by James Siegel
But not now; now's different. Jean would have approved, he thought. He was giving up the ghost, and even though it was Jean's ghost, he would've approved. Heal thyself, William thought, then whispered it aloud. Heal thyself.
Mr. Brickman came to see him on a Tuesday.
"I never walk out alone anymore," he said, "but in your case I made an exception."
"Thank you."
"So"-Mr. Brickman peered at him-"what transpired here?"
"I didn't look where I was going."
"Obviously. Where were you going?"
"To see a friend. Wrong house," the words springing out of him as if on their own, like trained circus animals used to pirouetting on cue.
"I'll say," Mr. Brickman said. "By the way-what friend?"
"You don't know him," William said, thinking that neither did he-know him. And also thinking that this wasn't bad at all, lying around pasha-like, chatting with friends, that it passed the time in a painless sort of way. And painless was what he was after, yessiree-just what the doctor ordered. Sometimes when he looked down at his body, at that mountain of gauze and plaster, he actually scared himself. It was like looking at his reflection in the mirror of the National Inn, only times squared. There he just looked like he was deteriorating; here he looked like he'd finished. A little like a rag doll with the stuffing all torn out. And it hurt-in between the narcotics, it hurt even to breathe.
"When are they going to let you out?"
"They keep saying when my medical condition improves. Either that, or when my Medicare condition doesn't."
"They said that?" Mr. Brickman looked appropriately shocked.
"Just kidding, Mr. Brickman." Though he wasn't, not really. Sometimes he got the feeling the doctors weren't consulting his chart so much as consulting his coverage plan. He got that feeling because they kept looking at his bed as if they were tired and wanted to sleep in it. No doubt about it, they wanted that bed. The problem was, he was still in it.
His next-door neighbor in the bed over, which in this room meant about the width of a bathroom stall, was wheezing something awful.
"Anyway," Mr. Brickman said, followed by a sigh positively dripping with insincerity, "this is the life."
"If you say so."
"Sure I do. You know, I was thinking about Eddie the other day."
"What about Eddie?"
"Nothing. Just about him. About how he's dead."
"Yeah. He's certainly dead."
"Strange thing, isn't it?"
"What?"
"Being dead."
"Yeah. It's a strange thing."
"You shouldn't think about it," Mr. Brickman said, patting his arm-or actually, his sling. "Not in your condition."
"I wasn't thinking about it."
"That's the spirit. You know, someone called. He wanted to know how you were."
But I don't know a someone, William started to say. Then stopped, feeling all of a sudden very cold, cold like death. Okay, stupid me.
"Someone," William echoed. "He wanted to know how I was. That's it?"
"That's it. I assured him you were mending."
"Was he happy about that?"
"Well, sure, I guess. Like I said, he was concerned."
"I'm sure he was. Didn't leave a number, did he?"
"Number? No. But if he calls again…"
"Sure, Mr. Brickman. If he calls again, you'll ask."
"Naturally."
Conversation withered after that, took a definite turn into small talk and then very small talk, and then talk that was just about infinitesimal. William, still thinking about his anonymous well-wisher, felt as if all those bandages that were wrapped around his body had suddenly wrapped themselves around his throat. Mr. Brickman, who wasn't exactly leading an exciting life these days as a virtual shut-in, seemed to run out of things to say. So he said goodbye.
"Thanks for coming," William said, although he wasn't altogether sure now that he was.
Fifteen minutes after Mr. Brickman left, the day nurse-a large black woman who tended to talk to him as if he were under the age of ten-gave him his daily dose of nirvana. It worked too; a minute later he was in the middle of a strange dream.
A doctor was standing over his bed. The strangest- looking doctor he'd ever seen, his pupils black as a negative of snow, that black, framed by eyebrows the color of steel. He was an old doctor to be sure, but not a kindly old doctor. He wore an air of detachment about him, as stiff and starched and antiseptic as his smock.
"For you," the doctor said, "to help you sleep." Something was in his hand-more painkiller perhaps?
"I'd like to talk," William replied. "I'd like to tell you something."
"Yes…" The doctor hesitated. "Well, why not."
"It's just this. I'm off the case. That's all. Someone tried to kill me and then he called Mr. Brickman to see if he'd finished the job. I'd like whoever it is to know that I'm off the case. That there's no hard feelings. Could you arrange that?"
"Of course. But maybe he thinks you know too much. Did you consider that?"
"Actually, I have. But you see, he's wrong there. I know very little, almost nothing."
"Ah well, in that case, maybe he'll listen. Don't you want to sleep now?"
"No. I want to talk. I told you."
"But you're in pain. Aren't you in pain?"
"Yeah, I'm in pain. But I don't want to sleep. I'm… well… afraid."
"Afraid? Afraid of what?"
"Of sleep. I'm afraid that if you put me to sleep, I won't wake up again."
"Is that so bad a thing?"
"Maybe not. But all the same…"
Then the dream turned murky, that is, murkier than dreams usually are. It seemed to him that the door opened, that the door opened or a window did, that a television was turned off or turned on, and then the doctor was gone.
End of dream. He woke up what must have been hours later with a headache and a dry mouth, a little like a hangover without the fun.
NINETEEN
They let him out one week later. By that time his burden of gauze and plaster had been reduced to two small casts on his little toe and right wrist and three fat bandages wrapped around his chest. He was given a large bottle of codeine tablets to take with him, that and a set of orders, the major one being to stay put and not walk into burnt-out houses in the middle of the night.
"Don't worry," he told the doctor, leaning on a two- pronged cane that he'd been given, or actually been made to purchase, "I have no intention of walking anywhere."
"Good boy," said the doctor.
William didn't know if he was supposed to say thank you or just wag his tail.
A car service was waiting for him in the circular driveway-courtesy of Medicare. The driver peered out at him with unmistakable distaste; one old man and one new cane meant he'd actually have to get out and help once they'd arrived wherever it is they were going. He didn't look quite as homicidal as the driver from the other night, that night, but he looked like he wouldn't mind tripping William on the way in. William sympathized- after all, it was hot.
When they arrived at their destination, Mr. Brickman was waiting, Mr. Brickman and Mr. Leonati too, so the driver was able to stay where he was, his only manual labor the handing back of change. This brightened his mood considerably, leading him to actually say something solicitous.
William thought it must be something solicitous, because of the tone-the words were in Russian or Greek or Lithuanian or maybe pig Latin. Not speaking English seemed to be the taxi driver's rule of thumb these days.
Mr. Brickman and Mr. Leonati did speak English though.
"You don't look too good," Mr. Leonati said as he helped him out of the car. "What do you think?" he asked Mr. Brickman, who'd flanked him on his other side and was already grunting from the exertion. "You think he looks good?"
"Better than when I saw him before. You should have seen him then. He looked awful."
William felt as if he was caught in the middle of a sta
ge routine-Leonati and Brickman, Brickman and Leonati-and him, the stooge, the butt of their hilarity. What next, he wondered-a pie in the face?
They helped him upstairs, one stair at a time, as if he were an infant learning to walk. Mr. Brickman appointed himself cheerleader and surrogate dad.
"Whoa… that was a nice big step. A very nice step. Now let's go for another. Whoa, what a step that was. A beauty of a step. Think you can do another."
Finally they got him to the top of the stairs and then to his room. They'd added pillows to his bed to make it more comfortable, and Mr. Brickman even had a card for him.
Roses are red, violets are blue, I here your sick, get well soon. Signed Laurie.
"So," Mr. Brickman shrugged, "she's not too good with rhymes. But it's the thought that counts."
"Yes, it's a nice thought. Thank her for me."
"I already did."
Mr. Leonati said, "Look, if you want food or anything, anything at all, I'll go out for you. Till you get back on your feet."
"I appreciate that, Mr. Leonati." And he did. He appreciated everything: them helping him up the stairs, the extra pillows, even the card-he appreciated that too. Being alive-he had a little appreciation left over for that too. In fact, he'd like to give being alive his sincere appreciation. This was okay, all of it, okay. They were playing house here, him, Mr. Brickman, and Mr. Leonati, and they were all doing a bang-up job. It suddenly occurred to him that if you acted like a family, you became one, enough of one anyway, to take the chill off. And it was cold out there, colder even than he'd remembered.
But now he was back inside. And just as before, when he'd left a hospital to go back to his room, left it with a bullet lodged in his shoulder and a certain hard-won understanding of his place in the scheme of things, he felt as if an elephantine weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Atlas hadn't had such a weight. Okay-so there was a certain dignity in bearing a thing like that, even, occasionally, a thrill or two, but by and large it was just plain wearisome. When you let it go, you realized that.
But now he was back in the bosom of his little family, safely ensconced in his bed, surrounded by pillows and well-wishers. A veritable oasis of peace. The only thing, in fact, that marred this oasis of peace, marred it at all, was the box still sitting by the doorway, that box, and occasional names that came flitting into his head like a list of items he'd forgotten to pick up at the store. Mr. Waldron, Mrs. Ross, Mr. Shankin. Okay-a pretty long list maybe, but every one of them a luxury item, not part of the four basic food groups at all. You'd have to pay for those little items, they'd cost an arm and a leg-at least two ribs and a navicular bone. And he was a little strapped now, now and for the completely foreseeable future. The box would have to be thrown out. And the names? He'd forget them, the way old people always forget names-after all, names are the first to go.
He didn't, of course-though not through lack of trying. If he was graded on trying, it'd be strictly A plus. He watched a lot of television-became quite fond of television-the game shows, those talk shows, even the commercials, all of them like gabby friends absolutely intent on keeping his mind from wandering into dangerous waters. They did keep his mind from wandering into dangerous waters. Well, maybe he waded in a little here and there, strictly up-to-the-knees stuff. But then his attention would be grabbed, absolutely yanked, by Housewife Hookers or Stripper Postmen or that ever spinning Wheel of Fortune or the latest Shaq-A-Tack.
And the time television couldn't fill was taken up by Mr. Brickman, who showed up with alarming regularity as if he were pulling guard duty. In his mind, he probably was on a guard duty of sorts, for Mr. Wilson's death had turned him into a sentinel of vigilance. Not to mention a general purveyor of doom. The actual doomed here were the elderly-whom he'd elected himself guardian of in the general, and of William in the specific. In his mind, they were an endangered species, threatened on all sides by a host of evils. And William, newly back in the fold as he was, found Mr. Brickman's attitude almost pleasing, comforting even, an affirmation of his own new credo.
Mr. Brickman kept a running score of the ongoing holocaust, replete with some of the more lurid stories concerning their fellow brethren.
"An eighty-eight-year-old woman," he read to William one day, "found gagged and beaten in the closet of her Brownsville apartment. And raped."
Another day's lead story: "An elderly married couple in Washington Heights threw themselves out the window in a suicide pact. Couldn't take the constant muggings."
There were a lot of stories like those, and Mr. Brick- man found all of them. Senior citizen set on by guard dogs, elderly couple dead of dehydration, ninety-year-old poisoned by pet food, elderly people beaten, robbed, stabbed, garroted, evicted, raped, sodomized, run over, and euthanized. See, Mr. Brickman was saying, one by one the herd is being decimated.
And William listened, listened and nodded in soulful agreement. An old man's place is in bed, in bed with the television on. He understood that again; he'd be sure to remember it.
And yet he couldn't forget everything. He could forget a lot, but not everything. So there he'd be, glued to Men Who Date Canines, or listening peacefully to Mr. Brick- man recount the latest atrocity against some elderly woman, when he'd remember some other elderly woman-Mrs. Ross maybe. Tiptoeing into the room and tapping him on the shoulder like a little sister he'd been ignoring, the one whom he'd been told to look after. And even though he'd say go away, sometimes she didn't listen to him, and she'd stay there, right by his shoulder, breathing down his neck. Of course, then, more often than not, he'd remember something else-that house on Cherry Avenue for instance. He'd remember that voice telling him to come right in, and how it felt to fall into absolute nothingness. He'd listen to his old bones going ouch, and then, before you could say codeine, she'd be gone, poof, vanished. Memory, then, could be your friend. It could sometimes kick the crap out of other memories you didn't want to deal with.
One day he asked Mr. Leonati to get rid of the box, for he thought that it was deliberately staring at him. Anyway, every time he opened his eyes, it was there. Sitting there like some icon of a religion he'd lost his faith in. He wanted it thrown out. But just as Mr. Leonati was lifting it, he said no, never mind, maybe he should look through it once more and Mr. Leonati said fine, whatever, and put it back down.
But William didn't look through it. He turned on Nuns Who Strip instead. He played checkers with Mr. Brick- man. He puttered around with his two-pronged cane. He taught himself old again, not that he'd actually forgotten how. It was like falling off a bicycle-that easy.
But in the corner of the room was that box, and that box kept bothering him. There was no place in the oasis for that box. So one day he decided, really decided, to throw it out.
This time he asked Mr. Brickman to do it, and though Mr. Brickman wasn't happy about it, he agreed. He tried lifting it from several angles, like a golfer lining up a particularly difficult putt. When he finally decided on his approach, he dug in with both hands, grimaced for his audience of one, and lifted it slowly up off the carpet. And dropped it.
The box opened and almost everything came spilling out of it.
And that's how it happened, the way most things happen-not by design, but by simple, stupid accident-that William finally discovered what the numbers meant.
It was so simple, so ridiculously obvious, that for a good half minute or so he thought he must be mistaken, that it would dissolve like a thirst-induced mirage as soon as he gave it a second look.
But it didn't.
And he remembered again how there's two kinds of seeing, just like there's two kinds of reading. By rote, where every letter's letter-perfect, every word sounded out just the way Webster's tells you, but with just the most rudimentary understanding, without any real comprehension at all. And the second kind of reading, which is like reading with a third eye, like reading between the lines, where you suddenly understand everything. And William had been reading things the first way, not the sec
ond, so though he'd gone through Jean's box and made note of everything, he'd seen nothing. And he hadn't been listening either, not really. What had Weeks said? For a long while he did nothing, really nothing. That's right. He did nothing. Because he didn't read or have a television or even an interest. He didn't read. Or have a television, or an interest, or a hobby, or maybe even a friend. But he did have something. A baseball program, a little black book, two salt and pepper shakers, a couple of flyers. And a library card. He didn't read. But he had that. "Mr. Brickman," William said, "could you do me a favor and pick up that library card for me." Mr. Brickman, still smarting from his previous blunder, smiled meekly and picked up the card. "Does it have a date?" "A date?" "A date of issue?" "Oh… let's see…" Mr. Brickman peered at it. "Yep… March, of this year. Expires in 2000. Made out to-" "So it's a new card," William said, "brand-new," cutting him off, but not so much speaking to Brickman as to himself. "Yeah. It's a new card. So?" "So…?" So. So we stay in bed, so we turn on Teenagers Who Marry Their Fathers, so we bet the OTB, so we stay put. Or so we start over.
"Want to go to the library, Mr. Brickman?"
Mr. Brickman said okay.
Why the Flushing library, Mr. Brickman wanted to know, once they caught the bus on Northern Boulevard- William waving hello to his old friend, the black woman driver. Why the Flushing library when there was a perfectly good one right in Astoria-no more than ten blocks from them? And-if he hadn't noticed, it was hot outside, and-if he hadn't noticed, he could still hardly walk, so why then go all the way to Flushing?
"Because that's the library that's got what I want," William said.