The carpet in the dayroom is still soggy and there’s a sooty film on the dropped ceiling. They’ve removed the burned ceiling panels, exposing soggy insulation and bare electrical wires and cracked beams. The big room still smells of smoke.

It’s early. Walt Williams doesn’t remember if he slept during the night. He wants to cough, but he’s afraid he won’t be able to stop. He’s had the same twenty-six dollars—a twenty, a five, and a one—in his wallet for a month. He looks to the windowed corner of the large room where Miss. Whitten is sitting in a brand new chair. He can’t see her face, but he knows it’s her by the way she’s sitting, like a bird perched on a slim branch. She taught school in Ampersand for forty-one years. Third grade. Never married. Neat as a pin. Smart. She has her hands up in front of her face, moving them quickly. It seems to Walt Williams that she’s flashing sign language at him, trying to explain something complicated with her fingers. As he gets closer, he sees she is knitting with very short needles. She nods at Walt Williams, and he nods back.

Carpano calls to Walt Williams from his table. He’s shuffling what sounds like a brand new deck of cards. Walt Williams ignores the call, waits to see if Carpano will try a second time to get his attention.

“Walt Williams, my friend,” he says, louder this time. “You go deaf overnight?”

Carpano’s the only man in the place who dies his hair. Vain. His dark hair makes him look older. If Carpano had lived in the old west, he’d be the guy in the saloon wearing the brocade vest, cheating drunk ranch-hands out of their pay. He’d have a little two-shot pearl-handled pistol in one of his shiny boots.

Walt Williams sits across from Carpano without saying anything. How odd it is, he thinks, to remember more about your mother than your wife. Odder still, how can you remember precise details from your childhood but almost nothing about your son.

Carpano’s doing his tricks with the cards. The same shuffling routine every morning. He fans the cards on the table. He cuts them into two equal stacks, then he fans one stack in each hand and slips the two fans into one. Then he does a few high bridge shuffles. Walt Williams thinks of the word “legerdemain.” Then he thinks, show off.

“Before I die,” Walt Williams says, noting how often he begins sentences with this phrase, “I’d like to get through one day without having to say a word to anyone.”

“Don’t talk to me,” Carpano says, chuckling.

Walt Williams was in the dayroom when Miss. Whitten’s chair caught fire. She had left the large magnifying glass that stands beside her chair uncovered and the sunlight focused through the thick lens to a spot on the seat of her chair. Like the others, Walt Williams didn’t do anything when the fire started. He looked at the flames, surprised at how loud the fire burned. Nobody moved a muscle. Finally, the overhead sprinklers came on, a loud alarm sounded, and the dayroom emptied. Later on, in his room, the shoulders of his sweater still wet, he thought that it was scientific, how the fire had started. A concentrated beam of light on a flammable material. The sound of the fire was really the sound oxygen made when consumed by the flames.

“The game’s called Scat,” Carpano says, finally dealing the cards.

“What’s the object?”

“Three cards. You try to get to thirty-one.”

“You mean twenty-one.”

“No, sir. Thirty-one. Not blackjack. Scat.”

Walt Williams looks at the three cards Carpano has dealt him. He doesn’t pick them up. “Let’s not play anything,” he says.

“You give up too easy,” Carpano says. He worked all his life as a machinist. Lost his wife the year he took retirement. Two daughters, both married and moved away. Rare visitors.

Carpano collects the cards from the table, shuffles again and deals a game of solitaire. Walt Williams watches the game, upside down, trying to spot moves before Carpano.

They both look up from the cards to watch Donna push past with the tall med tray. She’s got earphones plugged in, humming to herself. Kendra follows behind, writing something down on her clipboard. The two wave nicely at Walt Williams and Carpano. Donna’s new. Kendra’s newer. Both blond. Young. Sweet enough girls, Walt Williams thinks.

“Those two,” Carpano says. “They wear them smocks tight.”

Walt Williams shakes his head. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Means you can see their figures better.”

Walt Williams looks over again at Miss. Whitten. He pictures her old chair going up in flames. He can’t remember if his son had ever been in her class. He doesn’t want to test her memory or have to talk about Wax with her. She’d be sure to have a polite question or two about the boy, even if she hadn’t been his teacher. Would she know who Wax is now?

Carpano says he has a story about Donna and Kendra. “Listen,” he says. “Listen to this.” Carpano claims he saw the two girls kissing on Friday night in the nurses’ lounge.

Walt Williams stands up from the cardtable, concerned that Miss. Whitten might hear the story that Carpano is trying to tell.

“It’s true,” Carpano says. “They were getting ready to go out after their shift was over. Listen,” he says, speaking quieter. “They were touching each other and kissing. All dressed up.”

Walt Williams leaves the dayroom without asking Miss Whitten how she likes her new chair.

+

They were married for ten years before they had Wax. Mrs. Williams made a passing remark in her doctor’s office about missing the baby boat, so the doctor set her up for some tests. A week later, the doctor had them both come in for a consultation.

“The reason you don’t have any children, Mr. and Mrs. Williams, is because, Mrs. Williams, you are still a virgin.”

The Williams made no response. What could be said?

“Your hymen is still intact, Mrs. Williams.”

Still no response, but Walt Williams was feeling a red flush rise up his neck. He feels it again now just thinking of that day in the doctor’s office. The doctor was looking at Walt Williams as if it were his fault. Like he wasn’t man enough to bust his wife’s cherry.

“It’s not true,” Walt Williams said.

“I know that your wife is not really a virgin,” the doctor said. “Although technically a woman whose hymen is unbroken is still a virgin. I don’t think you’ll be able to conceive until the hymen is broken.”

Walt Williams watched his wife begin to cry.

“I can do it for you,” the doctor said, pausing just long enough for Walt Williams to think that the doctor was suggesting that he would have relations with his wife. “A short procedure. Here in the office, Mrs. Williams.”

Walt Williams wanted to explain to the doctor that his wife wouldn’t let him screw her the full and proper way. But he was too embarrassed. A man is supposed to make his wife into a woman, no matter how much she wants to stay a little girl. His wife was always pulling away from him in their bed. He could barely get himself inside before she was twisting away. “Be quick,” she’d say. “Don’t make it hurt,” she’d say.

That night in bed, Walt Williams determined to screw his wife properly. He would break her hymen and be done with it. Mrs. Williams seemed to sense his purpose, and she did not resist in her usual way. She lay motionless. She made no noise in their quiet bedroom. Walt Williams felt himself break through on his first hard thrust. He imagined that he heard the tearing. His wife still did not move. He thrust again harder, though he knew there was no purpose to do that. He felt some pain himself, but he did not stop until he was done.

His wife raced out of their bedroom, down the short hallway to the bathroom. He followed her and saw the drops of blood on the floor that went after her. He was bloodied himself. He went to the kitchen to clean himself and stayed there until he heard his wife leave the bathroom and get back into their bed.

+

Walt Williams is dozing in his room after lunch when Kendra comes in. She sits at the foot of his bed, taps a hand lightly on his leg, then leans over and smiles at him. “You look so tall when you’re in bed,” she says.

Her presence, her touch and the pretty smell of her, makes Walt Williams feel as though he could float away.

She picks up the framed photograph of Wax that sits on the shelf beside his bed. Wax was a senior in high school when the picture was taken. She smiles at the picture in an odd way, as if Wax can see her too.

He watches her place a hand on his leg, just above his knee. He wonders if she can see that he is beginning to become aroused at her touch. His heart races faster than he has ever felt before. He closes his eyes, hoping that she will stop touching him.

Before she leaves his room, she whispers close to his ear, “Visit us later.”

+

Walt Williams saw a dirty movie once at the garage where he used to bring his car. It was after hours, and he had innocently walked into the shop to pick up his car. The mechanics were in the dim office behind the waiting room, gathered around an old TV, drinking beer. It was at the time VCR’s first came out, and Walt Williams’s attention was drawn first to the new large videotape machine balanced on top of the old TV set, which was as grimy as an engine block.

The girl on the screen looked like a teenager to Walt Williams. Her hair was plastered down on her forehead. Her eyes didn’t look right. Maybe she was on something. Her boyfriend looked like a monster, huge, hairy, much older. It was an assault, Walt Williams thought. The girl’s legs were going every which way.

When the owner of the garage noticed Walt Williams standing between two of his grease monkeys, he stepped forward and turned down the sound. He pushed Walt Williams’s car keys across the counter, and told him he’d send along the bill in the mail.

+

Miss. Whitten has Alzheimer’s, too. Walt Williams would like to talk to her about it one day. He wonders if it bothers her to feel confused all day long. To feel a terrible worry about forgetting to complete paperwork at the office, and you haven’t had a job in fifteen years. She has probably studied the disease since her diagnosis. She probably understands it better than Walt Williams and knows how to fight it.

He picks up Carpano’s deck of cards before he starts across the dayroom to speak with Miss. Whitten. She’s wearing a tweed skirt and white sweater. She seems so happy, knitting. He hates to disturb her.

He manages to say hello to her, and she says, “Hello, Mr. Williams,” and she asks him how he is feeling.

He says fine, and he asks her about her new chair. She seems uncomfortable with the question, as if she thinks that he has asked her only to lead into a question about the fire. Her hands move so quickly and smoothly as she knits. Green and gold yarn stream from a canvas bag between her feet and come together in her hands. Her needles are no longer than toothpicks.

“This isn’t a new chair,” she says. “This is the chair that I had in my room.”

He tries to listen closely to her, but her voice seems to take him out of the room. He begins shuffling Carpano’s deck of cards, and he becomes so absorbed in shuffling that he doesn’t hear Miss. Whitten’s voice.

He begins talking before she finishes about her chair. “There are fifty-two cards in a full deck,” he says. “Four of every number and face card. There should be a fourth face card to go with the Jacks. Don’t you think?”

“What’s that?” Miss Whitten asks.

“They could call it a Jill. They should come out with a deck of cards that has fifty-six cards. It would be a seller. Four Kings, four Queens, four Jacks, and four Jills.”

“That’s interesting,” Miss Whitten says.

“The Jills could be Princesses.”

“No,” Miss. Whitten says, correcting him. “If she’s meant to be the knave’s counterpart, she should be a waitress, not a princess.”

Walt Williams doesn’t understand what she means. He’s frustrated that she’s able to think so much faster than him. Maybe she doesn’t have Alzheimer’s. Maybe one of the symptoms of Alzheimer’s is that you believe everybody has it. He says, “I don’t know.” Miss Whitten seems even further away. He feels that he’s on the opposite side of the dayroom.

“You should tell Mr. Carpano about the Jills,” she says. “He’ll be amused.”

+

Walt Williams liked to say that he started out selling fountain pens, and ended up selling erasers. In between he sold washers and dryers. Televisions. Vacuums. Household cleaning products. Janitorial supplies. Real estate for a few months. He tried his hand at selling cars—twice—but he felt guilty foisting clunkers on nice folks. It was better to sell small products to retailers. He still remembers his days on the road. He kept a rack of sportscoats on hangers in the back of his company car. He liked roadwork, even though he wasn’t cut out to be a salesman. It was the only thing he could do outside of factory work, and he wouldn’t ever want to do that. Suitcase in the trunk. Little leather toiletries bag. He stayed at out-of-the-way motels. Kept to himself. Enjoyed eating his meals alone. Read paperback novels. Picked up local newspapers and imagined what it would be like to live in a new town every day of his life. He rarely thought of his wife and son when he was on the road.

+

It’s almost nine o’clock at night when Walt Williams is paged to the nurses’ station. He leaves his room directly, and on his way to the nurses’ station he sees Carpano approaching from the other direction.

“They’re moving Miss. Whitten upstairs,” Carpano says.

That doesn’t seem right, he thinks. She isn’t that far along. She is sharper than he is.

“Did you hear me?” Carpano asks.

He doesn’t want to talk about Miss. Whitten with Carpano. He waves him off, saying, “They paged me.”

At the nurses’ station, Kendra smiles at him and buzzes the counter-top door for him to come inside. She motions for him to follow her through the swinging door at the back of the nurses’ station into the nurses’ lounge, which is a cross between a kitchen and a livingroom. On the kitchen side of the room is a small refrigerator, a sink, and a microwave. There’s also an old kitchen table with four mismatched chairs. On the livingroom side is a small tan sofa and a low coffee table.
Walt Williams remembers what Carpano had said about seeing Donna and Kendra kissing in the nurses’ lounge, but the thought doesn’t stay in his head very long.

“Is this about Miss. Whitten?” he asks.

The two young nurses look confused by his question. Donna says, “What?”

“We wanted to see you,” Kendra says.

“Alone,” Donna says.

“Don’t tease the man,” Kendra says to Donna.

“You’re the tease,” Donna says to Kendra. Then she turns to Walt Williams and says, “Kendra has a crush on you.”

“Shut up,” Kendra says.

He can’t follow what they’re saying or make sense of why they seem mad at each other. He wishes he were wearing more than a robe and his bedclothes.

“What has happened to Miss. Whitten?” he asks.

“Sit down,” Kendra says. “Miss. Whitten is fine.”

“Do you want a beer?” Donna asks him.

“He can’t be drinking,” Kendra says. “Christ.”

He sinks deep into the lumpy sofa. It feels like he’s sitting on a popped spring or a broken part of the sofa’s frame.

“We want to ask you about your son,” Donna says.

Kendra sits on the coffee table and puts a hand on each of his knees. His mind flashes to her touching him in his room. He feels himself getting aroused again. He sits forward on the sofa, and he hears a quiet hum and feels something begin to move under the sofa cushion.

Kendra’s face is very close to his. She’s smiling again. “You’re not that old,” she says to him. Then to Donna she says, “He’s not that old.”

“My son is a fireman,” he says. He feels the sofa shaking under him. The humming begins to sound louder.

Donna sits beside him on the sofa. “You gotta ask him to visit you here.”

Kendra takes his face in her hands to turn him from Donna. “You look like him,” she says. “You’re handsome.”

Walt Williams thinks that she is talking about Carpano. “He colors his hair,” he says.

Kendra laughs. “What?”

And then he turns to see that Donna is reaching under the cushion that he’s sitting on. “Move over a little bit,” she says.

“Leave him alone,” Kendra says.

“Look,” says Donna, and she removes her hand from the sofa cushion and holds up what Walt Williams knows is a woman’s vibrator. He can’t believe what he is seeing.

“Fuck,” says Kendra.

Donna switches it off, and suddenly the room is very quiet. She points it at Kendra and then at Walt Williams.

“I don’t understand,” he says.

The two nurses begin to laugh. Kendra drops down on the sofa on the other side of Walt Williams, crosses her legs over his lap. “It’s a story about two young nurses,” she says.

“And,” says Donna. “These two nurses have a handsome patient in their care.”

“Do you know the story?”