Collision: A Novel and 4 Plays

By August Franza

Ray Romer has an automobile accident on his way home from a nursing facility where his wife is an Alzheimers patient. He is picked up and helped by a couple, Guy Anker, and his wife, Gail. What follows is a series of surprising and dramatic incidents in which they become a complex part of Rays troubled life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 2, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514483763

August Franza

August Franza has published 27 novels and is planning to make them an even 30.

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Copyright © 2016 by August Franza.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-5144-8363-3

               eBook           978-1-5144-8376-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 04/29/2016

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CONTENTS

Collision

The Incognito Man

Steve And The Brute

Bughouse

Turtles All The Way Down

1

I love you, Terri! he cried, I love you! tears staining Ray’s face as he drove into the night. The blur of oncoming car lights made him grip the wheel and lean into the blinding dazzle. I love you, Terri! he cried again, saying it over and over as he pictured her, immobilized in the vicious bed. It had been weeks now and there were months to come. Many of them.

How many times had he gone there and driven home tearful and hunched over the wheel, exhausted by what he had witnessed. There were times when he refused to go because of the pain that filled him, but all his excuses weren’t enough to keep him away for long. He had many excuses when he wanted them – the long drive, the traffic, his state of mind, drowned feelings, depression, but they were not enough armor to protect himself and his feelings. He had to go, had to look at her, touch her, kiss her immobile, almost lifeless face. He would have felt some relief if she had opened her eyes and recognized him but she didn’t do that. She couldn’t. That was the disease. She mumbled a word or two that, as usual, he couldn’t make out. He begged her to open her eyes and look at him.

It’s me, Terri. It’s Ray. Terri, I’m here. It’s Ray.

He takes her swollen hand and tries to open it so he can clasp it and send their signal, the one they made up in college. Three soft presses— I… love… you— but she is unable do it. Ray does it. He sent the signal to Terri. Three soft presses into her stiff and swollen hand. No response.

She is now rehab, after weeks in the hospital. They had saved her there from pneumonia and now she was on the long road back. But back to what? She would be back to her insensible, incurable condition.

There was less traffic in the more isolated part of the road but when the occasional car came at him, he was frightened. His sight was good enough for his age but not quite good enough to staunch the daggers of streaming headlights.

He looked away, shut his eyes for a second or two. He felt relief when the road cleared, but it wasn’t long before the lights came at him again. He drove on but he was back at rehab.

It requires three aides to get Terri out of that bed and into the wheelchair.

She’s going through the first steps of physical therapy. Going through? Being handled into some sort of wellness. She is not a participant. Machines will be handling her 120 pound body, her stiff arms and legs very gently, raising, lifting, lowering. He is not in the room when this happens. The aides ask him to leave. He doesn’t know why but his ignorance of the procedure only creates fantasies in which a moribund cow is being transported to a slaughterhouse.

After a silent visit, he ‘says’ goodbye. He presses her hand, strokes her arm, kisses her. Her eyes are closed. She seems oblivious. She is oblivious. It’s been a long while since she has recognized him. Too many weeks and months to count and he feels their weight. He feels it every day. As she goes through rehab, even if it works, what can he look forward to? She is an insensible woman now. He’s known and loved her all the many decades and now she’s un-Terri, non-Terri, not-Terri. Where is the woman he loved and who loved him? And if the rehab doesn’t work and she can’t come home, what then? He shudders to go beyond that question.

The last part of his drive at this late hour is usually empty. There are no lights on the road. The trees hover around him. They are black, indistinguishable shapes. A cluster of darkness. He is worn out, tired and desperate because there will be no good ending to it all. Terri and he had a good life together and then she was felled, stricken five years ago. He now knows what a century of pain feels like.

Brooding, he began humming a couple of love songs that he and Terri knew: Tender is the Night, I Remember You and You Are My Sunshine. He choked up.

You Are My Sunshine, you ask, surprised? Really? Such a dimwitted song? Yes, it’s always played fast, upbeat and smiley. But one day, while driving with Terri, they heard a different version on the radio. A woman said she was going to sing it differently, slow and serious, paying attention to the words:

"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,

You make me happy when skies are grey,

You’ll never know dear, how much I love you,

Please don’t take my sunshine away."

Slowly. Slowly. Seriously.

Terri and he looked at each other and joined hands. Ray said, Listen to that. I never realized that it’s a very sad song. I’ve never heard it that way. Have you?

No, Terri said, and I’m very touched. Did she have tears in her eyes? He bet she did. Her voice appeared to tremble. No. Never heard it this way.

"The other night dear, while I lay sleeping,

I dreamt I held you in my arms,

When I awoke, dear, I was mistaken, so I hung my head and cried,

You are my sunshine… ."

Slowly. Slowly, ever so slowly, seriously.

Ray began singing the songs until his eyes were misty. He thought he’d better stop for safety’s sake. He began thinking of other love songs that they knew and prized. Ray played the guitar and Terri had a sweet voice.

They’d sing together, sitting across the kitchen table from each other after dinner.

They did that often, the old sweet songs like Dream and I Should Care, and

Embraceable You and In the Middle of a Kiss. Oh, so many of the old ones. His guitar playing was simple. He had an old fake-book from college that had the chords and lyrics of hundreds of songs. Now, of course, that music and that scene were long over but they now came rushing back to him.

Ray saw there were lights behind him. A car sped up and began tailgating. Why in the middle of the night on a lonely empty road would he do that? He could have passed but he didn’t. He hugged Ray’s bumper. It made him think of what Tony Johnson used to said a long time ago.

Ray, you could be the only guy on the road for miles around, but if there’s another car on the road, he’ll tailgate you. It’s the game. It’s happened to me a hundred times. It’s something American drivers love to do to threaten you. And it’ll happen every time. Unconscious hostility.

Should he speed up? Should he move over? The songs drained out of his mind. He rubbed his eyes to clear the mist. What should he do? What was the tailgater going to do? Inches away, he followed Ray for a long time, then suddenly blew his horn, peeled to the left and sped ahead of him, repeatedly blasting his horn. Shaking his head, Ray slowed down. He tried to relax and thought of pulling off the road but surveying the dark and empty night, he thought the better of it.

2

The rehab-nursing care place. Ray cynically calls it Happyland. It does its job, it helps people, it’s helping Terri (so they tell him) but don’t they know it’s unavailing?

It has clean floors, busy aides and workers. There’s a lot of rushing around.

As he passes the rooms, Ray sees remnants of people, one in a bed, sleeping with her mouth open, coming doom writ large. He sees an old man being fed. He sees anxious aides bent over a patient. He hears an alarm go off. He’s told that an old woman’s had a bad fall. He sees people in wheelchairs in the hall. He sees them grouped around a long table in a lobby. There’s no dearth of talk. They all are trying to smile. This is a good place, Ray is told. He smells food. Pick up the red cover and get a whiff. It’s nothing like he’s ever made. But there’s a purpose to that. Like Terri, patients need specially prepared foods. Ray feels mortified. Everything here is a memento mori. I want out, out, out, Ray thinks. But this is a good place, he is told and he thinks it is. Everyone is trying to smile, put on a reassuring face. Ray is grim. He can’t return those smiles. I want to punish,

Ray thinks. Punish? Who? Because Terri is here; the non-Terri, the un-Terri, the not-Terri. He cannot deal with this.

But why can’t you? Ray counters. You’ve dealt with it for five years. You’ve watched her waste away, slowly, unavoidably. Irrevocably. Going going going… .

Terri Romer, his wife of five decades. They have a history. A long one. They have bushels of photos, a score of albums of their travels. The shelves of the condo are lined with photos of her, of her alone, in the flesh, in stylish clothes, in many moods, pensive and happy, provocative. That is Terri. They are Terri. Who is this phantom who has taken over? Who has come to dominate her?

Ray calls it a Demon.

Family and friends regard her, glorify her, optimize her, make her a gift.

They tell Ray she’s improving. They tell him she opens her eyes and sees you.

They tell him she smiles. They tell him she says a word. He’s never been there for these delicious moments.

He bends to her, he touches her, he croons to her: "Terri, it’s me, it’s Ray.

Open your eyes and see. I’ve come. I’m here. Here I am."

He tries to close her mouth. He wants to see those lips he used to kiss with eagerness and abandon, perfectly formed rich red lips that are just rims now around the open cave of her mouth. He wants to pull her eyes open, kiss her, pet her, hold, squeeze her hand. It’s not working. How long can he stare at broken, used-up Terri? She is being taken care of, she is being hovered over, she is in good hands. What need does she have of me now? I realize I can’t save her now as I did and tried to do during our marriage. Not that I was a savior or anything like that, I was more a bulwark, a support in so many ways, when she had to tell me, and admit to herself but couldn’t, that her mother had cancer, couldn’t say it, couldn’t admit it to herself until I drew it out of her and she could release it, wild in her tears, or when Terri came home tearful from her first day of teaching in the poorest section of the city, where she realized that the authorities had stuck her, a novice, in a jungle among batty kids who had no idea that she was the teacher or cared if she were, that she had been dumped there because she was an out-of-state teacher who had been successful but was without the skills to handle these kids who came close to injuring her. I calmed her down, spoke of her strengths, embraced her, and let her cry it out. I took her to the Board of Education and got her reassigned to the kind of class she could teach. I recall the day years later when Mildred across the street called her over because there was something wrong with her baby and I saw at the picture window Terri holding and rocking the baby who had died in her arms of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, how that tragedy affected Terri after she had done all she could do to help. I gave her everything I had to support her in her grief… . The many other times I had given her aide, support, and love when she was under pressure… . and now this emptiness and this loneliness… .

Deciding that Amy needed more attention and care than the nursing home could give, three aides who would be with her around the clock. Three efficient, caring people: Yolanda, Rosita, and Louise. Yolanda from Jamaica, Rosita from

Dominica, Louise native-born. She’s known as Lully, has a college education, is very bright and very good-looking. She is also 25. Why, Ray asks, is a college graduate doing work like this, taking care of terminal and sick old people when she can be anything she wants to be? She has the looks. She makes his fantasies run wild as he stares at her youthful beauty. He’s envious, want her for himself. He knows little about her, he keeps his distance, but there are his rabid fantasies… . . Here I am, he thinks, a lonely man who’s losing his wife — no, who’s lost his wife, a wife he has loved and who loved him. Do you know what I’m saying, he says to himself? Don’t you remember? Do you know what it means to have a lovely woman like Terri, who waits for you to embrace her, love her, share everything with her, argue with her, disappoint her, be truthful and faithful to her, even with all the women out there and the temptations that have stabbed and stung him, she whose appearance made a men take a second look. Now Ray is actually smiling as he recalls that moment in

Venice when a man approached her. He was a salesman; Amy was looking to buy a leather jacket. I said I’d wait for her in a bookshop across the way. When she came out carrying a package, she had one of her bright smiles on her face.

That was funny, she told me. A handsome salesman approached me and showed me the jackets. The one I bought turned out to be like the one he had on, and before you know it he asked me out to dinner.

And what did Terri answer this handsome salesman? She told him with a smile, I’m married, to which he said, Need that matter? To which she replied,

Yes, it does.

Yes, it does! Yes, it does!

And yet here I am fantasizing over Lully, brown and lovely, with long legs and a narrow waist and a youthful build, and dark eyes and smooth hot skin and long black hair and there’s nothing wrong, nothing wrong, yes, there’s nothing wrong, but there’s nothing really true, because I don’t know her, will not go near her, I won’t dare to close in for fear of igniting something I can’t control… . even at my age, which has nothing to do with anything… . At this vicious time, I have enough sharp and distinct and soft memories of Terri and me making love, in these years of waste, and so I recall and remember the innermost details of our warm soft pleasures… . in a canopy bed on a warm Caribbean night, and making sinuous love on a porch overlooking a bay on a hot afternoon, relieved of the tropic heat by trade winds, or at twilight on a massively large bed, Terri naked on her back and I scrolling down with my lips and tongue from her flung-out hair to her toes and everything in between, the delectable morsels of evening, Terri shouting out mighty orgasms.

This Louise. This Lully. Who is she? A very sweet and attractive helper who exudes heat by just being there to perform her common, paltry labor attending to Terri’s needs—her shit, her urine, her spittle, her bed sore, her vomit, yes, all of that. Lully’s brown skin shines, her black eyes are darts, innocent darts that arrow into me, raising havoc in the antiseptic stalls of rehab. I want her to leave, disappear, go away but at the same time keep her. I don’t really know what I want, but oh yes I do.

Ray watches the clock, trying to to find an excuse to bolt, even after an hour or two. Will everyone doubt my love for Terri and his commitment to her?

He doesn’t care. He’s got to get out of there. And which Terri? Don’t they see that this isn’t Terri? She has been kidnapped and replaced with a wreck of a copy. A used copy. Tattered. Torn. Right out of life. Need I be faithful to an unseeing, unhearing, unresponsive automaton? Terri wouldn’t want to be her either.

Ray knows the way to rehab by heart. He can drive it with his eyes closed.

And sometimes they do close, of a hot humid night, a rainy night, a moonless night on the lightless road. But this night… . .

In a second, he was looking at it staring at him, wide-eyed and helpless.

The proverbial deer in the headlights, right in his eyes. He swung the wheel but he was going in the same direction the animal was, each of them trying to evade the other, en route to a collision. There was no crunch of metal on metal; there was a sickening loud thump, then Ray hitting brush and bush as his headlights showed the deer limping off into the trees. The airbag had blossomed, deflated and then all was still. He pushed the fabric aside and backed the car out onto the shoulder of the road. Something was hissing, something was dragging. He turned off the rattling motor and caught his breath. The night folded around him and then locked.

He