Amnesia Read Free

last looked at myself in the mirror and noticed.
    Kwan was watching from the doorway. His nonchalant pose, arms folded in front of him, didn’t fool me a bit. “You okay?” he asked. I shrugged. Then he grinned, held his hand alongside his mouth, and stage-whispered, “Forget something?”
    â€œPray, enlighten me.”
    â€œYou seem to have neglected to indulge in socks.”
    I looked down at my naked feet, very preppy, shoved in oxblood penny loafers. I told him, “You couldn’t just pretend not to notice, could you?” To everyone else I said, “How about we start walk rounds with Mr. O’Flanagan?”
    I led the way down the hall, with its pink walls, tall windows, and gray industrial carpeting, past the brightly lit dining room where the patients took their meals.
    From a doorway came a screechy voice, “Hello there!”

    I turned to see a small, gray-haired woman in a blue nightgown and kneesocks, heaped into a large wheelchair. “Cataldo!” she sang out in a shrill soprano, waving an index finger in the air.
    â€œHello, Mrs. Blum,” I called, resisting the impulse to bellow back something equally bizarre like “Geronimo!” We all waved and nodded.
    â€œWho’s Cataldo?” Suzanne Waters, our intern, asked. “Her doctor?”
    â€œNot quite, but good guess. Cataldo is the name of an ambulance company,” I said.
    Gloria elaborated, “For Mrs. Blum, it’s like standing on a street corner and yelling, ‘ Taxi! ’”
    A few patients sat in the common area, a big living room with more pink walls, some plastic and metal chairs, and a pair of brown sofas. In a walkout bay surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows stood a grand piano. An ugly fluorescent light fixture hung from the center of an elaborate plaster ceiling medallion. Jack O’Flanagan, thin and insubstantial, bald except for the puffs of gray down flanking his ears, sat hunched in a chair near the hall, his face a few inches from a dark television.
    I walked over and put my hand on his shoulder. He didn’t budge. I squatted so our faces were level. “Good morning,” I said. He swam over to me through watery eyes. “What are you doing?”
    â€œDoing?” he asked. He looked around and his attention snagged on the television. “Oh, I’m waiting for the damned TV to warm up.”
    â€œI’m Dr. Peter Zak,” I offered my hand. Reluctantly he looked at the hand, and then shook it. “Do you mind if I sit with you and ask you a few questions?”
    â€œQuestions?” He shrugged. “Be my guest.”
    â€œWhat’s your name?”
    â€œJohn Patrick O’Flanagan. Same as my dad’s.”
    I could feel myself relaxing as this familiar routine kicked in.
Work had become my salvation. “Do you know where you are right now?”
    â€œWell, I’m … I’m …” he stammered, looking around as if seeing the place for the first time, “I’m in the Forest Hills ready room waiting for my train to be called.”
    â€œDo you know what day this is?”
    â€œIt’s Tuesday,” he said, sure of himself. Actually, it was Monday. He glanced outside. “April …” It wasn’t a bad guess. April looks a lot like September in New England.
    â€œAnd the year?”
    â€œ1963.”
    â€œAnd who’s the president?”
    He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “John Fitzgerald Kennedy, of course. I shouldn’t have to tell you that, young man.”
    I nodded. “Mr. O’Flanagan, have you been having any problems with your memory lately?”
    â€œProblems? None at all. My mind’s right as rain,” he said, rapping the top of his head with a knuckle.
    â€œDo you mind if I give you a little test?”
    â€œSuit yourself. But I may have to leave if they call me.”
    â€œI want you to remember three things. A bat, like a