The Normals

by David Gilbert

  "Do you miss him, your ex-husband?"

  Gretchen considers this for a moment. Her face is lovely under the angle of consideration, her odd disparate features finding anamorphic focus, like she's doing arithmetic in her head and carrying numbers with her eyes. The sun pours in from the window. The hand sculpture glints toward late midday. Billy breathes in deeply and tries breathing in Gretchen, her particulates, her slice of air, not lasciviously but innocently, his nose nuzzling the eight feet between nostril and neck.

  "It's like missing warm weather in the winter," she answers. "You understand that it's the natural way of things, that it's winter and it's cold and kind of pleasant, the change of seasons, but you complain because you need to complain about something, and you miss something only because something is not there." Gretchen shakes her head. "I miss his warmth but not his humidity."

  Gretchen returns her attention toward the TV. Stuart James is gone, replaced by a history of severe weather in the twentieth century. Billy leans back in the borrowed bed and wishes he could say the right thing, the healing thing, but knowing better, says nothing, hoping blank but reflective is enough.

  "What about you?" Gretchen asks.

  "What about me?"

  "Do you want kids?"

  "No," Billy says quietly. "I'll just screw it up. I'll try my best, but I'll screw the whole thing up and I'll never forgive myself."

  "You really believe that?"

  "Yeah. I just know I'll do something, well, unforgivable in the end. I will."

  "Oh baby," Gretchen says with a hint of heart-stopping affection.

  "What?"

  "That's so sad."

  "I'm not trying to sound sad," Billy tells her. "I mean, I'm not trying some sort of sad guy shtick." Billy stops himself. Gretchen is leaning her head on her hand, her face pulled around an upturned palm. The lovely causalness of the pose strikes Billy. She listens with such grace.

  Billy turns toward the TV. There's old black-and-white footage of an improperly engineered suspension bridge buckling in a windstorm. The cars abandoned in the middle of the span rock up and down, and a man walks toward the camera as the ground sways improbably under his feet. The bridge is like rubber until the bridge is like rubber no more and falls apart into the river.

  "I'd probably be a fine father," Billy says, not meaning a word. Cars tumble into the water, like playthings tested from a great height.

  18

  TUESDAY AFTERNOON. Billy sits in the small office of Dr. Honeysack, waiting for the doctor who stepped out for a second five minutes ago. Billy leans back in the chair. He's anesthetized with delay, a halothane of boredom. His brain is a sack of undigested thoughts that trace against the dura mater until somewhere a room forms, the walls covered in posters of Babar and Madeline and Curious George, the floor strewn with brick-colored blocks and trucks and dolls and horseys, the coffee table carrying issues of Highlights and Ranger Rick as well as Parenting, Redbook, McCall's—the waiting room of Dr. Timothy Ecker-hardt, pediatrician. At twenty-one years of age, Billy is by far the oldest child and the youngest adult in this room, the boys and girls viewing him as an exotic hybrid, the parents, mothers mostly, regarding him as a future threat against cuteness. Billy wishes he could help the boys build the block skyscraper bigger and better. His own fingerprints are on all these toys, more toys than he had growing up, this waiting room in many ways his dream room. Put a bed in the corner and Billy would've been a happy child. Every so often Nurse Jones peeks in and calls a name until finally, "Billy, your turn, hon." She leads him toward the examination room. "So you're still with us," she says, almost with resentment, like he's the bitter embodiment of time.

  "Yep."

  She takes his height and weight as though measuring her aches and pains.

  Dr. Eckerhardt soon enters, white lab coat, stethoscope. He touches all the necessary parts, like a potter spinning an already fired pot, and after the exam tells Billy, "You know I think we might be beyond this, old boy." To eyes under four feet, Dr. Eckerhardt is a thick beard and a huge belly. A baby in his arms might look like lunch. But his voice and eyes are honey.

  "Huh?" Billy squirms.

  "You're almost twenty-two."

  "In seven months."

  "I think we've hit the pediatric glass ceiling."

  "But you're my doctor." The sound of pleading surprises Billy.

  "And you've outgrown me."

  "Outgrown you? Look at me." Billy raises his arms. "Nowadays adolescence extends well into the twenties, maybe even the thirties. It's like a fact. I say graduate school is to blame. And increased life expectancy. And birth control. Sure, physically we're developing earlier but emotionally we're going in reverse."

  Dr. Eckerhardt smiles, his beard like a kitten curled on his face. "You can always visit and we can just talk. Hell, we can go have a drink together, but in terms of me being your physician, well, that won't work. Nothing against you, it's just your body."

  Billy fears tears. He fights the rising tide with sandbags of don't be such an idiot, such a fool, so stupid.

  "Are you all right?" Dr. Eckerhardt asks.

  "I'm fine," Billy says.

  "How's Harvard?"

  "Good, I guess."

  "And your folks?"

  "I don't know, all right, I suppose. I try to stay out of their way. Or they stay out of my way. There seems to be an arrangement."

  "Never take your parents personally," Dr. Eckerhardt advises.

  Billy wants to break down in front of this large man, this concerned adult who has known him for so long, who has cared for him his entire life, always greeting him with hands that tousled hair and squared shoulders, that palpated as if communicating with the soul. Dr. Eckerhardt might understand his frustration. But Billy continues buttressing the rising tide. "So what do I do now?" he asks.

  "I can refer you to a primary care physician."

  "So that's it, we're done?"

  "You make it sound like I'm breaking up with you. You're a young man. You'll find other doctors, better doctors. But I will miss our yearly checkups. And do keep in touch." Dr. Eckerhardt reaches over and pats his knee, no longer searching for an involuntary reflex. "I'm really proud of you, Billy," he says. "Harvard is quite an accomplishment."

  "So I should leave?"

  "Not yet." Dr. Eckerhardt reaches into the William A. Schine file and produces a stack of Polaroids, the final measurement for every checkup. One by one he passes them over to Billy. It's like a flipbook of winces. A few pictures are given snippets of doctorly narration. "Here we are as a teenager cringing when puberty was mentioned. Here's the small fry who always said, 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry,' like you deserved every sore throat. Someone could be in tears in another room and you'd apologize. Here's the baseball player. The cowboy. The tiny stoic. You rarely cried yourself.Here we are barely standing. No longer standing. Sitting. Slumped. Sprawled. Pretty cute. And finally the newborn with what can only be described as your patented stroke victim gaze of sorry for the bother, sorry for all the incontinence and the feebleness. Always broke my heart, that look right there."

  The three-day-old Billy is encircled by arms that tilt the swaddling toward the camera, Billy with puffy slits for eyes and a flat nose, the hours of life emerging from within him, slowly draining his face from the inside world.

  "Is that my mother holding me?" Billy asks.

  "Yep. And here she is when she first visited my office, eight and a half months pregnant." Dr. Eckerhardt hands over the last Polaroid. Doris McMinn Schine, soon to be Mom, stands with her stomach thrust forward, the proud pose of pregnant women everywhere. She seems so young, Billy thinks, though she's already in her forties. Her complexion is sparked by the camera's flash. Her green eyes have an almost competitive zeal, as if she could hold her own against any form of glare, even an on-rushing headlight.

  "How was she then?" Billy asks. "I mean, about having a baby."

  "Oh, she was excited," Dr. Eckerhardt says. "And nervous, like all mot
hers-to-be."

  Nervous won, Billy thinks.

  "You can keep these," Dr. Eckerhardt tells Billy.

  "Yeah?"

  "Absolutely, my parting gift." He stands up, grabs his camera. "Now, one more shot, our graduation picture."

  Billy waves away the idea.

  "Get over there."

  Billy relents for the pleasure of the doctor. He takes his normal position against the giraffe height chart as Dr. Eckerhardt snaps open the camera and frames the boy now grown into a man. "One, two," a flash on three and from the narrow mouth of the Polaroid a gray tongue slips free.

  Dr. Eckerhardt snatches it, flutters it dry, and gives it to Billy.

  No matter your technological life span, if you've lived through horse-drawn carriages becoming automobiles or the Harvard Mark I calculator becoming the Internet, no matter if you think you're living through a space station becoming an airport on the moon, this small achievement still seems miraculous and can transfix great-grandfathers and great-grandsons alike, as the emulsion streaks, and the fog lifts, and the image emerges just minutes after the fact—Billy forcing a stupid grin—and for a moment you're put in the mind of a primitive tribe rich in awe and mystery, even if afterward, on the street, you toss the pictures into the first garbage can you pass, let them spill into the trash of nostalgia, feeling a mile too late that maybe that was a mistake.

  "Sorry," Dr. Honeysack says upon his return. "I ran into someone."

  "No problem," Billy tells him.

  "Okay, I just wanted to ask you a few questions about how you're feeling." Honeysack leafs through files on his desk and taps a computer keyboard. While Billy and he are roughly the same age, Honeysack seems older, more mature, a doctor for Christ's sake. Billy wishes his own face would start bearing some miles. "So," Honeysack asks, "how are you feeling?"

  "Fine."

  "Physically fine?"

  "Sure."

  "Mentally?"

  "Fine," Billy says. "Nothing to report as far as I can tell."

  "As far as you can tell?"

  "Yeah."

  The sport of conversation has come late to Dr. Honeysack, and while he might be an enthusiastic participant, he lacks the grace of a natural talker, much like a person who takes up tennis at a late age. "You know," Dr. Honeysack says with net-crashing insincerity, "you can tell me anything. The thing is, we want a detailed profile of this drug. Even the smallest discomfort is worth reporting. Nothing is insignificant here. Nothing is meaningless. So think hard." Honeysack drums the tips of his fingers together like he's praying with a beat.

  "I basically feel the same," Billy says. "Honestly."

  "No small changes?"

  "Like I said, I feel the same."

  "Nothing at all?"

  "Do I look awful or something?"

  "No, you look fine. By the way, there's no right or wrong answer here."

  "Well, I feel fine. I basically feel the same."

  "And how's that?"

  "How's feeling the same?"

  "You feel nothing different."

  "Okay, annoyed," Billy says of the conversation. "Just recently."

  "There we go. That's something. Annoyed." Honeysack writes this down.

  "Very annoyed," Billy says.

  Honeysack underlines the word. "Let's talk about annoyed."

  "Please, let's not."

  "No, annoyance is a real response. Annoyed. Agitated. Short-fused. Frustrated. Superior. How would we define your annoyance?"

  "Wait," Billy says. "I never said anything about superior."

  "So inferior?"

  "Just annoyed."

  "But being annoyed has a sense of superiority, of being above the annoyance."

  "Can we just stick with 'annoyed,'" Billy says, even more annoyed.

  "Sure. Sure." Dr. Honeysack scribbles a longish note. "It's just that—"

  "Maybe I was being glib about my annoyance."

  "Glib? So you've been feeling glib lately. Insincere? Offhanded?"

  "You're like a thesaurus."

  "What's that?"

  "Nothing. Okay, I have been feeling glib. Of late."

  Honeysack smiles. "Suddenly we have annoyed and glib."

  "True."

  "Anything else."

  "Worried," Billy says.

  "About what?"

  "My roommate mostly. John Rami. I'm worried about him." Worried because Do still hasn't showered or shaved or brushed his teeth, and the smell from his bed is starting to shout like a man trapped behind glass that is slowly filling with toxic green smoke.

  "How so?" Honeysack asks.

  "He seems fragile."

  "Does this make you worried about yourself?"

  "No, just him."

  "You don't feel like you might be next?"

  "Should I?"

  "I'm not telling, I'm asking."

  "No," Billy says. "I'm just worried about him, about his state of mind."

  "Anxious?"

  "No, worried."

  "So maybe a heightened sense of empathy?"

  "Maybe." Billy pauses. "And still annoyed."

  "Uh-huh."

  "Very annoyed."

  "Got it." Dr. Honeysack makes a note then rolls his pen in his palms, almost disturbingly, as if warming the ink for a more intimate procedure. An angry pimple sprouts among old acne scars on his neck. It's like a high school reunion. And his eyes—Billy guesses Momma Honeysack told her son, repeatedly, that he had the most beautiful eyes, that they were his best feature and he should accentuate them in conversation, because Honeysack squints and stares and uses his eyebrows as advertisements. His eyes might be blue, but they're too light a shade, an Is-he-blind? hue. The whites are like blank Xeroxes of light. The dark circles underneath could be gills without water. The whole Honeysack production of Eyes! plays sadly, as if Momma is the only person in the audience.

  Billy tries disappearing in a question. "Are you married?" he asks.

  Honeysack, taken aback: "No. Not yet. But soon, hopefully."

  "Dating?"

  "I have, but my work has kept me . . . unavailable."

  "Must be a grind. You look exhausted."

  "Yeah—do I? Yeah. It's been a crazy couple of weeks, kind of disappointing, the last couple of days."

  "Have there been setbacks in your work?" Billy asks.

  "Not with product, but procedure."

  "But you're still going to save a lot of lives."

  "Stop a lot of deaths is how I like to think about it."

  "Oh."

  "Same thing, I know."

  "But different," Billy adds.

  "Exactly. I've always been more death oriented."

  "Oh."

  "My father was an undertaker."

  "Really."

  "Yep."

  "He must've hated your choice of career."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "An undertaker kind of depends on people dying."

  "Oh, yeah, right. No, he was supportive. I think he thought it was the more respectable end of the business."

  "Sure."

  "And with my research, when I picture a potential patient, he's always dead, and I'm reversing the trend. I'm stopping that process. I'm buying him time until the time is right for him to be saved."

  "Because you hate your father," Billy says flippantly.

  "Huh?"

  "I'm kidding."

  "I loved my father."

  "I was just being annoyingly glib."

  "Oh, yeah, right. Anyway." Honeysack checks his watch. "A bit of a tangent."

  "But interesting."

  "I suppose."

  "To go from mortician—"

  "Undertaker."

  "Sorry. From undertaker to doctor. What do you think your children will do?"

  "I don't have any children."

  "Let's pretend."

  Honeysack frowns, turns his attention toward his clipboard.

  "A priest," Billy offers. "I think that would be the natural progres­si
on."

  "I'm not Catholic."

  "A pastor then."

  "I'm not very religious."

  "And your grandson would be a serial killer, karmicly speaking." Honeysack glances back to business. "Physically, how've you been feeling?"

  "Physically, fine. Basically," Billy answers.

  "Basically?"

  "Yeah."

  "Define 'basically.'"

  "I'm bored, but I think that must be natural around here."

  "How are you sleeping?"

  "Poorly."

  Honeysack scribbles this down.

  "But I normally sleep poorly," Billy says.

  "Are you sleeping more poorly?"

  Billy considers the question. "Maybe."

  "How about waking up? How are you waking up?"

  "Slowly."

  "Is it hard to get out of bed?"

  "That's always been a struggle."

  "Getting up?"

  "I'm not much of a morning person."

  "Any fatigue, drowsiness, during the day?"

  "I think I'm always fatigued."

  "So you've been tired during the day?"

  "Sure."

  "Napping?"

  "Well, yeah, but there's not much else to do around here."

  "So lethargic' perhaps?"

  "I suppose."

  "Anything else? Any headaches?"

  "No."

  "How about your stomach?"

  "Fine."

  "No nausea?"

  "No."

  "So fine?"

  "Yeah."

  Dr. Honeysack checks his paperwork, searches for any forgotten questions. He does this under the soundtrack of "Okay," which stretches all the way through the straightening up and closing of the manila file.

  "Sometimes I do hear voices in the shower," Billy says, curious.

  "Voices?"

  "Like somebody's calling my name, looking for me. Always in the shower. Or in air-conditioning."

  "Voices in the shower and air-conditioning?"

  "Yeah."

  "Calling your name?"

  "Yeah. Or singing a song."

  "A song?"

  "Often a show tune. Rodgers and Hammerstein. Irving Berlin."