The Flesh Statue

On the television, in the living room, she grabbed a key. She carried it back to his bedroom door, holding it stiff in front of her, as if it were used toilet paper. Steady, she slid the key in the lock. She gazed at him, throwing on a quick fake smile, more like an admission of guilt. He stared at her, and then as she opened the door, the passageway to the present, he repeatedly blinked his eyes at a balding old man. After seeing his sight, Langley was ready to admit anything previous to this moment was naive. Langley felt adjusted to Grandpa not being the man he once was. He had learned to forget about the usefulness of the man's hands that became null with the dulling of his brain, the slow separation of his mind's reality. However, the sight in front of him was new; an updated version of what Langley thought was suffering. About five feet in front of him was an abandoned wheelchair tipped over on its side. So many feet back, crawling from the doorway of the closet was Grandpa, dragging himself towards the wheelchair. No doubt that was the smell of shit bouncing against the walls, the closet walls. Langley remembered painting the closet door its burnt-red with Grandpa years ago, using wide bristled paint brushes. There was no way for him to know that one day Grandpa would be squirming from it, like maggots squirm from dung. Aside from the stink, the room was mostly bare. It had a dirt marble carpet, and yellow coated the walls. The high ceiling was white, a light bulb hung from it. 75 watts. The yellow curtains to both the windows that would show a view of the street were shut and dusty and were part of the ugly history forming before Langley's maturing eyes. This man looked like the living dead. His face was pasty and his body brittle, it seemed. He moved his mouth open and closed as if words were being lost before he said them. Grandpa tried to pull himself back to his chair, hand-over-hand, in a wrinkled, white, button-up long sleeved work-shirt. The shirt had spots where shit had grazed it on the inside of the back. The man's black socks were browned with feces from the closet. His grandmother set the wheelchair up-right. There was what Langley thought a utilized cloth diaper in the far corner of the room. Under Grandpa’s shirt, he was naked. "Sometimes, he gets unmanageable," she said. Langley shuffled close to the man, thinking to lift the man to his feet. "Don't go near him, Langley. Don't antagonize him." "I'm not." "You don't know if you are or not." "I'm not." The man continued trying to crawl forward but didn't bother looking at Langley. Langley looked straight down at the man, until Grandpa gazed up at him. Grandpa said something under his mumbling breath and kept crawling. "What did he say?" Langley asked his grandmother. "What did he say?" "You're right there, not me." Langley looked at this man, hard. Couldn't take his eyes off him. This was far worse than the weak man he left behind only a few months ago. "This man's not my grandfather.” Langley turned his head to see a scared old lady behind him, grasping her awed mouth. Langley took a few steps backward. "I thought he might recognize you," she said, letting go of her mouth, breathing. "I don't know why." "If he were my gramps...he would." Langley had backed all the way to her. She went to lift the man from the floor. He refused her, irately shooing her away. Determined, she aggressively dragged him by his wrists close to the chair and told Langley to hold the chair still. Panting, using energy borrowed from frustration, she began to try and lift the man into the chair from underneath his armpits. "He's your grandpa, Langley," she panted, "even if he doesn't always know it." Unable to lift the man, she left him on the floor and stepped away, resting. By the man's own will, he grabbed the handles on the wheelchair, mumbling something, a grim glaze smothering his face. He began attempting to put himself in the chair. "Don't you touch!" he said through his teeth, as if the phrase were all one slurred word. He then attempted gallantly to get in the seat. Langley backed away from the man again, from the stench, from old age and delusions. Grandma Evelyn got in back of the wheelchair, helped the old stinky man help himself into the seat, and wheeled him into the living room, then started for the bathroom. "Here, I have to wash him up. Latrail should be here. What time is it?" Langley glanced at his wrist. He didn't wear a watch. Somebody knocked on the front door. "Is that the front door?" she asked. "That'll be her." Langley paid attention to the door. "Who is it?" he yelled at the door, holding his ground, refusing to be intimidated by the scene in front of him. No one answered. Whoever it was knocked again. "We have to clean him up," Grandma said, "so he can go outside." "Why take him outside?" Several knocks. "Who is it!" he yelled. "Latrail!" Grandma finished, "When he's outside is the only time he smiles. Let Latrail in, sweetheart." Langley opened the door. Latrail's face instantly began to glow. She had light brown hair weaved into her true dark brown hair, which shook about her shoulders when she slightly jumped at the sight of him. "I thought that was your voice," she said, enthusiastically. She stood to her tip toes, reached at him and gave him a tight hug. "We missed you!" "Especially Grandpa," his grandmother said, giggling, again wheeling Grandpa towards the kitchen. Latrail laughed, stepping inside. This must have been an inside joke. It took almost half an hour. Grandma Evelyn and Langley got Grandpa into the bathtub. How she did this without his help baffled him. The man was so much dead weight. Although Grandpa was disabled from the stroke, at times it seemed as though he thought he wasn't. He flailed, demanding to know who was trying to drown him. She didn't really wash him. Instead, she let him sit in a thin puddle of water for a time then sprayed him off with a hand held shower head, one Langley wasn't used to seeing, never used. With Langley’s help, she forced Grandpa out of the tub and onto a towel on the floor. She dabbed him dry with another towel and then covered him with it. All the while Grandpa demanded in slurring breaths, "Help! Help!" The towels, the bath water, the floor, everything was still dirty and wet. An easier chore was dressing him. This also took place in the bathroom. Grandma pulled gray sweats over his legs and put him in a similar work-shirt from the one he wore previously. After this he was plenty calm while she combed his hair and then continuously dried him. She wheeled him and his perturbed face out to the living room. Although he greatly helped, Langley felt useless. Latrail came in the bathroom while they exited. She wiped the floor of anything wet. With her gloves and straight face she disinfected the room, saying nothing.