Part 14 (1/2)
After Mom arrived, James began to wander the hospital's halls, trying not to glance into open doors as he walked. When he did, he saw the same thing, over and over: death on hold, waiting, biding its time, typically with its mouth open, breathing shallowly, its eyes either closed or open staring at nothing.
He realized for the first time that he was scared; he did not know if he would have the opportunity to complete his relations.h.i.+p with his father, and it worried him. He didn't know if he would trust himself to seize the opportunity, even if it presented itself.
He wondered how long it would be before he would no longer be able to recognize his father in the figure that lay in the bed down the hall, the father that had once hoisted him onto his shoulders, or balanced his tiny body on the palm of his hand. The man in James' memory was strong and robust, and did not have the dim, sallow eyes that the man down the hall seemed to have.
James wondered, not for the first time, why his father had read the slip of paper from the predictor box in the first place, and if it would have even mattered had he not.
”Who is is this kid? What makes him qualified to do anything?” James asked, perhaps more bitterly than he meant to. His mother glanced over at the living room where Dad lay sideways on the couch, and gestured for James to keep his voice down. this kid? What makes him qualified to do anything?” James asked, perhaps more bitterly than he meant to. His mother glanced over at the living room where Dad lay sideways on the couch, and gestured for James to keep his voice down.
”His website says-”
”His website website,” James sneered.
Mom sucked in her breath, held it for a second. ”A lot of people say he's helped them feel better.”
”People. What people?People we know?”
”Sick people. I don't know. They're on the website.”
”His website, of course it's gonna tell you-” website, of course it's gonna tell you-”
”We already went to see him.”
James stopped short, and closed his mouth.
His mother turned toward the living room and put a hand on her cheek, and then leaned backward, so that James caught her by the shoulders. She leaned into her son, and James wrapped his arms around his mother, and she sighed, and she spoke softly: ”We saw him at Dr. Eli's seminar-the kid sitting with his mother. The, you know, bald head?” James nodded. Mom went on: ”His name is Tim and he's just the sweetest little guy.”
She leaned her head on James' shoulder. His own mother was smaller than he was, more frail, tired from shuffling her husband to doctor's appointments every day, tired from administering pills and treatments and praying late into the night, tired from waking up early to make sure he woke up at all.
”Tim said he could...reach inside you,” she continued, as she and James watched the softly heaving body that lay on the couch a room, a world away. ”He said he could close his eyes and feel inside you, and feel what was wrong, and move his fingers around and fix it, just like running his fingers through your hair, just like untying a tangled knot.”
”Mmm,” James said, because he didn't know what else to say, and also because he felt so sad for the woman that he held in his arms, and wished that she wouldn't believe in things that would just disappoint her, and also wished that maybe it were true.
”He said he could feel the atoms in your body,” she said, whispering now, still looking away, still watching her husband sleep. ”He said he could reach into your dad's throat and feel the tumors and pluck them off like strawberries.”
”Did he?” James said.
”No,” Mom said.
James' parents went back to see Tim and his mother with the painted fingernails, even though they didn't bring up the subject with James again. James found Dr. Eli's brightly-colored flyer under a stack of unread magazines, and looked it over again and laughed and shook his head and thought of all the people who'd read that tiny, fortune-cookie slip of paper torn from a predictor box and who had never again gone near buses or bathtubs or microwaves. People who'd stopped smoking or drinking or started smoking or drinking, people who knew there'd be no risk in skydiving and so sat there stone-faced as they fell ten thousand feet through the air, never having any fun at all.
Most of all he thought of Tim, the skinny, bald kid lying curled in his mother's lap in the back row of the Hilton's banquet hall. Did he have leukemia or something?What was his game, and what did he want with James' parents?
And why couldn't he heal himself?
So one night, James stayed up late and confronted his parents as they came home from Tim's house, and made sure they hadn't given him any money, and watched his father take slow steps up the stairs. And after they disappeared upstairs, James sat alone on the couch, and exhaled and admitted to himself, well, really, when it came right down to it, what's the harm?
The ambulance woke James up. The siren grew louder and then stopped, deadly close, and James was on his feet instantly.
Mom let the paramedics in the front door and James stood in the hallway as strange men shouted to one another, 100 cc's of this and that and finally they eased him down the narrow stairs on a backboard and slid him onto a gurney, and James took his father's hand for a brief second before the red doors slammed and he was gone.
”It's his heart,” the doctor said. ”He hasn't been taking his medication.”
James stared at his mother, who looked quickly away down the hall. ”He was worried about the side effects,” she finally said.
The doctor took a few moments to choose his words. ”At this point, I'm not too concerned about the side effects,” he said.
She looked up at him, and got his meaning, and James felt her weight press into him again.
”Dad, you have to take your pills.”
His father looked up from his p.r.o.ne position on the pull-out couch bed, his throat swollen like a bullfrog, his breathing thick and labored, his face drizzled with a week's worth of downy beard. ”Get that junk away from me,” he managed.
James sucked his breath and leaned back on the recliner, drumming his fingers on the leather arm, and sighed. ”I don't know what to tell you. The doctor says the pills are going to keep your heart strong. You don't want that to happen again, like the other night.”
”That doctor is a crook,” Dad gasped. ”Those pills are what's a killer. Worse than that lymph, whatever you call it, lymphoma. The pills are the killer.”
”Dad-”
”I never never had heart problems,” Dad cried, suddenly strong, fidgeting to get an elbow underneath himself. James leaned over, but Dad struggled, righting himself on the couch. ”I never had any heart problems whatsoever. Until that crook gave me those pills. And now look at me. Now look at me.” had heart problems,” Dad cried, suddenly strong, fidgeting to get an elbow underneath himself. James leaned over, but Dad struggled, righting himself on the couch. ”I never had any heart problems whatsoever. Until that crook gave me those pills. And now look at me. Now look at me.”
”That's why you have to take them. Yeah, call him a crook, maybe he is-but your heart will get worse unless you take the pills, and there's nothing you can do about that.”
”Nothing I can do,” Dad said, shaking his head, trying to laugh, but it came out a choke. He eased himself back down onto the couch. ”Nothing I can do until it wrecks my lungs, my kidneys, right? Same old story. Nothing I can do.”
James handed him the gla.s.s of water, rattling the pills in his hand, but Dad didn't take it.
”At least I know this heart won't kill me,” Dad said. ”Whatever that mickeymouse box is good for, at least the heart won't kill me.”
”That's not necessarily true,” James said. ”It-it's kind of vague, I think.”
Dad looked at him, chewing his words, forcing them out. ”So what, then? Every day I wake up it's worse. I can't talk, I can't swallow! Now you want me to take pills so I can't breathe, I can't take a p.i.s.s? Isn't this bad enough?”
”Okay, Dad,” James said, setting the gla.s.s on the coffee table hard enough that it sloshed onto the magazines. ”Go and see that kid, Tim, then. Go and see him, is that going to make you feel better?”
”At least he he has some hope for me,” Dad said, and James bit his lip. has some hope for me,” Dad said, and James bit his lip.
Tim's house was one-half of a duplex on Brightwood Avenue, a wrongly-named street in a part of town without sidewalks. Brown front lawns ran straight into the cracked asphalt of the road, or at least they would if they were visible: Cars choked the sides of the road, and Mom had to park a block and a half away.
The people at Tim's were sadder than at Dr. Eli's, and some were sicker. Tim's mother welcomed everyone inside with polite, weak handshakes. James stood in the corner, trying to shuffle as close to the wall as possible, so that everyone had room to sit.
The air was fogged with incense and something that sounded like Enya being played on a cheap boombox. Everyone kept quietly to themselves, occasionally shuffling one family at a time down a narrow hallway. The CD was on its second repeat when Tim's mother called James' parents to Tim's bedroom.
Tim's bed had Snoopy sheets on it, and model s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps dangled from the ceiling, but there were no video games, no books, no other toys that would suggest that a child lived here. Tim sat cross-legged on his bed, thin and tired in the dimness of a single overhead lamp, and James almost gagged on the incense as he walked through the door.
He and Mom helped Dad to sit on a mound of pillows, then sat beside him. Tim was quiet, praying perhaps, his eyes closed, and he sat that way for some time before Dad started to moan loudly with discomfort.
”Thank you for coming back,” Tim said softly, and when he opened his eyes and saw James he froze for a moment, looking caught, looking terrified. Then he recovered, and extended his hands; Mom took one, and James, with some reluctance, the other, warm and wet. They both took Dad's hands.