An Evening at Joe's

by Gillian Horvath

  The ceiling was high and afforded him a pretty good view. Fifteen feet or so below him on the table lay the rather awkward and slightly overweight piece of flesh he had grudgingly come to accept as his body. It had been a private joke of many years' standing between him and his creator that when Heaven had been handing out the equipment he'd been at the back of the queue. How vulnerable he looked, he thought, without all the paraphernalia we humans use to distance ourselves from ideas of our own mortality. No glasses to make us look clever or to hide behind. No cigarette nonchalantly hanging from our lip to make us look moody or sophisticated. No expensive watch to assert our status. No beautifully tailored suit to hide the sagging buttocks or the expanding waistline. This was it... the truth laid bare in all its brutal detail. The body of a sick, middle aged man who had only ever been momentarily attractive to one woman in his life and who, after years of self-loathing, had realised he didn't want to die and who hoped it wasn't too late. And here he was, surrounded by machines that went ping and monitors that assured the world that where there was life there was hope.

  For quite a While he stared at the scene below and very slowly he was coming round to the realisation that his next trip down the staircase could happen sooner than he expected if that was what he wanted. Below him a group of seven or eight figures in pale blue gowns moved about the table, their heads covered and their faces masked, reminding him of grave robbers who had decided to cut out the middle man. The atmosphere in the room was hushed and expectant as a tall figure, similarly dressed, backed through the double swing doors, adjusting the see-through rubber gloves and flexing his long, delicate fingers. "Alright, everyone, this has been scheduled for three and a half hours but this gentleman's tumour is in a particularly tricky position and I want to be absolutely sure I don't leave any so it might take a little longer." Turning to a nurse standing by the bank of monitors he said, "Yvette, first signs of distress let me know." She nodded and continued to adjust the angle of one of the screens.

  "Robert?"

  "Yes, monsieurP" The man addressed was standing at the head of the table by three long, tubular gas canisters with pressure gauges on the top.

  "If you're happy I'd like to start.

  "Quite happy, monsieur."

  Dr. Gueritoimeme turned towards the unconscious figure on the table. An area of the chest lay naked and exposed through an opening in the green sheet that covered him.

  "Scalpel."

  His squeamishness got the better of him and, without any apparent effort other than the thought, he drifted through the wall to his left and found himself in another operating theatre. The scene was the same. The patient prone on a table beneath the halogen glare of the operating lights, the blood-spattered cover sheet, the various machines blipping out their life-affirming hospital morse. One thing was different, however. Everyone bar the sedated form on the table was laughing. They all looked towards the surgeon who was waving his scalpel around and trying to control his own laughter as he said, "And do you know why she'd never have one of these?" He gestured with his other hand somewhere in the patient's groin area as he looked at them over his half-moon glasses, eyebrows raised in expectation. "She'd never be able to find the shoes to go with the bag!" At this point he could control himself no longer. He leaned with one hand on the patient's leg and laughed uncontrollably for a few seconds together with the rest of the theatre crew.

  "I don't think that's very funny."

  He started at the sound of the voice. He'd presumed he was alone and he felt guilty, as if he'd been caught doing something naughty, like a child. The brilliance of the theatre lights made the high corners of the room near the ceiling gloomy by comparison but over the other side he could just make out the rather milky figure of a man about forty years of age. He was bald with a long, rather solemn face and slightly sad, watery eyes.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "I don't think that sort of behaviour is very professional, do you? Been round any of the other wards yet? I wouldn't bother... they all seem to be doing adenoids or hemorrhoids tonight and knowing this lot here the chances of a mix-up must be high. What are you in for?"

  "They're removing a tumour, just started actually. Didn't fancy seeing myself get cut open. Thought I'd have a look about."

  "Serious, is it? What are your chances?"

  "Fifty fifty," he said, nodding. "What are you in for?"

  "Colostomy operation. Hence the joke at my expense. Still, I'll get my own back soon."

  "What do you mean?"

  The rather morose looking spirit seemed to be grinning most horribly in the gloom of his corner. Looking at the surgeon he said, "I'm his dentist. He's booked in for a filling in two weeks' time... we shall see, we shall see."

  Some sense of urgency shivered through him and he decided he had better get back. "I'm afraid I must be going. Best of luck and all that." The other chap didn't seem to have heard him. He'd moved down to a position just above and behind the surgeon's right shoulder and was chuckling to himself and nodding vigorously.

  As he crossed back through the dividing wall he was relieved to see that all was as he had left it. The team were going about their tasks in an atmosphere of quiet concentration, Dr. Gueritoimeme talking rarely and then only in a calm and measured voice. The only other sound was the rhythmic whoosh, in and out, of the breathing equipment. A brief look at the monitors told him nothing except that they appeared to be working and he was left to presume that the unhurried air of calm was indicative that things were going as well as could be hoped.

  He descended slowly and moved about the room. He hovered to the other side of the table opposite the doctor and looked closely at him. His gaze was drawn to his face. The forehead was creased and the muscles about the eyes flickered and twitched with the enormous effort of concentration required. Sweat beaded on his forehead and once in a while he'd take a rest and having closed his eyes and taken a deep breath he'd flex his shoulder muscles and then continue. The doctor was fighting, doing his best to save his life. It was now time he did the same. All that was required to accomplish the intention of the thought appeared to be to think it. He found himself once more inside his body and after taking a long and perhaps final look at the face of the doctor hard at work, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath and began his descent towards who knew what.

  XVII

  Before him stood an imposing pair of double doors that must have been fifteen feet high. A very dim light filtered through two large glass panels covered in a tracery of rusting wrought ironwork. There was no shadow of movement beyond, although the glass was so filthy it was difficult to be sure. He put his ear to the slight gap where the doors joined in the middle... no sound but a faint whistle as of a wind playing through the corridors of an empty house. A look over his shoulder yielded nothing. There was no dim haze of light above in the distance, just blackness all around. Turning back to the door he felt for a handle but there didn't appear to be one. Undeterred he took a deep breath and pushed hard on the doors. The hinges juddered from the pressure as years of rust crumbled and the pins started to move reluctantly in their sockets and the weighty doors swung slowly open. Before him was disclosed a bare corridor illuminated by an old, unshaded lightbulb swaying in the draught and he was momentarily disconcerted.... Where was his beach? Where was the tarmac landscape? Was this it...?

  He was a little confused and it wasn't until he caught himself watching his shadow sway crazily back and forth across the corridor that the thought occurred to him. "The lightbulb's moving. So where's the draught coming from? Somewhere else of course, you idiot!" He started down the corridor and after about forty feet or so he came up against another door. This one was plain and had no glass but the sound of the wind was quite strong the other side. Apart from a corroded iron doorknob there was also a keyhole and he bent down to be greeted by a blast of concentrated air that made hot salt water stream down his cheek. Through the tears he thought he could make out the dim out-lines of another corridor b
ut also his nose was picking up the dank, musty smell of underground. Straightening up, he took a deep breath, grasped the doorknob in his hand, and pushed. The door swung open easily and he found himself in a subterranean passageway about fifteen feet across and seven feet high, the walls and ceiling of which were made of large blocks of roughly chiseled stone and which ran for about fifty feet before veering sharply to the left. He cautiously began to walk along the beaten earth floor which was hard and dry and looked for footprints or any sign at all that anyone else had been there before him but he found nothing. Turning back would achieve nothing so he decided to follow the tunnel to see where it led.

  He'd been walking for quite a while and still the tunnel yielded no hint of where it might be leading. There was no variation in its construction and, as before, no sign of previous occupancy. Every so often the tunnel would turn sharply left or right as if leading somewhere specific but then it would continue on its way, the monotony of its walls unrelieved by a door or a corridor leading off somewhere else. He was just starting to get impatient when the passageway deviated sharply to the right and there before him were a set of stone steps leading up and through the ceiling. Shafts of cold blue-white light pierced the subterranean gloom from above and picked up the swirling motes of dust in the air. At last it looked as if he had reached his journey's end.

  He went to the foot of the steps and looked up and held his breath as he beheld a dazzling silver-white moon framed against an indigo sky. After a few moments' reflection and with a heavy tread he started up the staircase, never taking his eyes off the far off stars intermittently pricking through the fabric of an inky universe.

  He found himself in an arena at the very bottom of the amphitheatre he had visited a few days ago. Seen from above, the scale of the place had been impressive, but now, down here, it was, if anything, more awe-inspiring. The tiered benches or steps glowed white under the watchful eye of the moon and seemed to stretch up and away into infinity. Here the air was still and cold and not a sound was to be heard except for the crunch of his footsteps in the sand as he walked about trying to take it all in. The stadium was completely empty and yet the place was filled with an intense atmosphere of anticipation. Something was about to happen. He could feel it. It was like a charge of electricity running through him and it was becoming unbearable. He had to do something, anything, to break the spell.

  "Hello!"

  His voice echoed around and around the arena and he waited for the echo to fade and die and then listened but all remained silent.

  This time he shouted a little louder, "Hello! Is there anybody there?"

  A cacophony of noise and jumbled up words came back to mock him and he looked about apprehensively... why had he been led here if nothing was to happen? What was the point... there had to be a point, he had felt it... that it had all meant something. Surely... and then he stopped in his tracks. All was now silence and he held his breath. The beating of his heart pounded in his ears and he stood there rooted to the spot just waiting. Nothing , . . nothing... and then, yes, there it was. From deep down inside the bowels of the arena came the sound of a deep-throated, mocking laugh.

  "Who's there?"

  Again the laughter, steady, goading, sardonic, confident.

  This wasn't at all what he had expected. Trembling with apprehension he took a few steps forward and shielded his eyes from the moonlight with his hand. At regular intervals around the stone Walls of the arena shadowy entrances from the tunnels below gaped like rotting cavities in an otherwise handsome smile.

  "Come out and show yourself... that's what we're here for isn't it?"

  An asylum of voices came at him from all directions, reverberating wave upon wave in lunatic repetition of his original words. The tide of sound eventually ebbed only to be replaced by the agonising silent wait and then the slow, assured and derisive laugh.

  Suddenly he thought he could hear music... a distant melancholy orchestral strain followed by the profoundly sad tones of a soprano. He looked around to see where it might be coming from and there behind him, perhaps fifty yards away, he saw some sort of long box resting on a couple of trestles and what looked like an old wind-up gramophone with a brass amplifying horn placed on the box at one end. Flaming torches, one at each corner, illumined the scene with a rich and flickering glow. Although cracked and slightly tinny, the sound of the old record almost seemed to add to the poignancy of the moment as his eyes feasted on the seductive and solemn beauty of the scene. The passage of time itself seemed to have been frozen as the mesmeric combination of sight and sound slowly drew him forward.

  "Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine."

  He could feel something pulling him forward, as powerful and yet unseen as the force that holds a moon and its planet in a suspension of mutual attraction.

  "... et lux perpetua luceat eis... "

  Approaching the box it was as if he was in a dream and all movement, even that of the very flames, was slow and measured. The lid of the box appeared to be in two halves, the upper half resting against one of the trestles.

  "Te decet hymnus, Deus in Sion... "

  Finally his eyes cleared the top edge of the box-side and there, covered in a pale green, blood-soaked sheet, the face covered in a perspex breathing mask, he found himself looking into his own eyes.

  "...et tibi red-det-ur...vot-um...in...J...e...r...u..." The gramophone had begun to wind down and the moment lost its hold on him and suddenly he saw the face looking back at him was laughing, the same deep-throated laugh he had heard before.

  "...s...a...l...e...m..."

  The record had ground to a halt and as the silence reasserted itself he felt an anger he had never experienced before well up inside him. He turned in one decisive movement and, grabbing the gramophone and raising it above his head, he smashed it down on the coffin before him. But there was no crash or splintering of wood, no violent shiver as the bones in his arms absorbed the shock of one solid object hitting another. Opening his eyes he beheld an empty scene. The box, the trestles, the record player, even the torches, all had disappeared and no trace of their presence remained even in the sand of the arena floor.

  He stood there for a few seconds feeling slightly foolish when he heard again the complacent, self-satisfied laugh coming from the tunnel but before he could react he was distracted by the sight of a little boy carrying a teddy bear who had emerged from the blackness of one of the shadowed entrances. He was about ten years old and seemed vaguely disorientated as he looked about him. Having come about twenty yards in from the edge of the perimeter he clutched the bear to his chest and started to cry.

  "I want my daddy back! I... want... my... daddy back!"

  He thought that perhaps the boy was lost and, genuinely moved by his distress, he walked towards him.

  "What are you doing here," he asked. "Have you lost your father?"

  The boy's face was eclipsed in shadow but his distress was all too apparent as he sobbed even louder. "Daddy! ...Daddy! Why did you die, Daddy? Why did you leave me?"

  He had started to shiver as he heard the words the boy had uttered. There was something familiar about him and it troubled him although he couldn't quite pin it down.

  "What's your name, little boy?" His words sounded so ineffectual, so impotent in the face of the grief of the child. "Perhaps I can help you? Would you like me to help you?"

  The boy didn't seem to have heard him as he continued to cry so he moved to within a few feet of him and gently tried again. "Tell me, little boy, what is the matter. Why are you crying? Come on now, look at me when I'm talking to you."

  The little boy stopped crying immediately and stood there for a moment with his head hung low. And then slowly, he raised his head and as the man looked at the face he recoiled a pace or two in absolute horror. The face that looked back at him was that of his father as he had looked in the hospital just before he died. The face leered back at him and with a rather sneering tone the words came out, "Why did you leave me,
Daddy? Was I bad? Did God make you die because I was bad?"

  The shock of the words struck him down and as he knelt on the ground he began to cry. And then came the laugh again. Looking up, he saw that the boy had disappeared but in his place stood a very elegant lady in a mink coat, swaying slightly unsteadily and smoking a cigarette in a long black holder. In her other hand she held a cocktail glass and her full red lips were twisted in an amused smile.

  "On your knees and begging for more... now that's the way I like my men! Come on, darling, where's your sense of fucking humour?" She pretended to look shocked. "Oh, pardon my French!..."

  He was still on his knees, and as the sound of her laughter broke the silence of the night, he held his arms folded tight across his chest and, rocking ever so slightly, the tears streamed down his face.

  "How's our little friend, eh? Our mutual friend, Mr. Dickens? Still finding it hard to stand up for long periods, is he? He should get out more, good for the circulation, or so I'm told." She threw her head back and laughed even louder. "Seriously, darling, where do you get your jollies nowadays?" Her eyes had a defocused look about them and she had started, ever so slightly, to slur her words. "Never been one of my problems, I must admit. Never had a problem in the 'man' department... except you, of course... you were 'in love,' weren't you, or so you once said? You wanted me to settle down and play happy families, didn't you? But I couldn't because my sodding plumbing was up the spout! The stop-cock was well and truly... stopped, wasn't it? I could not conceive. I was without fruit... barren... up the creek without a bloody paddle!... You're good with words, darling, why don't you have a go, please, be my guest.... "