Dalk tapped the steering wheel nervously. “So how’s it going with you?” he said. “Everybody’s concerned about you. I’ve been worried sick. I went by the old house. It looked like you had a fight in the living room. Your car was gone from the back. I figured you’d been kidnapped. When they called and told me how they found you, wrapped in a sheet in an abandoned house, I thought for sure you’d been abducted.”
“It’s a long story,” Vickie said. “In a way, I think I was abducted--but not by evil forces. I certainly had a dream I’ll never forget. At least I think it was dream. One thing I’m worried about is that when my car was stolen, my purse was in it--that means whoever stole it has my address and the keys to my house.”
“They have your car,” Dalk said. “And of course by now, the car is either in Mexico or has been completely parted out. But the good news is, they didn’t get your purse--I’ve got it with me in the trunk. You left it behind when you rushed out of the house after your suicide attempt. Of course, that’s why I was so worried about you. I figured you’d been abducted because the living room was torn up as though there had been a fight and your purse was left behind. No lady in her right mind leaves home without her purse--unless she’s being kidnapped.”
“You mean I don’t have to replace all my ID? That’s a huge relief.”
Dalk turned west on Ventura, entering Studio City and wheeled into Du-par’s parking lot where they soon found themselves at a window booth in the comforting atmosphere of coffee perking and bacon frying.
“I was going to have your french toast, but instead I’m going to have pie for breakfast,” Vickie said to the server. “But I want two pieces at once, on the same plate. How about hot blueberry with a big glop of vanilla ice cream, and maybe some nuts sprinkled on top?”
“I’ll have a T-bone,” Dalk said, “fried, not grilled--burn it, no sides.”
“No bread, or fries, or anything?” the server said.
“Nada,” Dalk said. “Just bring the meat.”
“And two coffees,” Vickie said. “But not from the bottom of the pot.”
“Our coffee is urn-brewed, not dripped,” the server said. “It’s always fresh.” The server, a battle-hardened carryover from the old days of truckers and improper familiarities, cracked a firm pre-tip smile, called them both “dears” and trudged off to fill their order, returning in record time with the eats.
“I’m eating mine with a spoon,” Vickie said, as she dug in appreciatively to her hot-and-cold, globby mess. “Dalk,” she said. “I think my cancer’s gone.”
Dalk set his fork down carefully. “You’ve been through a lot lately,” he said.
“No,” she said. “It’s not what you think. When I arrived at Kling Street, the lady there dripped a bloody tear on my face. The statue of the Virgin cried the tear. It was the tear that healed me. This morning, I saw a woman whom I believe was Our Lady, and she confirmed the healing. I’m cured. And I feel great! There’s no heaviness in my lungs...no pain in my back, no fatigue. I’m hungry again. I feel like a new person.”
Dalk’s blank stare caused a few seconds of uneasiness.
“Dalk?” she said.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “I need to get centered, here.” He sipped some coffee. “Okay,” he said. “I needed to get a grip on myself before we continue this. Vickie, you’re my sister and I love you. I’m going to stick with you. We’ll get you through this. But you’ve got to understand that you’ve had a tremendous shock to your system.”
“Dalk! It’s okay! I’m not crazy. I’m not somebody who’s dislocated their mental faculties. Look, I’ll show you what I’m talking about.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out the rosary. “Look,” she said. “Right there, on the crucifix--do you see it?”
“See what?”
“The teardrop of blood from Our Lady! Last night, the Virgin Mary lady gave this to me. It has healing power.”
Dalk’s manner softened. “Look,” he said. “Yesterday, I had a long talk with somebody about you. She’s a real nice lady. A doctor. Her name is Dr. Sellers. She works at the Medical Center. I want you to meet her after we see Mulroney this morning.”
“You think I’m nuts. You don’t believe I’m cured,” Vickie said. “But that’s okay. You weren’t there--you didn’t see what I saw. I can hardly expect you to have the faith.”
“Let’s just eat,” Dalk said. “It’s hard to discuss this right now.”
The waitress returned to fill the coffee.
“Do you believe in miracles?” Vickie asked her.
“Sure do, honey,” she said. “Every day is a miracle in my book.”
“Can you please bring us an order of your corned beef hash to go?” Vickie said. “It’s for our cat, so maybe the cook can put a sardine or two on top for him.”
“Sure thing, honey,” she said, making tracks for the order stand.
“Look, Vickie,” Dalk said. “This business of your cancer and Mulroney’s death, or coma, or whatever it is, has confused things.”
“Cough it up, Dalk,” Vickie said. “You think I should see a shrink, right? This Dr. Sellers?”
“Right,” Dalk said.
Vickie swiped at her eyes with a napkin, determined not to cry. It was clear her transcendent moment and the resultant high feelings were drawing to a close. “I’m telling you the truth, Dalk,” she said. “Early this morning I rode a rainbow into Heaven and I saw Our Lady. Now you can accept it or not, I don’t care.”
“I’m not ruling out what you say,” Dalk said. “Don’t get me wrong. When I was in Japan, I experienced a lot of strange things. My sensei, Toyama, would probably be the first to agree with you that you experienced something. But Vickie, we’ve been in an oven here. I am personally fried. I want you to be cured. I want you to be well. I’ve been scared stiff about you ever since you marched out of Dr. Bienenfeld’s office and refused to even discuss your options with him. Now maybe you got cured, and maybe you didn’t. But I think you owe me one. I’ve been with you through this. I want you to talk with Dr. Sellers to make sure we’re not missing something, here.”
Dalk’s look of consternation and dismay touched Vickie’s heart.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve been very selfish lately. I’ve thought only of myself and my own anxieties. I never even considered what effect my news of being miraculously cured might have on you. Look, let’s finish our breakfast like two normal people. After that, we’ll go see Mulroney. I’m going to put the rosary on his forehead and let the bloody tear touch his skin. That’ll force him to come back and deal with his situation. He won’t be able to sit comfortably in Heaven after that--once that rosary hits his face, his soul is going to break out into a white-hot sweat unless he comes back here to us. After we see Mulroney, I’ll talk with your Dr. Sellers and let her examine my head.”
“One more thing,” Dalk said. “If you’re cured, if you truly are, then it’s only fair for you to let me take you back to Dr. Bienenfeld to have it confirmed. You know I’ll keep having my doubts until I hear it from him.”
“Deal,” Vickie said.
They finished their meal and gathered up the hash and sardines for Kilkenney. Thus fortified, they re-boarded the Mercedes and slid out into a clear, bright, fall morning, thick with dense commuter traffic heading over Cahuenga Pass towards Hollywood and the route towards West L.A. and the Medical Center. Kilkenney, stirred by the presence of meat and fish, muscled his way menacingly and single-mindedly forward between them, trying to get at the food on the floor at Vickie’s feet.
“I hate to say it,” Dalk said, “but we’ll have to let him eat in the car. We have no choice. The beast has paws the size of a man’s fists--he might decide to claw us to death if we hold him back from his breakfast.”
“He wouldn’t hurt a flea,” Vickie said. “He’s a big foot-warmer. When we get to Westwood, stop at a music store before we go to the hospital--there’s some stuff I need.”
Vickie felt tears sti
nging her eyelids, but she fluttered them back. It wouldn’t do for Dalk to see her disappointment in his lack of faith--his insistence on doctors. She didn’t blame him. He was, after all, only a man, and he hadn’t had the chance, as had she, to peek through the doorway to Heaven, to a realm beyond the one the big Mercedes currently cruised, a world of pizza’s and laundromats and designer boots, where men collapsed from failing hearts and women prayed them back to the world of light, pain and noise they called home.
She didn’t blame him.
Chapter 30
“Not to cast a shadow,” Dr. Lerner said, “even though he’s off life-support, even with some luck, the mathematical odds are heavily stacked against Mulroney.”
Vickie, Dalk and Dr. Lerner stood in the hall, away from Mulroney’s bed where he lay, hooked up to everything the techno-society in which he existed could throw at him to measure, if possible, the degree to which it could be positively ascertained, scientifically speaking, that he still had a soul.
“When we decided to get married,” Vickie said, “I promised my whole lifetime to him--I had no idea it would be so temporary. I was going to make it as good as I could while it lasted--but this isn’t how I’d planned it--I thought I’d be the one who went first.”
“Mulroney beat us all to the punch,” Lerner said. “Now, instead of being in a position to work within the known matrix of possible outcomes, and restore him to a better life, we’re in the unfortunate position of having to decide whether or not to work outside the envelope in an attempt to save what we can of him, or to simply let him go.”
“Let him go?” Vickie said. “You mean let him die?”
“It’s my opinion,” Dr. Lerner said, “that the risks are high he’ll die if we simply leave him as he is--that is to say, if we don’t operate and repair the blockage in his arteries. It’s probably only a matter of time before there’s a change for the worse. The longer he lays there, comatose, the faster his condition will degrade and the sooner it will be that his starving heart will once again give out. I should also probably warn you that if we elect to operate on him while he’s comatose, it’s probably not something covered by your insurance--unfortunately, it’s something you have to factor into your decision as to what you’re going to do.”
“Mulroney isn’t disposable,” Vickie said. “He’s not an economic issue. He’s my husband.”
“I assume then,” Dr. Lerner said, “you’re ready to sign the consent form for us to go in and make the necessary repairs.”
“I need to be alone with him for awhile, if it’s all right,” she said. “It’s not a simple decision. We’ve had a lot of setbacks lately. Yesterday I was sure my husband was dead. Now I have to decide if I want my husband to undergo high-risk major surgery while he’s still in a coma. It scares me. What if he’s alive in there, imprisoned inside his brain, screaming to get out? What if he’s hearing and feeling everything going on around him? I know Mulroney. He’d never consent to being a brain sitting inside a repaired, but unconscious body. If he’s in there, he either wants to be fully alive or fully dead. If we repair his body, but he doesn’t come back, that means he’ll wind up in a coma ward somewhere--stored like a vegetable. Mulroney’s a Catholic, a retired street cop. He’d never choose a life where his human nature was so drastically compromised. It’s terrible to say this--but whatever happened to letting people die? Where is it written that you people have to interfere with everybody the way you do?”
“Have the desk page me when you’ve made a decision,” Lerner said, turning on her heel and walking briskly away, denied, for the moment, the pleasures of the knife.
“I hid the boom box and the CD in the room like you asked me to,” Dalk said.
“Where did you hide it?”
“Under the bed--it’s cued up--all you have to do is press the Play button.”
“I’m so nervous,” Vickie said. “This had better work.”
“If it doesn’t, are you going to have Lerner go in?” Dalk said.
“Are you kidding me?” Vickie said. “They’d turn him into a vegetable--or worse yet, they’d lose him on the table and come out with a lot of sorry medicalspeak about why they couldn’t save him.”
“Think about it,” Dalk said. “This is the most advanced center of medicine in the world.”
“That doesn’t give them a license to banish pain and death from the planet,” Vickie said. “It means that they’ve been able to raise a lot of money from all the rich old geezers up in the hills who think these doctors can give them a few more years if they donate enough money to the research wing.”
Dalk checked his watch. “I’m meeting Mary-Jo in the cafeteria,” he said.
“I’ll meet you there in a few minutes,” Vickie said. “I’m going in now to see my husband.”
“Wait, Vickie,” Dalk said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have, knowing how you feel about him, but I called Toyama. With your permission, I’d like to have him try to bring Mulroney back. He’s fairly certain he can work a miracle.”
“Dalk,” Vickie said, “we already discussed how I feel about your sensei’s magic. He still thinks he can set out a plate of roasted mice and tempt everybody’s “fox demon” to come running out to the feast. I hardly think the hospital is going to allow your sensei to come in here with his gold amulets and do his “soul polishing”, or whatever it is that he calls it.”
“Vickie,” Dalk said. “Toyama's already here--he’s been here for the past two days, sleeping in the lobby and saying prayers for Mulroney. You know darn well you’re going to try a little magic yourself, with your magic rosary. What can it hurt if I have Toyama try his hand? We need a miracle here. After all, aren’t miracles the bridge between ourselves and God?”
“I’ll be honest with you,” Vickie said. “Toyama gives me the creeps. I’m sorry to have to say that, but he does. The man is obsessed with rats. Everything he’s involved in has a dead rat as part of the ceremony. Does he have his little rat bag with him? I bet he does.”
“It’s not a rat bag, per se,” Dalk said. “It’s got other stuff in it--and rats are highly revered in the Orient. The Chinese named a whole year for them. For Toyama, the rat is an important part of the nativity legend of Mahikari, inspired by the story wherein the spirit rat bites Mahikari’s toe after she painlessly brings forth the messiah.”
“I can’t believe you’d push for Toyama's services at a time like this,” she said. “I know you mean well, but I’m going to upchuck my blueberry pie if we continue this discussion. I’ll tell you what--I’ll try the rosary first. Everybody tells me I need more compassion in my life. Why don’t you tell Toyama that I appreciate him coming all the way down here and I’d be grateful if he’d stand-by to do his miracle in case I need a backup. Fair enough?”
“Fair enough,” Dalk said.
“I’m going in,” Vickie said.
“God speed.”
Dalk headed for the elevator and Vickie, holding herself in, daring not to waste her own freshly rebounded energy dealing with her own fearful emotions and thoughts, entered the room to begin the communion with her husband.
Chapter 31
She was shocked by the sight of him, and understood at once that all they had here was a 250 pound piece of whitish-gray meat--a lump of clay and nothing more. It was definitely not Mulroney. What was lying in the bed was a once-human bag of tricks waiting to be opened and played with by the fools who believed in pathology statistics and found no reason to regard entertaining themselves with living corpses an all-that-unusual form of employment.
A sense of unreality hung over the room where Mulroney was lying immobile. The big man who’d vaulted over railings and executed jukeboxes wasn’t here--in his place was something formed from the dust of the earth waiting for the breath of God bring it to life. Still and all, she’d come to do a job and had no intention of violating her sacred obligation to him--the attempt to hail his spirit one last time, wherever it was, for the purpose of enticing it back into t
he clay, towards the end that, thusly re-animated, Mulroney would be free again to enter the game of life as he’d once known it.
“Why me, Mulroney,” she said. “Why am I having trouble believing that this is really happening? Why am I numb at the sight of you? Why aren’t I sobbing and crying and screaming for you to come back? Why does the sight of you lying here like this make me so afraid?”
She thought perhaps he’d wag his head suddenly at her words, as though his presence in the room was an elaborate joke he’d cruelly staged, and grown tired of enough to quit pretending. When nothing happened, she made the decision to let it all out, for better or worse--it would be her last time to see him like this--of that she was certain.
“I killed you,” she said. “I can only ask you to forgive me for pushing you the way I did. I shouldn’t have insisted that we get married right away. I put too much stress on you. If I’d had a brain in my head, we would have waited. I would have stayed with you that afternoon at the hospital. I should have realized how scared you must have been, being in the hospital alone, undergoing all those tests, receiving your last rites from Father Larry. I should have stayed with you. It’s my fault that you’re not here with me now.”
“What hurts the most is, I need to talk to you about how I feel, and you’re not here to talk with me. Who’s going to take care of me the next time I fall apart over something?”
She felt unsure about herself at the moment, haunted by a feeling of being unprepared, of not having a clue as to how to truly cope with the situation. The enormity of the problem made it too big to grasp, too emotionally expensive to fully come to grips with in its entirety. Death, or the imminent probability of it was almost something, she felt, no human being should ever have to come to grips with. She was troubled by the feeling that there wasn’t enough time to fix the problem, time being, for the moment, a commodity which was doled out in amounts entirely too stingy for the job at hand. Gamely, she kept going, understanding that whatever it was she had come to do could not wait for the next visit--a visit which would probably never take place.
A Small Matter Page 15