Death Benefits (13 page)

By the middle of August he's doing a lot better, and sometimes I forget to feel guilty that he's ended up here. In many ways, he's back to being the old Arthur: irascible, rude and crude. His gait (as his physio calls it) is almost back to normal and he wants to go home. He still doesn't know that he can't. Mom has finally found a suitable nursing home for him and put him on the waiting list. I refuse to call it a “care facility,” which pisses Mom off, but she's too busy “liaising” with all the various caregivers and institutions to give me a hard time. I notice that she “liaises” quite a lot with Lars, if you can call going out for dinner “liaising.” Lars comes to pick her up in a truck identical to hers, but dirtier, which makes them both laugh way too much. In the back of Lars's truck is a dirt bike, strapped down, and a gigantic dog, not strapped down. The dog, which turns out to be a Great Dane (ha ha) named Beowulf, is, thank god, well-trained. I'm not crazy about big dogs. I still have the scars on my arm from when a German shepherd took what its owner called a “playful nip” at me in a playground. I was three at the time. My mom took a “playful nip” at the woman's head with her backpack.

When Lars calls the dog, it leaps over the tailgate and lopes over to where Lars is standing with his arm around my mom, who is grinning and tucking her hair behind her ears, a sure sign she is nervous. Lars is like an unexpected windfall—both welcome and disconcerting.

“Sit, Beowulf,” he says.

Beowulf sits. Even sitting, he is huge. Mom giggles nervously and says, “He's as big as a small pony.”

“But cuter,” says the Norse God. “Like you.”

Is he saying my mom is cuter than a small pony? That seems a bit odd, but Mom giggles again and pets Beowulf's massive head, at which point I hop on my bike and leave them to their animal husbandry, or whatever.

Two months of biking everywhere has changed me. So have regular visits to the weight room at the Y. My thighs ripple inside my bike shorts, my calves bulge above my cleated bike shoes. My chest fills out my expensive skin-tight V-neck moisture-wicking shirt, my biceps are modestly magnificent. I can ride out to the hospital without breaking a sweat. I can sit on the beach with Dani without fear of mockery. I have a six pack. So does Dani, whose idea of a good time is a push-up competition. All I can do is try to keep up.

The day I introduce Dani to Arthur, we ride out to her favorite lake first. It's a long way, but it's worth it. In the middle of the week, there aren't many people—just a few families with little kids who stay close to shore— and we lock our bikes up and race to the water, shedding our clothes as we run. We swim to the center of the lake, where we lie on our backs and flutter our arms and legs just enough to stay afloat. Once in a while we stop fluttering and let ourselves sink for a moment. When I come to the surface and open my eyes, I see an eagle swoop down into the top of a cedar. We drift away from the beach, fluttering, sinking, fluttering, sinking, sinking.

I feel something brush my foot, my leg, my chest. Weeds? Not this far from shore. A fish? Not likely. I kick to the surface, and Dani pops up beside me, spouting like a whale. She tips her head back and laughs. Was it her hand that ran the length of my body? Even in the cold water, the thought of it makes my dick stiffen. I really like her, but I'm waiting for her to make the first move. Was that it?

“Race you to the shore,” she yells.

She beats me, but it's close. My hard-on has disappeared by the time I get to shore, but makes a reappearance as she towels off in front of me. I turn away and struggle into my shirt and shoes, visualizing Arthur's gnarled toenails, his copious ear hair, his bedside commode. My erection subsides. I can almost hear Arthur's voice. “Don't say I never did anything for you, boy.”

When I turn around, Dani is dressed and ready to go, her hair braided into a long wet rope down her back.

“You sure you're ready for this?” I ask. “This” being Arthur.

“Sure,” Dani replies. “I want to meet him. My parents can't stop talking about how great he is, and you can't stop talking about what a pain he is. I need to find out which is true.”

“Both.”

“Both?”

“Yeah. You'll see.”

She hops on her bike, and I follow her, admiring her ass and almost wiping out on a pothole in the process. When we get to the hospital, we're all sweaty again and out of breath. When we get to Arthur's room, the first thing out of his mouth is, “Glad to see you're finally getting some, boy.”

Thirteen

T
here's a moment of silence after Arthur speaks. Then Dani strides over to his wheelchair, crouches down beside him, puts her face about an inch from his and says, “I've heard a lot about you, Mr. Jenkins, but I've never heard you were rude or crude, so just this once I'm going to give you a do-over.”

“A what?” Arthur barks.

“A do-over. A re-wind. A chance for you to get it right.” She gets up, grabs my hand and drags me out of the room. Arthur doesn't say a word, but I turn and catch a glimpse of his face as I go. His face is scarlet. The great Arthur Jenkins is blushing.

“That was…amazing,” I say as Dani plops herself down on the ugly orange couch by the elevator. “Awesome.”

She punches me—hard—on the shoulder.

“What was that for?”

“For not doing it yourself.”

“Not doing what myself? Calling him on his shit?”

She nods and turns away from me to stare out the window at some bunnies that are nibbling the shrubs in the hospital's tiny garden. I'm still trying to process what she said and whether it means that she likes me. Or not.

“I-I'm sorry,” I stutter. “It's complicated—”

“Complicated how?”

For a second I toy with the idea of telling her that it's my fault Arthur is here, but I want her to like me.

“Family shit,” I mumble. “You know. Relationships. Like I said, it's complicated.”

She stares at the bunnies some more and then turns to me and smiles. Her teeth are white, but a bit crooked, as if she'd taken off her braces too soon.

“It's okay, Royce. I get it. It's not like you didn't warn me.” She stands up and we walk back to Arthur's room. He's sitting by his window, watching the bunnies destroy an azalea. He turns when he hears us walk in and heaves himself to his feet as we approach. I can see by the tiny beads of sweat on his forehead that it is taking all his strength to stand. I put my hand on his elbow to steady him as he holds out his hand to Dani, who takes it and leans forward to kiss his whiskery cheek.

“Arthur, this is Dani. Dani, this is Arthur.” He's starting to wobble, so I ease him back into the wheelchair. Dani pulls up the visitor's chair beside him.

“It's an honor to meet you, sir,” she says. “My parents are big fans.”

“The honor is all mine, my dear,” he says. “Please forgive an old man's rudeness.”

“No worries,” she says. “Do you want to go visit the bunnies? Maybe have a picnic?” We all look down at the little garden, which has a few bistro tables and chairs under big green umbrellas.

Arthur nods, and I head to the coffee shop to get some food while Dani wheels him out to the garden. When I join them, Arthur is sitting in the sun with his eyes closed. A tiny smile plays around his cracked lips.

“Reminds me of Paris,” he says. “The Tuileries.”

“You sat with a cute chick in the Tuileries?” I say. “Nice.”

Dani laughs and hands Arthur a Tim Hortons ham and cheese sandwich and a paper napkin. “Your baguette,
monsieur
.”

“
Merci, mademoiselle
,” he says, bowing slightly in his wheelchair.

I put his coffee on the bistro table beside him. “
Un
café au lait, aussi
.”

“
Merci
,” he says again. He lifts the paper cup in a shaky toast. “
À votre santé, mes amis
.”

“
À votre santé
, Arthur,” we reply. To your health.

“Why don't we take the photo albums and the laptop to the hospital,” Dani asks one day when we're at Arthur's taking in the mail. I'd shown her the albums one day when we were tired of cards and it was too hot to lie on the deck. We sat side by side on the single bed in the second bedroom, looking at pictures of Arthur in Paris, Arthur in New York, Arthur in London. I wanted to kiss her, but before I got up the nerve, she stood up and went to the kitchen for a soda.

Now she says, “He's not gonna live forever, you know. He needs to tell his story. You need to record it. It's like an oral history. I did one with my great-grandma before she died. And she was a prairie farm wife, not a famous musician. I mean, Arthur's been everywhere. He knew Gloria Vanderbilt, Casals, Picasso even. And he loves talking about himself—you told me that.”

“Okay, okay,” I say. “I get it. He's an interesting dude. Did I tell you he knows Bono?” I throw it out there like it's nothing—a cotton ball of a fact—but I know it will impress her. She thinks Bono is awesome. Right up there with Barack Obama and Jane Goodall.

Dani's eyes open wide. “You're shittin' me. He knows Bono? Arthur's more than interesting, Rolly. He's”—she searches for the right word—“significant.”

Dani found out my nickname from Mom, who let it slip one day when we were hanging out at my place. Dani thinks it's “adorable,” so I let her use it when we're alone. Not in public though. Never in public. And never around Arthur.

The next day we pack the albums in cardboard boxes that I get from the grocery store, and I make sure I've got the cord for the laptop. Mom drives us out to the hospital, where she's having a “meeting” with Lars before she goes to work.

“Good luck with the Arthurian legend,” Mom says as she heads off to find Lars.

“Thanks for the ride, Ms. Peterson,” Dani says. “Great title, huh, Rolly?
The Arthurian Legend
.”

I grunt as I lift out the last of the boxes. I have no idea where I'm going to put six cardboard boxes in Arthur's room. I'm still not convinced this is a good idea, but as Dani points out, it beats listening to Arthur complain about the hospital food, the other patients, the staff, the room, his family and the fact that he gets no respect.

Dani is right: Arthur practically drools at the prospect of talking about himself for hours on end. “
The Arthurian
Legend
,” he repeats. “I like that. When do we start?”

“Right now, if you like,” Dani says, pulling the first album out of a box. “You ready, Royce?”

I nod. The laptop is set up on one of those adjustable bed tables, and I'm propped up on Arthur's bed with about five pillows at my back. I figure I might as well be comfortable. Dani pulls a chair close to Arthur's, opens the album and asks a couple of questions. I type as Arthur speaks. Dani asks the odd question, nudging Arthur for details or moving him along. Once in a while, I ask him to slow down, but mostly I can keep up. When Arthur identifies a person or a place in a photograph, Dani writes down the info on a sticky note and puts it next to the picture.

After an hour, Arthur is tired and my fingers are cramping. Dani closes the album and pats Arthur on the cheek. I close the laptop and shove the table to one side.

“See you tomorrow,” we say.

“
À bientôt
,” Arthur replies.

After that, Arthur and I really get into a groove. Whenever I visit, I bring him coffee and set up the laptop. Then I type while he sips his coffee and talks. I don't want to be impressed, but I can't help it. Not just by all the celebrities he knew (Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Bill Clinton, Frank Sinatra, Muhammed Ali—the list goes on and on), but by his accomplishments: the symphonies he played with, the platinum albums, the sold-out concerts at Carnegie Hall.

What really interests me, though, is the family stuff. How he grieved after Marta's mother died. How much he missed Coralee. How much he loves my mother, who never mentioned that he took her to Paris for her sixteenth birthday or that she spent every Christmas and every summer with him until she married my dad. All she ever told me was that she had round-the-clock nannies until he parked her at a boarding school when she was five. No mention of summers in the house in Provence or skiing in Gstaad with the British royal family. I didn't even know there
was
a house in Provence let alone a townhouse in New York. I wonder if he still owns them. She can't have forgotten, and he can't be making it all up. The truth—whatever that is—must lie somewhere in between, but the details he provides are crisp and convincing: the color of Princess Diana's eyes, the size of Maria Callas's feet, the taste of
sachertorte
in Vienna. As he gets closer to the present, the fog rolls in and he stumbles over names and dates. He can't remember when he retired to Victoria. He isn't sure where Marta lives. He doesn't know if he's ever been to my house.

Ten days after we start, he pulls the plug on the project. He's in bed when I arrive, so I hand him his coffee, sit down in the visitor's chair, open the laptop and wait for him to speak. Finally he says, “No more.”

“No more what?”

He glowers at me. “I can't remember any more.”

I look at the laptop screen. “You were telling me about—”

He interrupts. “I'm too tired.” He lets his head fall back against the pillow and shuts his eyes. “No more.”

I wait, but he is silent. After about ten minutes, he lifts a shaky hand from his lap and points to the door.

“You want me to go?” I ask. I'm offended. No, I'm hurt. I thought we were—I don't know—bonding. I guess I was wrong. I'm just his slave after all. And I'm not even getting paid.

He nods. I move to shut down the laptop, and he says, “No. Leave it alone. Get out.”