Windward Passage

by Jim Nisbet

  “Mm,” replied the doctor absently. After a pause, he smiled. “I’ve just bought a Porsche.”

  “Not again.” The orderly closed his eyes and shook his head.

  “Wow,” said Officer Ventana, wrenching his attention away from the television. “What model?”

  “Carerra Turbo S,” the doctor answered him. “Priapic Red.”

  “Whale tail,” said Ventana, “cookie-cutter wheels, sunroof, fog-lights, seven-speaker stereo, and a black Naugahyde brassier?”

  “The works,” the doctor assured him. “Her speedometer reads to 165.”

  Ventana whistled appreciatively.

  “And you believe it?” the orderly surmised.

  If Felton-Foote noticed the fumes of acid rising from the orderly’s tone, he made no sign. Quite the contrary. “You take a nurse up through the gears and back down inside of a mile?” The doctor snapped his latexed fingers. “She’s ready to deal.”

  “I’d give it up too,” the orderly hinted broadly.

  “The problem is,” the doctor continued, evincing earnest petulance, “I can’t come up with a proper license plate.”

  “A license plate?” Officer Ventana asked.

  “He means a vanity plate,” the orderly informed him.

  “Oh, no,” Ventana adjoined sympathetically.

  “Every tag I think up is already taken,” Felton-Foote explained sadly.

  “FELTFOOT is already taken?” the orderly asked.

  “Gone,” the doctor nodded, aggrieved. He looked up with anticipation. “How did you know?”

  “We had this conversation a shift or ten ago,” the orderly pointed out.

  Dr. Felton-Foote vaguely frowned. It was clear from his expression that if it weren’t the conversation he couldn’t remember, it may well have been the orderly himself.

  Quentin bore witness to this exchange with mounting incredulity. “Say, have you a couple of aspirin around—?”

  “And what about FOOTFELT?” Ventana suggested.

  “Yeah,” put in the orderly, not bothering to conceal his acedia, “have you thought of FOOTFELT?”

  “Taken.” Felton-Foote retrieved a roll of paper from the side pocket of his white smock and handed it to Quentin, of all people.

  Quentin accepted it. Or rather, his incredulity accepted it, or maybe it was his concussion. Something, at any rate, had rendered him passive.

  The orderly nudged him and winked. “Let’s see.” Officer Ventana came round behind the gurney to look over Quentin’s shoulder as he unrolled the piece of paper, revealing a list in which each entry had been scored through by pen or pencil.

  FELTFOOT

  FOOTFELT

  FLTFT

  FTFLT

  FLEETFT

  FLTDOC

  DCTRFLT

  “I got it,” Quentin said.

  “Good.” The orderly patted him on the shoulder. “That’s the first step to canceling autoinfantilization.”

  The doctor hushed him.

  “TOOTELFF,” Quentin said, “is an anagram of FELTFOOT. Only the Shadow will know.”

  “And those with secret decoder rings,” the orderly added with admiration.

  Ventana look mystified.

  Felton-Foote counted on his fingers. “Too many letters.”

  “Perfect,” Quentin declared, “then make it TOOTELF. Or—will they give you a space between syllables? As in, TOOT ELF?”

  “Oh no.” Felton-Foote made as if to hold back the wave of sentiment with the latexed palms of both hands. “That’s too close to BLO MNKY, with or without the space.”

  “No anyway,” Ventana volunteered. “I’ve cited that one for blocking a crosswalk. Jaguar XKE.” He backhanded his notepad. “$375.”

  “Time was of course …” As if to exchange the reverie of excesses past for the exigencies of matters present, if a tad reluctantly, Felton-Foote arrested the reflection. “But, no. Inspired by the example of a recent president, I sacrificed the enjoyment of that product in order to reify my personal integrity.”

  “To reify,” Quentin said thoughtfully, “is to regard or treat an abstraction as if it had concrete or material existence.”

  “Alas,” stressed the orderly.

  “After my residency,” the doctor added, somewhat petulantly.

  “Say,” said the orderly, “wasn’t that about the same time that Johnston got nailed for siphoning fentanyl?”

  “What are you,” snapped Felton-Foote, “Thucydides?”

  The theme from Dr. Zhivago sounded again. “All those other ones are taken, too. Hello.”

  Quentin shared the list with the orderly and Ventana.

  CADUCEUS (too many letters)

  CADUCUS

  CADUCS

  CDUCS

  CDCS

  CDS

  SAWBONES (too many letters)

  SWBNS

  SAWBNS

  SAWBONZ

  CADUZEUS (too many letters)

  CADZEUS

  CADZOOKS (too many letters) (doesn’t make sense)

  “Sure it does,” said the orderly.

  SURGEON

  SRGEON

  SRGEN

  SRGN

  SRGN1

  SRGN2

  SRGN3 &c &c

  “That’s so depressing,” the orderly said, not without a certain satisfaction.

  “I’ll say,” Quentin agreed, gamely swallowing a wave of nausea.

  “It’s hard,” Officer Ventana reified.

  “Is ER on there?”

  “Um … Here.”

  “How about ASSHOLE?”

  “Um … Yep.”

  “What? Where?”

  “Just kidding.” Quentin offered him the list. “Anybody want to add to it?”

  “Yes,” the orderly said, “but no thanks.”

  “Boy or girl?” Felton-Foote said into his cellphone, turning his head to study the readout on a beeper vibrating on his belt.

  Quentin let the list collapse into a tube. “Aren’t you supposed to suture a wound before it heals?” He touched the wound in his scalp. “Despite my daily dose of warfarin, even, it’s quit bleeding.”

  “You know that stuff started out in life as rat poison?” The orderly gently inclined Quentin’s head for a look. “So it has.”

  Quentin blinked. “Warfarin?”

  Officer Ventana came back around the gurney. “We’re still lacking a complete description.”

  Quentin blinked twice. The officer seemed a bit … fuzzy. His glasses must be in his jacket. “Description? Description. …”

  Ventana read from the notebook. “Red haired pirate. Burly, brusque, sunburned …”

  Quentin frowned. “I can’t remember a thing,” he said after a moment.

  “Get an Ob/Gyn down there,” Felton-Foote said into the phone. “I don’t know a thing about preemies.” He hung up. “Well?”

  All three looked at him. “Well what?”

  “Did you think of a plate for the Porsche?”

  Quentin held out the roll of paper. “You already thought of them all, it would seem.”

  “Pretty resourceful,” the orderly agreed. “We’re stumped.”

  “Stumped,” Officer Ventana agreed.

  “It’s a difficult problem,” Felton-Foote said, retrieving the list. “I’m not surprised you couldn’t cope with it.”

  “Especially since I’m injured,” Quentin remarked.

  “A head injury,” the orderly hinted.

  “Yes …” the doctor murmured thoughtfully, tapping the tips of the latexed fingers of one hand with the rolled list.

  “How about HEADCASE?” the orderly suggested.

  The doctor looked up and appeared to think about it. “I’m not a psychiatrist,” he said at last.

  “Probably taken anyway,” consoled the orderly.

  “Besides,” said Officer Ventana, counting on his fingers, “it’s too many letters.”

  “I’m not feeling so well,” Quentin said truthfully. “Wo
ozy, like. Mal de mer.” He flattened a hand over his stomach. “Or maybe the sushi’s still alive.” He looked puzzled. “Except I don’t eat sushi.”

  “Must be tough,” Officer Ventana said.

  “Not-eating sushi?” Quentin asked uncertainly.

  “Owning a Porsche.”

  The doctor availed himself of a fretful sigh. “It’s a matter of discipline.”

  Quentin fainted.

  “Now,” said a man seated behind a microphone on a desk within the television above the door, “maybe the lovely Doris can get this picture up where we can see it.” The camera cut to a slim brunette in a black cocktail dress who also wore a blinding smile. A tiny gold cross dangled from a thin gold necklace over the hollow of her throat, and she held against her abdomen below her décolletage a photograph which reflected glossily in the studio light. She watched for direction as the camera slowly closed on the photograph, until the photograph filled the screen, except for Doris’ manicured nails, and the camera pulled focus sufficiently to sharpen the image, which was of a young girl squinting and smiling uncertainly while her picture was being taken. “Now look at that,” said the man who had been speaking before. “Have you ever seen such an ugly little girl? Look at that hair. Look at those teeth. A disgrace to the race. I don’t mean Caucasian people in particular, ladies and gentlemen, because, as you all know, I’m not a racist. I mean hominids in general. Look at that squint. I bet she’s already near-sighted. Her daddy may have went to Hollywood, and her other daddy might have been a Rhodes Scholar, and both mommies might have went to both Hollywood and Yale, but it’s ugly progeny like this that make you wonder what in the hell is going on at our elite universities today. Ever think about that? Huh? What, in the hell, is going on, at our—yours and my—elite universities today. Thank you, Doris.” The camera pulled back to a long shot of a still-smiling Doris, and then cut to the man behind the desk. He smiled, too. “You’ll never have a kid looks like that, honey,” he reassured Doris, out of the shot, stage left. The shot awkwardly cut to her laughing, without sound, and cut back. “Ever think about having kids? Huh?” He leered. “We’ll talk about it later.” Again the camera cut to the girl, who feigned shock, and the shot cut back. “Thanks again, Doris, honey.” He turned to face the camera again. “Never mind what’s going on in the halls of Congress. By all that’s decent about this country of ours, it’s people like the parents of this hapless, ugly, deformed child who are determined to ruin it. Educated, wealthy, liberal—that’s a deadly combination. That ugly little girl’s parent’s unregistered interest group has undertaken a tireless campaign against the Redfern Efficacies Act. Can you believe that, ladies and gentlemen? The Redfern Efficacies Act! Who in this great wide country of ours can possibly be against Efficacy Number One?” He held up a forefinger. “The criminalization of flag burning. The criminalization of flag burning! Who could possibly be against it? Give me that.” The photograph entered the frame of the shot and he leaned out toward the camera to take it. He sat down again and steadied the photograph in the glare of the studio lights, watching a monitor out of the shot as he did so. “This little girl’s parents have but one purpose, one single aim, and that is no less,” the photograph steadied, he looked directly into the camera. “No less,” he repeated calmly, “than the implosion of this great democracy of ours.” He shook his head. “This little girl’s parents’ unregistered interest group and their cronies will not cease until their efforts have brought this great country of ours to its knees. …”

  What in the hell is going on? Quentin wondered. Who is this guy? But the people bustling around him took no notice of his queries, if indeed they could hear him; if indeed, he suddenly realized, he were uttering them aloud or, if aloud, coherently. Officer Ventana? he pinged. Doctor Felton-Foote? Is television the only thing I can hear or understand? Is this my fate? But I don’t understand it. … He was no longer sitting on the gurney, he lay on the floor next to it. He was on his back, looking at the ceiling. In a circle around him he could clearly make out the features of the kindly orderly, of Officer Ventana, and of Felton-Foote, who, turned away from the gurney and on the phone, seemed to be lip-synching the words, “Get a traumatologist down here, stat!” As he screamed soundlessly at the phone he was also squinting at the tiny screen on his beeper.

  The man grimaced and let the photograph of the little girl fall face forward onto his desk. “I urge you,” he said, addressing the camera, “to call your senator, your congressman. Call the White House, because, you know, because the White House wants to hear from you.” He pointed directly at the camera. “If you feel that your representative in the House or Senate somehow got there despite your honest vote, we have an 800 number that you can call.” He lowered his eyes as if looking over the forward edge of his desk. “Don’t we,” he said, letting his eyes slide to one side. “Don’t we have an 800 number the folks at home or in their workplace can call?” A hint of menace colored his intonation. The digits of a telephone number began to crawl across the bottom of the screen. Whatever device the studio was using to create this effect conjoined a slight buzz to the audio signal, while a translucent sawtoothed wave undulated a couple of scan lines along the bottom of the video signal. “Here we go. What you’re seeing on your screen at home or in your office is the toll-free number of the National Redfern Efficacies Act Emergency Response Political Action Committee. Operators are standing by to take your comments, your suggestions, and, if you possibly can help, your donations. Yes, ladies and gentlemen,” he sighed, “it’s a sad fact of life that money talks. Heck,” he touched his breast modestly, “you can listen to me all day,” he smiled and inclined his head, “and I hope you do, too. But,” he resumed his severity, “money is what makes this thing we call democracy go round. You know it, I know it, they know it. By they I mean them up there in Washington, and by them I mean folks with an agenda, like the cronies and the unregistered interest group fronted by this little girl, here.” He turned down the corners of his mouth, as if lowering them toward the photograph, now face up on his desk. “With your help, ladies and gentlemen, we can pass the Redfern Efficacies Act. Call us now.” He recited the 800 number. “Put your hard-earned dollars where your mouths and your hearts and your minds are. We’ll do the rest. Now.” He sat back from the desk and drummed the fingers of both hands along its edge. “When we come back, we’ll take a closer look at the Twelve Efficacies, as well as some of the activist judges who call themselves Americans but don’t think the Efficacies worthy of the sanction of law.”

  Sandy, Quentin said to the orderly, for the orderly wore a nameplate too, make them turn it off. Who the hell is that beastly man? Why is the administration of this hospital torturing us with this rubbish? Is State TV the only channel you can get down here in this sub-basement of an emergency room?

  His own eyes informed Quentin’s unpleasant realization that, whatever his impression of what he, himself, Quentin, was saying, it wasn’t what other people were hearing. The orderly’s professional mask had slipped sufficiently to let show his true feelings, and what Sandy the orderly was feeling was sorry for Quentin. It was evident that Sandy and everybody else in the room were hearing gibberish.

  And then Sandy’s voice burst through the envelope of silence that cloaked Quentin’s conscious faculties like an unexpected radio transmission on a heretofore silent frequency.

  “—Baby,” Sandy the orderly said, tears welling over the lower lids of his eyes. “He sounds like a baby.”

  And then the door to the hallway opened and closed again, silent as a bivalve, and there-through passed that Russian guy. Quentin recognized him, but couldn’t place him or his name. The doctor said something Quentin couldn’t understand. The Russian answered and the doctor asked something and then Quentin tried to speak. The orderly had to restrain him and Officer Ventana pitched in and, unfortunately, it appeared Quentin had wet himself. Officer Ventana made a face and stood away but the orderly hung in there. Doctor Felton-Foote watched the s
cene over the mouthpiece of his cellphone, whatever he was saying he was saying into the cellphone and, anyway, it made no sense to Quentin. With doctors as with poetry, sense derives from sound like a steady rain on an ocean swell as it dissolves among the rocks at Land’s End on a big winter’s day. Those swells come all the way from Japan. Where did this guy come from, Quentin managed to shout, and the orderly looked at him as if he were really worried about what was happening to Quentin and suddenly his audio was interbenightedly lucid.

  “… calling card in your pocket … cellphone number … He’s the only friend/colleague/acquaintance or family member, check one, here, that’s it—we could find. Short notice, dire circumstances, nobody here’s got time to do it anyway … We need him to sign off on drilling a hole in your skull to relieve the pressure. Don’t worry, just a little pinch … But surely you recognize him? He’s here to help you. We’re bending the rules, here. We all want to help you.”

  Benighted again. The sounds of big surf, of bad shortwave reception, of deciduous leaves. Sferics from purgatory, from the past. Tour Hue during Tet with the Marquis de Sade by Pedicab at No Risk … ! I fade your offer, said the television, Tour Basra with British Commandos, Special Effects Guaranteed Realistic, No Live Shrapnel—Bonus: Home For The Niners Game! Complimentary non-alcoholic drinks and snacks included. No host bar. Offer good only in select markets. Paint balls extra.

  Stroke, said Officer Ventana’s mouth. Officer Ventana’s audio was turned off, too. Heart attack, mouthed the orderly.

  “Well, my dessicated friend, what’s happened to you?” said Vassily, his solicitude abruptly surfing the surf with equanimity. “Perhaps,” Vassily urged him, “perhaps you might put me in touch with our friend Charley so as we might coordinate your out-patient arrangements … ?”

  Just like a poor baby, the orderly mouthed, his eyes brimming with silent tears. Only the noun surfaced in the susurrant spume. Although, Quentin feared, if one of them fell over the edge it might hit the floor with a tremendous crash. Edge of the abyss. Hear its hiss.