Life on Mars

by Lori McNulty

  This is the story I make of you. The way you made me with your cadaver’s heart. After my long sleep, hitched to a ventilator, masked faces circling me like some cardiothoracic bedroom farce, you lingered in the room, whispered, You are not crazy, you are not alone. When they removed my tubes, you stayed, a muscle between my lungs, a yearning, a missing soul from some fugitive dream. Your ache in me was closer than a breath drawn.

  How can I know how you lived? Who you loved? Your lost dreams? All those rhythms in between?

  Did you fall apart when your girlfriend said she needed space, not more bullshit excuses? That you were the last person she wanted to see right now — ever? What made you turn on that deserted stretch of road where the semi-trailers cut across the No. 4 to make up time on the long haul? They might have found you out there, chest pinned to the wheel, wipers batting away rain, a surging pain growing in the back of your skull. Then that blinding stab before the final fade to black. But what they found out there wasn’t you, was it?

  I can’t wash your metal taste from my mouth. Was there blood on the windshield? Or glass shards piercing skin? Before the final rupture, the great arterial brain bleed? When they laid you out on that stretcher, your head bleeding, your heart beating on (how the embattled heart beats on). Until the final sterile table where they cut you clean, disassembled you for parts. You: twenty-four-year-old male (name withheld), your whole life ahead of you.

  In my mind, your mother breaks from the ER doctor’s arms, unable to awaken from the news, from the flash so blinding it takes two orderlies to lift her from the polished floor. And your father kneels in the quiet room of the ICU, begs, bargains, asks, What did we ever do to deserve this? But does anyone ever get what they deserve? Do you ever wonder why some sorry fuck like me — Chris, thirty-six, hack sports writer, two subway stops from the hereafter — gets to live thanks to your bleeding heart? You weren’t supposed to remain with me. Now yours is the first name on my lips. You, DG (Dead Guy), you hardly had the chance to fuck up. But you would have. Guaranteed.

  Feeling light-headed again. Shaky hands, the same fat face in the mirror — can’t even look. Just stare down at the bowl. Piss it away. Four weeks after the transplant, and every sound is sonar. A rush echoes in my ears as my veins carry oxygenated blood from my lungs to the left atrium. The right ventricle pumps and the left stages its return to the body. Red blood cells course through my chest like a longing. A beat, a breath, the sound that keeps you coming back, DG. Now I’m grateful for every goddamn day we don’t drown in our own fluids.

  Count ’em out: twenty-three pills rattling around in bottles like bone fragments. Like chattering teeth. Cyclosporin. Prednisone. Another autoimmunosuppressoespresso down the hatch. Close your eyes. Make a wish, DG. Doc says the best way to try to avoid acute rejection or coronary disease is to toughen up the immune system so my body doesn’t mount a vicious counterattack. A few more pills, DG, and Sheryl might not have to bail on us before this body gets a chance to. So stick around, show’s not over. As long as these valves keep clicking, we’ll never run out of breath.

  Not like the first time I saw Sheryl. Dry throat, weak in the knees on a half hop, half shuffle to the bus stop, trying to catch the express pulling away from the curb. Only a block sprint, but I came up short. Crazy head rush, a mouthful of vomit. Crouched over, panting. The bus roared away, abandoning Sheryl on the sidewalk. She tossed a lumpy backpack over her shoulder, stuffed with term papers or books, or lab mice or something smart, and ran over to me, placing her hand on my back. Are you okay? Can you breathe? She knelt in front of me while I swallowed puke, waving her way. She wouldn’t budge. Not so fast, she warned, when I tried to stand up.

  I was wheezing, all turned around. Which way to the university hospital, I managed, over the hammer pound at my temples. She said about twenty minutes, pointing the way, before escorting me over to the bus stop. We sat down on a steel bench that left a long drizzle of rust on my jeans.

  Three buses rumbled past as she told me about the strange world of mitochondrial DNA mutations, her hand curled around my forearm. Eyes clear, pulse steady, she was checking my vitals. I couldn’t believe it. I stared into those silver-green eyes (the colour of morning sun over a frozen pond, I swear it), felt a tingle where she held my arm firmly. So I didn’t answer when she asked me, twice, Do you teach at the university? No, Star, I stammered. I write for the Star, a sports writer.

  She looked me over a long time, probably wondering to herself, What’s a hot science chick like me doing with a broken-down jock like him. But what she said was, Leafs look powerful on the foreplay this year. Forecheck, I corrected her, you mean forecheck. Yeah, she winked, that’s what I meant.

  We rode the express bus across the city together before signalling my stop. You would have done the same, DG. You would have grinned like a fucking idiot, felt your mouth stammer, when she hopped on the eastbound to ride the thirty-five blocks with you to the campus hospital.

  Damn lungs. Can’t shake this flu, I told her when we reached the cardiology care entrance. I was bent over again, nose to knees sucking wind, and she put her hand around my waist. It wasn’t about getting laid, DG. Sheryl just held her ground, watching sweat drip from my hairline, her gaze strong and steady, until I finally came clean. Was still standing there beside me when my body did a long slide, when they eventually came for me three years later.

  I’m telling you, DG. Getting laid isn’t the goddamn miracle. Meeting someone like Sheryl was fucking unreal.

  Three winters passed, Sheryl never once complaining, through all the revolving hospital doors, the late-night emergencies, the downward flail before I finally made The List. The waiting list for donor organs. To even make the ranks, the docs had to put me through an extensive evaluation. Scans, X-ray, echo, urine TP, PPD, RHC, EKG, cancer screening — the whole prick-and-poke workup for patients facing severe heart failure. You try to hide, but they see everything. Decades of shoving fast food in your face, years of stress and spiking blood pressure, or just a crappy myocardial genetics. It’s all there in your blood, DG.

  So, in comes the cardiac surgeon with my thick file tucked under his arm, raising eyebrows at me that look like fuzzy larvae inching across his intense face. He lays his stethoscope and icy paws on my chest. Asks me, Have you tried to keep in shape, Chris? Yeah, doc, I tell him, I like to walk, eat my leafy greens, then flash him a smirk, saying he would love my friend Kale.

  Nothing. Guy doesn’t even blink, DG. Instead he tells me, straight up, I’ve got less than a 30 per cent chance to live without a new pump. He leafs through some papers, slides his finger up and down indexes, rattles results while my throat gets dry and tight, and finally mumbles that I may be a good candidate. Sheryl gives my hand a squeeze, but I want to plow this guy when he looks like a criminal on the stand, says, Are you prepared, Chris? If we get a match, you know you’ll be on medication for the rest of your life. You’ll need to return for frequent hospital exams and monitoring. You may need more biopsies. The transplant is a lifelong commitment to health. No alcohol. No drugs. Not ever.

  Sheryl stiffens, her lips part, but she doesn’t say a thing, bless her soul.

  Then he slides his stool in a little closer, asks me if I’ve ever abused drugs or alcohol. Ever? His voice drops and he clears his throat. For example, did I tend to knock back a few too many beers after a rough day? Nothing but rough days, Doc, I want to tell him, but keep it clamped.

  He was looking straight at me, DG. So close I could sniff the stale coffee stench on his breath. Doc thought he had me on the ropes. So I feinted, did a jab, cross, hook. No, I told him flat out. A few beers here and there, sure. And by the way, Doc, save the baboon heart for the next guy because I’ve got Sheryl, a novel in the works (a drugstore thriller languishing in a bottom desk drawer), and I’m not going to mess this up. Good, he says. Because you might be in for a long wait, Chris, he tells me, tapping his pen on the file. It’s a roller-coaster ride. And if we detect a health declin
e along the way, a serious infection or disease sets in, a disorder such as severe pulmonary hypertension arises, we may have to remove you from The List. Temporarily, he adds after a plummeting silence. Sheryl digs her nails in my hand. Is he kidding me? Then in a commanding tone, he explains, What I’m saying is, you’ll need to find all the emotional stamina you can manage. We expect all transplant patients to talk to counsellors. He looks over at Sheryl, then back at me. You’ll also need a strong network of psychosocial supports. Family. Friends. Sheryl nods agreement. We’ll set up a meeting between you, Chris, the hospital social worker, and a team psychiatrist you’ll see, both before and after the transplant.

  How long? I interrupt. Doc gives me this haughty, impatient smile. For a few months, he answers. Counselling sessions last about an hour, but expect months of interaction. No, no, how long? What time is left for me without the spare part? I say, trying to look defiant. His eyes soften but he eventually shakes me off like a pitcher on the mound, instead reeling off my list status, averages, odds, complications.

  Sheryl shoots me a keep-it-together look when she sees my face, all fired up and frantic. She’s been through it all. The quick temper, the slim hope, the plummeting moods.

  Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, the doc continues. One step at a time. We’ll give you a beeper, you’ll get a call when there’s a match. For ideal viability, we obviously want a match relatively close to you geographically. I know it’s hard, Chris, but you’ve got to be patient now, work with us. He looks over at Sheryl. Her back straightens when she sees my face redden. I look over at her, lean forward in my chair, and I want to say to this man — hell, I want to scream it in his face — Give me something to fill this cavity soon because I’ve finally got something left to lose.

  There were surprises, DG. No matter how much you try to avoid curveballs, life will throw tons of them. For instance, you could have knocked me flat when Aardvark showed up on my first day in the ICU with a hatful of daisies. Because end-stage at the ICU is definitely not for the faint-hearted. It’s not just the tubes and wires and drips running everywhere. It’s a weak, disorienting, oxygen-sucking state of grace, when time battles over your soul, and you’re barely aware of anything but drawing your next breath. Because you’re all waiting for a fresh pump, for a miracle match, for the fucking machines to stop their endless whirring and beeping so you might be cut free. Life or death, DG. You just want something to end.

  Aardvark’s unexpected arrival went something like this.

  He walked in and immediately tried to make me laugh. He would have given me his own pickled heart if he hadn’t lost it, to a woman, a scrappy German he loved for years, before she left on a trip to see her family in Berlin, and he spent two dirty weekends wandering away from his vows; the beginning of his nine-month single-malt-scotch slide, after which she finally left him for good. Aardvark: original earth pig. He walked in the room, stood next to the bed, smiled at me, and said, Chris, my dick has seen more sucking than a roll of Mentos. And he stuffed those daisies into a pitcher on my empty feed tray. Don’t think we’re getting serious, he said, you never once put out. Not even after I bought you that triple A porterhouse. Asshole, I replied, but started to laugh-cough so my nasogastric tube slipped out and I reached up, flailing. Ended up pulling out some important looping plastic tubes. Aardvark leapt off the bed. Nurse! We need a fucking nurse in here! he shouted down the hall.

  Deep breaths, the nurse said. She plugged me in, pricked me again in the arm. I’ve got you, she kept repeating. I was so grateful not to have a breathing tube yet, I settled down in a hurry. Then she handed Aardvark a paper bag, because he was hyperventilating. I took a few slow steady breaths, while Aardvark sucked and wheezed in the corner.

  When the nurse left, Aardvark pushed his fist against his throat. He’s a major accounts guy. Spends his days babysitting the big clients, holding their hands through million-dollar shoots, the way he took and held mine then. When I started to wheeze, he looked away, finally said, Did I tell you I ended up getting that Benz? SL-class convertible, two-seater, charcoal with a silver interior. Sweeter than the Batmobile. Did you take over a lease? I kind of choke-gasped. No, he said, a look of dismay crossing his face. Never go for pre-owned, he told me, trying to pull a smile, you can smell desperation in the leather.

  He was close enough to get a good whiff of me. He blinked, patted the sheets around my legs, tracing what was left. Then I could see that he really needed to go. Goddamn itchy lids, he said, scratching his eyes, claiming rain and allergies. He mentioned he was taking the red-eye to New York to catch a double header at Fenway. Jim from his office had scored tickets behind home plate. He was swinging his arms, elbow high, showing me how close they’d be to home plate, imitating a batter cutting through the zone. Gonna watch the Mets beat up on Detroit, he said, but don’t worry, I’ll be here for the big swap-out. He patted the place around my feet. He squeezed my bony fingers. My head sank back on the pillow. Jesus, he said. Chris, we’ve got to get you the fuck out of here. I’ll slip into the Mets dugout, rip out one of those young player’s hearts. Okay, I whispered, but no pitchers. Too flabby. Get me a lean rookie outfielder from Florida. And make sure it’s a leftie, I said — or more likely drifted off in mid-sentence.

  When I woke up, Aardvark was gone.

  He didn’t get it. In the ICU, you’re special. One-on-one attention, fresh IV lines whenever you need them, and specially trained staff. Because you have to be desperate, DG. You have to be down on your luck. The gravedigger has got to be hanging around the room, oiling up his shovel, the six-foot plot marked out and ready. You have to drift in and out, forget your own name. The pinkish skin tone has to drain from your flesh. You have to be one of the Pole People.

  Pole People wander the critical care floors strapped to IVs, their hearts withering, eyes sinking back into their hollow skulls. Our end-stage condition so dire we need a constant infusion of drugs to keep the old ticker beating. Death row for the truly diseased is life spent awaiting the next surgical stay of execution. We lie there. Hanging on. For the last bit of life-saving news. While the surgeons sharpen their scalpels behind some curtained room, or rush up and down the hall scanning their beepers, we sleep sitting up, our bodies bloated due to lack of blood circulation. Our hands and feet are forever cold. So fucking cold, DG.

  Cold as this grey day in February. Cold as the dark side of Mars. Cold as a fist of raw hamburger in the freezer. Cold as dissected brain tissue on the coroner’s table, DG.

  After sixty-one days in the ICU without a match, my body was barely functioning, but the machines kept whirring, like in some twisted arcade game. It was as if I could smell everything. The faint perfumes coming from the death-march visitor parade. All the barf and piss from the other moaning rooms, their grief spilling out like the shit draining from our own wretched holes.

  Once I caught Sheryl glancing down at the small dimple on my chin, lightly kissing it when she thought I was asleep. I was dopey, but I could tell what she was doing. Memorizing. Remembering. Tracing the future she’d soon be left to face alone. And maybe a heart comes along, or maybe you die waiting. Pole People are suspended in a holy state, a sublime sensation, hovering between infinite suffering and transcendent hope.

  So the transplant patient waits, like some immortal spirit. While the living stand over us, looking like Macbeth’s ghost, looking for signs, tracing our last breath. We wait. For months, for years. Never forever. Wait for the do-it-yourself painter to fall off his ladder as he touches up the gingerbread trim. For the investment manager rebalancing her stock portfolio to ignore the blunt pain in her head another week. For the marketing exec to hop on his home treadmill, feel his head go heavy after the first mile, hit the blue heart-pace button instead of the red panic. And as he lies there, in his twisted state, pupils fixed, we don’t pray for his soul. No, not ever. We count the hours. How long will it take his wife to pick up the dry cleaning on her way home? How long until the 911 call comes in, for the
paramedics to arrive, drowning the streets in a whir of red and blue strobe lights? Will they keep him alive long enough for harvest time?

  Then beepers buzz against hips. You better hurry, because there’s only four hours of viability after the call, DG. If you’re not prepped, checked, and connected to the heart-lung bypass machine, you’ve lost your place in line. Relinquished your lifeline. Sheryl told me to keep a journal. Days would pass in the ICU, but the ink kept smearing the page. I wrote and the words came out crumbling, as if the pen itself was leaking time. Guess time is always running out on someone. Like you, DG? Did you hope it would stop? Aardvark was right about second-hand ownership. You can smell desperation in the sheets.

  I waited three years for you.

  Today your tremor climbs my gut wall like a warning. Why does it start here? Why so low? This sick, steady feeling. Was it pepperoni slices, DG? Sharing warm beers on the couch with your Friday night boys, glued to the TV, cheering the men on the blue line. The boys raging when the breakaway was whistled off-side again. You watched the puck glide through the five-hole, with your chicken-wing mouth tearing into the ref, late for your movie date, knowing full well she didn’t care if your team won in overtime. She was growing tired of your excuses, your game boys, your half-hearted gestures. (Remember the promised takeout Chinese and back-rub fiasco? The missing birthday pendant, all those promises set in stone? Never diamond or ruby.) Later, you wolfed your way back to her door. All that flesh between your teeth, the waitress wooed after midnight, then the last-chance pity crawl to her room, begging to be taken back. She grew blind to your tears, heard the home-team fans still roaring in your ears. She saw the road ahead, took the first exit.

  Two months after surgery, I look like a Gerber baby and smell even worse. Ass-dragging tired. My feet are cold. So cold. Sporting this ugly chin strap of acne from the prednisone. And I’m all over the place. Paralyzed at the bottom of the stairway. Sobbing when Sheryl asks me about dinner. Throwing tantrums over a missed phone message one day. Turning sullen and silent the next. Doc says it’s all post-op anxiety, plus the med side effects. Says excessive or irrational fears are common. He doesn’t know, does he, DG? About you and me, living on the far side of fear. Because some days we wake up believing we can conquer the world, have all the powers in the universe. See this warrior stripe on our chest?