City of Truth (11 page)

"'Zap 'em, Mr. Medicine. Zap 'em dead!' Right, Toby?"

"Right."

For over a week, Toby's remained appropriately chipper, but then a strange Veritasian skepticism crept over him, darkening his spirits as relentlessly as the
Pneumocystis carnii
were darkening his lungs. "I feel sick," he told Dr. Krakower one afternoon as she prepared to puncture him with a second IV needle, in the right arm this time. "I don't think that medicine's any good. I'm cold."

"Well, Rainbow Boy," she said, "Xavier's Plague isn't any fun — I'll be the first to admit that — but you'll be up and running before you know it."

"My head still hurts, and my—"

"When one medicine doesn't work," I hastily inserted, "there's always another we can try — right, Dr. Krakower?"

"Oh, yes."

Martina took Toby's hand, giving it a hard squeeze as Krakower slid the needle into his vein.

Toby winced and said, "Do children ever die?"

"That's a strange question, Rainbow Boy," said Dr. Krakower.

"Do they?"

"It's very, very rare." The doctor opened the stopcock on Toby's meperidine drip.

"She means never," I explained. "Don't even think about it, Toby. It's bad for your immune system."

"He's really cold," said Martina, her hand still clasped in Toby's. "Can we turn up the heat?"

"It's up all the way," said Dr. Krakower. "His electric blanket's on full." The narcotic seeped into Toby's neurons. "I'm cold," he said woozily.

"You'll be warm soon," I lied. "Say, 'Zap 'em, Mr. Medicine. Zap 'em.'"

"Zap 'em, Mr. Medicine," said Toby, fading. "Zap ... zap ... zap..." So it was time to get serious; it was time for Sleeping Beauty's father to track down every last spinning wheel and chop it to bits. The minute Krakower left, I turned to Martina and asked her to put me in touch with the president of the Healing and Ecstasy Association for the Recovery of Toby.

Instead of complying, Martina merely snorted. "Jack, I can't help feeling you're riding for a fall."

"What do you mean? Psychoneuroimmunology is one of the key sciences of our age."

"Just
look
at him, for Christ's sake. Look at Toby. He's living on borrowed time. You know that, don't you?"

"No, I
don't
know that." I cast her a killing glance. "Even if the time
is
borrowed, Martina, that doesn't mean it won't be the best time a boy's ever had." She gave me the facts I needed. Anthony Raines, Suite 42, Hotel Paradise. I marched up the hill outside the Center for Creative Wellness and placed the call. Anthony Raines answered on the first ring.

"Jack Sperry?" he gasped after I identified myself. "
The
Jack Sperry? Really?

Goodness, what a coincidence. We've been hoping to interview you for
The Toby
Times
."

"For the what?"

"Our first issue comes out tomorrow. We'll be running stories about the fun you and Toby are having down here, his favorite toys and sports, what drugs he's taking

— all the things our members want to hear about."

The Toby Times
. I found the idea simultaneously uplifting and distasteful. "Mr. Raines, my son just entered the hospital, and I was hoping—"

"I know — it's our lead story. A setback, sure, but no reason to give up hope. Listen, Jack — may I call you Jack? — we people of the HEART know you're on the right track. Once Toby tunes in the cosmic pulse, his auric field will mend, and then he's home free."

The more Anthony Raines spoke in his calm, mellow voice, the better I felt —

and the sharper my image of him became: a tall, raffish, golden-haired bohemian with bright blue eyes and a dropping, slightly disreputable mustache. "Mr. Raines, I want you to mobilize your forces."

"Call me Anthony. What's up?"

"Just this — for the next two weeks, Toby Sperry's going to be the happiest child on earth." No spinning wheel would escape my notice, ran my silent, solemn vow. "Don't worry about the cost," I added. "We'll put it all on my credit card." I pictured Anthony Raines organizing his buddhalike features into a resolute smile. "Mr. Sperry, I want you to know the HEART stands ready to help your cause in every way it can."

* * *

The next evening, Santa Claus visited the Center for Creative Wellness. His red suit glowed like an ember. His white beard lay on his chest like a frozen waterfall.

"Who are
you
?" Toby asked, struggling to sit up amid the tangle of rubber. Every day he seemed to acquire yet another IV need: glucose, meperidine, saline, Ringer's lactate, the various tubes swirling around him like an external circulatory system. "Do I know you?" With a bold flourish he pulled off his plastic mask, as if this bulbous saint's mere presence had somehow unclogged his lungs.

"Hi, there, fella," said Santa, chuckling heartily. It was Sebastian, of course —

Sebastian Arboria — the fat and affable dissembler who'd led the meeting in the roundhouse; I'd empowered Anthony Raines to hire him for twenty dollars an hour.

"Call me Santa Claus. Saint Nicholas, if you prefer. Know what, Toby? Christmas is coming. Ever hear of Christmas?"

"I think we studied that in school. Isn't it supposed to be dumb?"

"Dumb?" said Sebastian with mock horror. He seemed even fatter than I'd remembered, but then I noticed the pillow under his coat. "Christmas is the most wonderful thing there is. If I were a little boy, I'd feel absolutely
great
about Christmas. I'd be looking forward to it with every cell of my body. I'd be so full of happiness there wouldn't be any room left for Xavier's Plague."

"Is Christmas a warm time?" Toby was wholly without hair now. He was bald as an egg.

"The night before Christmas, I fly around the world in my sleigh, visiting every boy and girl, leaving good things behind."

"Will you visit
me
?"

"Of course I'll visit you. What do you want for Christmas, Toby?"

"You can have
anything
," I said. "Right, Santa?"

"Yep, anything," said Sebasian.

"I want to see my mother," said Toby.

Dr. Krakower shuddered. "That's not exactly Santa's department."

"I want to get warm."

Sebastian said, "What I
mean
is ... like a toy. I'll bring you a toy."

"Pick something special," I insisted. "Like, say, that Power Pony you've been asking about."

"No, that's for my
birthday
," Toby corrected me.

"Why don't you get it for Christmas?" Martina suggested. Toby slipped his rocket jockey's oxygen supply back on. "Well ... okay, I guess I
would
like a Power Pony." His words bounced off the smooth green plastic.

Sebastian said, "A
Power Pony
, eh? Well, well — we'll see what we can do. Any particular
kind
of Power Pony?"

"Big enough for a kid like me. Maybe I look kind of short to you, lying here in bed, but I'm really seven. Can he be brown?"

"So — a brown Power Pony for a seven-year-old, eh? I think we can manage that, and maybe a couple of surprises too."

Toby's delighted giggle reverberated inside his mask. "How long do I have to wait?"

"Christmas will be here before you know it," I told him. "It's just a couple of days away, right, Santa?"

"Right."

"Will I be better by then, Dr. Krakower?" Toby asked.

"There's a good chance of it, Rainbow Boy," said the doctor, twisting the stopcock on Toby's meperidine drip. He was getting the stuff almost continuously now, as if he had two hearts, one pumping blood, the other pumping narcotics. "It's highly likely."

Furtively I opened my wallet and drew out my credit card. "For Anthony Raines," I whispered, pushing the plastic rectangle toward Sebastian. "Tell him to put it all on this."

Sebastian extended his palm like a Brutality Squad officer stopping traffic.

"Keep your card," he said. "The HEART's picking up the tab, including my fee." He stood fully erect, the pillow shifting under his wide black belt, and backed out of the room. "So long, Toby — Merry Christmas!"

"Merry Christmas," said Toby, coughing. He threw off his mask and turned to me. "Did you hear that, Dad? Santa's coming back. I'm so
excited
." His plum-colored skin beamed. "He's going to bring me a Power Pony, and some surprises too. I can't
wait
for him to come back — I just can't
wait
."

* * *

Martina said, "We have to talk."

Damn. Couldn't she leave me alone just now? I suspected she was in love with me. She probably wanted to know how I felt about her — whether we should resurrect our affair, whether I was prepared to walk out on Helen. Such lousy timing. Didn't she realize all my energy must focus on Toby?

She escorted me into the first-floor visitation lounge, a kind of indoor jungle. Everywhere, exotic pink blossoms sat amid lush green fronds the size of elephant ears. Fake, all of it: each petal was porcelain, each leaf was glass.

"Jack, I don't think what you're doing is right."

"Huh?" I flipped on the television — a variety show from Veritas called
The Tits
and Ass Hour
. "What do you mean?"

"I think it's ugly, in fact," said Martina. "Wrong and ugly."

"What is? Christmas?"

"Lying to Toby. He wants to know the truth."

"What truth?"

"He's going to die soon."

"He's not going to die soon." I suppose Martina meant well, but I could glean only treachery from her words. "And even if he
were
terminal, he certainly wouldn't want to hear about it."

"He's dying, Jack. He's dying, and he wants someone to be honest with him." On the TV screen, a toothy woman removed the bikini top of her bathing suit, faced the camera, and said, "Here it is, guys! This is why you all tuned in!" I shut off the set. The image imploded to a point of light and vanished. "All this pessimism, Martina — you sound like my wife."

"Don't be a coward, Jack."

"Coward?
Coward
? No coward would put up with the shit I've been through." I chopped at the nearest plant with the edge of my hand, breaking off a glass frond.

"Besides, he doesn't even know what death is. He wouldn't understand."

"He would."

"Let's get something straight. Toby's going to have the greatest Christmas a boy could possibly imagine. Do you understand? The absolute greatest, bar none."

"Fine, Jack. And then..."

And then I would lose him. The fact hit me like something cold, quick, and heavy — a tidal wave or a falling sack of nails. My knees buckled. I dropped to the floor and pounded my fists into the severed frond, pulverizing it. "This can't be happening," I moaned. I shook like a child being brainburned. "It can't be, it can't be..."

"It is."

"I love him so much."

"Of course."

"Help me," I cried as I worked the bits of glass into my palms.

"Help Toby," said Martina, bending down and hugging me with her deep, genuine, useless sympathy.

On the last day of August, at the height of a seething and intractable heat wave, Christmas came to the Center for Creative Wellness. Sleigh bells jangled crisply in the hallway; the triumphant strains of "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing" flowed forth from a portable CD player; the keen verdant odor of evergreen boughs filled the air. I'll never forget the smile that beamed from Toby's dry, cyan face when his friend Saint Nicholas waddled into the room dragging a huge sack, a canvas mass of tantalizing bulges and auspicious bumps.

"Hi, Santa."

"Look, Toby, these are for you!" Sebastian Arboria opened the sack, and the whole glorious lot flowed out, everything I'd told Anthony Raines to bring down from the City of Truth, the plush giraffe and the android clown, the snare drum and the ice skates, the backgammon set and the Steve Carlton baseball glove.

"Wow! Oh, wow!" Toby tore off his oxygen mask; this time I took the action for what it was — a minor, meaningless gesture, not a sign of recovery. "For
me
—

they're all for
me
?"

"For you," said Sebastian.

Toby held his stuffed baboon over the edge of the bed. "Look, Barnaby. Look at all we got."

An entourage of HEART members appeared, a score of pixies, fairies, elves, and gnomes festooned with evergreen wreaths and mistletoe sprigs, streaming toward Toby's bed. One of Santa's helpers arrived pushing a hospital gurney on which sat a Happy Land even more elaborate than the layout my niece received after her burn (Toby's included a funhouse and a parachute jump, plus a steam-powered passenger train running around the perimeter). Three other helpers bore an enormous tree — a bushy Scotch pine hung with glassy ornaments, sparkling tinsel, and dormant electric lights, shedding its needles everywhere.

"Hi, everybody — I'm Toby," he mumbled bravely as the helpers patted his naked head and brushed his bony shoulders. "I've got Xavier's Plague, but I won't die. Children don't die, Dr. Krakower said."

"Of
course
you won't die," said the elf behind the gurney. A tall pixie in a feather cap, holly necklace, and leiderhosen marched toward me.

"I'm Anthony Raines," he said. I had anticipated his physiognomy in every particular but one; far from sporting a mustache, his lip was as hairless as a sentient Satirevian stone. "It's a privilege to meet someone of your spiritual intensity, Jack." A gnome connnected plug to socket, and the Christmas tree ignited — a joyous burst, a festive explosion, a spray of fireworks frozen against a green sky. As Toby clapped his hands — an effort that left him breathless and wincing with pain — the HEART members began caroling.

Oh, Toby, we're so sad

To hear you're feeling bad

But we can tell

You'll soon be well

'Cause you're a spunky lad...

"Santa, I have a question," said Toby.

"Yes?"

"Did you remember that, er ... that Power Pony?"

"Power Pony, what Power Pony?" said Sebastian with fabricated distress. He smacked his mittens together. "Oh, yes — the
Power Pony
." Hearing her cue, a slender female elf rode into the room on a magnificent chestnut-hued Power Pony, its bridle studded with rubies, its saddle inlaid with hand-tooled cacti, a mane of genuine horse-hair flowing down its neck.