Daddy's Gone a Hunting

48

Shirley Mercer, an attractive black woman in her early fifties, was the social worker who was assigned to visit Clyde in the hospital. She arrived at his bedside in a ward in Bellevue late Tuesday afternoon. He had been bathed and shaved and his hair had been trimmed. He was suffering from severe bronchitis but in the nineteen hours he had been there, his temperature had returned to normal and he had eaten well. He was about to be discharged and Shirley had arranged for him to be taken to a room in one of the city-run hotels.

Shirley had studied Clyde’s file before she went in to visit him. The staff at the shelter where he had collapsed knew very little about him. He had only stayed there occasionally and each time had given a different last name. They believed that his first name was correct. He always said he was Clyde. But the last names always varied. Clyde Hunt, Clyde Hunter, Clyde Holling, Clyde Hastings. Hastings was the name he had given at the shelter last night when he had regained consciousness and was waiting for the ambulance.

Some of the other regulars at the shelter had told the director that they had seen him around for years. “He comes and goes by himself. He doesn’t want to talk to anyone. He gets mad if someone bunks near him on the street. You almost never saw him at night for the past couple of years. Everyone figured that he had found a place to hole up.”

Another street person had claimed that on Saturday night, Clyde had punched out Sammy when Sammy tried to sleep in the same driveway.

But he has no police record, Shirley noted, and apparently has been homeless for many years. He had told the nurse that he was sixty-eight years old, which seemed about right. But one thing that is certain, Shirley thought, is that if he stays on the streets he’ll die of pneumonia.

Armed with that information, she had gone to Clyde’s bedside. His eyes were closed. Although the skin on his face was blotched, and the lines between his nostrils and his lips were deep, she could see that when he was younger he must have been a good-looking man.

She touched his hand. His eyes flew open and his head sprang up from the pillow. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Hastings,” she said, her voice gentle. “I didn’t mean to startle you. How are you feeling?”

Clyde sank back as he looked at the kindly expression in the eyes of the woman who was standing beside his bed. Then he began to cough, a deep, rasping cough that shook his chest and his back. Finally he was able to again sink back into the pillow.

“Not so hot,” he said.

“It’s a good thing you were brought here last night,” Shirley said. “Otherwise, by today, you’d be having a full-blown case of pneumonia.”

Clyde vaguely remembered that he had fainted just as he got to the shelter. And then another thought rushed into his mind. “My cart! My stuff! Where is it?”

“They have it for you,” Shirley said quickly. “Clyde, is Hastings your last name?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Sometimes you have given other names.”

“Sometimes I get confused.”

“I see. Clyde, do you have any family?”

“No.”

“No one? A brother or sister?”

Clyde thought of the picture of Peggy and Skippy and him. For a moment his eyes glistened with tears.

“You do have someone, don’t you?” Shirley asked, sympathetically.

“That was a long time ago.”

Shirley Mercer could see that there was no use talking to Clyde about a possible family connection. “Were you ever in the military?” she asked. “According to your medical report, you have scars on your chest and back. You are about the age of a Vietnam veteran.”

She was getting too close. “I was never in the service,” Clyde said, then added, “I was what they used to call a conscientious objector when they had the draft back then.”

Joey Kelly. Tell Mama how much I loved her… I never did visit his mother, Clyde thought. I couldn’t tell her that he was trying to hold his guts together when he said that. And his blood was soaking through me like I was dying, too…

“Shut up,” he snapped angrily at Shirley Mercer. “Shut up. And tell them to give me back my clothes. I’m out of here.”

Shirley drew back, afraid that he was about to strike her. “Clyde,” she protested, “you are going to leave now. I’m arranging for you to have your own room in a hotel that the city runs. You’ll have your medicine with you and you must remember to take it all. You’ll be warm and dry and will have food. You need that to get better.”

Be careful, Clyde warned himself. He knew he had been about to hit her. If I do that I’ll get arrested and I’ll be in one of those hellholes they call jail. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m real sorry. I shouldn’t have gotten mad at you. It’s not your fault. You’re a nice lady.”

He knew what the hotel would be like. A dump. A real dump. I’ll clear out as soon as she leaves me there, he thought. I’ll find another place like my van where I can stay every night. Then his eyes widened. The television set on the wall behind the social worker was on. He saw some news guy showing the picture of him and Peggy and Skippy. They’ll blame everything on me, he thought. The explosion. The girl who came into the van that night.

Trying not to show his panic, he said, “I’ll be glad to go to the hotel with you. I figured it out. I can’t be on the streets anymore.”

“No, you can’t,” Shirley Mercer said firmly, even as she knew she was reading Clyde’s mind. We’ll go through the motions of getting him settled and then he’ll take off, she thought. I wonder what the truth is about his past, but my guess is we’ll never know. She stood up. “I’ll get someone to help you dress,” she said. “They’ve got some nice warm clothes for you.”

Behind her on the wall the news anchor was saying, “If anyone recognizes the family in this picture, please contact this number immediately…”