Eighty-two years old. That’s a lot of life. I’ve seen a lot of things in that time. Mostly, I just saw myself. I’m dreaming now of course. I know this because I’m happy right now. Happier than I’ve been in some time. I’m not alone and I’m with my wife, Kimberly. She’s wearing a pink dress and her dark hair is bouncing and flowing in the wind coming off the valley walls. The tall wildflowers sway back and forth as she kisses me. Nearly losing myself in her eyes I see a log cabin, our cabin, with firewood in the front and a pipe coming from the roof where a wood burning stove is connected. An ax leaned against the wood pile, gloves on top. A young boy trampling through the short grass with parents in tow. I dream of times when things were good.

I wake up two hours after lying down to sleep. My bladder has become out of control as of late. Last night I woke up in a puddle of piss with my nurse looking down at me like I could have and should have caught myself. I stood up and the nurse changed me like a newborn that has yet to find control over bodily functions. If only my fellow writers could see what I’m reduced to now. But they’re all in hell now, so I guess I got the good end of the stick on that one. I get up and piss and lay back down to sleep.

The next morning I light a cigarette and sit in a chair facing the north lawn and the main road. They let me have two cigarettes a day. One in the morning and one in the night. That was the deal I cut so I could smoke inside the building. I like to stare out the window when smoking and remember the old days. I look at the grass outside or the cars whiz by and remember what it felt like to be behind the wheel of a car and taking a curve at sixty miles an hour or to lay upon dewy grass and soak up the morning sun.

I finish my cigarette and the nurse takes the butt and throws it into a waste basket beside my bed. She never says anything to me anymore. I’ve been here since I was seventy-eight, and for the first two years she spoke to me quite often. I guess after five years we have nothing to talk about.

I sit in a chair beside the window and hold a bottle of water in my left hand. I hear the door to my room swing open and a small, squeaky voice that I know belongs to my neighbor cry out.

“Johnny. I got just the thing for ya,” says old Frank as he struggles in on his cane and I turn my head and watch him hobble. He hands me a blue jar.

“Noxzema? What am I gonna do with this, Frank?”

“I reckon its for face washing,” he says, lips fluttering in the air of his speech where teeth should be. “I like to use it for breathin’. Just rub a little on your chest and you’ll be all right in the morning.”

“I breathe fine, Frank, but thanks anyway.”

“You breathe good? Eulanda told me you had troubles breathin’.”

“Not when I’m not moving. Must be somebody else.”

He shuffles his feet over beside me again and reaches out his hand. “Then give that blue jar back. I gotta find somebody useful to give this to, Writer.”

“Fine.”

He hobbles back to the hallway and I hear him yell out for anybody that has a breathing problem. He leaves the door open. I’m too tired to get up and close it. I look through the window pane again and stare out into the green field in front of the home.

“I’m gonna play in the majors. I’m gonna be just as good as Eric Davis,” I said to my brother, throwing him my version of a curve ball, but it failed to break.

The ball smacked his mitt with a loud crack. “Yeah. Sure you will, Johnny. You’ll be Davis and I’ll be Strawberry,” replied my brother, Mark, sarcastically. “You’re gonna be just like pap, and you’re gonna go down in the mines. That’s what I’m gonna do.”

“Just because Will went into ‘em don’t mean I will. I’ll never be a coal miner.”

“You just wait and see.” He threw me the ball and I examined it slightly before throwing it back. It was an old homerun ball my oldest brother, Will, had hit when he was in high school. He had written the date on the ball: March 30, 1987.

I caught the ball in my mitt after Mark whizzed a fastball in sharply.

My nurse comes in for her last time this morning to check up on me. “You need anything, Johnny?”

I fail to reply and the nurse walks out. I stand up and groan at the creaks in my back and knees. Walking out the door to my room I listen to my ankles pop loudly and my breathing become harder.

Outside all of the regulars are around. Walking with walkers or canes with tubes in their noses releasing oxygen or intravenous injections in their arms dripping happiness or relief on a five second timeline. The happiness or relief part depends on how much pain your in.

I shuffle my old feet down the hallway and stop in the lounge. The television bolted to the ceiling displays the news, complete with stock quotes scrawling on the bottom of the screen. I sit in a green chair in the corner and watch the screen, trying my best to be oblivious to the people around me and I manage with great ease until an elderly woman we all call Flo is wheeled beside me in her wheelchair by a nurse. Damn.

“Here, you are Ms. Stillman. Right beside your old pal Johnny,” the fat male nurse says before walking off; most assuredly in the most satisfied manner possible. He has hated me ever since I told one of the female nurses he was married.

“Hi, Johnny,” Flo says, wrapping her fingers around a bead necklace her grandson had made and sent to her for her birthday.

“Hello, Flo.”

“What are you doing for lunch?”

“Eating.”

She lets loose one of those old smoker’s cackles and says, “That’s so funny, Johnny. I was wondering if you could wheel me to the cafeteria and maybe eat with me. Did I tell you that my baby boy is a major accountant on Wall Street?”

I watch the television and try to focus.

“When my Robby was alive, we used to go to Wall Street, that’s in New York, and visit with our boy in his huge office. He has a computer and everything.”

“Is that right?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Does he watch the news?”

“The news?”

“Yeah, the news.”

“Oh, he works on Wall Street,” she says smiling at me with a blank stare.

“I was watching the news this morning,” said my old writer friend, Hank Kilbourne, as he lit a cigarette with a match. “When this plane lost control of its landing gear.”

“What? Like a jet?” I asked, sitting in a green chair my girlfriend had bought for our apartment.

“No, like a single engine one.”

“Did they die?”

“No, that’s the messed up part. It was flying around.” He paused to flick the ashes into a small glass ashtray I had stolen from a fast food restaurant. “And it just did this belly land and they got out and ran off.”

“That was it?”

“That was it. I watched that damn newscast for twenty minutes waiting to see something happen.”

Flo finally breaks the silence and grabs my hand. “I wish you would go with me to lunch. It’s already eleven thirty and you won’t answer me, Johnny.”

“Go away, Flo,” I say, my eyes still on the screen even though for the past hour I had seen all that this program is going to tell.

She motions for a nurse and is wheeled off in to her own room.

I never feel bad for being rude to the people in here. Tomorrow I’ll tell her all over again when she’s forgotten being told to leave the day before. She has Alzheimer’s. Not very much longer to live I would guess. No need to get attached to people like that. We’re just gonna die anyway.

I finish the news program and focus and walk around the home for a little while. The windows are uncharacteristically open, and a small robin sits upon a window seal, turning its head back and forth in quick jerks. The sun is very bright now and its beams flow in, hitting the slick tile floor and warming up small sections to the touch of my bare feet.

I don’t need my cane today, but I still like to use it all the time. It goes well with my home edition pale blue robe and pants. I get to the end of the hall and say to myself, “To hell with it,” and fire up my second cigarette outside of the door with the exit sign above it.

Immediately outside I recognize Jimmy Wilson. I walk over to the bench where he is sitting and light the cigarette.

“Howdy, Jimmy,” I say, taking a drag into my lungs.

He notices me and puts down the paper he was reading before my appearance. “You just now smoking that cigarette? If I was you I would have smoked mine about two hours ago. I don’t know how the hell you can sleep so long.”

“It’s because I never was a farmer, Jim. I never had to get up with the chickens.”

“So you’ve said.” He folds the paper neatly and puts it on the ground. “Nice day. Good day for July. Not too hot.”

“Maybe.”

“Flo was out here looking for you a while ago. That son of a bitch Sebastian was wheeling her around to each and every one of us out here just to ask if you was around.”

“She found me,” I say depressingly.

“I wouldn’t worry about it. She’ll probably hit the road in a few weeks. She’s real bad off.”

“Shit, Jim. We’re all real bad off in here. It’s like a damned prison in here.”

“I don’t know. I kind of like it here.”

“That’s what you say now. You’ve just been here for two weeks. To you, this is just a place where young folks do things for you. To me it’s like a place where young folks keep you locked up and waiting around to die.”

“Yeah, but I can get out and go places. See my boy and his kids and their kids too. I got things I can do. I guess if I couldn’t leave like you, I’d probably hate it too.”

“Anything good in the paper?”

“Not really,” Jimmy replied as he handed me the now damp with dew morning edition of the Hazard-Herald.

I fold the paper and tuck it underneath my arm as I stand. “Well, Jim, I’ll see you around lunch time. I think I’m gonna go in here where the air conditioner is.”

“Yeah, take it easy.”

“Yep.”

“Yeah, take it easy,” Hank said as he left my girlfriend and me in our apartment. As the door shut we stood up and began cleaning the place up, throwing some beer cans in the trash and getting the place as it was before company had come.

Kimberly sat on the couch and I sat down beside her. She leaned her body against mine and relaxed upon me. We sat in silence as the television sputtered out through its half broken speaker. Important but brief moments flew by with nothing but a memory to keep them alive.

“Did you finish your story this morning?” Kimberly said as she broke the silence, liting a cigarette and repositioning her self at my side.

“No. I threw it away.”

“Did you let Hank read it first?”

“No. It was impossible. I couldn’t do it.”

“You should have let Hank read it since you won’t let me. How can you know if it’s any good or not if no one sees it?”

“I just know.”

“Yeah, you know all right.”

“What does that mean?”

“I think I should get a job. I could go work for James at the store. He said he would pay me in advance so we can pay this month’s rent.”

“I bet he did. Fascist bastard. He’s a Nazi you know.”

“To hell with you, Johnny. If you would finish a story maybe somebody would publish one again and we could get some money.”

“Well, I’ll be damned if it ain’t old Hemingway himself,” says one of the paramedics that are always hanging around the home and waiting for a good looking nurse to stroll by. Standing beside him is one of those nurses in front of the janitor’s closet.

“Damn it, Writer,” she says to me in a frustrated voice. “You know you ain’t supposed to come back in here like that. Use the front door next time. They’re gonna have my ass for you setting that alarm off again. It’s not like I can act old and senile like you.”

I stop in the hallway and look at her from head to toe before walking off without another word.

“Yeah, go on and get out of here, Writer. Go write us a book and make a million,” the young paramedic says before turning back to the nurse and putting his arm against the wall in front of her face.

I walk off and leave the two as I hear the closet door open and then slam shut.

“Maybe, man, but I never did see a tiger in Kentucky, so I don’t think you got much to worry about,” I said to Hank as he threw his line out onto the lake’s shiny surface. A small plop into the water and tiny ripples flowed outward as the worm and sinker sank in the greenish water, only to be saved by the red and white floater atop the surface.

“Kimberly’s pregnant,” I said calmly as I reeled in my line.

“No kidding?”

“Mr. Lawrence. Did you come through that back door again?” shouts the head nurse, Jan Strange. Her brow wrinkled and anger flying from her tongue.

“Give me a break will you, head nurse?”

“I know you’re not bad off. You don’t have to give me that senile routine. Now quit going through that door. You know the fire department comes and I have to sort it all out every time. So quit it.”

I turn my back and walk off, my bare feet sliding against the slick tile slowly, but with as much energy as I can spare. I walk back to my room, sit by the window and read yesterday’s paper again. The sun hits me and I feel its warmth on my chest and my feet begin to warm. I look them over and grimace at the varicose veins and yellowish distortion of what once were toenails.

It’s almost time for lunch, which means they’ll be bringing the cart around soon. It’s Tuesday and the special for the day is meatloaf. I never have liked meatloaf.

“It’s just meatloaf, Johnny. It’s meat and ketchup. That’s all it is.”

“Yeah, but it looks like a cross section of brain,” I said back, looking down at this thing on my plate.

“Well you can go make yourself a sandwich or something because I’m not cooking anything else.”

I stood up and opened the fridge. “When’s the last time you went to the store?”

“Last week. We haven’t had a paycheck since last month. We should move somewhere else. Knott County is no place to be raising a child.”

“To hell with that.”

“Then I’ll have to get a job.”

“To hell with that too. You shouldn’t have to work.”

“What’s it matter? I like to work.”

“Lunch time,” says the nurse’s aid from outside before opening the door and wheeling a silver cart into my room.

“Great.”

“I know you hate it, but it’s Tuesday.”

“So you’ve said for the last year,” I reply as she hands me a covered tray. I lift the lid and that same old smell hits me. Smells like old people food, so I guess that’s appropriate.

“I’ll be back,” she says as she goes off to serve the next lucky one.

I eat some green gelatin and fumble through the mashed potatoes, careful not to intermingle with any of the stale and tepid looking meatloaf. It’s always the same thing in here. Nothing ever changes and nothing ever will. I cover the tray up and gather enough strength to toss it across the room. The metallic tray slams against the wall with a loud crash. It won’t be long before someone comes in to see if I’ve finally died.

The door swings open. “Writer? You okay in here?” the aid says as she spots the tray and the strewn food. “What the hell, Writer?”

I look at her with a stare and look forward again.

“Nurse Strange won’t be too happy about this,” she says sincerely enough. She peeks out the door and back again. “I told you, here she comes,” she says in a rushed manner before exiting the room in a vain attempt to help me out.

“It’s okay, Jan. He just dropped his tray.”

“Like hell he did,” I hear her reply. She struts in the room with an uppity swagger. “Mr. Lawrence. What happened?”

“I dropped my tray,” I say back, lowering my head and beginning to feel weak.

“Don’t pull that innocent routine on me, Mr. Lawrence. I’ve seen it too many times before to fall for it now.”

I sit upon my bed for a few moments before saying, “Fuck off, you pompous bitch.”

“Mr. Lawrence,” she replies in a cocky manner, laced with a bit of a surprised tone. She’s been waiting for this moment for a long time, and I’ve finally provided it for her. “If you want to play it that way, fine by me. Melissa?”

“Yes ma’am?” the aid replies while coming back into the room.

“Clean up this mess and see to it that Mr. Lawrence gets rolled around a few times in his bed because he won’t be leaving it for a long time.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“And make sure he gets the full regiment of meds for the next few nights.”

“He didn’t do anything to deserve that.”

“Young lady,” Nurse Strange says. “If you look to keep your job, then I suggest learning to follow orders. That’s the second time today you have questioned my orders. In my office. Now!” she screams out and regains my attention. She walks out in a definite fury with the aid behind her. She’s a good kid.

“He’s a fine young man,” my father said as he held my son for the first time, just a few hours after he had been born.

“Yeah, he’s a real Lawrence all right,” I replied with a smile upon my face.

“What’s his name?”

“We don’t know yet.”

The door to my room closes and locks slowly as the nurse’s aid looks at me through the small window with a look of apology and says, “I’m sorry.”

I lay down upon the pillow and my head begins to float around.

“They’re problem is that they don’t have a coach that can recruit,” father said to me as we peered through the hospital window at my son in his nursery crib.

“No, he’s not the problem. The problem with them is that they have no big man this year. They need somebody physical who can play down low and get rebounds.”

“Ah, well.” He paused and breathed a sigh. “Son, I just want you to know one thing. When me and your mother had you, we were scared half to death. I worked in the mines and she raised you. That’s how it was, but we made good times out of it none the less.” He stops for a second and scratches his head, searching for the right thing to say. “What I’m trying to say is that you have it a hell of a lot better than we did. You’re a successful writer with some money, but now you have a real life. One that you can really be proud of. You have a family.”

“I know,” I said as a nurse walked slowly to my side.

“Mr. Lawrence, can I speak with you for a moment?”

“Sure.”

“I’m afraid that your wife has developed a complication.”

“A complication?”

“She was doing fine, but her blood pressure dropped suddenly and she went into cardiac arrest.”

“Where is she?” I said, feeling that the worst was about to come.

“She’s in the OR right now. Dr. Hanson is about to work on her.”

“Can I see her?”

I look out my room window as the sun begins to set. I wish I had a cigarette. I wish I had a lot of things back that I’ll never see again. Not on this world anyway. I sit up, trying to keep my head from swimming, but it does no good. My eyes and heart finally fade as I look at the sun’s final glimpse.

I look at my wife for the last time as I hold my son and touch his small hand to hers. I feel the coldness of her skin as she rested still in her coffin, looking as though she was resting like the years before. There were sobs in the background, but I phased them out as I look upon her beautiful face and take one final glimpse.