Lost Light

before?”
    His eyes went to the flask and he didn’t have to ask. I held it to his chapped and peeling lips and he drank deeply from it. He closed his eyes.
    “Ah, God…,” he said. “I’ve got…”
    His eyes opened and they jumped on me like wolves taking down a deer.
    “She’s keeping me alive,” he whispered desperately. “You think this is what I want? Sitting in my own shit half the time? She’s getting a full ride while I’m alive-full pay and medical. If I’m gone she gets the widow’s pension. And I wasn’t in that long, Harry. Fourteen years. It’s about half of what she gets with me alive.”
    I looked at him for a long moment, the whole time wondering if she was outside the door listening.
    “So what do you want from me, Law? To pull the plug? I can’t do that. I can get you a lawyer if you want, but I’m not -”
    “And she doesn’t treat me right, either.”
    I paused again. I felt a tugging sensation in the pit of my guts. If what he was saying was true, then his life was more of a hell than I could imagine. I lowered my voice when I spoke.
    “What does she do to you, Law?”
    “She gets mad. She does things. I don’t want to talk about it. It’s not her fault.”
    “Listen, you want me to get a lawyer in here? I could also get a social services investigator.”
    “No, no lawyers. That’ll take forever. No investigators. I don’t want that. And I don’t want you to get in any trouble, Harry, but what am I going to do? If I could pull the plug myself I would…”
    He blew out a burst of air. The only gesture his body would allow him to make. I could only imagine his horrible frustration.
    “This is no way to live, Harry. It isn’t living.”
    I nodded. None of this had come up on the first visit. We had talked about the case, what he could remember about it. His case memory was coming back in chunks. It had been a difficult interview but there was no sense of self-loathing or desperation. No more depression than would be expected. I wondered if it had been the alcohol that had suddenly brought it out.
    “I’m sorry, Law.”
    It was all I could say. His eyes looked away, up to the television screen which was over my left shoulder.
    “What time is it now, Harry?”
    This time I checked my watch.
    “Twenty after. What’s your hurry, Law? You expecting somebody else?”
    “No, no, nothing like that. There’s just a show I like to watch on Court TV. Comes on at twelve. Rikki Klieman. I like her.”
    “Then you’ve still got time to talk to me. Why don’t you get a bigger clock in here?”
    “She won’t give me one. She says the doctor says it’s bad for me to be watching a clock.”
    “She’s probably right.”
    It was the wrong thing to say. I saw anger flood his eyes and I immediately regretted the words.
    “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t -”
    “You know what it’s like not to be able to raise your own goddamn wrist to look at your fucking watch?”
    “No, Law, I don’t have any idea.”
    “You know what it’s like to shit in a bag and have your wife take it to the toilet? To have to ask her for every goddamn thing, including a taste of whiskey?”
    “I’m sorry, Law.”
    “Yeah, you’re sorry. Everybody’s fucking sorry but nobody’s -”
    He didn’t finish. He seemed to bite off the end of the sentence like a dog getting a hold of raw meat. He looked away and was silent and I was silent for a long moment, until I thought the anger had drained back down his throat into the seemingly bottomless well of frustration and self-pity that was down there.
    “Hey, Law?”
    His eyes came back to me.
    “What, Harry?”
    He was calm. The moment had passed.
    “Let’s go back. You said you were going to call me because there was something you forgot. You know, when we went over the case before. What was it you forgot to tell me?”
    “Nobody’s come here and talked to me about the case, Harry. You’re the only one. I mean that.”
    “I believe you. I was wrong about that. But what was it that you forgot before? Why were you going to call me?”
    He closed his eyes for a moment but then opened them. They were clear and focused.
    “I told you that Taylor insured the money, right?”
    “Right, you told me that.”
    “What I forgot was that the insurance company-offhand I can’t remember the name of -”
    “Global Underwriters. You remembered the other day.”
    “Right. Global Underwriters. As a condition of contract Global required that the