Edge

by Michael Cadnum

  The woman was calling, a name that sounded like Nero. I have a theory about dealing with angry dogs, and it includes speaking in a gentle voice and holding out a hand the dog can sniff. Nero stretched his neck toward my hand and barked, dog breath on my fingers. He was sour-smelling.

  Each bark shook something in me, and as I began to back away Nero bristled, a ridge of hair up and down his spine. He crept after me, one step after another, an iron-edged growl backing me toward the center of the road.

  Chief wore one of his merry little smiles. “Look here, Zero,” he said. He wrenched open the truck door, reached in across the seat and rummaged, bringing forth half a sandwich.

  My essay had been about the time Chief broke up a fight between two massive Tongans on the loading dock, two cousins who had just been joking around and suddenly pushed with a little too much weight. Chief had insinuated himself between the two men with a laugh.

  It was the laugh, the carefree manner, that had killed the fight. “If you’re going to show off your choke holds, make us buy tickets.” And the time he parked the truck in a driveway in San Leandro, and a furious man stormed down at us, holding up his pants with one fist, shouting that if we left our truck there he would have us arrested. Chief agreed that sloppy parking should be punished by the firing squad, and the man ended by leading us to a pony keg of beer and saying he could nuke another plate of nachos in the microwave.

  And here was Chief, offering bug bread with grape jam seeping through, cottage cheese crumbling at the edges. The dog nosed the air. Chief put the half sandwich down beside an ant colony, cinnamon brown harvester ants, a hole with a halo of ant-processed earth.

  I’m glad I’m not an animal. But for a moment Chief and I were silent, enjoying the dog’s pleasure. He lapped the bread, taking the sandwich apart, tossing it so he could wedge it into his jaws. He wolfed the last crust, eyeing us with little of his former aggressiveness, his tail beginning to jerk from side to side.

  “Zero the Hero,” said Chief.

  EIGHTEEN

  “Dad, you look great,” I said.

  For a rare instant I was alone with him, no nurse, no Mom or Sofia. I tried to convince myself that I was not lying: he looked much better.

  A machine sucked in and sucked out. It was too warm in the room. My dad’s face was flushed and I was sweating inside my shirt. It was Thursday afternoon, the fifth day after the shooting. A box of Swipes, white tissues like Kleenex, perched on a half table swung to one side. I touched one to his forehead, blotting moisture.

  I had never done anything like this for my father. I almost expected one of us to need a joke, something to counter embarrassment. But there was no embarrassment, only his look of acknowledgment.

  His eyes crinkled, asking.

  “I took the test,” I said, sure he wouldn’t remember. The memory of the previous Saturday morning was a dim historical scrap, unattached to anything happening in this room. But I meant it as an offering, good news from the ordinary world. Only as I spoke did I feel the flimsiness of the report, how little it must matter to him now.

  His eyes were on mine, looking into me, full of questions. A blue tube led to a button in his throat.

  The words tightened up on me, but I said them anyway. “I’m pretty sure I did okay,” I said, trying to make it sound casual. I wasn’t sure at all.

  He blinked. The blink meant something. His eyes rolled, taking in the room.

  “A lot of equipment,” I said. “A busy place. A nice place,” I said, giddy, eager to have even a one-sided conversation with him. I almost mentioned how hard it was to park with all the cars everywhere, as though I was making small talk about shopping downtown.

  His tongue licked his lips, his lips parting, then shutting again, and I could read his eyes. When I was out in the corridor again, the bustle of hospital routine passing by, I could hear what he was thinking.

  Daniel put a small plastic figure into my open palm and closed my fingers around it. The space warrior was completely hidden. I wiggled my fingers so the head of the cosmic combatant stuck out of my fist. My half-brother laughed and tried to poke the helmeted head back into my grasp.

  “You don’t have to draw pictures,” my mother was saying. She was already starting her spell of weight loss, a new wrinkle in her cheek. Some people balloon under stress; Mom does just the opposite. After a while she starts to look worn and dry, like a long distance runner who has been pounding marathons in Death Valley.

  “It helps me as much as it helps you,” said Dr. Monrovia. A white, smooth surface of the drawing board squeaked as his marker added lines and arcs, chirping softly when he shaded in, cross-hatching carefully. The marker ink smelled like alcohol. “I always think better when I have something in my hand,” he added, trying to disarm my mother: I’m just another person doing a difficult job.

  “You draw very well,” said Sofia. She was dressed in tight black pants and a full-cut flowery blouse with long, oversized sleeves, a shiny material, black and rose satin. It made her look big on top and puny below, armor that went only halfway. I found it hard to dislike Sofia now. A truce had been declared in my brain, negative thoughts piled like weapons under UN supervision.

  “Red is for the spinal column,” said Dr. Monrovia.

  “And black represents bone,” said my mother, swinging her foot, kick kick against nothing.

  Dr. Monrovia was hard at work on the outline of the skull, blunt nose, sharp chin. “I haven’t discussed this with Mr. Madison, but I will. I have a theory about the ability of patients to absorb bad news during post-trauma recovery.”

  “Tell me about your theory,” said my mother. Not us. Me. Mom always hated a certain type of person, turning on the mute whenever a weatherman blew a line, pointed to a smiling sun and saying “in this area of severe thunderstorms.”

  “My views aren’t exactly the issue here,” said Dr. Monrovia. He looked even less like my dad today and seemed to have lost hair since I had seen him last, fluorescent lights gleaming off his scalp.

  Mom looked into her purse, took out a bottle of Advil.

  “People during trauma,” said the doctor, “are more able to absorb bad news than people generally think. The psyche goes into crisis mode, and in this frame of mind the patient can take in bad news with a calm that would be very unusual in a healthy patient.” He gave a little tilt of his head: my theory, take it or leave it.

  Mom popped three of the pills, without water, like someone snapping up M & M’s, swallowing with no difficulty, practiced at this sort of thing.

  “Mr. Madison is recovering from surgery, fighting infection successfully, vital signs in good shape.” He snapped the cap back onto a marker, and arranged the markers in a long convoy in the tray at the bottom of the drawing board. “He was in good physical condition before this event, and that’s a blessing.” He selected one more marker, with an air of someone putting the last, finishing touches on a work of art.

  I experienced a flicker of pride. My father had always jogged, every afternoon, around San Francisco’s Lake Merced, plodding along even in the drizzle. When it rained he jockeyed in place on his exercise bike, an Airgometer that sounded like a wind machine, a digital gauge counting the calories he was burning.

  “He cannot breathe on his own,” said the doctor. “He has no sensation in his extremities.”

  My mother was about to say something, and the doctor hurried himself along. “I alluded to this before,” he said, sketching in the rest of the outline in blue, a profile like an ad for cough medicine, Where Colds Strike.

  A dotted line stitched across the blank white, intersecting with the neck. It was a feeble drawing compared with the bullet slashes of comic books, a tender hint of real harm. “If a muscle is severed—”

  I thought I could read his eyes as he considered adding more hurtful words, torn, sliced, and deciding against them, sticking to the brief lecture he had delivered many times, in this very room. “The muscle fiber can grow back. I think of muscle
as being like wood, full of green sap, able to heal itself together again. But with our nervous system we face a different situation. In a child, or a young person, we might hope to see some regeneration—”

  “He’s going to be paralyzed,” said my mother.

  I expected the surgeon to respond: no, of course not, that’s not what I’m trying to say.

  He said, “We have to anticipate that.”

  I told myself the doctor had not spoken these words. My ears had tricked me, my brain making up voices on its own.

  “How bad will it be?” my mother was asking, draining all the emotion out of her voice, like a pilot’s voice during turbulence, just the words, no feeling.

  But there was something relentless about her, too, needing to be in charge. I wanted to tell her to just shut up. She was making it worse.

  “I’m going to have a physical therapist examine Mr. Madison tomorrow. The sooner we begin the better.” He lifted a finger to beg my mother’s patience. She turned away, unable to look at him.

  It’s hard to say what pause, what gesture, earned my trust. He spoke in a different voice, gentle, like the recording of a pleasant The Bay Area has suffered a major earthquake. “We have to expect the paralysis to be from the neck down, and permanent. We have to expect him never to recover normal activity.”

  Sofia jammed a knuckle between her teeth. My mother looked at the tip of her shoe, breathing hard. Daniel at last wrestled the space knight from my hand and wiped it on his T-shirt.

  “But it’s too soon to tell,” said Sofia.

  My mother put a hand on Sofia’s sleeve and squeezed. The satin bunched in, Sofia slim under all that padding.

  NINETEEN

  Late Friday afternoon I plopped down in front of my computer, turned it on, and read a message from Perry. He said that his kayak coach was one of those guys with thick necks and small ears, too muscled to do anything but stand around and look strong. But Coach Bicep was an expert in grizzlies. He led expeditions into Denali National Park, and Perry might trek up there next summer to help tag bears.

  This was typical of Perry, always saying something dramatic, a way of keeping our friendship going. At the same time he made me realize how far away he was, gossiping about a kayaking grizzly expert I would never meet.

  I sat the keyboard for a long time, but I could not bring myself to tell him anything about my dad. I felt like a witness finding it impossible putting words to some obscene thing he was under oath to describe.

  Deena’s Diner was a former health food restaurant trying to look like restaurants in another era, green Depression glass saltshakers and sun-yellowed Coca-Cola ads on the walls. It even sported an awning that overhung College Avenue, EAT AT DEENA’S in white lettering against the blue canvas.

  I hadn’t bothered to change out of my work clothes, heavy gray pants, steel-toed boots, a Ben Davis cotton blend shirt with the sleeves cut off. One of the nurses told me Dad had fierce headaches, the only part of his body with feeling.

  Unable to tell Perry about Dad, I was in no mood to talk to anyone. I realized as soon as I sat down that my mom was right: she had taken to jogging out by the Marina in San Francisco and up the long hills into Pacific Heights, providing herself with sweatpants and a nylon zip-up top. When she was sitting still, you could hear her experimenting with breathing exercises, laboring to keep her nerves under control.

  I should take up running, weight-lifting, anything. Bea pretended she didn’t see me when I came in, but I could tell by the sudden pink in her cheeks, the brightness of her eyes. I found a table and leaned back, watching her deliver a plate of tuna salad littered with bean sprouts to a man sitting under a Ford hubcap on the wall.

  The man smiled up at Bea, one of those men who like to look women right in the face and let them see what they are missing in life. And Bea was looking right back, hitching her hip out to one side just like her mom. The man was laughing and Bea was joining in, only Bea’s laugh was quiet, like a cough.

  I stretched out my feet and leaned back in my chair, a person who could take his time.

  “Zachary, I didn’t expect you,” she said, and I was even more sorry I had come. Bea was embarrassed about her apron, I could tell without asking. And the little plastic button, HI, I’M BEA, and the other button, ASK ME WHAT’S SPECIAL.

  “Is the tuna fish salad special?” I asked.

  “Cobb salad is,” she said in her scratchy voice.

  A big woman with a broad, fleshy face leaned against the counter, watching. When she shifted her elbows, a paper clip stuck to her elbow dimples for a second.

  “What is Cobb salad, exactly?” I asked.

  “It’s got iceberg lettuce and cubes of turkey and avocado and bacon, if you want, and grated egg, served with a pitcher of bleu cheese on the side.”

  “I’m pretty hungry,” I said. “That doesn’t sound like enough food.” Bea and I used to go up to Tilden Park and toss a Frisbee around, both of us having just the right touch. We could snap a Frisbee back and forth for half an hour and almost never let it kiss the grass.

  “Zachary, don’t do this,” she said, responding to the unfriendly weight behind my words. “Come pick me up at eight and we’ll go the gym.”

  “And watch you box?” I knew I was being unfair to Bea, mad at myself because I couldn’t explain to my best friend what had happened to Dad.

  Her lips pressed together for an instant. “I work out with the big bag and the speed bag, to music. You can do it, too—I’m allowed to bring one guest on a first-time visit.”

  “You don’t call me,” I said.

  “I do,” said Bea. “I think about you all the time,” complete with a little catch in her voice. “I leave messages.”

  “Why do you suppose it’s called Cobb salad?” I asked.

  The Big Lady eased herself around the counter and brought herself within earshot. She gathered some menus off a nearby table and stacked them, tapping the bottom edge on the table-top. “That’s a matter of some debate,” said Bea, sounding like her old self, the way we used to be.

  “Can I order it without the lettuce?” I said.

  “Zachary, I’m going to bring it out here and dump it all over your head,” said Bea, making it sound like one of those carefree things people say to each other.

  “This is why I never see you. All these friendly people here in Deena’s Diner.” I said Deena especially loudly because I wanted the big woman to hear me. “Your mom doesn’t hesitate.” I was being unfair but I couldn’t shut my mouth. “She drives right on up in that new van of hers, with the calico curtains. She asks me if there’s anything else she can do.”

  “I don’t want to hear about it,” she said.

  “You ought to learn how to lean forward and let your front hang all over people, just like your mom. Pour out that free refill and make the customer smile.”

  “I think about how much you’re going through these days,” said Bea, her voice broken. I shouldn’t have talked about her mother.

  But I couldn’t stop myself. “My dad can’t cough up his own phlegm and you stand around carrying on the family tradition, wiggling your butt for customers.”

  I had not expected to say anything like this. I knew at the time it wasn’t right. Rhonda Newport’s pass at me had been a nonevent, I had come to believe, the result of eggnog and “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” on the stereo.

  “Bea, honey, you want me to ask this gentleman to leave?” said the Big Lady.

  “That’s a good idea,” I said, lounging back in my chair with a smile: Go ahead, ask.

  The woman looked me up and down, a little prickle of sweat on her upper lip. But she was cool about it, and when she left, shuffling briskly toward the swinging kitchen door she left a presence, an empty hole where she had been.

  “I made Deena mad,” I said.

  Bea laughed, a real laugh, kind, but with humor. “Zachary, that isn’t Deena.” This was a new kind of smile for Bea, knowing, well-informed on some practic
al matters about which I was totally ignorant. “That’s Ruth,” Bea was saying, “and do you know what her hobby is?”

  I could think of about a dozen bright things to say, but I was tired of looking at the reflection of the room in the polished hubcap, a smear of colors, humans wiggling along the edge.

  “She listens to police calls on her shortwave radio,” said Bea.

  “I’ll pick you up at six,” I said, standing up, trying to make it all right by changing my tone, considerate, giving her a little chicken-peck kiss on the side of her neck.

  “I think you better learn to operate your answering machine, Zachary,” she said, pulling her blouse down hard, so BEA trembled at the point of her breast.

  I thought about Bea all the way home, all the way into the kitchen, where I sat at the answering machine and listened to a line-up voices, one at a time, far-off associates of my mom’s, most of them saying they didn’t know what to say.

  And sometimes Bea’s voice was there. Bea, who didn’t like to leave messages, was there like an ancient recording of a human voice, someone almost lost to memory. She didn’t like to say anything straight out. She would say she was afraid of an on-rushing avalanche by suggesting that we might not want to get our clothes dirty.

  “It’s three in the morning, Zachary,” her recorded voice whispered. “I’m thinking about you.”

  I didn’t believe Bea and I would ever be close in the way we used to be, but the sound of her voice on the answering machine changed the way I thought about my friends. I had been thinking that Bea couldn’t possibly know how I felt. After all, I had been thinking, she had never even met my father.

  I went into my room and booted up the computer. I sent Perry a message.

  TWENTY

  Perry’s voice was on the answering machine early the next morning. I phoned him and got Perry’s dad, a man who always sounded like he was a desert island and hadn’t heard a human voice in weeks.

  “Zachary, jeez, it’s great to hear your voice,” he said, crunching breakfast toast. “God,” he interrupted himself, shifting to a more serious tone, like a sports announcer handed a grave news bulletin. “Perry told me.” His dad expressed his condolences, a smart man who sometimes sounded dumb because of his enthusiasm for things, and then the telephone made a fumbling whisper and Perry was there.