"Your sister?" she says, putting her hands on her hips as if she is about to lecture me on sisterhood. "Is gone."
chapter 34
A good surgical team is happy that the patient is awake, stable, and comfortable.
One step in front of the other, one step. Flip. Flop.
—That was easy.
Almost too easy, I think as a cab pulls up in front of the side doors of the hospital to sweep me away like some crusty Cinderella reject. I climb in and request a ride to the east end from the nice man in the turban driving my pumpkin-chariot. He drops me off at a diner I used to go to for greasy fries and milkshakes not far from the mental hospital. Frequented by hustlers and homeless guys, the diner is a good place to hang out; no one gives me a second glance under the fluorescent lights; they figure I'm some junkie seeking a high, which, in some ways, I guess I am.
One step in front of another, I flip-flop my way to an orange booth without dropping my tray. Things are just terrific until the guy behind the counter walks by my table and deposits a warmish ketchup bottle on my table.
"Here you go, sir," he says.
—Sir?
I devour the food in front of me, trying to block out the sound of AM radio in my ears, feeling for the wad of cash in my jeans, trying not to think about where I will go next, if I ever dare to leave the diner.
My mouth feels swathed in grease and gauze. I grin into the mirror alongside the booth . . . my teeth are smeared with ketchup. Suddenly the image of Thomas's fat, greasy heart leaps into my head. Numbed but throbbing, unable, unable to
——All I ever did was love him.
"I'd like the heart-attack special," I used to say to the man at the counter, who no longer recognizes me as a girl. I can't get it out of my head now, the arteries globbed with bile, with cigarette smoke, anxiety swarming in liquid poison; my father's overheated core.
—Flip-flop, my heart is attacked.
Knowledge of anatomy changes from a way to perform a cadaver's dissection to a practical understanding of why drawing arterial blood from the wrong site can injure your patient.
When I shuffle out of the diner, feeling both excited and shaky, there is a real-live tranny junkie sitting on the corner, selling all her earthly wares, including Tikki cups, on a stained, pink blanket.
"How much for the Expos hat?" I ask, sucking in my cheeks to look even more terrifying. The dyed-blond, who could be either ten years older or younger than me, doesn't seem to notice how freaky I look. Like me, she's sort of a she-male, but she's bulky, and she's trying to feed crackers to a stuffed bear-clown doll she has bundled in a blue, pilled blanket. Without interrupting her cooing, she sticks out her hand and barks: "Two-fifty!"
"Two-fifty? How 'bout an even three?"
I put the money down on the pink blanket and grab the hat. I pull it over my skull and bend the front.
"Lookin' good, Angie!" she chirps, giving me an enthusiastic thumbs-up. I grin back at her, comforted by the sight of someone who looks as rough as me. As I make my way to the corner I hear her call out to me and I turn back. She waves the baby-blue blanket at me. "Angie! Wait!"
"What?"
She walks over, all leg in her three-inch heels, and puts the blanket in my arms.
"I thought it was for your, ah, baby."
She doesn't say anything, instead she presses two hot quarters into my hand.
"Your change."
And, for the first time in weeks, someone looks into my face, not afraid of what they'll see. I look up at her, at the caked mascara creeping off her singed eyelashes, at the deep unforgiving lines in her face, at the foundation that sticks like cracked glue to the five o'clock shadow creeping over her jaw-line. I feel grateful for this soiled but practical item, for being noticed.
"You're not Angie," she says, studying my forehead. My stomach lets out an agonized groan as she turns on her heel, saying, "Take the blanket. Wherever you're going, honey, it looks like you'll need it."
The recovery room has continuity with the operating room, so that the anesthesiologist and surgeon remain aware of the patient's condition and remain available in the event of complications,
I shuffle through a fishy-smelling alleyway holding the stiff blanket.
I am here. I am alone.
—Well, almost.
I am in my black jeans, my white shirt, and my blue cap, carrying Agnes's purse. I am in the world, in this city. I have a right. I am alive now.
I walk alongside Dumpsters, over sewer drains, behind bars and restaurants. I can hear voices, the clang of streetcar bells, men laughing, babies crying. I hear the blood pumping through me, what little remains, I hear it, coursing through me in magnificent waves of pain and then again that desperate, malcontent, pounding heart.
What was it like for him? Going under, awash in his own secretions. Full of the stuff. I walk till I can't anymore, till my feet are filthy with Chinatown smells and the thong in the plastic flip-flop has blistered my toes. I sit down by a fire escape, wrapping the blankie over my shoulders. Waiting for my name to come back to me, I sit on the back step in a dark alley, trying to breathe, thinking I am stuck in the clogs of a dead man's heart and the lapse in another man's brain.
—Who made me, anyway?
—You are trash, born out of two men.
—No.
—It's important to know the origins of "Who," isn't it, Doctor?
—Yes.
—Epilepsy is passed through the father's genes. Isn't that right? Isn't that why he had the EEG done?
If an EEG is performed in a hospital or at a large office practice, more than one neurologist is able to review the results, thus lessening subjectivity and bias,
A week after the tests, the buzzing in my body, along with the memory of the appointment, fades. I can only hold on to flashes of that day: Dad's grey hat bobbing in a crowd of heads, a lump of strawberry ice cream on my shoe. But I can't remember what happened when the black cords were on me and a soft white noise filled my nose like ginger ale. I know only that that day is the reason my parents are still not speaking to each other.
Then one morning the phone rings before school. Daddy picks up and nods, not saying anything, except, "Thank you," at the end of the conversation. I am mashing my eggs into a ketchupy lump, Holly's concentrating on holding a juice cup without dropping it, and our eyes are fixed on the small television on the kitchen counter where we watch Big Bird singing about the joys of friendship. When he hangs up, he turns to Vesla at the sink. She faces him, her severe eyes pressing down on him, accusing.
Only during a seizure is the brain's activity abnormal; therefore the possibility of recording a seizure during EEG remains remote.
The next month: a new hospital, a new doctor. Mom doesn't come along to this second appointment, but when we get home she is waiting for me on my bed with a cold washcloth, a new book, and a chocolate bar. On this night, I don't need to crawl into their bed, because she lies down on my single bed with me, holding my body close.
At school I tell the other children that I am a robot and need to get recharged or else my battery will die. I make up fantastic stories about my wired insides, the maps of my computer brain, and the electrical currents that pass through my body. I explain to them that my father is the only one who understands the delicate workings of my machinery. I even begin to believe my stories a little bit. But what I don't tell the others is that I think I might be dying. It would explain why everyone in my family, except for Holly, who is too little to understand death, is being extra nice to me. I don't tell anyone that I am not afraid to die, that there is never anything on those tests.
And I hate my mother more than anything the day she stands between me and Thomas, with a hand on his chest before the third appointment, saying, "You're not taking her. It's enough, Thomas, it's over." So I call my mother a word I've never used before and she slaps me but I don't care because it figures that she'd go and keep me and Dad apart, just when I started really praying to God, asking him for t
he appointments to never, ever end.
Studies have revealed that gene mutations, passed on through generations, primarily through males, lead to seizure development and abnormal brain formation.
And so, with a monkey skull, hooker's swaddling on my arm, and root beer on my breath, I leap up the creaking fire escape.
—I was clean. There was nothing on the EEG, was there? A second opinion, a third . . .
We're listening for ghosts at last, my double and I, with our airtight case against love, we ascend the night alley, we go up, up!
—Still, you couldn't let it go, you couldn't be sure that I—In search of stars, a place to rest.
—That I did belong to you, all along.
chapter 35
We get home and Mom's in a panic: she's just phoned all the hospitals and is about to call the police.
"You think maybe she'll just come home?" she asks me.
"Sure, she'll come home, she just needs to get away from the hospital for a while, I think." She follows me around the kitchen as Sol walks into the house and arches his brows at Mom. He crushes his face into what I think is supposed to be a smile.
"Morning," Sol says, though it's almost dark. Sol dipped into more of his emergency mickey of whisky while driving home, to "cope with the current situation."
The nurse, though she looked for Giselle in laundry piles and closets, was not so helpful. Giselle's doctor called the police. I wanted to talk to them some more, but Sol, who was pacing around the halls, looked like he was really going to freak out so we left.
"Ma, Sol's got his cell, we'll call you every five minutes if you want. I think I know where she is," I lie.
"I'll go with you, I can't stand to be here, waiting."
"You have to be here in case she comes home, in case she calls, right?"
She nods slowly, absently tracing her fingers along the phone. Before she gets a chance to say anything, or stop us, I grab Sol by the arm and pull him out of the house and tell him to drive to the nearest cafe, slowly: I need him to sober up a bit.
Inside, I order him a double espresso while he parks the car. After I get his coffee, I stand by the doorway watching folks stroll by. There are shoppers with newly creased bags, children holding their mothers' hands. There are girls, my age, arms linked, looking in store windows, flicking down their sunglasses, licking ice cream cones and pulling their mouths into smiles. That should be us. Watching them, I almost believe the world is a safe and ordered place, with God still running things. I say a tiny prayer:
Dear God, my sister needs protecting today, something from you.
I stare down at my running shoes and then look across the street just as Sol steps in front of a car and nearly gets hit, breaking up my illusions of security. I finger the hole in Giselle's university sweatshirt; it still smells like her mango perfume. Sol's shirt is buttoned wrong, I notice. He looks at the shop, not seeing me behind the glass in the doorway. He takes big steps, the newspaper in his hand flapping in the breeze.
I step onto the street just as he is about to enter the cafe. And for a split second, his face lights up:
It could be like this always, angel girl.
He thinks I'm her, waiting for him, ready to elope.
. . .
A crack of thunder rolls through the sky and rain starts to hit the car in hard bullets. We roll up the windows and, as if liberated by the break in heat, the electricity floats freely now, the crackling behind my ears dissolving.
I say nothing, staring out the window at an old man shuffling by in slippers with stains on his bright green shirt. He's trying to get under the canopy of a store. Sol speeds through a red light, squeaking the tires, and nearly misses a car coming from his side.
Sol's phone rings: he throws it at me, but when I pick up, the sound is chaffing, scrambled, then a click. I recognize the number.
"East end, Sol," I say quietly, trying to redial but only getting a continuous ring. I tug on Sol's jacket and he pulls away from me, and points his nose over the steering wheel like an old lady with bad eyesight.
"I heard you. How do you know where she is?"
I'm afraid to tell him that I have no idea, that it's just a hunch that Giselle is at one of our summer hangouts. She always called me from the same pay phone by the mental hospital after work, or between shifts. We'd meet on the corner next to the pay phone, where all the hookers hung out. Giselle would be waiting for me clutching a greasy bag of fries and two medium root beers. I'd have to help her up the fire escape because she was too scared to climb up by herself She'd let me eat all her fries and then she'd smoke two cigarettes while I did cartwheels for her on the roof.
Sol hunches over the wheel and looks straight ahead. "I have a vision I can't get out of my eyes. It's been there for days now. I try to drink it away but it won't fade."
"What?"
"It's her, blue. She's lying on a sidewalk, totally, like, broken. Spaced. Gone."
"Let's check this old warehouse. We used to hang out there . . . maybe she went up there to get some private time, away from the hospital." Sol peers at me with his bloodshot eyes, streaming now, as if the rain from outside has leaked onto his face.
The window gets fogged; he checks his shoulder to make a left turn onto the highway, then squints at the road as he accelerates.
"Who showed her how to get to the top of that place?"
Rain whips off the wipers at a steady pace; some of the cool water flies into the car, hitting him on the side of the head, cooling off the pain that burns through his skull.
"Me."
And the clouds over us turn from grey to black.
chapter 36
A good surgeon does not submit patients to tests or rigours outside the perimeters of treatment.
It's dark from the late-afternoon rain and only a trail of yellow rimming the edge of the city indicates the sunset. Heavy in the limbs, I lie on the rooftop, trying to remember what warm feels like.
Then I close my eyes and fall under again.
Post-op reactions include: Eiuphoria, dysphasia, weakness, agitation, tremor, severe convulsions, uncoordinated muscle movements, transient hallucinations, disorientation, and visual disturbances.
It's almost dark now, the yellow and pink ring almost completely swallowed by grey rain clouds and night. Everything's wet, including the little pieces of gravel stuck to my arm.
—Go on now, we're almost there.
I inch towards the door, trying to block out her demands, trying to stay away from the edge of the roof. Finally, I reach the door, I put my hands on its smooth texture and pull myself up. There's a flash of pain as my neck reels into my spine and the cavern that once was my stomach folds over and my whole torso crushes together, like an accordion.
All sensation disappears as I extend my body up. I stretch my fingers to reach the crack between the brick and the metal door frame and I stuff my knuckles in, scraping the skin off them. Then I notice the clouds are clearing away, and see the first night's star peeking out. You would miss it if you weren't looking.
—Where are your saviours?
—What are you talking about?
—Your sister, your mother, Sol?
—They'll be here, shhhhh. Look, look at that star. Focus now.
Between the songs and shouts in my head I hear honking, music filtering in from apartments and cars. I hear girls on the phone making plans, water running in shower stalls. The sounds of night mesh together. Ice is thrown into empty glasses, promising the first of many hard-earned-end-of-day drinks.
And in night there's no longer cold, only a massive heat source lifting itself, coming up off the asphalt like some not-yet-extinct dinosaur, reclaiming its rule. My head falls back onto the top knob of my spine and I aim my eyes, again, at that one single star shining down on me as I hang on. Trying not to drop off the edge of this spinning earth, I let myself down gently and make my way to the outer lip of the roof.
—No.
As I crawl along the edg
e of the roof, little wet rocks adhere to my hands and face, and moist tar sticks to my palms like gum. Wet, must be soaked. The ledge cuts into my hipbone like a knife slicing into cooked steak. The vague sensation of pain helps my legs push me along the floor, over cigarette butts, glass, and pop cans. I stop to pull on my little tufts of hair, to get some feeling other than numbness inside my head. I grab on to concrete, crush rocks between my teeth, then push off with my feet and let the whole messy business of body deal with the in-between.
—What's the name of in-between, come on now! Come on, Doctor—clavicle, cracked sarcosis, punctured lung.
—One day they will make humans out of steel, but until then I may have to break these bones.
Then, her voice, gentle:
—Close your eyes.
I vomit off the roof, hear the splatter echoing on the sidewalk below. I shove my hand in my mouth to pull out the toxic flavour of greasy food and bile.
—Thought we were on the same team, thought we. . .
—Isn't this what you wanted? To kill me?
I punch myself in the chest to pump some air into myself. Then I haul my sorry rag of a body up onto all fours. Everywhere is wet with old rain, with mucus, and blood, and bile. Oh Papa, I'm a mess today, don't see me here. I lean over the edge, my elbows trembling, the backs of my knees covered in sweat. There's a flash and the world lights up in bone-white light, and, for an instant, I can see everything: laundry hanging in the sky, fire-escape lovers leaning on black railings, wet cats shivering in the summer rain. I see her, up above, in the middle of the sky, looking down at me.
—Everything in this world sucks. Nothing is fun anymore. And just as she says this I feel the city lurch, feel it rise out of my fingertips, feel a part of it. I look down, the earth lights up again, see myself splayed below, feel my head falling forward, then I see myself seeing myself—bones scattered on this single stretch of pavement in the old city.
My head drops, heavily. I'm stuck, somehow, to the edge of the roof, sealed there with rain and sweat, my eyes roll back but I can still see things, I am almost there, on the ground below, part of the city's back. Then, from behind, I feel a blast of heat, a hand on my mouth trying to separate my clenched jaw.