Alice & Oliver

by Charles Bock

  Now he said it outright. “We got a cease and desist from WordPerfect.”

  Oliver raised his eyes.

  “I’m sorry to bring it up, especially—I know it’s the worst timing ever, but I don’t see much choice.” A sip at his beer. Ruggles wiped away the foam mustache, dipped into Oliver’s fries.

  “We could just obey the order and fold up and that’s it, ball game. But I think we’re all in agreement: Fuck that. Another way, we go to court. This route, they’re funded like sonsabitches, lawyers up the yang. They draw it out, bleed us into the goddamn poorhouse.”

  Ruggles chewed, waited.

  “What I think, we scrounge up whatever we have, use it for distribution, throw our baby into the world. Let’s show we can go into any writing program they got. Do our damage, eat into their business, give these fucks some real reasons to buy us out, make us disappear. This way, we survive from the rubble, who knows, maybe even more?”

  “What about reaching out?” Oliver said. “Maybe we ask for a meeting?”

  “I thought of that, too,” Ruggles said. “Show what we have. Let’s scare them enough, they pay us to go away.”

  “Maybe Microsoft while we’re at it?” Oliver thought out loud. “We might catch a break, play the two against each other.”

  Ruggles grimaced at the idea, as if the possibility was too much to hope for. He fiddled with his napkin, and now leaned in, over his plate, crowding the table, shortening the distance between them. Oliver felt his hot, meaty breath. “This is what it gets down to,” Ruggles said. “You got that program for me or what?”

  —

  Oliver arrived back at the hospital with three new pajama sets from her favorite West Village lingerie boutique and discovered, right outside her room, a huge orange tackle box, large red cross on its side, oxygen tanks along the lower level. What hospital people referred to as the crash kit.

  Snapping on the mask, he ignored the sting atop his ears and got on the gloves and did not worry about tying the back and opened the door and his wife was propped up on the bed. She was so pale, her profile reflecting light in a way that made her look ghostly, one of those transparent apparitions in a carnival spookhouse. She tried to smile.

  “I’m so glad to see you.”

  “She hasn’t been doing so great.” Merv was on the other side of the bed, those fucking ivories in his lap.

  —

  She’d needed to go to the bathroom. Only Jynne had left to make her three o’clock. And Julie was supposed to be here but wasn’t. Nobody was with her. It was disconcerting but not unusual, these things happened, she’d been fine with it, and had gotten up to use the bathroom, then, about halfway through, started feeling unsteady, sapped of strength. She barely made it to the chair and rested there for a while and waited and still the room was spinny, and she rested, and waited, and was too far from the emergency call button. Even making it back to her bed felt impossible. Then she’d soiled herself.

  Oliver cradled the back of her neck, lowered his head so the growth on the top of his skull rubbed against the fuzz atop hers. For the first time during this admission, he noticed, her arms were trembling, and this struck him as a kind of marker. He stared at the yellow plastic bracelet hung around her wrist. On it large black letters: FALL PRECAUTION.

  Oliver passed his hand over her forehead, felt its furnace of heat, the indentations of the veins where the ridge of her cranium jutted over her temple and sloped. Small and protruding, heading down the sides of her face, veins split in little patterns that were reminiscent of the spine of a leaf, arteries on a subway map. Sun spots littered her forehead, dappled the sides of her face, running toward her jaw. Her rash was back with a bright vengeance, her cheeks badly swollen—her skin sunburned red in some places, orange in others, in still others she looked pasty, chalky, had turned so pale she’d taken on a greenish hue. She was flaking everywhere. Her lips had severe cracks in them, dry white crud in their corners.

  She’d finished recounting her tale, and had nestled into his shoulder, resting, eyes shut. Only with a short pained sound, she now pushed away. The cords in her neck strained into dock ropes; her head jutted forward. Like she was some kind of mystic animal, her mouth came unhinged. She strained; her face went this grotesquely deep red shade; nothing came out. She barely finished, then heaved again, more violently this time, this unstoppable wave, moving from her stomach and up through her body.

  Oliver had grabbed the puke basin by then, and caught most of the bile. A third retching followed, this one impossibly violent, bringing only a thin string, yellow mucus.

  And then he was in the bed alongside her and she was nestled beneath his chin, looking up at him. She’d passed her large eyes down to their daughter.

  Oliver felt as terrified as he had ever been, but he gathered her frailness in his arms.

  Alice sniffed mucus from her nose, said: “It’s getting a little bad now.”

  —

  They bring in a portable commode and place it next to my bed. “If you can’t make it to the toilet,” says Nurse Hwan. I appreciate her gentle discretion, implying I have some sort of choice, as if I could even begin to rise in time to get to the bathroom. Any urge now prompts me to call for a nurse. And the basin is used for another purpose. When mucus gets caught in my throat, and I vomit it back up, for example. Or when I don’t eat enough, because I have no appetite—and my stomach revolts. Or when I give in and nibble a horrid bite of white bread, and even this feels aggressive, and within half an hour, those chewed foamy particles are reversed, bringing with them strips of flesh from the top of my mouth. Or when the room is too hot, and up comes yellow bile. Later I am curled into a ball, I am trying to sleep, and overhear the nurse telling Oliver it was not really phlegm but my decomposing stomach lining.

  The night is long; I soil myself twice. Two more times I vomit into the basin. Choking my tears, I apologize.

  “You’re doing great,” Oliver says.

  He again holds the plastic yellow basin to my mouth. He again lies on the side of the bed with me. He once again wraps his arms around me, strokes the side of my head, feels my thin little invisible hairs.

  Once, in my twenties, I started working on a men’s collection inspired by early twentieth-century modernism, tweed vests and the like. For context, I tried to read Ulysses. Though I didn’t make it even halfway through, I remember being struck by its boldness, the idea of trying to capture every stray thought and digression that might run across a human consciousness. While preparing for my transplant, I thought I could will myself into that same heightened consciousness. It hasn’t worked so well. I follow lines of association like some tagalong friend, ambling behind, constantly trying to catch up. But I trip, the bond breaks, the thought muddles, all colors dull. Or maybe pain flares and whitewashes every thought. Or I vomit and it’s gone. The truth is, I am simply less.

  But every now and then, I still can find that scant line—a memory, an idea. However long it might take, I find where I left that line, gather myself and pick back up that line and lick its frayed end, making it usable to thread a needle. There is satisfaction there, stitching, following some little notion.

  I assume it is morning when Blasco enters. The doctor is pleasant but serious, checking on me, going over my night’s troubles. “Overall, it doesn’t look horrible,” he says. Then he asks whether I want to go on a PCA. “Patient-controlled analgesia,” he says after realizing that I am waiting. “One press or squeeze will give you a hit of morphine—although we don’t give enough that you can go numb. You also won’t be allowed to go nuts. No real parties.”

  I nod. I want it. Of course I do.

  Keyboard music drifts without weight through the background, and it takes me a bit to realize where it’s coming from. There is a spoken promise, someone vowing to be present when they put in my stem cells. I want to thank Merv, but am aware of Oliver telling me I should not talk so much, I need my rest, the next days are biggies. I respond by rambling about my
lonely childhood, admitting to Oliver news he already knows—my longtime desire for brothers and sisters. “I kept holding out hope that I could’ve had more children.”

  “Alice.”

  “I know what they said about the procedure, but I was praying there was a way. I wouldn’t be barren and maybe a few years down the road, you’d be enjoying Doe so much, you’d be excited for another one.”

  He strokes my stubble. Through his eyes, I recognize what is happening to me.

  —

  After the nurse changes the dressing around my port, she takes my vital signs, then buzzes the desk. Soon the shift nurse arrives, takes my blood pressure, and buzzes the desk. When the resident arrives, Oliver repeatedly asks what’s wrong. The resident checks my eyes, has me open my mouth. My blood pressure’s very low, he says. I ask him how low but do not get an answer, which means it’s serious. My eyes flutter and I let them shut—having this doctor work on me without so much as addressing me grants a form of permission. I focus on my breathing, filling my stomach as if it were a balloon, letting air expand through my chest. I feel a cold pack on my cheek, pressing, then on my neck. I release my tensions in a breath outward, hear Oliver ask if I can feel this, and indeed feel a new cold pack pressing into my stomach. “Soothing,” I mumble. I assure him I am not in pain, very little feels rushed, or wrong. Someone is speaking to me now, a voice I half-recognize, and though I am familiar with his words, for some strange reason, I cannot respond. I feel my body moving, the bed churning behind me, pushing my torso forward; I feel people taking me under my arms, forcing me to sit upright. A small disc presses against one side for a bit, then another. Blasco says that my lungs sound good. He listens to my belly. It’s a bit of a nuisance, but I let him do his business. My body feels comfortably distant from me now, an arm’s reach away.

  —

  “My worry is she’s decompensating.” Blasco’s forehead was light with perspiration, his breath hot in Oliver’s face. “It could be that all the stress we’ve put on her heart has registered. It could be kidney failure, dehydration, or some infection that we don’t yet know about. She’s neutropenic.”

  “She’s been neutropenic before—”

  “Correct. But this time she has neutropenic fever. And the radiation we gave her is starting to kick in.”

  Oliver remained focused on her, the outsides of her eyelids busy with small red veins. Bone-white rings beneath her eyes.

  “What I am going to do now,” Blasco continued, “I am going to widen the spectrum of her antibiotics. She’s on a lot. We’re going to do more.”

  “How does that affect today?” Oliver asked.

  “My hope is this will at least tamp down on the fever. I’m also starting her on an IV for nutrition. We’ll give her platelets—”

  “And the stem cells?”

  “Also a wide spectrum of blood tests. These should narrow the possibilities of what has caused this blood pressure drop. When the tests find the right germ, I’ll give a more thorough and focused antibiotic.”

  Oliver held the doctor by the elbow, as if keeping him in place, as if Blasco were going anywhere. “She’s so close.”

  “The stem cells are here.” Blasco waited for a reaction, continued. “Ideally you want them in a patient as soon as possible. Your wife’s weakened state is a concern. But some of that might have to do with painkillers. Myself, I feel better about getting the cells in my patient than having them in deep freeze.”

  A sound. Alice twitched; her eyes blinked, batting, opening, unfocused. She looked toward Oliver.

  “Thank you for everything,” she said.

  He studied her, leaning forward. “Do you remember that first night?” he said, every feeling he had ever known rushing upward through him. “It’s still true. I could fuck you right here and now.”

  —

  Blasco had one gloved hand around her propped shoulder. He held a basting syringe of comic proportions—large enough to squeeze thick streams of icing out onto an institutionally large birthday cake. Made of plastic, the holding tube was long and transparent. Visible inside was a cloudy, cream-thick concoction, a weak pink.

  Alice managed something resembling a smile. From the way Blasco’s cheeks rose and his mask jiggled, it seemed like he was smiling, too. Oliver had gotten pretty decent at reading expressions from brows and facial movements. The doctor held the bolus between himself and the patient as if he were displaying a prized trout. Oliver snapped the photo, and another—just in case, at which point the doctor nodded formally. Back to business, he changed out of his gloves, putting on a new set.

  Presently, Bhakti arrived, her boots clicking across the floor, dark hair lustrous behind her, her skin the hue of whiskey—all but glowing in health. As she apologized for her lateness, her beauty appeared that much more striking against her ridiculous protective garb. Next to Carmen, Nurse Hwan was pumping hand sanitizer onto the baster, making sure every area that had been touched, gloves be damned, was disinfected. Now she was going over the syringe’s entire surface.

  “You’ve come so far,” Hwan said. “Let’s keep it going. Let’s bring it home.”

  “Home.” Alice’s eyes shone.

  Blasco motioned toward the line. Bhakti took a moment, recognized her own name being spoken, pointed to herself to make sure. She moved forward, a bit hesitant, as if her usual assured manner were a façade, and a window had exposed her true, insecure self: that thin schoolgirl with wild hair and glasses, intent on impressing teachers, not letting anyone see her terror in the hallways of her new public school. Tentative, taking the bolus from the nurse, she held the instrument by a corner, almost as if it were a full diaper. Blasco continued his instructions, easing her toward the next step. With only the slightest shake in her biceps, Bhakti connected the syringe’s front spout into the port’s barrel, checked the connection was secure, would not leak.

  All morning Oliver had felt so jittery he could barely stand in place, could not sit still.

  “Blood pressure ninety over fifty-three,” called out Glendora.

  “That’s what we want,” Blasco said. “Ready?”

  “Three,” said Bhakti. “Two—”

  Oliver did not make eye contact; Alice transmitted no unsaid messages. Each remained silent, attentive, focused.

  “They’re here,” Alice said.

  Then, “It’s very cold.”

  “A new life.” Glendora’s booming declaration, almost childlike in its excitement, caught the doctor’s attention. He grinned. Then reached for Bhakti’s wrist, steadying her, directing the bolus angle, the liquid flow.

  “What time did the platelets go in?” Blasco asked.

  “We haven’t got them,” answered Nurse Hwan.

  “On their way?”

  “What they’re saying.”

  Vibrations along Hwan’s waist; she checked her beeper. “Just nonstop today.”

  Alice’s face was glowing, tears running freely, making her cheeks and chin slick. She didn’t lift her arms to stop them. She said, “I’m ashamed to cry.”

  “Cry,” said Oliver.

  “Is no shame,” agreed Blasco.

  During the next minutes, Oliver could barely hold still. Instinct, nature, said he should be next to his wife, in bed embracing her, at least holding her hand. But the bedside was too crowded. The last thing he wanted was to accidentally infect her. He stood on the periphery and beamed at Alice. At moments she felt him watching, paused from her meditative breathings, and met his gaze. For once her eyes were not glassy from the drugs but sunshine bright; indeed, her damp face all but glowed, the tears seeming to have smoothed out the discolorations and wrinkles, providing her with an extraterrestrial elegance. On their wedding day she’d worn her hair pulled away from her face, and flowers had pinned the bun. She’d designed the pink slip of a dress herself, had smoked cigarettes and dieted for months. The result was as beautiful a woman as he ever hoped to see, the happiest day of his life. The memory threatened to break him
. He kept watching.

  At one point, he actually thought, This would be a perfect place for some music, and felt entertained by this, and irritated, and wondered where Merv was. Not that he missed him, but Oliver remembered him wanting to be present.

  The stem cells must have been about finished, because Blasco tipped the syringe to a downward angle, shook the tube as if prepping a martini. “We want to make sure you get every final drop of new marrow.”

  Oliver’s hand formed a fist; he shook it at his side. Then a motioning nod. “Can we have that?”

  Blasco shook his head. “When we finish, it goes off to the microtics lab. Those last dregs get cultured.”

  —

  Two days after the transplant, a larger room becomes available. It doesn’t feel like such a gift. My white blood cell counts have started crashing, and asking me to get in a wheelchair and take a trip, even if it’s just down the hallway, seems as realistic right now as undertaking astronaut training. “If you don’t change,” a nurse tells Oliver, “you’ll lose the room to another patient.” He gathers up my fall coat, the shoes I wore in here, books I haven’t touched during my stay, my Discman. He spends a good ten minutes taking the pictures from the wall across from my bed, gathers my stray clothes into one pillowcase, my laundry into another.

  Arriving with all his gear, Merv sees the half-dismantled room, Oliver sweating. He’s confused, then catches up, and says he’s glad he didn’t show up after I moved. “See that room empty, man, I’d have freaked something fierce.”

  I don’t have the heart to tell him that he missed the transplant, and Oliver keeps zipped as well, although it isn’t as if Merv is waiting for an update, rather, he is stripping off his bib and gloves, heading out of the room. Soon enough he returns, dragging a number of wheelchairs. Oliver remains inside the room but lugs my travel suitcases toward the doorway. Though Merv’s limp is pronounced, and it’s not easy for him to haul things around, he takes each suitcase, creates a neat stack on the first chair. He and Oliver form a decent team. Both sweat freely, but when Merv takes an album, he looks perturbed. I can sense his impatience. He enters the room now and starts stacking items. Oliver grabs the side of his head and begins pulling at his own scalp, loudly recounting the rules about protective gear—“Come on, hoss.” I feel myself looking at Merv, pleading. Please.