Phantom

by Thomas Tessier

  "Want a glass of lemonade?" she called to her son.

  No answer. Linda put the pitcher in the refrigerator and went to the living room. The book was on the floor. Ned was lying on the sofa with one arm dangling over the edge. He fell asleep, Linda thought as she crossed the room to check him. He had lazed around the house all morning, kind of dopey and lifeless, and it seemed like it had taken him forever to finish one tuna sandwich at lunch. Linda thought Ned was still tired from his outing the day before. A day of relaxation and napping would do him good.

  She picked up the book and set it on the table. Ned's hair was shiny and soft from being washed in the shower last night. Linda stroked it and brushed it back off his face. Wait a minute. Was his forehead a little warm, or was it just her imagination? She pressed her cheek lightly to his. Yes, he was warm. At the same time, she heard his breathing. It had the regular, autonomous rhythm that came with sleep, but there was a faint, reedy note to it. Ned's lips had formed a pout and he was breathing through his teeth. Nothing necessarily wrong with that, Linda told herself, but she wondered if it was usual for Ned. Dear God, how can you raise a child for nearly ten years and not be sure how he breathes when he's sleeping?

  Linda fetched the fever strip from the medicine cabinet in the downstairs bathroom and held it to Ned's forehead. The crystals encased in plastic glowed a dull blue: ninety-nine, shading toward a hundred. A slight temperature but enough to start Linda worrying. She poured a little glass of orange juice, boosted it with vitamin drops and made Ned sit up to drink it. His eyes opened only a little.

  "Ned."

  "Mommy, I don't feel good."

  "Where does it hurt, honey?"

  "All over."

  "Is it a sharp pain or more like an aching soreness?"

  "Aches."

  "Okay, honey, you've got a wee bit of a temperature. Nothing to worry about, but I'm going to put you in bed where you can get a proper rest. Okay?"

  "Okay."

  "Can you get up? Here, I'm right here. Lean on me."

  He moved groggily, as if his bones had turned to rubber, and Linda had to help him up every step. At the top of the stairs, Ned stopped.

  "Mommy, I want to rest in your bed."

  "Sure thing."

  It was actually a good idea, Linda thought. Their room was well equipped, with an air conditioner, an air purifier, an ionizer, a humidifier and an emergency bottle of oxygen, whereas Ned's room had nothing of the kind. She helped him up onto the big bed, and then went to get his pajamas. Ned was incapable of undoing a single button. He was like a floppy doll in her arms, but she finally got him changed. His limbs were clammy, she noticed. Poor Ned. He looked so tiny and frail in the middle of the bed, with the covers tucked up under his chin. Linda went downstairs to phone Michael.

  "Ned's sick."

  "What's the matter?"

  She described what had happened.

  "Sounds like he's caught a bug," Michael said.

  "Do you think it could be something he ate yesterday—the fish they cooked? Maybe it was bad."

  "I doubt it. Those two old-timers ought to know better than anybody when fish is okay to eat and when it isn't, which ponds are safe and which are polluted. And they ate it within a couple of hours of catching it, so it couldn't have spoiled."

  "What do you think I should do?"

  "Just what you have done."

  "Should I call the doctor?"

  "If it'll make you feel better."

  Linda ignored the tone of that remark.

  "Call me back if you have any news," Michael said. "Otherwise, I'll be home at the usual time. ".

  "Try to come early, if you can."

  "Sure. Bye."

  Linda dialed Dr. Melker's number. The doctor was busy, his nurse said, and would call back. Linda made a cup of hot tea and waited. Forty minutes later the phone rang.

  "Sounds like a bug," the doctor said after listening to Linda.

  She gritted her teeth.

  "What should I do?"

  "Plenty of fluids, plenty of rest, and keep him warm. Give him some aspirin, too."

  "All right. Anything else?"

  "That mild temperature should stay where it is, or even drop. But call me if it should happen to go up."

  "I hope I won't have to bother you again, doctor."

  "That's all right, Mrs. Covington. I'll have my nurse phone you tomorrow to find out how the boy is doing."

  "Oh—doctor?"

  "Yes?"

  Now that she had Dr. Melker on the line she had very nearly forgotten to tell him about Ned's catching and eating fish the day before.

  "The symptoms you've described don't fit food poisoning," the physician said, in response to her explanation. "He'd have felt it much sooner, probably in the middle of last night. Very strong, sharp stomach pains."

  "No, he hasn't had that."

  "Okay. But he could have picked up a bug while he was out there yesterday. That's the most likely thing."

  Linda was working up quite a hatred for that word, but what the doctor said did make her feel a little better. She crushed some aspirin in a tablespoon, stirred it into another glass of juice and took it up to Ned. He fell right back onto the pillow after finishing the drink. Linda checked his temperature again; it hadn't moved. She pulled her vanity chair next to the bed and sat there, holding Ned's hand. She was still there when Michael got home a couple of hours later.

  "How is he?"

  "The same."

  "Nothing to it." Michael hung up his jacket and took off his necktie. "How are you?"

  "Okay."

  "Good. What's for supper?"

  "Make yourself a couple of sandwiches or something," Linda said. 'Tm going to stay here."

  Michael gave her one of his don't-be-silly looks, but then decided not to argue about it. He went downstairs, made a drink and sat back to watch the evening news. Later, he found some cold chicken legs in the refrigerator to munch on.

  A little before eight, Linda appeared in the living room. She looked more worried.

  "His temperature is up to a hundred and one," she said.

  "It is?"

  At last some concern, Linda thought. "He's started moaning in his sleep, tossing and turning."

  "You want to call the doctor again?"

  "I already did."

  "And?"

  "He'll be here in a few minutes."

  Michael gaped. "You're kidding. A doctor who makes house calls? I don't believe it."

  Linda nodded. "We're lucky. Small town doc."

  Lucky, yes, Michael thought, but there wouldn't be anything small about the bill, when it came. He tucked his shirt in and went to the bathroom to gargle a capful of mouthwash.

  Dr. Melker was tall and well dressed. He had a wreath of Grecian Formula hair around a shiny bald spot that looked as if it had been hot-waxed. He might have been a middle-aged insurance executive, a lawyer or an accountant, Michael thought. He didn't look the part, but he tried to be a local family doctor in a way that had passed out of fashion years ago. Perhaps that explained the reliable but somewhat doleful air the man projected. House calls—imagine! Dr. Melker spent about fifteen minutes with Ned and directed a few questions to Linda.

  "I don't think it's anything serious, but you're going to have to watch him carefully tonight. Especially the temperature. Check that every quarter of an hour or so, if you can. It's one-oh-one point six now and may rise some more. Don't be alarmed if it even reaches one-oh-three, but phone me immediately, regardless of what time it is, if the temperature edges past one-oh-four. Meanwhile, keep giving him fluids, as much as he can take, and I hope the fever will break during the night."

  "Doctor, what is it?" Linda asked.

  "The main thing is, it's not scarlet fever or rheumatic fever," the physician said. "And that's good news. As to what it is, I'd say a flu of some sort. There are so many strains going around these days, it's hard to keep up with them. With any luck, that's all it is, and he'll be over it in
a day or two, when it runs its course."

  "Aren't some flu strains very dangerous, though? Even—?"

  Dr. Melker smiled comfortingly. He had dealt with more than a few frantic mothers over the years. "Yes, but a flu is likely to be a real threat only in special cases—old folks with no one to take care of them, for instance, or persons with complicating conditions. A healthy young fellow like your son should weather it with no trouble. If the fever hasn't broken by morning we'll put him on antibiotics right away. But it may not even come to that."

  "It was good of you to come, doctor," Linda said at the door.

  "Perfectly all right, Mrs. Covington."

  To Michael, Dr. Melker's smile all but confirmed that a double-time fee would follow. Just to find out that their son "probably" had the flu. The price of small assurance—nothing you could do about it but pay.

  Dr. Melker left and Michael went downstairs to watch television. Ned, who had never woken up during the doctor's visit, was locked again in a deep sleep. Linda settled down to keep watch over her son. She was going to read, but then, on a sudden impulse, she picked up the bedside telephone and dialed Washington. Janice answered after the first ring.

  "I hope I'm interrupting something hot and heavy," Linda said.

  "Not tonight." Janice laughed. "Tonight is hair-washing and-setting night. How're you? What's new?"

  "Oh, nothing much. Ned is pretty sick, though."

  "Oh, no, what is it?"

  "Just a flu, I guess. I hope."

  "Ah, well, he'll be over it in a day or two."

  "Carry a black bag and you can get paid for saying things like that."

  They talked for almost thirty minutes, and it was the easiest, closest talk they'd had in some time. Linda felt much better, and just before they finished she said: ''I'm not going to get in to Washington in the near future, so you have to come out and see us here. You have to, that's all there is to it. Now, what I want to hear from you is: when?"

  "Okay .... Let's see ... not next Saturday, but ... how about the one after that?"

  "You're on."

  Linda smiled as she hung up the telephone. I still have a friend out there, she thought.

  Ned's temperature nudged one hundred and two, and held steady for the next few hours. Shortly before midnight Michael went upstairs again. Linda was on her seat by the side of the bed, leafing through a pile of old magazines.

  "Any change?"

  “No."

  "Want me to take over?"

  "No, that's okay. You sleep in Ned's room tonight."

  ''I'll spell you, honey, I don't mind. Get some rest."

  "You have to work in the morning. Besides, I wouldn't be able to sleep."

  "You can't stay up all night, Lin."

  "I'll catnap on and off. Anyway, the doctor said the fever might peak and start to go down."

  Michael hugged his wife. "Well .... If you get too tired and find yourself nodding off all the time, don't be afraid to wake me."

  Linda nodded.

  "I mean it," Michael said. "I can always take tomorrow off, if necessary."

  "Michael?"

  "Yes?"

  "Do you think I've been silly?"

  "No, of course not. You worry too much, but most mothers do. I'll tell you if it gets out of hand, have no fear."

  Linda forced herself to cheer up and smile. "Was there anything good on TV tonight?"

  "Mom ... 'The Battle of the Las Vegas Showgirls.'"

  "Lucky you." "Jiggle, jiggle."

  "And now you have to sleep alone in Ned's room, poor guy."

  Michael grinned.

  "I hope it's just for one night. I'll live."

  * * *

  26. Into the Night

  "We drank all the sour mash last night," Peeler said. "What'll you have—beer, or beer?"

  "Maybe I shouldn't have nothin' at all."

  "Bullticky. Here, have a beer."

  "Oh ... " Cloudy accepted the can. "Hey, you hear about what Jake Hinman went and did?"

  While Ned's father was watching "The Battle of the Las Vegas Showgirls," Peeler and Cloudy were in the baithouse. Outside, the night was still. The shed was illuminated by a single 60-watt bulb, hanging on an extension cord over the zinc workbench. Aside from the voices of the two old men, the only sound was the trickle of water in the tanks.

  "Bein' in town, you hear all the news before I do," Peeler said. "What's Jake done now-got hisself killed at last?"

  "Nope. His wife up and left him."

  "Is that all? I've only been expectin' that for twenty years or so."

  "Yeah, me too. Well, now she finally went and done it."

  "I mean," Peeler went on, "Nellie ain't no bundle of brains neither, but you always did see them bite marks on her. They don't call Jake old Nip 'n' Fuck for nothin'."

  "Wasn't his bites she minded, way I heard it," Cloudy said.

  "She got fed up with them snakes of his?"

  "Right you are. I guess he says to her one day, 'Don't you go usin' the garage no more.' And she says, 'What d'you mean, my car goes in the garage. I got to use it.' And Jake says, 'No you don't, not no more. I got some new rattlers in there. Son of a gun, he'd gone off and brung back another dozen snakes—big ones—and he just let 'em go in the garage."

  Peeler laughed and shook his head. "How many's he got now?"

  "Must be close to a hundred. He probably lost count a long time ago. They're in the cellar, the barn, under the porch, all over the place. Anyhow, Nellie, she wouldn't take no more, so she throws her stuff in the car and drives away."

  "Took her long enough."

  "She wouldn't mind, but every one of them snakes is poisonous."

  "Oh, yeah," Peeler agreed. "Copperheads, rattlers and water moccasins. You give Jake a garter snake, somethin' harmless, hell, that guy'll just throw it away."

  "Good-bye, out the door, and gone." Cloudy sipped his beer. "Took the car and all."

  "Can't blame her. He's a looney tune, like his father was."

  "Yeah, he loves them snakes. Talks to 'em all the time."

  "He'll be happy now," Peeler said. "Just him and his snakes, with no wife to get in the way or bother him any. I expect he'll let the snakes have the run of the house too."

  "A wonder he ain't got killed."

  "Oh, he's probably got so much snake bite poison in him now that it don't do no harm no more. He's immune—that's what he is."

  "Yeah, I guess," Cloudy said. "He's sure been bit enough times. You know, once I run into him outside the barber shop in town, and his hand was all red and puffed up to twice its regular size. I says, 'Oh, boy,' and Jake says, 'Yep, went and got bit again.' I asked him if he didn't have to get hisself to the hospital, and he says, 'Yeah, that's why I'm goin' to get a haircut. '"

  Peeler cackled. "Had time to get a haircut."

  "Yeah, that's right," Cloudy continued. "I says to him, 'Man, you're gonna die.' But he just looks at his watch, real calm like, and he says, 'No, I got time.”

  "Jake don't know a whole helluva lot, but I guess he sure does know his snakes."

  "That he does. I wonder what Nellie's up to."

  "Long's she don't come around here," Peeler said.

  "Oh, listen to that," Cloudy joked. "You're safe, don't you worry, boy. She ain't gonna leave one old no-good to go runnin' off to another."

  "She was handsome once," Peeler allowed.

  "Everybody was."

  "How would you know?"

  "I remember, I remember," Cloudy insisted. "I used to have me a red-hot mama when I was in New York City."

  Peeler, who was fishing another can of beer out of the cooler, raised his eyebrows in disbelief. "You ain't even never been to New York City, what're you talkin' about."

  "Sure I was. Way back when I was just outta the service."

  "Oh, Lord, we need a shovel here."

  "I don't care if you don't believe me," Cloudy said with a mock-hurt look on his face. ''I'm tellin' you, I know. Goodness me, I ought t
o know."

  "Off your rocker."

  "Hey, I was all over the country, out west, up north, down south. I had a full youth before I got stuck here and had to settle down to the quiet life."

  "The quiet life, ha." Peeler hawked a gob of spit on the dirt floor to show what he thought.

  "What was you doin' back then?"

  "Same as always—not a damn thing."

  "You shoulda had your own boat, Peeler, you know? You knew how to be a good fisherman."

  "The hell with that."

  "A good woman to take care of you. Not one of them skinny ones, but a good fat mama with plenty of meat and potatoes to keep you warm and—"

  "Oh, shut up, for Jesus' sake," Peeler said, but without anger. Then he added, "I had enough women without havin' too much of anyone of 'em, and I don't reckon you can do better than that."

  "You mean nobody never put a ring through your nose."

  "Damn right."

  They drank some more and talked on. Later, about the time Michael Covington was going upstairs to sleep in his son's room, the two old men went outside for a breath of fresh air. The night sky was dark and featureless.

  "Overcast," Peeler observed. "Maybe we'll get some rain."

  "There's a hurricane down south. They say it's comin' up the coast, this way."

  "Could be, this is the season for 'em and we ain't had one yet this year."

  "But it could blowout to sea before it gets here. I hope it does that. We don't need no hurricane. The one in 'Fifty-five was bad enough."

  "Real quiet out, ain't it?"

  "Bugs' night off, I guess," Cloudy said.

  They sat down on the front end of the old Studebaker.

  "You ever know Snuffy Hagstrom?"

  "Snuffy Hagstrom." Cloudy gave the name some thought. "No, I don't believe I ever did."

  "Now there was a real funny bird. He used to sing all the time."

  "Lotsa folks do."

  "No, no," Peeler said. "I mean he used to sing all the time. You ask him how he was, he'd answer you by singing—I'm very well today, I wouldn't have it any other way—just like that:'