“Maybe it’s medicinal. Did you ever think of that?” Ms. Margaret asks arching her eyebrows at me.
“Please, I am asking you nicely to...”
“Doctor, I respect your concern, but it’s not necessary. Believe me, this...” He shakes the can, its contents sloshing about. “Isn’t a problem.”
“They already paged the doctor. He will be here shortly. So...”
“Who? You?” Ms. Margaret asks.
“Yes, now Mr…”
“I’ve said my part, Doctor, and I told you it’s not a problem. Let my doctor come.” Ms. Margaret looks at Mr. Demetri with a concern I have never seen her bestow to anyone and Mr. Demetri reciprocates the stare back to her. He is in the bed and she is standing next to him, but it is like they are at the same level with each other. Like they are standing hand in hand.
Mandel arrives in the room and looks over at Mr. Demetri, then to Ms. Margaret, then finally to me before walking over to Mr. Demetri. “You can’t keep this up, Robert.”
“I know.” I have never heard Mr. Demetri’s first name, but the way Mandel says it, it sounds like he was disciplining a child.
“I’m fifty-, I know what’s coming next, Doc.” His lips quiver, his eyes fall to the can of beer, then look to Ms. Margaret. He smiles at Ms. Margaret and she smiles back.
“There isn’t anything that says you have to give up now.” Mandel speaks, but his words go unnoticed. Ms. Margaret winks at Mr. Demetri and leaves the room, flowing past Mandel and me like a ghost.
“Leave me alone, Doctor. I feel like getting drunk.” He juts out his chin and stares stoically at the wall, purposely defying the doctor’s orders.
Mandel’s breathing grows louder as it is forced out his nose. He stands there, watching the man drink beer in a hospital bed, the muscles in his jaw twitching, then he turns and walks out of the room.
“What just happened?” I’m staring at Mr. Demetri, who is tipping back the can of beer into his mouth, taking big gulps, and he closes his eyes as he empties the can. Aluminum crunching sounds fill the cold room as he crushes it in his hand. His eyes are puffy and red. He sniffs, then rubs the tears out of the corners of his eyes.
“I’m not sure what to do,” I say plainly, throwing my arms out and letting them hit my sides. He tosses the can onto the bedside table and asks me to get another one from under the bed. I tell him I shouldn’t but I stop mid-sentence. Kneeling down, I reach for the hidden beers. I break one off the plastic ring and hand it to him. He sighs as he cracks open the can and begins chugging. His arm and hand look as if he is saluting. He has a rigid, but practiced, form in his posture, even as he sits in the bed. It is as if I am watching some ceremonious event, yet I feel derelict in my duties as a doctor for being part of his drinking binge.
He turns his head toward me as he pours the drink down his throat and extends his arm out for another beer. His cheeks are ruddy and he is not looking good. I hesitate for a moment, then hand it to him as he crushes the old can. Then, just like clockwork, he cracks the new can and begins chugging again. I am in wonder at how anyone can drink beer this quickly. I watch in amazement as he breathes out his nose; the sound is like a tire losing air. He crushes the empty can, saying, “Another.”
I look down at one can left in a plastic “dolphin-killing” ring. All I can do is stare at him, my head cocked to one side. “Another,” he demands, and this time his voice is fevered; it explodes from his lips in an unhinged burst.
He snaps his head at me, reaches like a jab and steals the can out of my hand, ripping the plastic off and peeling back the tab. The gas-colored beer gushes into his mouth. He squeezes the can as the contents are sent rocketing out. He lowers his arm to catch his breath, then continues, and it’s all too much for me to handle so I grab the can. His eyes open and lock on me. He makes “hmmm” sounds, like the can is duct-taped to his mouth.
I get a good grip and yank the can out of his grasp. I throw it in the trash as hard as I can. His face is red, probably from the beer, or high blood pressure, most likely both, and then the most unlikely thing happens.
“You,, bitch who the hell do you think you are?”
“Shut up!” I shout. The volume pierces through his false confidence and plants deep in his spine, icing him to the bone. I am taken off guard by it as much as he is. I have never shouted so quickly and so concisely before. A whole new feeling creeps along my bones and into my muscles. I feel as if I can lift the building and everything in it. Like I could throw it far from here and set it on a course to outer space.
My breathing puffs out my chest; I can’t control it. I feel like an eagle that locks its sight on a rabbit. I walk as calmly as I can to the side of the bed and stare straight into his eyes. “Apologize.”
He sits upright, breathing heavily out his mouth. His eyes are still red, still glazed with tears. I say it again. “Apologize. You owe me that for your fit.” He lowers his head and stares at the ground next to my feet, then in a raspy and constricted voice, he apologizes to me.
“I’m sorry, Doctor.”
I see waves of pain crash against him, forcing him to cry, the way a terrible truth can rail against someone. And then I suspect that his tears are the cause of some realization, the kind that shakes a person down to their soul. I put my hand on his shoulder and in a soft voice, I ask, “What’s wrong?”
He stares into my eyes and sees concern form over my face, taking the place of my anger. He loosens up and lets the tension dissolve and evaporate from his body.
“Cirrhosis. The great part is they keep telling me its idio, idio-” He strains to remember the term till I say, “Idiopathic.”
“That means they don’t know what’s causing the tissue in my liver to scar up. Right, Doc?”
“Why the beer, though?”
Mr. Demetri sighs, shaking his head. “I don’t know. This damn sickness has me confused all the time. I hardly know why I do anything anymore.”
“How did you get it in here?” I ask as I grab a chair.
“I paid the paramedic. Told him to get me something good and he brought back that swill.”
I snort a laugh. “I thought Ms. Margaret was your co-conspirator.”
Mr. Demetri lets out a small laugh, too. Tears fill his eyes and he looks straight at me. “I can’t blame my sickness, though. I was of sound mind when I paid that paramedic. The only clear thought I’ve had for a while and I waste it on damn alcohol.” He laughs again, trying to fight the smile that is spreading on his face.
But it fades and his breathing picks up as he tries to force himself to calm down. I put my hand on his chest, telling him to control his breathing and to focus on me. His eyes search my face and he nods to let me know he is listening.
“What did Dr. Mandel mean when he said you can’t keep this up?”
Mr. Demetri rolls his eyes, saying, “He caught me smoking a cigarette one time with my brother out in the parking lot. Ever since then, he’s treated me like a problem child.” Mr. Demetri wipes his face with his hands, then lets them fall on his stomach. “Why did I get stuck with that old fart?”
“Just lucky, I guess.”
Mr. Demetri covers his laughter with his hand. He looks off into the middle distance, saying, “He isn’t so bad.”
My ears waited to be satisfied with an answer but he simply sat, sighing deeply, until I asked, “How do you mean?”
“Well it’s his kid, really, his son, you know. I guess he sees my behavior as being … I don’t know, reminiscent, but in a bad way.”
I shake my head and furrow my brow in confusion. “What do you mean, his son?”
His eyebrows shoot up. “You don’t know?”
My lower lip sags and I shake my head. Mr. Demetri leans back and looks me up and down.
“I thought everyone knew. I suppose it was my eavesdropping on the nurses’ chatter, but I took it as a fact that everyone knows.”
I feel like I’m in a game of “keep away”, where the ball is throw
n to everyone but me. I wonder what he could possible mean.
“Mr. Demetri, what is so special about Mandel’s son?
“He was in a fight. A bad one. They fractured the poor boy’s skull.”
I move my hand to cover my mouth. Mr. Demetri goes on talking, but I have stopped listening. I can’t think right now. I hardly know how to react. Mr. Demetri finishes talking; he waits for me to respond. I don’t even know what it is he’s been saying. All I know is that I have to confirm that Mandel has a son in this hospital.
Chapter 11
After leaving Mr. Demetri, I wander through the hospital. There was a man in the hallway. I remember seeing a man in the hallway. He is being told his son was harmed in a fight. I walk around the halls. My memories lead me to empty rooms where I assume the young man might be. I have to see him. I have to read his last name. The room begins to spin and my vision narrows, making me misjudge my steps, and several times I must lean against the wall to keep myself from falling.
Eleanora sees me leaning against the wall. I must look crazy because I keep mumbling my thoughts out loud as I try to walk down the hall. Eleanora asks if I am alright as she guides me to an empty room. She sets me on the side of the bed. I prop myself up by locking my arms and pushing my palms into the bed.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Lily. Sit down and take some deep breaths.”
“I’m fine, Eleanora.” But I do as she says, anyway, because I’m not really fine. She closes the door, returns to my side and raises my head up to meet her concerned eyes.
“I need to find the patient who was in the fight.” I tell her about the man in the hallway and she puts her hand on my shoulder and she says, “What patient? What’s the name?” I tell her I can’t remember but that it is important that I figure it out.
“I can check the files, if that would help?”
I still feel a little woozy, so I shake my head like I am trying to get water out of my hair. I suck in as much air as my lungs will take and stand up, trying to regain my composure.
“Yes, Eleanora, that would be good. Please check the files for me.” We leave the room, walking slowly towards the nurses’ station. Eleanora is a good nurse and a good friend. I know she is trying to make me feel better, although she must think I am a slightly out of my mind right now. I appreciate that she plays along and doesn’t question me.
“You said the patient was in a fight? What’s the gender?”
“Male.”
Eleanora’s fingers set to flying through folders. “What was the date?”
“Well…” I pause to think for a moment. “I believe it was the same night Maddox was admitted.”
Eleanora’s fingers stop dead and my heart stops with her fingers. She slowly raises her head keeping her eyes down.
“Lily, who are you looking for?”
“Jesus, you know, too?” I push my hand to my temple, rubbing my fingers there, as I talk. “Am I the only one who is constantly left out of the loop?”
Eleanora finally looks up at me with an expression I can’t read on her face and asks quietly. “Do you want me to take you to his room?”
I nod and give her an apologetic look for snapping at her. She walks around the filing cabinet to stand in front of me and lowers her head. She leans in, keeping her eyes on me and says, “We have to be quick, Mandel doesn’t want us poking around there for too long...or at all, for that matter, so we have to hurry.”
Eleanora walks down the hall in a relaxed stride that I offset with my panicked stride. She moves gracefully, even under pressure, as she strolls down the hall. She questions me about why I have to see this patient, and I lie. I give her some lame excuse like I need closure, or I don’t believe the name on the chart. She assures me the name is right and suddenly, I feel cruel for wanting to see the patient. But I have to see him. Then she asks again, this time her tone cuts through my rambling explanation and I stop in the hall.
“I think I have to see this. I have to actually be there. Sometimes you just can’t take someone’s word, you know? Do you know what I mean? You have to stand in front of it all.”
She hums a “uh-hum” and continues down the hall a bit until we stand outside the door.
Before we go in, she says, “The surgery was rushed, so be prepared. He looks pretty bad.” She nudges me to go inside and we step into the room, but before we enter, I ask her, “There was a man in the hallway. He wasn’t Mandel. Do you know if there was family with the patient on the night he was admitted?”
Her eyes shift side to side as she thinks. “I can’t remember, but we can check when we get back to the files.” Then we enter the room.
On the bed lies a limp body. He is propped up by the back of the hospital bed which is angled so that he is sitting up, but he is hardly breathing. Eleanora walks up beside the bed and points to a deep, red and black scabbing cut on the top of his head. They shaved a cul-de-sac in his head to treat the wound. He is not awake, or if he is, he’s too medicated to be alert. I peer into his face, looking not as a professional, but as a human being, feeling the deep compassion for this poor soul lying in the bed in front of me.
He looks old, too old for such a young man. His eye is swollen past his forehead. His lip has been busted open and bled out. Eleanora is listing the endless injuries and fractures and cuts and wounds. Her voice washes out as I stare at a face that was battered and kicked and punched. I continue to stare, realizing this isn’t just a patient, this is someone’s son, someone’s family. I put my hand to my mouth and I picture my sister in this bed, her sweet face ripped open. Her beautiful eyes swollen shut, red and black and purple.
Then I picture this boy lying in the street, forced to the ground with his hands raised in fear at his assailants, begging them to stop before the blood filled his throat. I imagine a helpless person calling out into the night for help, but help never came. He languished and stepped on and left that one for the crows. He shrugged its shoulders to the obscure the face and hid. But they continued to thrash him.
Eleanora lists another injury, “Broken radius. There were splinters in his skin.” And as she speaks, I imagine a grimy length of wood being swung and coming down on his arm. The slivers of wood sank into his flesh. They tore through and opened his skin up as the length of wood hit his arm again and again.
Her voice echoes in my ears. “Ribs and sternum are broken.” They kicked him while he writhed in pain on the ground. They stomped and jumped on his chest. He was down, and they kicked and kicked and kicked him while he screamed.
“Frontal bone is fractured, Lily.” I look up at her. She stops reading, and in a constricted tone says, “They fractured his frontal bone. They broke his skull. Do you have any idea how difficult that is? They had to hit him over and over and over.” She shakes her head and looks down at the patient, saying, “Who does something like this?”
I swallow my sadness. It goes down like dirt. My stomach tightens as I grab the chart at the end of the bed and read the name, look at the bruised man and then back at the name. In plain, black letters the name reads Jonathan Mandel. Under all the bruises and cuts, under the swelling and stitches lies the same face I saw in a photo in Mandel’s office. The picture of a young man in a blue suit. He lay before me in agonizing pain and filled with a cocktail of medications.
Eleanora is talking to me; her lips move but I hear none of it. I remember what Mandel said to me in his office. He said he knew Maddox. That he knew his type. The realization that Mandel hates Maddox sinks in and I now know that Mandel sees a connection between Maddox and Jonathan. I can’t hear anything. All I see is Mandel, the man I have come to resent as an overbearing prick. I see him crying in his car before he walks into this building. I see him at home holding his wife, trying to be the strong one, trying to hold out against the riotous emotions that hammer away at his psyche.
“Lily...Lily…”
I startle and turn.
“We should go now.”
We walk in the hallwa
y with the chemicals and the cold and the lights all glaring and blaring and rapping at my senses like a long lost ghost at the front door, like death itself wanting to be let in. What have I said to Mandel during all this? I have treated him with so much angst and disrespect. I rally a feeble defense for my actions. He couldn’t blame me; I wasn’t clued in. I was left out of it. I hate Mandel for doing this, I hate him for making me a bad person.
And now I feel guilt slide next to me, wrapping its claws around me and whisking me away. I curse Mandel out loud. Eleanora snaps her head at me. Her face is intensely controlled but ready to buckle under the stress like a dam wanting to lose every gallon of water. Was it Maddox? Was it the man I have been lusting after this whole time? God, how stupid am I to fall for him? The mere possibility of him being the thug who hurt Mandel’s son makes me sick. And I feel doubly sick because all I can see when I picture Maddox is his gorgeous face.
Lily's Temptation Vol. 1 Page 7