At Large in Ballard by Peggy Sturdivant

It was a simple request. Would I be Ward's ride home from Tallman Medical Center when he had his wisdom teeth removed. Pick him up, he said. Drive him home. No problem. He lives close by, having purchased a home overlooking Shilshole and the Olympics after the couple that lived there for 50 years died within six months of each other. Besides Ward had been my husband's friend since the late '70's, best man at the wedding. I owed him for the times that he spelled me at the hospital when we realized that if someone wasn't there to listen to Jim breathing, he might not keep breathing.

Ward told me the time. I knew the place well, first floor office, only so many steps to the car from the closest parking spot. Easy.

The first clue of trouble was when I checked in. "I'm Ward's ride," I said. The receptionist looked at me as though she might need to see identification and reached for the phone, "I'll tell them they can start the procedure now." She slid paperwork towards me, "you'll need to have these filled," she said. "They're expecting you at the pharmacy."

The pharmacy is located in the lobby of the medical building right by the main drop-off. I've been going through those sliding doors for 19 years now, visiting my family practice doctors, the dermatologist who I worry is depressed, the surgeon who removed my tonsils when I was 38. The pharmacy is where I filled the prescriptions for my cat when Dr. Rouse and I spent a year keeping him from kidney failure. Not every pharmacy does their own compounding; in the midst of all the human prescriptions, the pharmacist would call out to me, "tuna, chicken or beef flavor?"

By luck Ward's co-pay was exactly the $10 that I was carrying. I'd deliberately left my bag at home so I could help Ward in case he was a zombie. I read all the magazines in the waiting room, while watching the clock. I'd told my walking partner I'd be back by 5 p.m. This was before I owned a cell phone but I wouldn't ask the receptionist for her phone.

"I have to go feed the meter," I announced, as though it were her fault.

It was the Friday before Halloween just before the change to Daylight Saving's Time but already late afternoon was gloomy. I was locked in the waiting room alone when the inner door finally opened and a woman in floral smock said, "you can come back now and be with him."

Be with him? I was just supposed to be his ride. It was 11 years since we had been partners in looking after Jim. Although he lived nearby, I was more likely to glimpse Ward's car by the drycleaners than I was to spend time with him. He was wrapped in blankets lying on a little bed. His eyes were closed and his body was twitching with constant hiccups. "I don't know what your relationship is with him," the nurse said very sweetly, "but he has some issues about relinquishing control. We had quite a time with him." With that she gave his shoulder a little rub. "Pull up a chair, you can get closer."

For 30 minutes I sat next to Ward, although clearly the nurse and doctor needed to leave. They probably had Halloween parties to attend, dressed as super heroes or cartoon characters. "Let me go over the home care instructions with you," the nurse said, "then I'll help you walk him out."

It was my mouth hanging dutifully open as she went over instructions. Get something in his stomach before starting the pain pills. Change his gauze every half an hour. Make sure that he didn't try to eat any solid foods and by no means leave him alone for the next twelve hours in case he tried to walk on his own and had a fall.

Holding an elbow on either side we walked him slowly across the Plaza and toward the car, reminding him to lift his feet. That's when I realized the truth about Ballard zombies. They aren't the undead - they are just a slow moving parade of patients as they leave the oral surgeon's office, eyes unseeing, faces just beginning to bruise.

At his house I guided him in slowly and over to his couch. The daughters of the former owners had left the bulky rocking chairs and strangely he'd kept them in the living room with its picture window on the Olympics. In the kitchen there was an old wall phone, overly large numbers alongside the places where you used to place your finger to dial, but it wasn't connected so I stayed lost to my friends and family, unwilling to search Ward for his phone. There was nothing he could eat in his kitchen; I'd need to go to the store. Just a ride, I thought one last time, but I was thinking about what it's like to be single, to live far away from your siblings, to have your friends mostly married and with their own families. Who would be my ride?

A chill ran through me that had nothing to do with the approach of November or doorways decorated in cobwebs and bobbing ghosts, nothing to do zombies or death eaters. I pulled the rocking chair closer to Ward's head and prepared to be with him. To have conversations that he wouldn't remember and remind him to drink his Scooter's milkshake. I watched as the last of the sun lit the fast-moving clouds over the Olympics and created a light show that seemed symphonic. When Ward fell asleep I stood at the window as the last light snuffed itself - watching the vessels on the Sound below as they passed by in silence.

Peggy's e-mail is atlargeinballard@yahoo.com. She writes additional pieces for the Seattle PI's Ballard webtown at http:/blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/ballard/