by Peter Manus
Anyway, this unpleasantness is just one small pimple on the acne-ravaged ass that is to be my day. I get a phone call at around 9:15 from my mother. My mother—to whom I haven’t spoken in, oh, what’s it been—some four years? How she even knows where I work, I couldn’t guess. I don’t bother asking, either. Bit weird, the way I recognize her voice immediately. I mean, she sounds like a holy wreck of her former holy wreck of a self. Still, she manages to bleat out her message without meandering through meaningless preliminaries about how I am or how she is or how a fucking tornado should have ripped our old house out by the roots and slammed it down in smithereens but somehow forgot.
It’s my brother, dickel. He’s in a hospital out in the western part of the state. His back is broken. His nose is broken. His foot’s broken. He’s hypothermic and has been unconscious for days. Anyway, if I’d like to see him, he has some time on his hands.
Noah drives, competently and calmly considering his phobia about driving into a snowstorm. We talk about him, his recent breakup with this waiter, his teenage attraction to some of the lobster boat guys in the nowhere town in Maine where he grew up and that being how he figured out both that he was hopelessly horny for man flesh and had better either locate the other underground gayboys up Downeast or get his freak ass out of town forever. Hence college, which is always good to have done, whatever the motivation. Then Boston, the little towner’s big city. And next, oh, who knows? One thing about self-banishment; there’s a ripe lot of freedom that comes with that hellish loneliness that clings like a numbing ether to your otherwise shredded sense of self-worth.
We talk about Dame Judith, who was icy but not unreasonable about my (and Noah’s) needing to leave immediately after my mother’s call. Must have been quite a job for her to contain the gloat trying to burst through her scotch-ravaged face about how she’s actually turned out right for once in her pathetic career. I wouldn’t, in fact, be able to finish my accountings of the week prior, so she would, in fact, need to step in and do them for me. It’s kind of kicky when those little shopworn morality lectures actually come true. Tee-hee. To her credit, though, she choked it back, along with any immediate plans to slingshot my ass to the unemployment line. Guess that’ll wait until after dickel’s off the critical list.
We get to the hospital around midafternoon, lost twice but not in a big way. Not sure the place actually merits the word hospital rather than clinic or, I don’t know, flophouse with pharmaceuticals—we’re talking a very local doc shop up a side street in a very local town, a mill town looking for its mill, you might say. Smokestacks, fast food joints, rocky hills strewn with mangy-looking pines, massive women everywhere, lumbering along the sidewalks in front-zipped galoshes through the soot-blackened slush, dragging gaggles of bedraggled children behind them.
My mother’s in the waiting area of the emergency room, which is undergoing renovation. The renovation looks like it ground to a tired halt just in time to leave everyone sitting in plastic chairs on cement floors and the receiving nurses—with their requisite fat rumps—moody as hell behind their schoolteacher desks with the phone lines duct-taped along the walls. Mother’s had her colorless hair crimped into one of those tire-track perms and has managed to find herself the ugliest plastic-rimmed glasses and knockoff camel-hair coat this side of the northern border. How the woman has managed to develop age spots on both throat and hands at age fifty-something is just another of her beauty secrets. She’s reading Stephen King’s Face-Eater. From the number of dog-ears, I’d guess it’s her third time through it.
Me: Mother. Why are you here? Don’t they have a waiting area on whatever floor he’s on?
Mom: (folding her book over her finger. She isn’t surprised by my lack of greeting—she’s not the gushy type, either. Still, I see her assessing my “look” as she folds her glasses. Her eyes jump to Noah, who is handsome and nicely dressed, as always; she sees him for what he is and ignores him, although not disdainfully. I’ll give her that—the woman learned enough in life to never disdain another human being for what their sex drive might compel them to do. She talks in her usual flat French Canadian accent—gawd, you would have thought that over all these years she’d have lost those bloody nasal vowels.) This is Emergency. He’s in Emergency.
Me: They’re doing long-term care in the emergency ward now?
Mom: (her eye glints for a moment—she’d like to see me try to have it out with the staff—oh, yes, she’d like to see that) He’s got a bed and an IV and he’s not stuck along the corridor like some people who have no insurance. Anyway, he’s not needing much privacy as of yet.
Me: I’ll see for myself.
I go to one of the receiving nurses, who’s on the phone. She takes me in and flops a paw over the receiver, a kneejerk reaction to the out-of-town type. Likewise the bulgy-armed orderly standing by her manages to run an eye over me and look reasonably attentive. When I ask to see dickel and they figure out who I am, all that changes. Nursey slips the orderly a superior look as she goes back to her call. He, playing it straight, steps out to lead me. God I hate small towns. Why my mother hangs out there, waiting for senility to happen along, why she doesn’t escape back to Canada, is something I’d ask her…but whatever. The answer is too complicated, too dreadful for either one of us to articulate.
dickel is down in a little side alcove behind a half-drawn bed curtain. I turn my head and signal for Noah to follow me just before rounding the corner, mostly to save him from having to small-talk with my mother, but once I see my brother I’m glad to have a hand to squeeze.
dickel’s head is in some circular brace that looks like it’s screwed into each side of his forehead, directly into his skull—this seems impossible, in this day and age, but that’s what I see—and then attached to his body below via some sort of shoulder harness. He’s got a massy bandage over his nose and the tape holding that in place covers a lot of his face. They could have done it neater, but it’s not too caked with blood where it touches his nostrils, so at least they’re changing it from time to time. Both his eyes are black and swollen to the point where I doubt he could crack them if he were conscious. There’s a tube up his nose and one latched into the corner of his mouth, both taped to his face. He’s got on one of those meager hospital gowns, so most of his torso is covered, but his arms rest along his sides, young and muscular. His hands, although his nails are bluish and blood-rimmed and two fingers on his right hand are splinted together, manage to look strong, their veins bulging. He’s got a folded sheet draped over him from waist to knee, and below that his bare legs and feet are also bluish and bruised, his one foot in a splint, the other splayed, its sole black.
At some point I’m offered a seat. I ignore it. At some point Noah retracts his hand and steps away. I ignore that, too. At some point a doctor steps in to do some cursory checks on dickel’s IV levels and the machine attached to some tube that’s coming out of his side that I see only when the doctor folds back the blanket.
Me: What’s that tube?
Doc: (glancing over. He’s youngish, thick-lipped, grumpy, from the look of him. But I’m young and my tits don’t rest on my stomach, which seems to cheer him up a skosh.) It’s not as bad as it looks. He’s had organ damage. Draining it is the quickest way to help it heal.
Me: (gesturing up at the neck brace) He’ll walk?
Doc: (carefully casual) Are you the wife?
Me: Sister. (I don’t smile or offer a hand. I’m not there to mingle.)
Doc: (smiles briefly) Oh, yes, now I remember. The twin.
Me: (for a moment I’m utterly shocked that he would say that—I mean, in that tone, and under these circumstances…then I realize that he doesn’t know jack and is just being pleasant. Still, I have nothing in me that would allow me to push forth even the smallest smile.) Will he walk?
Doc: He has every reasonable chance of recovering from his back injury. A small bone in his spine was fractured but these tend to self-fuse over time. (He gestures to dickel’s feet.
) To tell you the truth, his bigger problem is his feet.
Me: (reluctant to leave this broken spine detail alone, but alarmed enough to blow by it for the moment) What’s wrong with his feet?
Doc: Your brother was discovered wandering half-dressed at 3 a.m. along the shoulder of—
Me: (my voice sterile) I didn’t ask how it happened, doctor.
Doc: (obviously ticked at having been interrupted, like every prick who graduates med school) Well, I think it’s useful to understand his condition in terms of—
Me: Not how. Not why. I just want to know what his condition is. Can you stick to that? It’ll get you on to other patients more quickly.
Doc: (slowly, studying me. He has intelligent blue eyes with pretty eyelids, incongruous on a short, unattractive man given to pudginess.) Certainly. He’s had severe frostbite to both soles. This foot (he points at the one with the splint) is highly likely to recover, meaning he’ll have pain but he’ll keep it. This foot (he points at the other) he may lose.
Me: (refusing to look down at the foot) So why does he still have it? Is it infected? Could it kill him to keep it? Are you waiting for someone to show up with a checkbook? Because my lawyer is, well, he’s known as the Rottweiler in Boston.
Doc: (nodding patiently, only the sneer at the corner of his lips hinting that he finds the threat unpleasant) If he’s a quick healer, which he shows every sign of being, it could save him his foot. It’s not a great risk to hold out, and there are always risks involved in removing any limb. (He pauses, then decides to do a little self promoting.) Once we take a patient and begin treatment, you know, the checkbook issues are no longer in play.
Me: (a little surprised at that speech, which I assume is patently untrue. I check his hand, like proudblacktrannie taught me to. No ring. Hmmm. Looks like dickel’s going to receive something in the way of care after all. I nod like I’m being calmed by what I’m hearing, and try to force a smile.) He could get by with one foot, you know. A man loses two feet, he’s stuck in a chair. But one foot—that’s just a cane. If you have to take the foot, do it. (In spite of my efforts, my tone gets sharp again.) Just chop it off if that’s what it takes.
Doc: (blinks at me like I’m nuts, then seems about to speak)
Me: Look, spare me your countryfolk morality. It’s important that he lives. I’m just trying to make that clear. (We both look down to see that one of my hands has reached out to hover above dickel’s foot—the dangerous one with the black sole. My fingers are trembling. I quickly clench the hand into a fist and try to speak, but my voice comes out a harsh whisper.) Just be clear on that. Running around on two feet like every other useless lowlife is not essential to his happiness. Having him alive is essential to mine.
Doc: It’s very clear. (There’s something in his tone—I look up sharply but his face is as bland as before. I nod at him to say that he’s spent enough time with me. Dismissed, he heads off.)
I look around, then close the curtain around dickel and myself, scrape the plastic chair closer to the bed, and sit with my arm resting across his waist. His hair is growing out from the shave job he gives it—such sweet white-blond hair, just as I remember it from when we were kids—I plan to tease him about how pretty he’s getting while he’s still convalescing and can’t go skinhead yet. Later I push my fingers up under his hospital gown and gently tickle his stomach, running my nails over the tattoos, teasing the edges of his belly button. He’s always been sensitive about his belly button—won’t let anyone touch it. I swear, even unconscious he feels me teasing him and almost smiles. Later, a nurse comes by, shoving the curtain way back—why the hell do they feel compelled to expose every patient in every way possible?—and runs through the usual useless check of vitals. Don’t want any corpses lying around sucking down those precious pain drugs any longer than necessary. She gives me a black look when she sees where my hand is, but she keeps her ugly mouth closed. What a laugh this town hands me.
Eventually I get to feeling guilty about Noah. I gather myself up, kiss dickel on the tummy—can’t get near his face—and notice something odd; there are a series of scratches peeking out from under the sheet that lies folded across his middle area. The scratches look relatively fresh, their edges white and puckered. They sit a few inches below the tattoo line, which bottoms out with a depiction of a seminude woman lying languidly on the roof what looks like a circus train. I squint at the scrapes, which look random, but then again don’t. Without thinking, I push the sheet out of the way. I see the hollows on either side of dickel’s loins. The scratches grow and suddenly there’s a horizontal slash, then another. They’re letters. Chilled, I flip back the sheet. The scratches spell out “full_frontal/title/tt0166924” upside down, half in his sparse pubic hair and half slashed into the base of his tummy. I stare at the crude letters, then flip the sheet over them and walk away.
I’m a little past amazement at the moment, otherwise I cannot tell you how I’d react to seeing Burly-Bear, standing there opposite my mother, talking.
I walk forward, past the nurse-receptionist, and they both notice me at once. I have no idea how my mother’s face looks—her bland, shrewd eyes never did give anything away anyway, so never were worth checking out to read a situation. Burly-Bear’s face is the opposite: I see relief there, a spark of genuine happiness at seeing me, maybe something stronger, some surge of…affection. Mostly, though, there’s guilt. Guilt’s one of those emotions that stomps all the rest of them right out of your face, if you’re the foolish type who suffers from it.
Me: (politely enough) What are you doing here?
Burly-Bear: I heard. How is he?
Me: You heard? You mean you called his parole officer to make sure he’d checked in, and he told you?
Burly-Bear: She. (I look at him sharply but it’s clear that the correction was automatic and not a wink at my kneejerk sexism.) Yes, I did call her. Part of doing my job. He okay?
Me: (Looking past him at the glass doors. It’s still snowing, but the flakes are leafy, floating lazily about. It’s night, or evening at least.) Not yet, but he will be. Where’s Noah. (I don’t ask it, because I know.)
Burly-Bear: He left. I offered to drive you back.
Me: (Okay, so that’s what he was guilty about—rearranging my ride in a way I might not like. I’m relieved.) Well, let’s go. (I don’t bother looking at my mother when I speak to her.) I’ll call the hospital to see how he’s doing. No need for you to be calling me.
She babbles something about her phone bill and her fixed income or some tripe, maybe to save face—in front of whom, I could ask with a laugh, but why be needlessly cruel?
Burly-Bear and I drive quietly most of the way. I’m grateful for the constant snow-splatter that swoops through the headlights and against the windshield, where it’s wiped away for the next splatter. Something to get mesmerized by, like staring into a screensaver. At one point, early on, I spontaneously ask him whether he’s hitman. He doesn’t seem to understand what I mean, but I can’t tell if he’s acting. He tries to press me on it, get me talking, but I shrug him off.
It’s only when he’s about to exit the highway that he has the guts to clear his throat.
Burly-Bear: You know that I sent your brother back because I had to. Once we discover someone’s broken parole, we can’t ignore it.
Me: I also know that you discovered he was my brother by looking into my background.
Burly-Bear: (driving through the toll station without pausing) Also part of the job. You realize that, don’t you?
Me: No. (I relent a little.) Maybe. I’m defensive about my family. Obviously you know why.
Burly-Bear: What’s the line about all happy families? Some Russian writer?
Me: (eyeing him sharply) All happy families are actually unhappy, and each unhappy family is utterly fucked up in its own sick and perverted way. Leo Tolstoy.
He doesn’t answer and we sit for a while. Then I change the subject.
Me: The other witness who say
s I shoved Stephen Pearle in front of the train.
Burly-Bear: (he’s opened his window partway to see through the falling snow, and his breath comes out in puffs that drift toward me as he answers) Uh-huh?
Me: You know who I mean: the deranged homeless woman who lives in the Hynes station.
Burly-Bear: (pauses—my guess is it’s strictly against protocol to reveal a witness’s identity)
Me: So has her gibberish dissolved into something too hopeless to rely on, or is it something else? Could she be missing?
Burly-Bear: (glances at me, then returns his eyes to the road. I hadn’t quite noticed how small Burly-Bear’s eyes are until this moment—small, clear, intelligent, with a sort of animal quality to them. His neck, I notice, is more an extension of his head than a separate part of his anatomy. Most cops I’ve met have these weird, almost savage characteristics to their physique.) Do you know something I should know?
Me: Your partner came by looking to mess with my head this morning. Something about the conversation—I can’t quite put my finger on what—gave me the idea that your original reason for sniffing round my life, flimsy as it might have been, is now gone completely. So you’re swinging from vine to vine: from some pathetic drunk’s ranting, to the letter “E” in a diary, and on from that to a tragic incident from my childhood that…bears some vague resemblance to this one. I mean, that’s where we’re at now, isn’t it?
Burly-Bear: (wheeling the car into the side streets of my neighborhood) Your father’s death helps explain why you had the reaction you did to Pearle’s death.
Me: (I laugh, surprised) Seeing the man’s face sliced off wasn’t enough to explain my going into temporary shock? Come on, Sergeant—what are most people made of?
Burly-Bear: (pulling up in front of my place—thank God for that trusty hydrant) You confessed, in the subway station. You said that it was your fault. You kept saying it, in fact. Then you switched over to talking about how he pushed by you and jumped, and we couldn’t get you to return to the subject of how the death was your fault.
