Alice & Oliver

by Charles Bock

  Putting the envelope on the small bedside table, he turned to her, expectant, experienced enough now to know the deal—for these rates, he wasn’t getting street whores. One had worn a sleek evening dress. Another, at Oliver’s request, had been in casual wear, like she was the girl next door. They poured tasteful wines, asked his feelings on the market, made an easy segue into whether he wanted a massage; they rubbed breasts up and down his back, nibbled at his ear.

  “You want shower?” Perla motioned.

  Thin white towels stacked atop the toilet. The above shelf held a pink gallon jug of Vagisil, an economy supersizer of Listerine. Mouthwash killed germs, made blowjobs safe. Before penetration, your more experienced girls worked the condom application into their routine, putting it on with a sexy handjob or the mouth. Once, Oliver had been with a gorgeous but nervous African girl—new to the biz, barely out of her teens, she’d refused to start until he’d washed his genitals with antibacterial lotion. Do NOT, she’d demanded, touch your dick. Still he’d gripped (Force of habit, sorry). She’d ordered: Go back to the toilet, do it again.

  Fragrance-free shampoo by Vidal Sassoon. Oliver flinched, stayed the hell away.

  Patting himself down, he wrapped a towel around his pudge, and tried not to think about his expanding belly, let alone the mess of used towels filling the hamper. In the main room, the stereo was already playing, shitty pop like always. The envelope had disappeared from the table. Perla’s bra and panties were also gone. Burnt-orange tan, melons huge and juicy, midriff showing a cesarean scar. Smiling at him, her face became soft and young. She motioned him onto the bed. In a manner that a man might let himself believe was genuine, she whispered: “I will take care of you.”

  —

  The lie he’d told himself was: one time. Just to get it out of his system. It wasn’t so easy. Though they barely kissed him, or kissed with a grudging stiffness. Though they only got wet from douche. They licked, bobbed, gagged, grinded, pressed, moved from missionary to doggy-style, bodies pliable, up for any position, any act that you could pay for, but only that much. That constant distance. Sex for the john to bust his load and feel satisfied. Oliver might come—might come really hard—but he always left those apartments unfulfilled. Depressed about sinking so low in the first place, and then paying for that? He’d feel taken advantage of. A failure in every way a man could fail. There was only one possible answer: another appointment. And on those rare occasions he staggered away with his head woozy and his knees weak, need also gnawed at him—another really good fuck, soon as he could.

  He was in a different universe than the one where he’d been looked at with abject love. This much was certain.

  And yet, female skin remained its own miracle.

  Perla’s eyes went heavy lidded.

  She moaned, bit her bottom lip. Her nub of clit glowed red and full of blood. Oliver felt the deeper muscles in her vagina contract around him.

  No matter if there was professional distance, no matter the emotional barriers, reminders seeped through: the human body’s higher capacities. Had he made her come? Made her feel anything real? He was ashamed it mattered to him, and chose to believe anyway.

  Afterward Perla smoked in the small walk-in kitchenette. While Oliver dressed, she made a call and talked briefly in Russian. She paid him the requisite, above-the-marquee compliments—that was sensational, he had a sensational cock. Then she gave him the usual sell, telling him he was sensational, and that she wanted him to become her regular visitor. Once again, she asked if he wanted to use the shower, checked through the peephole to make sure nobody was in the hallway.

  —

  How long he’s been at the side of the bed, I don’t know. His irises deep with relief, his face concerned. If I possessed the energy, I would reach out and stroke his cheek. “How you doing?” he asks, only the words are garbled, something in his mouth. “Hanging in?”

  Too worn to smile, I keep looking at him. His hair flops down in front of his face, and he concentrates on the keyboard, hits a few soft notes. My bag of lemon drops rests on the furthest keys. There’s something he’s been working on, he says. Can he share with me?

  Pensive notes in a middle register. They build, but not quickly. He hums along. The played notes may be diffuse, but a rhythm forms from them, and the sound moves, higher, coming quicker. I shut my eyes and listen. I let myself float.

  I feel the radiation sunburn pulse across my forehead.

  The song drifts like leaves. Soon I understand that its melody is a form of flight, and choose to ignore the clumsy parts. It is nice to have something surprise me like this. To not worry about consequences.

  “Lovely,” I tell him, “that you wanted to take me away.”

  “Work in progress.” His grin is thankful, mischievous. “Want to hear another one?” Instead of waiting for permission, he acts like a college boy with an acoustic guitar at a kegger, anxious to show that flock of coeds what he can do. His new song kicks off with a jaunty rhythm, one that could lead a parade down Main Street.

  —

  Then it happens. Oliver enters the room. He’s already speaking, loudly congratulating me for getting through my radiation, saying he’s so proud of me. Here the melody stops; the closing door knocks into Oliver’s back; I see the scene register on his face: Oliver first digesting, then figuring out who this keyboardist is, absorbing the manner in which this man is looking at me—and perhaps how I am looking at Merv. How have I been looking at Merv? My immediate reaction is terror. We’ve been caught. Then I think, What is there to catch?

  Oliver’s eyes are liquid pools. He looks as if he’s taken a blow that’s buckled his knees, rocked him back onto his heels. Now I see him registering the open bag of candy on Merv’s keyboard.

  For an instant I worry I am watching a man being broken. But I also want to shout: See how it feels. You aren’t the only one.

  And now I see that Oliver is taking me in: my diminished body wrapped in so many bedsheets, nearly mummified; my sunburned, grotesque face; my expression at once terrified and wired.

  He is silent. He is still. Like a layer of protective skin and marrow has been stripped away, revealing a more naked, essential being.

  I have a beat of worry that Merv will say some asshole thing.

  “Keep playing.”

  The flat dagger of Oliver’s words. He takes two steps toward me, looks me in the eye, kisses my cheek.

  Reaching for a metal folding chair, he is resigned, reflective. I see his hurt.

  He shrugs. “More the merrier, right?”

  Merv is glancing between my husband and me, looking worried, considering what to do. An upper corner of his lip rises. A twisted smile. Now he looks down, devotes his attention to the keyboard.

  He launches into what sounds like cabaret styling, only it somehow seems bouncier, jaunty. It takes me a few seconds, but then, before I even know what I’m doing, I squeal. “ ‘Show me, show me, show me how you do that trick.’ ” Oliver looks at me with obvious dismay. Still, I blurt out the next lyric, “ ‘The one that makes me scream,’ she said,” diving into that radio standard from years ago.

  —

  We go on for a while, four, maybe five songs: blasphemous rumors as espoused by pale Germans in a competitive world; patient boys simmering in untold waiting rooms; a lovelorn question delivered from some early-morning barstool into an answering machine. Each song is not just recognizable but a jewel, culled from how many nights spent fiddling with a radio knob, stretching out an antenna, hoping to coax forth middling reception, that favorite, faraway college radio station. Oliver’s being polite—I can even sense his appreciation—but I can also tell that he’s measuring, wondering what Merv’s presence in this room means. Merv meanwhile has a performer’s studied immersion. With practiced and nonchalant one-upmanship, he goes out of his way to concentrate on that keyboard, as if everything that matters is located there. Every now and then he looks up, glances toward me. I keep that beatific smile
plastered on my face.

  —

  Bless Glendora! She shows not one care for our little triangle, only for her responsibilities. Plodding to the side of my bed, she stoops—her head, neck, and shoulders lowering as if worked by a rusty crank. Her lower torso follows, then her waist. In this groaning manner she manages toward the floor. An excess of old syringes and runaway tubing lies around the overflowing red plastic container. Glendora sighs. “They ain’t cleaning none of this?” She starts gathering the excess. “Some cock and bull—” she begins.

  “Bullshit,” Oliver interrupts. “Straight-up bullshit.

  “I could tell you wanted to say that,” he adds.

  I feel myself wanting to apologize. Merv meanwhile has stopped playing, is laughing into his shirt collar.

  Glendora seems uncertain whether the white people are having a laugh at her expense. Then she shakes her head, calls us a bunch of silly crackers. I hear the rest of the room’s appreciative yelps. My relief allows me to join. Now Glendora places the tubing in the trash bin outside, comes back, opens the bathroom door. “You got that stool sample for me?”

  “I gave a sample this morning.”

  Purple-shaded eyes blink repeatedly. She puckers her mouth. “Blasco just asked.”

  “It’s not on top of the toilet?”

  She looks around. “Not in here.”

  “I promise I left it.”

  “Ain’t on the chart, honey. Ain’t on the chart, we ain’t got it.”

  —

  Don’t ask me how, but I manage yet another accomplishment: an unheard-of second gold medal in ass gymnastics; yes, another clean sample, achieved in a single day. The nursing desk does not answer. A second call brings no response.

  Finally, at almost nine in the evening, an hour and ten minutes after my first call, someone answers.

  “I need help with something,” I say. “And I still need someone to pick up this sample.”

  Within minutes, another Caribbean woman arrives—I believe her name is Shanti, but don’t have time to check my notes. She says there’s an emergency on the floor. Glendora’s busy dealing with that. “What can I do?”

  “Thank you, if you could clear away my tray. But really, I called for the sample to be picked up.”

  I see she’s hurried, and clearly annoyed, presumably with me. She goes into the bathroom. I hear her say, “Sweet Jesus.” A splashing sound: the toilet flushes.

  “Shanti, did you just flush my sample?”

  “What?”

  Oliver is up, starting toward the bathroom. “The stool sample we asked to be picked up more than an hour ago?”

  “I didn’t know it was a sample.” Shanti folds her arms over her breasts. I feel myself warming, want to stay calm, am not doing a very good job. “I can’t believe you did that,” I say. “I called three times for that to be picked up.”

  “I didn’t know,” she repeats, stiffening. “Nobody told me.”

  “When you walked in the door she told you,” Oliver says. “I heard her.”

  I am hotly aware of not wanting to look like a bully, let alone like a racist.

  “Oliver, thank you,” I say, “I really don’t—”

  Shanti is just standing there, numb, waiting to absorb whatever abuse, and this makes me a bit sick. Seeing I’ve finished, she apologizes once more, but it’s apparent she doesn’t mean a word. In the quick motions of a hurt girl, she turns and leaves.

  —

  More knocking now: a supervisor enters, followed by Glendora. The supervisor is short and Asian—younger than me, lively with her greeting. She likely makes more money than I did on my best freelancing days. Her front teeth are ragged fence posts beaten down by too much time and bad weather, and they don’t seem to faze her at all. She’s odd and distinctive, and was likely discriminated against in her lifetime—certainly she caught some hell about those chompers, but odds suggest she doesn’t get abuse like Shanti, or Glendora. The class dynamics seem different; the power dynamic between her and me is obviously separate from the dynamic I have with the other nurses. She asks what’s been going on. Something in me opens. “I’m not blaming Shanti,” I say, “because it clearly wasn’t her fault, but something’s obviously wrong. I keep being told I’m supposed to deliver the doctors a stool sample. Meanwhile nobody knows they’re supposed to pick up that same goddamn sample.”

  “Oh, she knew,” Glendora volunteers.

  “She knew?” I feel a horrible relief.

  “Shanti came on shift. I told her I needed your sample.”

  “I can’t believe this—”

  “You clearly have a lot going on right now,” the nurse-practitioner says. “I hear that you are upset.”

  “I appreciate you trying to validate my experience,” I answer. “But it doesn’t change that I’m trying to do what I’m supposed to do, and people are throwing it away.”

  “What can I do to make things better?”

  “Okay. One thing. How about you tell the guy answering the call bell that his job actually matters? He’s like, all righty, okay, sounding all efficient, then doing nothing. Tell Shanti that her job actually matters. People around here need to do their jobs. They’re actually important. And I’d really like to get some sleep tonight, so I’d appreciate it if my vitals were taken as late as possible.”

  “I’ll tell her to do you last.”

  Oliver breaks in: “Is there anyone besides Shanti who could do them?”

  Immediately I am grateful, look for the answer.

  “I’m on it.”

  “Thank you, Glendora,” I say.

  “I got you, honey. No problem.”

  —

  It feels very late. The room is basically blackened, light beeps and blips of machines sounding out every so often, intruding on the quiet. I feel wholly alone, stuck in this horrid place, unable to sleep, aware of the cancer and nuclear radiation both teeming through me, my cheating husband asleep next to me on the pullout bed.

  Then why am I almost deliriously happy?

  I finished a major part of this procedure today. I ate enough protein. I spent an hour knitting. I listened to music that, at moments, made me happy. I felt loved today, even if that love was misguided, coming from an odd half stranger. But when he sang to me, he tried to take me away, or make me feel better, or give me hope. I felt that. It mattered.

  Today I let myself rant. I knew I was being bad, knew I was doing wrong. But I did it anyway, I let my own voice thrill me—its quickness, its agility, my own contrary surges. Since my illness, I’ve felt a kind of lightning through me—stripping something away, peeling off layers.

  The Third Noble Truth of Suffering involves the cessation of dukkha, meaning the cessation of suffering. Reason extends this to cessation of the causes of suffering. To ease our cravings we must eliminate the causes of craving. Our wants, desires, delusions, appetites. I don’t think it’s possible. I know it is not. Not totally. But since I have been ill there has been a kind of lightening. My body has been husked away, reduced to its essentials. And today, for a little while, maybe I found a path to my essential self.

  Argh argh argh, I just found out I’m clearly having an allergic reaction to whatever cream they are using at my entry site, and I’m yelling now—somewhat good-naturedly, with love, yes, with love—to my lovely overnight nurse, Tara:

  “Clown-shoe motherfuckers!”

  —

  Breakfast: nuked oatmeal with agave nectar; I can’t manage two bites. On my fifth sip of Ensure, Dr. Blasco enters, adjusting the strings on a paper mask. My eyes gravitate to his protective smock. Made of something that seems like a space-age yellow chiffon, it is semitransparent, clingy, and lined with lead. Tied around the doctor’s neck, it otherwise hangs free and open. He approaches, pleasant as a bird greeting the sunrise: “You are ready for the next marathon?”

  The way the smock hangs seems poignant—its spreading breadth, its loose yellowness. I think of a barbecue apron worn by a friendly and preo
ccupied father, eager to begin his yearly backyard grilling adventure—he has no idea that it can only end with his children crying, his wife disgusted, everyone still hungry and angry at him.

  But what is this? What’s happening inside my head? How can I be getting maudlin? How did I become this swinging pendulum, my moods reversing course so quickly, all confidence draining?

  “More than ready,” I tell the doctor. “Let’s get this party started.”

  —

  The steps are familiar by now, though each still sends creepers through my stomach: nurses entering with their horror movie getups, everyone in paper mask and powdered gloves, trying to move their arms in a way human arms aren’t meant to move so they can knot the strings behind their necks; Oliver flushed, sweating like a pig in his garb, grousing that the gloves make it impossible to use his laptop.

  “We want a clean slate,” Blasco says, meaning blood cells without cancer. Now he gets to the specific, final steps that must be taken before the transplant. Two drugs will enter my system during this first round of chemo: Cytoxan, which will aggravate the bladder, and Thyatemper, which I’ll receive over four hours. “You take a shower an hour after getting it,” says Blasco. “This will help your lungs with breathing, it can help to prevent clotting and dyspnea. Another shower six hours after that. You should not drink the shower water.”

  Here is the part where my hands grasp the pregnant and transparent bottles, moving them back and forth as if weighing them. Here is where I grip their sides (my hands go flat, I press). Here I thank and welcome each concoction, loving it, praying for that poison’s effectiveness, embracing it with all of my warrior spirit energy. “Let’s do this!” I say, but I feel myself manufacturing the enthusiasm. I tell myself the medicine is making me better in its way, and I am making myself better in mine. However, my mantras do not feel so sacred anymore. It’s more like I feel some part of myself separating, a distance opening. I can’t stay in the moment but instead hear a voice inside me, ordering: Stay in the moment.