Heathern

by Jack Womack

  The streets around us appeared not to have been swept for years; where windows weren't boarded over, or shuttered closed, they had been broken out, leaving over the sidewalks an icy frosting of bright broken crystal, a diamond-paved road. As Brooklyn and Queens were now part of the no-man's land across the river, and as Staten Island had seceded years before, the Bronx remained the only borough other than Manhattan still existing under the nominal aegis of the government of the City of New York; yet, the Bronx was to Manhattan as a colony might stand in relation to its ruling empire: a strategic outpost whose inhabitants could be easily overlooked, whose defenses required constant supervision.

  "There'd be any number of things They could do, I suppose-"

  "Limitless," he said. "Godness would leave the details to God. That's where His interest lies, after all."

  My father's family were from the Bronx; it was so hard to imagine anyone living here. My grandparents lived near the Hub, at 149th and Third, until they moved to Co-Op City. The rot they'd escaped trailed them, but didn't catch up until they were long gone. What had been the South Bronx was now nothing other than sweeping acres of brick left to erode back into the earth from which they had been taken, a postindustrial compost heap. In the north Bronx, and along the border, the neighborhoods were indistinguishable from those of southern Westchester, far from Thatcher's estate: that is to say, decrepit, overcrowded, dangerous and awaiting a perpetually delayed rediscovery. Army personnel were stationed throughout the Bronx, for no reasons other than to secure the southeast quadrant against assault from Long Island, and to protect the homes in Riverdale which so many officers had commandeered for themselves. The population had proved so efficient at killing itself off that assistance from the Army was seen as unnecessary; the average Bronxite's life, in those days, was twenty-three. Jensen, a newer immigrant, entered half-life at twentyseven.

  "Where is everybody?" Lester asked, seeing along the Concourse nothing but endless blocks of emptied buildings. I shook my head. Signs were posted upon rusted window-grates and locked doors, familiar signs seen throughout the borough, each of standard design, each bearing the yellow grin and pro forma notification: PROPERTY OF DRYCO. NO TRESPASSING. "I wouldn't think he'd find this neighborhood a sound investment."

  The farther north we drove, the more people we saw; one or two per block. "He has plans," I said. "He started buying it up several months ago. You know the wall downtown, around the Battery?" Lester nodded. "He foresees the water rising high enough one day to warrant moving the operations up here, Bernard tells me. He'll tear it all down eventually. I hesitate to think what he'll build in its place-"

  "Did he make everyone leave?"

  "Not everyone," I said. More natives came into view: remaining residents huddled at street-corners, leaned against doorways, clung to lampposts as if expecting the wind to rise and carry them all away. They seemed only partially real, as if the uncertain conditions under which they lived caused them, over time, to fade away before they might be erased. In the lot of an abandoned gas station a cluster of thin women watched two older men circle around each other, lifting their arms over their heads, performing some manner of ghost dance upon the asphalt plain.

  "Thatcher believes you can bring Jensen out of his coma, I'm sure," I said.

  "I'd think that if he came out of it Thatcher'd only kill him when he was done with him. I doubt he'd want to be reawakened, considering."

  We turned onto Gun Hill Road; in those days, an appropriate name. The hospital buildings rose before us, appearing as an embassy in a war-torn country. Surrounding streets were secured by countless guards; atop stacks of sandbags were head-high coils of razor-edged wire. Our driver edged us past concrete pyramids and stelae erupting at unpredictable intervals through the road's pavement. At several checkpoints we were allowed passage, and moved to the next station. Through our car's insulating walls I grew conscious of a distant whirring, the sound of a swarm of locusts.

  "Where are we going in?" I asked.

  "The emergency room entrance is safest," Avi said, speaking to us through the intercom. "We had no information at the office as to how we reach the experimental floor-"

  "I thought we ran it."

  "That doesn't mean we know anything about it. We'll ask at the desk once we're inside."

  Looking out the window as we rounded one last corner, I saw the source of the oncoming noise. A covey of Emergency Medical and police helicopters was settling down across the way in a vacant field smoothed down by repeated landings. The breeze whipped up by the rotors lifted the dry soil toward heaven, spinning it into dust devils.

  "Stick close," Avi said as we got out of the car, walking swiftly into the hospital and passing through the emergency room's electronically locked bars. The Bronx's missing population rose up around us: hundreds were jammed into the waiting room, crammed in shoulder-to-shoulder along benches attached to the walls, lying in heaps, on stretchers or on blankets aligned in haphazard rows upon the floor. Children's high crescendoes rose in atonal counterpoint against adults' hushed drones. Hospital staff stepped warily through the crowds as if over a minefield, handing out forms, taking temperatures with digital thermometers, giving small cups of water to the overheated, slipping drugs to those who'd come ready to bribe. Nine television sets, none working, hung from the ceiling, attached to a grotesque chandelier; their pulsing screens sedated and soothed those awaiting who chose to look up.

  Avi tugged at an extern's sleeve; the man coughed, sounding tubercular.

  "How do we get to the experimental floor?"

  "No English," he said, in that language. The first patients from the helicopters began coming in. We stepped aside, allowing the newcomers entry.

  "Out of the way," an orderly screamed, pushing a gurney stacked three deep across the floor. "Nurse! Get 'em ready back there."

  "Yo, yo, watch your back, watch your back-"

  "Nurse!"

  An unending stream of gurneys carried in the casualties: young blacks, Latinos, and police, men and women-that is, those old enough to be called men and women. Those police still on active service assisted in clearing the way for their own, kicking aside people lying on the floor that the space they occupied might be used. They swung their clubs with impunity, surely estimating that it was safe to do so while medical personnel were so near.

  "Avi, get us out of here," I said. "This is dangerous-"

  "Legal danger, though," he said. "Stay with me."

  A supervising nurse greeted one of the police captains; together they judged their patients. Orderlies hustled away each gurney bearing a policeperson, once the captain ascertained their condition; civilians weren't sped off with such fervor. The nurse paused at each to await the captain's word before marking, or not marking, upon each patient's forehead the mark of solace, the purple X of triage. A young man whose legs were gone below the knees wailed so loudly as to drown out all others' screams. The captain patted his head.

  "Keep this one," he said to the nurse; the youth was moved along. A woman lay on the next gurney, her ankles cuffed to the metal bars supporting the mattress; her hands were tied above her head.

  "What about her?" the nurse asked. It was impossible to guess what the woman could have done, and the captain didn't say; before I could turn away he shot her in the head. Those in the room who were able, or whose televisioninduced trance was not too deep, threw themselves to the floor. I held Lester tightly as we followed Avi to the admittance desk.

  "You saw that," I said. "You saw it." Lester had no reply; what could he add? The captain and the nurse continued on their rounds.

  "Excuse me," Avi said, shouting through the protective mesh running from desktop to ceiling. No one looked up. "How do we get to the experimental floor?"

  "Take a number," a nurse shouted back, gesturing to a machine bolted onto the desktop, one of those devices delis once used to keep their customers under control.

  "Where's the elevator to the experimental floor?"

&n
bsp; "There's no experimental floor."

  "How do we get to it?"

  "Lester," I said, unable to forget the woman's face as she lay there; I wouldn't have said she appeared surprised. "Can't something be done to help? This is unbearable-"

  "In these situations it isn't right to help one without helping all," he said. "It'd hardly be possible-"

  "Why?"

  "It'd be like sending a hundred times the normal current through a kitchen appliance. There's no getting around it. I'm sorry, Joanna, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak."

  "If there were an experimental floor," Avi said to a different nurse as she emerged from behind a row of dented filing cabinets, "how would you get to it?"

  "Down that hall, fifth elevator on the right," she said, pointing. Avi smiled, and wrapped his arms around us; we walked toward the hall. The captain and the nurse were ahead of us; that woman's face could have been pressed against mine, so clear was her memory. My brain felt aflame; the captain's knees buckled, as if he were dizzy, overcome by what he had done. There was no guilt in his soul. The nurse grabbed him as he fell.

  "Joanna," Lester said, shaking me. "No."

  The captain stood without moving for a moment; shook his head, and continued on. We edged past them, and counted off the elevators until we found the fifth one. As its doors slid apart, revealing within walls so white as snow, I found myself wondering if we'd found the way by which we could go much further than we could have ever hoped, or feared. "What's wrong, Joanna?" Avi asked.

  "This is such an awful place," I said. "It brings out the worst in everyone, I suppose-"

  "People wouldn't get sick unless they brought it on themselves-"

  "Avi, shut up." We ascended; I looked to Lester, who stood close by me, patently aware of what I'd felt, and continued to feel. "There was no reason for what he did--

  "The captain?" Avi asked. "In his mind there must have been. People lose their patience sometimes, that's all."

  "Even divine retribution is less than divine," said Lester, touching my hand. "Don't forget that."

  "We have to take precautions," Avi said, removing his wallet from his pocket, holding it open before him that his Dryco ID might be immediately visible. "Stay behind me, in the corners. Make sure you can be seen. Hold your arms in front of you, palms out."

  The elevator stopped, the door opened; Avi yelled "Dryco!" and thrust his wallet forward as if it might defend. A large man in a blue uniform balanced what appeared to be a cannon against his paunch, leveling the weapon at Avi's midriff. A younger man in a suit stepped up, plucking the wallet from Avi's hand, smiling as if he'd happened upon autumn's last perfect apple, still hanging from its tree.

  "Easy," he said to the armed man, and, still smiling, handed Avi's wallet back to him. "Trust good, control better. Accompanied?"

  "Obviously," said Avi, guiding us out into the entrance hall. I looked more closely at the guard's gun, knowing nothing of artillery than what I'd seen at play. It resembled half a dozen shotguns bundled together and tied with two handgrips. "In a hospital you're using this sort of thing?"

  "Fireplus," said the overseer. "Ready to reprise."

  "We're here to see Jensen," Avi said. "He's a persistent vegetable. Arrangements were made. Which is his room and where is it?"

  "328," the man said, taking badges that bore our logo upon a forest-green field from his pocket, handing them to us. "Thirty top permissible with PVs. Don't overstimulate."

  "Unintended," said Avi, pinning his insignia to his lapel. The man pressed a button, and a buzzer rang; a steel door disappeared into a slot in the ceiling. The walls of the long hall beyond were painted sky blue; soft-edged patches of white dotting the azure represented clouds, so near as I could tell.

  "What did you mean, persistent vegetable?" I asked.

  "Referring to his state," Avi said. "They're exact in their terminology around here. It's good to go along."

  "What sort of gun was that?" Lester asked.

  "A topbreak," said Avi. "Six 20-gauge magnum barrels fixed and mounted, revolving and firing hollowpoints in sequence. A tube in the center squirts hydrochloric acid."

  "Since when do you know from guns?" I asked.

  "You learn." A flock of doctors flew down the hall, giving no evidence that they considered us worthy of study. Their long white coats billowed as clumsy wings behind them. As we moved through the hall's bends and turns we began coming upon doors left partially open, or completely ajar; each room held no more than two patients, fast in their beds, nursed by machinery. Some were hooked up to dialysis units; others slept beneath translucent tents.

  "What sort of experiments go on on an experimental floor?" Lester asked.

  "Ask the experimenters," said Avi. "This looks like the place. 328, wasn't it?" This door was shut; he rapped once against its wood, and then again.

  "Is it locked?"

  "Would it matter?" Turning the knob we opened the door. The windowless room was soaked in unshadowed fluorescence; one unknowing might have thought medical science knew no higher aim than to preserve the tans of those convalescing. Jensen lay naked on his back atop a heated mattress. Three machines attended to his needs; wires ran from their mantles and attached to clamps on his forehead, arms, and legs. From his scattered parts tubes drained into bottles, bags, and jars. In the screens of his caretakers I discerned nothing but glowing lines and phos phorescent flashes. He had an erection; I wondered briefly whether his condition produced it or if it was induced, and then I noted the bend of his catheter, curving up and then down again, appearing after a time no more remarkable than a bishop's crook.

  "Did you know him?" Avi asked.

  "No," I said. "He's so young. They hire them so young nowdays."

  "They're more impressionable, fresh from college."

  The muscle with which Jensen's body was padded assured me that he'd never done a day's worth of physical labor in his life; his flesh could have been hardened foam, shaped to suit. I'd known several co-workers who'd suffered coronaries while applying bulk suitable enough to convince supervisors that they could handle the strain of an executive career. " I guess it's up to you at this point," Avi said.

  "Lester?" I asked. Until that moment he'd waited at the room's threshold, as if approaching too quickly without suitable preparation might disturb whatever mood needed first to be set. Walking to the bedside he pressed his fingertips against Jensen's forehead, careful not to dislodge the wires. Jensen's eyes were open, but he couldn't see; the pupils were so small as to be absent. As Lester made contact we listened to the machines' vespers: beeps, pings, brief gasps of static, and a soft choral hum.

  "Any luck?" I asked. Lester suddenly drew his hand up, as if in probing for something dropped he'd jammed his fingers into a wall socket.

  "What was it?" Avi asked. "What? What'd you see-?"

  "Who're you?" A stranger's voice, coming so unexpectedly that, before we turned to see who it might be, I considered that perhaps Jensen was awake after all, employing ventriloquism to make us go away. "You going to answer?" the woman asked; she was tall and wore a candy-striped uniform. Her hair was set in cornrows; her forearms were more muscular than Jensen's. "You family or what?"

  "We're with Dryco," Avi said. "So was he. We came to visit."

  "Everybody on this floor's with Dryco, hear them tell it. You all may own the place but that doesn't mean you can run around here like you were home."

  "We intended no trouble-"

  "None of you all never do. You know how easy it is to spread diseases to somebody in his shape? You come in with the sniffles and it'll be pneumonia once he gets it. Who you think'11 have to deal with the mess?"

  "I'm sorry," I said. "We'll leave-"

  "Not so fast. I'm saying be careful. Long as you're here, one of you give me a hand flipping him."

  "Why does he need flipping?" Avi asked.

  "Even on these special mattresses they get bedsores if you don't watch 'em. Let 'em lie too long in one pl
ace, they draw all in on themselves. Wind up looking like a pretzel. Then you got to break their damn arms and legs to straighten 'em out again. So, you got to turn 'em, once, twice a day." She regarded her patient. "Somebody's glad to see me this morning," she said, yanking the catheter free, and then unclipping the other wires, and tubes.

  "Are you the floor nurse?" I asked, reading the name on her badge so that I could call her by her name, and so not treat her only as a creation of the hospital. "Nurse Cordero?"

  "I'm paramed." She detached the last connections and removed the intravenous tube from his left arm's vein. "I'll get his legs, you put your hands under him. When I say go, turn him over on his right side. Okay?"

  "All right-" said Avi.

  "Do you attend him every day?" I asked.

  "Doctors attend, I just clean up after 'em. This's the only chance I get to relax, making the rounds up here."

  "Has he ever shown signs of consciousness?"

  "No. Stiff as a board. He'll blink his eyes sometimes if the lights dim but that's involuntary, you know these PVs. Ready now? Get your hands under there. Don't want to bruise anything useful. Okay, go."

  They folded him as if he were an omelet. Lester had said nothing since removing his hands from Jensen's head. He'd picked something up, I knew, and had returned to his place by the door. Nurse Cordero began reinserting the tubes and reclamping the wires.

  "A week or so ago I had a day off," she said. "Not long after they brought him in. Girl who's on duty when I'm not told me he started mumbling about something-"

  "Did she say what?"

  "Nothing she could understand," she said, wielding the catheter so deftly that she could have been threading a needle. "She told the doctor in charge that she thought he might be coming out of it. Told me he got on the phone to somebody real worried like before she even got out of his office. But when I came in, next morning, he looked just the same to me."

  "Which doctor was that?"