Recessional: A Novel (2 page)

Recessional:
noun
. A hymn or other piece of music played at the end of a service while the congregation is filing out.

  
I. ARRIVALS

 
II. EXPLORATIONS

III. DEPARTURES

By James A. Michener

O
n the last day of the year, when an icy blizzard shrieked in from Lake Michigan to cover Chicago in a coating of sleet, it struck with particular fury at Boul Mich, the handsome thoroughfare that displays the best of the Windy City. Here stood the enormously rich Art Institute, the great hotels to which Middle America came to participate in metropolitan life; businessmen and -women came to visit banks and centers of commerce, shoppers to patronize the elegant stores, others to enjoy the fine museums.

Michigan Boulevard was the official name of the spacious promenade, but early Chicagoans, deeming their city the equal of any in Europe, had informally christened their major street Boul Mich in the French style, and the name had stuck. In summer the long stretches that faced the lake, with only parkland between the boulevard and the water, seemed almost rural, but on this dark December morning, with the blizzard whipping in, Boul Mich was a formidable place that only the brave dared challenge. Sleet had encrusted everything, its scintillating gleam rivaling that of the jewels on display in the shop windows. It lay so heavy on the boulevard, and was accompanied by such a powerful blast from the lake, that ropes had been strung between poles to enable pedestrians to crawl along without being blown into the storefronts or out into the traffic.

Some hardy men seemed to revel in the hazards of the storm, striding purposefully along as if impervious to the menace underfoot, but even they, when a gust roared in without warning, were quick to grasp at the protective ropes and edge their way along. Women, their coats and dresses whipping about their knees, retreated to the safe streets that ran parallel to Boul Mich but inland from the lake—Wabash, State or Dearborn—where walking became easier with careful navigation of the sleeted pavements.

At half after nine on this wintry morning a slim young man in his middle thirties worked his way carefully southward along Boul Mich. When he tried to negotiate the Monroe cross street he was driven so far to his right that he found himself completely off the boulevard, but with extra effort he worked his way back, relieved to find himself protected by the massive bulk of the Art Institute.

“I never visited you enough,” he apologized to the entrance as he paused to catch his breath, “and now I won’t have the chance. Damn.”

With renewed strength he left the protection of the museum. Pulling the lapels of his overcoat more tightly about his throat, and holding them there with his right hand, he managed to cling to the rope with his left and work his way along the boulevard to Van Buren and then to Congress, where the line of luxury hotels began.

By the time he reached the Sparkman Towers he was so exhausted that he did not enter like a normal guest through the main entrance but allowed the wind to push him through the small side door, the only one kept open during such storms. Safely indoors, he dropped momentarily into an upholstered chair to regain control of his heartbeat and breathing. Taking his pulse as he always did after heavy exertion, he noted with satisfaction: a hundred and ten dropping rapidly to good old eighty. After a few minutes, he felt ready for the crucial meeting he had come for, but before he could find the receptionist, he was accosted by the hotel doorman, who had been sensible enough to move his workstation inside and away from the blizzard.

“Pretty bad out there?” He was a jovial fellow in his fifties, overweight but also overendowed with Irish charm and a winning smile, the kind of man who created the impression that he took pride in his work.

“It’s a gangbuster. If they hadn’t strung the ropes, I’d never have made it.”

“And who might you be coming to see on a morning like this?”

“John Taggart. I believe he’s expecting me.”

“On a Saturday morning like this?”

“I suspect he’s as eager to see me as I am to see him, storm or no storm.”

“And who can I say wants to see him?”

“Andy Zorn. Dr. Andy Zorn.”

“A medical doctor? Don’t tell me you make house calls.”

“Only on nice days like this when I enjoy the walk.”

The doorman led the way to the small, handsomely decorated table that served as the reception desk. “Dr. Andy Zorn to see Mr. Taggart. Says he has an appointment.”

“He does indeed,” the young woman in the trim business suit said. “Mr. Taggart called a few minutes ago. Said he was expecting you but he doubted you could make it in this storm. Said to bring you right up, Dr. Zorn.” She accompanied him to the bank of eight elevators, choosing a reserved one for which she had a special key.

John Taggart, a major Chicago investor in retirement centers across the country, maintained both his living quarters and his office, two different sets of rooms, on the twenty-third floor of the Towers. The door to his apartment contained only its number, 2300; his office carried no number at all, only a small brass plate affixed to the wall engraved with elegant letters so small they could scarcely be read from a distance:
JOHN TAGGART ENTERPRISES
.

The receptionist did not knock on the office door but entered as if the place was familiar, leading Zorn to an inner sanctuary. Behind a large white-oak desk sat a fifty-year-old man in an elegant exercise suit: heavily ribbed gray turtleneck sweater and fitted trousers in a gray one shade darker. Surprisingly, he wore about his forehead a rough terry-cloth sweatband, which he did not take off as he rose and extended his hand to welcome Dr. Zorn.

“When I looked out this morning and saw the blizzard I said: ‘He won’t make it today,’ and went down to the gym for my workout.” He pressed his hands proudly over his flat stomach.

“But it was essential that I see you,” Zorn said as Mr. Taggart accompanied the receptionist to the door and said: “Thank you so much, Beth, for bringing him up.” Turning back to Zorn, he said: “Yes, it is important, isn’t it? For both of us.”

For the next moments Taggart simply stared at his visitor. The vacancy in his huge organization was of supreme importance, and the new manager would have to be a youngish man of exceptional abilities. Tampa was the flagship of Taggart Enterprises, but it was
foundering. What Taggart saw in his inspection of a man he had not previously met was a doctor of thirty-five, medium height, not overweight, in apparent good health and distinguished by two attractive qualities: he had a healthy crop of brick-red hair, which looked as if it ought to be accompanied by a face full of country-boy freckles, and a roguish smile that signaled: I don’t take myself too seriously. Taggart knew that he had been a successful medical doctor of great ability who had fallen on bad times and had left his profession. Zorn was available to direct a major health institution and Taggart wanted to hire him, but needed to know what kind of man he was after the buffetings he’d taken.

Indicating that Zorn should take the preferred seat, the one that looked out on Lake Michigan, he said: “Have you had breakfast?” When Zorn nodded yes, he said: “Good. So have I, but I’ll bet we could each profit from some fresh-squeezed orange juice.” Pushing a button on his desk intercom, he ordered the drinks, and before they arrived he went directly to the heart of the problem that had brought them together.

“We need each other, Zorn. From what my men tell me, I judge that you’re fed up with Chicago—especially on a day like this.”

“Maybe better said, Chicago’s fed up with me.”

“Could be.”

When the orange juice arrived, Taggart took the glasses from the waiter and personally served his guest, then returned to his chair behind the desk and sat staring at his own glass. Holding his hands together, he lifted his elbows parallel to the floor and flexed his muscles three or four times in an isometric exercise that ended with his pulling his extended fists sharply back and into his chest, as if he were trying to knock himself out. He then took a long drink.

“Dr. Zorn. You were on your high school track team. Always good for a man to have been an athlete. Teaches him about winning.” He stopped to stare directly at the doctor: “And the game I’m in and which you seek to join is about how we win, and why others lose, and how we turn their losses into our wins. It’s about nothing else—not money, not health, not retirement. It’s about winning, and don’t you forget it.”

He led Zorn to an alcove whose walls were lined with charts and displays that summarized Taggart Enterprises. One wall was dominated by a huge aerial photograph of a cluster of buildings surrounded by well-kept real estate, another by a large map of the
United States decorated with more than fifty stick pins, each ending in a glass bead in one of three colors—red, blue, black. They were well dispersed across the United States but seemed a bit more heavily concentrated in New England and the areas adjacent to Seattle.

“How many, do you judge?” Taggart asked.

“Well over fifty.”

“Eighty-seven. And do you notice how they’re differentiated?”

“I see the three colors. Am I missing something?”

“How about the three forms to the pins?” and when Zorn looked more closely he saw that regardless of the pin’s color, its head could be either round or square or triangular. “What you see summarized here is our entire operation. If you’re to work with us, you must make yourself familiar with it, especially the physical forms, which aren’t so easy to see or understand.” Picking up a handful of pins from a tray on the table, he handed them one by one to Zorn as he explained: “Square, we own the entire operation, we bear the loss, we bank the profit. Round, we own the place fifty-fifty with local financiers. Triangle, local people own at least ninety percent, we own ten or less, but they give us a profitable managerial contract.” He paused, then tapped his desk as he slowly enunciated each word, “for—as—long—as—we—show—a—profit.” Leaning back, he stared at Zorn again: “Three months’ losses in a row, they can abrogate the contract—and they do.”

Juggling the remaining pins in his hand, he asked: “What have I just told you?” and Zorn apparently pleased him with his short reply: “You own some outright. You’re co-partners on others. You have only a managerial contract on others.”

“That isn’t what I said.”

Zorn, well aware of the shortcut he’d taken, said: “Even on the triangles you do retain a small ownership interest.”

“Now, why do you use that word
retain
? I didn’t say
retain
.”

“I suppose you either build the installation or supervise it, then pass the ownership off to the local investors.”

“You catch on, Doctor, but the headaches keep us awake at night. Black means that regardless of who owns the installation, it shows a good profit. Blue means it’s paying its way but not handsomely and often just barely. Red, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, means an actual loss at the end of the month and maybe even the quarter.”

“You do have some reds, but they’re safely scattered.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Reassuring. It means an entire area isn’t in trouble. Only the poorly run job.”

The governing master of Taggart Enterprises—which was worth a total of about three hundred and fifty million—now seemed to lose interest in the statistics of his empire; his real concern was with the intellectual aspects of his vast operation and, more specifically, the functioning of each individual unit. Lowering his voice as if what he was about to say cut to the heart of a possible Taggart-Zorn partnership, he took from another part of the table three wooden blocks of descending size. Pushing the biggest in front of Zorn he said: “Everything up to now has been pleasantry. Now we come down to reality. Each of our centers consists of three vital parts, each as important as the other two. Your job is to keep the three segments in balance, because only then do we make any profits.”

Tapping the biggest block, he said: “This big one looks to be the heart of our effort. It represents the big building in which ordinary people in good health have retired for traditional retirement living. One solid meal a day, or perhaps two or three according to which plan they’ve chosen. Expensive but a bargain because it’s assured and orderly. Costs out to the resident at about twenty-two thousand a year after their buy-in. This next block, somewhat smaller, is the Assisted Living center, available for when you break a leg, or need an operation, or require care in dressing and feeding yourself. Maybe two thousand dollars a month.” Pushing the middle block toward Zorn, he said: “This is the one that will give you trouble. How to keep it filled? A very difficult task, because we’ve legally promised the people in the big building that they are assured entrance to Assisted Living whenever needed. So you must keep eight or ten beds constantly available for our own people. But then you must fill the remainder with sick people we bring in off the street—at a good profit—and sometimes for protracted stays.” Tapping the middle block, he asked: “Do you appreciate what I’m saying? Managing Assisted Living is a juggling act that some of our managers handle magnificently. I’m considering hiring you to manage the Palms, our flagship, a handsome center in Tampa, Florida, because I have reason to believe that you’re bright enough to manage this Assisted Living block and help us show a profit.”

Almost offhandedly he shoved the smallest block into position and dismissed it quickly: “Extended Care, where an extraordinary mix of dying people come or are brought by their families to end
their lives in decency and with whatever relief from pain we can provide.”

“A hospice?” Zorn asked and Taggart frowned: “We never use that word, or allow anyone associated with the center to use it. It’s ugly, frightening and reeks of death.”

“I judge from the way you’ve been speaking that you find it fairly easy to keep it filled.”

“Yes. It provides a crucial service. Sick people need it. Families need it. It earns us real money.”

Grasping the three blocks, he formed them into an orderly unit and said: “Your three blocks must work together, but they are in a sense separate. Of a hundred normal people living in the retirement area, a few will move to Assisted Living, and of these a few will progress to Extended. A beautiful, Christian way to close down a life, an orderly way to meet what we all must meet, sooner or later, death—our own death, the death of our spouse, the death of our parents.”