Fourteen

When I got back to the room from Death Studies, where nothing unusual had been revealed -- I was, for example, not dead -- Brian DiMaggio was gone. The curtain was pulled back, revealing a bed so well made you could bounce an aspirin on it. Eileen Bass, who was still on duty, said an infection had developed in the incision and he'd been put in isolation. They didn't transfer him on a cart; they moved the whole bed.

"Why the whole bed?" I asked.

"He weighs only about five hundred pounds," she said. "Didn't you get a look at him?"

"No. What's he in for?"

"Pickwick's Syndrome -- where you're so fat you can't breathe. They took out a section of his intestines so he can't digest his food; he's lost seventy-five pounds already."

I said I didn't know they did that sort of thing.

"He started gaining weight when his wife took their kid and left him," she said, "and just couldn't stop."

The food service aide came in with my lunch tray, and the nurse left. Lunch consisted of beef broth, red Jello-O, and tea, but I didn't feel very hungry. I watched two soap operas on what was left of Ken's rental. All the characters looked alike to me. The men had square jaws and looked stupid, and the women were pretty in a mean sort of way. Then I watched some game shows, but in the middle of "Hollywood Squares" a skinny guy from TV Service came in to turn the set off with a key. He said if I wanted it back on, I had to pay three dollars a day. I instructed him to put it on Ken's hospital bill, and he twisted the key again and left. The set came on. Paul Lynde's face filled the screen. I didn't catch what he said, but it must have been funny, because Rose Marie laughed a lot, showing her equine dentures.

In came Romona, Norm Cane, and Bolger of Personnel. They all had their professional manners on, so I knew it was trouble. I turned off the TV again.

"How are you feeling, son?" said Cane, putting an oily hand on my shoulder.

"Just great," I said. "Never been better."

"Unbelievable," said Bolger. "Sorry to hear of your 'accident.'"

There was a pause as they decided who should speak, and Romona went to the door and closed it.

"Norm here had some questions for you," she said, looking at her cigarette embarrassedly.

"We understand you were involved in a demonstration," he said, arching his eyebrows at Bolger.

"That's right."

"What was the extent of your involvement?" Bolger asked sounding a little like Joe Friday on "Dragnet."

"Let me see,"I said. "I think I probably went crazy and killed a few policemen."

"This is not time for humor, young man," Cane said. I noticed how yellow his skin was next to his white shirt collar. It was either a Miami tan or a liver condition.

"When we hired you," Bolger said, "we had an explicit understanding that there would be no political activity. Isn't that right?"

"I have a right as a citizen," I said, "and the demonstration wasn't on hospital grounds or on hospital time."

"That's true," Romona said, standing at the foot of the bed. "What he does at home is his business, Norm."

"There are some serious issues at stake here, Romona. We can't have the hospital embarrassed. I think you should know," he said to me, "the police and others have been asking questions."

"About what?" I said.

"About your loyalty to this country. About whether you've broken your agreement with the draft board. If you have acted violently in any way . . ."

"For crissakes Norm," said Romona.

"All I did was attend a demonstration," I said. "The crowd started running, and one of the cops must have hit me on the head. I wasn't even sitting in the street yet. I was on the sidewalk."

"We will not have the hospital brought into this!" Bolger said. "If you're going to carry on this way, you're going to have to go elsewhere to do it."

"Fine," I said.

"We'll give you another chance, young man," Cane said, "because it's only fair. Besides, Miss Fish has spoken up for you. Frankly, if it weren't for her. . ."

"That's enough, Norm," said Romona.

"One more thing," Bolger said. "There have been reports of missing drugs on the units, in quite substantial amounts. If we find that you have any involvement in their disappearance, you'll not only lose your job, you'll go to jail for it. Understand?" He pointed his finger at me like a small-town district attorney, and Cane and he left the room.

"Great."

"Don't worry about them," Romona said.

"Take care of yourself, Holder. I'll be in to see you now and then."

As she was leaving, she turned to say something else; then she thought better of it and went out of the door.

Dinner was an improvement over lunch. It was the soft-food diet, things yellow and white, like macaroni and cheese and tapioca pudding. Some of it came in white Styrofoam, the taste of which got into the food.

Barbara opened the door. She wore a blue dress under her tan lab coat, and she looked great.

"How's the food?" she asked.

"Here put your finger in the pudding. It's way too soft."

I grabbed her hand and tried to stick it into the food, but she was too strong.

"Some adventure you had, according to Romona."

"It wasn't nothin', ma'am."

"Cane is bent all out of whack."

"I know. He was just here."

"Ed thinks you've gone completely crazy going to a demonstration."

"Ed's opinion counts for a lot with me. Come on. How about climbing into bed with me?"

"Later," she said, but I knew she wouldn't. She was far too prim for that. It was one of the things that attracted us to each other, our essential primness.

Barbara was on duty and left to check the rest of the trays. After a while, Carlo was dressed like an orderly and came in separately, as if being followed. Dave seemed fine. There wasn't a scratch on him, but he mumbled more than usual, and his fascination with a green plastic water pitcher on the bedside table was quickly approaching a trance. It appeared that someone had stepped on Randy's face, because of the curving imprint of a boot sole across his cheek. He said it was a footprint all right, but now Anna was jealous. She thought it meant he was fooling around with another girl. Penelope said she had managed to hobble into a doorway, and someone had pulled her inside the building. It was all very heroic and exciting, and she couldn't wait to tell her friends in Australia. She clasped her hands together under her chin and looked at the ceiling as she talked.

Carlo said he had caught the whole thing from the roof of a nearby building. He was stationed there with a camera to record police brutality, but he hadn't realized a long-distance lens was needed for that sort of thing. The shots from his Polaroid looked more like embroidered rugs than scenes of rioting police.

I told Carlo it was paranoid to dress up like an orderly. It wasn't paranoia, he insisted; it was Edgar's old Nehru jacket. Didn't I know shit from Shinola.

Randy said some people had been snooping around the apartment. Tough-looking guys with flashlights kept knocking on the door, asking to read the gas and electric meters. They claimed they had to walk through the apartment to get to the meters, which were in the basement. This made him suspicious.

Carlo, who talked in whispers and kept checking the windows, said Edgar had disappeared. The last time they'd seen him, he was running down the street, holding the hand of a girl they'd never seen before. They jumped into her yellow Porsche and sped away. Carlo said he slept last night at the Starr Hotel on Madison Street, the flophouse where Richard Speck was found, because someone had turned the apartment upside down. He figured it was the cops or FBI.

"Wait a minute," I said. "How do you know the apartment wasn't broken into by thieves? Was anything missing?"

"The TV, the stereo, and all of my weed," he replied, scratching behind his ear. Randy and Penelope nodded, to affirm the truth of this.

"The FBI wouldn't want all that stuff," I said. "If they found grass, they'd have something on us, right?"

"That's for sure," Randy agreed.

"So why don't you just go home," I advised, "and report the break-in to the police? If they wanted to find you, they would have by now."

Penelope was still worried. "I could lose my visa over this," she said.

"I could lose my ass," said Carlo. "Literally."

"Anna is willing to take us all in," said Randy, "under certain conditions."

"Ain't no way I'm submittin' to bondage," Carlo insisted. He explained that one evening, while visiting Anna with Randy, he woke up handcuffed to the kitchen sink. There were also teeth marks on the top of his feet.

Randy looked hurt by Carlo's refusal, but he didn't say anything. We all watched Dave the Poet examine the green plastic water pitcher from every possible angle.

"There was a new mailman today," Dave said not taking his eyes off the pitcher. "and he asked funny questions."

"What kind of questions?"

"He asked if someone named Green lived with us, and when I said no, he asked for the names of everyone who lived in the apartment."

I told them to stop worrying. We hadn't done anything wrong, so they had no right to persecute us. Probably they were imagining the whole affair. This was the United States of America, and under the law we had certain protections.

"A mailman asks if some guy named Green lives with us and you just happen to have a green pitcher here. You can't really think there is nothing to worry about," said Dave. He was looking at that pitcher like he could kill it if it had a soul.

"Well, maybe there's some reason for concern. But they can't put us in jail."

"They can put my ass in jail," said Carlo. "They do it all the time."

The evening nurse, Sarah Dale, came into the room with a thermometer and clipboard. This startled Carlo and he leaped behind the door.

"Who are you?" she said, looking straight at him.

"I don't know," he said.

"He's a friend of mine," I said, "and he's on the run from the law."

"Oh," Sarah said taking it all in stride. "Well, visiting hours are over, so you're going to have to leave." She threw a thumb at the door, meaning right now.

Carlo said maybe I was right. He wasn't going to sleep at the Starr Hotel anymore. If he had to hide out, it would be in the park or something. Randy said he was going over to Anne's now, but first he needed some pancake mix for breakfast. The nurse busied herself filling the ice pitcher and taking my temperature, but I could tell she was amused by my

visitors.

"OK, that's it," she said, shaking the thermometer, "everybody out!"

I said good-bye, and Sarah showed to them the door. Dave hesitated at the door and looked back at me. "I'm going back to the apartment and check the door," he said reassuring me. "you can't be too sure. I don't trust that door."

"Weird bunch of friends you have there," Sarah said when we were alone.

"They came with the apartment."

"Was that a footprint on your friend's face?" she asked.

I said it was.

"Looked like a size seven to me," she said.

"By the way." I asked, "Where did they transfer Sam? I never got a chance to say good-bye to him."

"He's in 901."

That was a room often used for infectious cases. There was always a special laundry cart outside the door with yellow isolation gowns, disposable paper masks, and rubber gloves. Every time you went into the room, even to change a light bulb, you had to wear those things. The patients in isolation were usually depressed because they were cut off from the world. People were afraid of them. You could see the anxiety in a visitor's eyes over the paper masks.

I asked if I could go up and see him.

"Not really," Sarah said. "But I won't tell. Just don't let Wing or

Walters see you."

She left and I found my clothes in the locker. The shirt was dirty and the knees of the pants were torn. I washed my face and straightened my hair as well as I could without a comb. In the mirror I saw a tall thin person with a headache, which was about what I'd expected. It felt funny to be standing after being in bed for a whole day. For some reason, I now walked like John Wayne, leading with one leg and dragging the other behind.

His room was near to the Nine South nursing station, and all the paraphernalia was there. I put the yellow gown on backward, as you're supposed to, and tied it behind my back. The sleeves were too short and had white elastic around the wrists. This made getting the mask on a little more difficult, double strings behind my head and pinching the wire in a seam so it fit snugly over the nose. The rubber gloves were the final item. I pulled two of them from the box, and they went on easily because of the talcum powder they're dusted with at the factory.

There was a screen beside Ken's bed, so I couldn't see him when I first walked in, but I could hear the pump sucking away at the incision. Someone had sprayed Glade in the room to cover an unpleasant odor.

"Hello?" I said, as if calling into a stranger's home.

"Hello," came the clear, bell-like reply. It sounded stronger and more cheerful that the one I'd heard earlier that day.

"It's Holder. I came upstairs to see you."

"Oh, yes. Come on in."

I stepped around the screen, and there he was, a white man in his late twenties with a blonde flattop haircut and very pale skin. From the neck up, he look pretty normal, but at his shoulders the avalanche of flesh began. The protective bars were up on the sides of the bed, and his mass flowed around the chrome, nearly meeting on the other side. In order to cover him, the nurse had pinned two sheets together, but they still didn't do the job. A drainage tube ran like an umbilical cord into a pile of dressings in the middle of the stomach. On the bedside table was a portrait of the praying Christ, in rich bad taste, with drops of blood trickling down his forehead from the gruesome thorns. In front of the crucifixion scene, two small American flags were tied together with a piece red ribbon.

"I hope you'll forgive my appearance," he said. "It's quite a mess I've gotten into here."

"Aw, you're going to get better soon," I said.

"The doctor says I'm losing weight, which is very good, I guess." He seemed a little sad, like a a man who was moving away from his old body and hadn't seen the new one yet. "Perhaps they've told you about me."

"Well, a little bit."

"I don't mind really. People have been very kind. I know what they say, of course, about eating so much from a broken heart." There was a pause, and he said, "Have you ever had a broken heart, Jim Holder?"

"I don't know yet," I said, thinking about Melinda.

"You're young," he said, "and there's plenty of time. Everyone has one sooner or later."

He glanced at the bedside table, where his snack tray, consisting of tea and a small cup of red Jell-O, remained untouched. "I'm sorry, by the way, there's nothing decent to offer you. There's not even a chair."

"That's all right," I said, "I'll stand."

A smelly laundry hamper was in the room, near the door. The air was thick with presences, odors, intimations, fears, and hints of other patients who'd thrived or perished there. I began to sway, and sweat came out on my brow.

"Are you all right?" he asked, looking very concerned.

"I'll be fine," I said, wiping my brow with a sleeve.

"What is it, exactly, you came for?" he said politely.

"I just thought I'd pay a visit." What could I say? I wasn't sure myself.

"I've gotten used to it," he said, trying to shift his weight in the bed and failing. "At the hotel -- I'm the night clerk, you see, at the Clark Hotel -- people want to talk to me for hours. They think because I'm fat and ugly, I'll tell them the truth about things."

"You're not ugly," I lied.

A nurse from the unit walked in, her isolation gear hastily donned. It looked like Suzanne Best, from the blond hair and dark eyebrows. She was very attractive, and I'd flirted with her a couple of times.

"Oh, hi, Holder," she said, clearly disappointed. "What are you doing here?"

"Long story," I said.

She emptied his catheter bag, but then she lingered at the foot of the bed, looking back and forth between Ken and me.

"What is it, Suzanne?" Ken asked.

She said she had a problem. Dr. Rugero, the new resident in plastic surgery, had asked her out. He was cute, she said, and he had all the money in the world. The guy was a catch and a half, but there was only one problem -- he was married.

"That's not a problem," said Ken. "It's an advantage. It he's already married, he already loves you more than his wife."

"But I want the money, too, Ken," she said with great firmness.

"Date him anyway," he said, "provided it makes you happy."

"You really think so?" she asked.

"Oh, good," she bubbled, but then she gave me a guilty glance. "You won't tell anyone about this, will you?"

I said I wouldn't and she left walking a tight little stride like a chihuahua.

"You see," Ken said. "I can solve all their problems. All I do is tell them what they want to hear."

"I've got some problems right now," I said, and told him about Cane's response to the demonstration. He was interested in learning about conscientious objectors, because he hadn't known they existed.

"The problem with you," Ken said, "is that you're trying to be good and bad at the same time. It doesn't usually work out. The best thing is to go to jail. Then the good and bad will be clearer in your mind." As he spoke, he kept looking over at the bedside table, with its bleeding Jesus and American flags.

"You want me to go to jail?" I said through the paper mask. "I thought you only told people what they wanted to hear."

"That is what you want to hear, isn't it?" He looked at me squarely, and I couldn't tell if he was crazy, patriotic, or full of good advice.

"Maybe you're right," I said. "Are you doing what will make you happy twenty years from now?"

"I won't be alive in twenty years," he said.

I didn't know what to say.

"Do something for me, will you?" he asked, turning to look at the table. "Open that drawer for a minute."

I opened it, and there were several things inside: a turtle shell, an ashtray from the Badlands, a 1963 calendar from the Mort Coal Company with an airbrushed photograph of President Kennedy, a small silver whistle, and a plaster of paris bust of Beethoven such as children receive for taking music lessons.

"Quite a collection."

"That's nothing. You should see my room at the hotel."

"What do you want?" I asked.

"Give me the ashtray," he said, waving an arm that looked like a tidal wave.

I pulled the ashtray from the drawer and Beethoven fell over, chipping off his nose. I quickly shut the drawer again, so Ken wouldn't see.

He balanced the ashtray on his stomach and pulled a pack of Camels from under the sheet. Deftly, he lit a cigarette and blew a perfect ring of smoke toward the ceiling. "I've got some thinking to do," he said and turned on the television by touching the remote control. "Laugh-In" came onto the screen.

The yellow made me sweaty and dizzy, and I needed some fresh air. "It's been nice talking to you," I said, edging toward the door, but he was too absorbed in the show to answer. As I took off the gown and threw it into the laundry hamper, I turned and looked at the painting, which had ultraviolet undertones and glowed on the bedside stand.

A couple of days later Dr. Wing signed me out of the hospital. He came into the room in a hurry and started to shoo me out.

"Go, go, you're fine," he said, "I've got to get busy here. We need this bed for a myasthenia gravis that's coming in this afternoon." Myasthenia is a deadly disease in which the patient loses control of all his muscles. Usually it occurs in middle-aged men, and after a while they lose the strength even to open their eyes. Finally, they're too weak to breathe. But the disease couldn't have gone too far, if the patient wasn't in Intensive Care. At the last stage, they had to put you on a respirator. If you lasted out the episode, which many people did, you would be all right until the next occurrence.

I thanked Dr. Wing for his care.

"Yeah, yeah," he said, "get out of here, will you?"

This was the sort of bedside manner I liked. Don't give me sympathy; just show me the road. I put on my clothes as fast as I could.

In the visitors' lounge by the front elevator, a scholarly-looking man and his wife sat on the couch, an overnight bag beside them. She held his limp hand. I figured he was my replacement. I wanted to go over and say something comforting, but couldn't bring myself to do it. That was the sort of cheap theatrics Norm Cane went in for, feeding on the family's grief until the balance of sympathy changed and they felt sorry for him. I threw a prayer at the ceiling that the poor man wouldn't die in my bed.

The elevator finally arrived. It was smaller than the ones in back, and bad music played softly through speakers in the ceiling.

On the sixth floor, the doors opened, and Robert Sage stepped on, wearing the kind of clothes Ed "Kookie" Brynes wore on "77 Sunset Strip." He looked hip and out-of-date in one gesture. The scars from his lobotomy were still visible, but his hair was much longer. I said hello, but he didn't recognize me. He must have returned to visit his old nurses, because he'd been out of the hospital for months. Sure enough, when he turned around, there was a sign taped on his back: "My name is Robert Sage. Please return me to Six South." Around the margins were signatures of nurses and aides on the unit.

I got off the elevator on the first floor and walked into the Gothic lobby, but Robert Sage stayed where he was. I watched as some people got on and did a predictable second take at the skeletal companion. Then I headed out the door. It was a beautiful day. I walked down the street sideways, the same way I'd walked since the accident. One leg seemed always to strive ahead, and the other to drag behind, as if they weren't legs but political leanings. When I got to State Street, my limp allowed me to observe myself in store windows without turning my head. I'd asked Wing if the subdural caused this behavior; he said it was just sore muscles from falling on the sidewalk.

As I headed back to the apartment, it occurred to me that Metropolitan was now my family -- Barbara, Romona, Ed, and even patients like Robert Sage. I knew the place like a home, its frailties and secrets. I knew, for instance, that in the seventh floor broom closet Mr. Flanagan's leg leaned against the wall next to the garbage chute. It was a full prosthesis, meaning from the knee down, and a black shoe was tied to the foot. His wife hadn't wanted to take it home with her when I appeared with the other belongings. In fact, she broke into tears. Not having it available would create problems for the undertaker, Ed said, but that was her business. There seemed no other place to put it, so it remained there, like an old umbrella in a hall closet. It became part of what was familiar. I could go there now and see how shiny and well made it was, and if I felt like it, I could toss it down the garbage chute. The first day I returned to work, that is exactly what I did because it was mine to do.