A Southern Place (17 page)

Delores knew this was leading somewhere, but she was still confused at what Mr. Foster wanted. He had done wonderful things for Calvin, and they were forever indebted to him. But now it sounded like it was Calvin’s fault, and that they—she and Cal—had somehow been ungrateful for Foster’s help. Or was it something else? She didn’t know.

“Thank you, Mr. Foster,” she said, her voice quivering. “We can’t thank you enough, and Calvin will always—”

“I’m not asking for your thanks, I don’t need it.” Mr. Foster sound insulted at her words, but continued his own confusing speech. “Your brother’s medical bills were paid. He was given a very generous cash settlement, along with the rehab he’s receiving now. I’d say that’s beyond enough for one man to take as profit from his own mistakes, wouldn’t you?”

“But it was an accident, he didn’t—”

“That’s right. We wrote it off as an accident. Oakland settled with your brother, without ever bringing up what legal experts felt should be explored; his mental state, unnecessary hurrying, careless procedures. He was known to invent dangerous contests with other workers in order to flaunt his physical superiority, thought of himself as the top of the heap despite being one of the youngest men working. We went without mentioning damages to equipment, valuable harvesting hours lost that day for all the men, and what it did to morale for the rest of the season. We called it an accident, and that’s what it will remain.”

Delores sat dumbfounded, hearing her brother described as someone she didn’t know. She couldn’t imagine anyone thinking of Cal this way, but obviously they had.

“Unless,” Foster said, intentionally slowing down, “your family wants to pull out of the settlement and take this to court. Unless you want to give up what you’ve already taken, and let a judge decide where to put the blame.”

Delores froze as she processed his words. Cal’s settlement—the check had been cashed and a good chunk of it already spent. He’d bought the truck, the land for his new home, and paid the contractors who were putting the house together for his return. Could Mr. Foster take the money
back
? What about the medical bills? Would he suddenly owe for them, too? Delores felt a cold chill run through her body, imagining her brother suddenly destitute and owing amounts he would never pay off in a lifetime. Where would they go? How could they even live? And Cal, in the fragile state he’d been in since losing his arm, would he even want to live under such circumstances?

“Miss Mullinax,” Foster said, “I don’t know or care about your intentions concerning my son. I realize it is possible that you looked on your dalliance just as he did, a one night/one weekend stand. Or perhaps you fancied yourself as beginning a new relationship, one that would continue to grow into something more permanent? Whatever your thoughts on the subject, here is what you need to understand. You will not be seen with my son, alone or in public, ever again.”

Delores sat stone-still, refusing to give in to the tears she held back.

“You are my employee. Your brother is an ex-employee, righteously settled with after a work-related accident. We, the Foster family, owe you and your family nothing whatsoever,” said Mr. Foster. “This is a small, nosy community. My son is living here while learning a skill to work him into the family business, but he is not now nor ever will be a part of the community, in a social context. Do you understand me, Miss Mullinax?”

Delores nodded and stared at the wall.

“My son is not your boyfriend, not your partying buddy, not anything to you. Any friendship he assumed with your brother ceased when they no longer worked together. You have no business at the lodge, and my son will not be seen in your home. Do you follow me here?”

Delores continued to nod, wringing the wadded paper napkin in her lap.

“If you can abide by these rules, I see no problem with your continued employment here. It would also mean that your brother’s settlement would not be questioned. You love your brother, and you certainly wouldn’t want to do anything that could jeopardize his happiness, would you?”

“No, sir,” Delores said, a single tear sliding down her cheek.

“Now, do you think we can come to an agreement here, Delores?” He was smiling now, a tight, sneer that showed he was totally in control of the situation at hand.

“Yes, yes, sir. I would never do anything to—”

“And do you think this little conversation is enough? Can we keep this between us, and not involve anyone else? I think that would be the best for everyone, don’t you Delores?” His smile grew bigger, and scarier.

“Yes, sir. Really. I mean, yes, sir,” she said. Tears trickled down both cheeks, and she smeared them off with the withered napkin.

“I think I’ll step out of the office for a few minutes,” Mr. Foster said as he stood. Delores stood as well, but he motioned for her to sit back down. “It would probably be best for you to stay and get yourself together,” he said. “Why not use my restroom to fix your face. You know the girls will have questions. Any idea what you’ll tell them?”

Delores swallowed hard, looked at the floor, then back up to her boss. “I’ll tell them you got onto me for being late, and that we need to watch the clocking in, from now on. That’s all.”

“Very good, Delores. You
are
a smart one. And are we perfectly clear on—the other matter?”

“Yes, sir,” she said, “perfectly clear.”

“Good,” he said, walking out of the room, quietly closing the door and leaving her to ready herself for the sewing room.

When the ladies returned from lunch, Delores was already there. She looked pale and red-eyed; though she’d washed her face, it was obvious that she had been crying. Imogene, who sat next to her, spent an hour trying to attract her attention, but Delores stared straight ahead and refused to make eye contact. Aunt Mamie rose from her machine and walked over behind Delores.

“You doin’ alright, baby? I declare, you’re looking a little peaked. Anything I can do for you?” Delores kept sewing, looking straight ahead, as though Aunt Mamie were nowhere in the room. Getting no response from Delores and the evil eye from Imogene, the older woman went back to her post.

“Delores Mullinax,” proclaimed the nasal voice of Mr. Foster’s secretary through the square wooden box at the front of the sewing room. The voice was loud enough to penetrate through all the clanging machinery, but with chirping, static-y accompaniment as well. “Delores Mullinax, please report to the main office for a telephone message. Delores Mullinax, please report to the main office now.” The intercom switched off with a static blast and a loud click.

Delores switched off her machine and left the room, ignoring the stares and puzzled looks of her friends. When afternoon break was called, they all headed for the smoking tree, but Delores did not join them.

❦

On her way to get her brother from the Institute, Delores stopped at the lodge and left a note for Phil.

Going to Warm Springs to get Cal. Cannot see you for a while.

Will explain later. Do NOT come to my house. Do NOT say anything to anybody about the time we spent together. Please don’t come over, and you can NOT tell my brother anything about us. I will explain when I can, but it may be a while. Please respect my wishes on this. My brother is all the family I have, and I have to protect him. I’m sorry if I have hurt you. Please believe me—Really.

Love, Delores

Chapter 11: January 1959

Warm Springs, Georgia

Calvin

Cal ambled out, taking in his new surroundings. Cracked sidewalks led to a dull brick building. The paint was peeling on the old wooden wheelchair ramp. He walked up the stairs to the faded green double doors. Pulling them open, he walked into the front hallway. The smell of Pinesol and urine assaulted him.

A woman in a wheelchair sat diagonally in front of the desk; a thin guy in coveralls, who looked like he might be her son, signed paperwork. She stared at the floor, drooling. A large girl about Cal’s age shuffled through the lobby. She touched every object as she moved through the room. When she reached Cal, she grabbed him in a strong bear-hold. His face was in her greasy hair.

You’re purty,” she said. He could feel her breasts smashed against him. “Will you be my boyfriend?” She smelled of onions.

Cal tried to pry himself away. A middle-aged man with Down’s syndrome rushed in, looking about frantically until he saw Cal’s new friend.

“Tina,” he screamed. “I’ll save you!” He ran head-on into Calvin, knocking Cal, Cal’s suitcase, Tina, and himself to the floor.

“Stahhhhpit, Hahvey,” Tina cried. “He’s my new boyfriend. I don’t love you no more.” She lay across Cal’s abdomen, talking to the floor, her girth pinning Cal to the linoleum.

Harvey rolled about like a ball-bottomed doll, finally stretching onto all fours and then painstakingly rising. It was at that moment that both he and Tina noticed Calvin’s hook.

“He’s a bad man,” cried Harvey, pointing. “He’s a—a—a bad—boat man!”

Cal could hardly breathe. He’d hit his hip on his suitcase when he fell, and it throbbed. “That’s a pirate, you dumbass,” Tina said. “And he ain’t a pirate. Pirates have eye patches and earrings.” She pondered the thought for a moment, then added, “I like pirates, though.”

“You’re bad, too, Tina. You’re a whore,” said Harvey, dragging out the word like “hoe-er,” putting his hands on his hips and staring down at them.

“Am not.” Tina tried to look over her shoulder at him. “You just call me a whore cause I won’t sleep with you.” She stuck out her tongue like a five-year-old. Cal cleared his throat.

“But you did, Tina, you did,” Harvey said. “You slept with me in my room ’til Mrs. Thomas came in and found us. You was asleep, Tina, you was with me, in my room, ’til she came in and—”

“You’re a idjut. I fell asleep in your room. But I didn’t
do it
with you. You don’t even know how. You didn’t even try—”

A large coffee-colored man in white scrubs came through the doors. “Okay, Tina, Harvey,” he said. “This is no way to treat a new friend.” He pulled Tina to her feet, then offered his hand to Calvin. Calvin braced himself with his good hand and got up on his own.

“This is my new boyfriend. He’s got a hook,” Tina said.

“He try to hurt Tina with it, he was gonna tear her up before I jumped on him and—”

“I’m sure he was not trying to hurt Tina.” The man winked at Calvin. “And it’s never good to attack someone when you don’t know the circumstances,” he said to Harvey.

Harvey began to cry. He had a white doughy face and hair the consistency of corn silk. “But I didn’t mean to tack him, I thought I was doing good. He shouldn’t have that hook thing out like that. They won’t let me hold a real knife cause I might hurt somebody, by mistake. They shouldn’t let him have that hook. It ain’t fair.” Harvey burst into sobs, snot mixing with tears.

“It’s okay, Harvey,” the kind man said. “Now why don’t you go wash your face. It’s almost time for crafts.”

“Crafts—oh boy! I make good crafts,” Harvey said, suddenly happy again. “I make you a present?” he asked Tina.

“I’m staying with
him
,” Tina said. She grabbed Cal’s hook and yanked possessively. Cal winced.

“Now, Tina,” the orderly said. “Remember how we’ve talked about keeping our hands to ourselves, especially with people we don’t know?” He gently removed Cal from Tina’s grasp as Harvey left for crafts.

“But I know him. I love him. He’s my boyfriend!”

“Tina,” he said sternly, “what’s his name?”

Tina pursed her lips. “I forgot.”

“Tina,” he said in a deeper tone.

“What’s your name?” she asked Cal, putting her hand on her hip and batting her pale eyelashes.

“Tina,” the man said again, “go back to the rec room. Dr. Lamb will talk with you about this later.”

“Not Dr. Lamb,” she whined. “You ain’t gonna tell Dr. Lamb. Please?”

“Go back to the rec room, Tina,” he said firmly. “We’ll talk later.” Tina put her mouth in a pout. She turned and stomped back the way she’d come.

“Travis Ford,” the man said, offering his hand to Cal. This time Cal accepted it.

“I guess you’re new; try not to let that little scene color your outlook on the place. Tina and Harvey are two of our more interesting characters. How long you been here?”

“I just got here a few minutes ago. There was a man at the desk, so I waited, then the—Tina—she came out and—”

“Enough said.” The man laughed. He was about six foot two and had friendly eyes. “Tina’s a handful, though basically harmless. Haven’t checked in yet?”

“Uhh, no,” Cal said.

“Let me help you. What’s your name?”

“Cal. Calvin Mullinax.”

“Where’re you from, Cal?”

“Nolan, Dumas County. A farming accident,” Cal said, looking at the shining steel where his arm used to be.

“Tough break, man. Still, you seem to be doing okay. You can learn some coping skills and go back to a normal life. Some of the folks here’ll never see that option.” Travis walked to the desk. “Edna, this is Calvin Mullinax. You got his name in that book of yours?”

Edna, the dour, middle-aged woman with a blue-gray bun, sat up straighter, squinted and ran her finger down an appointment book. “Mullinax. Yeah, you see Dr. Lamb first, at eleven. Through the red door and down the hall to your right,” she said without looking up. “You can leave your suitcase here. Someone’ll bring it to your dorm room.”

“I’ll show him to Dr. Lamb, Edna,” Travis said. He motioned Cal ahead. “Onward, to ecstasy!”

Dr. Lamb was an overweight, middle-aged man who liked to show off his vocabulary. After a few basic questions about Calvin’s disability and previous education, he explained that the next few days would consist of an evaluation, a battery of tests. The word “test” made Cal stare questioningly at his hook, which the doctor understood immediately.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “They’re oral tests.”

For the next two hours, Cal interpreted ink blots, identified pictures, did simple math calculations and answered general information questions any fourth grader would have known. At the end of his session, Dr. Lamb said, “I’ll see you tomorrow at the same time. You’re assigned to room seventy-two, with no roommate at present, but don’t expect it to last. With just a hundred twenty beds, we stay at maximum capacity most of the time.”

Cal found his room with no problem, his suitcase already unpacked and placed in the particleboard drawers. His meds, however, were nowhere to be found.

He went back out to the front desk. “Excuse me,” he said to Edna. “Do you know where the people who unpacked my things would’ve put my medication?”

Edna was writing something in her notebook and did not look up. “Clients are not allowed to self-medicate,” she said like a robot. “Medications prescribed by our medical staff are dispensed individually at specified times.”

“But these are prescription medications.” Cal stared down at her tight, unnatural-colored hairdo. “I’ve been on them since my accident and surgery. They gave me a three month supply when I left for here.”

“If our doctors think you need drugs, they will prescribe them.” She put her finger to her tongue and turned the page. “This is not a flophouse or an opium den. Go back to your room, Mr. Mullinax.”

“But some of it is—” he fought for the right word, “—mandatory. I’m not supposed to stop taking it ’til my doctor tells me. It’s for making my—” Cal hated the words associated with his new body. “Making my stump fully close up, without matted tissue, and to cut down the risk of infection.”

“You can talk to Dr. Lamb at your appointment tomorrow.” She had a sing-songy way of talking that made him want to scratch her face. “Go to your room now, before I have to call security.”

“Fine, then,” he snarled, pushing the swinging door with unnecessary force.

Dr. Lamb finally prescribed an anti-anxiety drug for what he called Cal’s “issues with his new condition,” but claimed the other medications were unnecessary. Also, the question seemed moot: staff members unpacking Cal’s things said no medications were in his suitcase, so he must have left them at home. Cal knew there must be some happy health workers tonight at his expense, but what could he do? He figured he’d tough it out for a while and see what happened.

Cal was tested, observed, retested, analyzed, psychoanalyzed and taken apart piece by piece, only to find that he was “of above average intelligence” and “mechanically inclined.” He learned that less than ten per cent of the more than one hundred residents at the Institute were physically handicapped, and for half of those, their physical problems were considered secondary. In the area of job training, career guidance taught two skills that, if mastered, could land clients in a job at a local factory: lining bobby pins onto a cardboard sleeve and fastening safety pins to a metal circle. As the testing continued, Dr. Lamb promised “skills therapy” when “a satisfactory evaluation was made,” but Cal had his doubts.

Five days after the testing began, Calvin was called by intercom to report to Room #17 for “occupational therapy.”
At last
, he thought.
Finally something that might matter.

A young, attractive blonde wearing a yellow sweater and smelling of lemony cologne introduced herself as Julie, his therapist. “We’ll work together three times a week,” she said, “working on both gross and fine motor skills and coordination. Ready to get started?” She smiled, evoking an air of sunflowers and cool breezes.

His first task seemed to be a game of sorts. He was seated at a table bearing a wooden roulette wheel. In a box on the table were numerous wooden pegs in a variety of sizes. Julie spun the wheel, and Cal’s task was to insert as many of the pegs as possible into the holes on the side of the wheel. He caught on fast, realizing it was easier to grab up pegs of one size with his hook and use his good hand to insert into the appropriate holes, then repeat the process with the next size. To his astonishment, the speed of the spin increased as his skill got better. Still, Cal rose to the challenge, and the box was empty before the wheel reached maximum speed.

“No fair,” Julie laughed. “You seemed to have had previous sorting experience. But your use of the hook will get better faster if you stop cheating with your other hand.” Cal laughed, too, then realized she was serious in what she said.

“But don’t I need to be using both, since I have both, and will ultimately work with them at the same time?” he asked. Julie rolled her eyes like he made no sense, and made no comment.

“Don’t I need to learn to use it all, a new way, to get back to doing real work? I mean, isn’t that what this therapy is really for? To figure out how to compensate for my lost arm, and still do my job?” Cal asked.

Surely if he showed her he understood his weaknesses, showed her how much he wanted to get better, then she’d know he was ready to get down to serious business. And she’d help him. She’d use her crazy Las Vegas games to make him better. She could teach him things; he was someone she could help enough to get out of this place. She might be as excited about this as he was, Cal figured.

“There are a variety of skills feasible for the handicapped, given proper training from experienced professionals and a willing attitude in the client,” Julie said, her cheerfulness fading into a stiff, all-business demeanor. “Perhaps you should spend some time thinking realistically about your job limitations. You will not return to the same life you had before, but you can have a successful life of a different nature.”

She opened the door, a nod of her head ushering Cal out. She made no eye contact, inspecting her cuticles as she spoke.

“What do you mean, ‘of a different nature’?” Cal said.

“You won’t become a surgeon or a concert violinist, but you can be part of the work force, and you aren’t disabled to the point of being a drain on society. You can have a productive life, if you face reality and keep a good attitude.”

Cal waited for more, but Julie’s silent stare indicated that she was through talking.

“Yeah, right,” Cal mumbled. He walked out the door.

That night seemed the longest in quite a while. Cal missed the painkillers, which he’d progressed to using only at night. More than the painkillers he missed the alcohol he’d used to set them in motion, and there was no
alcohol in Warm Springs. The skin around the end of his stump had turned pink and swollen, and he noticed a slight unfamiliar odor around it.

Cal sat up in his sweat-drenched bed and walked over to the sink for a cool washcloth to bathe his face, then what was left of his arm. He went back to bed, dreamed with eyes open, and repeated the washcloth procedure until sunlight signaled a new day.

The next day there was no roulette wheel in sight. Julie sat at the table with a red plastic box, hollow and covered in holes of various geometric shapes, obviously a child’s toy.

“Sit down, Cal,” Julie said with a nod.

“For me?” he said, gesturing at the toy as he seated himself.

“As a matter of fact, it is,” said Julie. “Today will be devoted to fine motor coordination.” She opened the box’s top and emptied its contents onto the table; three dimensional circles, squares, rectangles, diamonds, and stars in primary colors.

“It’s Tinker Toy day?” Cal asked, wondering what cat and mouse game she had planned.

“Children’s educational manipulatives aren’t just for kids anymore.” Julie allowed herself a smile. “I’ve found this particular one to be quite helpful for improving fine motor skills. Shall we begin?”

“Sure,” said Cal. He grabbed a handful of objects with his good hand, then plucked out a blue star with his hook, dropping it gingerly into the star-shaped hole. He repeated with a yellow circle, then a green square.
No
problem, piece of cake
, Cal thought. Feeling smug, he relaxed and let his mind wander, taking in Julie’s small, pert breasts under her sky blue sweater. Today she smelled more floral than citrus. He wondered if she had a different theme for each day of the week, like the panty sets his sister had yearned for in the Sears catalog.

The next star, a red one, caught on his hook, causing Cal to jam the shape sideways, half-in and half-out of the box. Embarrassed, he shoved harder, hooking the entire box onto his metal prosthesis. Expertly wiggling his shoulder, he clamped and unclamped the hook, then tried to shake the box off the hook, to no avail. Plastic against metal made a noisy rattling sound.