Off the near table, Frank grabbed his shawl and draped it over himself, the best he could but it fell miserably onto the linoleum floor.
These days, small things stopped worrying him. All the big things in the world, war, failing economy, terrorists, didn't affect him, either. His thoughts were elsewhere. Another time, another place.
Unless, talked to, he was completely gone. Away at that other place, silent.
The doctors and nurses suspected Alzheimer's but he showed no sign off forgetfulness or insanity. He was calm and cordial when the personnel shuffled in and around him. However, when he was forced to go into the multipurpose room for "socialization" he was completely silent, gone.
Where he was, no one knew. No one knew much about him, in other senses. He was 85 years old. He was anemic. He ate all of his meals. And he was Francis Marion Burns. However, when he first arrived he was *Lieutenant Colonel* Francis Marion Burns *M.D.* and was quick to tell you so. Then, after a month he just Frank or Mr. Burns and still quick to tell you so.
Government funding agencies wanted to know more than that. They couldn't have an unknown living it up on their dollar. Pretty soon a psychiatrist was scheduled for an evaluation.
*****
Sandie Ripka went into psychiatry to be a social worker for children in foster homes. She ended up working with seniors in nursing homes. The job was less than fulfilling. All of the patients were exactly the same. Hoarders. They would steal pieces of paper, buttons, bottle caps, thread and other things with no real value, then keep them hidden until a custodian found them. All of them were children of the Great Depression. Now, they were trying to save their families from poverty with all of their contraband. Sad, but boring.
While she was in school, which was not too long ago, Sandie wanted to untangle the cleverly constructed cobwebs of the human brain. To help people. Preferably, inner-city children. Maybe it was the romanticism of Dangerous Minds, Sister Act 2, and even Welcome Back, Kotter, that made her believe that all it took to reach inner-city kids was understanding and un-orthodox methods. Those things and some-thousand dollars her parents wouldn't supply her with.
Sandie's parents were rich enough to put her through graduate school as many times as they wanted to. Wanting to was the problem. Her father was a surgeon with a high paying private practice and her mother was housewife with a pension for trashy novels and cosmopolitans. Together they were a white upper class powerhouse of snobbery.
"Daaaahhhhling, we just think that it would be to daaaanngerous," her mother said, in her Beacon Hill accent.
Although, it could be a dangerous job, working with possible gang members, the only thing that her mother thought was in danger was the Ripkas' reputation. What would the people at the country club say about the event manager's daughter making less than a quarter of a million dollars a year?
Sandie and her parents managed to do something that they never had one before-- make a compromise. Sandie would still go into behavioral health but as an adult psychiatrist, where appointments were two hundred dollars an hour. But the rebellious nature in Sandie acted up and she went to work the good ol' US Government making a wee sapling amount of a salary.
Now she was in *Indiana*, talking to incontinents all day. Mother truly knows best.
*****
"Mr. Burns?"
Frank spun around in his wheelchair. A 17-year-old candy striper stood in his doorway. The girl walked across the tiny room to him. She looked down at the shawl on the floor and picked it up. "Mr. Burns, did you drop this? Here," "Candy" said, in a voice that expressed the title of her job. She laid the shawl around Frank in an awkward fashion.
When she looked up at him, Frank managed a weak smile. Most of the people who worked at the home really did not want to be there. The nurses seemed to be annoyed by the patient, like they were the nurses new baby neighbor being dropped on their lap needing to be looked after; not their job. The doctors didn't really care, if they arrived two days late they were still going to get paid. The physical therapists were angry at the nurses for being lazy and the doctors for not showing. Except for the occasional parole case and Ivy Leaguer Wannabe, the candy stripers were there on their own free will. Sure, they thought that the patients were sad, pitiful old-timers who were never young and when they were young they were wearing poodle skirts and being abstinent.
"Mr. Burns, don't forget, Dr. Ripka is coming by at 2:30," "Candy" said slowly and loudly. "Do you need anything?"
He knew that she just wanted to hear him talk, something he rarely did. The bitter old man in him wanted to shake his head but the loveable Grampa said, "No, thank you."
"Candy" cracked a grin and walked out of the room.
*****
"Who doesn't know what I'm talking about?
Who's never left home who's never struck out?
To find a dream and a life of their own
A place in the clouds, a foundation of stone," Sandie crooned, along with the music.
"Many precede and many will follow
A young girl's dream no longer hollow
It takes the shape of a place out West
But what it holds for her, she hasn't yet guessed."
She flicked her car's turn signal and slided onto the Larkin Avenue exit.
"She needs wide open spaces
Room to make her big mistakes
She needs new faces
She knows the high stakes."
Her Honda chewed up the dirt road toward Mokena Terrace. At 2:30 she had an appointment with, most likely, another hoarder. The clerk at the agency was vague about this patient. Okay, Bogart was *always* vague but this time it seemed it was because lack of information not lack of occupation. All of what she knew about Burns was that he served in a war, is a surgeon, and was born in 1918. A Great Depression child.
The worse part of Sandie's job was deciding if the patient should stay at the home or go to an asylum. If the patient was on a respirator or had another physical ailment he had to stay at the home. Otherwise, it was up to her. The asylum was a horrible place to spend your last days but most of the people who she had sent there were so gone that they wouldn't notice where they were. At the nursing home, the patient we be a danger to all of the other occupants and the personnel. Sandie sighed. Sometimes she wished they would just be put out off their misery.
When she was younger this was so much easier. She had felt like a cowboy or Robin Hood, helping the poor to spite the rich. Now, she was just so tired. Maybe she could go back to Boston and start a... no, she could not, not after all that had happened.
"She traveled this road as a child
Wide-eyed and grinning she never tired
But now she won't be coming back with the rest
If these are life's lessons, she'll take the test
She needs wide open spaces
Room to make her big mistakes
She needs new faces
She knows the high stakes," Sandie belted out. She curved slightly and pulled into Mokena Terrace's parking lot.
*****
Frank saw her walk out of her car. (That was another advantage of having a room with a window-- you could see what little visitors the home had, come and go.) She was short, had shoulder length brown hair, and was wearing a red long sleeve shirt and a pair of Levi Strauss'. She was a lot better looking than many of the other government workers that had been there. Most of them were cold, over-stuffed shirts with the *same pair of glasses*.
He wheeled himself around. A nurse was yelling at her aid about keeping Mr. Whitman in his room. On a regular day, she wouldn't give a rat's ass *what* room Mr. Whitman was in, but today, that government lady was there. Every time an agent would stop by, it was chaos. All of the rooms were to be cleaned. The games were to be taken out of the cabinets. And the patients were to be put in places where they would look good. It was like a living pamphlet, with models and everything.
...And Frank was gone. His mind wandered back to something he did to his clerk, long ago. A far away look came over his face.
He was gone. G-O-N-E.
*****
"Sandie Ripka, R-I-P-K-A," she spelled put for the nurse at the front desk.
"Follow me."
The nurse grabbed a chart and led Sandie into a bright white hallway. Patients were lying in their beds like corpses in a coffin, straight as a board, and as pale as the hallway, and lifeless. Nurses rushed in and out of the rooms their aids in hot pursuit. The dry air smelled like lighter fluid and mothballs. Were all nursing homes alike?
She followed the nurse past at least twelve tiny broom closets, and then they were at Burns room.
When they walked in he didn't notice them. That was, until, the nurse yelled, "Frank!"
He snapped back into reality and acknowledged them, yet stayed silent.
"He does that a lot. Just goes off into La-La Land," the nurse said, not attempting to adjust her voice to a level he couldn't here. "I'll leave you two alone." The nurse left.
Sandie dragged a chair to where it was facing Burns, directly. She waited for him to say something. Nothing. She flipped through her papers, trying to find *some* sort of information on this guy. "Dr. Burns...."
"Frank," he muttered.
"Frank... can you remember these words for me? Dog, work, speak, then. You got that? Now, can you repeat these numbers? 5, 8, 3, 4."
He repeated them exactly.
"Could you tell me the date, please?"
He mumbled something about "pinkos" and answered her, accurately.
"Frank, where are we?"
He closed his eyes as if he had to think of something. When he opened them a wave of a new... person, it seemed, washed over him, along with a smirk.
"My room, Mokena Terrace, Frankfort, Indiana, United States of America, the World, the Milky Way Galaxy, the Universe, Existence."
This could be interesting.
"Do you know why I was brought here today, Frank?"
*****
"Frank!"
Frank snapped back. The portly desk clerk was at his doorway with Government Girl. Up close she didn't look a whole lot different except for her face. From the window he could only see an outline out her body and the intricate details of her face was a blur. Now, he could see her clearly, she didn't look like an agent. Her face was creased and there were black droops under her eyes. Her purse hung low and looked like it would drop at any time. She was leaning up against the frame of his door as if it were the only thing holding her up. In truth, Frank could've felt sorry for this child if he weren't so busy feeling sorry for himself.
"I'll leave you two alone."
Government Girl pulled a chair by Frank and sat down. "Dr. Burns...."
He cringed. He wasn't a doctor anymore. No one would let him operate. It was like putting all this effort into baking a cake, having a slice, then having someone take it away. He didn't *want* to be a doctor. Why do something your not good at? People could die. People did die.
"Frank."
Government Girl looked put off by this. "Frank.... Can you, please remember these words for me? Dog, work speak, then. Thanks, I didn't think I could. And now can you say these numbers? 5, 8, 3,4."
Frank wanted to ask if she worked as a kindergarten teacher before going psych.
"5, 8, 3, 4."
"Could you tell me the date, please?"
He glanced at the newspaper on his bed. "September 5, 2002."
"Where are we?"
This was the worst question. Didn't she know you could be in two places a time? Frank Burns couldn't lie. Hawkeye Pierce could. "My room, Mokena Terrace, Frankfort, Indiana, United States of America, the World, the Milky Way Galaxy, the Universe, Existence."
New attention lit up Government Girl's face. "Do you know why I was brought here today, Frank?"
She sounded like a grade school principal asking a naught child why they were brought to her office. What would Pierce do, flashed through Frank's mind like a cheeky slogan. She was serious about this question, he could tell that, but he did not have any form of an answer. Pierce would joke his way out of this. Pierce could charm his way out of this. Pierce could have his buddy, Trapper help him out of this. But Frank could do nothing.
*****
He stared blankly at Sandie. "Do you know?"
He shook his head. This was exactly what she needed. A wild goose chase. For all she knew, he could've pushed the lunch lady into the meat grinder.
"Have you ever taken anything that wasn't yours from the other patients?"
"No."
"Do you collect anything?"
"Stamps."
The answers went on and on like that. Sandie would ask questions and Frank would answer with a "no" or a completely benign tidbit. He continued to show no real clean-cut sign of dementia, except for the drifting. Normally, she would be concerned about the drifting, but he wasn't screaming or acting like he was in a virtual-reality game and he could easily "drift" out of it. It seemed as if he was deep in thought, trying to go way back in his consciousness for something in had put there for safekeeping. What that something was, Sandie had no idea.
Not that she wasn't curious. It was in her nature to be curious. It had always been. How many times, as a little girl, had she peered into the keyhole of her father's den? Or pick up the phone's receiver and eavesdrop on her mother's conversation? Countless. Had anything good come from it? Nothing. Had she learned anything from it? Too much. Was she going to stop? Not when she could help people.
*****
Frank had thought she was different from the other agents when he had first met her but then the questions began. She didn't even tell him her name just straight off to the Government procedures. Just like any other agent. The last one he saw, the man who referred him to her, was here to inspect the home, which was even worse. Every once in a while, somebody would come down and interviewed each of the patients, briefly. The agent would sweep from room to room, asking everybody the same questions, not looking up from his clipboard, briefly. He might have to spend a tiny bit of extra time on the people who were really old but even then all of the operations were done, briefly.
When this guy came in, Frank was in his room, staring out the window, as he usually did, and he was gone. Government Man walked over to the window, his legs moving like scissors, and *clapped in Frank's face*. Two swift ones, like a bitter, tightlipped Boarding Schoolmistress would, to get her young students to follow. Frank turned and the brief interview began.
Frank, as in the interrogation with Government Girl, was purposefully vague. It was "yes" or "no". The other patients gave lengthily accounts of what it was like "back in the day". They were lonely. Frank wasn't lonely, not at all; there was nothing at all lonely about being alone.
After Government Girl's question passed, Frank had figured that his vagueness was probably why she had to be here. He hadn't gone crazy and his brain's parts were all in the right place. He didn't tell her that, though.
*****
The meeting ended in the same fashion as it has begun. Frank was distant, Sandie was reserved yet curious. After a half-hearted, "I think I'm done for today," she was back on her way. Her Volvo thumped down the road, *thump, thump*, slowing taking her into
civilization.
"Bogart," she said on her cell phone. "Get me all the information you can on Francis Burns. F as in food. R as in rat. A as in-" He hung up. Sandie muttered a curse word and continued driving.
What had really fascinated her about Burns was his vagueness. Most people his age would talk on for hours about collecting things but he had just said, "stamps". And the drifting, all normal old folk had a tendency to space out but she had the distinct impression that Mr. Frank Burns was not normal old folk.
Sandie flicked on the radio.
"Castaway - going at it alone
Castaway - now I'm on my own
Castaway - going at it alone
Castaway - now I'm on my own
Lost and found, trouble bound
Castaway."