.  Out of habit, he hitched up his charmer’s smile, and struggled to think of a good answer. 

“I am terribly sorry,” said Paul.  “I think I forgot to sign the right book when I took Uncle Johnny out.  He couldn’t stop thinking about it and finally insisted that we return.” 

“Uncle?” asked Velma, one thin eyebrow raised. 

“Great uncle,” said Paul. 

“You’re white,” said Velma.   

“By marriage,” replied Paul without batting an eye.  Johnny smiled.  He liked this guy.  Velma turned to him with a suspicious gaze. 

“Johnny?”   

“You should see his mother.”  

Paul laughed.  Velma glowered at them like an angry school principal.   

“You know everyone’s been going crazy looking for you.  We were about to call the police.  There’s going to be a lot of papers to fill out, too.”  

Paul pulled out his badge.  “I can handle paperwork.  So, Johnny,” he said redirecting his gaze.  “Want to go out next Saturday?  Renegades home opener.”  Johnny stared, gaping. 

“Yeah?” 

“It’ll be fun,” he said.  “You don’t mind if I bring the kids?” 

“You’d better sign him out properly next time,” commanded Velma. 

Johnny returned to his room an hour later.  He’d missed lunch during his adventure and would have to wait for dinner.  It didn’t matter.  Rose was gone, and he figured he would never see her again.   

But Johnny was home, he had made a friend, and he wasn’t a wanderer.