The Convalescent Read online

  The mother effuses her gratitude to Dr. Monica and then leaves, passing a tall, fat man wearing a baseball cap on his way inside. It’s Herman. I lower my writing tablet and watch him make his way into the Waiting Area. He’s holding a bulky paper bag with a grease stain on the bottom in one hand, and a stack of books in the other. The Sick or Diseased children stop what they’re doing and stare up at him from the floor. He tries to wave at them, but it’s a lot to manage. The books are slippery, and fall from his arms onto the Berber carpeting.

  “Hello Herman,” Dr. Monica says, and disappears around the corner to her office.

  The security guard gathers the books, approaches Mrs. Himmel’s desk, and dumps everything over it. He sighs like a deflating balloon. “Elise forgot her schoolbooks again,” he says.

  This, I am amazed to learn, is her husband.

  Mrs. Himmel reaches into her mini-fridge, pops a can of Coke, and hands it to him. “I’m busy,” she says. “You’ll have to take them yourself.”

  Herman grabs the soda and drinks it. He belches, softly, licking the sugar from his wet lips. “What do you want me to do? Be late again? If I’m late for work again, they could let me go. They could let me go just like that.” He snaps his fingers, but the sound is soft. Ineffective. Like he’s trying to snap éclairs.

  “Fine,” Mrs. Himmel says. “I do everything anyway.”

  “Fine,” says Herman. But he doesn’t leave. He points to the greasy bag. “By the way, that’s your lunch. You left it this morning.”

  Mrs. Himmel picks it up, lightly. “What is it?” she sniffs.

  “Cheeseburgers.”

  “Again?”

  Adrian approaches the reception desk and picks up her clipboard. She sees the fat man sloped to one side. “Hi Herman,” she says, but she does not make eye contact.

  Herman shifts his belt and clears his throat. “Why, hello Adrian,” he says. He speaks to her with exaggerated politeness, as though good manners could somehow diminish his corpulence.

  But Adrian is not impressed. She doesn’t say anything else. She studies her clipboard, then walks into the center of the Waiting Area. The mothers all look up from their magazines.

  “Mary Ellen,” she announces.

  One of the Sick or Diseased children stirs. She has a sour face and ears that stick out a bit too far from her head. She’s wearing jeans with yellowed knees, sneakers tied with pink bows, and a pink halter top that says, in glittering rainbow letters, HOT FOR RECESS. The girl hears her name and runs behind a barrel of building logs. Her mother stands up and grabs her by the wrist. The girl instantly falls limp and heavy to the floor, rendering her body immobile.

  “It’s your turn, Mary Ellen,” her mother says, pulling her up.

  Mary Ellen reaches for one of the bulbous legs of the nearest chair, and misses it. She screams.

  Adrian points at me. “You’re up after this one,” she says, and whisks Mary Ellen down the hallway.

  I quickly look at Herman to see if he’s noticed me, but he’s still standing at the reception window.

  Mrs. Himmel glares at him. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing,” he says, but the baseball cap is pinching his head. He removes it, shovels the sweat from his forehead with one flat palm, and wipes it on the front of his shirt. It leaves a dying smear.

  “Bull,” says Mrs. Himmel. “What’s going on?”

  Herman shrugs. “There’s just some trouble at work is all,” he says.

  His wife tightens in her chair. “What kind of trouble?”

  “The numbers don’t match up again.”

  “So?”

  “So it’s one of my sections.”

  “But that’s not your fault,” she says. “Somebody probably counted wrong. That’s Inventory’s problem, not yours. You’re Security.”

  “That’s what I said,” he says. “I told them that. Besides, everyone knows that Inventory’s never exactly right. Everyone’s always saying that since the place is so big, it’s hard to keep track of what goes in and out.”

  Mrs. Himmel throws a finger at him like a dart. “Just see you don’t get fired again, Herman Himmel. Elise has a lot of modeling appointments lined up, and every week we have to get new clothes and new makeup. It’s extremely expensive. We can barely afford it on what you make now, and I’ve already taken on extra hours here,” she says. “I’m doing my part.”

  Herman’s face softens. He rolls each of his large lips around the other. “I know that,” he says. “I know you are, dear.”

  Mrs. Himmel visibly bristles at the term. “Just stay on top of it. Make sure that someone counted wrong. Go through the paperwork yourself if you have to.”

  “All right,” he says.

  Mrs. Himmel shakes her head and selects another piece of zucchini bread. Herman stares at the dessert with a long face. Intuitively, he slowly lifts a large paw over the counter, but he isn’t fast enough—Mrs. Himmel slaps it.

  “Herman!” she scolds. “Your diet!”

  The security guard stands up. His lips quiver. “I shouldn’t be the only one on a diet,” he mumbles, then he marches out the front door of the Waiting Area. Mrs. Himmel picks up her purse and removes a small vanity mirror with a tortoiseshell clasp. She stares at her reflection as though it has somehow deceived her.

  “Mr. Pfliegman,” Adrian announces. “You’re up. Let’s go.”

  I slide out of my chair.

  Adrian offers to take my coat. “Here,” she says. “Let me.”

  I wrap my arms firmly around my body. I shake my head no, but she just looks puzzled. “It’s really hot in here,” she says. “C’mon, let me just—”

  I try to protest, and hold on to the coat.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Mr. Pfliegman,” she says, and reaches around the back of my neck. She tries to yank it from my shoulders. “If you want to keep coming to see Dr. Monica, you have to hang up your coat like everyone else. You know that.”

  I grab on to the lapels and fiercely pull back, creating an unanticipated heavy movement from inside one of the pockets. In a panic, I try to hold on to it with an elbow, but it’s no use:

  A perfect, two-inch, dinner-sized sirloin, still wrapped in plastic, slides out from one of the pockets and falls expressionlessly to the floor. The label shines in the Waiting Area:

  BIG M

  I glance at Mrs. Himmel, but she’s got her face in the mirror, and Adrian has been fortunately diverted by one of the Sick or Diseased children dejectedly plucking a near-dead leaf off the ficus plant.

  “Leave the plant alone, Muriel!” she shouts.

  The meat is safely returned to its pocket.

  Adrian shuffles me down the hallway and opens the door to Dr. Monica’s office. She points to the closet. “You have to hang up your coat in here, Mr. Pfliegman,” she says. “Dr. Monica can’t examine you otherwise.”

  She watches, curious, as I go to the closet and remove my coat. She watches me pull out of the sleeves and hang it up. I close the closet door, plunk myself down on the examining table, and then I look at her, expectantly.

  Adrian stares at my sweatshirt. She’s had a tough day; first Mary Ellen, and now Dr. Monica has instructed her to take Mr. Pfliegman’s blood pressure. Taking my blood pressure means she must go near the greasy sweatshirt. Even worse, a fetid little forearm. She lightly touches the sweatshirt, and moves her hand to her nose. Her eyes water. She quickly spins around and goes over to the cabinet above the sink. She takes out a paper mask and wraps it around her face, then she pulls on two plastic gloves, like what she’s about to touch is toxic. She picks up the coil to the blood pressure unit. “I don’t know why I have to be the one to do this, anyway,” she says.

  Then Dr. Monica walks up behind her. “How’s everything going in here?” she says.

  Adrian wipes her eyes with one wrist. “I haven’t had a chance to take the blood pressure yet. The sweatshirt—” she says.

  Dr. Monica looks at her watch. “That’s ok
ay,” she says. “I’ll take care of it.”

  Adrian leans in and whispers into Dr. Monica’s ear, something so inaudible I can barely make it out:

  (He stinks.)

  Dr. Monica waves her off. “Finish up your paperwork, then go. You’ve done enough today.”

  The intern looks relieved. She snaps off the plastic gloves and mask and ducks out of the office before Dr. Monica can change her mind.

  Dr. Monica looks at me perched on her examining table. “Mr. Pfliegman,” she says. “I think it would be a good idea to use the examining gown today, all right?” She hands me the blue gown, folded in a tight clean square. “Put this on. I’ll be right back.”

  She leaves the room for a moment to give me time to change. When she returns, she’s carrying a pile of fresh towels and a can of Lysol. “No offense,” she says.

  None taken, I write.

  Dr. Monica wanders around the room, huffing Lysol into the air. She lingers at the coat closet, holding her finger on the nozzle, then without hesitation, without even any plastic gloves, my pediatrician walks back over to me, plunks down in the swivel chair, grabs my arm, and straps on the Velcro to the blood pressure apparatus. She smiles, pumping air into the strap, holding my scrawny arm until the strap tightens. Air hisses out. She watches the gauges, carefully, and then rips off the strap. “Terrific,” she says, and grins.

  I reach for my writing tablet.

  You’re in a good mood, I write.

  Dr. Monica laughs. “I guess I am,” she says.

  She brings out my folder and scribbles in it. She takes a minute and reads, allowing me to observe the delicate way she picks hair from her eyes and tucks it behind her ears. She sighs. She lifts one of her pudgy, flour-colored hands and rubs the back of her neck with it—

  St. Benevolus shivers, like a child in a church pew.

  “I’d like to start with a throat massage today,” she says. “Massaging the throat can help maximize the opportunity for speech. Watch me.”

  Dr. Monica moves her hands along the rigid run of her trachea.

  “Hold your throat with both hands,” she says. “Like you’re holding a drinking glass,” she says. “Practice moving it up and down. Then I want you to try and make a sound. Not just any sound, you’re going to make the sound Ooo. Are you ready?”

  My hands are at my throat. I nod.

  “Ooo,” she says. “Now you.”

  I hold my throat and open my mouth, but nothing happens. I reach down to the bottom of my gut and grasp for the sound, but it’s like trying to find the lightswitch in a big dark room.

  “Ooo,” she says. “Do you understand? Ooo.”

  I understand that I want her to stop speaking and take off her white coat and peel off her flesh-colored slacks. I want her to sit next to me on the child-sized examining table and uncross her legs and blow on my eyes. But she just keeps Oooing.

  “Ahhh,” I say, dryly.

  Dr. Monica smiles and marks the folder. “A good start,” she says. “Now, let’s do an S.R.E. This is a Sensory Response Examination.”

  What’s that? I write.

  “All of our bodies are like two halves sewn together at the middle. I’m going to touch both sides at once, and you need to let me know if anything feels imbalanced on either side, all right?”

  I nod. Dr. Monica gets up and begins moving efficiently around the examining table, placing her hands on parallel parts of my body.

  “Does this feel the same?” she asks, swiping two fingers down my neck. Behind the ears, over the eyes. “Does this feel the same? Does this? Does this?” She’s making sure the symmetry is working properly, that my body is not entering into a civil war; that one side is not acting more aggressively that the other side.

  She swipes her fingers twice lightly against my ankles, as sharp as little rocks. “That’s good,” she says. “I think you’re recovering well, Mr. Pfliegman. You’re off all of those horrible meds, you’re drinking enough water, your vitals are improving, and you’re not coughing as much.” She taps me on the knee with a finger. “You should be happy. You’re looking good.”

  Looking good? I want to say. I’m barely human. I’m a hairy little Hungarian pulp. An incongruous mass of skin and blood and hair. I am a sorry gathering of organs. That is all.

  Dr. Monica keeps smiling at me, but then her eye catches something, and she starts blinking very quickly. “What the,” she says, and swivels the chair close to me.

  I look down. A piece of skin has lifted away from my elbow and is calmly peeling down one side of my forearm. It’s not like the usual flaky business; this peel is long and white. It looks like a grocery list. She turns my arm left and right.

  “That’s odd,” she says. “Have you been spending a lot of time in the sun or something?” she asks.

  It’s a stupid question. She doesn’t wait for a stupid answer. Instead, she wheels over to the counter and fusses with some gauze pads and tweezers and bottles of ointment. She produces a small bucket underneath a sink. The lid says HUMAN WASTE. Dr. Monica places a blue cloth on a tray that is also on wheels, and then sets up a small buffet of treatments. She picks up the tweezers. “Open your mouth if this hurts, and I’ll stop,” she says. “Okay?”

  I nod.

  Dr. Monica pinches the top of the skin with the tweezers and begins slowly peeling, glancing up at my mouth the whole time for movement. Which is fine. It doesn’t hurt. When she’s finished, her eyebrows raise as she holds it up and examines it. She deposits it into the bucket. The lid closes all on its own.

  “So what’s this all about?” she says.

  I don’t know.

  She studies my face.

  I honestly don’t.

  “Tell me,” she says. “When was the last time you had a bath?”

  A few days ago?

  “A few days, huh,” says Dr. Monica. She clearly does not believe me. “Look, I don’t mean to sound harsh, but this is serious, Mr. Pfliegman. You could have some kind of rash or skin disorder. This could be some kind of advanced eczema, pityriasis rosea. It could be a serious fungal or bacterial infection, and I have to say I find it difficult to believe that you’ve taken a bath or a shower in the last few days. You need to be honest with me if you expect me to be able to help you. I can’t help you unless I know your health history, what your genetics are. Your parents. I need to know—”

  I am being honest, I write.

  Dr. Monica inspects the raw pink patch on my arm and then points to my thigh. She moves a piece of my gown, and her face softens. “Oh Mr. Pfliegman, look,” she says. “Here’s another one.”

  She picks up the tweezers and starts pulling off another long white strand, but this time the tweezers get too close, tugging the raw skin. I jerk my leg to one side.

  “Does that hurt?” she asks.

  I nod.

  She puts down the tweezers and goes over to the sink. She runs a sponge under warm water, then slowly prods my skin with it. She moves with care and focus. She uses these sweet little stabbing motions as she cleans both places, then applies Bacitracin. “I’m going to prescribe you an antibiotic,” she says. “In the meantime, is there any change in your regular routine that you can tell me about? Your eating habits?”

  I shake my head.

  “What are you eating these days?”

  I point across the room, to my clothes. She walks over and picks up the trousers. She reaches into the pocket.

  A dozen yellow Evermore wrappers scatter to the floor.

  “Is this all you’ve been eating?”

  I nod, and then my head goes swimmy. My limbs feel heavy, like I’ve been consciously holding them in their sockets all day. I slump back against the examining table. I lean on one elbow, and the air that travels in and out of my body suddenly sounds deep. Hollow. My lungs try to open their valves, but the valves are paralyzed. Everything goes purple—

  “Mr. Pfliegman,” says Dr. Monica. “Are you all right?”

  I grab the edge of th
e examining table and try to bring the air in, gulping like a dying fish. The potato-shaped lumps on my head begin throbbing. It feels like they’re growing—

  “Water!” she shouts. “Get some water!”

  I leap off the examining table and make for the sink, but the swivel chair is in the way. My toes crunch into the wood. I grab the tower of paper cups and send them spilling all over the counter, then reach for the faucet but my hand slips off the handle—my head hits the edge of the counter and I slide to the floor and begin shaking.

  “Rovar!” cries Dr. Monica. She rushes out of the room.

  Lying here, shuddering on the floor of a pediatrician’s office, staring up at the ceiling, a rivulet of spit rolling over my beard, I think about certain dark moments when I consider ending the entire Pfliegman line sooner rather than later. Rather than hanging out in a broken bus for the next four or five dozen years, coughing one’s guts out, waiting like an injured bird to sputter the final sputter, gasp the last gasp, and in one shallow, anticlimactic breath, die off, why not just take care of the whole thing right now? But there is one thing that I have in the world that keeps me from carrying it out. It’s not the meat bus. It’s not Mrs. Kipner or Marjorie, and it’s not even Dr. Monica—

  It’s Isaac Asimov.

  In The Collapsing Universe, the last book on my bookshelf, Asimov writes: “It is the gravitation force, and only the gravitational force, that holds the universe together and dictates the motion of all its bodies. All the other forces are localized. Only the gravitational force, by far the weakest force of all, guides the destinies of the universe.”

  One morning, as I was sitting in my lawnchair outside the bus, the book fell out of the sky and landed squarely on the grass in front of me, inches from my feet. Startled, I leapt from my chair, but the meat customer in front of me did not jump or flinch. She picked up the book and read the cover. She looked at me and said, “God knows you done something terrible.”

  XV

  NOVEMBER 22

  When Dr. Monica returned to the office yesterday, she brought Adrian and Mrs. Himmel. Mrs. Himmel was holding an oxygen tank. The women all peered down at me. Dr. Monica had never witnessed a seizure before—I can’t imagine that that sort of thing happens very often at her office. I can’t imagine too many of the Sick or Diseased children turn purple and knock over furniture and spill themselves all over her nice clean floor.