Calvin Wheeler pushed through the pain of arthritic knees until he stood atop the desk in front of the window. Then, he slid the yellowed roller shade out of the brackets and tossed it on the drafting table. Light streamed over him, refracted through a jagged crack in the glass. It was a sunny day, crisp, with clear blue skies\u2014a day he\u2019d have enjoyed working outdoors. Instead, he was stuck in the office, babysitting the boneyard at the shuttered psychiatric hospital.<\/p>\n
From his vantage, Calvin could see the full expanse of the ruins. A once elegant Victorian French Gothic brick building with barred windows constructed during the Civil War, wooden cottages with wide porches from the thirties and forties, a towering concrete monstrosity of the fifties, and a glass and steel “Rehab” building of the seventies\u2014all abandoned.<\/p>\n
The buildings had collapsed, decayed, and died almost as soon as the people left. Weeds replaced manicured lawns. Poison Ivy climbed fences. The Golf course became a sagebrush desert. A sunbaked, graffiti-covered water tank stood guard. The rolling acres of tumbledown patient burials stretched out on either side of the back entrance to the grounds.<\/p>\n
He squatted, sat, swung his feet to the floor, and caught his breath.<\/p>\n
Calvin was a third-generation employee\u2014a skilled tradesman like his father and grandfather. In the old days, when patients lived here, he\u2019d liked his job in the Maintenance Department. You never knew what would happen next. Like the day he and the guys pulled a bedsheet from the plumbing after a toilet exploded, blowing off the stall door and sending porcelain flying. They\u2019d had a few laughs, even though someone could have been hurt\u2014because you had to admit the patient who stuffed the sheet had gotten his point across.<\/p>\n
But things had changed. The state hospital had been emptied and sold to a venture capitalist with plans to turn it into an upscale housing development. Most employees were laid off or forced to take early retirement, leaving a handful of the most senior men to keep security while the property changed hands. With a year to full retirement at age fifty-five, they called Calvin a \u201cgeneral mechanic,\u201d meaning he did whatever they assigned him to do. Like watch over the dead.<\/p>\n
Between his boss\u2019s edict this morning and the call he\u2019d just gotten from the Medical Records Administrator, he was wedged between a rock and a hard place. No matter what he did, something would turn out badly.<\/p>\n
The boss had instructed him to let the buyers do what they wanted\u2014including digging a foundation on property they didn\u2019t own yet. \u201cBest to not do anything that might queer the deal,\u201d he\u2019d said. Then, moments later, the Medical Records Administrator had called Calvin to say a family member\u2014Grace Atkinson\u2014was on her way to visit a grave. \u201cBe kind to her. Show her a grave. She\u2019ll never know if it\u2019s the right one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Outside, the bucket truck operator was setting up to dig the foundation for the buyer\u2019s temporary security quarters. Sunlight magnified a pile of numbered bricks, scattered by the blades of the brush hog mowers. Grace Atkinson\u2019s mother\u2019s marker could be in that pile\u2014and the other marker.<\/p>\n
He\u2019d searched for that other marker for years\u2014#981645. It was probably long gone.<\/p>\n
The taste of metal flooded the back of his throat. He looked away.<\/p>\n
Calvin limped to the drafting table and unrolled the window shade\u2014a secret record made by maintenance workers who cared when the hospital didn\u2019t. Numbers and names littered the backside of the shade, the only log of the burials in existence. It seemed to cast a shadow that swallowed the light and sucked the air from the room, making it hard to breathe. He located Grace Atkinson\u2019s mother\u2019s gravesite in the exact spot where the bucket truck was parked, the shovel set to gouge the earth and deposit the remains in a hill of dust and bones.<\/p>\n
There was nothing to do but wait.<\/p>\n
The coffee pot signaled his brew was ready. He poured, sipped, checked the time. Across the room, a collage of dog-eared posters hung on a bulletin board, remnants from some long-forgotten Martin Luther King holiday. A picture of the man was tacked to the center with a quote. \u201cOur lives begin to end when we become silent about the things that matter.\u201d It reminded him of something his mother used to say. \u201cAlways stand up for what\u2019s right, Calvin, even if it means you stand alone.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEasier said than done,\u201d he said aloud. He saw himself as a sort of Boo Radley\u2014a ghostly recluse stained with the disgrace of mental illness and powerless to change it. The state senator who had an office down the road was the only person who\u2019d ever stood up for the throwaways. She\u2019d put up a mighty fight when the government closed the hospital and sent patients to other hospitals miles from their families.<\/p>\n
He checked the time again. On cue, a round copper-haired woman filled the doorway, tugging a coat around her middle. He shoved the window shade in a drawer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m Grace Atkinson. They said you\u2019d show me my mother\u2019s grave.\u201d<\/p>\n
Calvin\u2019s throat went dry. His own mother had passed when he was twenty-two. \u201cNo, ma\u2019am. The graves don\u2019t have names on them. Just bricks with numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen you can cross-reference my mother\u2019s number with her name\u2014Ruth Duncan.\u201d<\/p>\n
He shook his head. \u201cCan\u2019t. No records. Besides, the cemetery wasn\u2019t kept up, if you get my meaning. The bricks have kinda moved around.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bucket truck\u2019s engine cranked and fired, startling him. He spun toward the window and watched the operator jump to the earth and light a cigarette. The man would finish his smoke and begin digging.<\/p>\n
Calvin turned back to the room. Grace fixed an unfaltering gaze on him, and, to his surprise, she took off her coat, threw it over the back of a chair, and sat.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, what makes a person devote a lifetime to a place like this?\u201d<\/p>\n
The question angered him. He was tired of hearing how special he must be to work with \u201cthose people\u201d at \u201cthat place.\u201d It was the same as saying he must be a loser. The fact was, he\u2019d graduated from high school and had a good job, one you could only get with family connections.<\/p>\n
He answered too fast. \u201cBecause most people won\u2019t, and these people need help. They deserve respect.\u201d It didn\u2019t make him a hero. In some ways, he had failed.<\/p>\n
She smiled. \u201cThen let me tell you my story. I\u2019ve been looking for my birth mother for a decade, and I\u2019ve found her. My adoptive mother died and left me a letter containing a long-held secret\u2014my birth mother\u2019s name. I looked up her death certificate and traced her here, but the hospital has refused to show me her records. All I have is her gravesite. Are you going to say \u2018no\u2019 to me, too?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not that I want to say no\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cListen to me. It was a shock to find out I was born here. But I realized she gave me away so I wouldn\u2019t grow up in this place. She protected me. I need to see where she\u2019s buried. I need to give her a proper headstone. I won\u2019t let my mother be erased.\u201d<\/p>\n
An image of his own mother standing at the sink, smoking a cigarette, drinking beer from the bottle, and laughing at her own jokes floated through Calvin\u2019s mind. You\u2019re the best thing that ever happened to me, Cal.<\/p>\n
His mother had protected him, too. He studied his feet. They should\u2019ve put a social worker at this post, not him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell?\u201d<\/p>\n
Calvin glanced through the window at the bucket truck lifting and dumping shovels of earth\u2014and pictured glistening white shards, the cracking of bones.<\/p>\n
Grace followed his gaze and paled. \u201cWhat\u2019s going on out there?\u201d<\/p>\n
Calvin wet his lips and struggled to answer.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere? That\u2019s her spot?\u201d<\/p>\n
He shrugged. \u201cDunno.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDo something! Make him stop digging.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guilt chewed at his insides. But it\u2019d be pointless to tell the bucket truck operator the boundaries were wrong, since the boss approved the site. \u201cNo rocks. Nicely composted,\u201d he\u2019d said. Besides, Calvin had never been a man that other men paid any mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cMe? That\u2019s not my call.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes you have to come up on two feet, regardless of whose call it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe works for the buyer. I\u2019m not allowed\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you don\u2019t stop him, I will.\u201d She grabbed her coat and charged through the door.<\/p>\n
It struck him Grace was doing was exactly what his mother would have done. But because Grace was willing to stand up to the bucket truck operator alone, didn\u2019t mean it was right for him to do nothing.<\/p>\n
He called after her. \u201cMa\u2019am, he won\u2019t listen to you. Please let me deal with this. I\u2019ll call you when it\u2019s done.\u201d<\/p>\n
She half-turned and looked at him. \u201cIf I leave, you won\u2019t do anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGive me some time. I swear I\u2019ll handle it. I can do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou weren\u2019t so confident a minute ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you can do it, I can do it.\u201d He\u2019d caught her off-guard, and she laughed. \u201cThe truth is, the buyer doesn\u2019t own the place yet. He has no right to dig up anything here\u2014especially graves.\u201d He rested his hand on the drawer containing the window shade and waited for her to respond.<\/p>\n
She searched his face, maybe looking for something more than his promise. \u201cMy mother shouldn\u2019t have been hidden away until she died, with no thought to her dignity in life or death.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, ma\u2019am. That was wrong. I\u2019m sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n
She nodded, as if to accept his apology for all of it. \u201cWhat would you do if it were your mother?\u201d<\/p>\n
Calvin hesitated. He wanted to tell her about his mother, but he knew he shouldn\u2019t. His voice softened. \u201cCome with me. I want to show you something.\u201d<\/p>\n
He took her through the front door, piloting her away from the cemetery and the bucket truck, to a footpath. They followed a steep rise to the reservoir, taking in the views of the Catskill Mountains and the Hudson River.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is where I come when I\u2019m thinking things through.\u201d<\/p>\n
They could see the full sweep of the grounds, but it had been a terrible mistake to bring her here. He could scarcely imagine what the vista of abandoned and deteriorating buildings must look like to her. \u201cYou have to picture what it used to be,\u201d he mumbled, feeling heat rise from his neck into his face.<\/p>\n
\u201cTell me about it.\u201d There was kindness in her voice.<\/p>\n
He pointed out the buildings where patients had lived, a golf course and tennis courts, greenhouses and fallow fields, chapels, a boathouse, a recreation hall and a bowling alley, a movie theater, a library, a community store.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose activities were for the employees.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNope. They were for everyone\u2014patients and staff. See those buildings over there? In their day, they had crystal chandeliers, terrazzo floors, marble fireplaces with chestnut trimmed mantels, and elegant dining halls, all for the patients.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLike a country club.\u201d She looked dubious.<\/p>\n
He frowned. \u201cNot exactly.\u201d She was smart, and she\u2019d have realized there were inequities, like the best cuts of meat going to employees while the patients ate gruel.<\/p>\n
Grace sighed. \u201cAnd your job was to fix things and keep the place running.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot all by myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course not. Everyone who worked here fixed things\u2014and people.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was a funny thing to say, but she was right. He didn\u2019t need to mention the things they used to fix broken people, like restraint sheets, electroconvulsive therapy, lobotomies, and psychotropic medication. She already knew.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t perfect, but your mother was cared for.\u201d<\/p>\n
When she didn\u2019t answer, he realized she was waiting for him to say more. \u201cThe truth is, you\u2019re a better daughter than I am a son.\u201d<\/p>\n
Something passed between them, and he imagined she sensed the bond they shared and saw the determination in his eyes to make amends.<\/p>\n
Neither spoke for a while, then Grace said, \u201cI think it must be a strange kind of love that drew you to these people and this place, Calvin. I think that love is why you\u2019ve spent a lifetime here.\u201d<\/p>\n
He swallowed, and tears pricked at the corners of his eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe in you, Calvin. Find my mother. I trust you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, ma\u2019am.\u201d<\/p>\n
They walked down the hill in silence to Grace\u2019s car, and she left. He went back to the office, stood at the window watching the bucket truck\u2014and a memory arose. He had attended the unveiling of a bronze memorial at the site of the county poorhouse, dedicated to the forgotten souls buried in unmarked graves. The statue\u2014Aging Woman\u2014portrayed an elderly woman draped in a shroud with butterflies, dragonflies, and grasses at her feet, suggesting the field where she\u2019d soon be buried.<\/p>\n
What tribute could the occupants of the hospital\u2019s Potter\u2019s Field claim with only the markings on a window shade to prove they\u2019d lived?<\/p>\n
He wrenched the window shade from the desk drawer and scanned the chart again. When he had first discovered Anna Wheeler\u2019s name among the burials, his breath had stalled and his stomach lurched, even though he\u2019d known it would be there.<\/p>\n
His Ma wasn\u2019t from around here. She came from across the river to attend the hospital\u2019s School of Nursing. Pa always said that was why she thought she was better than others, but Calvin liked that she had dreams. He liked that she was tough and would stand up to anyone. Except when she stood up to Pa, she got knocked down.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t Ma\u2019s depression that got her admitted to the hospital; it was that she fought back. Calvin hadn\u2019t thought about the day that everything went wrong in a long time.<\/p>\n
Ma had gone into hiding in her bedroom again, no doubt with the covers pulled up and a chair-back tilted under the doorknob. She\u2019d spent more days in bed than not since Calvin\u2019s baby sister was born, and Pa had had it \u201cup to here,\u201d as he was inclined to say.<\/p>\n
The whole thing started with Pa banging on the bedroom door with his fist, hard and threatening. \u201cYou come out of there this instant, Anna, or I swear I\u2019ll break the door down,\u201d he hollered.<\/p>\n
Ma was suffering, but Pa gave no latitude. He was a cauldron at full boil, and when he got that mad, there was no telling how much damage he\u2019d do. He raised his voice again. \u201cGet out\u00a0 here right now and get to work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ma stayed put.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m gonna count to three, and then I\u2019m coming in. Do you hear me, Anna? One. Two. You better get out of that bed and come to the door this minute. Three.\u201d Pa kicked the door, and it exploded, splinters flying, hinges pulling free. He tackled Ma, ripped the blanket off her, and dragged her across the floor. Then he pulled her to her feet, and they crashed through the doorway together.<\/p>\n
Seeing Pa drag her by her hair and push her down the hallway to the kitchen had been too much for Calvin. He slammed a fist into Pa\u2019s face and shattered his nose. Pa let go of her and came for Calvin, kicking and punching like a wild man. Even with blood running in his ears, Calvin made out Ma\u2019s screams. \u201cStop! Don\u2019t hurt him!\u201d<\/p>\n
No one saw her go for the knife.<\/p>\n
Pa recovered from being stabbed in the chest, but he complained the men at work called them a bunch of throwaways and had a laugh at his expense. He blamed Calvin for the lot, and Calvin blamed himself, too. But none of that stopped Pa from moving his girlfriend in to take care of the baby.<\/p>\n
From then on, he and his father bumped through the house, avoiding each other. Calvin finished his plumbing apprenticeship and started working at the hospital three years later. He was just seventeen. He asked the boss not to assign him jobs with his father, set his sights on a double-wide in a trailer park with an above-ground pool, and moved out. For company, he rescued a stray, part-collie and part-German shepherd, and named him Ralph.<\/p>\n
Ma kept begging to come home. Pa kept refusing. Calvin visited Ma for a few years, but eventually, he barely recognized her and he stopped going, too.<\/p>\n
Abandoned and forgotten, she hanged herself with a rope of braided shoestrings slung over her ward\u2019s bathroom door.<\/p>\n
He wasn\u2019t the only employee with \u201chistory.\u201d Some staff had spent time as inpatients themselves. Many had family members \u201cinside\u201d that were their first connections to the hospital. A grandmother\u2014or a mother like Calvin\u2019s. But that didn\u2019t help him feel better. The fact was, the staff were all mixed up with the patients\u2014they were one big unhappy family of throwaways.<\/p>\n
He should forget that morning and the memories it stirred. The worst had happened. Grace Atkinson had arrived just in time to see the bucket truck desecrate her mother\u2019s grave. Just in time to stand up for a mother she\u2019d never known.<\/p>\n
I believe in you, Calvin.<\/p>\n
He should put the window shade back up and mind his own business. But he couldn\u2019t pretend anymore. Removing the shade had shined light on a bleak place in himself, a place that knew the compulsion to stuff a bedsheet in a toilet. One thought echoed in his mind: No one should be a throwaway.<\/p>\n
Coffee backtracked from his gut, and he threw up in the trash.<\/p>\n
Somehow, he had enough will to do one just thing before he retired.<\/p>\n
His body stepped away from his mind. The door flew open, the sound of feet pounding across the boneyard. Calvin stumbled to his knees. The big scoop hoisted, set to lower. He came up on two feet, arms waving as if they didn\u2019t belong to him.<\/p>\n
To Calvin\u2019s amazement, the bucket stopped mid-air, and he heard himself say, \u201cYou can\u2019t dig here, mister. This is holy ground.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot your call.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cToday it is my call.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy don\u2019t I just call your boss?\u201d The man swiveled in the compartment, dropping his legs through the truck\u2019s open doorway.<\/p>\n
Calvin raised a tightened fist. \u201cSure. And why don\u2019t I give the newspapers a ring?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay, man. Don\u2019t get riled.\u201d He retreated into the cab. \u201cIt ain\u2019t necessary to involve any reporters. But your boss is gonna hear about this from my boss. Get it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJust get this machine outta here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Calvin waited until the operator drove the bucket truck away, then walked back to the office and picked up the phone. \u201cI need to speak with the Senator. We have an emergency over at the state hospital she\u2019d want to know about.\u201d<\/p>\n
She spoke to him as if he was someone important. Someone who\u2019d done the right thing. \u201cI thought maybe a nice bronze statue,\u201d Calvin had said. \u201cWhat?\u2026 oh yes, I have proof. I\u2019ll bring it to you.\u201d<\/p>\n
They ended the call. It was a moment\u2014his moment. From here on out, it would get ugly. When that happened\u2014when the consequences kicked in\u2014he would remember he\u2019d once held his ground against the machine about something that mattered. He\u2019d stood up for his mother, Grace\u2019s mother, and their memory.<\/p>\n
Tonight, he\u2019d cook a steak for he and Ralph in celebration, not so much for the victory\u2014although there was that\u2014but more for the relief. His knees had even stopped hurting.<\/p>\n
Calvin stowed the window shade under his arm, locked the door to the Maintenance Department behind him, and went back to the torn and dug-up places the bucket loader had left behind. He unrolled the window shade and searched for Ruth Duncan\u2019s name and the number on her brick. When he found it, he collected a few bricks from the pile made by the brush hog blades and marked the place in the earth where she might have been buried. Tomorrow, he would look for her brick in that pile, and he would call Grace Atkinson. At least, he could give her that.<\/p>\n
He took a last look at the window shade before turning it over to the Senator. Then he rolled it up and moved through the grass toward his car in a dirt parking lot screened by woods. When he reached the edge of the boneyard, the clouds opened up, and rays of sun splintered through the leaves of maple trees. Looking up at the sky, he stubbed his toe and stumbled. A strange prickle beneath his scalp made him stop and look down. He picked up the brick and read the numbers\u2014marker #981645. Anna Wheeler.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Numbers and names littered the backside of the shade, the only log of the burials in existence. It seemed to cast a shadow that swallowed the light and sucked the air from the room, making it hard to breathe. He located Grace Atkinson\u2019s mother\u2019s gravesite in the exact spot where the bucket truck was parked, the shovel set to gouge the earth and deposit the remains in a hill of dust and bones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":20031,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3418,3416,3417],"class_list":["post-19453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","tag-boneyard","tag-moral-dilemma","tag-psychiatric-hospital","writer-jean-wolfersteig"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19453"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20032,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19453\/revisions\/20032"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}