He was alarmed at the prospect of her putting a hairpin inside his ear. He said something to that effect.
“What?” she said. “Christ, I can’t hear you, either. Maybe this is catching.”
“When I was a kid, in school,” Lloyd said, “we had this health teacher. She was like a nurse, too. She said we should never put anything smaller than an elbow into our ear.” He vaguely remembered a wall chart showing a massive diagram of the ear, along with an intricate system of canals, passageways, and walls.
“Well, your nurse was never faced with this exact problem,” Inez said. “Anyway, we need to try something. We’ll try this first. If it doesn’t work, we’ll try something else. That’s life, isn’t it?”
“Does that have a hidden meaning or something?” Lloyd said.
“It means just what I said. But you’re free to think as you please. I mean, it’s a free country,” she said. “Now, let me get fixed up with what I need. You just sit there.”
She went through her purse, but she didn’t find what she was looking for. Finally, she emptied the purse out onto the sofa. “No hairpins,” she said. “Damn.” But it was as if she were saying the words from another room. In a way, it was almost as if he’d imagined her saying them. There’d been a time, long ago, when they used to feel they had ESP when it came to what the other one was thinking. They could finish sentences that the other had started.
She picked up some nail clippers, worked for a minute, and then he saw the device separate in her fingers and part of it swing away from the other part. A nail file protruded from the clippers. It looked to him as if she were holding a small dagger.
“You’re going to put that in my ear?” he said.
“Maybe you have a better idea,” she said. “It’s this, or else I don’t know what. Maybe you have a pencil? You want me to use that? Or maybe you have a screwdriver around,” she said and laughed. “Don’t worry. Listen, Lloyd, I won’t hurt you. I said I’d be careful. I’ll wrap some tissue around the end of this. It’ll be all right. I’ll be careful, like I said. You just stay where you are, and I’ll get some tissue for this. I’ll make a swab.”
She went into the bathroom. She was gone for a time. He stayed where he was on the dinette chair. He began thinking of things he ought to say to her. He wanted to tell her he was limiting himself to champagne and champagne only. He wanted to tell her he was tapering off the champagne, too. It was only a matter of time now. But when she came back into the room, he couldn’t say anything. He didn’t know where to start. But she didn’t look at him, anyway. She fished a cigarette from the heap of things she’d emptied onto the sofa cushion. She lit the cigarette with her lighter and went to stand by the window that faced onto the street. She said something, but he couldn’t make out the words. When she stopped talking, he didn’t ask her what it was she’d said. Whatever it was, he knew he didn’t want her to say it again. She put out the cigarette. But she went on standing at the window, leaning forward, the slope of the roof just inches from her head.
“Inez,” he said.
She turned and came over to him. He could see tissue on the point of the nail file.
“Turn your head to the side and keep it that way,” she said. “That’s right. Sit still now and don’t move. Don’t move,” she said again.
“Be careful,” he said. “For Christ’s sake.”
She didn’t answer him.
“Please, please,” he said. Then he didn’t say any more. He was afraid. He closed his eyes and held his breath as he felt the nail file turn past the inner part of his ear and begin its probe. He was sure his heart would stop beating. Then she went a little farther and began turning the blade back and forth, working at whatever it was in there. Inside his ear, he heard a squeaking sound.
“Ouch!” he said.
“Did I hurt you?” She took the nail file out of his ear and moved back a step. “Does anything feel different, Lloyd?”
He brought his hands up to his ears and lowered his head.
“It’s just the same,” he said.
She looked at him and bit her lips.
“Let me go to the bathroom,” he said. “Before we go any farther, I have to go to the bathroom.”
“Go ahead,” Inez said. “I think I’ll go downstairs and see if your landlady has any Wesson oil, or anything like that. She might even have some Q-tips. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before. Of asking her.”
“That’s a good idea,” he said. “I’ll go to the bathroom.”
She stopped at the door and looked at him, and then she opened the door and went out. He crossed the living room, went into his bedroom, and opened the bathroom door. He reached down behind the stool and brought up the bottle of champagne. He took a long drink. It was warm but it went right down. He took some more. In the beginning, he’d really thought he could continue drinking if he limited himself to champagne. But in no time he found he was drinking three or four bottles a day. He knew he’d have to deal with this pretty soon. But first, he’d have to get his hearing back. One thing at a time, just like she’d said. He finished off the rest of the champagne and put the empty bottle in its place behind the stool. Then he ran water and brushed his teeth. After he’d used the towel, he went back into the other room.
Inez had returned and was at the stove heating something in a little pan. She glanced in his direction, but didn’t say anything at first. He looked past her shoulder and out the window. A bird flew from one tree to another and preened its feathers. But if it made any kind of bird noise, he didn’t hear it.
She said something that he didn’t catch.
“Say again,” he said.
She shook her head and turned back to the stove. But then she turned again and said, loud enough and slow enough so he could hear it: “I found your stash in the bathroom.”
“I’m trying to cut back,” he said.
She said something else. “What?” he said. “What’d you say?” He really hadn’t heard her.
“We’ll talk later,” she said. “We have things to discuss, Lloyd. Money is one thing. But there are other things, too. First we have to see about this ear.” She put her finger into the pan and then took the pan off the stove. “I’ll let it cool for a minute,” she said. “It’s too hot right now. Sit down. Put this towel around your shoulders.”
He did as he was told. He sat on a chair and put the towel around his neck and shoulders. Then he hit the side of his head with his fist.
“Goddamn it,” he said.
She didn’t look up. She put her finger into the pan once more, testing. Then she poured the liquid from the pan into his plastic glass. She picked up the glass and came over to him.
“Don’t be scared,” she said. “It’s just some of your landlady’s baby oil, that’s all it is. I told her what was wrong, and she thought this might help. No guarantees,” Inez said. “But maybe this’ll loosen things up in there. She said it used to happen to her husband. She said this one time she saw a piece of wax fall out of his ear, and it was like a big plug of something. It was ear wax, was what it was. She said try this. And she didn’t have any Q-tips. I can’t understand that, her not having any Q-tips. That part really surprises me.”
“Okay,” he said. “All right. I’m willing to try anything. Inez, if I had to go on like this, I think I’d rather be dead. You know? I mean it, Inez.”
“Tilt your head all the way to the side now,” she said. “Don’t move. I’ll pour this in until your ear fills up, then I’ll stopper it with this dishrag. And you just sit there for ten minutes, say. Then we’ll see. If this doesn’t do it, well, I don’t have any other suggestions. I just don’t know what to do then.”
“This’ll work,” he said. “If this doesn’t work, I’ll find a gun and shoot myself. I’m serious. That’s what I feel like doing, anyway.”
He turned his head to the side and let it hang down. He looked at the things in the room from this new perspective. But it wasn’t any different f
rom the old way of looking, except that everything was on its side.
“Farther,” she said. He held on to the chair for balance and lowered his head even more. All of the objects in his vision, all of the objects in his life, it seemed, were at the far end of this room. He could feel the warm liquid pour into his ear. Then she brought the dishrag up and held it there. In a little while, she began to massage the area around his ear. She pressed into the soft part of the flesh between his jaw and skull. She moved her fingers to the area over his ear and began to work the tips of her fingers back and forth. After a while, he didn’t know how long he’d been sitting there. It could have been ten minutes. It could have been longer. He was still holding on to the chair. Now and then, as her fingers pressed the side of his head, he could feel the warm oil she’d poured in there wash back and forth in the canals inside his ear. When she pressed a certain way, he imagined he could hear, inside his head, a soft, swishing sound.
“Sit up straight,” Inez said. He sat up and pressed the heel of his hand against his head while the liquid poured out of his ear. She caught it in the towel. Then she wiped the outside of his ear.
Inez was breathing through her nose. Lloyd heard the sound her breath made as it came and went. He heard a car pass on the street outside the house and, at the back of the house, down below his kitchen window, the clear snick-snick of pruning shears.
“Well?” Inez said. She waited with her hands on her hips, frowning.
“I can hear you,” he said. “I’m all right! I mean, I can hear. It doesn’t sound like you’re talking underwater anymore. It’s fine now. It’s okay. God, I thought for a while I was going to go crazy. But I feel fine now. I can hear everything. Listen, honey, I’ll make coffee. There’s some juice, too.”
“I have to go,” she said. “I’m late for something. But I’ll come back. We’ll go out for lunch sometime. We need to talk.”
“I just can’t sleep on this side of my head, is all,” he went on. He followed her into the living room. She lit a cigarette. “That’s what happened. I slept all night on this side of my head, and my ear plugged up. I think I’ll be all right as long as I don’t forget and sleep on this side of my head. If I’m careful. You know what I’m saying? If I can just sleep on my back, or else on my left side.”
She didn’t look at him.
“Not forever, of course not, I know that. I couldn’t do that.
I couldn’t do it the rest of my life. But for a while, anyway. Just my left side, or else flat on my back.”
But even as he said this, he began to feel afraid of the night that was coming. He began to fear the moment he would begin to make his preparations for bed and what might happen afterward. That time was hours away, but already he was afraid. What if, in the middle of the night, he accidentally turned onto his right side, and the weight of his head pressing into the pillow were to seal the wax again into the dark canals of his ear? What if he woke up then, unable to hear, the ceiling inches from his head?
“Good God,” he said. “Jesus, this is awful. Inez, I just had something like a terrible nightmare. Inez, where do you have to go?”
“I told you,” she said, as she put everything back into her purse and made ready to leave. She looked at her watch. “I’m late for something.” She went to the door. But at the door she turned and said something else to him. He didn’t listen. He didn’t want to. He watched her lips move until she’d said what she had to say. When she’d finished, she said, “Goodbye.” Then she opened the door and closed it behind her.
He went into the bedroom to dress. But in a minute he hurried out, wearing only his trousers, and went to the door. He opened it and stood there, listening. On the landing below, he heard Inez thank Mrs. Matthews for the oil. He heard the old woman say, “You’re welcome.” And then he heard her draw a connection between her late husband and himself. He heard her say, “Leave me your number. I’ll call if something happens. You never know.”
“I hope you don’t have to,” Inez said. “But I’ll give it to you, anyway. Do you have something to write it down with?”
Lloyd heard Mrs. Matthews open a drawer and rummage through it. Then her old woman’s voice said, “Okay.”
Inez gave her their telephone number at home. “Thanks,” she said.
“It was nice meeting you,” Mrs. Matthews said.
He listened as Inez went on down the stairs and opened the front door. Then he heard it close. He waited until he heard her start their car and drive away. Then he shut the door and went back into the bedroom to finish dressing.
After he’d put on his shoes and tied the laces, he lay down on the bed and pulled the covers up to his chin. He let his arms rest under the covers at his sides. He closed his eyes and pretended it was night and pretended he was going to fall asleep. Then he brought his arms up and crossed them over his chest to see how this position would suit him. He kept his eyes closed, trying it out. All right, he thought. Okay. If he didn’t want that ear to plug up again, he’d have to sleep on his back, that was all. He knew he could do it. He just couldn’t forget, even in his sleep, and turn onto the wrong side. Four or five hours’ sleep a night was all he needed, anyway. He’d manage. Worse things could happen to a man. In a way, it was a challenge. But he was up to it. He knew he was. In a minute, he threw back the covers and got up.
He still had the better part of the day ahead of him. He went into the kitchen, bent down in front of the little refrigerator, and took out a fresh bottle of champagne. He worked the plastic cork out of the bottle as carefully as he could, but there was still the festive pop of champagne being opened. He rinsed the baby oil out of his glass, then poured it full of champagne. He took the glass over to the sofa and sat down. He put the glass on the coffee table. Up went his feet onto the coffee table, next to the champagne. He leaned back. But after a time he began to worry some more about the night that was coming on. What if, despite all his efforts, the wax decided to plug his other ear? He closed his eyes and shook his head. Pretty soon he got up and went into the bedroom. He undressed and put his pajamas back on. Then he moved back into the living room. He sat down on the sofa once more, and once more put his feet up. He reached over and turned the TV on. He adjusted the volume. He knew he couldn’t keep from worrying about what might happen when he went to bed. It was just something he’d have to learn to live with. In a way, this whole business reminded him of the thing with the doughnuts and champagne. It was not that remarkable at all, if you thought about it. He took some champagne. But it didn’t taste right. He ran his tongue over his lips, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He looked and saw a film of oil on the champagne.
He got up and carried the glass to the sink, where he poured it into the drain. He took the bottle of champagne into the living room and made himself comfortable on the sofa. He held the bottle by its neck as he drank. He wasn’t in the habit of drinking from the bottle, but it didn’t seem that much out of the ordinary. He decided that even if he were to fall asleep sitting up on the sofa in the middle of the afternoon, it wouldn’t be any more strange than somebody having to lie on his back for hours at a time. He lowered his head to peer out the window. Judging from the angle of sunlight, and the shadows that had entered the room, he guessed it was about three o’clock.
WHERE I’M CALLING FROM
J.P. and I are on the front porch at Frank Martin’s drying-out facility. Like the rest of us at Frank Martin’s, J.P. is first and foremost a drunk. But he’s also a chimney sweep. It’s his first time here, and he’s scared. I’ve been here once before. What’s to say? I’m back. J.P.’s real name is Joe Penny, but he says I should call him J.P. He’s about thirty years old. Younger than I am. Not much younger, but a little. He’s telling me how he decided to go into his line of work, and he wants to use his hands when he talks. But his hands tremble. I mean, they won’t keep still. “This has never happened to me before,” he says. He means the trembling. I tell him I sympathize. I tell him the shakes will idle down. And
they will. But it takes time.
We’ve only been in here a couple of days. We’re not out of the woods yet. J.P. has these shakes, and every so often a nerve—maybe it isn’t a nerve, but it’s something—begins to jerk in my shoulder. Sometimes it’s at the side of my neck. When this happens, my mouth dries up. It’s an effort just to swallow then. I know something’s about to happen and I want to head it off. I want to hide from it, that’s what I want to do. Just close my eyes and let it pass by, let it take the next man. J.P. can wait a minute.
I saw a seizure yesterday morning. A guy they call Tiny. A big fat guy, an electrician from Santa Rosa. They said he’d been in here for nearly two weeks and that he was over the hump. He was going home in a day or two and would spend New Year’s Eve with his wife in front of the TV. On New Year’s Eve, Tiny planned to drink hot chocolate and eat cookies. Yesterday morning he seemed just fine when he came down for breakfast. He was letting out with quacking noises, showing some guy how he called ducks right down onto his head. “Blam. Blam,” said Tiny, picking off a couple. Tiny’s hair was damp and was slicked back along the sides of his head. He’d just come out of the shower. He’d also nicked himself on the chin with his razor. But so what? Just about everybody at Frank Martin’s has nicks on his face. It’s something that happens. Tiny edged in at the head of the table and began telling about something that had happened on one of his drinking bouts. People at the table laughed and shook their heads as they shoveled up their eggs. Tiny would say something, grin, then look around the table for a sign of recognition. We’d all done things just as bad and crazy, so, sure, that’s why we laughed. Tiny had scrambled eggs on his plate, and some biscuits and honey. I was at the table, but I wasn’t hungry. I had some coffee in front of me. Suddenly, Tiny wasn’t there anymore. He’d gone over in his chair with a big clatter. He was on his back on the floor with his eyes closed, his heels drumming the linoleum. People hollered for Frank Martin. But he was right there. A couple of guys got down on the floor beside Tiny. One of the guys put his fingers inside Tiny’s mouth and tried to hold his tongue. Frank Martin yelled, “Everybody stand back!” Then I noticed that the bunch of us were leaning over Tiny, just looking at him, not able to take our eyes off him. “Give him air!” Frank Martin said. Then he ran into the office and called the ambulance.