The Subject Steve: A Novel (13 page)

"Daddy, where are you?"

"I'm in hell, baby," I said.

"Is there a bus?" said Fiona.

"Is there a bus?" I asked Steve.

"Of course there's a bus," he said.

Fiona put fifty-three dollars' worth of motor oil she would never need on her mother's credit card. Steve counted out the cash.

"If you'd been more knowledgeable about Jap atrocities," he said, "I just might have given you the dough for the ticket straight up. But you see my predicament."

The bus didn't leave for a few hours. I hitched a ride with Donald to the hospital.

"I'm going that way, anyway," he said. "You might want to get some stitches or something. Or a body cast."

"I like your T-shirt," I said.

"It's meant to be provocative," he said. "I'm not really such a bad guy. I'm just stifled."

Local needlepoint adorned the walls of the Pangburn Falls Medical Clinic like cheery exhortations to liver failure. Everything stank of Lysol and meaningless neighborly death. An enormous woman in stretch pants approached me with a wooden clipboard and a pencil with a fluffy feather on it.

"Name, insurance company, complaint," she said.

Then she looked up from her clipboard.

"Oh my fucking word," she said.

The needlepoint sampler on the far wall read "God's on Duty." I studied it for days, maybe more than days, that pale stitchwork, those fleeces of cloudbank at the corners. When I felt up to moving my eyes a bit I commenced analysis of the fiberboard panels in the ceiling-like snowflakes, no two chemical flecks were alike-and the tulips going to dead rot on the windowsill.

My head was halo'd, stilled with welds. The rest of me was set in traction, some kind of high-tech mold.

A woman walked into my room, laid her hand on my mold.

"A man's home is his cast," she said.

I said nothing.

"Don't say anything," said the woman. "My name is Dr. Cornwallis. You've been severely injured. You're lucky the shock got you here. Now did you understand that the first thing I said to you was a pun? Do you like puns?"

My eyes went tulipward.

"Don't shake your head," said Dr. Cornwallis. "Nobody really likes puns. Even the good ones grate. There's a theory that chronic punning is a neurological disorder. Blink if you find that hypothesis remotely intriguing. Blink if you wish me to speak in less mannered style."

I was mute for another month.

Then I said something, a word.

The night nurse said the word was Steve. She said this the next night. Steve was her dead son's name, and she wanted to know if he'd given me any kind of message to deliver before Jesus released me on my own recognizance, as he sometimes did, when someone dies but still has a job to do, like deliver a message.

"Steve said to say he loves you," I said.

"That's it?"

"He's sorry he didn't listen to you more. About drugs and stuff. You know, how you shouldn't do them until you fall in love."

I felt suddenly groggy.

"I feel suddenly groggy," I said.

"How did he look?" said the night nurse.

"Who?" I said.

"My boy."

"The light was too bright. All I saw was this bright light."

I noticed now I was out of the mold, could use my hands. I used them to shape the idea of light.

"How did he sound?" said the night nurse.

"Like heavenly-like."

"What else?"

"Wings," I said.

"Wings?"

"Wings," I said.

The night nurse wiped my halo with a fold of gauze.

"Golly," she said. "Your holes look infected."

She pushed the gauze through a flap in the wall.

"What do you mean?" I said.

She stood, rolled my tray away.

"What if I need to reach my tray?" I said.

"What if?" said the night nurse. She used her hands to make the shape of if, or maybe it was what.

I waited for the day nurse.

Dr. Cornwallis poked her head into my room.

"I'm just poking my head in," she said.

"Okay," I said.

"How are you feeling?"

"Not so hot," I said.

"I wouldn't think so," said Dr. Cornwallis. "I'd be hard pressed to believe you if you told me you were feeling hot. That's what I told Sally. I told Sally you've been traumatized, and as a result you've experienced severe trauma. I'm talking about the wings incident. May I extend an apology on your behalf?"

"Extend," I said.

"Excellent," said Dr. Cornwallis. "Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"My tray."

"I'll get someone to come push it closer," said Dr. Cornwallis.

"Can't you do it?"

"I wish I could."

"Maybe God could do it," I said. "He's on duty."

"That's a joke, right?" said Dr. Cornwallis.

"Yes," I said.

"No, I just wanted to make sure it wasn't a pun."

The day nurse was Donald, the stifled guy from the gas station. He walked in, winked, rolled my tray back to my bed. He had his hair up in pigtails, a pentagram pinned to his scrubs.

"Don't worry about the dead kid thing," said Donald. "Sally's all hung up on her dead kid."

"How'd he die?" I said.

"Kid-type thing. Chased a ball into the street. Me, I have children, they aren't getting any balls, that's for sure. No balls, no horseshoes, none of that shit."

"Do you remember me?" I said.

"Sure. From the Shell. You looked even worse then."

"How do I look now?"

"Like you chased a ball into the street."

"Can I see? Can you bring me a mirror?"

"I'd advise against it," said Donald. "Maybe down the road."

I pointed up at the pentagram.

"Satan?" I said.

"Donald," said Donald.

Dr. Cornwallis poked her head into my room.

"Just thought I'd poke my head in," she said.

"Poke away," I said.

"We need to talk."

"Let's talk," I said.

"It's about your finances, or lack thereof. Your coverage has expired."

"I've reached the maximum amount of maximum expenditure."

"That's what I've been given to understand by Ms. Kincaid."

"My old pen pal."

"You're going to have to leave, I'm afraid."

"You can't do that," I said.

"We do it all the time."

"What about your hypocritical oath?"

"Now that's a pun."

"Sorry," I said.

"I've fulfilled my oath. I've treated you for your injuries. I can't help it if you have a preexisting condition."

"Preexisting?" I said.

The doctor pulled a shiny book from her doctor pocket.

PREXIS:THE RACE AGAINST PERSONAL EXTINCTION

by Leon Goldfarb, M.D., and Vaughn Blackstone, D.D.S.

"Blackstone's a dentist?" I said.

"I know the cover looks a little gaudy," said Dr. Cornwallis, "but it's quite a good book. It was given to me by a man who works at the alternative healing outreach program here at the hospital. We're trying to widen the scope of our treatment. Maybe there's a place for you there. Wen said there might be a place for you there."

"Wen?"

"Wendell Tarr is his name."

"The Wanderer Wendell," I said.

"Oh, he pretty much stays around here. Anyway, the alternative program is really your only alternative, given your lack of coverage. We make exceptions in the alternative program with regard to coverage, whereas in the traditional-"

"Okay," I said.

"Wonderful," said Dr. Cornwallis. "Now get out of bed. Let's see if you can walk."

I could walk. Waddle, rather. I could bend a bit, swivel, squat. It hurt. Not like it hurt in the hut, but it hurt. I figured I'd shake out the pain for a minute, make a dash for it, the door.

I made a dash for the door. Dr. Cornwallis had to call Donald in from the hall. He picked me up, toweled me off where I'd pissed my gown.

"Thanks," I said.

"It's what I do," said Donald.

The next morning I had a visitor. He stood near the window for a while, sniffed the dead flowers, glanced up, glided over. There was something of the sea in him. A man who swam with dolphins, maybe, manatees. I could see us underwater near a reef. We weren't talking. We were squeaking. We were genius mammals of the sea. Then the gentleman started talking.

"Call me Wen," he said.

"The Wanderer Wendell," I said.

"Call me Wen," said the Wanderer.

"Wen," I said.

"You need to get well," he said. "In all ways. I'd like to escort you now to the Alternative Outreach Wing. But it's really inreach, really. I want to say that up front. Any questions?"

"Yes," I said. "Aren't you supposed to be dead?"

"Aren't you?"

"No, I mean they talk about you. Please note."

"You liked that," said Wen.

"Yeah."

"Mythology. Schoolyard stuff. Remember the kid who stuck his hand out the bus window?"

"Got lopped off."

"Did it?" said Wen.

He held up his hand at a squid-like tilt.

"It's right here," he said. "The motion it's making means come with me."

I followed him down some dingy corridors. We passed more needlepoint, doors ajar to sun-soaked rooms.

"Right up here," said Wen. He slapped his palm on a button on the wall. The button was palm-sized. A pair of glass doors parted.

"By the way, we don't use painkillers in this wing."

"What do you use?"

"For what?"

Wen took me to a room like my room in the other wing, but no needlepoint.

He said to get some rest. We'd begin that afternoon.

"Begin what?"

"That's your decision," said Wen.

"What do you suggest?"

"Well, you're dying. Maybe we should deal with that first."

"I'm not dying," I said.

"Au contraire, amigo," said Wen.

He flipped the PREXIS book onto my bed. The chrome type on his copy had a slightly different tint, a blurb emblazoned across the top-" 'Read it before your line dies out!'-Dr. Lauren Lovinger."

"Peruse at your leisure," said Wen.

I got into bed and started to leaf through the preface.

Not surprisingly, it was only after the results of the most routine of checkups for the most routine of men were faxed to us with some peculiar queries, that the hunt for PREXIS really began. . . . The subject had an admittedly rough time adjusting to the truth of his condition . . . countless blind alleys and false starts later the race was on! . . . Maybe I wasn't a circus caliber juggler, but I was good enough to dream. . . . Like the proverbial horse of proverb, you can lead a man to the laboratory, but you can't make him fully confront the implications of the data. . . . Nobody, of course, with our current technological capabilities, can really know what death feels like. . . .

I drifted off hearing Heinrich's voice.

"Falanga," it said. "Oh, dear Christ, sing it, Falanga!"

Lem Burke was at the window when I woke. He was squeezing whiteheads through his chin fuzz, putting the pus up to sunlight, making odd snorts I took for empirical glee.

"Breakthrough?" I said.

Lem flicked his pore goo at the window pane.

"Morning."

"Never thought I'd see you again," I said.

"How much did you think about it?"

"Are you here with your mother?"

"Figured she'd give Wendell a whirl," he said. "She's a guru addict, I guess."

"We all need love," I said.

"Bullshit," said Lem. "We all need bullshit."

I did have pity for the kid. Born in a bubble of babble, shuttled from one freak retreat to the next. So knowing, but what did he know? Estelle once claimed to have home-schooled him. I think that meant she gave him a couple of coloring books, left him alone to talk to himself.

"I'm supposed to take you to group."

Lem led me down to an airy dayroom. People in pajamas sat in slat-backed chairs. Wen was there, wearing a sweater with tiny felt animals sewn on it.

"My name is Wen," he said, "and I'm feeling what I'm feeling today."

I took a seat, looked around at all this pain, puff-eyed, in flame-retardant cotton.

There's an air hockey table in the dayroom, and when I'm not too busy feeling what I'm feeling, I'm taking Lem in three-out-of-fives for the day-old doughnuts Nurse Donald sneaks us from the cafeteria. Cudahy and I used to play on a table just like this one in his father's basement, until the Thornfield boys took a clawhammer to it. The world is full of sore losers. Some go on to win with great bitterness, too. Me, I've just always loved the sound of these babies warming up, all that air hockey air jetting up through holes.

Lem's nom de puck is The Wrist. I'm Rip Van Winkie, maybe on account of the new white shoots in my hair. Today there was a coconut flake on the line, but the game was called due to an unscheduled shame rap. Out came the chairs of sharing. The pajama zombies filed in.

"I'm feeling less than today," Wen said, picked at the fuzzy rhino on his sleeve. "My shame monster has woken from deep slumber."

A hard, thin pain slung through me as he spoke.

"Steve," said Wen. "Are you okay? You're shaking over there."

"I'm fine, Wen," I said.

"We all know what that means," said the woman beside me. Estelle Burke. Scorned ballerina. She tore at her thumb with her teeth.

"It doesn't mean anything," I said. "Do we have to do this now?"

"Wen's shame monster reared up," said Estelle. "You can't just pick and choose when that's going to happen."

"Thank you, Estelle," said Wen.

"Yes, thank you," I said, "for the blowjob Wen is about to receive."

"Whoa!" said Estelle. "I mean, from where?"

She spit some cuticle on my knee.

"It's okay," said Wen.

"Fuck okay," said Estelle. "I'm feeling very flanked."

"I understand the flanked feeling," said Wen. "And I understand Steve's rage. Though I can't condone it."

"I don't feel so good," I said.

"In what sense?" said Wen.

I had a fairly heady answer planned before I pitched off the chair.

"Steve?" said Wen.

"My name's not Steve," I said from the floor.

"What is it then?" said Lem.