"Mrs. Garro!" The nurse charged around the bed. "I told you not to hinder the help!" She gently pushed the doddering old lady into a second bed. "Just lift him real quick." She hustled over to Mr. Garro. As Stony lifted him from behind he noticed the old guy had gigantic balls. The nurse pulled out the sheet like a magician yanking a tablecloth without disturbing the dishes. There was a four-by-four shiny black oilcloth underneath. "O.K., drop him." Stony did and stepped back. This was a his and hers private room. Between the twin beds on a night table stood an eight-by-ten gilt-framed photo of Mr. and Mrs. Garro sitting in a restaurant. They were both laughing, he had his arm around her shoulder. They wore leis around their necks, his over a loud pineapple shirt, hers over an aqua blue sleeveless dress. The inscription read "Tommy and Marie—Oahu Hilton 3/2/62."

Stony backed out of the room as Mrs. Garro struggled out of bed and fluttered around her naked husband like a bird with buckshot in its wing.

***

Stony wheeled an old guy named Valentine Valentino to the john. As he lifted him out of the chair, he slipped through Stony's fingers, bounced off the toilet seat and fell on his side, his pajamas wrapped around his ankles, his flaccid skin pressed against the cold tile. Stony gasped, grasping him under the arms to lift him onto the seat, hoping nothing broke.

Reynard wheeled a patient wearing a Yankees cap into the john. Stony and Valentine were holding each other face to face, knee to knee, in a semierect crouch.

"He's peein' on ya! He's peein' on ya! Get 'im onna toilet! Get 'im onna toilet!" the old fuck in the baseball cap yelled like a wheelchair general.

Stony looked down. The legs of his baggy whites were slowly turning yellow. "Shit!" Stony almost dropped him again, as he twisted and turned, trying to get out of the line of fire.

Reynard ran behind Valentine, slipped his forearms under the hairless armpits and dragged him backward to the toilet. Straddling the bowl, his spine against the upright toilet lid, he deposited Valentine on the seat, swinging his leg over the old guy's head to free himself. Stony furiously wiped the piss from his dripping pants with a fistful of toilet paper. Reynard's charge wheeled himself over to Valentine on the pot and shouted in his ear, "Yer awright, Valentine? Yer awright, Valentine?"

Valentine sat hunched over, gloomily staring at his white kneecaps, his lips moving, the expression on his face a cross between Buster Keaton and a basset hound.

"Where's your head, Jim?" Reynard rubbed his hands together as if just finishing a grimy job. Stony didn't answer, still wiping his pants. "Don'choo know how to lift someone? You coulda killed the dude!"

"If that's a dude, I'm James Brown."

Reynard turned to his charge in the wheelchair, jerked him up and swiftly deposited him on the toilet seat next to Valentine. He turned back to Stony. "You better get your act together, bro\"