Whispering Pines

Mr. Walters was missing for a whole two days before he turned up an entire county away, trying to make a phone call at a gas station. I can’t begin to imagine how a 90 year old man on a liquid diet who needed help getting into or out of chairs was able to make it 75 miles on his own without a walker, but it’s not up to me to solve these mysteries. I’m just an orderly.

They send one of the new security guys with me to pick Mr. Walters up. Lopez is an absolute beast. I imagine it would take two of me to fill up the security uniform he’s stretching to his limits. Just imagine muscles on muscles, tatted up arms, and a shiny bald head. I bet he’s got balls like grapefruits. I don’t understand why they would hire a truck of human being like this to work security at an old folk’s home. All I know is, when Mr. Walters got out, a bunch of guys lost their job and the guys who took their place look like they guzzle a gallon of steroids for breakfast.

“Nice to meet you Lopez,” I say. “I’m Bobby.” He just grunts in response.

Lopez doesn’t say much on the ride over. “So,” I ask. “You work out?” It’s a stupid question but I’m just trying to fill the silence on a long awkward trip.

“A little,” he says, bouncing his pecs in his short-sleeve security uniform. “How about you?”

“Just 12 ounce curls,” I say. Lame joke, but he laughs. “You won’t use too much brawn dealing with our residents. The youngest one is 75 and none of them move too fast.”

Big Lopez shrugs his big shoulders. “Whatever pays my bills,” he says.

We show our badges at the police station and they show us to Mr. Walters, who’s raving like I’ve never seen. Poor old guy. I guess he was quite a looker when he was younger, made millions selling shoelaces and had about six wives. But time takes its toll. He’s gotten more feeble in the past few years and barely weighs 80 pounds now.

When I get a look in his sunken, red eyes, I see pure terror that I don’t recognize in this resident I’ve known for about ten years now. Mr. Walters was a mild-mannered, patient man. Some days he was a little down, humbled by physical restrictions that piled up more every day, but otherwise cooperative and calm.

Now, he flails like he thinks death is coming for him. His left hand is handcuffed to a steel chair he’s nowhere near strong enough to lift. The free arm swipes out wildly. “Get away from me! Don’t let them take me back!” He’s talking about us.

Lopez has no patience for this. He grabs little Mr. Walters by the arms and I administer a shot to chill him out. He moans and whimpers as the needle goes in. He’s already starting to zone out before I’ve fully plunged the syringe.

“Guy’s totally psychotic,” the pudgy police chief tells me, stroking his mustache. “Keeps saying he’s a professional football player. He swears he’s not Nigel Walters. Says his name’s Lane Johnson. That guys plays for the Eagles, doesn’t he?”

“You’re about a foot too short and two hundred pounds too small to be Lane Johnson,” Lopez says as he hoists Mr. Walters over his shoulder. The aged resident isn’t unconscious but the drugs are keeping him nice and docile. His eyes dart around sadly and he looks around. He keeps looking at his hands and sobbing.

“Guy this crazy should be under better lockdown,” the police chief chides as Lopez carries Mr. Walters out to our van.

“He’s never been like this before,” I tell him. “I know where he’s getting it. We had some NFL players come visit the facility a week ago. These guys, they’re facing their mortality in a real way. Meeting a young strong guy like that probably just knocked something loose in his noggin.”

As we head home with Mr. Walters restrained in the back of the van, I can’t help but remember the sight of him meeting the real Lane Johnson the week before. Mr. Walters had never looked smaller or more frail than when that gigantic lineman’s massive paw swallowed up Mr. Walters shriveled little hand. I bet Lane Johnson takes dumps bigger than the old fellow. Mr. Walters’ eyes lit up at the sight of that pile of muscle and brawn, looking all the more enormous and virile surrounded by our waifish little residents. I bet he wishes he could be that young and strong again. No wonder he flipped his lid.

The next day Hank Zarkoskie, a quiet resident who liked to play chess and read, wakes up screaming. I’m the first orderly there on the scene. I haven’t heard Hank say more than a handful of words since he first came to us a few years ago after his wife passed. His family never came to visit but it never bothered him much.

“Where the fuck am I?” Hank screams as he weakly tries to push me away. “Fuck, get the fuck off me!”

“Mr. Zarkoskie!” I shout as two other orderlies help me restrain him. I could have done it myself but, with more hands involved, we can keep him still without inflicting harm. “You’re in your room in Whispering Pines! Can you tell me your name?”

He blinks and croaks dryly, “Chet.” Bizarre. I spoke with Hank the night before. He was calm and amicable. He read a chapter of a book and cooperated when I told him it was lights out. “I’m Chet Zandross!” He takes a long look at his shriveled, liver-spotted body and lets out a long groan. “I’m 22 years old…”

After we sedate and restrain Mr. Zarkoskie, I have a chat with the head psych, Doctor Lee. He shrugs at the news that two of our residents have gone into deeply psychotic states in the same week.

“This sort of thing can be infectious,” Doc Lee says, never looking up from his clipboard. “Walters was muttering about his NFL player identity to the other residents before he escaped. I bet it looks cathartic to escape into that delusion, so I’m not surprised others are doing it.”

I ask him if they’ll be doing therapy to remind them who they really are.

“What else can be done? These men are in the twilight of their lives. Indulge their delusions. If they think they’re a 22 year old or a famous football player, just agree with them. I’ll up their meds so they don’t get too rowdy but that’s all we can do.”

That doesn’t sit well with me, but there’s not much I can do. I do know there’s a resident named Wendell Zandross in room 318. It’s not the usual wing I’m assigned to so I don’t know him well. On my lunch break I stop in.

“Chet’s my nephew,” Wendell says as he takes a tiny bite of a cracker from his lunch tray. “He visited me two weeks ago. He spent some time with me in the TV room before he took me out for lunch that day. I have no doubt Hank saw him there. I bet that’s where this all came from.”

I sigh deeply. “Just doesn’t make sense. Hank never showed signs of personality disorder or delusions before.”

Wendell shrugs, a movement that seems to exhaust him. “Do you have any idea what it feels like to just live a day for us? My nephew Chet, well… That boy looks like a gift from God to women everywhere. Perfect face, dimples, big muscles, abs… Real physical perfection. Kind of like how I looked when I was his age.” He chuckles so much I can see his toothless mouth. “Good lord, the stories Chet tells me about the women he’s been with… a different one every day! Face like that, and a body like his, the whole world is wide open for Chet. No wonder Hank would want to be that.”

It didn’t add up, but I just sit there silently. Wendell grins. “This is a nice facility and we’re treated well, but every one of us wishes we could be out of our bodies and into something nice and young and strong like…” He looks over my shoulder. I turn around and see Lopez lifting a resident on to a rolling bed. It’s too bad they can’t get him a bigger suit. His huge quads and big ass look like they’re going to bust out of the one he has now every time he squats down.

“That big old fellow back there,” Wendell says in a hoarse whisper. “Ever wonder what he would feel like if he woke up one day old and withered? Pissing in a diaper? Every joint screaming in pain? Can’t lift the toilet seat without help from an orderly? To go from being able to bench press a car, everyone looking up at you and resigning to your size and strength to being little and feeble… It’ll happen to him one day. It happens to all of us.”

The whole conversation makes me feel uncomfortable. I leave Wendell to his lunch.

Later that day I catch Hank in his room, totally naked with a porno mag. No idea who brought that to him, but I’m guessing Doc Lee’s “indulge their delusions” edict had something to do with it. Poor Hank just sat there playing with his little useless dick with his fingers with a couple tears trailing from his eyes.

“I think you should get back into bed,” I tell him as I take the magazine away from him. He reaches for it but his hands have no strength in them. “Once you’ve had your meds it’s best for you to stay put. We don’t want you falling down and breaking something.”

I sit him on the bed and get a pair of pants from his dresser. As I pull them up for him, he croaks, “My dick’s not like this.” He points at his pathetic little nub. “My dick is huge. I’ve fucked hundreds of women, way hotter than that.” He gestures to the magazine across the room. “Women soak their panties over me. I can fuck any woman I want!”

It’s depressing to hear him making these claims in his wheezing voice. I give him some water and lay him down in his bed. He resists but there’s not much he can do.

“I’m a fucking stud,” he whines as I strap him down. “I’m not an old man, I’m a fucking stallion…”

“Sure you are,” I say. “The nurses love coming in to take your vitals. I bet every one of them soaks their panties over you!”

He closes his eyes, a hard pout on his face. It feels wrong to be doing this, but I just follow Doc Lee’s orders.

Later that day I see they’ve put a cardboard cutout of Lane Johnson in Mr. Walters’ room. It’s actual size, and makes Mr. Walters look even more withered in comparison. Later I see him in the TV room watching an Eagles game, sobbing quietly and reaching for the TV as we give him a little paper cup of colored pills to swallow.

My decision to quit Whispering Pines is pretty much made for me when I hear the news that Wendell Zandross went from calm and collected to raving mad, just like the others. Even though it’s not my wing, I still have to see it for myself. He’s strapped down, getting another shot to cool him out, as I walk in.

“Help me!” he says directly to me as I show up in the doorway. “Please! They won’t believe me! I was carrying Mr. Zandross in here this morning and then… he was carrying me! He did something! He switched us!”

I can see the drugs taking effect as he starts crying softly, looking down at his body with his lip quivering.

“Strangest thing,” says a baritone voice next to me. It’s Lopez, but instead of his uniform he looks like he’s dressed for the gym: tight short-shorts and a stringer tank top. I can’t believe how much bigger and more muscular he looks with so much bulging skin showing, like the Hulk got a tan and some tribal ink.

“What the hell, man?” I ask.

“He got mouthy with me yesterday, refused to go back to his room, and then when I picked him up he just started up with this line of bullshit.” He shrugs his massive delts and I can’t help but stare at the muscular flesh bouncing as he does so.

“I think I may be done with this shit,” I say. I’ve seen sane residents lose their minds before, but three of them, so quickly, is too much for me to bear.

“I’m definitely done,” Lopez says. I can’t believe how much he’s talking now, like he’s a brand new guy now that his uniform is off. “I’m gonna get back into bodybuilding, fitness modeling, that kind of stuff. I think this body has quite a lot of mileage left in it.” He flexes his biceps and slaps his big quads to accentuate the point. I shake his huge veiny hand before bidding farewell to him.

Doc Lee isn’t happy about my resignation. “We need people like you around here,” he says. “Good people.”

“There’s only so much of this place anyone can take,” I say.

He smiles and finally looks up from his clipboard. “Well, with any luck you won’t find yourself waking back in here sometime soon. Hopefully, for you, this is the last time we see each other.”

It’s a weird thing to say, but as I leave, I can’t help but notice how many of the residents have gathered to watch me walk out after I turn in my badge, each one of them staring at me with a hungry look in their eyes.