Short Bus Hero (6 page)

The group home was Lois’s idea, well, my idea, actually, if you want to get technical. The thought had struck her that day at the hospital, as she held her best friend, and she had not been able to think of much else in the weeks since. In hindsight, she refused to believe that she’d heard anything. Then she thought it had been a voice in another room, or on the muted television, or, that she’d imagined the whole thing. Of course you imagined it, you dummy, only crazy people hear voices, she thought to herself during her own private self-scolding.

It made me laugh.

Silly humans.

But, the more she’d thought about it, the more real my voice had seemed, and the more the idea of a group home had appealed to her. Call it her new calling.

She’d been anxious to share the idea with her friends, but had waited until Sylvia was home from the hospital and the mothers had gathered at the Heffron house for a welcome home potluck dinner. It was hell getting Ally out of the house, but she did it. She told her that Mara had her eye on Jason. Eh, it was only one of those little white lies, no biggie. That was before Ally had become too depressed to care. While the Cool People congregated in the basement to watch a pay-per-view WWC wrestling event, Lois had revealed her new idea to her friends in the kitchen.

“You know, it is a marvelous idea,” Trish says, blowing across her mug, “but, again, I think it’s going to be waaaaay too expensive.” That was the group’s chief concern when Lois first suggested it. All six mothers absolutely loved the idea of their children living in the same house and having each other as a permanent support network, even after the parents had themselves passed away, but the realities of the situation clipped their enthusiasm. “Even if we leave our house and all of our life insurance to Jason, which would not be fair to Josh,” Trish says, reminding them that she does have another, albeit “normal,” son to think about, “it won’t be enough to keep him in assisted living forever. What will they do when he runs out of money?” She shudders. “I don’t even want to think about that.” Trish slurps her tea and glues her eyes to the shining laminated table top.

She is right, of course. Establishing a group home involves not only the purchase of the physical home itself, but also the property’s upkeep, the screening, training, and employment of appropriately certified staff, utilities, transportation for their children to get to and from work and social activities, and a hundred other little things that add up to more than too much for any of the families to handle.

“I put Mara on the waiting list at RADS,” Sylvia whispers through the tendrils of steam rising from her mug, not daring to meet their eyes. Reality And Down Syndrome—RADS—is a new facility near Fox Chapel, touting a green and New Age-y approach to group living. It is seen as “cool” by Mara and her peers. They were all jealous when she told them that she was moving there. Of course, the waiting list is about four years long, but at least she’s on it.

Lois puts a hand on Sylvia’s shoulder and gives it a squeeze. Syl wrings a wistful smile from her tired lips and looks up at her friend. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

“I know.” Lois knows all right. Lois knows her friend is scared, and tired, and worried, and overwrought. Sylvia’s heart attack had set all six mothers in motion, scrambling to make long-term plans for their children’s care. All six had had their children later in life, and five of them lived in fear of being in Sylvia’s shoes. Barbara, Donald’s mom, was so worried that she’d wound up in the UPMC Emergency Room herself with chest pains brought on by a panic attack. They gave her Ativan and told her to exercise to keep her anxiety under control as her life’s clock ticked down.

Comforting.

“I’m serious about doing this,” Lois tells Sylvia and Trish. “I know it will be expensive, but let’s just see how much money we’re talking about and if it’s even remotely possible, okay? I mean, before you write it off as a pipe dream.”

***

“Here’s one,” Lois says, waving Earl over to the computer from the jigsaw puzzle he has spread all over the 1960s dining room table. He’d had to relocate plastic bags stuffed with other plastic bags, an old cake box filled with bottle caps, unopened packages of Pokemon birthday party plates, a case of Hunt’s catsup bottles (also unopened), a Stratocaster guitar with no strings, a large bag of marbles, several “terrible towels” (it’s a Steelers thing), and a big plastic cooler full of mismatched mittens in order to make room. He steps over a heap of vintage ice skates to get to the computer. (You never know when you might need a rusty pair of ice skates from the 1950s.)

“I know Bellevue’s kind of far, but look at this place. Look at the price.” Lois hates to get excited before she had collected every single fact pertaining to an issue, but she couldn’t help it. The house has seven bedrooms, four bathrooms, a nice kitchen, big common areas, and is close to public transportation. The school system is good—not that they would use the schools, but good schools attract nice families, so, Lois thinks, the area must not be terrible. She jots down the real estate agent’s number as Earl clicks on pictures of the property.

“I don’t know…Bellevue…,” he mutters. Earl had been born and raised in Upper St. Clair and he holds very definite opinions about each and every community in and around Pittsburgh. Lois is from Mt. Lebanon, which is not much more diverse than Earl’s childhood neighborhood, but she is a little more open-minded than her husband when it comes to real estate prospects for the kids. They can’t afford to be choosy.

And, speaking of Mt. Lebanon, Earl clicks on a property located not far from the house his wife grew up in. Five bedrooms, four baths, nice covered porch, but with a tiny kitchen. It does not have a garage, but as none of the Cool People own a car—or even have a driver’s license, for that matter—that is of little importance. They would probably need to store a lawn mower, but they could get a shed for that.

They spend the entire afternoon looking at properties online and discussing each home’s pros and cons while Earl fits pieces into his jigsaw puzzle. Most of the cons are related to price. It seems that a suitable house, not more than fifteen minutes’ drive from the Formans’ own Jeffersonville place, could be bought for about four hundred-thousand dollars. Properties could be had for a bit less if they are willing to look either closer to the city or in the outermost suburbs.

With that bit of research out of the way, it is time to address other costs associated with an assisted living situation. Only one of the six Cool People requires an actual round-the-clock nurse, but it is still an expense that would have to be taken into account by the whole group. The idea is to find a live-in aide who could not only care for Wendell on a daily basis, but who could also handle the minor but frequent complaints of the other residents as well. Such a person would need to have suitable experience with Down syndrome and be licensed by the state, as well as have a clear criminal record and a background placing them in the company of saints. Easy to define, but a bit more difficult to find. Lois started asking around at St. Martin’s-in-the-Field, thinking some of the elderly members of her congregation might be able to point her in the direction of home healthcare workers. Old Mr. Griffin gave her his nurse’s number, but Lois threw it in the kitchen’s trashcan as soon as Mr. Griffin had gotten his coffee and walked away. His “nurse,” a young blonde woman with an overinflated head to match her chest, was the subject of much gossip in the church’s fellowship hall. No one had come right out and questioned the woman’s qualifications, but there was always an unspoken speculation regarding exactly what her profession was.

Having turned up no other prospects at church, Lois pays her father’s old apartment complex a visit, hoping to chat with one of his old poker buddies. Chester Vail is alone in the community room when she walks in. He has his back to her and appears to be talking to an empty corner of the room as she approaches.

“Mr. Vail, how are you? Do you remember—” Lois stops short as Chester turns toward her voice. The right side of his face seems frozen in the process of melting from his skull, his right eye unable to look anywhere but skyward, the right corner of his mouth leaking.

“Loooith,” he says, the left corner of his mouth lifting slightly. Mr. Vail had apparently suffered a stroke sometime in the last few years. Lois thinks what a formidable enemy time itself is, even for a former Navy Seal such as her father’s old friend, Mighty Chester.

She’s right. Time is a hard bastard, it screws us all.

Mr. Vail draws closer to Lois, dragging his right foot, and grabs her in a surprisingly tight left-handed bear hug. Despite her shock and sadness at his time-ravaged appearance, she laughs.

“Mr. Vail, look at you,” she says when she can’t think of anything else. She does her best to smile as she looks him up and down, but she feels a lump in her throat. His golden cardigan sweater is buttoned unevenly, the collar of his white polo underneath sticks straight up on the right, in stark contrast to his pulled taffy facial features. His right arm hangs limply at his side, never again to hold a rifle. Tears cloud Lois’s vision. “How are you?”

“I’ve stheen beddeh days,” Mr. Vail laughs. Lois thinks he seems self-conscious. Well, jeez, who wouldn’t be? But his laughter is real. His blue eyes still sparkle, and he is still her old “Uncle Chester.” Lois had not seen Chester Vail in four or five years. Embarrassment flames her face for some inexplicable reason. “Pleeeeth, sthit down.” He pulls a chair away from the poker table with his good hand and gestures for her to sit, which she does with a smile.

She looks around the room, taking in the dulled paint on the walls, yellowed by years of cigar smoke, the bookcase with its thin collection of worn paperback novels, the new flat screen TV hanging on the far wall. She can smell the smoke and the books. It reminds her of her dad. She misses him.

“Where is everyone?”

“Dead.”

“Oh,” she says, caught off guard by his typically frank answer. “I mean, there’s no one in here. Where are the people who work here? Wow. This place used to be jam-packed, day or night, whenever I stopped by.” There had always been men crowded around the poker table, spitting and swearing, women sitting on the couch, watching daytime soaps, cleaning people and orderlies rushing around. Lois finds the emptiness of the place creepy and depressing.

“Yeah, well, I don’t think they led schuch lively oneth in here anymore. No more hellraithserths like me and your dad.” He laughs. Lois thinks she hears a touch of fear mixed in there somewhere. She knows she feels it.

“Listen, Chester, I was wondering if you maybe knew any good nurses looking for work. I was thinking of, maybe, your daughter? Does she still work as a nurse?”

“Oh, yeah, sthe’ths over to the hothspidal now. Hathes it, too,” he snickers. “Why do you athsk? You ain’t sthick, are you? Sthe’d care for you in a minute, Loith, you know that.”

So, Lois took down Debra Vail’s number and gave Chester a hug goodbye. As she leaves, he calls after her: “Happenths to everyone, Loith. I’m thsorry.”

A chill runs up her spine.

***

An already shiny red Mustang pulls into the church parking lot and stops in front of Lois. The driver, a young man with a goatee and a backwards baseball cap, hops out and gives her a ten dollar bill. “Shine ‘er up,” he says, smiling and snapping his gum.

The car wash had been Jason’s idea. The moms had called a Cool People’s meeting to talk about the possibility of setting up their very own group home. In hindsight, they agreed that it had been a lapse in judgment to discuss the subject with their highly volatile kids, but, once that box had been opened, there was no going back. The Cool People, overly excited, wanted to buy their own place immediately. There was a lot of cheerful whooping and shouting, followed by cries of disappointment at having to plan and wait, which were, in turn, followed by tears and temper tantrums at the thought of delayed gratification. Once the crisis had been averted, and everyone had calmed down, the group decided that the first thing to do would be to raise money.

None of the children had much of their own, since they all received social security benefits and, as such, were not allowed, by law, more than two thousand dollars in personal assets. Their checks from the supermarkets, super-stores, and fast food outlets were spent as soon as they received them. The Cool People’s parents ranged from very poor to middle middle-class. No one had extra funds to devote to the cause.

“We could have a car wash!” Jason had shouted, jumping off of Ally’s basement couch, forgetting the bowl of popcorn that had been resting on his lap. Popcorn flew everywhere, hitting people in the face, making them laugh. “Just like the cheerleaders and boy scouts.”

He’d clapped his hands and smiled at his brilliant idea. He sees cheerleaders and boy scouts as the absolute epitome of normalcy, which is his dream, just as it is Ally’s. Ally jumped up, squashing popcorn beneath her sneakers, and gave Jason a hug, squealing. That night had been the first time she’d smiled since Stryker Nash had left wrestling. But, Jason has that affect on people. His enthusiasm and just plain joy are not only contagious, but epidemic. The parents even got caught up in his passion.

Lois had felt her heart warm that night, watching her daughter celebrate with her friend. If things were different, he’d make a wonderful son-in-law. Lois was secretly glad that Jason was Ally’s boyfriend and not Mara’s. He was the group’s own personal sun. A car wash. Sure, why not. Lois had been all for the idea. It was a start, anyway.