by Paul Hoover
“That’s true,” Romona said, standing at the foot of the bed. “What he does at home is his business, Norm.”
“There are some serious issues at stake here, Romona. We can’t have the hospital embarrassed. I think you should know,” he said to me, “the police and others have been asking questions.”
“About what?” I said.
“About your loyalty to this country. About whether you’ve broken your agreement with the draft board. If you have acted violently in any way…”
“For Pete’s sake, Norm,” said Romona.
“All I did was attend a demonstration,” I said. “The crowd started running, and one of the cops must have hit me on the head. I wasn’t even sitting in the street yet. I was on the sidewalk.”
“We will not have the hospital brought into this,” Bolger said. “If you’re going to carry on this way, you’re going to have to go elsewhere to do it.”
“Fine,” I said.
“We’ll give you another chance, young man,” Cane said, “because it’s only fair. Besides, Mrs. Fisk has spoken up for you. Frankly, if it weren’t for her…”
“That’s enough, Norm,” said Romona.
“One more thing,” Bolger said. “There have been reports of missing drugs on the units, in quite substantial amounts. If we find that you have any involvement in their disappearance, you’ll not only lose your job, you’ll go to jail for it. Understand?” He pointed his finger at me like a smalltown district attorney, and Cane and he left the room.
“Great.”
“Don’t worry about them,” Romona said.
“Thanks for sticking up for me.”
“Take care of yourself, Jim. I’ll be in to see you now and then.”
As she was leaving, she turned to say something else; then she thought better of it and went out the door.
Dinner was an improvement over lunch. It was the soft-food diet, things yellow and white, like macaroni and cheese and tapioca pudding. Some of it came in white Styrofoam, the taste of which got into the food.
Barbara opened the door. She wore a blue dress under her tan lab coat, and she looked great.
“How’s the food?” she asked.
“Here, put your finger in this pudding. It’s way too soft.”
I grabbed her hand and tried to stick it into the food, but she was too strong.
“Some adventure you had, according to Romona.”
“It wasn’t nothin’, ma’am.”
“Cane is all cranked out of shape.”
“I know. He was just in here.”
“Ed thinks you’ve gone completely crazy, going to a demonstration.”
“That’s nice. How about climbing into bed with me?”
“Later,” she said, but I knew she wouldn’t. She was far too prim for that. It was one of the things that attracted us to each other, our essential primness.
Barbara was on duty and left to check the rest of the trays. After a while, Carlo, Penelope, Rose, and Randy came by to see me, but Carlo was dressed like an orderly and came in separately, as if being followed. Rose seemed fine. There wasn’t a scratch on him, but he mumbled more than usual, and his fascination with a green plastic water pitcher on the bedside table was approaching a trance. It appeared that someone had stepped on Randy’s face, because the curving imprint of a boot sole ran across his cheek. He said it was a footprint all right, but now Anna was jealous. She thought it meant he was fooling around. Penelope said she had managed to hobble into a doorway, and someone had pulled her inside the building. It was all very heroic and exciting, and she couldn’t wait to tell her friends in Australia. She clasped her hands together under her chin and looked at the ceiling as she talked.
Carlo said he had caught the whole thing from the roof of a nearby building. He was stationed there with a camera to record police brutality, but he hadn’t realized a long-distance lens was needed for that sort of thing. The shots from his Polaroid looked more like embroidered rugs than scenes of rioting police.
I told Carlo it was paranoid to dress up like an orderly.
It wasn’t paranoia, he insisted; it was Edgar’s old Nehru jacket. Didn’t I know shit from Shinola?
Randy said some people had been snooping around the apartment. Tough-looking guys with flashlights kept knocking on the door, asking to read the gas and electric meters. They claimed they had to walk through the apartment to get to the meters, which were in the basement. This made him suspicious.
Carlo, who talked in whispers and kept checking the windows, said Edgar had disappeared. The last time they’d seen him, he was running down the street, holding the hand of a girl they’d never seen before. They jumped into her yellow Porsche and sped away. Carlo said he slept last night at the Starr Hotel on Madison Street, the flophouse where Richard Speck was found, because someone had turned the apartment upside down. He figured it was the cops or FBI.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “How do you know the apartment wasn’t broken into by thieves? Was anything missing?”
“The TV, the stereo, and all of the weed,” he replied, scratching behind his ear. Randy and Penelope nodded, to affirm the truth of this.
“The FBI wouldn’t want all that stuff,” I said. “If they found grass, they’d have something on us, right?”
“That’s for sure,” Randy agreed.
“So why don’t you just go home,” I advised, “and report the break-in to the police? If they wanted to find you, they would have by now.”
Penelope was still worried. “I could lose my visa over this,” she said.
“I could lose my ass,” said Carlo.
“Anna is willing to take us all in,” said Randy, “under certain conditions.”
“Ain’t no way I’m submittin’ to bondage,” Carlo insisted. He explained that one evening, while visiting Anna with Randy, he woke up handcuffed to the kitchen sink. There were also teeth marks on the top of his feet.
Randy looked hurt by Carlo’s refusal, but he didn’t say anything.
“There was a new mailman today,” Rose said, “and he asked funny questions.”
“What kind of questions?”
“He asked if someone named Green lived with us, and when I said no, he asked for the names of everyone who lived in the apartment.”
I told them to stop worrying. We hadn’t done anything wrong, so they had no right to persecute us. Probably they were imagining the whole affair. This was the United States of America, and under the law we had certain protections.
They all looked at me like I’d sprung a leak.
“Well, maybe there’s some reason for concern. But they can’t put us in jail.”
“They can put my ass in jail,” said Carlo. “They do it all the time.”
The evening nurse, Sarah Mudd, came into the room with a thermometer and clipboard. This startled Carlo and he leaped behind the door.
“Who are you?” she said, looking straight at him.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“He’s a friend of mine,” I said, “and he’s on the run from the law.”
“Oh,” she said. “Well, visiting hours are over, so you’re gonna have to leave.” She threw a thumb at the door, meaning right now.
Carlo said maybe I was right. He wasn’t going to sleep at the Starr Hotel anymore. If he had to hide out, it would be in the park or something. Randy said he was going over to Anna’s now, but first he needed some pancake makeup to hide the bruises. The nurse busied herself filling the ice pitcher and taking my temperature, but I could tell she was amused by my visitors.
“OK, that’s it,” she said, shaking the thermometer, “everybody out!”
I said good-bye, and she showed them the door.
“Weird bunch of friends you have there,” she said.
I told her they came with the apartment.
“Was that a footprint on your friend’s face?” she asked.
I said it was.
“Looked like a size seven to me,” she said.
“By the way,” I asked, “where did they transfer Arnold? I never got a chance to say good-bye to him.”
“He’s in 901.”
That was a room often used for infectious cases. There was always a special laundry cart outside the door with yellow isolation gowns, disposable paper masks, and rubber gloves. Every time you went into the room, even to change a light bulb, you had to wear these things. The patients in isolation were usually depressed because they were cut off from the world. People were afraid of them. You could see the anxiety in a visitor’s eyes over the paper masks.
I asked if I could go up and see him.
“Not really,” she said. “But I won’t tell. Just don’t let Wing or Walters see you.”
She left and I found my clothes in the locker. The shirt was dirty and the knees of the pants were torn. I washed my face and straightened my hair as well as I could without a comb. In the mirror I saw a tall thin person with a headache, which was about what I’d expected. It felt funny to be standing after being in bed for a whole day. For some reason, I now walked like John Wayne, leading with one leg and dragging the other behind.
His room was near the Nine South nursing station, and all the paraphernalia was there. I put the yellow gown on backward, as you’re supposed to, and tied it behind my back. The sleeves were too short and had white elastic around the wrists. This made getting the mask on a little more difficult, because of the bind in the arms, but I managed, tying the double strings behind my head and pinching the wire in a seam so it fit snugly over the nose. The rubber gloves were the final item. I pulled two of them from the box, and they went on easily because of the talcum powder they’re dusted with at the factory.
Maxine Watson, a housekeeping aide, came by and said hello. I waved to her stiffly and muffled a reply through the mask. Then I tottered into the room like someone who’d recently landed on earth.
There was a screen beside the bed, so I couldn’t see him yet, but I could hear the pump sucking away at the incision. Someone had sprayed Glade in the room to cover an unpleasant odor.
“Hello?” I said, as if calling into a stranger’s home.
“Hello,” came the clear, bell-like reply. It sounded stronger and more cheerful than the one I’d heard earlier that day.
“It’s Jim Holder. I came upstairs to see you.”
“Oh, yes. Come on in.”
I stepped around the screen, and there he was, a white man in his thirties with a flattop haircut and very pale skin. From the neck up, he looked pretty normal, but at his shoulders an avalanche of flesh began. The protective bars were up on the sides of the bed, and his mass flowed around the chrome, nearly meeting on the other side. In order to cover him, the nurse had pinned two sheets together, but they still didn’t do the job. A drainage tube ran like an umbilical cord into a pile of dressings in the middle of his stomach. On the bedside table was a portrait of the praying Christ, in rich bad taste, with drops of blood trickling down his forehead from the gruesome thorns. In front of the crucifixion scene, two small American flags were tied together with a piece of red ribbon.
“I hope you’ll forgive my appearance,” he said. “It’s quite a mess I’ve gotten into here.”
“I’m sure you’ll be better soon,” I said.
“The doctor says I’m losing weight, which is very good,” I guess.” He seemed a little sad, like a man who was moving away from his old body and hadn’t seen the new one yet. “Perhaps they’ve told you about me.”
“Well, a little bit.”
“I don’t mind really. People have been very kind. I know what they say, of course, about eating so much from a broken heart.” There was a pause, and he said, “Have you ever had a broken heart, Jim Holder?”
“I don’t know yet,” I said, thinking about Vicki.
“You’re young,” he said, “and there’s plenty of time. Everyone has one sooner or later.”
It was one of the compelling things about him. Beneath his grotesque appearance was a stable, normal person. He made you feel at home because of it.
He glanced at the bedside table, where his snack tray, consisting of tea and a small cup of red Jell-O, remained untouched. “I’m sorry, by the way, there’s nothing decent to offer you. There’s not even a chair.”
“That’s all right,” I said, “I’ll stand.”
A smelly laundry hamper was in the room, near the door. The air was thick with presences, odors, intimations, fears, and hints of other patients who’d thrived or perished there. I began to sway, and sweat came out on my brow.
“Are you all right?” he asked, looking very concerned.
“I’ll be fine,” I said, wiping my brow with a sleeve.
“What is it, exactly, you came for?” he said politely.
“I just thought I’d pay a visit.” What could I say? I wasn’t sure myself.
“I’ve gotten used to it,” he said, trying to shift his weight in the bed and failing. “At the hotel—I’m night clerk, you see, at the Clark Hotel—people want to talk to me for hours. They think because I’m fat and ugly, I’ll tell them the truth about things.”
“You’re not ugly,” I lied.
“I’m not exactly handsome.”
A nurse from the unit walked in, her isolation gear hastily donned. It looked like Cindy Betts, from the blond hair and dark eyebrows. She was very attractive, and I’d flirted with her a couple of times.
“Oh, hi, Holder,” she said, clearly disappointed. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s a long story,” I said.
She emptied his catheter bag, but then she lingered at the foot of the bed, looking back and forth between Arnold and me.
“What is it, Cindy?” Arnold asked.
She said she had a problem. Dr. Rugero, the new resident in plastic surgery, had asked her out. He was cute, she said, and he had all the money in the world. The guy was a catch and a half, but there was only one problem—he was married.
“That’s not a problem,” said Arnold. “It’s an advantage. If he’s married, he already loves you more than his wife.”
“But I want the money, too, Arnold,” she said with great firmness.
“You should date him anyway,” he said, “provided it makes you happy.”
“You really think so?” she said.
“Sure. Do what you’ll remember doing twenty years from now.”
“Oh, good,” she bubbled, but then she gave me a guilty glance. “You won’t tell anyone about this, will you?”
I said I wouldn’t.
“He’s a wonderful person, Holder,” she said, patting me on the shoulder. As she left, I saw what a tight little stride she had, like a chihuahua.
“You see,” Arnold said. “I can solve all their problems. All I do is tell them what they want to hear.”
“I’ve got some problems right now,” I said, and told him about Cane’s response to the demonstration. He was interested in learning about conscientious objectors, because he hadn’t known they existed.
“The problem with you,” Arnold said, “is that you’re trying to be good and bad at the same time. It doesn’t usually work out. The best thing is to go to jail. Then the good and bad will be clearer in your mind.” As he spoke, he kept looking over at the bedside table, with its bleeding Jesus and American flags.
“You want me to go to jail?” I said through the paper mask. “I thought you only told people what they wanted to hear.”
“That is what you want to hear, isn’t it?” He looked at me squarely, and I couldn’t tell if he was crazy, patriotic, or full of good advice.
“Maybe you’re right,” I said. “Are you doing what will make you happy twenty years from now?”
“I won’t be alive in twenty years,” he said.
I didn’t know what to say.
“Do something for me, will you?” he asked, turning to look at the table. “Open that drawer for a minute.”
I opened it, and there were several things insi
de: a turtle shell, an ashtray from the Badlands, a 1963 calendar from the Mort Coal Company with an airbrushed photograph of President Kennedy, a small silver whistle, and a plaster of paris bust of Beethoven such as children receive for taking music lessons.
“This is quite a collection, Arnold.”
“That’s nothing. You should see my room at the hotel.”
“What do you want?” I asked.
“Give me the ashtray,” he said, waving an arm that looked like a tidal wave.
I pulled the ashtray from the drawer and Beethoven fell over, chipping off his nose. I quickly shut the drawer again, so Arnold wouldn’t see.
He balanced the ashtray on his stomach and pulled a pack of Camels from under the sheet. Deftly, he lit a cigarette and blew a perfect ring of smoke toward the ceiling. “I’ve got some thinking to do,” he said and turned on the television by touching the remote control. “Laugh-In” came onto the screen, and Arnold smiled broadly as Ruth Buzzi, as the prim old lady, smacked Arte Johnson, the dirty old man, with her umbrella.
The yellow gown made me sweaty and dizzy, and I needed some fresh air. “It’s been nice talking to you,” I said, edging toward the door, but he was too absorbed in the show to answer. As I took off the gown and threw it into the laundry hamper, I turned and looked at the painting, which had ultraviolet undertones and glowed on the bedside stand.
A couple of days later Dr. Wing signed me out of the hospital. He came into the room in a hurry and started to shoo me out.
“Go, go, you’re fine,” he said. “I’ve got to get busy here. We need this bed for a myasthenia gravis that’s coming in this afternoon.” Myasthenia is a deadly disease in which the patient loses control of all his muscles. Usually it occurs in middle-aged men, and after a while they lose the strength even to open their eyes. Finally, they’re too weak to breathe. But the disease couldn’t have gone too far, if the patient wasn’t in Intensive Care. At the last stage, they had to put you on a respirator. If you lasted out the episode, which many people did, you would be all right until the next occurrence.
I thanked Dr. Wing for his care.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, “get out of here, will you?”
This was the sort of bedside manner I liked. Don’t give me sympathy; just show me the road. I put on my clothes as fast as I could.
