All Gone (15 page)

They sit me up in a chair. No bed today. “Thank you very much,” I say. “You look very nice,” the nurse says. “Thank you very much again and you do too.” “You've never seen me in my best clothes,” she says, “but maybe one day.” “Oh yeah,” I say, “maybe one day you and me we'll go dancing at a doctors' convention, okay?” “Okay,” she says. She combs my hair. “You got the part wrong I'm afraid.” “Sorry,” she says and she combs the part on the other side. I'm not supposed to do any of these things by myself just yet. Eating, yes, and answering the phone, but the doctors say nothing else and I'll agree with that. Today it's just cosmetic. I might just look good and as if I did everything myself, but inside I'm still not so hot. She even combs down my mustache. My professional mustache I grew to look older because in those days nobody wanted to go to young doctors, and which fifty years I've never shaved off once. She holds up the mirror to me and says “Nice.” I look. I look okay. Like somebody my age who's been in a hospital for two weeks after a fairly serious heart attack, but okay. “Thank you,” I say. “Have a nice day,” she says, “and if you need anything, just ring.” “Thank you very much. You've been very competent and kind.” She leaves. I wait.

No one comes. Hours pass. The lady with my lunch and who later takes the tray away, but nobody else. I had to get a private room? They made me get one. “Dad,” Alba said, “between you and your medical insurance you can well afford it, and you deserve the best.” But I like the idea of talking to other patients and listening to their visitors' conversations and jokes. Laughing and people with feet walking around. People with behinds sitting up and down. “Oh, they'll just bother you,” Alba said, “asking you a lot of free doctor and health questions till you never get any rest,” even though I wouldn't mind and with all the doctors coming in to see their patients, it would in fact help me to keep in touch. Finally: “It doesn't look right,” Alba said, “a doctor should have his own room.” But she has too big a mouth. Ordering me. Ordering her mother, who's staying with her till I get out of here and isn't well herself. First Merry got a stroke and when I'm taking care of her at home a year after she comes out of the hospital, I get one too. But hers was much worse and left one side of her partially paralyzed and her mind a little slow and forgetful when it was always so quick and retentive before, so she'll never recover as much as I hope to. And my sister, though with all her illnesses, she has a good excuse. And my longtime patients, though most of them have no cars and live too far away. And of course my son. What's he doing that's so important where he can't visit me today and for the last week or at least call to explain why? But don't get so excited. The doctors here won't even let me read my medical journals for fear I'll get too excited reading them. And there's still plenty of time for visitors to come. Just sit here and sit tight. That same nurse from before stops in the corridor and says “How's it going, doctor?”

“Fine, thank you. I'm feeling just fine.”

“Good.”

An hour later my phone rings.

“Dad,” Alba says, “we won't be able to come see you today. I'm sorry.”

“That's too bad. Anything wrong?”

“We were all set to leave with Mom when our neighbor gave Louis four of the best Garden seats for the Harlem Globetrotters game. We didn't want to go, but the boys put up such a holler that we had to give in.”

“If you'll be in New York, why don't you drop your mother off here and go to your game and later come back across the bridge again to pick her up?”

“It'd be too much for everyone. All that traveling and traffic on Sunday and bridges four times, and the boys would be exhausted.”

“Then leave Louis and the boys at the Garden and you drive here with your mother and later pick them up.”

“But I've never seen the Globetrotters. For thirty years I've wanted to see them do their antics and tricky things with the ball and all and I know this will be my only chance.”

“Actually, I don't know why I'm making a fuss. I've already told all of you that if you have better things to do, do them instead of coming here. Though I did want to see your mother.”

“I know. And both Mom and Louis and I want to see you. We'll come another day. Next weekend. But next weekend you'll be leaving there. So we'll see you when we pick you up and drive you and Mom home.”

“Good enough. Let me speak to her please.”

“I don't think she's in the best of moods to talk to you right now. That's another reason we didn't want to bring her in. She seems very depressed. I don't know what from. We've given her everything here, treated her royally. Maybe it's not seeing you. Or the boys could be making too much noise, but she'll be fine soon. We're having a friend stay with her while we're in the city. Which is also why we can't get to the hospital. Our friend can only stay so long.”

“I understand. But there's nothing wrong or changed with your mother's physical health, is there?”

“No no, I'm not holding anything back. She's the same, don't worry—just depressed. You know how she sometimes gets. I just don't want her to upset you, that's why I don't want to put her on.”

“Just let her say hello.”

“No, Dad, really. She might cry or break down.”

“Okay. Give her my love.”

“He gives you his love, Mom.”

“Give him my love back,” I hear Merry say.

“She says to give you her—”

“I heard, Alba. Thanks.”

“Then all right. We'll see you next week. Though I'll call lots before then and Mom will speak to you and maybe the boys. And you're feeling much better?”

“Now that I'm out of intensive care, much.”

“Great. Bye, Dad.”

Maybe my son will come. But he really is a busy man. I shouldn't be unfair and forget that. Much busier than I ever was and with a lot more pressures. He's a doctor too. He's been phoning in every day on my case my doctor here says, and the doctor says Rom really knows his stuff. When I get discharged Rom's going to make me close my office. Only open three half-days as it is, but he's probably right. I'll just go to the hospital twice a week as I've been doing and continue my medical work there. Seeing how the people are in the geriatric wards. Taking their pulse. Mostly cheering them up and telling them they're going to live long lives. All that new research and drugs and equipment is just too much for me to learn about now. Rom is a specialist though. Much different than me in every way. High liver. Three wives and working on a fourth. Kids from each one also, though we only see the two from the first. Money he makes tons of, but he needs it with his court settlements and office and apartment and vacations and homes here and there and cars and now a boat. He complains about me. His actual words are that I've money up my ass and I'll die with it stuck up there while he never will. He should know better. About my money and that I don't like to curse or hear the words. I have a little money put away for Merry and me and that's all. Just enough in case I'm forced to retire not only from the office but the little I make at the hospital too. In the beginning it was mostly chickens and things and a few dollars I took in. Meat, cheeses, fight passes and cases of beer. But I don't operate. I don't live big. I'm a general man. I examine people, fix little things and try to prevent worse things from happening, make out prescriptions or recommend my patients to higher men. Our big luxury was the car for my house calls and hospital work and a week's vacation in a small Connecticut beach resort twice a year. We lived sort of frugally and always will. What does he mean money up my ass? Lost a little in stocks. Sending him through schools and helping him start his practice took a big bite. And Alba all the way with her degrees and paying off her first husband and every summer her children's summer camps. So I don't have a lot. Some doctors don't. Rom says I lie to him on that. I tell him I'm not. He laughs, says “Listen, I understand. No doctors likes to say how much he's really worth. Somebody wanting a tax informer's cut might get wind of it and then you've lost most of what you've stored up.” But he does well. Good for him. And also does teaching work. And maybe he'll come. Or his first ex-wife. Or his oldest child who's now old enough. Or my sister. Or my sisters-in-law and their husbands. Or my brother in New Mexico who hasn't called or sent a card. Or someone. An ex-receptionist of mine or patient I haven't seen in years. Who knows? Word gets around.

“Nurse,” I say. It's night. I must have dozed off. My dinner tray is on the table next to my bed. They must have thought I wanted to sleep. “Nurse,” I say when she passes my door again.

“Yes?”

“Could you undress me and give me my bedpan and then get me into bed?”

“Certainly, Doctor. Have a nice Sunday?”

“To be honest, I was a little disappointed.”

“What happened? Nobody come and visit you?”

“No, my family's all right. Just little things. But I'll be okay. Thank you very much.”

 

There were two heads. I don't know. Let me repeat. There were these two heads. I mean two heads. I don't know. I know I don't like going into it, two heads, just two heads, like that, in the grass, in the park. The grass of the park. The small park called Four Corners Park in the center of the city. A poor section of the city where I live, and a park where I always pass on my way to work every clement workday. A small square park about four blocks square. Square park, in the grass, grass almost over the heads of these heads, over their hair. I saw them. There we are. Saw their hair. Hair of these heads, just two heads, nothing else, maybe necks. I didn't see those. But no shoulders. Though there could have been. I didn't stay around to look. But I don't think anything but heads.

This woman comes in. She says “Two heads.” I say “What?” “Two heads,” she says. I say “What do you mean two heads?” “Two heads,” she says. “I'm saying two heads what?” “Just two heads.” “Just two heads,” I say, “right.” “That's right,” she says, “two heads.” “I know: two heads,” I say. “No you don't know,” she says. “More than two heads?” “No, more than two heads.” “Excuse me, but what else: two necks?” “No,” she says. “You saying no meaning no there aren't or weren't more than two heads?” “No,” she says, “just two heads.” “That's what I said I said,” I say. “Two heads: right?” “Right,” she says. “No two bodies or two necks on the heads, right?” “Right,” she says. “Right,” I say. “Right,” she says. “Where?” I say.

Coburn told us to check it out. We drove over to the address. Not really an address. One of the four corners of Four Corners Park. We looked. Found nothing. No two heads or one head or body or even a pinky finger of a body was there. Well, maybe there was a finger there. We didn't comb the place out. We looked, that's all. But nothing, at least not in the part of the park the lady told the station they'd be. So we called in. “Coburn,” Coburn said. “Coburn, Pretty Boy Josephus here. That Four Corners spot was Sixth and Bridge, check?” “I knew it was another wild goose chase,” Coburn said. “Think she could mean someplace else?” I said. “Like where?” “Like another park?” “Let me ask.” “She still there?” “You hold on,” he said. He came back. “She said definitely Four Corners Park as there can't be another park she can walk to on her way to work on clear days, but possibly another corner of it. She says she was that scared when she saw them and so isn't so sure now.” “Maybe you ought to send her out here,” I said. “You holding where you are?” “We think we'll try Sixth and River as long as we did Bridge.” “I'll send her first thing,” he said. “Her coming was of course what we should have done right off, you know.” “You telling me my job, Smarty-brains?” “Just thinking out loud,” I said, “thinking out loud.”

I like vegetables that grow in the park. I don't want to make a big deal of it, but wild fruits and vegetables that grow wild by themselves and don't need any help from anyone like ourselves. More than dandelions, wild onions, tubular things—whatever they're called. I'm not an expert. Just knew a woman once who during our long walks during the war a long time ago showed me these things and said what a waste. So every day now, more than not having anything to do, I go out finding these things, even in winter if there's a touch of spring. To all the nearby parks and sometimes by thumb or bus to the faraway ones or greenbelt around the city if I want to store up. And I'm in this one, in the park I most go to as it's the one closest to home, collecting in my little shopping bag what the park's got to give for nothing and nobody still yet seems to want. Actually an average-sized shopping bag, not one as small for new shoes in a shoe box the shoe stores seem to give or one of the giant bags the department stores use, when two police cars pull up on the park's pedestrian paths on both sides of me at the same time. I put up my hands and drop my shopping bag or to be more exact drop the bag first and put up my hands when all four cops jump out of their cars with their guns undrawn and no sight of a billy seen and I say “I didn't do anything wrong. Just looking for free produce,” I say. “What grows wild and free in the grass and falls without my shakes from the trees. That's what I like. Mints, ginkgo drupes, all kinds of herbs and chicory roots to mash up and mix in with my regular coffee grounds to cut down the costs, as I'm poor, so it helps, economically for me, nutritionally, even cathartically too.” Jawing on like that. Anything for an excuse. “I'm old. As you can see: in not very hot health.” As I don't want to rot in the clink. For along with the woman they're with they're eying me as if still seriously considering arresting me for stealing what's city-owned and all, which I'd well understand for them. That's their job. I mean I could see where they might have a right to pull me in as there are all sorts of ordinances for everything, I suppose, so I'd think surely one for uprooting city property in a public park even if to most people they're just weeds. But one of them says “Put your hands down, get your bag and beat it.” So I go.