The Normals

by David Gilbert

  "And he's been in there forever."

  From behind the door: "I heard that." It's Rodney Letts and he sounds petrified.

  "Turn on the faucet or something," the nurse tells him.

  "What do you think I've been doing all this time, cleaning the sink?"

  "Well, people are getting impatient."

  "Pressure does not help. I needed to go. Or I did. I was really ready to go. But I've lost it. It's disappeared. I know my bladder, it's stubborn, and it's not going to give me a single drop." Rodney talks near tears. "Is it really so essential? How about I give you my sample in an hour or two? How about if I take the cup with me?"

  "We don't do it to go."

  Ms. Longley walks over from down the hall. "You all right in there, Mr. Letts?"

  "Who's that?"

  "Ms. Longley."

  "I'm sorry, Ms. Longley, but I can't go."

  "Yes, you can, just relax."

  "No, I can't. I can't go. And now all this pressure, this urinalysis. But I want to go, I want fill a bathtub for you people, but I can't. I'm sorry."

  "Okay, Mr. Letts," Ms. Longley soothes professionally. "Why don't you come out and regroup and have a glass of water, maybe walk around a bit, and then give it another go? In the meantime, Mr. Schine can scoot in and do his business."

  "It's just that I'm"—the door unlocks—"intimidated." Rodney stands in the doorway, ridiculously crooked on his head. "Give me an hour," he begs. "Two hours, maybe tomorrow morning. Yeah, tomorrow morning would be great. Tomorrow morning, no problem."

  "You have all the time you want. It's just that we can't clear you from admissions until we have a urine sample. It's regulations." Ms. Longley reaches for him though she has no intention of touching the man, only prompting him forward. "You'll have to wait down here until you can tinkle."

  "But I can't." A surprising chuckle comes over Rodney. "I'm fucked—sorry," he says. "Language. Poor language. No excuse." He grins. "Tinkle, right, I should just tinkle, just get it over with and"—he humphs—"just let it happen, let it flow, right."

  "How about a drink first and then we'll see what happens."

  "Yeah, okay, a drink." Rodney, resigned, passes Billy.

  "Mr. Schine, all yours."

  The urine attendant hands him his cup. "Please, just halfway up."

  A small sign hangs near the bathroom sink: PLEASE URINATE OVER TOILET. Billy prompts his bladder with a soft tickle under the glans helmet and its oh-so-sensitive chinstrap. Here we go. There's something strange about peeing in a cup, he thinks, something oddly circular, something, well, all too potable and self-absorbed, as if you're pouring yourself a warm glass of chardonnay. Cheers. The piss rises in a hurry, a deep yellow. Urinalysis will find five bowls of sugar-encrusted cereal for breakfast. Billy resumes into the bowl but then spots the sad empty cup of Rodney Letts resting on the sink. Inspired, he grabs it and gives it two inches of well-earned relief.

  Back in the hallway, he tells Rodney, "All yours."

  Hearing this, Rodney crushes his water-cooler cone and steps into the bathroom with a sense of bravery, not of a hero, but of a man who accepts his own demise. Ears strain in the hallway, acoustics wrapped within Rodney's urethra. Finally, the tension is eliminated by the telltale splash of piss on water followed by a triumphant groan behind the door.

  Rodney reappears, glorious.

  Brad Lannigan is the first to applaud.

  10

  THEY'RE TAKEN up the stairs to the third floor. The hallway is color-coded for easy identification, a green stripe running along the middle of the wall. "Green is your color," Ms. Longley tells them. "You should always see green. If you see red, blue, yellow, or orange, you're in the wrong area and you should go find green. In your rooms, on your bed, is a green T-shirt. It's important that you always wear that shirt."

  "Go green," Lannigan cheers.

  They pause by the nurse's station where two women are introduced, Nurse Clifford and Nurse George. They glance up in unison, smile in unison, close their binders in unison, stand in unison. They're conjoined by routine. Their white slacks and loose pink blouses disappoint Billy. He had hopes for the nurses from the past, the nurses in the movies, the Florence Nightingales who gave extreme unction with their tears and acted like salaried nuns with earthly benefits. But alas, no more virginal vestments. No more peaked cap. No more pale hosiery. Only the shoes—white and orthopedic—have stayed the same. Nurses, it seems, have gone through their own version of Vatican II. Nowadays they dress in classic dyke.

  "Hello," the nurses greet by rote. Though they look nothing alike, they share a steely firearm stare, front-sighted and methodical, braced for the recoil. Their idea of mercy would be shooting you in the thigh.

  Ms. Longley lectures the group about listening to the nurses and doing what they say. "Remember," she tells them. "They're trained professionals, not your maids."

  The nurses cross their arms, clench their lips into tight pink fists.

  "They're here for your well-being and safety."

  The nurses nod.

  "So help them do their job and they'll help you do your job."

  Billy thinks, your job. What is their job? They're stand-ins for the real stars, he thinks, stuntmen who take the cure before the afflicted step in for their close-up. The sick are loved. They're the certifiably unsick. Nothing will save them.

  Toward the end of the hall, Ms. Longley points out the lounge area, and halfway down the hall she shows them the only pay phone. "Change is not provided," she clarifies. "And cell phones are forbidden." The white white of the hall, the white walls, the white fluorescent light, the white floor, smell perpetually scrubbed, a sort of antiseptic potpourri with the green stripe unleashing a scratch and sniff pine, which is necessary when you pass the ten dormlike rooms, three beds per room, each door revealing an anarchy of odor: feet versus armpits versus farts versus a dozen other minor smells searching for their rightful claim.

  Billy is assigned room 306, along with Brad Lannigan. Thank God neither Ossap nor Dullick were called forward, nor Rodney, who ever since receiving the gift of urine has been nudging Billy with overly grateful eyes. The absurd fantasy of Gretchen was squashed earlier when she was given her own room, being the only woman in this study. Room 302. Two doors down. Just twenty-six steps.

  "Dinner is in fifteen minutes," Ms. Longley informs Billy and Lanni­gan. "So don't bother getting too comfortable."

  Too comfortable? This room is not designed for comfort. Part hospital, part motel, part residence for the aesthetically challenged, no loose parts or sharp corners or unnecessary touches threaten to put out taste. The walls are a patronizing yellow—a just-relax shade. The beige carpet could've been woven from concrete. Opposite the door is a large window with thick curtains prepared either for blackout conditions or a small theatrical production of the world outside, starring the courtyard and the HAM sundial's faulty interpretation of time. There's a bureau crafted for three sets of clothes, and a mirror suitable for three sets of expressions. A digital clock has its own niche, the numbers red and ornery. The only extravagance in the entire room is the television, a Zenith Horizon, seventeen inches wide, bolted into the ceiling by a contraption that resembles a halo for spinal cord injuries. Of the three beds, the first two carry a towel, a washcloth, a minibar of soap, and a green shirt. The other roommate is present in luggage alone, an army duffel bag, which claims the bed by the window, arguably the best bed, as Lannigan makes clear when he rests his fists against his hips and mutters, "I suppose Goldilocks found his just right."

  "I suppose," Billy says.

  "Oh well, first come, first serve. I would've done the same. But I think he tested all the pillows which is beyond the pale even in my book." Lannigan turns toward Billy, his bland face pleading handsome; the man has a shrill form of charisma. "In terms of beds, I have to say I hate the middle. I'm the youngest of three, all boys, and growing up I was always jammed in the middle. That said, I am willing to sleep there, it'
s just—"

  "I don't mind," Billy tells him.

  "Really?"

  "No problem."

  "Because I can take it."

  "Really, I don't mind." Which is the honest truth, considering Billy's childhood fears of madmen and monsters, of their sneaking through his house and searching for victims, room by room, bed by bed, murdering in order of appearance. His bedroom would have been the first attacked, and he often considered himself an early warning system for his parents, his dying screams their alarm. With Lannigan nearest the door, Billy figures he stands a fighting chance against whatever might burst in.

  "You sure?" Lannigan asks. "Because I can take the middle."

  "Positive."

  "Please, let me." Lannigan is a martyr in retrospect.

  "That's all right."

  "Well, okay," Lannigan says, jumping aboard his negotiated bed. He crosses his feet, weaves his hands behind his head, clicks his tongue. This calm lasts maybe ten seconds before he's up again, checking the vista from the window, picking up a comic book—Superman and the City of Doom—then a Bible from the mysterious third roommate's bed, inspecting himself in the mirror, peeking into the bathroom, finding the remote control, unfortunately tethered to the wall near the middle bed, and—click—turning on the TV.

  "I wonder if the channels are all the same this far north," he says. "If channel two is still CBS or if they're different." He flips around; Dan Rather appears. "It's the same," Lannigan confirms, pleased, like he's discovered absolutely nothing new.

  There are floods in North Carolina.

  Droves of bloated pigs float belly-up.

  Submerged rooflines resemble capsized boats.

  Billy opens his suitcase, its cache like artifacts from an earlier era. The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations goes on the bedside table.

  "Some light reading?" Lannigan asks, picking up the book.

  "Yeah."

  "This has all the biggies?"

  "Yep."

  Lannigan reads, " 'The world, as we know it, is a place in which great men battle little men and neither are ever right about or certain of their size.' Guess who said that."

  "Who?"

  Lannigan bows. "Me. Not bad, huh? But I've always been good with quotes. Or imaginary quotes. As Shakespeare said, 'The easiest path toward greatness is through the already wet words of others.' " Lannigan grins, gestures kittenishly. "Me again."

  Billy starts unpacking. "I saw you reading Hamlet in the van."

  "Not reading, memorizing."

  "So you're an actor."

  "Yep. And let me guess, you're a painter."

  "No."

  "A writer?"

  "No."

  "Please, not another actor?"

  "No, none of that."

  "A mime, a performance artist?"

  "I don't really have a specific career."

  "A musician?"

  "Nothing."

  "A juggler?"

  "No."

  "Well, you have that look," Lannigan says. "What Rilke called 'the desperate contentedness of the poet, like a starving lion surfeited on air.' Okay, enough, I'm sorry."

  Billy slips the suitcase under his bed. "So are you going to be in a production of Hamlet or something," he asks, hoping he might turn conversation toward Lannigan and slowly slink away into the long grass of an answer.

  "Yep. A pretty good production too. Off-Broadway, but that's basically Broadway nowadays. It's sort of my big break. The director is a friend from way back and he's gotten suddenly successful and he's cast me, like we've always discussed, our Hamlet. Very exciting. We open in November."

  "And you're Hamlet?"

  "No, not quite. They've gotten a name for that role."

  "Who?"

  "I'm not sure yet."

  "So what's you're part."

  "I play Voltimand, the courtier. Want to hear my big speech?"

  "Why not," Billy says.

  "Ask me as the King, 'what from our brother Norway?'"

  " 'What from our brother Norway?' "

  Lannigan launches into:

  "Most fair return of greetings and desires.

  Upon our first, he sent out to suppress

  His nephew's levies, which to him appeared

  To be a preparation 'gainst the Polack . . ."

  On and on Lannigan goes, giving Billy the full light of his performance, Billy keeping his expression easily lit despite the discomfort of over-enunciation and extreme gesticulation, Billy instantly reminded why he avoids the theater, where bad acting fills him with the public embarrassment of others, where a missed line or cue, a prop gone wrong, a ringing cell phone, can rip his heart more than any well-wrought scene, where the tension of possible mistakes undercuts even an Olivier.

  " . . . That it might please you to give quiet pass

  Through your dominions for this enterprise,

  On such regards of safety and allowance

  As therein are set down."

  Lannigan, as Voltimand, gives a small bow, then Lannigan returns with a ta-da.

  "That's great," Billy says.

  "It's not me," Lannigan explains. "It's the language. Shakespeare gives you everything on the page. All I have to do is follow along and trust in his words. I tell you, it's an amazing experience."

  "It'll be a Voltimand for the ages," Billy says, hearing the joke too late.

  But Lannigan smiles anyway.

  The CBS evening news shows footage of Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. A large crowd has gathered around the house of Charles Savitch, estimated to be a thousand strong and growing. Satellite vans have started camping in nearby driveways. International press is involved. The footage quickly flashes the now famous MRI, then the high school photo, then the unconfirmed glimpse of Charles Savitch behind the curtains of his living room. Dan Rather returns, stern-faced, as if he's the high school principal and this news is a too popular troublemaker.

  The bathroom is a standard, if snug, arrangement of bathtub, sink, and toilet. Billy slips on the green shirt followed by the ID necklace. He's glad for the end of Cats, particularly his nipples which have been rubbed raw by the poly-blend. He checks himself in the mirror. He looks mildly official, like a janitor for the Pentagon. Back in the room, he sees Lannigan standing by the window. He's shirtless. His chest rubs, humps, slaps the glass. "A new arrival is coming," he tells Billy.

  "Oh."

  "Come over and pretend to fuck me in the ass."

  "What?"

  "As a joke, to freak this guy out."

  "I don't think so."

  "He's stopping," Lannigan narrates. "He's looking around. He's"—the performance becomes more vigorous—"C'mon, just grind my ass. It'll be great."

  "No thanks."

  Lannigan stops, dejected. "He's gone."

  "Too bad."

  "Next time we should rehearse or something, really get something down."

  Thanks to the gods of slapstick, the Zeus of poorly timed entrances, the Athena of wacky misunderstandings, for the last minute their other roommate has been standing by the door.

  "Hello," he says.

  "Hello."

  "Hey."

  His name is Do. Do as in deer, as in female deer. Rami is his last name. Jay Rami. But everyone calls him Do, he explains. Besides the sol-fa syllables of his last name, there's nothing particularly doeish about the man, except maybe his eyes, narrowly set and dark, deer-in-headlight eyes, surprised and doomed and forever in the way. But really those eyes are more racoonish, Billy thinks, opossumish, night-critter eyes neither wounded nor mournful, devoid of poetry and pause, small black eyes peering from a mass of moonbeam flesh as if formed by two angry thumbs. Tires would not swerve for these eyes. "I know, stupid," Do says about his name. "It started with a teacher, first grade, like the first day of first grade. She took attendance and called Jay Rami, but I was absent, so she called my name again, and this time she sang 'fa sol la ti do.' I've been stuck ever since." He talks like he's leaving a too long message on a
n answering machine.

  "Well, nice to meet you," Lannigan says.

  "You guys just got here?"

  "Yep."

  "Cool. Where you all from?"

  "New York City. The both of us," Lannigan says.

  "Cool. I'm from around here."

  "Cool."

  "Not really." Billy guesses the guy is nineteen, twenty years old. His skin is covered with freckles, freckles like foxing on an old sallow print of a bare-knuckled boxer who never won a bout. "Either of you ever done this before?" Do asks.

  "What?" Lannigan says rather lasciviously.

  "Test drugs."

  "Professionally?"

  "Yeah."

  "No, never professionally." Lannigan squint-stares, and Billy knows Lannigan is casting Do as the rube, and poor Do hasn't a clue.

  Around seven o'clock, a female voice drops into their room via a small speaker in the ceiling. "Please stand outside your door for dinner."

  Nurses Clifford and George wait for them in the hall. "Okay," Nurse Clifford (or perhaps Nurse George) says. "Soon enough this will become routine, but until then, pay attention. All meals are mandatory, breakfast, lunch, dinner. Diet is an important component to the study. A nurse will always escort you to and from the cafeteria. Always make sure you're wearing your IDs. Okay? All set?" No one dares a question.

  Down the hall they go, down the stairs, onto the main floor, Nurse Clifford/George in front and Nurse George/Clifford in back, proper quotation marks around an unpleasant bit of language. Nobody talks much, except for Ossap and Dullick, who whisper and stare down any company, like Billy, who unwittingly enters their orbit and overhears something about security cameras. Billy glances about for a familiar face. Sameer Sirdesh seems to have found himself in the company of other immigrants, two Mexicans, a Colombian, an Algerian, and two Chinese. Rodney Letts sneaks up from behind, buddies himself with Billy, thank ing him, once again, for his piss. "Looks like they got a pretty good pack of mules for this study," he says.

  "Mules?"

  "Yeah, these legal immigrants, who knows, maybe even illegal. Some day they'll open a big old CPU right in Mexico. Fuck balloons of cocaine, here, swallow this beta-blocker." Billy spies Gretchen up ahead. She's being trailed by Peter Swain who is blatantly, offensively, ogling her ass—Pig!—which Billy finds neither small nor big but pleasantly muscular, like a figure eight hewed by ice-shattering skates.