Summer 2018
Beaming with pride, Gabriel stood at the entrance of Room 116, his new home. North Wing was the green wing, with its olive-green floors, green-grey wallpaper, and mint-green curtains. He carried a small suitcase in one hand, his cane in the other, and a gym bag over his shoulder. The staff had already moved the rest of his possessions into the room.
Stepping inside, he was immediately impressed. Though smaller than a studio apartment, it was a substantial improvement over his old quarters. His new roommate, Bernard, was nowhere to be seen. The sound of running water was coming from the bathroom, so perhaps Bernard was in there.
Oddly, Bernard the Fourth appeared to have no bed. Where a bed normally would have stood was a leather recliner directly facing a flat-screen TV. On the wall were several photographs of old trucks, a couple of family photos, and a large black-and-white picture of a WWII army troop holding a US flag. On the table were nearly a dozen empty Styrofoam cups, a bunch of empty plastic pudding containers, four handkerchiefs, a pile of scrunched-up napkins, and a canister of sugar packets. Next to the recliner was a hamper filled with white V-neck T-shirts. It was a strange setup, and Gabriel hoped that his experiments wouldn’t upset Bernard’s daily schedule.
He went past the curtain divider and over to his side of the room, the window side. He’d missed having a window beside his bed. He hadn’t realized it until that moment, but as warm, golden sunshine poured into the room, warming the icy blood in his veins as if he’d stepped into a Jacuzzi, he knew that he’d never agree to taking the door side of a room ever again. The view was dull—nothing but grass and a parking lot—but the sunlight was wonderful.
A dirty old desk with chipped black paint and old pencil graffiti scrawled on the legs had been placed right next to the window at Gabriel’s request. A cardboard box sat on top of the desk, filled with all the equipment and devices he’d ordered online with the net-savvy help of Harry Brenton.
The water was still running in the bathroom. Gabriel sat on his new green-blanketed bed, reached for the briefcase on the pillow, and snapped open the latches. He took out his graphs, paperwork, Polaroids, and his Nobel Prize, handling each with affection. Using thumbtacks, he began recreating his wall collage, whistling as he worked.
After tacking all of his photos on the wall, he opened a secret compartment at the bottom of the briefcase. He pulled out his top-secret item, just to make sure it was still there. He hadn’t told anyone about the blood sample he’d managed to get from Matthew Lecroix. The administrator would never have agreed to Gabriel’s demands if he’d known.
The sample had been easier to acquire than he’d expected. Because the Crooner was diabetic, he had his finger pricked on a set schedule for checking his blood glucose levels. All Gabriel had needed to do was to wait for the nurse to stick Matthew then stand by her medcart—gazing at the wall, slack-jawed, pretending to be in a demented daze—until she continued on her rounds. As soon as she was gone, he’d quickly retrieved the test strip from the wastebasket.
Someone knocked on the door. “Hello?”
Gabriel turned around to see Dana Kleznowski in the doorway. A stethoscope hung around her neck. She looked frailer than usual, as if her already slender figure had lost a few pounds since he’d last seen her, when she’d ushered him away from John Morris’s room. Dana looked confused for a moment, then her face brightened. She had an astonishingly beautiful smile, though it didn’t surface often enough.
“Oh, hey!” she said. “The detective! Oh, you’re over here on North now?”
“Yes.”
“That’s awesome.” She clapped her hands. “So do you need anything? Since you pressed your call button, I mean.”
Gabriel glanced at the red call button strung up on the other side of the bed. “I didn’t press the button.”
“Oh. Okay. It must’ve been Bernard. He never stops.” Dana rolled her eyes, looking toward the bathroom door.
The tap was still running. The toilet was flushed three times in quick succession.
“So what time do you like your pills?” Dana asked, still watching the bathroom door.
“As late as possible. They make me drowsy. What were you saying about Bernard?”
“Oh, jeez,” she sighed, smiling tiredly. “He’s always doing this, ringing the light then going to the bathroom, every five seconds, he’s… well, you’ll see. Anyway, you sure you don’t want a snack or anything?”
Gabriel glanced at her wiry arms and thin waistline. “No, thanks. But you go eat something, Dana. Something iron-rich, preferably, since that will help with your anemia. You’re far too pretty to be starving yourself this way.” Gabriel bit the inside of his cheek, suddenly unsure if it was socially acceptable for him to call out her anemia.
“Um, thanks.” She giggled uncomfortably. “I’ll go do that, Dr. House.”
Dana turned off the call light using the special switch on the wall then left the room. As she stepped into the hallway, the toilet flushed a fourth time. The tap was turned on, then off, then on again. Bernard definitely seemed to have OCD, along with probable Alzheimer’s.
Finally, the bathroom door creaked open. Bernard shuffled into the main room. His awkward gait, as well as his stooped posture, led Gabriel to suspect that the man had osteoporosis. He looked as if he were about to fall any minute, something that would break every bone in his thin, frail body. But he stayed on his feet, as if in stubborn defiance of the laws of gravity. He stopped and gazed at Gabriel.
Evidently, Bernard didn’t wear pants. He was dressed in a pair of pull-ups, slippers, and a white V-neck T-shirt. His pale limbs had long meaty scars that resembled the fat on a piece of marbled beef. His sparse silver hair had that just-rolled-out-of-bed look.
Gabriel stood and cleared his throat. “Hello, Bernard. I’m your new roommate, Gabriel. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
As he walked, Bernard held his arms in front of him, as if grasping an invisible steering wheel. His gaze was blank and unfocused. Gabriel couldn’t tell whether the man was looking at him or at the wall. He never blinked.
“Fruit punch,” Bernard mumbled.
“Pardon?”
“Yeah. Aren’t you the guy with the fruit punch?” Bernard’s expression didn’t change. His eyes didn’t move. He still hadn’t blinked, simply looking at Gabriel with that same vacant expression, occasionally scratching his arms or reaching back to scratch his shoulder blades.
“No, I’m not—”
“Oh. Okay.” Bernard shuffled over to his recliner and pressed his call button. He turned back to Gabriel with that same bland expression. “So who are you?”
“My name is Gabriel. I’m your new roommate.”
“Oh, yeah.” Bernard sounded surprised but not unhappy. “Sure. New roommate. Nice to meet you.”
Gabriel crossed the room and held out his hand. Bernard stared at Gabriel’s open palm for a moment then slowly raised his own hand. He opened his fingers, each digit slowly uncoiling from his palm, then with disconcerting speed, he shook Gabriel’s hand as if he were trying to wrench off his arm.
Bernard released Gabriel’s hand. “Well, welcome aboard, mister!” With no self-consciousness whatsoever, he took off his shirt and threw it in the overflowing hamper. He walked over to his bureau and put on another white V-neck.
Bernard took his laundry hamper out to the hall and dumped it on the floor. Gabriel just stood there, watching, unsure of how to proceed. Bernard then plopped down in his leather recliner, kicked off his slippers, and picked up the TV remote. He turned on a rerun of M*A*S*H and didn’t say another word.
Gabriel walked back to sit at his new desk. He opened the cardboard box, ready to get to work.
“Bernard?” Dana said from the doorway, having been summoned again. “You rang?”
“Fruit punch,” Bernard mumbled.
“Seriously?”
“Yep!”
“Bernard, c’mon. You’ve had like ten fruit punches in the last hour.”
“I don’t know why. My stomach is a bottomless hole.”
“Okay, okay.”
“Thank you.”
“By the way, what’s with all those clothes in the hall? Did you just dump them out here?”
“Laundry.”
Gabriel listened to the exchange then resumed his unpacking. First, he got out his graph paper and notebooks. Feeling hot, he started unbuttoning his shirt. He grabbed the bottom button and…
