Free Final Stroke by Michael Beres Page B

the end and finally learns about suffering when it’s too late to do anything about it.
    “So, what you think, babe?”
    “I still think I’m bruised. You’re no gang-banger no more, so I fig ure you got nobody else to beat up on ‘cept poor defenseless me.”
    “I wasn’t no gang-banger. I was only a shorty for a while until they sent me to retard school. Ain’t that somethin’? Old Uncle Ezra—God rest his soul—convinces Ma to send me to retard school. And the retard school saves me from a life of crime and violence. But come on now, what about what I said about everyone turnin’ nigger in the end?”
    “Don’t you start hintin’ about no end games, Tyrone Washington.”
    “Latoya, I’m serious. You took philosophy at Kennedy-King, so you should know how serious I am. You ain’t simply a body, after all. You got a mind, and I got a mind, and I’m not playin’ mind games. It’s called conversation is what it’s fuckin’ called.”
    “All right, honey. I didn’t mean it. Maybe you’re right. Maybe you’ve got something. I guess it’s kind of like the ashes-to-ashes Bible thing put another way. Seriously? I like it.”
    After Latoya stood on her toes and laid him a good one on the lips, she said, “But I also like the fact you ain’t been down at Johnny-O’s wasting your hard-earned money on jail bait.”
    Yeah, Latoya was a smart chick, and a beautiful chick, especially when she was half-dressed and stood on her tiptoes to plant a kiss on him. Of course, the chicks down at Johnny-O’s were somethin’ else again, but nowhere near as refined as his Latoya.
    Tyrone checked his watch again. When he reached the far end of a hallway, he heard a guy behind in one of the rooms moaning in pain and once more thought about his stint at the VA hospital with the last of the WW-2 vets who lived decades in the past, dreaming of girls back home while they picked up more free cartons of Luck ies at the PX. One old fart vet said that during a month-long layover with no assignment, he and a bunch of other guys lay in their bunks all day long sucking unfiltered Luckies and blowing smoke at photos of Betty Grable, eventually turning her skin from the light gray of the black and white photos to the dark golden brown of nicotine and tar. Of course there were younger vets at the VA. Guys from Korea and Vietnam and even a few from the Middle East. But the ones who im pressed him most were the WW-2 vets who’d managed to take advan tage of the system all those years.
    After the VA, Tyrone jumped around from one hospital to another, looking for a place he fit in. Some hospitals were better than others, but in hospitals there were always too many nurses and residents run ning around. It was like having a hundred bosses. Couldn’t even park whatever cart he was pushing and duck into a men’s room for a smoke because he quit smoking after his stint at the VA, and after Uncle Ezra died of lung cancer.
    Finally, after ten years in the health care system, Tyrone saw the light. What Medicare and Medicaid could do for old folks, it could do for him. After working at Saint Mel’s main hospital for a couple months, an ad went up on the employee board saying there were open ings for orderlies and aides on the west side at Saint Mel in the Woods Rehabilitation Facility, which everyone called Hell in the Woods. A friend of his named Flat Nose who worked at Hell in the Woods told him it was the opportunity of a lifetime.
    Of course now that Tyrone was here, Flat Nose no longer worked here. But he did see Flat Nose quite often. In fact he’d be seeing Flat Nose tonight. Even though Flat Nose was in a new business, he did not try to lure Tyrone away from Hell in the Woods. The reason for not trying to lure Tyrone away was because Flat Nose needed him right where he was.
    Tyrone checked his watch. Twenty-eight minutes to go. The rea son he checked his watch so often was because timing was important. If he got there too early