Alice & Oliver

by Charles Bock

  Glendora had cut deals with her friends who worked on other floors. If their kids got sick or some emergency happened, the nurse agreed to cover shifts; in exchange, her friends agreed to enter Glendora in their lotteries. On four different floors, she was in lotteries. With her winnings she’d gotten dental work, paid off the fuckos from Internal Revenue, she’d bought herself little getaways to South Beach and Puerto Rico and Costa Rica. She’d gotten her new couch off a win. She’d also learned that, on other floors, patients didn’t hold back, complaining about all kinds of nonsense, pitchers being out of water, room temperatures, batteries in the remote controls being on low power so it was difficult to flip around—that was a biggie. Glendora would think: You have no idea. What her stem cell transplants went through was living hell. With the rare exception, her transplant patients were so nice. So grateful and polite. Glendora had been working this ward for twelve years now and was sure she could never work anywhere else.

  —

  Devanshi Bhakti had devoted her doctoral thesis and three postdoctorate fellowships to researching the specifics of genotype and phenotype relationships in nucleotide cells—so why was she here serving backup on this patient consultation? It made no sense. She should have been back in the lab. Any resident could have been standing here instead, and she was three times smarter than the specialist anyway; she’d solved simple division problems at the age of three, read chapter books out loud by the time she was five; the smartest living thing to ever escape from her back-roads village; the most brilliant student in her London preparatory school. Valedictorian, Fulbright; ninety-seven percent on her graduate school exams; nearly perfect on her med exams; she’d come so far, had worked so hard, even eventually accepting that it was okay for her to be ambitious, it was okay to desire attention, to want to match her wits against the unsolvable, to take on Manhattan and cancer and every big challenge. There were larger reasons she slept in stolen two-hour stretches on a cot in the doctors’ lounge. There was a greater good behind her social life of reruns and movie rentals and reheated lasagna, all that shitty 3:00 A.M. take-out from diners. She was of prime childbearing age (her mother reminded her of this every single time they spoke). She had curves and hips that turned her on, just looking at them. She kept finding herself in this or that trendy bar, accepting a drink from another man with an expensive haircut and a name-brand suit; on the phone and apologizing for having to reschedule dinner at another three-star restaurant; having some version of a conversation in which this hedge funder swore he wasn’t like the other hedge funders but was really a nice guy, possessed a soul and everything, and could handle her weird schedule, he worked long hours, too. High points like a rock-climbing weekend getaway. Gifts of pendants and earrings. Bhakti always got to discover, usually inside of four months, that this hedge funder actually couldn’t handle it, was just like the others. The inevitable rebound rut followed; zipless, sloppy, partaken with that same sweet, boring, but mostly inoffensive resident, held in a romantic locale like some empty patient bed, or—once—the test cylinder of a magnetic resonance imaging machine (after which she at least got to check out what a scan of two bodies fucking looked like). Devanshi Bhakti saw males, doctors and patients and orderlies alike, stare at her. She knew the nurses called her princess. Jokes circulated about the smell of her privates. She kept reminding herself of the greater good. She stood without emotion in the back of the exam room and thought about the experiments she’d get done later. She caught herself playing with a strand of her hair and halted—remembering one of the photos on the bureau; how this patient’s hair had once been long, too.

  —

  Sergio Blasco wished he could just explain, step by step, the science of what was happening to the man’s wife. The obvious stuff he’d already said: she was in a delicate place, it could go either way, she needs time so the marrow can take hold, the big question is whether her body can hold out. The husband understood all these things but right now was looking for something else, saying, I just don’t see how you can take this every day. The husband seemed to expect an answer. It’s much easier on me than on the patients and family was what Blasco said, followed by The truth is, you never get used to it. These sentences were his twin stalwarts, though Blasco’s mood also could change things. Sometimes when his eyes were bleary and he was coming off a marathon twelve-hour shift, he just started spouting and had no idea what he told the family members. He knew his answers deflected the real question, the thing family members really wanted to know: How am I supposed to deal with death?

  In fifteen years of practice, your database racked up a lot of names. Your case folders filled more than a few back-room file cabinets. But you never got used to a patient going into a spiral. Never. Blasco also had a marriage to keep afloat. He had kids to raise. He was a scratch golfer, a collector of expensive cigars. Every Thanksgiving he took his family and worked at a soup kitchen. He’d built his wall of defenses.

  Still, he couldn’t pass a certain block on the Upper West Side without thinking of Mikhael Bishop. Sometimes just heading to the Upper West Side made him think of that night: he’d ducked into a sports bar to grab a beer and watch the Yankees, had received the page about Mikhael. There also were mornings he looked into his bowl of krispy flakes and saw the reflection of Joy Washington staring back at him. Miss Washington had been in her early twenties when she’d gone through the transplant, and, nearing the one-year anniversary, she was throwing this big party to celebrate the milestone and her recovery. Blasco had gone so far as to send in his RSVP card. Then her stomach began having problems. She’d started feeling really not so well, that’s what she said, really not so well. He’d had her come in for a blood test and a biopsy.

  He’d forgotten other names, but the tilt of a head on a subway might rush one back. He’d be sitting, sipping tea, and would see the liquid brightness of a set of eyes. The infinite would open.

  He tried to keep a lid on his drinking. Some nights were better than others.

  —

  No movement or food or responses from her for days now. He didn’t leave the room. Then he had to leave. For this. The second Oliver was off the floor, he felt the gravity of his mistake, the pull of centrifugal force back toward her orbit. If anything happened, he needed to be there. It bothered him to think it was possible he wouldn’t be.

  Ruggles was already at Blauner’s office, confabbing with the lawyer who had helped Oliver with medical insurance, as well as Jonathan, the three of them forming a small group. Ruggles greeted Oliver with a strong handshake, acknowledging how Oliver looked, asking in a serious voice how she was hanging in. Oliver answered that he was hoping for the best, and needed to get back as soon as possible. All the men understood. The contracts were unveiled.

  “I wouldn’t be pressing this if we didn’t have to,” Ruggles insisted, apologetic but firm. He explained to Oliver that a finished project was the only hope. “I talked to the Brow. I guess he’s on board,” Ruggles said. “Whatever. I know it doesn’t really matter in comparison.”

  Blauner stepped in and explained the terms. Without much fuss, Oliver signed over his controlling interest of the company to Ruggles for a named sum that, given the circumstances, was more than generous. Items including the computer terminals were included in the price. As the lease to the apartment was a commercial one, with the company name on the document, Ruggles would assume control of the space, but clauses ensured that Oliver’s family would have no deadlines to move.

  “Buddy, the last thing I want to do is hurt anybody,” Ruggles said.

  Oliver declined the offer of lunch, even as the request made him aware of his hunger. Waiting for the hospital elevator, he stood beside a well-groomed man in a perfectly tailored camel-hair coat—Alice would have recognized its design. The man held a briefcase in front of him, below his waist, with two hands. Oliver figured him for some sort of heavy hitter, a hospital exec most likely. He had a small pin on the lapel of his coat—it looked like one of the AIDS ribb
ons, only this one was green instead of pink.

  When the elevator arrived they both got on, and were alone in the box. Oliver pressed for the sixth floor; the guy asked for eight. Brief eye contact. “How are you today?” asked the man.

  “Hanging in, you?”

  “The same.”

  “What’s the pin for?”

  “Organ donation.”

  Oliver stared at the guy. His hunger gnawed. The elevator hummed and the two rode in silence. At the sixth floor a bell chimed and Oliver couldn’t step out quickly enough.

  “Good luck to you,” said the man.

  As the doors closed, Oliver answered, “God bless you, too.”

  He started into the familiar hallway, with its cellophaned lunch trays stacked on rolling carts, its orderlies in a small group shooting the shit, middle-afternoon languor, its everyday plainness. At this point, doctors were prepping him for the endgame; when Alice’s mother updated him on the baby’s nightly activities and health (Today we picked apples and played in the leaves), he was trying to figure out whether he should tell her to come back down. His head felt as if it could split open at any moment. He felt coils inside him tightening, ready to spring at anyone who so much as looked in his direction.

  He thought about what that whore had said: Her suffering is biblical. People wanted suffering to be biblical because they wanted it to make sense, wanted it to have a purpose—just like they wanted to believe in guardian angels, spirits with a purpose after death, some kind of cosmic system that let the dead stay close to what they’d lost. But if you had to lose this much, wouldn’t it be better to forget? To be allowed to let go?

  That’s what you ended up with, no matter what: The brick wall. The void.

  —

  He washed up and put on all the gear while the nursing assistant snored. He didn’t care if anyone else was in the room, and immediately homed in on his wife: laid out, neatly tucked in, her thin body causing only the slightest raised outline beneath the covers. Alice’s face was pale as a bone, her eyes shut, her mouth just a bit open, as if words were poised, ready to escape. So smooth, this sight, so minimal. Its horrid beauty made him shiver. Oliver’s weight collapsed onto the little chair. He leaned into the bed and stretched his arms toward her, laying his head down, his cheek pressing on the scratchy sheet. From this vantage point he could see the slight movements of her throat. She was breathing. Barely. He gulped, and watched those slight, almost imperceptible breaths. “If you have to go,” he managed, “you go. It’s fine. No matter what, tu esta mi favorito. So if you have to leave us all, leave. Don’t worry about me. Don’t worry about any of us. It’s going to be good. You do what you have to.”

  —

  On the sixth day after the transplant, she was down to one pad a day. Blasco guessed it was simply time. Her body was ready. She no longer needed platelet transplants. For the first time in a while, they took a bag off the Christmas tree. The heparin drip remained, of course, and the saline, and the liquid nutrition, and more than a few antibiotics. All of her hair was gone, and her skull was smooth in the manner of clichés (cue balls, eggs), and when there was a wrinkle in her brow from a bad dream or inner tremor, it made a line that ran all the way back into her scalp. She had no eyebrows. They still had the patch behind her ear to deal with nausea, and were still putting the suction stick into her mouth to get rid of buildup—and Oliver still couldn’t get a straight answer whether it was mucus they were sucking out of her mouth or strips of her flesh. But her liver counts had dropped, which was encouraging as well. Best of all was her white blood cell count: .4. Hospital staffers were impressed and reticent, as if they were scared of getting too hopeful. But the bounce had arrived one or two days before the best-case scenario time lines, and that was exciting. Alice celebrated by sleeping through the day.

  The next day her white blood cells had jumped to 37, and her platelets were at an astonishing 8,000. The swelling in her feet had receded; now bones in her feet were actually visible, for the first time in who knew how long. When Alice managed to get her eyes open, they remained unfocused, or vacant; she stared at a person but really seemed to be looking into some faraway universe. Oliver said her name, received no response. Tilda did the same, and got something more: a glint. A smile imbued with a hint of crazy. The resident on rounds found it unsurprising. “She’s on a lot of different painkillers.”

  The first thing she was able to eat was an orange Tic Tac. Hours later she felt game and managed two sips of tea, though her throat almost closed up during the second sip. She gagged. Her face went open with panic, but Oliver remained calm. “Close your mouth. Hold it in your cheeks. Okay. Tip your head back. On three, ready?” Her shock gave way to agreement; her focus narrowed into a grave understanding. Oliver was ready to take her and physically tilt her back, but there was no need: the tea went down. Later that evening she managed two sips of water. She followed this up by nibbling from the corner of a cracker. The next morning, three sips of Ensure.

  She was still sleeping a great deal, working her way toward sitting up without the mechanical bed, but also greeted friends with lucid eyes, managing short sentences of thanks and affection: “It’s great to see you.” “I’m so blessed you stuck with me.” Blasco wanted to start switching some of her medicines to pill form, wean her off so many intravenous drips. The second pill she tried came back up, meaning the antinausea drip would take its place back on the Christmas tree. Throughout her days, her hand was often in Oliver’s. “Eating is very important for you now,” Blasco said. “High protein. High calories. Lots of liquids and fluids. We want a thousand calories a day.” Alice nodded, a vigorous up and down.

  As if it were her turn in a script, Nurse Hwan stepped in and took over. “We had a patient who had to get his weight up; we told him if he eats a thousand calories a day, he gets out of here. This man had his wife get him boxes of Oreos and some milk. A box a day, he dipped them Oreos in milk and ate. After five days, they let him out.”

  Alice squeezed Oliver’s hand. This marked the first mention, the first raised possibility of release. The words were electrifying, and their hope spread. Friends now had license, a directed purpose, their love arrived as food: visitors donning the hazmat and presenting Tupperware dishes, at once nervous and eager, as if they were supplicants from the outer provinces and Alice were the fickle empress: her beloved key lime pie, homemade and still warm from the oven; chocolate babka from Zabar’s; layered lemon cakes; fluffy almond croissants. Tilda schlepped over a blender, set it up in the pantry, and mixed protein shakes with 200 calories a pop. One of Alice’s notebooks got appropriated as a daily calorie ledger. A Xerox with a list of different items and their counts was pasted in. Blasco was supportive, he wanted to get her off liquid nutrition as soon as possible, it would be the best thing for her. But the 450 calories in a single slice of key lime pie remained a fantasy. Same for a Krispy Kreme glazed donut (210 calories). Even half of a single serving of Rice Krispies (child’s box = 130 calories) was impossible. Three sips of apple juice (one glass = 120 calories) was an accomplishment. Just eating toast brought back the runs. “It’s expected,” explained Nurse Hwan. “Your body has to adjust to eating food again. You will get lots of stomach cramps.”

  With generous scoring, rounding up, she managed 150 calories that day. The next, her total shot up another hundred.

  Two more bags came off the Christmas tree; the first battery pack was detached, unplugged, and taken away, along with the chaired assistant, removed from deathwatch in front of the room. She just stopped being there at some point. Also apparent: the rest of the nursing staff was taking longer to respond, checking in more sporadically. Oliver realized this was because other patients were in the critical stages of their transplants. Alice, by contrast, was getting better.

  —

  I look like a molting lizard. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked for a mirror. But I wanted to see myself, after all this time.

  I wish I could provide a window about
where I was. But I have no insights, could not tell you if I left: so there is nothing, really, to report. I am choosing to view a good sign in the scabs that have formed over the sores at the corners of my mouth, a better one that these scabs have started peeling. I am hoping that the burn of red will fade from my face and even out with my ivory scalp—for now, however, I am two-toned. I am concentrating on performing the tasks asked of me: standing for minutes at a time, doing my little arm rotations, raising one leg at a time in sets of ten. Nurses come by to motivate me, passing along what sounds like both a rumor and a challenge: if I am strong and eating enough by the end of the week, I can go home. They want me to stuff myself, urge me onward. My whole life I’ve wished for this: being told I’m supposed to binge on desserts. Now I have a parade of beloved friends delivering them up, and of course, I can’t eat more than a few bites. That will change, I am sure. I couldn’t be more motivated. I even have my own soundtrack. Whenever Merv comes in, he starts his playlist off with a ludicrous rap that includes these words: I’m hungry, I’m in the mood, plain and simple, I need food.

  His visits aren’t every day. Not anymore. “Just keeping you honest,” he tells me. “Thought I’d do something nutty. Actually, you know, follow the schedule they set for me.”

  “I see.”

  “Honestly?” I see the romance of what could have been. “Classes,” he says.

  Perhaps Oliver said something about him to the higher-ups in Social Services; perhaps more happened between them. I’m not willing to find out. The two seem comfortable enough that Oliver doesn’t mind walloping him at cards. That’s plenty.