Chapter 51

"New York"

SOME PARTS OF UPSTATE NEW YORK ARE STUNNING TO THE EYE. AUTUMN HAS TAKEN OVER EVERYWHERE, AND LEAVES ARE A TAPESTRY OF GREEN AND GOLD AND ORANGE AND MAROON AND RED, AND MY EYES FEAST ON THE FIELDS AND HILLSIDES UNTIL MY BRAIN IS RUNNING OVER WITH THE ARTISTRY OF MOTHER NATURE.

DIDN'T MEAN TO RATTLE ON LIKE THAT, BUT DAMN! IT SURE IS PRETTY.

BACK IN PENNSYLVANIA I WAS MORE THAN HAPPY TO MOVE ON FROM THE SPECTACLE OF THE BAD GUY WHO KILLED THE STORE OWNER, AND THE STATE COP THAT CHASED HIM DOWN ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN … AND THE ROOKIE DRIVER WHO ALMOST RODE HER VAN OVER AN EMBANKMENT INTO THE FIELD BELOW … AND ME WITH IT … AND DIDN'T EVEN GET A TRAFFIC TICKET. AND THE RAINSTORM THAT TRIED TO DROWN THE WORLD AT THE SAME TIME THIS STRANGE DRAMA WAS UNFOLDING? WHAT CAN I SAY?

*OY VEY!"

I RODE BACK WITH THE OTHERS TO THE "WANDER-IN"' IN THE CAB OF THAT MONSTER OF A PICKUP TRUCK; TIRED, DRENCHED, SNEEZING AND ACHY. I STUCK AROUND WHILE HILDY TOLD HER STORY TO A CROWD OF FRIENDS AND A COUPLE OF LOCAL REPORTERS WHO HAD WAITED AT THE MOTEL FOR THE HARDY GROUP THAT DRAGGED THE OLD VAN OFF THE CUSP OF DISASTER …

AS SOON AS I COULD SNEAK AWAY, LOCK MYSELF IN UNIT #8, SHOWER AND CHANGE CLOTHES, GET TO VANNA AND GET OUT OF DODGE, I DID. HILDY WASN'T HURT; ONLY SCARED OUT OF HER WITS. I MADE SURE SHE WAS OCCUPIED BEFORE MAKING MY ESCAPE, CERTAIN I WOULD NOT BE MISSED.

("SNEAKERS" … SNEAKING AWAY AGAIN …)

I MERGED ONTO ROUTE 81 JUST ABOVE A PLACE CALLED CLARKS SUMMIT AND ENTERED NEW YORK STATE CLOSE TO BINGHAMTON. I STAYED AWAY FROM MOM-AND-POP MOTELS. WHEN I HOLED UP OVERNIGHT AGAIN, I DECIDED IT WOULD BE A MARRIOT OR A MOTEL 6 OR A COMFORT INN. I'D HAD ENOUGH OF LOCAL MISADVENTURES TO LAST ME A LIFETIME.

I SPENT SOME TIME WANDERING AROUND LOOKING AT THE SCENERY, BUT PRESENTLY I WAS ON MY WAY AGAIN. THAT NIGHT I CHOSE AN ISOLATED HOLIDAY INN TO RELAX FOR AWHILE. IT WAS NEAR THE CITY OF WATERTOWN, NOT FAR FROM THE ST. LAWRENCE CROSSING INTO ONTARIO.

I PARKED IN THE LOT, PAID FOR A ONE-NIGHT STAY, GRABBED MY CARRYALL FROM THE CAR AND WENT INSIDE TO SHOWER AGAIN BEFORE SUPPER. I WAS MORE THAN READY FOR SOME DOWN TIME. I WAS SNEEZING AND CONGESTED AND I NEEDED TO FIND A COMMERCIAL LAUNDRY AND CATCH UP WITH MY EXPANDING ACCUMULATION OF DIRTY CLOTHES. THE VW WAS BEGINNING TO SMELL LIKE AN NFL LOCKER ROOM, AND THAT'S NOT GOOD FOR ONE'S OLFACTORY SYSTEM.

I ALSO WANTED TO GET BACK TO MY LAPTOP AND LOOK UP A FEW MORE MEDICAL JOURNALS WHILE I WAS AT IT. COULDN'T GIVE UP NOW: PROCESS OF ELIMINATION.

I ATE A LIGHT MEAL AND PUT MY WEARY SELF TO BED BY NINE P.M.

I MUST BE GETTING OLD … OLD-ER!

The following day there was a damn bank robbery right there in Watertown! Can you believe?

My room was on the second floor front, and I was just coming out of the bathroom. I passed in front of the windows (with the blinds drawn, of course,) and stood beside the bed, pulling on fresh underwear for the day.

The TV was on, tuned to the local news when a special bulletin broke into regular programing. A small branch bank downtown had been robbed at gunpoint, and the thieves escaped with an undisclosed sum of money. Eyewitnesses had given a description of the two armed men (in Hallowe'en masks,) who had roared off in a stolen 2014 White Ford Fusion with Pennsylvania license plates.

(Must be a thousand of those things running around, I thought, rolling my eyes at the ceiling.)

Police had spotted the car, the newsman said, and were moving in a tightening circle to cut them off near the downtown … blah, blah, blah …

No sooner had I stopped listening and changed to one of the sports channels, than I heard screeching tires and sirens heading pretty damn close to this particular hotel. And this particular hotel certainly is not "downtown". I sighed. It seemed that chain hotels were just as vulnerable as rickety little holes-in-the-wall in the sticks. I sighed. Sat down on the bed and began to pull my socks on. I'm glad I didn't stick my nose through the blinds to look around outside …

I jumped a foot off the bed when a spray of gunfire raked across the top of the front windows, shattering the glass, pinging off the lowered blinds and lodging deadly steel-head bullets into the wall. The TV short-circuited and blew up in a shower of sparks that sent up a cloud of strong sulfurous smoke.

Before I knew it, I found myself cowering on the floor on the opposite side of the bed. Evidently I had vaulted over there like a panicked jack rabbit and crouched under the edge of the mattress; both hands crossed on top of my head while tiny shattered glass fragments fell from the broken windows onto the metal window sill like marbles in a bathtub …

*God? Why me?*

If I hadn't closed the blinds on the windows before going in there to shave, there was a good chance I wouldn't be cowering on the floor, half-naked. I would be spread out on a cold gray slab somewhere … and even my socks would be off!

First of all: I have no idea what became of the robbers or the cops or the city of Watertown or the Holiday Inn. Or who the hell it was that took an Uzi to the front of the damned hotel.

Second: It took me two minutes to finish dressing, pack my carryall and my soiled clothing, grab the key card and run down the hallway like a bat out of hell and barrel into the elevator.

Third: I didn't know I could move that fast.

Fourth: I didn't report the broken window. Or the holes in the wall. Or the smoking TV.

*Your hotel … you find the bullet holes!*

Fifth: I slammed the key card on the desk, along with a hundred dollar bill, and got the FRICK OUT!

Sixth: I jumped into the VW, hit the ignition, gassed it, took the road out of town and kept on truckin' …

Much later, I ended up in Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks. Far far away from everything that moved. I pulled into the parking lot of the Whiteface Mountain Inn. It wasn't a Holiday Inn, but it was BIG!

I looked around. Cold. Beautiful. Rustic. Quiet. Serene. Sheltered by mountains. I shut off the engine and just sat still for a few minutes before going inside. I hoped no one would attack me with tomahawks or bows and arrows. I was totally hammered with road fatigue and up to here with insane incidents not of my making. I loved the isolated feel of the place. I should stay put for awhile and clear my head and get over this cold.

I parked, grabbed the carryall, my phone and my glasses; got out, went inside and wobbled up to the registration desk. My shoulders were killing me.

So far, so good. No gunfire, no screeching tires … no cop cars in hot pursuit … no nothing. The man behind the counter looked at me in peculiar fashion as I signed in and paid for a couple nights' lodging. I looked down at myself to make certain I was fully dressed.

Across the room, a huge fireplace sent welcome heat outward to warm my bones. Large logs, sawed and quartered, popped like gunshots. I jumped like a gelded colt …

I woke up Saturday morning and looked out the window of my first story room. All I saw was a 747 or something similar high in the sky. Graceful; sun glinting off the fuselage way above the mountains and heading south, full of travelers with sound minds and stout hearts.

When I checked in last night about midnight, I was dirty and road weary and inattentive. I remember mumbling answers to questions asked by the night man, and fumbling around with my ID and credit cards. "Mumbling and Fumbling": that was me. I slightly remember being handed a key-card thingy and being told to go down the hallway 'til I arrived at Room: "1-1-1 … it'll be on the left," he said.

Which I did, I guess, 'cause me and the carryall made a sloppy about-face and shambled away down a long hallway. I kept going until I finally found the door that had a "1-1-1" on it. I had to swipe the card twice, but then the door clicked open. I went in and there I was. And here I am.

I heard soft voices and quiet footsteps moving in the hallway outside my door, and I discovered that there are other visitors here besides me. I'd been pretty much disinterested last night.

I remember tossing everything on the floor when I staggered into the room. I also remember stumbling into the bathroom, dropping stuff as I went; leaving a trail like Hansel and Gretel. I stood like a zombie under the shower a long time, letting the travel dirt and the road fatigue and the nervous recollection of gunfire rinse off me and down the drain. I was almost asleep on my feet. What I don't remember is anything after that.

At this moment I'm wearing pajama pants and standing in the cluttered bedroom, trying to fill in the blank spaces in my head. I'd left a trail of used Kleenex and road-grimy clothing in my wake throughout the place. I walked across and looked into the bathroom. Yep. There were scattered articles of clothing and balled-up Kleenex everywhere in there too … plus the towel I had dried off with. Clothes strewn everywhere.

Like House after his first surgery …

I blanked for a moment as a scenario from the past played out before my glazed-over eyes:

….

It was the time when he had just been discharged from the hospital and was confined to his apartment in the agonizing weeks after the infarction and botched procedures. To say that he was unforgiving … angry … bitter … vengeful … did not begin to cut it.

It was excruciatingly painful for him to move, let alone take care of personal hygiene, cook meals, or give a damn what his surroundings and his pain-wracked body looked or smelled like.

I would go over there every day after work while my new wife seethed with jealousy at home. I would change House's bandages, trying not to notice the tears that wet his cheeks; looking away from him while he bit his lip 'til it bled, trying to keep from mewling.

I would cleanse the pain-sweat off his body, change his clothing, try to get him to eat something, (hoping he would take least a few bites,) and clean up the debris he left all over the place. Most of it scattered around the old couch …

The worst part was cleaning the bathroom. It hurt like hell for him to get from couch to wheelchair without help, and from wheelchair to the commode. He could not move his leg; he had to drag it, and he would sometimes miss the bowl. The bathroom had a urine-and-feces odor that was hard to eradicate. When I went there, the entire apartment often smelled of poop and bleach. House was not aware of it. He was not aware of anything except the pain. He took oxycodone like candy. The strength of the meds dimmed his agony for a while, but it always came back.

He would scream at me, and curse and swear, and usually I wanted to punch him in the mouth just to shut him up. But I couldn't. He was the best friend I had in the world, and he was in agony. Finally, I learned to ignore him and let him wear himself out until he was exhausted and senseless and silent, because there was nothing I could do for him except be there.

In the evenings I would pour each of us a whiskey and sit with him on the couch … that awful old couch. Depending on his mood, he would sometimes move against me and lean his head on my shoulder. Often, he would bite back tears and apologize for the verbal abuse he caused me. I would hold him close and wipe the moisture off his forehead with my sleeve.

….

Those were painful nagging memories, and I brought myself up short.

Sighing, I picked up after myself and was alarmed at the mountain of garbage and dirty laundry I had accumulated in less than ten hours. I had to find somewhere to get things washed and dried before I ran out of clothing to wear. It was getting critical.

It was after nine o'clock. I was hungry, and I should ask someone at the desk if there was a laundry on premises. I dressed quickly in my last flannel shirt and blue jeans. The walk to the lobby wasn't as far as it had seemed last night, nor was it as dark and silent. There was a fire still going in the beautiful stone fireplace on the eastern wall, and there were about a half-dozen people either having coffee in easy chairs before the fire or walking to or from the front entrance.

Behind the registration counter were two women: a pretty brunette and a gray haired older woman wearing a black and red flannel shirt with a red neckerchief and silver-spur earrings. With raised eyebrows, I smiled at the cute one, busy with a new registration, and walked over to her companion.

The feisty "Granny type" eyed me with raised eyebrows and steely gray eyes over the tops of her blue-tinted bifocals. "Mornin'," she said with a smile. "How'd ya sleep, Mister Wilson?"

I frowned. "Unhhh … fine."

"Good. My husband says you were a little 'out of it' when you checked in last night." Her smile quickly widened. "Wish I could've seen that. He said it was the first time he ever saw a man walking in his sleep. He thought at first that you were loaded."

"Really? I wasn't loaded … I was tired to the bone …"

"I know. That's why I wish I could'a seen you come in. Buster said you were very entertaining."

I frowned, scratched my head and looked over the tops of my glasses the same way she'd looked at me over hers. "I'm not sure how to comment on that. Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure," she said. "Fire away."

"Do you insult all your guests?"

She laughed again. "Nope … only the cute ones with no clue …"

"Oh Mom … stop that!" The brunette at her side elbowed her on the arm and made the kind of face I'd seen a thousand times before when kids were embarrassed by a parent.

I looked around me and saw, to my chagrin, that a few people had gathered from around the lobby and stopped to listen to the exchange. Already I was picturing another sticky situation getting out of hand if I let it. But Granny stopped it in its infancy, for which I was grateful. "Honey … it's all right. I was just going to offer Mister Wilson here breakfast … on the house … mostly because I picked on him and he's being a really good sport about it …"

My jaw dropped to my beltline and I know my eyes were large and round with surprise. I dropped my chin to my chest and I could feel my face getting warm. Those around us were smiling, one or two of them chuckling out loud.

She told me her name was Gypsy, and we walked to the restaurant together. She'd been named for Gypsy Rose Lee. Her mother had once had illusions of her daughter becoming a cabaret dancer like the real Gypsy, back in the thirties.

She said when she was little, Mom dressed her up in a slinky costume and entered her in a local talent contest. She hated it. She sat in the dressing room in a tight, itchy dress and smeared lipstick around her mouth like a clown and eye-black in huge dark circles around both eyes. That was the first and last time she'd ever "almost-but-not-quite" performed in a talent show.

"I wanted to be in rodeos and ride horses, not wiggle my fanny in a chorus line …" And then she laughed until I laughed too. "I could barrel race and bulldog and calf-rope better than most men. My horse's name was Charley … you know … 'Charley Horse' … and I was pretty good. Broke my mother's heart. But she understood later."

While we sat together eating breakfast, Gypsy and I exchanged childhood memories, and I had to confess that the closest I ever came to a horse was the merry-go-round in the park back home. That struck her funny, and her raucous laughter had people at the tables near us laughing too. She told me about her early life working with the rodeo, swamping the stalls and caring for the rodeo horses that worked hard to earn their masters a living in that fascinating, dirty world. It taught her to value all forms of life and a willingness to preserve it, she said. And it gave her an acceptance of life for its own sake.

I watched her animated face, smiling when she smiled; wide-eyed when she spoke about the many dangerous aspects of rodeo. I sat grinning when she talked about how she met Buster, who had been a rodeo clown, one of the most dangerous of all professions. He had been gored in the thigh by a bull while trying to distract the animal away from its injured rider. Herself! They patched her up at the hospital and she went to Buster's room to thank him for saving her life, and to see how he was. They were made for each other, she said; the cowgirl and the ex-rodeo clown.

Buster's rodeo days were over. He underwent surgery, she said, and ended up with a hole in his leg the size of Georgia. He would always walk with a cane. But they fell in love that day at the hospital and were married soon after, while Buster was still in a wheelchair.

When their daughter Marlene came along later, they gave up the rodeo life and settled down to more conventional pursuits. In the 1970s they bought the Whiteface Mountain Inn, named for white-faced Herford cattle, and for the white face of the mountain in winter. The rest, as they say, was history.

"You and Buster make me think of a friend I had once," I said after a period of silence. "He didn't exactly learn to accept the raw deal life handed him, but he learned to live with it, even though it wasn't in a good way. I learned a lot about life from him."

The look she gave me was filled with questions.

And so I told her about Gregory House …

"He bailed me out of jail. I was attending a medical convention. I was in the middle of a nasty divorce, and I was in a bar, getting drunk. Some idiot kept playing the same song on the juke box over and over, and I told him I'd break his neck if he didn't stop.

"He said: 'Bring it on, Babyface!' … and I threw a full bottle of Scotch at him … missed … and it went through the plate-glass mirror behind the bar. I wasn't a very good shot.

"My friend bailed me out and said I was the only person he met who wasn't boring. I paid for the damages and we left the convention together. We were best friends from that time on. More than twenty years …"

"What happened to him, James?" Gypsy asked. "You said he was a friend you had 'once'. Are you a doctor? And aren't you friends anymore?"

"Yes," I said. "Greg and I are both doctors. We worked together at the same hospital in Jersey. We and our girlfriends double-dated a lot. I finally married and we left on our honeymoon.

"When we got back, I learned that he'd had an infarction in his thigh. That means he had a blood clot that blocked the artery. By the time they finally diagnosed him, he had been out of his mind with pain for almost three days. They thought he was a drug seeker.

He ended up like Buster did … with a hole in his leg. Muscle death. They operated to get rid of dead muscle tissue, and it turned him into a cripple. He was in a wheelchair for months. Finally walked with crutches for almost a year, and then switched to a cane. That's as far as it got. He was in chronic pain, and it turned him bitter. Angry. His girlfriend left him. Couldn't take the constant verbal abuse.

"He finally walked away and went off alone. Nobody knows where. I've been looking for him off and on, but it's been nearly five years. Sometimes I think I'm getting close. Other times, I think it's a lost cause and I should probably let it go …"

Gypsy's eyes were moist. "That's such a sad story, James. You're still looking for this man, after all this time?"

I nodded. "Yeah."

"You want to know what I think?"

"Of course …."

"You'll find him. I know you will, because you haven't stopped searching for five years! You know what that says to me?"

"What?"

"It tells me that you love Greg, and you'll find him."

When I finally thanked her and went back to my room, I was still thinking about what she'd said. Later, she called her housekeeping people and sent my wash to the laundry in the basement … free of charge. I felt as though I'd somehow 'guilted' her into it …

In the days I spent there, I met her daughter, Marlene, (the pretty brunette), and also Gypsy's husband, Buster, the man who'd had such fun checking me in the night I arrived. One or another of them was always around when I took my meals. I understood in a very short time why the Whiteface Mountain Inn was always filled nearly to capacity. Their family name was Bennett, and every brother, sister, niece, nephew, aunt, uncle and cousin had a hand in running that beautiful old hotel. At last I'd landed in a place without monsoon weather, police chases, bullet-riddled walls or clunker vans hanging off the side of cliffs ...

I stayed for a week, and it was one of the most pleasant interludes of my recent life.

I chucked the head cold in three days.

On the next-to-last day I sat with my laptop on the table in my room, lazily killing time watching the view out the window and checking medical websites online. I had forgotten exactly where it was I'd left off the day before. My head kept returning to the crazy happenings of a week earlier when I was so rudely interrupted by one local drama after another. I finally got back onto the site of the New England Medical Journal.

The article that caught my eye had been written at the beginning of October this year … a little over a month ago …

The words hit me right in the middle of my forehead … like someone had thrown a stone and connected.

No mistake.

I had found Gregory House.

The latest article by Dr. Kyle Calloway: "Kidney Disease and its Effects on the Physically Disabled."

I could hardly believe my eyes.

I read the parade of words from start to finish, and as always, I experienced the nervousness of sudden discovery tingling down my spine; the thrill of actually recalling House's deep, resonant voice in the air above me; his choice of vocabulary so rich and so filled with theories and enunciations, his methods of forming sentences, his speech patterns so close to sarcasm and disrespect, but bold and analytical and full of inspiration and intelligence. And there was no mistake … the author was taking about himself.

It was House. It was Gregory House personified. I could hear his deep voice echoing in my head.

I felt myself longing to hear him call me an idiot; tell me I was a moron. Trembling with elation, I knew I was close. The only thing still separating us was the miles ...

Gypsy was right: I did indeed love him. Venerated him. I had soft-pedaled it too long. I needed to see him, hear his voice and spend time with him again.

If he would have me. IF he would have me …

When I finished reading, I looked upward and out the window again … seeing his scruffy face outlined in the dark, wintry slopes of the Adirondack Mountains. Hearing his bark of sarcastic laughter echoing around me …

I couldn't help wondering how he was really faring healthwise after five long years of no contact and no word. "Kidney Disease in the Physically Disabled": it sounded as though his own kidneys might be giving up the ghost. I had no clue. I just knew I had to find him.

I stared at the mountains as tears rimmed my eyes and threatened to fall. Just like his used to do when the pain got so bad he couldn't contain it. In certain ways my pain was nearly as bad, and only one thing would relieve it.

The article in the journal had originated from a place called Etna, New Hampshire.

I had to tell Gypsy and thank her.

And Buster and Marlene.

And then I had to get the hell out of New York and head due north, due east and get myself to that one place where I needed to be:

By his side.

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