The Cursed Man (5 page)

“No.” Terry worked his jaw up and down, and Anna saw the small pinch of tobacco between his teeth and cheek. “Not really.” He spit.

“Well, now you know how I feel about the things I've been told.” Anna smirked.

Terry held the rake in both hands and leaned on it. “I've been caring for this place for thirty-five years. Before Alister arrived, the land outside his room was green, and the flowers were ripe with color. But immediately after his arrival, the grass, trees and flowers died. Just like coworkers and doctors that interacted with him who didn't make it past a day.”

Anna curled her lip and held it between her teeth. If she were to interview willing members of the hospital staff and gain some insight about their perception of the curse, she could use the gathered information to help Alister.

“I'm interested in learning as much as I can about the curse. Can I meet with you sometime to discuss these experiences you speak of?”

Terry looked at his cheap watch and surveyed the grounds. “I should be done around three o'clock. If you're still breathing when I get off, I could give you about an hour.”

Anna offered a smile and extended a thankful hand. “I certainly appreciate your time and your willingness to meet with me. I'll meet you inside the lobby at three o'clock then.”

Terry shook his head. “I think we should meet out here instead.” He extended a gloved hand to converge with Anna's. “I think it best no one knows. I'm sure you understand.”

 

 

Anna entered Sunnyside Capable Care, winded from climbing the steps. Her thoughts were on Terry and how he fit the mold both Bonnie and the director were from. She was certain she would find that behavior throughout the hospital. And maybe she hadn't come to counsel Alister but rather the hospital's staff.

“Good morning, Bonnie,” Anna said.

Bonnie slowly stood, her eyes fixated on Anna and her face flushed. Her mouth hung open.

“I'd like to see Alister, please.”

Bonnie remained unmoved; her eyes were transfixed by Anna.

Anna stepped forward and knocked on the desktop. “Maybe you should sit down before you fall over.”

Bonnie lowered herself into the seat. She blinked hard, distance in her gaze. “Yeah, sure. I'll get Michael to take you inside.”

“Thank you.”

Bonnie reached for the phone. Feeling around the desktop without looking, she knocked the receiver off of the base.

Anna turned away. “This is unbelievable.”

 

 

Michael entered the lobby, his pace slowed by a severe limp. His right leg was stiff at the knee and dragged behind him. He would help swing the leg forward with the use of his hand grabbing the pant leg and pulling on it.

“Whenever you are ready, doctor,” Michael said. His blue scrubs were neatly pressed and not a hair on top of his head was out of place.

“I'm ready now.” Anna picked up her briefcase. “Finally, someone with some logic.” Although her words were spoken low, the acoustics carried in the grand lobby.

“If that was a comment about my indifference, doctor, you should know I'm not that surprised by your return.”

“Michael!” Bonnie said. Her eyes were wide and her body stiff. “You shouldn't say things like that; it's provocative!”

Michael stepped to the keypad and entered his pass code. “I didn't mean anything by it.” The door buzzed. He pushed it open and held it for Anna. “After you.”

Beyond the door was a hub where three corridors intersected. On either side of the hallway were doors every fifteen feet, and each one had a small window for easy viewing of the patients' rooms. The white linoleum floors were buffed to a high sheen, and the bare white walls and ceiling were impossible to look at without squinting.

A good distance down the hallway, Michael paused a moment, rested his back against the wall and muted a chuckle. “I'm sorry,” he said, turning away. “I can't help but picture what her face must have looked like when she saw you come through that door today.”

Anna watched Michael with a growing smile. She covered her mouth and laughed. “Yeah, it was pretty funny.”

He bent over and rested his hands on his knees. “I've always had a measure of doubt about the crap I've been told.” He shook his head. “I can't tell you how many times I almost said something to Alister, just to test it, you know?”

Anna's laugh faded and her smile disappeared. “I couldn't imagine the things you might have been told.”

Michael looked down the hallway, started to walk toward Alister's room and lowered his voice to a whisper. “When I first got here, the director had me in his office and was showing me a book with a bunch of newspaper clippings.” He motioned like he dropped something. “Boom, it landed on top of the desk and a waft of dust spewed out at me.”

Anna touched Michael on his shoulder. “He showed me that same book.”

Michael tapped his chest. “Yeah, well, that was enough to scare me quiet.”

“I imagine it would. Do you know of anyone speaking to Alister since you've been here?”

Michael shook his head. “No way. No one would dare. There is a lot of fear surrounding him.”

Anna nodded her understanding. “I see that.”

“He just sits there,” Michael said, “day after day, staring out that window, never having a word spoken to him or a smile to brighten his day. I could only imagine what that could do to a man.”

“I suppose it doesn't take a doctor to figure out that won't help him to get better.”

“I'm not a superstitious person, but what if the things I was told were true?” He shuddered. “I have a wife and daughter at home. Speaking to him just isn't worth my life.”

Anna clapped Michael's shoulder. “Your heart is in the right place, Michael. Now is not the time, but soon enough you will be able to speak with Alister.”

Michael's thoughts seemed to drift, and his smile revealed little about where they had gone.

“He believes this curse is as real as you and I are,” Anna said. “And until he begins to doubt it, I think it's best you continue to keep to yourself.”

Michael opened the door to Alister's room and held it. “I understand.”

“Thank you,” Anna said, and she stepped inside the room.

 

 

Alister sat in a chair positioned in front of the window. Each of his hands clutched the respective armrests, and he remained perfectly still.

“Good morning,” Anna said. She sat on the bed, and the springs whined. The thin mattress caved even under her minimal weight. “I've returned, just like I told you I would.”

Anna popped open her briefcase, gathered her pen and pad and sat at the ready. Alister remained unmoved with his attention on something Anna couldn't see.

“It's OK,” she said. “Take your time. We'll talk when you're ready.”

Alister shifted, looked over his shoulder at Anna and returned his gaze outside.

“It's OK,” Anna said again. She stood and went to his side. She placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I am here for you.”

Alister whimpered and his body trembled. Anna rubbed his back.

“Your hands are always so cold,” he said, and he shrugged off her touch. “I can feel them right through my shirt.”

Anna blew into her fists and backed away. “I'm sorry. This building is kept much colder than I find comfortable.”

“You scare me, doctor,” Alister said. Spittle strung between his lips.

Anna sat. “I won't pretend to understand why.” She continued to work on warming her hands.

His jaw quivered. “Weren't you listening to the people when they told you about the death that surrounds me?”

“What they say is just stories.”

“You seem reasonably intelligent, doctor. Do you really believe I'm here because of a mental disorder?”

Anna offered no response.

“I'm here by choice and necessity.” Alister stared at the lumpy flesh on his palms and the dirt caked beneath his fingernails. “I came here because every tragedy you've heard about is true, every death, every fear from every person is as real as you are sitting there next to me!”

Alister panted and the foul odor of his breath backed Anna away.

“If you don't believe the things you were told,” he said, “then you should go to the library and find the newspaper articles.”

Tears streamed down his cheeks and disappeared into a tangle of facial hair.

“And you scare me because you are the first person to talk to me in forty years that hasn't died within a day.”

“I would think that would make you happy and fill you with hope.”

Alister wiped away the tears. “I can't feel the way you think I should. What I feel is the slow approach of something wicked.”

“Is it possible my returning today has made your curse less real?”

Alister jumped to his feet with a snarl. “Why don't you go and tell the family members of all those people that died because of me that their death wasn't real?” He turned away, leaned against the sill and hung his head. “Tell my dead daughter that, too.”

“I understand there have been awful events surrounding your life, Alister, and I'm sorry for it. But I'm afraid to say that none of it has anything to do with a curse.”

Alister slapped the window. “Damn you and your logic.”

“Help me help you by sharing details of your life so that I might understand what you're going through.”

He gave her a long, hardened stare and sat. “It has taken me half of my life to understand the things I know about the curse, and you expect me to relay that to you just like that?” He snapped his fingers. “Impossible.”

Anna started to reach for Alister but resisted the urge. There was no denying he had had a hard life, but the next few days would be the most terrible of them all. Understanding there was no curse would be as hard for him to accept as it would be for a drug addict to quit cold turkey with a pocketful of his favorite fix. Denial, anger and fear would be his biggest obstacles.

“I'm here to help you, Alister, and you should know I'm not going to leave you.”

Alister twirled the hair on his chin. “I'm incapable of caring in return. The death that has surrounded me has blackened my soul and filled my heart with hate. It's a hate so consuming that I've forgotten what love is.” He forced his fingers through the knots. “I don't understand why everyone is so desperate for it.”

“Why do you think you feel that way?”

Alister paused and greeted her question with a smile. “If what I said isn't enough, I would like to add that I have found it is much easier to hate. Loving someone is too much work, and it doesn't pay off.”

“Hating someone seems so much less rewarding to me.”

His smile didn't fade. “If you say so.”

“Are there specific things that you hate?”

“This life and all those who are able to love.”

“I don't understand why.”

“Because you are all going to die, and the only thing left behind is pain. So what's the sense in it?”

“But love is what gives life meaning.”

“And death inevitably takes that all away, doesn't it?” He opened his arms wide. “This is what defines my life.  The world isn't filled with ice-cream and puppies. There is a lot of pain and misery and awful things people don't like to talk about.”

“Like this curse you have?”

Alister waved a dismissive hand. “I hate your questions and your being here. It causes me pain, and I wish you would leave me be.”

“If this curse is real,” she said, “then I'm already dead and any secret you tell me will be taken to my grave. You should relish in the opportunity to have a conversation with someone while it lasts.”

“How do you not see that I have everything to lose by you being here?” He slammed his fist onto the arm of the chair. “Others won't believe the curse is real, and they will come like you have. And when they do, they will die, and that is something I will have to live with.”

“I'm only trying to understand.”

“I'll have to live with it, not you!” Alister turned askew, closed his eyes and leaned his head back. “What's the use?”

“Suppose these things were made up by a mind that was sick? What then?”

Alister opened one eye and focused on Anna. “I hope your life was worth this meaningless interaction we've had.”

“What brought this curse into your life?”

Alister sighed, pulled himself to the edge of the seat and placed his elbows on his knees. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “What will it take?” He heaved a sigh, ran his hands through his hair and stared at the floor. Flakes from his scalp filled the air. “That is a question that requires me to go back in time to when the curse first introduced itself to me.”

 

 

Director Conroy sat at his desk; the squeak of the leather chair was background noise as he worked on his budget plan. Fingering the buttons on the calculator, he dropped his pen and sat back with a sigh.

“That doesn't look good.” He pulled his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. “Not at all.”

Looking at the clock, it was 10:20, and Bonnie hadn't yet informed him of the doctor's arrival. He would have bet everything he owned that she would survive the curse and begin to change the minds of those that had never experienced it themselves.

“What a mess that would be.”

The telephone on his desk lit up and chirped softly. The call was coming in from the maintenance building. He let it ring once more and picked up the handset.

“Conroy.”

“She arrived, but I thought the curse was going to take her right in front of the building.”

Director Conroy allowed the pleasure of that thought to lift the corners of his mouth ever so slightly. “What happened?”