Doc's Place

Chapter 14 | Part 1

Thursday, October 11, 1984

"I noticed," says Soji during my massage, "that you never reached for your crutches during therapy this morning."

Think about that for a moment. "I feel fine if I don't put weight on the right leg for long. If I do, then it hurts like hell. In fact, it cramps."

Soji asks, "How about a cane? You hold the cane and lean on it."

When Soji finishes the massage, I pull on my clothes and he brings me what looks like a standard cane. Lean on it.

"Hickory," says Soji with a smile. "It's also good for self-defense."

"Feels solid," I tell him, opening the front door. The sun is shining on a calm day, so I gimp down the street to the guard shack. One feisty young smart ass asks if I'm ready to spar yet. Walking uphill is difficult but I get the hang of it.

Lloyd steps out of the Buick she has just backed out of the garage and walks down the street to meet me. "Not even a week after you take two bullets, you're outside walking around."

"Never used a cane," I say as she falls in beside me.

"I'm heading over to Reno PD and then to see Ume. Anything else?"

"Nope."

"Thank you, Jill, for everything."

Look at her. "We gave you enough work to scare you."

"It's enough for a lifetime."

Back inside, take a shower and work steadily on my thesis. Pull on socks, jeans and running shoes and take another, longer walk around the neighborhood. Just as I'm walking back, Lloyd pulls up in the Buick with two huge guys. When they step out of the car, I see they're mostly fat.

"Jesus Christ," says one of them in Sam's voice, "Didn't you just get shot . . . twice?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Sam Bowles," he says, offering his hand. "You must be Jill Price."

"Good to meet you, Sam." His handshake is gentle.

"Charlie Madison," says the other one, also gentle. "Hope they caught the guy who shot you."

"What the hell was all that about anyway?" asks Sam.

"Can't talk about it—federal case."

"Holy shit, Sam!" says Charlie. "Look at that T-bird. Looks like a '63 Sports Roadster. Is that the original paint, Jill?"

"It is, less than 4,000 miles."

A security guard drives up in the electric cart with Tom and Penny. "This is a neat place," says Penny. "They give us a ride to your house so no cars are in the street." First Penny and then Tom give me a careful hug.

After touring the garage and the house, we gather around the pool table and review photos—all suitable for publication. We select the front and back cover as well as one for the feature article. Penny labels the selected photos and sets them aside.

Just as we're finishing up, Soji and Lloyd arrive and order us off the table so they can set down the plywood sheet and serve lunch. Although it's a standard arrangement, my guests are impressed with the presentation. They're even more impressed when they begin to eat. We toss around ideas for articles based on the guns and other historical memorabilia in the Doc's Place collection, which includes hundreds of items.

After lunch, everyone but Soji moves out to the sunroom behind the house. Enclosed in glass with an aged brick floor, the room has plants that seem to grow like weeds. Penny asks about them but I shrug.

Discuss nickelodeons, which Doc Strain loved to collect, along with guns and other Western memorabilia. Sam and Charlie are fine interview subjects. Once we get them talking, they grow voluble, remembering details and stories'some humorous and some quite sad. Lloyd and I exchange several glances, pleased at the wealth of information.

As they begin leaving, Soji hands out leftovers. By that time, I'm nearly dizzy with exhaustion so I clean up, go to bed and fall asleep.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License

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Doc's Place Chat
© 2008, Michel Grover.
Chapter 14 | Part 1
Late Spring 2009

Lucia :

Mic has posted in the left frame paragraphs from Doc's Place, one of his copyrighted stories. I'm moderating chat here in the right frame. I post every day, but I don't post everything. I have formed a secondary group from which I may also post comments.

Maria :

Even though Jill is experiencing significant discomfort and pain, she isn't thinking about it and she isn't talking about it with the people around her, is she?

Minnie :

Only with Soji and only when he asks. I assume she discusses it with her doctor and physical therapist during her visits. Otherwise, it doesn't even seem to occur to her to mention it.

Maria :

When Lloyd brings up her recovery, Jill changes the subject—talks about her inexperience using a cane.

Minnie :

Typical Jill Price behavior: shift the focus of any conversation away from revealing personal information.

Maria :

Jill also changes the subject to invite the other person or people to talk about themselves, which they usually do. Lloyd begins talking about her feelings, for example. She readily confesses her gratitude for her new lease on life. Within days of meeting Jill, Lloyd has enrolled in school and accepted a position of responsibility, probably for the rest of her life.

Annie :

Jill deflects the conversation with Sam the moment they meet. She also ignores things that don't interest her. We've been with Jill in her house for weeks now and this is only the second mention she has made of the sunroom with its aged brick floor, numerous plants and hot tub. When Penny asks about the plants, Jill barely responds. The sunroom must be wonderfully inviting with earthy smells, humidity and warmth—not to mention the beauty of the plants.

I have hundreds of plants in and around my house. I care for my plants personally. I know the name and requirements of every one, and I love each one as well. Were members from either group in that sunroom so they can provide us with more detail?

Le :

I remember it vividly from a luncheon Mei and I had with Jill. I know little of plants but I can provide a detailed description.

Doug :

About plants? Who cares? What effect does a bunch of plants have on this story or its discussion?

Annie :

The plants don't affect the story a bit, Doug. Now, will you shut up?

Doug :

Excuse the hell out of me.

Annie :

I'll consider it. Please continue, Le.

Le :

When Mei and I walk into the bright sunroom, we see the plants—hundreds of them—but the room doesn't have that earthy odor you mentioned, Annie. The air is warm and humid with a clean, fresh smell. What attracts me to the plants in the sunroom is how they seem suspended above the floor. I see no shelves or hangers so I walk over to inspect them. Threaded cleverly among the plants are dark green, plastic canals and wrought-iron rods. Each rod supports plants or canals and ends in a hook with dark green filaments to support a plant. Water runs in the canals to provide fresh water to the plants, which have their roots in rocks or in the canals. Water also splashes over rocks among the plants and gathers in streams and pools. Various mosses and vines grow among the rocks.

Annie :

Ah, hydroponics: different canal systems provide water and specific nutrients to the plants as required. That's why the room smells so fresh instead of earthy. The designers probably arranged half a dozen sources of water with various levels of base or acidity. Are some plants in sun and some in shade, Le?

Le :

Yes, some hide under the shade of other plants and receive little or no light while others receive direct sunlight. I distinctly remember a good-sized willow tree in one corner provides shade for lots of plants.

Annie :

Most plants probably have no growing medium at all but the tree probably does. Rockwool, maybe. Does the room have succulents?

Doug :

Rockwool, what's that?

Annie :

Biologically and chemically inert growing media spun at 1600°C from volcanic basalt and chalk, perfect for hydroponics.

Le :

No cacti, but one enormous jade and several types of aloe.

Maria :

How do they arrange the plants? When you walk into the sunroom, what do you see?

Le :

Walk into the kitchen from the garage or into the living room from the front door entryway, cross the carpeted grand room through a sliding glass door into the sunroom. By the way, that glass door feels solid but I push it open with one finger without hearing a whisper of sound. The sunroom doorway is at the center of the west wall, which faces west-northwest. The sunroom is 20ft across and maybe 50ft long. Three walls and the ceiling are glass.

The wall and floor consist of smooth, old brick, which is warm to my touch. Remember slipping off my pumps a couple times, so I can feel the smooth warmth of the brick floor. The floor slopes gently toward a Japanese ofuro or tub.

At our left, the plants rise from shoulder high to ceiling high at the south end. Along the west wall, the plants grow shoulder high and then ceiling high once more at the north end. At our right, the plants grow high, partially encircling the ofuro. Nearby are faucets and hoses as well as a bench with wooden buckets and ladles for soaping and rinsing in the traditional way. Dip my fingertips into the steaming water, which is hot and inviting.

In the middle of the sunroom are a table and four chairs for intimate dining. Scattered here and there near the plants are conversational settings of comfortable chairs and low tables, some in sun and some in shade. The sunroom feels simple, warm and comfortable.

Minnie :

The ofuro is not for bathing?

Carlo :

Right. The ofuro is for relaxing. You fill a bucket with soap and hot water and then sit on a low bench so you can wash and rinse. Once you have bathed, you ease into the ofuro and relax.

Maria :

Can you walk among the plants, back to the glass walls?

Le :

Not that I remember, but some of the supporting apparatus has fat, rubber tires, probably for moving the plants aside to allow access to the plants at the back.

Cyril :

What's outside the glass walls, Le?

Le :

Trees and plants surround the sunroom walls—evergreens at the north and south with aspens and shrubbery along the west glass. Through the plants and quakies I remember seeing the slope of a hill with rocks, more trees and undergrowth.

Minnie :

What are quakies?

Le :

Quaking aspen

Cyril :

No manicured lawns at Baron Ranch?

Le :

Short-grass meadows and glades among the hills covered with rocks, trees and shrubs but no lawns. It's all forested hills with a house here and there. The groundskeepers keep the vegetation under control and moist to reduce the possibility of forest fires. Soji told me that Baron Ranch has miles of walking and biking paths for use by groundskeepers and residents alike. He described walking for hours among forest, meadows, ponds and streams without seeing another person. He did say that he would see plenty of wildlife on his walks.

Cyril :

What's on the other side of that road behind Baron Ranch?

Le :

Pere owns the land and watershed west of the private road. Beyond that is Forest Service land and the Sierra Nevada Range.

Annie :

Jill's sunroom and Baron Ranch are no doubt wonderfully peaceful, lovely places and you provide a vivid description. Thank you, Le. Do you understand about the plants now, Doug?

Doug :

Yeah, I apologize, Annie. Your questions and Le's descriptions really help put me into the ambience where Jill lives at this time. I can see why people are lining up to live there. It's like coming home to a resort every night. Did Jill design Baron Ranch, Le?

Le :

No, but she provided the concept. When she discussed her residence with the designers, I listened as she explained the sunroom concept as well.

Doug :

Sounds like that's all Jill ever does. She conceptualizes and then everyone around her gets to work and makes it happen, makes it real.

Le :

That's pretty much it. Jill never follows up to see if we, her minions, get it right, either. In fact, she never seems to notice or care if anyone does anything she asks. She just voices these concepts into the air and expects someone, somewhere to hear her declaration and make it so.

Doug :

Someone always does, right?

Le :

Oh yes, always. We live for such pearls to issue from her lips.

Doug :

Now you're being sarcastic.

Le :

Am I?