The Convalescent Page 19

  I look up at Dr. Monica, startled. She’s never used “we” before. I stare at the dry sponge, nervously.

  “Okay, let’s see what’s going on here,” she says, and begins wiping.

  As soon as she touches me, globs of lotion and skin begin to slide off my arms, my shoulders. Dr. Monica tries scooping it up with the sponge, but there’s so much of it. She throws the sponge in the sink and scoots the HUMAN WASTE bucket to the examining table with her feet. She flicks the wet pieces from her hands into the bucket, but misses— They splatter to the floor. “Oh my God,” she says, and quickly cups her hands around my chest as she tries to catch another jellied peel. It gets all over her gloves, her arms. The astonishing dress. She darts around the examining table and somehow maneuvers a wide, gelatinous piece off my back. She carries it slowly, like a ticking bomb, to the bucket— It collapses apart in her hands. Dr. Monica looks at my skin, pink and shining, and wipes her eyes with her wrists. “That’s it,” she gasps. “I think that’s it. It’s over,” but then she remembers my face.

  Trembling, she lifts a finger and touches my beard.

  In one piece, it slips from my chin and falls onto my lap, quivering like a hirsute jellyfish.

  As usual, Dr. Monica is entirely correct. I am not being completely forthcoming with her. But how could I possibly? How could I explain to her that the reason for my illnesses both is and is not biological? That my body is chained to a legacy of a thousand other crippled bodies that lived and died over the last millennium? That perhaps the Pfliegmans, the foul, ineffective few, were not as ineffective as we had always thought? After all, wasn’t it for the protection of us—the weakest among them—that the Hungarians fled the wrath of the Pechenegs? Weren’t we, therefore, the ones who drove them into the Carpathian Basin in the first place? Weren’t the Pfliegmans, in that sense, actually necessary for their success? Isn’t it for the protection of the weakest members of our race that all good change happens in the world? Isn’t it true that if we do not care for the least among us—no matter how filthy or backward or solipsistic—we will become a race of monsters? What some historians and other official-sounding officials try to call “progress,” all the while asking themselves whether history should be written this way or that, we Pfliegmans have never asked, knowing full well, deep within our rotted cores, the sacrifice that we must make for the survival of the greater good. “Throughout nature,” Darwin writes, “one species incessantly takes advantage of, and profits by, the structures of others”—

  “We have to get you to a hospital,” Dr. Monica says. “I’m going to call the hospital.”

  No hospitals, I write.

  “Why?” she asks.

  You’re my doctor.

  “But I’m just a pediatrician, Mr. Pfliegman. I know colds and flu and ADD—I’m not a dermatologist.”

  But it has to be you, I write.

  Dr. Monica wipes her eyes again and looks at me. “Why me? You aren’t even honest with me, Mr. Pfliegman.”

  What do you mean?

  “Your parents?” she says. “Your health records?”

  I don’t answer.

  Dr. Monica looks up and down at the hairless little Creature occupying her examining table. Her face softens. “Okay, then, but you’ll have to wait. I have to get this all cleaned up and see a few other people.” She goes to the cabinets and removes several square boxes of gauze and unfurls the bandages. “You’ll need to cover up first,” she says, and starts wrapping the bandages around my body. She winds them around my neck, my shoulders. My chest and back.

  As she’s working, I notice my folder lying open by the sink, and lean forward to read it:

  “Pseudomaniacal tendencies,” it says. “Invents various illnesses for personal attention.” And at the very bottom, printed out in painstakingly deliberate letters: “PHYSICALLY, THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH HIM.”

  Dr. Monica finishes quickly, snapping her scissors and applying thumb-sized pieces of medical tape. “How does that feel?” she asks. “Is it too tight?”

  I don’t answer.

  She tidies up my face in silence, snipping underneath my nose, my eyeglasses, barely leaving room to see or breathe.

  XXVI

  THE INVISIBLE MAN

  “Look at him, Adrian,” laughs Mrs. Himmel. “He looks like the Invisible Man!” She has to hold her sides. Apparently to keep from rolling off her office chair. “The Invisible Midget,” she howls.

  Adrian covers her mouth with both hands. Her eyes water.

  It’s brutally hot in the Waiting Area. The Sick or Diseased children are sluggish, lying flat on their backs all over the room. They seem to be barely breathing, barely feeling well enough to do anything at all. They look drugged. When they see me enter, their eyes widen at the bandages, but that’s all they can muster. The BANG THE DRUM! boy looks at me and slides off his chair.

  “What happened to you?” he asks.

  I saved a child from a burning building.

  “You did not,” he says. “You were in the back the whole time.”

  Spiders, I write. They were living in my beard. Pesky.

  “No,” he says, and laughs.

  All of my skin fell off, I write.

  The BANG THE DRUM! boy shouts across the Waiting Area to his mother: “All of his skin fell off!”

  At this, the children perk up. They give another curious glimpse at my wrapped face, my eyeglasses hovering over the wrapping, and then lie back down again. The BANG THE DRUM! boy spies my writing tablet, and remembers the cowboy picture.

  “Draw me a soldier,” he says.

  I pick up my pen and draw him a picture of a soldier with tall boots, a feathered hat. A military sash.

  “That’s just a man,” he says. “Give him a gun.”

  I give the soldier a large, handsome rifle.

  The boy touches the page with light fingers. “It’s good,” he says. “But now give him some bullet wounds.”

  I start attacking the soldier. The bullet wounds look more like the soldier’s wearing polka dots, but the boy gets excited. “Get him!” he cries. With tiny circles, we shoot the hell out of that soldier. We shoot until there isn’t any space left and the soldier is completely blacked out. The boy looks at me and grins. He sways in front of me, as though to imaginary music. “I’m going to have a baby sister,” he says.

  Really? I write.

  “It’s very good for Mother.”

  Why is that?

  He looks at me like I’m an idiot. “Because that baby will be healthy, of course,” he says, and runs back to his mother. She puts the magazine down on the side table and draws him in, holding his face with both hands.

  “This is a Human Kiss,” she says, and pecks him on the mouth. Then she rubs her nose against his nose. “This is an Eskimo Kiss,” she says. “And this is a Butterfly Kiss.” She places her face right next to his face. She flutters her eyelashes. He giggles warmly.

  “Oliver?” says Adrian.

  The BANG THE DRUM! boy and his mother stand up and follow her out of the Waiting Area. On his way out, he waves to a friend lying flat on the carpet. “Bye Brian,” he says, but Brian doesn’t wave back. He’s too hot. He’s wearing corduroy pants and a long-sleeve shirt, and his hair is sticking wet to his forehead. He looks like a washed-up starfish. He watches Oliver leave, then rolls up from the floor and stands in front of his mother. “I’m hot,” he whines.

  “Go get yourself a drink,” she says.

  He darts over to the water fountain and slurps the water. He plays with the knob for second, then returns to his mother. “It didn’t work,” he says. “I’m still too hot.”

  She ignores him.

  Brian draws in a deep breath and holds it until his face goes purple. Then he bursts, spitting into her face.

  “Please don’t do that, dear,” she says.

  The boy starts whacking his mother on the knees with little fists. “I want to play the drums,” he says.

  His mother turns a p
age of her magazine. “Mm-hmm.”

  He stares at her, furious that he received no reaction, and then begins stomping around the room, naming all of the musical instruments he wants to play. “I want to play the guitar!” he says. “I want to play the trumpet and the clarinet and the saxophone! I want to play the trombone!”

  Wearily, she tells him to shush.

  Suddenly a girl sitting across the room, perhaps motivated by the boldness of the boy, climbs up onto her chair, grabs one of Mrs. Himmel’s unframed barnyard paintings off the wall, and bonks her own mother on the head with it. “Bonk!” she shrieks, and flies off her chair to bonk some other people. The mother, clearly Bad, does nothing. In fact, she looks relieved the girl’s attention is elsewhere for a while. The girl bonks three other kids lying flat on their backs. The heat has them beat. Listless, they let her bonk them.

  One of the mothers finally stands up. “Excuse me, Mrs. Himmel,” she says. “Would you mind turning the heat down just a smidge? It’s awfully warm in here.”

  Mrs. Himmel nods. “Of course,” she says, and waddles over to the thermostat. Behind her desk, the sugar packets from the shelf beckon. The itch on my back digs in sharp, and underneath all these bandages my skin feels raw. Suffocated. Sweat slides down the center of my back aggravating the itch. I reach around to try and scratch it, and Mrs. Himmel catches me fidgeting. She smiles a little at my discomfort, and then, consciously or not, cranks it up a notch. Another cloud of heat puffs out of the radiators. The Sick or Diseased Children moan and roll onto their sides.

  I unwrap three Evermores and close my eyes, and start chewing ferociously. When I open them, the little bonking girl is standing right in front of me.

  “Why are you wearing that coat?” she says. “Aren’t you hot?”

  “Cynthia,” her mother says, and gives her a scolding look.

  But Cynthia is unfazed. She remains standing in front of me, clutching her painting. She wants to bonk me with it. “What’s that picture?” she asks.

  I show her the picture of the soldier.

  “That’s stupid,” she says. “Draw me something, now.”

  I draw her a quick picture.

  “What is it?”

  It’s a trombone.

  “That’s a penis,” says the girl.

  Her mother looks up. All the mothers look up. They lower their women’s magazines and sit up in their chairs. They are transformed from Good Mothers and Bad Mothers into a pack of Mother Bears. Claws extended, nostrils flared. The girl hesitates for a moment, holding the picture of an idyllic farmhouse above my head.

  “Cynthia, no!” cries her mother.

  Cynthia bonks me. “Bonk!” she says.

  In one spontaneous, exaggerated movement, her mother drops the magazine, darts from her chair, and grabs her child. They back away slowly.

  Confused, Cynthia bursts into tears.

  Mrs. Himmel rises from behind her desk like the sun over a battlefield. She hurries over to me, her eyes shiny as bullets. She grabs a corner of my writing tablet. “Give it to me, you little creep,” she seethes.

  The mothers stand grouped behind her. I surprise myself and growl a little—Mrs. Himmel steps back, but does not let go of the tablet.

  “It’s a penis,” says Cynthia, sobbing.

  Mrs. Himmel finally yanks it from me and looks at the picture. “Lord in Heaven,” she says, and runs into the back room to show Adrian.

  A moment later, Adrian appears, filling the doorjamb. She pushes her sleeves to her elbows. I’ve never seen her look at me this way before; her eyes have shrunk into half-moons. Her back seems to arch up all on its own. “Mr. Pfliegman,” she says.

  The Sick or Diseased children all sit up and look at me with excited faces. I’m a scoundrel, and I’ve been discovered. “Fleeg-man,” they say. They whisper it like it’s a swear word. Fleeg-man.

  “Get out!” yells Mrs. Himmel. “Now!”

  I want to leave—I know that I should leave—but I can’t; I need my writing tablet. I gesture for it, waving my bandages as if to say, “Please, just give it to me. If I get the tablet then I’ll leave.”

  But Mrs. Himmel holds it tight. “You’re not getting this back, Mister,” she says, and steps behind Adrian. “This is evidence!”

  Helpless, I look around for a pen and paper, but there’s nothing. Children’s building logs. The withering ficus plant. Highlights. I try to show them what I drew—it’s not a penis, see, it’s a trombone—I hold my hands to my throat and rub quickly—I try to get the words out but they just won’t go. I look frantically for Oliver, he might come to my defense, but he’s still in the back, so I stand up and pretend to play the trombone to show them what I mean. I stand up and start moving my hands and blowing.

  “Good God,” Cynthia’s mother says.

  “That’s enough of that,” says Adrian, and she moves in a big red flash. She pins me to the floor of the Waiting Area and twists my body beneath her weight. “I don’t care if you’re sick or wrapped in bandages or not, Mr. Pfliegman. I don’t know or care what you are.” She puts one foot on my spine and then lifts me up. “Out you go,” she says.

  Mrs. Himmel holds the door open. I’m deposited, coat and all, out on the lawn. Rain hits at once. Cars driving in and out of the Big M parking lot slow down to watch as from the dripping grass, the Invisible Man reaches one arm toward the picnic table.

  Adrian slams the door and locks it. Mrs. Himmel watches from a window. “Get away from that picnic table!” she shouts. “This time you’re not coming back!” She folds her arms. I stare up at her with pleading eyes, but she’s not buying it. “You’re-not-coming-back,” she mouths, and casts a look upon her face that only belongs to a person who has satisfied a prejudice.

  The Sick or Diseased children all run to the window and start shouting. Oliver has returned from Dr. Monica’s office and presses his palms against the glass. I look at him, and he looks back at me. He blinks. His mother rushes up and tries to pull him away from the window. He cries out in protest.

  “The police!” shouts Mrs. Himmel. She stabs her thumb and pinky finger at me. “We’ve called the police!”

  I look over at the supermarket in the rain. The enormous M glows red over the wet parking lot. No Security Guards are guarding the entrance, so I jump up and sprint across the street, the tails of the Kabát Tolvajok dragging behind me. I skirt around puddles, all the way up to the front entrance of the supermarket where the wide glass doors swing open.

  I duck behind a chubby Virginian in a tracksuit, and follow him past the rows of vegetables, through condiments, and abandon him at the frozen dinner entrees. There is a back entrance to the Big M behind the bakery, where the bakers unload their trucks at night, and right next to the meat section. I make a run for it, but a familiar figure is in the way, blocking the exit. It’s Daughter Elise. She’s leaning over the bakery counter, piling powdered jelly doughnuts into a waxy white bag. She looks over her shoulder, then shoves one of the doughnuts in her mouth.

  I glance back to the wide glass doors, but the Security Guards are now gathered there, circling—

  “What are you doing?”

  Herman Himmel comes up right behind me. Underneath the high ceiling of the supermarket, the bright, fluorescent bulbs, he looks even bigger. He bends forward like a curious bear. “What’s with the bandages?” he asks, and adjusts his baseball cap.

  I lightly touch the bandages, but avoid eye contact. Instead I look over at the refrigerated display units, at the long pink rows. A football field of meat.

  “Buddy,” he says. “Why aren’t you at the bus?”

  But just as he asks it, Herman realizes it is a question he already knows the answer to. “Buddy,” he says again. “I can’t save you.” Slowly, he points a finger towards the ceiling. Three cameras, each with one red eye, are all pointed right at me. Herman gives me a sad, defeated look and grips the sleeve of my coat. He picks up his walkie-talkie. “I’ve got him,” he says.

  Th
e other Security Guards throw their walkie-talkies into their holsters and dart from the glass doors. Their billy clubs swing in unison.

  “You got him!” they shout.

  “The man in the coat!

  “Take him to Management!”

  Herman holds up a large flat palm. “Wait,” he says. “Just wait.” He looks at his clipboard, and gestures to the other men, who then also look at their clipboards. “Stay right here,” he says to me, and moves the Security Guards a few paces away. They talk with each other, glancing occasionally at me. It’s possible to dart around them; we’re close to the sliding glass doors, and through them is the ENTER EXIT sign, the cars that fill the parking lot. But then I see the Indian running underneath the sign. He’s tearing across the parking lot in the heavy rain, waving his arms. His hair is plastered to his head, but he doesn’t wipe it away. He looks frightened. Behind him, a black sport utility vehicle rolls beneath the sign and into the red glow of the parking lot, wipers thrashing across the windshield. It finds an empty space and parks. Three men in black suits step out. They slam the doors and, protecting themselves with manila folders above their heads, walk quickly toward the entrance of the supermarket. The Indian darts around the men as they approach the glass doors, he tries to punch them—it’s no use. Herman picks up his walkie-talkie from his holster and barks, “We’ve got Disneyland, repeat, we’ve got Disneyland,” but I keep my eyes on the doors. The Indian swings and swings, but keeps missing them. One of the Subdivisionists is holding something familiar in his hand, something square and white which they stole from my bus when they went there today, after leaving Mister Bis’s, after they kicked in the door of the bus. It’s a business card. They found it perched on the windowsill next to an abandoned tin can smelling faintly of tomatoes. The card says DR. MONICA BOTTOM, PEDIATRICIAN, and there’s a picture of a blue butterfly above the name. Below the name is her street address and telephone number.

  Mrs. Himmel was only too glad to tell them where I’d gone.