Sellinger

FICTION

by Scott F. Gandert

        Years ago I worked in a psychiatric clinic in Orlando, Florida. The Clinical Director there was a tall skinny man in his fifties. He had a Roman nose that his close friends teased him about. I never did. Sellinger was divorced and migrated here from New York City where he was a cop. He was as close to a friend as I had, and that wasn’t too close since he was my boss. I worked at night and except for the janitorial crew—blind Bernie, his one-armed wife Darlene, and a broken-down guide dog—I was on my own for hours.
          After a couple months, I got up the courage to ask out a Spanish-speaking waitress at the Black Bean Deli. I asked her in the Spanish sentence I had practiced, and she answered in perfect English: No, I don’t want to go to the movies with you, thank you. Sellinger always said that the job was his only romantic interest.
          Sellinger was hard to find when I needed him because he was forever outside smoking. He favored Chesterfields, but he’d smoke anything. I went looking for him outside one Monday morning. It was raining, but that never stopped him. He’d simply send up his Ralph Lauren umbrella and continue puffing.
          He was not there and he wasn’t in his office. I asked my co-worker:
          “Where’s Sellinger?”
          “Oh, didn’t you hear, he went to the emergency room last night.”
          I called the hospital and got his room number and went to visit him. He and I weren’t close, but I cared about him because he was a good boss. Occasionally we’d eat lunch together, usually turkey sandwiches with mayonnaise and a Caesar salad at the Jelly Belly. It was fun because he’d usually share tales about being a police sergeant in Brooklyn.
          After lunch he’d go back to work and I’d walk home. I lived alone in a furnished apartment close to the office. I usually took a nap before my evening shift and then cooked dinner on a George Foreman grill.
          I was nervous when I entered the hospital room. Sellinger was awake but wheezing. He told me the doctor said he had stage 4 lung cancer, and explained he’d known about the cancer for some time but kept it from the staff. My anxiety rose, and I was unsure what to say, so I said: 
          “Do you mind if I smoke?”
          “Go ahead. Secondhand smoke’s not my problem.”
          We talked for an hour or so and then the nurse asked me to leave.
          Sellinger was in the hospital for a few weeks. During that time I drove with a girlfriend to Austin, Texas, to see Waylon Jennings. We ate pork sandwiches at Short Sugar’s BBQ Palace. It was very windy there and she complained about her hair.
          When I was back in the office, they told me Sellinger had passed. I asked, “Did he die, too?”
          I was angry but not sure why. One of the therapists pulled me aside and handed me a nicely-framed photograph.
          “What’s this?”
          “Sellinger said he wanted you to have it. She was an old girlfriend of his. He said he didn’t have much else to give you.”
          The girl was in her mid-twenties and looked remarkably like Mariel Hemingway when she was that age. I stared at her and wondered if I should try to find her. I didn’t know what to do with it, but I took the photo home and placed it on my desk. After several weeks I took the picture out of the frame—it was a nice redwood frame—and placed my mother’s picture inside. She had died years before.
          I kept the photograph of Sellinger’s girl in my desk drawer. I often thought of what I’d say to her if I met her. We’d probably talk about Sellinger and make fun of his nose. Or maybe we’d eat turkey sandwiches with mayonnaise and Caesar salads together, and share some lost love stories.
          In December of that year an ice storm kept me inside for a week. One morning I awoke to my cat Frankie staring at me. I stared back and soon thought of the girl in the photograph. I took her out of the desk drawer and held her. I took my mother’s photo out and put the mysterious girl back in the frame where she belonged. She was my girl now.