We lie there, breathing hard. The pain in my guts seems stronger. Drugs wearing off. I am wet, cold, miserable, sick as a dog with the flux. Need warmth, love, shelter. I rest for a minute, then rouse myself. Taking flashlight only, I sink into the water and struggle toward my swaying truck, a dark mass of metallurgic matter in the night. I reach the back door, open it to find my bedroll and duffel bag and other items half-floating in a foot of water. My good hunting rifle in its sheepskin case lies under the surface, wrapped in a heavy tarpaulin tied with rope. I load my arms with all I can carry. The water is up to my waist. The truck begins to roll, heaving over me. I abandon duffel bag and flounder to the bank, clutch at a living bush and haul myself onto the semisolid earth. The stream sucks at my feet, tugging at my boots, pulling me back. I wriggle farther into the brush and rest.
The rain falls steadily on my head. The dog laps tenderly at my face, then backs off a step to barf on the leaves. That dog is nearly as sick as I am. Got to try and get a fire going.
I rise to my knees, gather my belongings, stand up and force a path through the riparian jungle into the forest beyond. I shine my light around for some glimpse of barn or shed or hut or pigsty; nothing available. Only the narrow rutted water-streaming dirt road leading up the hillside under the trees. What’s up that way? Probably nothing but another strip mine—towering spoil banks of yellow clay above a trench full of stagnant sludge. West Virginia, country home. Taking the canvas tarp, I rig a rainfly between two locust trees, back to the wind, pull a branch from a dead tamarack, break it into little pieces on the trunk of the snag, unfold pocketknife and whittle some shavings under the rainfly. No good. As I discover the next moment, the matches in my shirt pocket are soaked, useless.
I think of my hero Jack London. To build a fire. What would he do now? Drink himself to death? Take an overdose of Demerol? Good idea. And then I realize, to my horror, that my pills, my Band-Aids, my entire medical kit is in the truck. Inside that listing foundered worthless wreck of a Dodge now half submerged and slipping inch by inch downstream in the center of the flood. Shall I venture in one more time, stumble through the waves again to rescue that metal First-Aid box in the so-called “glove” compartment? My sheath knife, my wallet with expired operator’s license, my last few dollars…Hesitating, I shine my light over the roiling stream toward the Dodge. The creek pours through the open window on the driver’s side, out the open door on the other. Too late. Even as I watch the truck rolls again, wallowing onto its back to accommodate the weight of the water. The four wheels turn slowly above the waves, dripping and gleaming in the beam of my flashlight.
This is getting absurd. Even serious. And I don’t feel so good myself. I sense the coming of another internal purge. I back away from the rising creek, crouch under the poor shelter of the rainfly, cuddle close to my dying dog and wait for the message to come down, my private, personalized, gold-embossed passport to mortality, Everyman’s visa to the ancient chaos of the sun.
What sun?
24
Judgment Day
His internal trouble seemed to begin, or rather to reveal itself, on that pleasant night in March about a month before Elaine departed, slamming the door, cracking the plaster, never to return.
Henry had gone straight from his desk at the welfare office to the Dirty Shame, driven by inner necessity. He was on his third bourbon and beer when Rick Arriaga showed up, then Doc Harrington, then the Hooligan. Such glittering company made going home superfluous. Together they took their supper of sauerkraut and sausages, scalloped potatoes and black bread and a pitcher apiece of Heineken’s dark and Heineken’s light. A moderate but satisfying meal. Followed by cigars and a snifter of cognac, two of each for Henry. After the waitress cleared away the dishes they settled down to some serious drinking.
With good cause. All but Arriaga were suffering from female disorders. Henry’s wife threatening to leave, carrying on with her secret cybernetic lover; Harrington’s wife outraged by Harrington’s unseemly friends and frequent absences; and Hooligan plagued by a trio of jealous mistresses, all of whom danced at the same strip joint. Arriaga alone claimed to be happily married but was in difficulty with his boss, Father Castelli, for having sent too many teenage clients to the Planned Parenthood Association for maternal counseling. Like Henry Lightcap, young Arriaga was in the love-thy-neighbor and do-unto-others business: he worked for the county hospital. Handsome, energetic, intelligent, a student of law, a master of social work, Richard “Rick” Arriaga had political ambitions but was off to a bad start, among bad influences, in a bad world.
Harrington raised his glass: Here’s to our wives and sweethearts.
May they never meet, said Henry.
They drank. Soon after, Doc Harrington stole away, sneaking home to his wife. He said. The other three remained. They discussed the mysterious disappearance of Keaton Lacey down in Mexico—but many were disappearing there these days. Hooligan started to talk of the good old times at Turkey Creek Canyon and the wildlife sanctuary, but Henry changed that subject. Arriaga was next to leave: had to read a book to his three-year-old, he explained. Her bedtime coming soon and they were halfway through The Adventures of Speedy Gonzales. My little Ellie is now five, thought Henry. I want her back. Or is it six? Anyway I want her. I ain’t much but she’s all I got.
He and Hooligan remained at the bar for another hour, drinking slowly but steadily. When Henry began to reel from the barstool Hooligan helped him out the door and into his van. The dealer’s van. The pander wagon. Henry did not want to go home. He’d made phone calls an hour before, thirty minutes before, and knew what awaited him there: a dark and empty house with only Bach or Beethoven or Billie Holliday for love.
We’ll go to my place, said the Hooligan. The girls are working tonight. You can sleep in Gloria’s bed. Or Sunshine’s. Or Velvet’s, take your pick. They won’t be back till who knows.
What’s it like being a pimp?
It’s hard, it’s hard. Nothing but heartache and worry, that’s my life. Busy busy busy all week long.
Henry collapsed on somebody’s bed and closed his eyes. He felt a strange unpleasant pressure in his upper abdomen. Nausea in his stomach. He rolled on his back and found that the pain went all the way through. He tried lying on his left side then the right side but neither position was tolerable. He tried kneeling. No good. He sat up in the dim light of the room, duly alarmed, and discovered he was about to vomit. No time to search for the bathroom; he was in a strange house, a strange world, in a strange condition. There was only the window by the bed, a streetlight outside. He stuck his head through the window, failing to notice the pane of glass, and caring less, and threw up a quart of green, yellow and lavender goulash onto the bare dirt and bright shards below. Blood dripped from his skull. Badly shaken, he pushed off and plucked out the fragments of glass from the bottom of the window frame, rested his chin on the knuckles of his hands and stared into the street. He felt ghastly.
Two dogs went by walking their transients toward the railway yard. The young bearded men in greasy rags, packs on their shoulders, muttered to each other as the dogs led them on through the dim light of calamity toward their terminal fate in the darkness. Henry heard them, heard the words, recognized the general import.
Fucker said get outa here I said who wants to stay.
What’d he say?
He never said nothin’. I busted him in the mouth with the brass knucks and walked out. He never even whimpered. Teeth all over the floor. What could he say?
The light snapped on behind Henry. He heard Hooligan speak: You all right, Henry?
Slowly he turned his head, saw his buddy standing in the doorway with a pistol in each hand. Hooligan the gun nut. I’m okay, Henry said.
Okay hell—you’re bleeding all over your face; what happened?
Nothing. Just sick.
Hooligan came close. You look blue as a skinned rabbit. He dropped the guns on the bed, grasped Henry by the wrist. You’re cold and cl
ammy, man. What’s wrong with you?
Hangover.
Hangover hell you’re dying man. Come on. Hooligan put an arm under Henry’s arms and tried to lift him to a standing position. Henry writhed in pain, his body straining toward a fetal position. The powerful Hooligan lifted Henry in both his arms and carried him out of the room. Henry gasped, suppressing a howl of agony. Hooligan got him out of the house, into the van and drove to the emergency room of the nearest hospital. There Henry crouched on his knees on a bench, sweating, groaning, while Hooligan and the admissions clerk performed a quick biopsy on Henry’s wallet. Fortunately for Henry he was currently a state employee (public welfare caseworker) and carried a card that identified him as a member in good standing of a group medical insurance scheme (Blue Cross of Arizona).
Henry was laid on a hard bed inside walls painted a gleaming white, among mysterious devices of stainless steel and brushed aluminum, under a light both brilliant and soft. In the red haze of trauma he felt clean hairy pale medical hands palpating his belly and abdomen. Somebody drew down his pants. He sensed the needle sinking into one buttock, his own, felt the injection of a hard icy drug as firm hands compressed the plunger on a hypodermic syringe. Despite near total absorption in his private world of pain he retained presence of mind sufficient to make interested inquiry. What’s the dope, doc?
Pain reliever, the voice said. Relax, it’ll work faster.
Sodium pentothal? Percodan? Morphine? WD-40? STP?
A derivative. Relax, you’re going to sleep in about one minute.
STP? Rubber cement? Nostalgia? Weltschmerz? Existential angst?
He felt himself being wheeled through marble halls, down corridors of bliss where smiling faces floated toward him, expanded, swept by with supersonic speed. Mad molecules of color flew overhead. Thank you, he thought, reality at last. I am about to meet my maker in Maw’s Home Kitchen. He bathed in a luxuriant warmth, deliriously content….
Coming back. Stiff bed. Half naked under a starchy sheet. He turned his eyes away from swords of light as hands not his own tinkered with the blinds, then returned to stroke his brow, his hair. Soft hands.
How do you feel, Henry?
I’m okay. He considered the interior of his body. Something like a cuttlefish stirred about in his entrails, seeking an exit. Feel like hell but I’ll be okay.
Had a little drinking binge the other night, didn’t you?
That’s right, Elaine. And where were you? I phoned five times, he lied, exaggerating.
I was out, she said. Visiting a friend.
Pause. That friend. What to say? he wondered. What difference does it make? he concluded.
Hooligan and Dr. Andrew Harrington came in. They greeted Elaine, sat on the broad windowsill near the bed and smiled at Henry. He grinned back. What’s wrong with me, Andy? he said to Harrington.
Acute pancreatitis, probably.
What do you mean, probably?
You have the classic symptoms. But they’ll run you through a few tests, make certain.
I hope you’re not my doctor.
Harrington smiled. Not a chance. Just a visitor. But you’re getting the best gastroenterologist in the city.
What’s that?
Internal medicine.
What’s his name?
His name is McNeil, said Harrington, and he comes from Harvard. Dr. Hugh McNeil.
No bullshit, Henry said. Tell me about this acute pancreatic crap.
Pancreatitis. Means you’ll have to stay in bed for a while. And no more alcohol, ever.
Thank God, said Elaine.
This is serious, agreed Henry. He looked at the needle taped to his wrist, the I.V. tube, the inverted bottle of glucose hanging from its portable rack. Nearly empty.
Attendants came and went. One pricked Henry’s fingertip for a drop of bright red blood. Another inserted a syringe into a vein on the inside of his elbow and drew out a few cubic centimeters of dark purple blood. A nurse entered and changed the empty I.V. for a full one. Henry studied the upended bottle, the transparent plastic line, watching for air bubbles. He knew that if one air bubble—one single tiny bubble—entered his bloodstream and reached the heart he was a goner. Kaput. There were quite a few bubbles in the tube. He waited for Harrington to notice. Harrington was supposed to be an M.D., though only a bone specialist.
What’s wrong, Henry?
There’s bubbles in this I.V. tube.
There’re bubbles in your head. They won’t hurt you. Be glad there’s not a couple of fish swimming around in that bottle. And Harrington told them of his former days as resident intern in a hospital in Chicago. Of the chief surgeon making his rounds in the intensive-care unit. Of the man’s lack of humor.
You actually put goldfish in the I.V. bottles? Elaine asked.
Only with terminal cases.
I don’t think that’s very funny either. And what about the goldfish?
They died. Martyrs to the full rigors of Western medicine.
McNeil entered, a short stout forty-year-old man in a too-tight plaid sportcoat. The coat had two vents in the rear, Henry noticed. That meant something important but he could not remember what it was, having not read Esquire magazine or Gentlemen’s Quarterly for many years. It meant I.V. League, maybe? McNeil had a red plump face with broken veins on the nose, brown hair combed flat, tired blue eyes, a small weary shy smile with yellow teeth. He shook hands with Harrington and Henry’s other visitors, then sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at the patient.
You look frightful, Mr. Lightcap.
I don’t feel as bad as I look.
Thank heaven for that. Been drinking a bit lately?
Not lately. But I was yesterday.
McNeil smiled. He touched his nose. Smirnoff’s Disease. He placed a large pale hand on Henry’s abdomen. What do you think’s wrong with you? He probed and squeezed, testing the tone and distension of those slime-covered organs under the skin—liver, pancreas, spleen, gall bladder, duodenum, stomach, intestines. Any ideas?
Acute pancreatitis, Henry said. That’s my guess.
Good guess. But we’ll see. Dr. McNeil leaned forward and spread Henry’s eyelids, taking a close look at each bloodshot green eye.
Nothing wrong with my eyes, Henry said. I got good eyes.
Yes you do. Bit of jaundice in the sclerae. McNeil sat back. There’s a curious theory floating about these days that we can diagnose an internal illness by patterns of disturbance in the iris of the eyes. Iridiology, they call it.
What do you see in my eyes?
McNeil hesitated. Skepticism, he said.
Sounds life-threatening.
Well, don’t be too sure of that. Might be the healthiest of attitudes in the long run. Also the short run. McNeil stood up. Very well, Mr. Lightcap. I’ll get you out of here in a few days. Give you some rest, medication, routine testing first. See you tomorrow. He shook Henry’s hand, grinned weakly at the others, hurried out of the room. A busy man. Many sick people in hospitals.
Skepticism, Elaine said. I don’t think that’s a very hopeful philosophy for a medical doctor.
He’s a Scot, Harrington said, they’re that way. A blunt empiric race, those Caledonians.
Henry asked about the tests. Harrington explained: X rays, liver biopsy, CAT scan, maybe a sonic probe, probably endoscopy and colonoscopy, the usual battery of invasive procedures. Plus blood tests, urinalysis, stool inspection, of course.
Don’t like the sound of any of it.
All virtually painless. You’ll be so doped up and blissed out you won’t give a damn what they do. It’s for your own good, try to remember that. Been drinking any mountain water lately?
Every chance I get.
You might have giardia, you fool. Some kind of bug in your bowels. Amoebic dysentery. They’ll look at the simplest things first.
Simplest? Simplest compared to what?
Harrington paused. Compared to what? Well, compared to other possibilities. Like gallstones, for e
xample. Gallstones can cause an angry pancreas. And vice versa.
You’re speculating, Andrew.
That’s right. That’s why you’ve got to take the tests.
Henry took the tests. After two days’ rest under the enchantment of the “derivative,” he drank a barium milkshake, was rolled onto another gurney by two husky homosexuals in white suits and carted through the corridor into an elevator that sank, sank, like his heart, opening into further corridors of trauma and anxiety. His gay aides, laughing and joking all the way, steered him past thick leaden doors and placed his vulnerable meat on a steel altar beneath a massive death-ray apparatus. He was turned this way, that way, bent, straightened, inverted, between each descent of the insolent silent blank blue-black eye of the machine, its idiot genius searching for Henry’s more sensitive ganglia, the entryway best suited for administering the most prolonged and exquisite, least endurable but not unendurable agony. He could hear no sound but the voice of the torture research technician coming through the wall—take a deep breath…hold it—and a sinister buzzing noise as a burst of ionizing radiation streamed through his defenseless body. He felt his tissues disintegrate, dissolving to a swarm of primitive power-greedy cells.
After the X rays he met the CAT scanner. Computer tomography. Laid on a cold motorized slab, he was inserted like bread into an oven, like a corpse into a furnace, into the body-size opening of a device that looked to Henry’s eyes like the dryer in a Laundromat. He expected to be revolved, revolutionized, spun round and round like a load of clean damp underwear. He was not. Something in the machine rotated instead. He observed particles of dust or rust or bone slipping from a crevice in the steel and drifting to the floor. He looked for the maker’s label, the metal tag riveted to the scanner’s enameled hood. Maytag, it said. Or was it Frigidaire? Whoever whatever cobbled the thing together, he felt himself electronically vivisected slice by slice, a forked length of old baloney in a magical guillotine. Painless, certainly, but harmless? He wondered.