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want us to think one of us made a puddle that big. If Marjorie were here instead of moving upstairs, I would have said to her, ‘Goodness gracious, Marjorie, if they think one of us girls did it, all they’d have to do is put their ears to the door when we take a pee. Then they’d hear for themselves.’ No matter how much they com plain about prostate, I bet it was one of the men.”
    The group of strokers reacted to this by looking to one another and smiling. But Steve did not feel like smiling, and listened intently as Sue continued.
    “Can you imagine it? An elderly resident who has also suffered a stroke like you poor people—but at least you young people have time to do something about it—slips in a pee puddle and dies and nobody even bothers to clean it up. They just send for the meat wagon and shovel out the body and everything’s back to normal. I can under stand them being short on staff, but this is ridiculous. A woman’s died and someone should have the decency to clean up the floor. If I were younger and worked as an aide down there I certainly would have done it. That was the way it was in my day. Women taking care of things after someone passes. Women putting things back the way they were.
    “Don’t they realize doing a day’s work in this place is better than old people sit and stretch exercises? Idiotic. You get old and end up a zoo monkey doing monkeyshines for peanuts. And with my dentures, I can’t even eat peanuts.”
    Sue shook her head and sighed. “Too bad about poor Marjorie.”
    After this final statement, Sue turned quickly and caterpillar-walked toward the elevators at a good clip.
    Marcia, the youngest women in the group of strokers waved so long to So-Long Sue, then said, “Now what?”
    Paul, another short-timer like Marcia, said, “We stare at our crotches. It’s what we do.”
    After a few chuckles, Marcia turned to Steve. “Steve? Your speech partner?”
    Steve nodded sadly as strokers caterpillar-walked past and gave their condolences. A new patient named Phil who had the room across from Steve was last to give Steve his condolences.
    Phil turned his wheelchair so that he was facing Steve, leaned for ward, and with great effort and apparent sincerity, said, “Jesus fuck.”
    Steve accepted this with the same nod of thanks he’d given the others and watched sadly as Phil wheeled away. It was the first time in a long time he’d been able to suspend the Pavlovian smile the stroke had given him. As the others in the group headed down the hall, he stayed behind and listened to the nurse and aide.
    “Under normal circumstances, talk like that might turn a few heads,” said the aide.
    “We had to put an ankle bracelet on Phil his first day because he tried to walk out,” said the nurse. “Rather than the usual problem coming up with words, that’s the only thing Phil ever says. Some resi dents think he probably used the phrase, “Jesus Fucking Christ” a lot during his lifetime and only two words of it are left.”
    “No shit,” said the aide.
    This time of evening there were usually a few procrastinators in the television lounge or wandering the hallway. But tonight, perhaps be cause of the news of death on the first floor, the hallway in the third floor stroke wing was completely empty.
    Steve had on his day clothes, not yet having changed into his pa jamas, but figured there was no way he could pass himself off as a handicapped visitor. Security was tight on the first floor at night. But what the hell, he’d take a chance. Yeah, he’d take a little roll down to the first floor and size up the crime scene, or the scene of the accident, which this probably was. And being that it most likely was an acci dent, there would be nothing at all suspicious about the ambulance whisking Marjorie Gianetti away and things getting back to “normal” so quickly.
    No one got on the elevator with him and it did not stop at the second floor. On the first floor, one of two things