The Normals

by David Gilbert

  All he knows is he's thirsty.

  He remembers the nurse's call button—If you need anything—situated on the end of a cord like some self-activating disaster device. But the thing has slipped through the safety bars and dangles between bed and floor, beyond his miserable reach. Luckily the television remote (a comprehensive control that also maneuvers the bed) is resting against his thigh. Yes, he remembers television. He remembers last night's fade of shows, background chatter, like a boy sick while his parents have a party downstairs. Billy pushes on—nope, his head elevates—here, the TV power button and ticks up the volume. The host for This Old House begins shouting. "All this wood has to be replaced thanks to decades worth of water damage." Billy would kill for this kind of damage.

  "Expensive?"

  "Very."

  But the TV never really screams. The sound stays within his palm, the loudspeaker cut into the remote for the sake of privacy.

  Billy groans.

  "You like this show?"

  Billy looks over, meaning he crooks his head rather pitifully.

  There, in the corner of the room, sits an older man, a newspaper crumpled on his lap. He's in his late sixties, early seventies, gray and saggy, with a particularly urban immigrant face, Billy thinks, a boy of stickball and marbles, cheeks squeezed by grandmothers who lived under the same roof, mothers who sewed for extra cash, fathers who sweated for work wherever they could, brothers and sisters who earned their keep. He is freshly American even after all this time. His eyes have that look of sizing up crowds, a fire-escape gaze, a bearing of bigger things ahead that, my God, have been realized and now retirement burns in the distance. Dressed 1950s informal, in a light charcoal suit without the tie and a pair of brown loafers more comfortable than stylish, his head seems bare without a felt hat. "Because I love this show," he says, his voice sweetly raw, pipe smoke instead of cigarettes. Every word is tamped down and lit with his tongue. He gets up and drags his chair toward Billy. It's obvious walking is not his forte. No, he's a sitter, shoulders hunched, elbows preferring a tabletop or, at a minimum, a set of knees. "I'm lousy with tools," he says, "but I could watch these guys forever."

  Nothing about him strikes Billy as familiar, though he carries himself with avuncular ease, like an uncle who rarely visits, an uncle who's willing to unload the family secrets. He has lush crow-black eyebrows, a memory of what was once on top of his head but has now thinned and receded. The hair is still slicked back though, as if balding is no excuse against a good pomade. Up close, the eyes are no bullshit and glint with introduction enough, a sort of / know you and that's enough. "I'm always impressed by what they can do," he says.

  Billy nods.

  "Build things, that's a skill. Renovate. Fix."

  Billy frowns thoughtfully.

  The man leans forward, pillows his arms over his belly. "So how're you feeling, kid?" He actually says kid, says kid like this is a world that still says kid, like Billy is his boxer who got pummeled in the third round.

  "Thirsty," Billy answers.

  The man pours a glass of water from the pitcher on the bedside table.

  The first sip stings.

  "You in any pain?"

  "Not too bad."

  "Yeah, right. I had a triple bypass, I know what you're going through, so don't be brave with me. Fucking hurts. Treat your chest like a lobster tail. No fun. But trust me, gets better, every day, kid, a little better until finally the food will be the worst thing you suffer from and the fucking nurses waking you up and telling you to get some sleep."

  Billy, after another sip, a better sip, asks, "What happened exactly?"

  The mystery man, the sayer of kid, shakes his head, not with any vigor, just a disgusted faugh. "Assholes cracked open your chest. They were desperate. They got you near dead but you were staying dead, nothing was working, certainly not their fucking little drug, and not anything else in their repertoire, so they cracked you open, a last-ditch effort, they told me, and brought you back. Miraculously, they said. I guess the guy, Dr. Marx, did a helluva job even if he did damn near kill you for no good reason."

  "So it didn't work?"

  "It failed spectacularly."

  Failed. Billy closes his eyes. He tries catching the morphine in his blood, like a surfer with a good swell, but the dosage rolls gently, the waves not nearly as intense as expected, and Billy finds himself riding on calm. Failed.

  "But don't you worry, kid," the man says.

  That's when Billy asks, "Do I know you?" The man smiles. It's not a happy smile. His heavy jowls are rueful ballast. "I'm your next of kin," he says. "Clem Ragnar."

  Billy wonders if his eyes spell Oh shit. "The Ragnar?"

  "I suppose."

  "Of Ragnar & Sons?"

  "That was wishful thinking on my part," he says, too sadly for further explanation. "But yes, I'm Ragnar, and please call me Clem."

  "I'm a bit out of it, Clem," Billy explains. "But it's nice to meet you after all this time. My head is . . ." The words trail away. His mouth seems disconnected, speaking from a dream where molasses is involved. "I know why you're here and I have some of the money I owe, or will have some of it, half of it, soon enough."

  Ragnar raises his hand, please enough. "I'm going to kill that Polsheck. I read the letter he sent you. Thinks we're the fucking mob, wishes we were the mob. Failed fucking accountant, that's what he is. If he wasn't married to my daughter he'd be gone because the only cash he can collect comes from my wallet. Family, right?"

  "So he's not your muscleman?" Billy asks.

  Ragnar screws his eyes. "The only thing he beats up is his car. I mean, sure, we all take certain liberties with our letters, whatever works, but he goes all Gotti and wastes too much energy on style. You don't have to worry about Polsheck anymore. I'm personally in charge of your case now. I'm your next of kin. They called my office late Friday and insisted on talking to me, said it was important, so I took the call, and they mentioned your name, which was vaguely familiar from Polsheck's bitching, and they told me you had me as your next of kin and said something had gone very wrong and you were in the hospital and I was needed. Now I was still flummoxed by exactly who the hell you were but I certainly knew Hargrove Anderson Medical—I'm on Calatrix for high blood pressure, two dollars a pill—and after decades of being in the particular field I'm in, I know the sound of panic and money and I knew these people were panicking about everything but money which is a new kind of panic for me. I sensed something like a large cash settlement, the way they talked. So I scratched my Labor Day plans, the wife none to pleased. Send an associate, she said, of course not Polsheck because Polsheck is family and needed for the big barbecue. But they asked for me specifically and if this is what I think it is, I told her I wanted my own hands on this fish. I drove up here to see my next of kin who has been done a mighty wrong. I've been here ever since. I got you this private room in the ICU, which isn't easy."

  Billy watches Ragnar, watches him rub his hands together, working his knuckles with his thumb, these old hands, like roots for his arms. "And I tell you," Ragnar continues. "I'm glad I came myself, because the second I rolled up here they whisked me away into a conference room with a bunch of fucking lawyers pretending they weren't lawyers, and they explained the whole situation to me. Said some rogue researchers were to blame, Honeysack and Marx, that they were working without authorization from Hargrove Anderson Medical, that what they did was unacceptable and they've been summarily fired and would never work in research again. Okay, I said. Then they start pushing papers under my nose. They tell me how they've got this watertight informed consent—whatever that is—signed by you and it'll hold up in any court of law. See, they say, he expressly volunteered and even signed a liability release form and understood exactly what the risks were. They're like bam bam bam, Sonny Liston. I'm playing dumb, bereaved, telling them you're like a grandson to me, but it's pure rope-a-dope until I know what's going on. They tell me how this non-HAM-sanctioned study paid you on paper
thirty thousand, but in light of the circumstances, the outrageous behavior of their researchers, the—quite frankly, they say, which I love, like all the previous talk is far from frank—the bad publicity this might generate would not be good for them. Yeah, no shit. So they're willing to up the ante to an even hundred thousand, all you gotta do is sign a nondisclosure form and the money is yours. You following me?"

  Billy nods.

  "You look like you're dozing."

  "No, no, I'm listening."

  "Don't doze." Ragnar stares into Billy, eyes pinning him like hands on shoulders. "Because this is important," he says. "You're not signing anything. You hear me. I don't want you even near a pen. A hundred grand is nothing for these guys, and a million is just a start. What they did to you, look at you, they almost killed you and God knows what kind of permanent damage they did to your heart. No, these guys are going to go higher, much higher, I'm thinking five, six million, maybe more, because if this gets into the newspapers, that's their shit creek. FDA investigation. That was wishful thinking on my partMassive fines. Right now this is just a small fire and they're willing to go to three alarms to keep it under control. But let me handle the negotiation. Believe me, I'm good at this. Getting money from people, that's my hanging curve. I'll represent you for forty percent of whatever you get and that'll include the money you already owe. A real lawyer would ask for fifty."

  "Are you a lawyer?" Billy asks.

  "No, but you don't want a real fucking lawyer. Trust me, kid. A lawyer will screw everything up. You bring one lawyer to the table and they'll bring ten. They'll always be able to out-lawyer you. And all of a sudden you're in a fucking trial and fees up the wazoo and you're depending on a jury of cleaning women and truck drivers. Even if you do win, you've got appeals, more appeals, and a judge who can half the reward like that. No, let me handle this. Christ, without me you wouldn't even be here. I'm kind of your partner already. Now they're going to play you against time, tell you the offer is only good for so long and then nothing because they don't want you sitting on this too long, but whatever you do, don't sign anything, don't even talk to them without me around because I know all the tricks. Just sit tight. Ask for more morphine. Tell them the pain is unbearable. Cry mommy. Sleep. Whatever. But don't sign anything. I tell you, the timing could be better. Fucking Labor Day weekend. Because I gotta go, otherwise I'll end up in worse shape than you if my wife has her way. Woman has a hard-on for the last weekend of the summer, like next weekend won't be eighty degrees as well. Personally, I don't get it. Summer officially ends what, September twenty-third, the autumnal equinox, right, so what's the big deal. What are we celebrating anyway, the American worker? Always sounds commie to me. But she has her hard-ons. I'll be back Tuesday afternoon, and by then I'll have drafted some sort of agreement between the two of us, for the up-and-up. After that, we'll go for the jugular and bleed these fuckers. I'll call you tomorrow, maybe even tonight. You understand?"

  "Yes," Billy says, exhausted.

  "Don't sign anything."

  "Right."

  Ragnar gets up, groaning. "I'm tempted to break your right hand just to make sure." He gives no indication that this is a joke except a sharp unfunny "Ha" and a barely gentle chuck to Billy's chin. "Now rest up," he says, shuffling toward his nest of newspaper and briefcase. Once again he admires the carpentry on TV. "If it was up to me to build my own shelter, I'd be living in a fucking cave. See ya, kid."

  Billy, fading, falling through the mattress, waves, his hand dangling above him as he sinks into sleep, still waving bye, waving, waving, forgetting why he's waving and wondering if somebody will grab him.

  42

  THE TELETHON is on, the Muscular Dystrophy Association telethon hosted by Jerry Lewis for the last thirty-odd years. Billy stumbles onto the fifth hour—$7,455,635 on the tote—and stays tuned, often fading away with the morphine and sleeping for thousands and thousands of dollars, reawakening with the latest giant cardboard check or minor celebrity or video profile of an unfortunate boy with Duchenne's. Tilted forward in bed, eyes narcotic, Billy is tended by nurses who come in and say, Oh look, the telethon, as if this is a forgotten relic, a grandmother's tchotchke perhaps once humored but now viewed as tacky. Billy nods, in on the joke, but when they return and find him still watching, they smile with a certain amount of condescension, like he might actually be interested in this sap. Because who watches the telethon for more than five, ten minutes? Who puts in hours, or God forbid, a whole day? But at this moment it seems, well, necessary to Billy, like a religious made-for TV event, twenty-four hours of suffering and hope, a fast of dying children. And the morphine helps. Oh yes, the morphine. It's self-administered with a press—Beep! —of a trigger that winds its way to the infusion pump and its churning care. "As much as you like, whenever you feel the need," the nurse told him. "There's no danger of overdosing or anything like that," she said. "Most patients give themselves too little." Not this patient. Beep! Beep! Beep! Like activating a car alarm except security comes in drips and there's nothing inside of Billy worth stealing. Beep! His sternum feels electrified. Beep! His chest throbs with painlessness. Beep! His joints are as noteworthy as layovers between destinations and his head could be O'Hare. Where am I? Oh, yeah. Here. But temporarily. Beep! Ah, morphine. Almost like morpheme, the smallest meaningful unit of speech, which pleases Billy—Beep!—this idea—Beep! —of pushing the minimum of connection through his veins. The only problem is that sleep never fulfills its promise of rest and is banked in chunks of change, pennies, nickels, dimes that never accumulate like they do for the school children around the country who beam over their pooled check of $51,345.37. Applause from the studio audience. Billy smiles. Good kids. The TV remote with its personalized speaker rests near his chin, and the volume is as high as the volume will go. The clapping vibrates the stubble growing on his neck. Wonderful. These children, these kids, they're our leaders of tomorrow. This sentiment oozes forth from Mr. Jerry Lewis, who has his arms draped around these wonders, the foot soldiers of his crusade. Oh, what a lovely future we might have. Jerry tears or sweats or both, his skin glistening under the lights, his hair obsidian black, as if lava has hardened over Mount Rushmore. It's obvious Jerry's in poor health. His tan is jaundiced. In fact, he almost missed this year's telethon—doctor's orders—but damn the torpedoes, he's here for his kids. He tells the audience only death would keep him away and even then he'd do his darnedest. Laughter builds into ovation. Jerry shticks his left hand enough and his right-hand more. He nods, taps his chest, worries his hands, blows kisses with obsessive-compulsive affection. Billy smiles. Combined with the Beep! of morphine, this is a speedball of instant camp, beautifully American, a triumph of optimism over truth.

  $10,436,856.54.

  Sunday dinner served and ignored, Billy watches a video profile of Jimmy Rialto, a nine-year-old with Duchenne's who can play baseball like any normal boy. / ain't letting nothing slow me down, he narrates with pure gumption, like a latter day Bowery Boy. So I'm sick, plenty kids sick, some kids worse off than me, healthy kids too, you hear plenty awful things about healthy kids and how they're abused so how can I complain when I'm having all this fun and the Red Sox got a real good chance this year, go Sox. On camera, his mother glows while his father lowers his head under the weight of ominous emotion. Jimmy sits stiffly in a wheelchair. His atrophied muscles give the impression of rock-hard strength, of a mini-body-builder physique. Some people say is I got a tough break, but shoot, I say 1986, game six of the World Series, now that was a tough break. An impish smile. Or bounce. The end. And then Heeeere's Jimmy, from Ed McMahon, the cohost, who windmills his arm as Jimmy enters stage right, pushed by Mom with Dad trailing behind with all the enthusiasm of a hitched goat. The audience is on their feet. Jimmy is waving, raising his arms in triumph, which is unfortunate because his dystrophied shoulder blades jut like useless wings. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a profile in courage, Jerry thoughtfully pressing his fingers to his lips, This is the reas
on I do this, we all do this, year after year until the year we can stay home and just remember the years before, when muscular dystrophy is retirement home of diseases playing a game of canasta with polio and smallpox. Jerry reaches down, kisses Jimmy on both cheeks and has a private word he shares once Jimmy leaves the stage. / told him, Hey kid, you're my Mickey Mantle who I knew very well. Ed nods. Great kid.