The Ego Makers

by Donald Everett Axinn

  We were silent for several minutes.

  “They wanted to helicopter her to Minneapolis,’ Len said, “but they decided they couldn’t wait.”

  We parked at the emergency entrance next to half a dozen ambulances that were poised to race off to the scene of some new accident. Time in the waiting room inched forward so slowly I had a feeling they’d stopped all the clocks. We tried to learn something from the nurses. Either the doctors didn’t know or wouldn’t divulge any information.

  Two hours later one of the surgeons emerged. He removed his green cap as he approached. He was not tall, had a long face, and dark, thinning hair. I was stunned by how young he was. “Hi. I’m Ben Rosenberg.” He slumped, exhausted, into a chair. “She’s sustained extensive internal damage. We’ve removed her spleen, but that’s not as serious as her lung. More damage than we thought.” He shook his head. “She also lost a small piece of her liver. That liver of hers isn’t the best one I’ve ever seen. We set her shoulder and left leg, the side where she took most of the impact. She’s got a high fever, but that’s to be expected.”

  ‘What’s the overall prognosis?” I asked, unconsciously leaning against Len for support.

  “She’s incredibly strong,” Rosenberg continued, “that’s very much in her favor. But we really won’t know for several hours.” He sat down and then asked, “Either one of you type A Positive?”

  “I am,” I said.

  He nodded. We’ll probably need some of your blood.”

  “She’ll be in Recovery for quite a while,” Rosenberg said. ‘Why don’t you go home and get some sleep?” We stood up, shook hands, and thanked him. “I’E be here. People think we know exactly what will happen, but many times we really don’t.”

  ‘Where’s Aunt Nadine?” I asked as we were driving home. I was surprised not to see her at the hospital.

  “Can’t take waiting rooms. She’s done enough of that. Believes in contacting Julie’s spirit.”

  I asked to stay in Julie’s room. I opened her closet. I smelled her clothes and smelled her. I looked in her drawers and touched her socks and underwear and sweaters and shorts. Every drawer.

  Then back onto her bed, my head on her pillow. I began to sob, softly at first. I moaned and turned over, my face into her pillow. I sat up after a while, my face between my hands. “Oh, Lord, God, Maker of whatever we are. Please. Make it okay. Make her survive. She’s good, and Lord, she’s loved very much. Please help her.” I dozed that night, but I did not sleep.

  The next day, Rosenberg remained irritatingly noncommittal. He let us look in on her, but she was out of it. The endless tubes and the ghostly appearance of her face were devastating.

  I knelt down beside her bed and whispered soft words, honeyed words, in her ear. No reaction. Promises I wasn’t sure I could keep. Still not the slightest flutter of an eyelid. Silly things. Goofy things. Still nothing. I left feeling all the color in the world had drained away. Julie, more full of life than anyone I’d ever known, so deathly still.

  The next day, Rosenberg, while still refusing to commit himself, was “cautiously optimistic.”

  “The odds?” I asked. “How much better than fifty-fifty?”

  He remained silent, then shook his head.

  “How much better?” I insisted.

  “Fifty-two-forty-eight,” he said at last.

  “No better?” I importuned.

  “No better.”

  “I’ll take it,” I said.

  The following morning, Wednesday, Rosenberg greeted us almost cheerfully. “I’m very encouraged,” he said.

  “How encouraged?” I asked.

  “Very,” he answered. “In fact, I’m pretty sure she’s going to make it.”

  “Odds?”

  “Oh,” he said shaking his head, “sixty-forty. No, that’s my conservative side talking,” he said. “She is definitely going to live. What I still can’t answer is whether she’s going to be the way she was.

  “Julie’s going to live!” I yelled, and hugged Rosenberg so tightly and so swiftly he must have thought he’d just hooked up with a grizzly. Then I let him go, and grabbed Len just as tightly. “That’s all I wanted to know.”

  On Thursday, Len and I and Aunt Nadine — whom we had convinced hospitals were really fun places — tiptoed into her room, having endured the standard warning by the nurse: “Only a few minutes.” Julie’s eyes were open, unblinking, fixed on the ceiling.

  “Well, Ms. Roppel, you seem to be getting a great deal of attention from strangers,’ I said. “We thought you might like to see a few familiar faces.”

  Julie turned her head slightly in our direction. “The three of you look worse than I must,’ she whispered. “What’d the FAA say?”

  “The standard line so far,’ Len said. “They’ve pulled the plane out of the trees.”

  “That’s no way to make a short field takeoff,’ I said, and immediately regretted it. “You’ve had a bad time, sweetheart, but the doctors say you’re on your way to a full recovery.” She frowned. “No, I’m telling you the truth. It may not seem like it now, but they say in a couple of months you’ll be fit as a fiddle.”

  “Henry’s right,” Aunt Nadine said, bending over to plant a kiss gently on Julie’s forehead. “That’s exactly what Dr. Rosenberg told all of us.”

  “What about the school?” Julie whispered.

  “Same as before,” Len said. “Alfred panicked and froze. Everyone knows the crash had nothing to do with you.”

  “Well lose students,” Julie uttered faintly.

  “Maybe a few,” Len responded, trying to be upbeat.

  The nurse came in to shoo us out. Julie asked for a moment alone with me.

  “Henry,” she began weakly, “even assuming I survive, I’m going to be a mess. Scarred. Disfigured. Maybe an invalid. I don’t want you to wait for me. Understand?” A frail smile formed on her face.

  “That, my friend, is not up to you. Do you remember? Up in Atlin you told me I’d never meet anyone like you. And do you know what? — I agree with you.”

  Julie motioned me over to the edge of her bed. I held her hand. “You shouldn’t wait for me,” she whispered. She closed her eyes briefly. “I wish you could lie down next to me.”

  “Get better immediately,” I commanded, “and I will. Only it won’t be next to you.”

  “Oh, Henry,” she said softly, “just when I’d come to the conclusion that just maybe you did love me, then this happens.” She looked at the ceiling. “The body you loved is gone, Henry. What’s left is a bloody mess.” Then she looked back at me. “I know you — beauty’s a necessary part of the equation for you. Not your fault, just the way it is. And whatever beauty this little half-breed might have possessed is gone, Henry. Gone.”

  “I don’t give a damn,” I said.

  “Yes you do.”

  The nurse came in, furious. “Please,” she said. “You must leave!”

  I stood up and looked down at Julie. “I need you,” I said. “And I love you, Julie.”

  She closed her eyes again, only this time her smile was not faint.

  6

  BECAUSE of Julie’s accident, the closing with Jack Phelan was put off for ten days. I wanted Ari and Ken present. Phelan was entering the relationship without having to guarantee anything personally, but he could lose his entire investment and also that of a group for which he had become the nominee. A courageous gamble on his part.

  The offices of Jack’s attorneys were located on Madison Avenue, a couple of blocks from 355 Park. The closing was scheduled for 9 A.M. A good hour earlier, I took a cab to the Seventy-second Street and Fifth Avenue entrance to Central Park. The air was filed with the smell of fallen leaves. Gray squirrels scurried everywhere, racing along the ground or dashing from branch to branch. I saw a few birds, and knew that soon robins and other migrants would pass through, tracking the sun to the south. I inhaled deeply, reveling in New York this time of year.

  At 8:45,1 walked — no, s
auntered — back to Fifth Avenue. I wasn’t concerned about the closing. It would occur, they would all be there. I thought about Julie, hoping she wasn’t in too much pain.

  “I see good color on your face,” Phelan said, shaking my hand, as I walked in at one minute to nine. “Well, shall we get on with it?”

  “Good morning, everyone. Nice to be with all of you.” I poured myself a cup of hot coffee but resisted eating a Schnecken.

  The attorneys shuffled sets of papers, then laid them out on the conférence table. The pattern was for one of us to sign first, the other to follow. Jack signed, looked up with a smile, and waited for me to sit down. I was standing at the large window, viewing Central Park, noticing the bustle on the streets down below. Light was filling the canyons like fresh water running down rows of parched corn. I felt captivated, and didn’t move. It was as if the script called for the others to wait patiently for me.

  Finally I turned and faced them. I looked at Phelan, then at Ken and Ari, then at Cal and Jack’s attorneys. “Forgive me, I just wanted to savor this moment.”

  I walked over to the conference table, asked Phelan if I could use his pen, and signed all the documents. He sat next to me. When I finished, I handed him his pen and pushed back my chair. We both stood up.

  “Jack, I…” We embraced in a bear hug. The others clapped.

  “Well, Henry, it appears we've begun something special. I’m veiy pleased for you. Let me say that I have watched you change. I've been rough on you. For good reasons. YouVe grown and matured, even exhibited courage. But now you've added humility.”

  I nodded. “Thank you, Jack, from the bottom of my heart. For giving me this opportunity to come back. I promise you I'll give it everything I've got.”

  “I expect nothing less,” he said, encircling my shoulder with his right arm.

  “Except…” I said.

  “Except what?”

  “Well, Fm going to have to split my time between here and Wausau for the next few weeks. Oh, nothing will be neglected as far as the building. I guarantee you.”

  “Guarantee, Henry?”

  “Sorry — you know what I mean. How about ‘pledge’?”

  “Much better, Henry. I've heard about your friend out there. Hope to meet her soon.” He paused. “I understand she’s quite special.”

  I hesitated a moment. “She’s more than a friend, Jack.”

  We opened a bottle of Dom Perignon and toasted to our future success. I didn’t actually drink any because I was going to fly. Then, after shaking hands all around, I left, drove directly to Islip and flew my plane low along the shores of the North Fork of Suffolk County. Flights of Canadian geese made their undulating Vs southwesterly over Peconic Bay. I landed at Mattituck, walked to the pond a short distance from the airstrip, and sat quietly observing mallards and black ducks chattering in the lee of the wind.

  The folks at Mattituck let me use their phone. I spoke to Julie, who congratulated me on the closing. She was still in the hospital but, as of today, she said she was able to sit in a wheelchair. She sounded better, her voice resonating with energy. I told her she’d better start practicing because, in case I'd forgotten to tell her, I was a professional wheelchair racer.

  Several days later, I called her again at the hospital. They informed me she had been released. A full three weeks ahead of schedule. I called her at home, expecting Aunt Nadine to answer.

  “Hello.” It was Julie’s voice.

  “Julie. How’re you doing? Congratulations on being home.”

  “Henry! Yes, I'm out. I didn’t give them much choice. I told them I was going to blow up the joint if they didn’t release me.”

  “Fm sure they took you seriously. Anyway, I'll be out in a week or two.”

  ‘Where are you?” she asked, and I heard disappointment in her voice. I knew she’d been hoping to see me sooner. “And what’s happening with the deal of the century?”

  “We have a few more things to finalize,” I said. “I'm calling from the Getty building in Jericho. The Tip of the Tongue. Terrific food, great atmosphere. Ill take you here next time you come to New York.” On the corner, I could see, lit by the streetlight: WAUSAU

  TRUST BANK.

  “It’s none of my business, Henry. But are you alone? It’s all right if you aren’t. Nobody likes to eat alone. I understand that.”

  “Catching up with an old flame, darling. Nothing to worry about, I assure you.”

  She didn’t sound reassured. “Oh,” she said. “Only an old flame. Well, enjoy your dinner. Talk to you soon.”

  I hung up and walked back to my car. Four minutes later I parked, walked about two hundred feet, and noiselessly opened the front door to Julie’s house. Sounds were coming from the living room. TV sounds.

  I peered around the corner and saw the back of her wheelchair. “Don’t you know too much TV is bad for the eyes?”

  For several seconds, she didn’t move, as if frozen. Then, “You shithead! I was just thinking of flying east with my tomahawk to scalp this blonde you were having dinner with — where was it? The Tip of the Tongue?”

  “How did you know she was blond?”

  “That’s how I saw her.”

  “Oh, Julie.” I kissed her gently on the lips.

  “Henry, how long are you staying?”

  “Not sure. How about forty years?”

  “Henry, be serious. When do you have to return?” I shrugged and pretended I was about to sit on her lap. She pushed me off. “I don’t like this. This is not you, Henry. How many scotches have you had?”

  I pulled the ottoman over to her wheelchair and took a deep breath. I took her hand and said, “Forty years, Julie. You heard me the first time. Make it forever. For the rest of our lives. I know it wouldn’t work for you in New York, but it’s where I… Real estate’s right for me, especially now that I can do it properly. When I’m not there, I'll be here. Say three days there, the rest of each week here. And, of course, weeks off and vacations.”

  Julie didn’t say a thing, so I pressed on. “You'll still have the school with Len. We’re dynamite together. And if you'll let me, well get a jet or two. What I’m trying to say is that I need you. You’ve made me understand so many things. About life. About me. About us.”

  She moved her face to mine, so close that all I could see was one oversized eye. ‘What happened to the ego maker?” she said. “The guy whose obsessive ambition constantly propels him to the top. Gone? Forgotten? On hold?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “All I know is I’ve found the woman of my life and I’m not about to let her go.”

  She gazed at me, dabbed the corners of my eyes, then shook her head ever so slightly. “Henry, do you really… believe … ?”

  I was silent for a moment. “I do,” I replied. “I won’t pretend it’ll be easy, Julie. If I worry, it’s mostly about me.”

  I dropped to my knees and ran my hands gently over her bruised, bandaged face. “Julie,” I said slowly, “what I want most of all is to be with you. Today, tomorrow, all the days of my life.” I kissed her gently.

  She tried to smile. “And how long do you think it’ll be until you’ve bought up every decent building in Wausau?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. A year? Two? Never?”

  Then she said, tears brimming, “Henry,” kissing first one of my eyes, then the other, “if you still want me looking like this, it must be love.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  Julie leaned forward, as far as the wheelchair allowed, and wrapped her good arm around me. After several moments, I leaned back, looked up, then back at her.

  And for some reason I couldn’t quite understand, I started clapping. Slowly at first, then faster and faster.

 

 

 
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