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Dr. Petrov has sggestjed that I correspond with yu directly. The results of our first tests for multifactorial genetic disorders were negative, but there are many more genetic markers that we can look for. Binding is not always guarantted even with defects. I remain convinced that you suffer from some rare congenital nueropathy, rather than from an autoimmune disease as Dr Soames has proposed. Will let you know soon about th next tests.
Pleae leat me know if yu have any pain, and where. That would be an invaluable help.
Best wishes, Marjorie Stebbins,
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Sorry you’re not well. (I just heard.) You didn’t respond t o my messages of yesterday. The situtatio is now urgetn. I need to hear from you by 10:30 EST tomorrow morning at the latest. Thnaks.
Jasper Olswanger
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Dear Dad,
I’m over at Brad’s house. I came over aftre cshool. HOw are you feelingl today? I’d like to stay here for dinner. Is that all right with you and Mom?
Love, Alex
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Dear Mr. Chalmers,
Ms. Stevenson has keot me informed of her corepsoncdence with you. We are continuing our discovery process, but let me say onc agin that here is very little we can do withouh a diognosis of your ilness. I don’t want to interfere with whatever tests you are doing, but I might recommend tht you speakk to Dr. Francis Emory at Deaconess Hoptitsl. She is a specialisin neurological disorders and, I am told, quick to make diagnoses.
Your wife has been enquirign about our billing. Please tell her that you will receive shortly a bill for the period September 24 to October 10, and thereafter bills every two weeks. Yours truly, Thurston Baker, Esq.
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When she entered the bedroom, Melissa had some letters in one hand and a glass of scotch in the other. She glanced at the half-empty lunch tray on the bed, glanced at Bill working laboriously at his computer terminal, then sank into the chair by her vanity and sipped silently at her scotch. A woman was speaking on the television: When I decided to have the latest hydrogel and natural oil implants, I wanted to know if I would be treated in a fully equipped hospital or some clinic designed only to perform cosmetic surgery.
“Henry called,” Melissa said. “He’s getting married.”
“What?” Bill turned and stared at her, his eyes red and stretchy the way they got when he’d been sitting at his terminal. His whole face was beginning to get stretched out and loose now, with the puffiness of the steroids and the lack of any physical activity.
“Henry’s getting married,” she said again with no emotion. Her voice was almost drowned out by the raspy drone of a gasoline engine across the street.
“After all this time. Good for him. I had no idea.” Bill turned back to his screen.
“Neither did I. To someone named Maureen McClaran.”
“Sounds Irish. Or Scottish.”
The telephones began ringing. For a moment, the phones sounded like they were coming out of the TV on the bureau, from the hospital that gave the woman the new breasts. Bill froze, jarred, then Melissa grabbed the remote phone on the bed. “That was Virginia,” she said after hanging up. “She wants to know why you never answer the phone before four o’clock in the afternoon. She’s left three messages on the tape.”
“There are eight messages on the tape,” said Bill. “From Virginia and other people. I’ve stopped answering the phone before four o’clock.”
“She knows that. Why don’t we put something on our tape message that says to call after four? What am I saying? I don’t know what I’m saying.” Melissa swayed in her chair, her head sank on her shoulder. “A little courtesy, I say. You should put a courtesy message on the phone if you’re not going to answer it. People know that you’re here.”
“A lot of people don’t know I’m here.”
“I think we should have a courtesy message.”
“How about I start answering the phone at 3:30. Will that make you happy?”
“Henry says he feels guilty, getting married while you’re like this.” Melissa stood up and swallowed the rest of her scotch in one gulp. “And how are you today?”
He rolled in his wheelchair from the desk to the bed, closer to her so that he could gaze into her eyes, see the look that he didn’t want to see. “I hate it when you ask me every day how I am.”
“Please don’t take out your anger on me,” said Melissa. “I’m going downstairs to get another scotch.” As she went to the door, she stared down at his drawings, then looked at him to see him looking at her.
“I like your drawings,” she said, holding herself against the door frame. “I never knew you could draw.” She rubbed her forehead and sighed. “But I don’t understand. It’s crazy. You’ve gotten crazy, Bill.”
“Look at them.”
“I am looking. I said they were nice a week ago.” She paused and rubbed her forehead again. “But why are you doing this? You’re wrecking our floor. No, wait. I’ll help.” She got a lipstick from her vanity and drew a leaf on the wall, red and smudgy. “There, that’s another one.” Then, with three tiny steps, she sat down on the bed, pushed her glass back and forth against the bedpost like she was trying to pull off a scab. “I’m so happy for Henry.” She began crying and went out of the room, closing the door behind her.
“Alex,” she called as she went down the hallway. “Go look at your father’s drawings.”
“I’ve seen them,” yelled Alex from his room. “What’s for dinner?”
“Go see them again.”
She was mocking him, Bill thought. She was drunk, she was out of her mind, and he was out of his, too.
A small knock at the door. Alex came in, rumpled, his hair in a bowl shape where he had cut it earlier that afternoon. How was his homework going? Bill asked from his wheelchair. Fine. Alex stood by the door, hanging back low, making his small body even smaller, and Bill looked at him and loved him. Alex kept his eyes on the bureau, away from his father. How wonderful he looked, Bill thought to himself, he had boy all over him, and life and imagination, except that he was pale, he spent far too much time in his room. What a sensitive, pale boy. Bill wanted to hold him forever just as he was now, to keep him from disappointments and tragedies.
“Com
e over here by me,” said Bill. He sat by the window, the light flowing in smooth now.
Alex walked slowly to his father. When the boy got to the wheelchair, he put his hands to his face.
“I love you, Alex,” said Bill. He leaned forward in his chair and touched the boy’s shoulder. “Come closer, I can’t reach you.”
Alex kneeled to the floor and put his head in his father’s lap.
“I love you,” whispered Bill. “I’ve made a mess of things. But I love you.”
“Please don’t die.”
“I’m not going to die.”
Alex tried to say something but couldn’t. “Do you promise?” he mumbled.
“I’m doing everything I can.”
Alex raised his head up. His face was wet from tears and shone in the light coming in from the window. “I want you the way you used to be,” he said.
“I’m trying. I’m trying to get well. Do you know how much I love you?”
Alex nodded his head yes. After a few moments, he stood up and dried his eyes on his shirt. “I’m going back to my room.”
Bill watched as he left and closed the door.
He lies on the floor, tracing the leaf. Many leaves have fallen but his leaf is still there. It has been three weeks now, and he notices the shadows tilting and moving further back from the window, the sun lower in the sky. Seasons advance. New aspects have been revealed. The altered shapes are the same leaf and yet different, like a person who has gained weight, or grown older. It is almost as if he has been tested, to see if he can render the slight changes without copying himself. But he has noticed, he is minutely observing, and he traces the new shadows as if they were the first. He wants his mind to be empty, to see each new thing as it happens, to be ready. These are his first drawings, he imagines. Here is the first pinnacle, the first side lobe, the first point and valley. He pretends that he has never seen the leaf before in order to see it more perfectly at this moment. He must record it exactly because no one except him is observing the leaf. No one except him is seeing. This thought brings him sadness, but it also propels him. He has never felt so alone in his life.
He is alone but not quite alone. Because as he draws his leaf-shadows on the floor, he listens to sounds and he hears the ubiquitous hum, the low hum beneath everything else. He cannot get it out of his head. He closes the windows, he turns off the television and computer, but the low drone continues, a buzz, a vibration. What is it? What is it? He claps his hands to his ears, but the sound will not cease, the sound goes into his bones, the sound fills up his body, destroying muscle and blood and silence. What is it? He feels his pulse. Hum and pulse beat together, canceling each other. He gulps air, he wants to hear himself think between breaths, but there are no silences between breaths, the hum swallows the silences, leaving no room to breathe. Damn you, he shouts. Damn you. He heaves, he gasps for breath. The hum only increases in volume, a whine, an electrical vibration, a moaning in his brain. He slams his chair into the TV. I’m going to break every machine on this planet. The billions of cell phones and fax machines and computers and automobiles and TVs and other machines without names. I’m going to rip the phones out of the wall.
In late October, a few days before his scheduled PET examination, Bill’s leaf tracings began to lose accuracy. Not because of his hands but because of his eyes. Nothing had enough light. When he propped himself up at the window, leaning crooked against the wall and looking out, the houses across the street appeared a hundred miles away. Color went first. From the other side of the room, the bed appeared to be a dim white barge, indistinct. Words on his computer screen gradually faded, then became scratchings. He continued his drawings. Now they were wild and roaming, even partly up a wall.
“Oh no. No.” Melissa bent down and pressed her lips against his right cheek. “You need a nurse. How can we afford a nurse?”
“I don’t need a nurse.”
“You’re bumping into things, you’re spilling your food.” “I can see well enough.”
“No. I’m staying home now. I’m not going to leave you here alone. I shouldn’t have left you before.”
“Melissa. Don’t you listen?”
“I’m staying home, Bill.”
VISITS
Bill was sitting by the window of his bedroom when he heard Peter and his mother come in downstairs. They had arrived in a rented car from the airport so quickly that he was still in his bathrobe, with his wasted white legs dangling out, and he just had time to hide the latest “get well” card to keep himself from appearing as pitiful as he felt. However, he could not conceal the many containers of flowers, lending a funereal atmosphere to the room despite the bright colors and smells. He debated about whether he might be able to wheel himself into the closet and struggle into some trousers, but then came the heavy footsteps on the stairs, undoubtedly Peter’s, and the tentative knock on the door. He wanted to see Peter and dreaded seeing him at the same time.
“Peter?”
“Yes. I’m by myself. Melissa thought your mother should rest awhile downstairs before coming up, give you and me some time.”
When Peter saw Bill in his wheelchair, he winced. Then he walked over and hugged him.
“Excuse the way I look,” said Bill. “These steroids don’t do much for my face.” He gave a little smile and squinted at his friend, whom he hadn’t seen in two years and could now only dimly make out. A big hulk of a man as always, with wiry red hair beginning to come loose at the crown and a limp from an old football injury. And a way that he filled a room, took control without letting you know he was doing it, except that at this moment he seemed off his mark, upset by Bill’s condition and the perfumy odor of the room. Peter made no comment but placed his jacket on the vanity table and sat down on the divan.
“Melissa tells me you’re spending all of your time up here.”
Bill nodded and sighed. “I’m glad you came.”
“Shit, Bill. What a goddamn shitty thing. I wish I’d come sooner. I should have come sooner.” Peter looked at Bill by the window, then glanced around the room, trying not to let his eyes rest on anything too long. If he noticed the drawings on the floor, he gave no indication. He grinned at Bill. “Lisa Bell sends her good wishes.” He paused. “You remember her? She’s been married and divorced twice. Went back to the name Bell.”
“Lisa Bell.” Bill recalled a pretty girl with rosy cheeks and curly blond hair, quiet but walked down the hall like she was hoping somebody would kiss her. A million miles away. He didn’t care about Lisa Bell. “Tell her hello for me.”
“Well, she sure wanted to make sure I told you hello for her.” Peter gave a gruff laugh. “She’s still good-looking. I run into her once in a while, having lunch with some guy or other in Chinatown. She’s starting to sag a little, but she’s still real cute and she remembers you.”
“I remember her.”
“I’ll bet you do.”
“Thanks for bringing Mother.”
“Happy to,” said Peter. “I told her we were coming to visit you.”
“Did you tell her I was sick?”
“No, I didn’t tell her that.”
“I’ll tell her.”
The phones began ringing and Peter immediately reached for the cell phone on his belt, then relaxed when he realized it wasn’t his. “Goddamn the phone,” Bill suddenly shouted. “Rip it out. Rip out the phone.” With a jerk of his body, he began wheeling himself to the nearest phone, on the writing table. Peter stared at him, startled. Someone picked up the phone downstairs and it stopped ringing.
“Want me to unplug the phone?”
Bill’s blood was striking in his ears. Then he heard what Peter had said and shook his head slightly, no. He should have ripped out the phone.
In the silence afterward, they listened to Melissa talking downstairs and a radio coming from a car on the street. It had been a warm day for the last week of October, Indian summer, and the windows were open, letting in sounds and air and the smooth autumn
light.
How was Alex, Peter wanted to know, must be in high school now. He hoped he could see the boy before he left, maybe later this afternoon after school. No, he wasn’t staying the night, too much going on for that, he wouldn’t impose. And the Philadelphia Eagles were having an excellent season, with the usual injuries and bone breakers. Bill knew nothing about the Eagles, never had, but he and Peter always talked about the Eagles when they got together, especially in recent years, it was one of the things they did. Peter had played high school and college.
“So, is Melissa taking good care of you?” he asked.
“Melissa’s tired.”
“She looks tired. I didn’t want to say it. Maybe you need somebody else to help out. Maybe you need a nurse.”
“No, I don’t want a nurse. I’m okay.”
“You’re not okay. Don’t tell me you’re okay when you’re not okay. I’m your friend.” They looked briefly at each other.
Despite his difficulty seeing, Bill felt bombarded by everything around him, the presence of his friend, his mother waiting downstairs, the air, his own skin, smells, especially smells. A vase of stargazer lilies on the writing table was pounding out fragrance in high frequencies, like someone blowing too hard through a piccolo. And beneath, his own cowardly stench.
“Melissa’s a good woman,” said Peter. “You’ve got yourself a good woman. Hang on to her.” He shifted uncomfortably on the divan. For a few minutes, they sat in silence. The drapes rustled with an occasional breeze, the draw cords slapped lazily against the window frame.
“I brought something for you,” said Peter. Standing up and again expanding into the entirety of the room, he fished an envelope out of his jacket and grinned. On the writing table he spread out a half-dozen old photos, faded and creased. “I was planning on blowing one up and framing it, but I thought I’d let you pick which one. I already got the frame.”
Bill leaned forward in his wheelchair and stared at the photos. “Describe them to me. I’m having trouble with my eyes.”
“What? When did this happen?”