by Bill Foley
Dale stood frozen in the parking lot of the Essex Nursing Home like a decorative plant. Where am I? He felt the strong grip of a hand on his elbow leading him back inside.
“Come on, Mr. Malone. It’s time for Bingo in the recreation room,” the attendant said.
Dale tried to resist but the man holding his arm would not be deterred.
“I want to go home. I have to feed my dog, Teddy.”
“This is your home Mr. Malone. You don’t have a dog.”
“No one’s home. I gotta feed him.”
The director of the nursing home advised Dale he could not leave. Cameras watched him, locked doors blocked him, and guards restrained him. He feigned compliance with his oppressors but wanted to go home, wherever home was.
Dale submitted to the attendant. A permanent haze obliterated his thoughts. Where was he going? Who is this man?
When one day is much like the next, time loses all meaning. Days become weeks and the past is always present. Dale spent his days watching TV, waving the remote like a magic wand, ceaselessly flipping channels. Sometimes he tried to wander outside and got as far as the parking lot, but they would escort him back inside. One day this frozen time was momentarily shattered. Patients were suddenly awakened from the slumber of routine at six am by the fire alarm.
“Bong, Bong, Bong!” Like a spray of ice water, the klaxon roused the residents. Staff rushed to evacuate the ambulatory patients into the parking lot while those who could not walk were loaded into wheelchairs or rolled out on gurneys.
Sirens screeched as the fire trucks arrived in the parking lot. Smoke and flames consumed the kitchen areas as patients stood shivering under their blankets. Dale stood alone in the back of the crowd steadily moving further away. In the confusion, he walked out of the parking lot and down route nine with the intention of going home and feeding Teddy.
A high school student in a pickup truck was the first to notice Dale in his pajamas covered with a gray blanket that dragged behind him as he shuffled down the highway. “Hey mister, you want a ride?”
Dale froze and stared at the boy confused, “My dog Teddy ran off.”
“Where do you live?” the boy asked.
“Just down the road.”
“Hop in and I’ll take you home.”
The boy asked why he was wearing just pajamas, but Dale didn’t answer him. The boy rocked back and forth as his stereo blasted a deafening bass. Dale felt the sound thumping in his chest while searching for his house. “There it is. You can drop me off by the driveway.”
“What?” the boy replied made deaf by his ear-splitting music.
“Please stop,” Dale shouted.
“Are you sure you’re okay,”
“Yes.”
Dale opened the door and started walking down the driveway. He remembered the lake, but the house with its enormous deck and gabled roof was not his cabin. He walked around the grounds and saw a kayak, life jacket and paddle sitting on the beach. He stood motionless on the lake’s edge unable to decide what to do. Two loons yodeling greetings to each other shook him from his vacillation. He had heard their tremolo sounds before and was sure they were the same birds that nested near his cabin. A male and female were filling their bellies before the arduous journey southward. Loons traveled thousands of miles and yet they found the same nest every year. They could guide him home if he was patient. He put on the life jacket, picked up the paddle, pushed the kayak into the lake, and climbed in. Scanning the lake, he paddled to the bird’s last location. The loons were about twenty feet from his boat when they resurfaced. The male made a haunting call of short bursts that warned him to back off. “Don’t be afraid Mr. Loon. Take your time but lead me home.”
Dale paddled his kayak deeper into the fog blanketing Schroon Lake. A cold front had dropped temperatures into the forties, transforming heat from the warm lake water into billows of mist. The lake was unusually quiet. Even the geese had decided to sleep in on this chilly morning, waiting for the sun to burn through the clouds. Only the rhythmic, unhurried strokes of water against his paddle broke the silence. His vessel penetrated an ethereal world of haze and sparkles of sun; a pilgrim soul passing through the gates of an enchanted land.
Dale slowed his paddling as the eerie call of a loon meant they were nearby. A sudden splash of water startled him, as the bird surfaced a few yards to his right and quickly swam away. He pursued his guide with rapid sweeps of his paddle, counting strokes then breaths as he vainly searched for the loon to lead him home.
As Dale paddled further out into the lake the clouds thickened, making it impossible to locate the birds. An indifferent sun lifted the shroud that enveloped him now and then, yielding patches of sunlight. He was shivering in forty-degree weather wearing his thin blue pajamas, and a life jacket, prompting him to steer his vessel toward the warmth of sunlight. Once escaping the fog, an island emerged a half-mile ahead cloaked in mist where loons could safely nest. As he approached the island his eyes became useless while gliding through another fog bank. His ears became the navigators registering breaking of waves on the shore. When the sunlight lifted the misty curtain, he saw a beach. The kayak’s sharp bow cut into the sand and scuffed to a sudden stop.
The island resurrected memories of the summer camp once filled with children, counselors, and ceaseless clatter. An aluminum slide and a diving platform sat abandoned on the sand like artifacts left by ancient inhabitants. Back then, a public address system squawked with the names of campers who needed to report to the administration building. Girls shrieked while prepubescent boys practiced their masculinity by splashing female campers. Then suddenly, around Labor Day, silence, like the campers never existed.
A full bladder demanded Dale’s attention, but his arthritic hips and knees were like the appendages of a stone statue. When he lifted his leg over the deck to disembark, the vessel broached, depositing him into the shallow water. Dale crawled a few feet to dry land, pissing himself, then rolled over on his back breathless.
The unfortunate dip left him chilled, so after pulling the boat ashore, Dale unzipped his life jacket, shook the water from its pads, and lay it over the deck to dry. He positioned his kayak to protect him from the wind as he lay in the sun trying to warm up. Unfortunately, the sun was busy with clouds, so he tried jogging on the beach to warm himself. Breathless, he stopped, sat down, and leaned against his boat.
“What am I doing here?” Dale understood he forgot things but became frightened at being lost. Sometimes his mind entered a dark numinous state driven by forces beyond his control. People and places snapped by like a slide show, mocking his feeble-mindedness. The ghost of a woman stood with outstretched hands, calling him. When the ghost became human, he recognized his late wife Muriel, with reptilian eyes, dressed in a hospital gown, and a tube extending from her neck. The painful hospital visits filled his memory, and replayed how Covid strangled her. He sat parked in the hospital lot fingering his iPad futilely calling to her, offering words of comfort she could not hear. I’m here with you sweetheart. You must keep fighting. I can’t live without you.
Overwhelming sadness flattened him, and tears poured down his face. Tears were a rare event in his life. Now in old age, blubbering could begin without warning. He slapped his face screaming, Stop it! then twisted his eyes like faucets to staunch his tears. Dale knew death would visit him someday, but until now it had called others. Today, it was no longer possible to deny that death was stalking him.
The loons appeared again teasing him with false hope. He pushed his kayak back in the water and paddled out to meet them. Once beyond the island, the loons disappeared beneath the waves. The wind grew stronger and white caps surrounded him. The kayak bounced like a cork, and fatigue began to overtake him. The boat rocked in the maelstrom, and he lost his grip on the paddle. As he leaned to retrieve it, he slipped into the water, thrashing about, frightened, and gasping for air. As he struggled to keep his head above the surface, fatigued overwhelmed him and he accepted the invitation of the lake to rest.
It was a warm sunny day as he pushed off his kayak from the dock early in the morning. Teddy barked mournfully as his master departed. The lake was a motionless surface of polished silver that enabled him to paddle effortlessly to Word of Life Island some two miles away. The campers had not arrived yet, so there would be time to pull up on the beach and enjoy his thermos of coffee. Along the way, two loons warbled beside him, like sentries welcoming him home.
© Bill Foley
Bill Foley (he/him) is the author of two self-published novels, The Entitled, published in 2013, and Pillar of Fire, published in 2016, both books available on Amazon. He has written over two dozen short stories and work-shopped them at the New York State Writers Conference, The New School, and the writing institute at the 92 nd St. Y in New York City. He has also participated in the Writers in Paradise Conference at Eckerd College for several years. His two published short stories are “Sailing Lessons,” in South Winds in February 2017 and “Making Peace,” in Naviga Literary Review in July 2021.
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