Recessional: A Novel (8 page)

The four birds had learned from generations of experience how to maintain a safe distance from any other living thing, a separation that would permit them to take instant flight if menaced, and they observed the rule until the moment they saw Judge Noble unfasten his reel to reach for the day’s catch. Then, abandoning caution, they crowded in till he could almost touch them, and as he threw his fish one by one onto the ground nearby, they thrust forth their long necks and amazingly long bills to snap up the morsels.

“Oh!” the judge cried as the birds came closer. “Are they not a delectable foursome?” But Zorn did not answer, for one of the white egrets in search of a fish had come almost to his shoetips, and for a moment, until the delicacy had been safely taken, the egret looked up into the doctor’s eyes and seemed to smile in companionship as he prepared to gulp the fish.

“What were the names again?” Zorn asked, and the judge repeated: “Blue heron, white egret.”

“Which are your special friends?”

“Whichever comes closest on that day. But don’t I have a wonderful richness from which to choose?” Before Zorn could reply, the judge, who was facing the channel, cried: “Here he comes! The best of all.” And onto the water at the fisherman’s feet crash-landed a
huge bird built like a truck in comparison to the egrets, who had the sleekness of racing cars. It was a pelican, ungainly, almost ferociously ugly, all out of proportion with an enormous feathered bottom and a gigantic beak hinged so far back into its head that when opened it looked as if he could admit a small motorcycle.

“His name is Rowdy,” the judge said, “and if I hadn’t saved him a fish, he’d have cursed me roundly.” Even though it looked as if the pelican was assured of at least one fish, he made rude grunting sounds as he approached his friend. He was almost a caricature of a bird, and as Zorn watched him waddle about like some pompous official monitoring a parade, he intuitively liked him. The pelican opened his cavernous mouth into which the judge popped his last catch of the day, and after performing a postprandial dance, Rowdy rose a few feet in the air and glided back to the channel, where he landed with a splash that might have been made by a hippopotamus who had fallen into the water.

Judge Noble, his day’s work done, folded his chair under one arm, propped his fishing rod over the other shoulder, bade Dr. Zorn good-bye, and marched back to his quarters in the Palms, leaving Andy free to continue his exploration of the savanna. Some distance beyond the fishing scene, he came upon a slight opening through the matted grass, low shrubs and intertwined tree limbs, and recklessly he plunged into the heart of the wilderness.

Surrounded by luxuriant gray-green shrubbery and tough grass with here and there a low tree, he had one of the strangest sensations of his life. Suddenly he was a boy again in a suburb of Denver and his father had come home with exciting news: “Andy, that movie house off Larimer Street is showing a wonderful old film, especially for children, and you must come with me. I saw it years ago and it has more wild animals in it than any other film ever made.” When Andy wanted to know what the movie was called, for he was suspicious of his father’s recommendations—usually the films were too complex for him to understand—his father replied: “
Trader Horn
. It’s about an adventure in Africa, with lots of lions, crocodiles, giraffes, zebras. I saw it years ago and never forgot.” Now, years later, Andy could still see the poster he had studied while his father bought the tickets. It was a gorgeous affair, big and in bright color showing an African woodland scene full of exotic wild animals:
TRADER HORN
,
THE EPIC OF THE WILD
. And he could still see those thrilling names of the leading
actors Harry Carey and Edwina Booth. On the poster she wore very little, was menaced by lions and was unbelievably beautiful.

He could not remember much about the movie—there was the bounteous supply of animals, as promised—but Edwina Booth still echoed in his memory. She had been an effective heroine, but what had captured his imagination was what happened after the film had been shot. News reports said that during her heroic work in Africa she had either suffered a terrible case of sunstroke or contracted some debilitating disease, which would prevent her from ever making another film, and she never did. For years thereafter he would catch himself brooding about Edwina Booth: “Why couldn’t some doctor have saved her? Why didn’t they get her to a proper hospital where the nurses—” Often he speculated about how he would have handled her case and could see himself dressed in white as he gave a series of orders to his admiring assistants and nurses. It was not preposterous to claim that he had become a doctor in order to be on hand to save the life of some future Edwina Booth were she to be brought into the hospital where he worked.

So now, on this fading afternoon as he explored, he was examining not an untamed corner of western Florida but the jungles of Africa, on the trail of lions, and behind that clump of bushes he might very well come upon Harry Carey and Edwina Booth and be of service to them. On and on he went, past the baby Washingtonia palms, past the scattered Brazilian pepper trees with their bright berries, and into a land as rough as if it were indeed in the heart of Africa. And he was mesmerized.

The sun had sunk low in the January sky when he came upon an enchanting sight: a small oval pond—filled with water of a character he had never before seen or heard of. It was green, but not a stagnant or weed-covered green. It was bright emerald, the most beautiful green he had ever seen, scintillating, resplendent, a green that one might see in a magical dream. When he bent down to inspect it more closely he saw it was composed of a million tiny specks of something—buds perhaps, tips of submarine plants, but whatever they were, in the mass they presented a magnificent sight.

He was unaware, as he knelt beside the emerald pool, that he was not alone. Off some yards to the west, toward the channel and deep within the low bushes, lay a huge rattlesnake some eight or nine feet long and as thick through the middle as a big softball that children play with before they can manage a real baseball. The snake had lived
close to his assured supply of water and careless mice and squirrels for more than a score of years, during which he had occasionally watched some huge and unfamiliar animal like Dr. Zorn come to the pool. Since he had never attacked them, they could not have been aware of his presence, but whenever they did move near, he coiled in preparation to activate the hornlike buttons on his tail, sending a warning that he was prepared to defend himself. Fortunately for the explorers, this had never been necessary.

One morning many years ago, when dew was on the foliage near the pool, a young woman in shorts and heavy boots had lost her way in the savanna and had beaten her way noisily through the brush trying to find some path that would lead her back to the waterway and its footpath that would lead her to safety. The Palms did not exist then, so she could not use it as a guide, but she did have a useful sense of direction that told her roughly where west and the channel would be.

So after pausing to admire the extraordinary green pool, she continued westward, her heavy boots taking her within a few feet of the coiled rattlesnake. Had she taken one more step in that direction the snake, with its enormous charge of deadly poison due to its exceptional size, would surely have struck at her exposed white leg and she would have died before she could even signal for help. Fortunately her foot fell short of the fatal mark; however, she had moved so close that the snake had to sound a warning. He did not want to attack this strange creature so much bigger than his usual targets, but he was prepared to do so if it came closer. Accordingly its rattling was so loud and insistent that the girl froze, not knowing what the sound was nor where it came from, but aware that it was a warning of some grave danger.

Searching for an explanation, she looked down and saw the monstrous snake, perfectly coiled, its tail vibrating furiously. The snake saw her, and for an agonizing moment each stared into the eyes of the other. Then quietly she withdrew her trespassing foot, which encouraged the snake to cease his signaling. Slowly, her heart beating furiously, she moved away from both the pool and the snake.

When she rejoined her companions she told them breathlessly: “Oh, what a terror! I looked down among the low bushes and there it was, the biggest rattlesnake anyone ever saw,” and she formed her two thumbs and forefingers into a circle five inches in diameter, the exact girth of the snake she had just seen. The young men in her group
derided this claim: “No snake but a python is ever that big around,” and her listeners concluded that she had probably seen a harmless garter snake and been terrorized. She did not argue back; a girl knew she gained no advantage by contradicting young men who were sure they knew more than she. But she had seen the snake; in that terrible protracted moment when she and it stared at each other, she’d had ample time to form an estimate of its size, and she knew it was still there beside the emerald pool.

When Dr. Zorn made his retreat from the pool he had a good guess as to where the channel lay, and his path carried him well away from the rattler’s hideout. The snake made no noise, nor did the doctor through clumsiness disturb the peace. Safely he passed on, worked his way through the savanna that had destroyed Edwina Booth, and came at last to the footpath leading back to the Palms. Retracing his steps when entering the area, he reached his new quarters and was eager to report to Krenek: “I’m going to like it here. Interesting residents. Responsible health care. Clean buildings, and a fascinating bit of unspoiled savanna right outside the door. Three wonderful birds welcomed me—herons, egrets and a half-drunk pelican.” Unpacking his trailer, he quickly organized his few possessions in the furnished apartment assigned to him, eager to begin confronting the challenges of the Palms.

On his first full day at the Palms, the new director appeared early in his new office and approved its spaciousness and feeling of centrality. He found Kenneth Krenek, nineteen years older than himself, waiting for orders on how the center should be run, but Zorn was not the type of man to be dictatorial: “Let’s make it Ken and Andy, and I need to know most of what you know.”

“All right. In our two offices it’ll be Andy and Ken, but before the staff and certainly when visitors come to inspect, it’s got to be Dr. Zorn. Impresses the public.”

Without being asked, he drew up a chair and said: “Andy, the Palms has enjoyed a pretty good reputation thus far, so we must do everything reasonable to enhance it. This is a first-class operation, not top dollar—there are others more expensive—but top service and we’ve got to keep it that way.”

“That’s what I promised Mr. Taggart, but I’ll need your counsel if I begin to make mistakes.”

“You understand the basic principle of a place like this? Lure them with a fine residence hall, good service, good food and good lifestyle. That’s Gateways here. Then bring in recuperation cases from the local hospitals for Assisted Living. Be very, very nice to the hospitals. Anything they want they get, because their referrals pay our bills. And finally there’s the third floor, Extended Care, where they come in the last stages, more than half from outside as their last resort.”

“Is it my responsibility to keep those two parts filled with patients?”

“We all have to work on it. Miss Foxworth will keep you posted on occupancy and the profit-and-loss situation. She’s our accountant and a wizard with figures. Trust her, and rely on her to keep you on course.” Andy nodded.

“You know, much of our good name comes from what residents of Gateways say about us. So you’ve got to keep them happy. There’s still one special problem, you’d never guess. Names! Each apartment, it seems to me, has its own preferences as to how the incumbents prefer to be called. With St. Près it’s Mr. Ambassador. I think he’d scowl if you dared call him Richard. And Jiménez, our grandee from South America, would actually faint if you called him Raúl. Muley Duggan is Muley to everyone, of course, and Mrs. Elmore actually prefers Duchess. President Armitage is usually given that title though he stopped being one years back. Everyone calls our black jurist Judge Noble and he prefers them to do so. But the Mallorys, Chris and Esther, prefer first names, even though they’re both millionaires.

“We do not pry into the financial conditions of our residents, and when I show you the list of people for whom Miss Foxworth has quietly made reductions in their fees because investments went sour or dividends dropped, you’ll be surprised. Mr. Taggart’s always been generous in that regard. He preaches to us: ‘If we get ten years of high rent from a husband and wife, when she becomes a widow or her fortunes fail, we can afford to carry her at a lower rate for the last years of her life, but we don’t want her to linger on into her late nineties.’ ”

As he said this he started to chuckle: “I think we’d better bring Miss Foxworth in right now to explain the financial morass in which we operate. All legal, all fair to the residents. But also insanely complicated.”

During the break that followed he explained: “Miss Foxworth
and I have been working here for eleven years. We supervised the construction for Mr. Taggart, and it’s our passion to see this place succeed. We’ll help you in everything you do.”

When Miss Foxworth appeared, Andy saw a thin, angular woman in her early fifties with a pulled-back hairdo that made her seem austere but an impish smile that enabled her to laugh at the contradictions with which she worked. Thrusting out her right hand she gripped his firmly: “Welcome to one of the best. It’s our job to keep it that way, or even improve our standing. Don’t hesitate to experiment, and I’ll support you financially every time I can.” Then she growled and said in a husky voice: “But we won’t kid ourselves. The Big Bad Wolf in Chicago, he’ll be inspecting the bottom line very carefully. And so will I. And so will you, Doctor, if you’re as smart as they say.”

At Krenek’s suggestion she explained various aspects of a Florida retirement center: “On Gateways we break even, but profit from splendid visibility. On Assisted Living we lose money, not excessive but enough to be irritating. And on Extended Care we can earn a bundle if we keep the rooms filled. What we hope from you is to improve each of these balance sheets. And we think it can be done.” She stared at him intently, then said: “Your predecessor was a grand guy, everybody’s friend except mine, because I could see he was running this place into bankruptcy. I’m sure you’re not going to be that stupid.”