What Is All This?

by Stephen Dixon

  “For a moment there I really thought I was lost,” Hank said.

  The least you could’ve agreed to was a coffee with him,” Sylvia said. “After all.”

  “He’s down there now waiting for me, so I still have that problem to contend with.”

  “But coffee, Hank. Because how long would that take?”

  “Too long. You know your old man’s not one to let go with just one coffee. But that’s still not my reason. If I had the time, I’d do it.”

  “Oh, well,” she said, brightening up. “Tell Lucille all about everything, and that tomorrow’s my last full day here and I’ll be able to get calls and have as many visitors as I want. Did she say what she’s serving tonight?”

  “Whatever it is, you can be sure it’ll be cold.”

  “Not Lucille.” She took a candy out of the box. “You know,” waving it in front of her, “you really get to miss these things when you know you can’t have them.”

  “Candy never made that much difference to me.”

  “Me, neither. That’s what I mean.”

  He motioned with his head to the other bed, which had a rolled-up mattress on it. “When they going to fill up that thing?”

  “Tomorrow, they tell me.”

  “It’s nice here like it is. Like a private room, almost, though without paying for one.”

  “But there’s enough noise on this floor for an entire girls’ dorm. I think I’m going to hate it here by tomorrow.”

  “You’ll be home in two days, so don’t worry.” He leaned over and kissed her lips. When he started to raise his head, her arm, still wrapped around his neck, drew him down again.

  “Isn’t it wonderful?” she said, pecking his mouth.

  “It sure is.”

  “I mean, the whole thing, Hank. Everything.”

  “I’m telling you, honey, if you were a man I’d give you a cigar. And the best too—not those cheap things other new fathers give out—because that’s how happy I feel. Practically every guy I met got one. Gave out almost a box today.”

  “Do you like the name Gavin?”

  “We picked it out, didn’t we? Goes well: Gavin Riner.”

  “Have you thought more about a middle name?”

  “Maybe he shouldn’t have one—not every kid does. Maybe we should just give him a middle initial and leave it at that.”

  Then everybody would ask what it stood for. No. Besides which, I never heard it done that way.”

  “I was only kidding, Syl. Just a joke.”

  “Oh.” She smiled. “But think of a few tonight, okay? And I will too.”

  “Right—and now I think I better go.” He reached for his coat in the closet. “Christ, I bet Lucille and Dave will be fuming.”

  “Not on your life, they won’t.” When he looked as if he didn’t understand her, she pointed to her belly: The baby, dummy, the baby.”

  He leaned across the bed while inserting his arms in the coat sleeves and kissed her on the lips with a sticky smack. Then he drum-tapped his fingers along the table till they reached the candy box, and moved his index finger across and down the chart. Finding what he wanted, he pulled out a chocolate and bit into it. She nudged him to show it to her, and he held up the part he hadn’t eaten. It was coconut filled.

  REINSERTION.

  “Dad?” Andy said. “Dad, you asleep?”

  His father’s eyes opened. He weakly shook his head that he wasn’t asleep.

  “How do you feel tonight?—Dad, you hear me? I’m asking how you feel.”

  His father was on his side, cheek pressed against his shiny hands, which were clasped together on the pillow. Three other Parkinson’s patients shared the room. The one next to his father was completely bald and bony and looked cadaverous, his mouth hanging wide open and his hands grasping for imaginary hornets and other wasps above his head and on his face and pillow. “Get that one,” the man said. “Get that yellow jacket or I can’t sleep, I won’t.” Then he was quiet, his mouth—a hole—still open, eyes shut tight, his teeth in an uncapped paper coffee container on the side table.

  “You shouldn’t be in this room,” Andy said to his father.

  His father’s frozen stare moved slowly to a glass of flowers on his side table, which the hospital’s women volunteer group had brought over during the day with a get-well card.

  They’re pretty, aren’t they,” Andy said.

  His father nodded.

  “I would’ve brought some myself, and much bigger ones also. But remember last time when they couldn’t find a vase in time and the damn things just died?”

  His father tried to smile but gave up and shut his eyes.

  “You want to sleep some more? That it? Well, you just sleep, go ahead, and I’ll get a chair here and relax a little while you’re napping. I don’t mind.”

  “Every time…every time…every time…”

  “Every time what?”

  “My mind…my mind…my mind every time…every time…”

  “I still don’t get it, Pop. You’ll have to make more sense.”

  His father shook his head in disgust.

  “Something about how you feel?”

  He continued to shake his head.

  “Maybe you want the nurse. Do you want the nurse? If you do, just say so and I’ll run straight out of here and get her for you.”

  He shook his head, his expression even more disgusted.

  “You don’t? Well, then maybe—”

  “My mind…my mind…goddamnit, I’m incomprehensible, Andy.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Because look at you, with your sudden rage and articulateness. You’re getting better, can’t you see? You’ll be back to your old grouchy self in no time. And ‘incomprehensible’? A word I never heard you use before, except to repeat it mockingly whenever I used it.”

  The nurse said…”

  “Yes?”

  The nurse said…the nurse said every time my mind…my mind every time…”

  “Dad, come on, give it a rest.” He took his hand. It was cold, just as before the operation, so what good had it done? The first one turned out to be a failure. And when he and his sister brought him back to be examined the doctors said that, as they had previously warned, it was necessary to reoperate on about ten percent of the cases; drilling deeper and reinserting the tube into the patient’s skull and freezing that part of the thalamus they had missed. But they had never mentioned the possibility of reinsertion. All they said was that three to four percent of the patients never fully recover from the operation and another one percent die on the table, almost always because of a previous cardiac condition the desperate patient and family hadn’t disclosed. Andy and his sister hadn’t wanted him to go through it again, but he insisted. “For what good am I the way I am? A burden, a good-for-nothing burden on everyone if I don’t get myself fixed up quick and back to work. And you want to see all my money disappear and then yours too?”

  “Dad?” Andy said. “Your hand feels wonderful…it really does.”

  “Every time…every time…”

  “Dad, let me see you give me one of your real good handshakes.”

  “Someone,” the patient in the next bed said, “someone get that yellow jacket…that hornet on the lamp. Now get that one. I said get that one.”

  That poor man,” Andy said. “Does he bother you much?”

  But he was still trying to squeeze Andy’s hand.

  “Say, now that’s what I call a grip. You’re getting much stronger. Why, I bet in a few days—”

  “In a few days…”

  “In a few days you’ll be able to pull out teeth just as you used to. I’m not kidding. The surgeon said they got it all this operation. That you’re really going to be able to walk by yourself this time.”

  This time…this time…”

  “Don’t repeat everything I say, Dad.”

  “Every time my mind…my mind…it’s my godawful mind, Andy,” and he shut his eyes and seemed to be dozing off.<
br />
  That’s fine, Dad—you sleep. I’ll just sit here—till closing, even. I promise.”

  “Yellow jackets…wasps…hornets,” the other patient said. “Huge hornets and flying stinging ants. Iowa’s full of them, all trying to keep a working man from his sleep.”

  He snapped his hands in the air at the insects. Then his feet began tremoring and his legs jerked up and down under the covers and his hands thumped the mattress. “Yellow jackets and hornets and flying stinging ants…”

  “Flying stinging ants,” Andy’s father said, his eyes still closed.

  That’s right. Huge stinging ants. Iowa’s full of them, the rotten pests. They’ll kill you.” Then the two men were quiet, their sleeps seemingly untroubled. Andy waited a few minutes, felt his father was really asleep this time, and left the room.

  He took the elevator to the cafeteria on the fifth floor, got a cruller and coffee, looked around for a place to sit and saw, seated at the rear of the room, the surgeon who’d operated on his father. He went over to him.

  “Excuse me,” he said, “but I wonder if I could talk to you for a moment.” The young doctor peered up from the coffee he’d been sipping. The nurse beside him whom he’d been talking to, cut his jelly doughnut in half with a fork.

  “Pardon me?” the doctor said.

  “I’m Herman Waxman’s son—Mr. Waxman on the seventh floor?”

  “Oh, sure. Nice to meet you. I’ll be on that floor in fifteen minutes, so why don’t I speak to you then?”

  “I might not see you. You fellows seem to come through the floor so rapidly that I’ve missed you each time. And I work late and can’t get here every night.”

  “Tonight I promise I’ll be there at eight sharp. I’ll be making my rounds of all the Parkinsonians then, and I’ll make a point of looking for you.”

  “Your coffee’s getting cold, Dr. Gershgorn,” the nurse said.

  “Would you mind very much if I had my coffee with you?” Andy said to him. “I’ve some important questions to ask about my father’s operation.”

  “Mr. Waxman,” the doctor said. “I appreciate and understand your interest and concern and all, but this is my one breaking during an uninterrupted five-hour stretch.”

  “Just tell me if his operation was a success or not.”

  “If I can remember correctly, your dad’s coming along nicely.”

  “But his hands are still cold, and almost rigid. And when you saw him in that preoperative exam two weeks ago you said his hands would become warmer and have more movement after the operation. And there seems to be some damage to his speech and mind—even worse than before the first operation.”

  “I don’t recall getting any reports on that. Maybe your dad is still drowsy.”

  “But it was like that last night. And the nights and days before that, my sister said.”

  “Well, so soon after an operation—”

  The operation was a week ago, if you’d really like to know.”

  “Now listen, Mr. Waxman. It’s impossible for me to talk accurately about this without his charts and records, so what do you say I see you upstairs?”

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  “I’m saying…well, I’m not trying to be evasive or anything, but this is a cafeteria.”

  “Of course. I’m sorry. My apologies to you both,” and still holding his tray, he excused himself and made his way to a table across the room. A woman, whom he’d seen in his father’s room but mostly in the visitors’ lounge down the corridor, where she was always smoking, got up from another table and sat opposite him.

  “You don’t mind, do you?” she said. “It’s only you’re the one person, other than staff, I recognize here, and I hate having coffee alone.”

  “It’s fine; sit.” He reached for the sugar dispenser.

  “I see you also like your coffee sweet,” she said.

  “I usually drink it with nothing, but this hospital coffee’s such vile stuff that I—”

  That Mr. Waxman—he’s your father, isn’t he?”

  That’s right.”

  “A sweet old man—just wonderful. Everyone on the floor loves him. He’s a lucky man also, having a son who lives close by, coming to see him so much. Don’t worry, your lovely sister told me all about you and your important TV news work. It sounds very interesting. And it’s nice that he also has a daughter who takes care of him the way she does.”

  “Sheila’s devoted to him. She and Dad have always been close.”

  That’s wonderful. Now the two boys of my poor husband—you can have as a gift. I’m not even sure they remember he’s alive.”

  “Did your husband go through a similar operation?”

  “Similar? The same. There’s only one way to cure them so far, and that’s the one they both went through. And now reinsertion also, drilling away like they were oilmen digging for riches, instead of well-paid surgeons. But he wanted it. Oh, we couldn’t talk him out of it for the world. But it won’t do him any good. And for this factory here to go ahead with it and take the last of our savings, was like taking candy from a baby—literally. Have you noticed him grabbing for hornets and such?”

  That’s your husband?”

  “Myron Dodd, bed number B. He did the same thing after the first operation for a week, and also repeating everything he heard, exactly like your dad does. And last time they also discharged him, saying he was in terrific shape—you should have seen how convinced the doctors were. And in a way he was, walking and speaking fairly well and gaining weight and using his hands as he hadn’t done in years. But three weeks after we got him home he collapsed in his chair as he was trying to push a hole through his baked potato, so you can see why I say it’ll happen again.”

  “I’m sure it won’t. Just by the statistics they give, the second operation has a much greater chance of success.”

  “Oh, no. I hate to admit it. What I’m saying is I hate to be the prophet of doom or callous or a person like that, because I know your family is no better off financially or any other way with your problems. But I have a vegetable on my hands for the rest of my life, and so do you. I don’t know where we’re ever going to get the money.”

  His father was the only patient awake when they entered the room.

  “Andy? That you?”

  “He’s here, Mr. W.,” Mrs. Dodd said, stroking his cheek, “so don’t be worrying none. You’ve a very nice boy here. And we’ve just had a pleasant chat and I assured him everything’s going to be all right with you. You’re a lucky man, Mr. W., a very lucky man.” Then she went over to the other patients in the room, made sure they were covered, and sat on her husband’s bed.

  “Andy—where are you?”

  “Right beside you, Dad. Anything wrong?”

  “You’re here? Good.” He moved his hand through the bed rail.

  “You want to take my hand?”

  He nodded and Andy held his father’s hand and kissed his forehead. Then his father said “Lila? Your mother, Lila…I mean…”

  “She’s home.”

  “Home?”

  “Her home. You’ve been divorced close to ten years, don’t you remember? You live alone with Sheila now.”

  “And you?”

  “You know I live alone too.”

  “You come and live with us too—understand?”

  “You’re speaking much better now, Dad.”

  “Nice girl, nice woman, your mother.” The thought seemed to please him. “We never should’ve split up. It was bad for you kids.”

  “I don’t know. It was good for you two, so I guess good for us.”

  “No, no. Never should’ve split up.”

  “Okay, if you say so. And you really are speaking much better. Keep it up and you’ll be out of this place in a week.”

  “Nice woman, very pretty. Came from a good family, true class. Why isn’t she with us, Andy? I mean, I mean, you think after marriage to one woman for twenty years…thirty years…”

  “M
om told me she wants to come. I spoke to her yesterday and she was very eager to know everything about you. But coming here means leaving her job early. Also, the long subway ride at night, and this dangerous neighborhood. It’s too much for any woman, Dad.”

  The daytime. The daytime every time the daytime, Andy.”

  “Try and go back to sleep, Dad. Just rest.”

  “But the daytime, Andy. She has a day off Wednesday in the daytime—I know. And Sunday all day.”

  “You mean you think she ought to come during the day? I’ll suggest that to her. She wants to come badly. She told me so just yesterday.”

  “Today. She’ll come today and I’ll be better, Andy.”

  “I’ll tell her. She’s very concerned about you—as much as Sheila and I are.”

  “I know. A lovely woman. If we would’ve stayed together this wouldn’t have happened. She knew how to take care of me best. Call her again. Tell her to come. Do me a favor.”

  “Right after closing tonight I’ll call her. I’m sure she’ll be here in the next few days.”

  “Few days?” He looked puzzled. “Few days? Few days?”

  “Don’t be repeating everything I say. It’s not good for you.”

  “You and Sheila and she come next few days, Andy, and I’ll be better.”

  “I know you’ll be better also.”

  “Also, Andy…”

  “Also what, Dad?”

  “Also what, Dad?”

  “Dad, please. Now I already asked you not to repeat everything I say. Just please.”

  “Please,” he said, shutting his eyes. “Please, Andy…please, just please.” Then he seemed to be asleep. Andy, still holding his father’s fingers through the bed rail, opened a newspaper in his lap with his free hand. When he raised his wrist to look at his watch, Mrs. Dodd, sitting beside her sleeping husband with her arm around his shoulders, called out from across the beds “We got more than half an hour yet. I checked. I check every five minutes, in fact. It’s some ordeal, isn’t it?”