Read Online Anna in Chains by Merrill Joan Gerber - Free Book Online Page B

what did she care? In LA she had a very good rent-controlled apartment, and, besides, she would never leave her daughters, what for? To come here and sit with some old man?
    But Irving’s blue eyes shone like electrified marbles, and he was already getting up slowly from the red metal chair. “We’ll go in the lobby, Anna,” he said. “We’ll find out the rent, maybe you’ll stay, then what a time we’ll have, you and I—we’ll go across to the Crown every night and watch the floor show, we’ll go out to dinner on Sundays with my daughter’s chauffeur, we’ll buy a VCR and rent a movie…”
    Irving started to walk without his feet. Anna saw his upper body move toward her, but his shoes, his white shoes with the red rubber soles, stayed glued to the cement and she saw him go down like a boulder.
    When she opened her eyes the next instant, he was face down on the cement porch and no one even noticed it. Ava was dealing a new hand of cards.
    Irving, rolling on his round belly, was silent. He turned his head slightly to the side, and Anna saw his cracked eye glasses and blood on his forehead.
    â€œOh God,” she cried out. “Look over here!”
    Irving whimpered a little and stayed on his face.
    â€œOh—help me pick him up, please! ” Anna cried. She could not bend down alone because of her osteoporosis and her arthritis and her collapsed vertebrae.
    â€œWe don’t pick anyone up here,” Sadie said from the table. “We each got our own problems. In no time flat we could all land in the hospital.”
    â€œThey fall here every day,” Ida added.
    â€œHow many times has Irving fallen anyway?” Mickey asked, and all the women looked skyward, as if they were figuring.
    Anna couldn’t bear it, to see him gasping and jerking like a beached fish down there, his forehead on cement. She rushed into the lobby and grabbed a cushion from one of the sagging couches. She carried it outside and slid it under Irving’s forehead.
    â€œDon’t move him,” Ava said. “Something could be broken.”
    â€œThe last time nothing was broken,” Ida said.
    â€œBut the time before, remember, it was his elbow.”
    â€œThis was a softer fall than that one. That time, he stepped out the elevator before it was level. Everyone heard him go down.”
    Anna ran inside again and yelled to the Cuban clerk. “Jesús! Call the doctor, dummy!” He seemed to be counting out colored postcards of the Colby Plaza. He was counting in Spanish.
    Outside again, Anna knelt over Irving. “Irving, can you hear me?” He rocked on his round stomach to answer her. “Are you okay, Irving?” she asked him. “Are you comfortable?”
    â€œI make a nice living,” he said.
    Anna looked at him, then stood up, shocked.
    â€œA joke,” he said. Then he spit out a little blood.
    â€œJesús!” she yelled into the lobby “Did you call?” The man looked up from the desk, puzzled. It occurred to Anna that he was drunk.
    â€œHey,” he said suddenly. “That old guy can’t be on that pillow.” He ran out to the porch and grabbed the cushion from under Irving’s forehead. “If he bleeds on this, Hyman Cohen will blow a fit! These are his new pillows!”
    â€œTen years new,” Ava called over to them.
    â€œJesús! Come here!” She called him like a dog, slapping her leg. “Help me pick him up this minute!”
    â€œThere’s no hurry,” the Cuban said. “They’ll pick him up when they come.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œThe paramedics.”
    â€œDid you call them?”
    â€œThey have a standing appointment here,” Sadie said from the card table as she lit another cigarette.
    â€œGo,” Anna said, shoving the Cuban. “Call them!” She watched him till he went in and picked up the phone.
    While they waited, Anna sat