Jorge Castro kicks it up a bit. He’s got his second wind now, lungs taking in more air, endorphins lit up. Just ahead is the park, scattered with old-fashioned lamps that give off a mystic yellow glow. There’s a small parking lot in front of the deserted playground, now empty except for a passenger van with its side door open and a ramp sticking out onto the wet asphalt. Near its foot is an elderly man in a wheelchair and an elderly woman down on one knee, fussing with it.
Jorge pulls up for a moment, bending over, hands grasping his legs just above the knees, getting his breath back and checking out the van. The blue and white license plate on the back has a wheelchair logo on it.
The woman, who is wearing a quilted coat and a kerchief, looks over at him. At first Jorge isn’t sure he knows her—the light in this small auxiliary parking lot isn’t that good. “Hello! Got a problem?”
She stands up. The old guy in the wheelchair, dressed in a button-up sweater and flat cap, gives a feeble wave.
“The battery died,” the woman says. “It’s Mr. Castro, isn’t it? Jorge?”
Now he recognizes her. It’s Professor Emily Harris, who teaches English literature… or did; she might now be emerita. And that’s her husband, also a teacher. He didn’t realize Harris was disabled, hasn’t seen him around campus much, different department in a different building, but believes the last time he did, the old guy was walking. Jorge sees her quite often at various faculty get-togethers and culture-vulture events. Jorge has an idea he’s not one of her favorite people, especially after the departmental meeting about the now-defunct Poetry Workshop. That one got a little contentious.
“Yes, it’s me,” he says. “I’m assuming you two would like to get home and dry off.”
“That would be nice,” Mr. Harris says. Or maybe he’s also a professor. His sweater is thin and he’s shivering a little. “Think you could push me up that ramp, kiddo?” He coughs, clears his throat, coughs again. His wife, so crisp and authoritative in department meetings, looks a bit lost and bedraggled. Forlorn. Jorge wonders how long they’ve been out here, and why she didn’t call someone for help. Maybe she doesn’t have a phone, he thinks. Or left it at home. Old people can be forgetful about such things. Although she can’t be much more than seventy. Her husband in the wheelchair looks older.
“I think I can help with that. Brake off?”
“Yes, certainly,” Emily Harris says, and stands back when Jorge grabs the handles and swings the wheelchair around so it faces the ramp. He rolls it back ten feet, wanting to get a running start. Motorized wheelchairs can be heavy. The last thing he wants is to get it halfway up only to lose momentum and have it roll back. Or, God forbid, tip over the side and spill the old guy on the pavement.
“Here we go, Mr. Harris. Hang on, there may be a bump.”
Harris grasps the side-rails, and Jorge notices how broad his shoulders are. They look muscular beneath the sweater. He guesses that people who lose the use of their legs compensate in other ways. Jorge speeds at the ramp.
“Hi-yo Silver!” Mr. Harris cries cheerfully.
The first half of the ramp is easy, but then the chair starts to lose momentum. Jorge bends, puts his back into it, and keeps it rolling. As he does this neighborly chore, an odd thought comes to him: this state’s license plates are red and white, and although the Harrises live on Ridge Road just like he does (he often sees Emily Harris out in her garden), the plates on their van are blue and white, like those of the neighboring state to the west. Something else that’s strange: he can’t remember ever seeing this van on the street before, although he’s seen Emily sitting ramrod straight behind the wheel of a trim little Subaru with an Obama sticker on the back bum—
As he reaches the top of the ramp, bent almost horizontal now, arms outstretched and running shoes flexed, a bug stings the back of his neck. Feels like a big one from the way heat is spreading out from the source, maybe a wasp, and he’s having a reaction. Never had one before but there’s a first time for everything and all at once his vision is blurring and the strength is going out of his arms. His shoes slip on the wet ramp and he goes to one knee.
Wheelchair’s going to backroll right on top of me—
But it doesn’t. Rodney Harris flips a switch and the wheelchair rolls inside with a contented hum. Harris hops out, steps spryly around it, and looks down at the man kneeling on the ramp with his hair plastered to his forehead and drizzle wetting his cheeks like sweat. Then Jorge collapses on his face.
“Look at that!” Emily cries softly. “Perfect!”
“Help me,” Rodney says.
His wife, wearing her own running shoes, takes Jorge’s ankles. Her husband takes his arms. They haul him inside. The ramp retracts. Rodney (who really is also Professor Harris, as it happens) slides into the leftside captain’s chair. Emily kneels and zip-ties Jorge’s wrists together, although this is probably a needless precaution. Jorge is out like a light (a simile of which the old poet would surely disapprove) and snoring heavily.
“All good?” asks Rodney Harris, he of the Bell College Life Sciences Department.
“All good!” Emily’s voice is cracking with excitement. “We did it, Roddy! We caught the son of a bitch!”
“Language, dear,” Rodney says. Then he smiles. “But yes. Indeed we did.” He pulls out of the parking lot and starts up the hill.
The old poet looks up from her work notebook, which has a picture of a tiny red wheelbarrow on the front, sees the van pass, and bends back to her poem.
The van turns in at 93 Ridge Road, home of the Harrises for almost twenty-five years. It belongs to them, not the college. One of the two garage doors goes up; the van enters the bay on the left; the garage door closes; all is once more still on Ridge Road. Mist revolves around the streetlights.
Like halos.
Jorge regains consciousness by slow degrees. His head is splitting, his mouth is dry, his stomach is sudsing. He has no idea how much he drank, but it must have been plenty to have a hangover this horrible. And where did he drink it? A faculty party? A writing seminar get-together where he unwisely decided to imbibe like the student he once was? Did he get drunk after the latest argument with Freddy? None of those things seem right.
He opens his eyes, ready for morning glare that will send another blast of pain through his poor abused head, but the light is soft. Kind light, considering his current state of distress. He seems to be lying on a futon or yoga mat. There’s a bucket beside it, a plastic floorbucket that could have come from Walmart or Dollar Tree. He knows what it’s there for, and all at once he also knows what Pavlov’s dogs must have felt like when the bell rang, because he only has to look at that bucket for his belly to go into spasm. He gets on his knees and throws up violently. There’s a pause, long enough to take a couple of breaths, and then he does it again.
His stomach settles, but for a moment his head aches so fiercely he thinks it will split open and fall in two pieces to the floor. He closes his watering eyes and waits for the pain to subside. Eventually it does, but the taste of vomit in his mouth and nose is rancid. Eyes still closed, he fumbles for the bucket and spits into it until his mouth is at least partially clear.
He opens his eyes again, raises his head (cautiously), and sees bars. He’s in a cage. It’s roomy, but it’s a cage, all right. Beyond it is a long room. The overhead lights must be on a rheostat, because the room is dim. He sees a concrete floor that looks clean enough to eat off of—not that he feels like eating. The half of the room in front of the cage is empty. In the middle is a flight of stairs. There’s a push broom leaning against them. Beyond the stairs is a well-equipped workshop with tools hung on pegs and a bandsaw table. There’s also a compound miter saw—nice tool, not cheap. Several hedge trimmers and clippers. An array of wrenches, carefully hung from biggest to smallest. A line of chrome sockets on a worktable beside a door going… somewhere. All the usual home handyman shit, and everything looking well-maintained.