The ER has jerks and egomaniacs, like everywhere else, but you meet fewer of them here than you do in the theater. Eleanor likes the people she works with. She’s heard about nurses bullying other nurses, but she’s never seen it.
Everyone loves Betsy, the intake nurse. Even people in pain, even the loved ones of people in pain, respond to the steady warmth with which Betsy looks at them, to her soothing, musical, islands accent, to how clear it is that she’s listening and understanding and not just waiting for her turn to speak.
Betsy brings Eleanor up to speed. It’s been a quiet Saturday afternoon, a welcome break before the circus of Saturday night. One playground fall, three stitches. Little League softball in the eye. Guy with asthma left his rescue inhaler at his girlfriend’s house in Boston. A guy with kidney stones sobbed until they hooked him up to a morphine drip, and now he’s on a gurney in the corridor telling everyone he loves them and how good at their jobs they are. Elderly dementia patient overdosed on Ambien, but not seriously. Eight-year-old boy with strep. College girl drank too much and couldn’t get her hard contact lens out of one eye, but it was just a panic attack; the nice ophthalmology resident still here from the softball kid found the lens in no time. She gave him her phone number. Nobody died. No one was badly hurt.
Betsy asks how the play went.
Eleanor says, “Pretty crazy.”
Betsy has seen the show. Eleanor got tickets for Betsy and her kids. She’s gotten tickets for everyone on the staff who has kids. Knowing her coworkers were in the house made Eleanor self-conscious, but she got into being Janice, and everyone—or anyway, the kids—greatly enjoyed Mister Monkey.
“Chimpanzees can get crazy,” Betsy says.
“Did you read my mind?” asks Eleanor.
“Just saying,” Betsy says. “Remember that story about the chimp ripping his handler’s face off over some birthday cake?”
“How could I forget?” Eleanor considers telling Betsy about Adam, asking her advice. But Betsy has enough to do without listening to Eleanor worry about a troubled child actor.
Betsy hands Eleanor a chart.
Leonard Marber, 67, chest pains. No previous cardiac history. Eleanor knows who he is: the distinguished-looking older gentleman in the waiting room who, not wanting to seem impatient, tried not to look too yearningly at her as she passed. She asks who did Mr. Marber’s EKG, the bad technician or the good one?
“The good one,” Betsy says.
Eleanor calls Mr. Marber, who gets up and follows her to her office.
He hoists himself onto the table with some effort but with the pride of a man who until lately was confident and strong. Eleanor listens to his chest with a stethoscope, but it’s theater.
Most of what she needs to know is in the printout: a minor coronary hiccup. But he’s at risk of something more serious in the not-so-distant future. She takes his blood pressure. It’s 140 over 90, not great, and his pulse, which is racing.
Mr. Marber gratefully hops down when Eleanor suggests he’d be more comfortable in a chair.
“I read a quote from Sophia Loren,” he says. “Someone asked her how she manages to seem so young, and she said the way to seem young was not to groan when you stand up.”
“I’ll remember that,” says Eleanor. “Okay, let’s see, Leonard. May I call you Leonard? Your blood work’s mostly within the normal range. And this little thing—see this?—on your EKG?”
“Yes?” says Mr. Marber.
“An irregularity.” She’ll tell him what he needs to know, a little at a time. She doesn’t want to scare him out of seeing a doctor. Men are so easily spooked. He needs a cardiology consult. Sooner rather than later.
“Nothing major,” Eleanor says. “But I need to ask you some questions, Leonard, just to be on the safe side. We need to make sure we’re not missing something, and regardless, you’d probably be smart to make an appointment with a cardiologist. Just to be on the safe side.”
“On the safe side,” Mr. Marber says. “You said that twice.”
Eleanor says, “I guess I mean: just to be on the safe side.” She leans forward until their knees are almost touching. “Leonard, do you remember when the chest pains began?”
“It must have been more than two weeks ago. I took my grandson to the theater. That evening, at my daughter’s house, I had some . . . discomfort. Actually, now that I think of it, that wasn’t the first time, so it must have begun before. I’ve had a hard few years. My wife died, I retired. By which I mean they retired me.”
“I’m sorry.”
There’s a pause.
Eleanor can’t help asking, “What play did you and your grandson see?”
“Do you have kids?”
“No,” says Eleanor. “Not so far.” Not ever.
“Then I don’t imagine you would have heard of it. Maybe even if you did have kids. A small neighborhood production for children. Very modest, very low-key. A musical.”
Which musical? Did he like it? Eleanor can’t do this. They need to get back to Mr. Marber’s heart.
“It was called Mister Monkey.” Mr. Marber laughs.
“Cool title, Leonard,” says Eleanor. Of all the children’s musicals and all the emergency rooms in this enormous city! What are the chances? Maybe Eleanor doesn’t believe in God, but she pictures a cosmic playwright with a weird sense of humor setting up scenes like this one: unlikely coincidences, improbable events, good and bad surprises. What are the odds of her patient’s taking his grandson to see Mister Monkey and not The Lion King?
It feels not merely unprofessional but dangerous to continue this line of questioning, and yet Eleanor asks, “Was it good? Did you and your grandson enjoy it?”
The old man sighs. “What can I tell you? Everybody was doing their best.”
This is the moment to tell him, before he says something about the play that will make it awkward for her to admit that she was in it. She’ll say, Believe it or not . . . I was Janice! She’ll sing a few lines of her fingernail song. He’ll be amazed by the coincidence. Unlike her fellow actors, he’ll understand that she’s not the character she plays. And he’ll have an interesting story to tell his grandchild.
“And since then?” she says. “The pain?”
“Since then and before then,” Mr. Marber says. “Want to hear a funny story about my grandson?”
“Sure!” Eleanor takes his wrist again. Just the idea of a funny story about his grandson has slowed his pulse, ever so slightly.
“It’s about that play. Mister Monkey. Like I said, the cast was trying. The actors had some strikes against them. And I think even my grandson knew that the production had something . . . something sad about it. The actors were grinning like maniacs. The costumes were falling apart. And there were a couple of times when the lighting guy was . . .” Mr. Marber walks two fingers across the examining table, imitating the spotlight looking for the actors. Eleanor is supposed to laugh, but she can only fake a stiff-lipped monkey grimace.
“Anyhow my grandson, who by the way is the world’s most polite and well behaved and thoughtful human being, I know I sound like just another proud grandpa, but you wouldn’t believe how conscious a little kid can be . . . Anyway, one of the actresses drops her phone, and everyone is waiting to see what she’ll do. And my grandson asks me, loud and clear, ‘Grandpa, are you interested in this?’
“I know he didn’t expect it to come out so loud. I don’t think he noticed that the theater had gone silent. Maybe the acoustics were . . . I don’t know. Everybody heard. The poor kid was mortified. I felt awful for the actors.”
Mr. Marber laughs ruefully, but it’s a laugh nonetheless.
What exactly did this old guy think would be funny about this story? Little Jesus blowing the whistle on a pathetic production? Is this meant to amuse people who haven’t been to the play, who haven’t been in the play, who haven’t put everything they have, their hearts and souls into their performance? Is his little anecdote intended to give people a chuckl
e because an innocent child told the truth about a group of underpaid, brave, disappointed actors? How can he not understand that this “sad” production is part of these people’s lives?
She presses the lever on the metal canister that releases a cotton ball. She squeezes the cotton, worries it between her fingers. She rubs her fingertips with her thumb and tries to recover the feeling of putting on her press-on nails. Poor Margot. Poor Roger. Poor Leonard. Poor Lakshmi. Poor Leonard Marber’s grandson. Poor everyone. Cure sometimes, heal frequently, comfort always.
Children of God. Leonard Marber is a child of God. Leonard and his grandson are the Fat Ladies for whom they were performing.
“What did you tell him?” Eleanor asks. “Were you interested in the play?”
“I said yes. I was. Very. But maybe not for the usual reasons. Maybe not for the reasons the cast would have preferred.”
Eleanor pretends to have to write something on Mr. Marber’s chart. He thinks that Mister Monkey . . . he thinks the whole show was about some adorable thing his grandson said.
Strangely, or not so strangely, she remembers that afternoon. How unnerving the child’s outburst was. They all heard his question. It threw everyone off.
Actually, come to think of it . . . things went downhill from there. Adam got more rambunctious, Margot more fearful and depressed. It all began at that show. Would Mr. Marber like to know that? Would that put a new spin on his funny story?
Or maybe he would like to know how much time she just spent talking to the sad little boy who plays Mister Monkey, reconciling him to the end of a childhood and to a future no sane person would choose. Grandpa, are you interested in this? What if Adam was your grandson?
What would it do to Mr. Marber’s heart rate if she said that she was in the musical that he just insulted with his patronizing and oh-so-thoughtful and gently humorous bad review? She cannot let that happen. Eleanor closes her eyes. She is not here to care what this man thought of a play she was in. She is here to help this child of God.
She takes Mr. Marber’s forearm and looks into his eyes. He’s not used to it, and it startles him, but after a moment he likes it. Eleanor works to communicate what she actually feels, which is warmth and goodwill. She’s not insulted. She means him no harm.
She just wants to tell him how strange this is.
If this becomes another one of his funny stories, or a funny coda to the funny story about his grandson at the theater, it will remind him of where (the hospital!) this part of the story happened and of what Eleanor (a nurse!) advised him to do. Like those pillboxes with alarms that remind the elderly when to take their meds.
Eleanor says, “Okay. This is crazy. A crazy coincidence. You’re not going to believe this. And I need to tell you that this is not about what you thought of the play. That’s not my point.”
“Now I’m scared,” says Mr. Marber. Is there a microflirtation in this? Mr. Marber hears it too, and is more shocked by this than he could possibly be by whatever Eleanor is going to tell him.
“When I’m not doing this, I’m an actress. I was in that play. I played Janice, the evil girlfriend . . .”
Mr. Marber looks hard at her. “Wait. You’re right. Minus the fingernails. A crazy coincidence. Like you say. How amazing. That was you. You did a wonderful job! Really, I mean it. The thing I didn’t say was that you were fun to watch, the way a good actress is fun to watch.
“The kids and the grown-ups liked you. I’m sorry for what I said about the play. But my grandson didn’t mean you. I’m sure even he knew you were good.”
“Thank you,” she says uncertainly. She lets go of his hand but manages to make it feel like he’s let go of hers.
He says, “I read about you in the program. You know, the program kind of surprised me. In my day the actors’ program bios were lists of credits. But these were award ceremony speeches. Thanks and a big shout-out to my vocal coach and my mom and dad.”
Eleanor’s bio in the program has none of that, and is, she’d thought, the most professional and impressive. A lot of small productions. Brief but interesting projects. The longest run she’d had was as Pirate Jenny in a hip, critically successful off-off-Broadway revival of The Threepenny Opera.
Mr. Marber says, “That actress who played the lawyer. Her performance was very . . . unusual, in that purple suit and that wig . . .”
Another fan of Margot’s. What appeal does Margot have for these guys, one twelve, one sixty-seven? There’s nothing enviable about Margot’s life, yet Eleanor feels a dispiriting twinge of something like sexual competition.
“How could something like this happen?” Mr. Marber says. “First I take my grandson to your play and then I have chests pains and come here instead of—”
“Stranger things happen,” Eleanor says. “They happen all the time. New York’s a small town. You know what? You should take a photo of us. On your phone. For your grandson.”
“A selfie,” says Mr. Marber. “I don’t know . . .”
“I’ll take it,” says Eleanor. “On your phone. And you can show him. If you promise you’ll go right out to the reception desk and make an appointment for more tests.”
“I promise,” says Mr. Marber.
Eleanor believes him. The coincidence is a good omen. The snapshot of himself with evil girlfriend Janice/friendly Nurse Eleanor will be a lucky charm, protecting him from harm. Nothing bad can happen to a man who has, on his phone, a picture of himself with a nurse-actress from a play he saw with his grandson.
“I can’t wait to show Edward,” he says. “Can I ask you something?”
Eleanor likes Mr. Marber, but if this is going to be about the grandson, she’s beginning to wonder how many patients are out in the waiting room.
“I’ve been worried about my grandson.” That Mr. Marber has no one else he can talk to is information that should go into his chart.
“Worried how, Leonard?”
“Something happened at his school. His class got into a discussion about evolution. Some parents got upset. His teacher, whom he loves, almost got fired, but the principal stood up for her, and the fuss died down. My grandson blames himself. Some things he’s said . . . I know. His parents have no idea. He’s been throwing up a lot, but the doctors say nothing’s wrong.
“The strange thing is, he blames his dinosaurs. He used to be crazy about dinosaurs. You know how kids can be.”
Eleanor says, “They’re big, and they’re dead.”
“Exactly,” says Mr. Marber. “Edward knew everything about them. He’d say, Ask me one thing I don’t know about dinosaurs. He had a big collection we kept in my apartment. In my late wife’s jewelry box. But last week he came over and dumped the dinosaurs in the garbage and turned on the TV. The dinosaurs were dead to him. Extinct. First the dinosaurs, then the humans.”
His chuckle means: we’re doomed.
“Kids outgrow things.” Eleanor hopes no one’s waiting outside.
It’s been quite a day. First Adam attacking Margot, then the heart-to-heart with Adam, then this, and everybody talking about the end of the world. She doesn’t want children. A person only has so much to give. It’s better to know your limits. If she regrets her decision later, she’ll deal with it then. Worrying about the future—the way children make you worry—will compromise her ability to be useful right now. Cure sometimes, heal frequently, comfort always. Play Janice in Mister Monkey.
“He’s the love of my life,” the grandfather says. “He’ll never love me as much as I love him. He’s my unhappy love affair. My first. I guess you’re never too old.”
“Children heal quickly.” When did Eleanor go from sitting to standing up? She looks down at her hand, which seems to have alighted on the grandfather’s shoulder.
She says, “Whatever happened at school, with the dinosaurs, he’ll get over it. Or he won’t. It could be one of those things he’ll never forget.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Mr. Marber says.
Eleanor sa
ys, “Don’t be afraid.”
[ CHAPTER 10 ]
THE MONKEY GOD (MISTER MONKEY) DREAMS THE FUTURE
JUST BECAUSE MISTER MONKEY is a chimpanzee and a celestial being doesn’t mean that there aren’t things he likes and doesn’t like about himself. He likes the story about him eating the sun because he mistook it for a mango, though to be perfectly honest he would have preferred a mango. He likes the story about him setting the island on fire because his enemies were stupid enough to tie a burning branch to his tail.
He likes the story about how he reunited the god Rama with his beloved Sita, but he’s not sure he likes the part where he opened his chest to show the world that he literally had the god and goddess, Rama and Sita, inside his heart. When it comes to the heart, three’s a crowd, and his monkey heart has enough trouble containing the human emotions inside it, always brimming over and threatening to overspill. Only the heart of the monkey god is large enough to contain the hearts and souls of all the monkeys, all the humans, the gods, every shining thread that connects them.
He doesn’t like the story about the curse that makes him forget his superpowers until someone reminds him. He doesn’t like how dependent it makes him on other peoples’ memories. What if no one remembers? Will his powers be lost forever? And he won’t even know it.
In his opinion this is the absolute worst part of being a monkey god: not to know what kind of god you are, or that you are a god, until you are reminded by someone else.
But there’s nothing he can do to remove the curse—the curse that all the other gods have conspired to put on him. Forever.
He also doesn’t like the story about his biting a human’s face off, over a piece of birthday cake. He doesn’t like being negatively compared to the happy sexy bonobos. And he really doesn’t like Mister Monkey the Musical.
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