Fire & Water

by Betsy Graziani Fasbinder

  “The meat locker? It’s all right. I like working with the dead. They so seldom piss me off.” A sideways smile crossed her lips and her eyebrows twitched. “Let’s go outside. I need a smoke.”

  * * *

  The noon sun shone brilliant on Bryant Street. The sidewalk was littered with fast-food wrappers, broken bottles, and the occasional used condom. Bus exhaust and sewer fumes filled the air. Mary K lit her cigarette and twisted her mouth to blow the smoke away from me—a courtesy my pregnancy invited. A dirt-crusted woman with matted hair, wearing layers of coats, pushed a shopping cart filled with unidentifiable items, all separately wrapped in white plastic bags.

  “Hey, Irene. I got you some smokes,” Mary K said, holding a pack of Marlboros out to the timid woman. She snatched them from Mary K’s hand and shuffled away. “You’re welcome, Irene.”

  “How do you know her name?”

  “On her good days, she talks.” Mary K took another drag from her cigarette. “I was impressed in there. You haven’t gone soft, Murphy. Hardly flinched when you saw the filleted corpse and the bucket of viscera at the end of the table.”

  “If this was my first trimester, you’d have seen some of my viscera right beside it.”

  “Wow, I can’t believe how, you know, how pregnant you are.”

  I looked down at my expanded form. “I’m a Clydesdale.”

  “I didn’t say you were big enough to eat hay and shit in the streets. You’re what, twenty-eight weeks?”

  I nodded. “I can’t even stop to think about how huge I’ll be when I’m full-term. But tell me the full story on your leg.”

  “Neuropathy. Can’t feel the bottom of my foot enough to know where I’m stepping. Cane is more spectacle than I’d like, but better than falling on my face. But this is boring. What brings you down here?”

  I’d rehearsed all morning. Even at the risk of the world’s largest I-told-you-so, I needed to confide in someone. Burt came to mind first, but he was out of the country, scouting new sites for Jake’s installations. I gnawed on the one fingernail that remained long enough to grasp with my teeth. “What,” I said, “I can’t just drop in on an old friend and make her buy me lunch?” I couldn’t believe the small talk that was coming out of my mouth when I had such big things to say.

  We walked to a corner deli and sat at a sidewalk table. We chatted about work, the new puppy Mary K was considering adopting, my pregnancy symptoms—all chitchat. While Mary K joked about the scrotal piercings and anal tattoos of her patients and the gallows-humored antics of her pathology colleagues, I fashioned my face into a smile but rehearsed what I was going to say. You were right. Jake really is sicker than I thought. He’s in a psychiatric ward at General and I don’t know what to do. But even as I turned the words over in my head, a putrid cocktail of shame and pride halted their arrival to my lips.

  “I know you’re supposed to be glowing and all being pregnant, but you sort of look like shit.”

  “Thanks a lot. I didn’t get a lot of sleep.”

  “Baby’s good though, right?”

  “Baby’s perfect,” I sighed, comforting myself.

  “I’m glad you came. I’ve been trying to muster up the courage to talk to you about something.” Mary K poked at the remnants of her salad with her fork. “I need to ask you a big favor. If you can’t, it’s cool. I can make other arrangements.”

  I could not remember Mary K ever overtly asking for a favor. She took a long drag off of her cigarette. She squinted and cast her gaze across the street, where Irene had now reappeared with her shopping cart. “It’s this fucking foot thing. Neuropathy is only part of the problem. Looks like I’m going to need some surgery. I was wondering if you could bring me home from the hospital and stay at my place for a few days while I recover. If you’re not feeling too pregnant. No physical labor, just supervision. ”

  “Surgery? What kind of surgery?” I felt the sinking feeling of knowing what I’d rather not know. Mary K had been hiding big issues with small talk, too. Her diabetes had always been aggressive and unpredictable. Despite a near-perfect diet, an ideal weight, plenty of exercise, and strict adherence to her insulin program, her disease had always outwitted her.

  She gave me a quick glance. “Wipe off the pity puss, Murphy. Jesus, that face could make somebody feel like she’s dying. It’s just my foot. That’s all they’re taking.”

  I straightened my face into my best clinical, neutral expression. “You’ve gotten a second opinion?”

  “And a third, and a fourth. I kept trying to get an opinion I liked, but they were all the same. It’s been gangrenous twice and it’s about to get there again. The devil I’m bargaining with seems to deal only in extremities. If I want to stay alive, I have to give up the foot. Period. End of story.”

  All of this had taken place during my whirlwind with Jake. Between work, Jake, and getting ready for the baby, I’d been unaware that her health had slipped. Countless rounds of antibiotics hadn’t touched the infection. She could no longer feel any of the toes on her left foot and she ran frequent fevers.

  “The hope is that they’ll be able to remove just the ball of the foot, or even just the toes, so that I can have a modified walk without crutches.”

  “It’s not fair.”

  “Diabetes is a heartless motherfucker. I just decided yesterday to go through with it. Surgery is tomorrow. I came in today to dot the i’s and cross the t’s on Mr. Wilson. Tried to get myself to call you all week, but here you are.”

  Visions of Mary K running on the Stanford soccer field and tossing a Frisbee to Ben Casey flashed through my mind. “Who’s your surgeon?”

  “John Marshall.”

  “He’s the best,” I said.

  “I was going to ask if I could stay at your house, but I’d really rather be at our place. Usually I’d have to stay in the big house for at least a week. Marshall said he’d let me go home sooner when I said I might be able to have you stay with me, especially because the place is ninety seconds from the door to the ER. I’ll be in the hospital a couple of days. I can hire a nurse during the day, but I’d rather not have a stranger sleeping there, you know? You can have your old room. And if you want, Bloom could come, too.”

  The thought of where Jake was sleeping made my stomach turn over. “No, I can come. Sounds like you need more than a few days.”

  “It’ll be all I can stand of your mother-henning. As soon as I can get back and forth to the can I’m kicking you out. Got it?”

  “Does your family know?”

  “I’ll tell them about it after.”

  I nodded, knowing that Mary K’s pride wouldn’t let her contact the family that had virtually disowned her.

  “I decided to start my maternity leave early. You’re looking at someone gainfully unemployed for the moment,” I said. “Cancel the day nurse. I can just stay at your place. I can lie around there as easily as anywhere.”

  “No way. Bloom would hate me even more than he already does for taking you away fulltime.”

  “Jake doesn’t hate you.” I considered the opening, but took a sip of my iced tea and swirled the ice around in circles with the straw instead. “He’s going to be away for awhile. I was a little nervous about staying in that big house alone anyway, so the timing is perfect.” This was just the first of the half-truths I would tell about Jake.

  The crinkles around her eyes smoothed. “You’re a pal. I promise not to be a pain in the ass. Bring a buttload of videos so you can stay off that knee. But none of those arty flicks rich with symbolism.”

  “Car chases and fart comedies. Got it. But I’m not so optimistic about you not being a pain in the ass unless UC’s transplant crew has started doing personality transplants.”

  A wide grin crossed Mary K’s lips. “Fuck you, Murphy. Fuck you very much.”

  The rattling noise of Irene’s shopping cart reached us as she crossed the street toward our table. The stench of stale urine, alcohol, and body odor preceded Irene’s arrival.
Mary K held up a brown paper bag. “Here’s your sandwich, Irene,” she said in a hushed voice. “I’m going to be gone for a while, so I gave Salvador inside some money. He’ll give you two sandwiches each day, and a pack of cigs, and coffee every morning while I’m gone. All paid for. All you’ve got to do is knock on the back door. Got it?”

  The leather-faced woman nodded, but did not take the bag from Mary K’s hand. Only when Mary K set it down on the table did Irene snatch it. Then she turned away, shuffling as she pushed her cart.

  “You’re welcome, Irene. Every day, now. Don’t forget. When I get back, you’ll fill me in on all the neighborhood gossip, right?”

  Mary K looked back toward me. “Wipe the grin off your face, will you?”

  “You’re a lot nicer than most people know.”

  “Shut up, Murphy. Just finish your sandwich. I’ve got to go in and close up Mr. Wilson before the funeral home comes and your farting around with that club sandwich is going to make me late.”

  “I love you, you know that, right?”

  “Don’t get all gushy on me. I’ve got a date with a stiff.”

  * * *

  My knee shot with pain each time I pressed in the clutch on the old Bug, so I decided I’d leave it at home and take cabs between San Francisco General, where Jake was hospitalized, and UCSF, where Mary K was staying. For the first time, the new car Tully’d been trying to talk me into getting started to sound pretty good. I slept—or tried to—in my old room in the flat that Mary K and I had shared. I spent my days going back and forth between UCSF and General and my nights with sleep eluding me.

  When I pressed the button for the seventh floor in the elevator at General, I sensed the gaze of the nurses next to me. In most buildings, the top floor is the penthouse, reserved for the most prestigious of guests. At General, it’s the locked psychiatric unit. Dread settled upon me. All night and all morning I’d feared they would not let me see Jake. But now the idea of seeing him made me nauseous and weak. The father of my child was now someone I feared. When the elevator doors opened, I threw my shoulders back, picked up my chin, and walked straight to the counter. I spoke through the hole in the Plexiglas wall. “I’m here to see Jake Bloom.”

  After signing forms promising that I wasn’t carrying any sharp objects, matches, weapons, or medications, and surrendering my bag for a search, the receptionist instructed me to wait for an escort to Jake’s room. I waited on a shiny, blue, plastic couch that seemed more like a bathroom fixture than a piece of furniture.

  The limp-faced stares of patients meandering around me set me on edge. Some wore hospital gowns with loose-hanging robes. One man murmured to himself. A waifish blonde wore bright white gauze around her wrists.

  A nurse escorted me to Jake’s room. He was small and frail in his bed. The cold fluorescent lights gave his skin a jaundiced pallor. He appeared to be sleeping.

  The nurse told me he’d been given Haldal at admission, and at first it had had no effect. With a second dose, the delusions and paranoia had subsided just enough that he’d become enraged at where he’d been taken. A heavy dose of Klonapin had made his speech thick and his movements sluggish, but had succeeded in calming him.

  I eased onto the side of his bed. His eyes blinked lazily. When he saw me, pools formed along his lower eyelids. “Oh God, Kat. Did I hurt you?” His voice was hoarse. I couldn’t speak.

  “Did I hurt you?” His remorse-filled eyes pleaded with me. “The baby. Is she okay? God. Please tell me she’s okay.”

  I combed his thick curls with my fingers. This was my Jake—my tender lover, my playmate, my friend. This was the man who tasted every kind of leaf in the baby garden making sure none were too spicy for a tender tongue.

  “She’s fine. We’re both fine.”

  He pulled me toward him, his face resting in the crook of my neck. “Forgive me, Kat. Forgive me. I was just so— I just had these ideas in my mind and I couldn’t—”

  “Shh. It’s all right now. It’s over.”

  He melted into agonized sobs.

  As Jake wept, his body jerked in deep spasms while his hands clung, claw-like, to the sleeves of my sweater. I looked up in desperation at the nurse who’d accompanied me into his room.

  “You all right, Mr. Bloom?” she asked.

  Jake kept sobbing.

  She made a notation in his chart and changed an IV bag that hung above his head. She whispered, “Give him a little while. It’s all just sinking in for him.”

  I wondered how long it would take for it all to sink in for me. When the nurse left the room, I felt overexposed and vulnerable.

  Jake finally calmed, I assumed because of whatever was in the IV bag. Even through the fog of medication, his begging continued. “Take me home, Kat. Take me out of here. This place is for crazy people. I can’t stand the sounds I hear through the walls. I want to crawl into our bed and hold you. Everything makes sense when you’re holding me.”

  “We need to get you strong.”

  “Anything. Just get me out of here.”

  The last of Jake’s words were sluggish. I could see him fighting to keep his eyelids open. Soon the hold he had around me wilted and he withered back into the mattress. I watched the fluttery movement of his eyes under his closed eyelids. I pulled away and leaned over him, kissing his forehead, then slipped out of his room.

  * * *

  Back at UCSF, I listened to Mary K’s soft snoring. She’d been in recovery for a couple of hours. I’d already read the hospital’s outdated magazines, as well as the book I’d brought on breastfeeding and sleeping tips for parents of newborns. My mind was a constant hum. I turned the pages of my book, but didn’t remember anything I’d read. Mary K stirred and moaned. She whispered a raspy request for a drink.

  “Only a sip.” I raised a cup with a bent straw to her dry lips.

  She swallowed. “All of it?” she whispered without opening her eyes.

  “No, just a sip.”

  “All of the foot, Murphy.” Her eyes were slits.

  I nodded. “Yes. And your shin. They saved your knee, though. Andra says it’ll make fitting a prosthesis much easier.”

  “Damn,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “Littleton knows about all of this?”

  “Hospital grapevine. She came to see you earlier, but you were still asleep.”

  Mary K turned her face to the wall. “Let me be alone for a while, Murphy.”

  “But—”

  “I won’t get all morose on you after this. But I’ve got to have a little while, can you give me that?”

  I kissed her forehead. “Sure. I’ll come back later.”

  “Tomorrow,” she said without turning toward me. “Come back tomorrow to take me home. I don’t want to stay here.” Her shoulder rose and fell with a deep sigh. “Being a patient blows.”

  * * *

  “But I’m ready to come home right now,” Jake said, looking out the window of his hospital room. “I don’t belong here. Kat. The people in here are crazy. One guy is convinced he killed Judy Garland. One woman thinks she’s Queen Victoria and eats her own shit. Surely you don’t think that I’m—”

  “No, Jake, no.”

  “Well they do. They can’t keep me against my will. It’s not like I’m going to go spray a McDonald’s full of bullets or something. I broke a few fucking windows. Windows in my own house!”

  The pounding in my chest startled me; the baby rolled in response to what must have been a surge of adrenaline. For two days, Jake had been so calm, so himself, but the doctor’s suggestion that he stay another two weeks had revealed shadows of the feral creature within. Between Mary K and Jake both busting for a premature discharge, I felt like screaming. But Mary K’s discharge didn’t fill me with dread.

  Suddenly, he put both hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes. “Please don’t tell me you think I’m one of these people.”

  I looked down, thinking about the janitor who’d been cleaning smeared feces from the wall when I
came in that afternoon. Surely Jake, the multilingual, world-recognized artist—the man who’d wooed Japanese officials and charmed my family, the father of my child—could not belong with these people.

  “No, of course not. But you’re not well enough to come home.”

  He clutched my arm and brought his face up close to mine. “I’m me again. We’re going to be fine. I just let myself get too run down. I lost track of you. You’re my touchstone.”

  Running between the two hospitals, I’d not mentioned Mary K’s surgery to Jake, and my initial intention of confiding in Mary K about Jake seemed pointless in light of what she was going through. I’d spent the past days trying not to look at the vacant spot at the end of Mary K’s left leg and enduring her snapping at me if I inquired how she was feeling. She accepted little help and had threatened to kick me out, as she’d promised, but she also seemed glad I was there. I had been with Jake during visiting hours. Each night it grew harder to leave him behind. As Jake returned to his former self, I’d begun to feel a softening of the hard stone that had been lodged in my chest. But now Jake was frightened me all over again.

  I pressed my palm against my belly, feeling what I thought was a knee or an elbow as it traveled across my abdomen. Jake knelt by where I sat and pressed his cheek against me. The baby instantly calmed and focused her bubbly movements to where Jake’s cheek rested.

  “It’s okay, Ryan,” Jake said. “I promise I’ll be a good daddy.”

  * * *

  My body had become a timepiece, a countdown for the arrival of a monumental change in my life. Sharing this baby with Jake had once seemed like the happiest possibility I’d ever known, but now the idea of my baby being born struck terror in my heart.

  In all the hours of sitting with Mary K while she recovered, watching movies and eating meals, I’d formed the thoughts in my mind a dozen times. But any time I tried to confide in her, a dry and brittle crust formed over the words and they lodged in my throat. I told myself it was because of her health—the time just wasn’t right—but in truth, I knew that Mary K would only tell me that Jake was crazy and that I should get out.

  I went to Murphy’s Pub, thinking I’d talk to my family. But once I got there, my loved ones swarmed me with hugs and pats to my growing belly. Alice had crocheted booties. Dad was building a rocking horse that Tully would paint in circus colors. Dr. Schwartz grew wistful and reminisced about when I was little. Days passed, and still I couldn’t tell them about Jake’s condition.