1979-1987

By G. Wayne Miller, Journal staff writer

01:21 mins

...When one of Frank Beazley’s roommates died in March 1979, Frank’s best friend, Louie Pafundi, moved in. With its pinup posters and constant visitors, their room was the place to be. It was located at the distant end of a second-floor wing, far from the nurses’ station.
...A year later, a seemingly reserved man came to Zambarano Hospital from his home in Woonsocket.
...Mike Saporito suffered from muscular dystrophy, a congenital disease that progressively weakens muscles. As a young boy, he’d attended school, but the humiliation of falls and the taunts of classmates made him miserable. He was 9 when he broke a leg. He never walked again. His mother, Fillippa, withdrew him from school. Fillippa understood muscular dystrophy: Mike’s older brother Tommy also had the disease.
...Tommy made it his cause. He conducted public-awareness campaigns, participated in Jerry Lewis’ annual telethon, and ran for state representative. Mike was his opposite: a shy boy who grew into an agoraphobic man who never left his house, not even to sit on the porch. He passed his days in the parlor, watching TV and following his favorite team, the New York Yankees, on the radio.
...A heart attack killed the boys’ father when Mike was 13, leaving him and Tommy in the care of their mother, who had nine other children. Fillippa fed her sick sons. She bathed and dressed them. She settled them into their beds at the end of the day and she woke in the middle of every night to turn them, so that their fragile bodies would escape bedsores.

Frank and Mike in 1991. Photo courtesy of Frances Fazzio

...Throat cancer killed Tommy in 1969. Mike’s disease progressed, and as Fillippa aged, her own health began to fail. At the age of 89, she was admitted to a nursing home. Relatives were unable to meet Mike’s needs, and Mike was sent to Zambarano. He was 47 years old.
...Mike was assigned to Frank and Louie’s floor. He soon heard about Room 17.
...Mike, you need to check it out, a nurse said.
...What do you mean?
...Those guys are jokers down there.
...Jokers?
...They like their fun. Check it out.
...One day, Mike visited. It was like entering a men’s club.
...Frank and Louie had decorated their walls with posters of Farrah Fawcett and Lynda Carter, star of the TV series Wonder Woman. Alongside paintings of Jesus they had posted photographs of pretty candy-stripers and student nurses. They smoked, and drank beer on trips outside Zambarano. They knew the latest hospital gossip. They told off-color jokes. Louie even had a girlfriend.

Mike Saporito suffered from muscular dystrophy. Photo courtesy of Frances Fazzio

...At the age of almost 50, Mike had found his place. When a bed opened in Room 17, he transferred there.
...A recluse in Woonsocket, Mike joined his new friends at hospital parties. He socialized with the nurses. He dressed up for Halloween. He became a Charlie’s Angels fan and he bought his own posters of shapely actresses and tool-company models. He posed for photographs with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. He wrote ‘‘I Can’t Wait until Summer,’’ ‘‘Really Beautiful,’’ and other poems. He laughed at Frank and Louie and told jokes of his own. He developed a passion for black jack. He schemed to have Yankee owner George Steinbrenner come to Zambarano when his beloved team entered a slump.
...Mike had lost the ability to use a pen or a keyboard, so he had someone draft his letter:
...‘‘Dear Mr. Steinbrenner,’’ he said.
...‘‘When I was not in the hospital and was back home, I used to listen to the Yankee games on my radio from my bed and I would shut my eyes and pretend I was the manager and I would have such a good feeling.
...‘‘But now when I listen to a Yankees game I feel so disappointed that I want to shut my eyes again and go back to the days of Casey Stengel, when he was the boss in the dugout.
...‘‘Please, Mr. Steinbrenner, I am presently in a wheelchair and know that I cannot visit you at Yankee Stadium. Do you think you could visit me here at Zambarano Hospital to talk over the Yankee situation?’’
...Steinbrenner never responded, but it hardly mattered. Mike had been reborn.

Frank in 1983. Journal File Photo/Michael J.B. Kelly

...FRANK SOMETIMES accepted help to move his wheelchair, but he preferred independence. With his better foot, the right, he could manage — but he could not manage well. His best pace was barely a crawl. He could not venture far outside, since he couldn’t negotiate slopes. Rounding corners was torturous. His foot tired from pawing the floor.
...So when Louie became the first Zambarano resident to receive a motorized chair, in 1980, Frank requested one, too. That July, he got it.
...Powered-chair technology was elementary then: Frank’s model had limited range, and if recharged too long, the battery boiled over and was ruined. But these were minor shortcomings compared to the freedom that the chair gave Frank. Now he could travel inside Zambarano as fast as someone walking. Now he could roam the grounds with Louie and Mike, who got his electric wheels, too. On warm evenings, they would motor to the crest of a hill and talk baseball and women as the sun set over Wallum Lake.
...This is a blessing, Frank thought. I waited 13 years for this.

...ZAMBARANO’S BARBER began to call Frank, Louie and Mike The Three Musketeers and the name stuck. The men played to the crowd, sometimes wearing identical hats and jackets — all in red, their lucky color. As the 1980s unfolded, they made the most of their emancipation.
...They gardened and hosted barbecues. They went to the movies and watched stockcar races at Connecticut’s Thompson Speedway. They sunbathed on the beach and visited Block Island. They attended a Willie Nelson concert and Providence Bruins games. They spent Thanksgivings at Mike’s sister’s house. They celebrated at staff members’ wedding receptions. They became regulars at Lincoln Park, where Frank, wearing his lucky color, red, sometimes won a few dollars betting on the dogs. One day at a zoo, Frank lost control of his chair and careened down a slope into a tree, but he wasn’t discouraged. A scraped face was a small price to pay for liberation.
...Still, when a therapist suggested that he and his friends make their first overnight excursion, Frank hesitated.
...How would you like to go to Atlantic City? the therapist said. Donald Trump owned a casino there.
...Atlantic City? Frank said. That’s a long way from here.
...Think it over, the therapist said.
...Lying in bed that night, Frank did.
...What have I got to worry about? he concluded. The driver’s going to get us there, the chaperones will be with us. I just have to sit in my chair. Bolt me in, and away we go!

The view from Frank's room looking toward Wallum Lake. Journal photo/Mary Murphy

...INSIDE ZAMBARANO, new dramas unfolded.
...Not long after being appointed, a new nursing supervisor visited Room 17. By now, the poster collection numbered more than two dozen.
...Take them down, the supervisor told a housekeeper. They don’t belong there.
...The housekeeper refused.
...Those patients enjoy life, she said. We like them. The posters are theirs. If you want them down, you go up there and take them.
...The posters stayed.
...Having broken up with Norma, Louie found a new girlfriend: Rita M. Rei, a woman of Belgian descent who had operated a variety store before multiple sclerosis forced her to retire. In their private moments, Louie and Rita talked and watched the soap operas that she loved. They gave each other gifts: Louie pictures of himself, Rita bottles of cologne.
...Mike developed no love interests — but a belly dancer performed in Room 17 on his 50th birthday.
With Louie out of the picture, Frank became enamored of the patient who had been Louie’s girlfriend. He gave her chocolates on Valentine’s Day, and gifts for Christmas. He complimented her appearance and cheered her when she was down. He sought her opinion on matters related to patients’ welfare.
...Some Zambarano patients fell in love and married, but Frank had no such intentions. He considered himself the woman’s dear friend, no more.
...We’re all fun, he thought. I can’t see myself getting serious when I’m in a condition like this.

...IN THE SUMMER of 1985, Frank decided to realize his dream of becoming an American citizen. He wanted the right to vote.
...After studying civics, he went to Providence for an oral exam. What is the supreme law of the United States? Who was Martin Luther King Jr.? Name the two senators from Rhode Island. Name the highest part of the judiciary branch of our government.
...Frank had traveled from Wallum Lake in an old van that was hard on his fragile body. When Chief U.S. District Judge Francis J. Boyle learned about this unusually committed man, he offered to drive to Zambarano to swear him in.
...Eight days after his 57th birthday, Frank took the oath of allegiance, in which he pledged to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States. ‘‘And though he could barely grasp a pen to sign an ‘X’ to his citizenship papers, Beazley proudly vowed that he would defend his new homeland,’’ a newspaper reporter wrote.
...‘‘We welcome you to the American family,’’ Boyle said.
...The judge presented Frank with his certificate of naturalization, which he had framed for display in Room 17.

...TWO DECADES AFTER becoming paralyzed, Frank’s spirit seemed unbreakable.
...And then 1987 dawned.
...For years, Frank had endured infections caused by an obstructed urinary tract, a common condition of catheterized patients. Doctors prescribed antibiotics but they proved ineffective. Fearing that the obstruction would eventually destroy his kidneys, doctors operated twice. Frank’s fevers did not diminish. In February 1987, they operated again.
...Two months later, Frank’s condition worsened. He returned to Roger Williams Hospital, where surgeons discovered and removed a cancerous spot on his left ureter. Frank was healthy until the summer, and then his symptoms returned. His left kidney was failing. Surgery was scheduled for Aug. 28.
...As the operation neared, Frank’s mood darkened. He lost his appetite and began to refuse food. On many mornings, he would not get out of bed and on days when he made the effort, he wouldn’t socialize or go outside. When he spoke, it was in a monotone. He canceled plans by friends to host a cookout in his honor. ‘‘Fears going into hospital again,’’ a nurse wrote.
...No one could break Frank’s despondency — not the staff, not Louie nor Mike, not Janie Callahan, his best outside friend.

Janie Callahan became one of Frank's best friends. Photo courtesy of Janina Fera

...Cured of tuberculosis at Zambarano in the 1950s, Janie felt indebted to Wallum Lake. She called the hospital in 1971 looking to befriend someone who had no one, someone she might be able to cheer. An administrator introduced her to Frank, and they connected immediately. Janie hosted Frank’s first ever birthday party, brought more outsiders into his life, and encouraged him during his long rehabilitation. She prayed for him and lit candles in his name.
...You can do anything you want, she said. God is with you. He’ll watch every step of the way.
Despite a childhood spent in the control of unbending nuns, Frank had kept his belief in God. He attended Mass and prayed the rosary, finding peace visiting the Zambarano chapel with its stained glass windows and statues of Jesus and Mary. Janie reaffirmed her faith there, too, during her year as a tuberculosis patient. Frank called Janie his guardian angel. In August 1987, Janie organized a healing service for her friend, but the Lord did not intervene.
...Frank returned from his Aug. 28 operation as overwhelmed as before.
...‘‘Appetite poor,’’ a nurse wrote on Sept. 4. ‘‘Withdrawn,’’ read an entry on Sept. 10. ‘‘I’m depressed,’’ Frank told a nurse four days later.
...By now, the staff was gravely alarmed: their favorite patient, one of the fun-loving Musketeers, the trio that brightened the hospital, was not responding to encouragement or medication. Depression can destroy a chronic-care patient’s will to live. They feared they were losing Frank.
  
TOMORROW | FORKS IN THE ROAD

More photos of Frank at Zambarano from Journal photographer Mary Murphy The weekly cribbage game. Frank greets Roy Shovelton at Mass. Frank jokes with hospital employee Bill McMahon. Ann Smith adjusts Frank's bed. Getting out of bed. Frank pauses by his favorite apple tree.

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