Ice Lake (13 page)

“Saint Lucy herself, in the flesh, come from the clouds
in a big, bad truck. Virile trucker-man beside her. Girls are always trying to kid us that size is not important. Pocahontas-child, that’s a big mother truck. What does a big truck say to me? Bigger is better and you’re all for it.”

“Hiya, Wendell. How’s it hanging?”

“It’s still attached, Saint Lucy, which I owe to you. Who’s your darling friend?”

“Wendell, this is Luc.”

“Luc! And Lucy! A tag team! I love it! Luc—
darling!
—I’m pleased to meet you. Come inside and meet the boys. You’ll have to get used to us, sweetie, we’ll be keeping your Pocahontas-child busy busy busy.” He gathered up both visitors by the arm and strutted between them to the door. Wendell’s head was elongated, narrowing at the top. The shape was accentuated by his haircut, which shaved the sides to a mere shadow while allowing the hair on top of his head to grow straight up, rising three inches above his scalp. He whispered to Lucy, loudly enough for Luc to hear, “Is he one of us? He seems so, I don’t know,
severe.”

“Luc’s
H
IV-pos,” Lucy said. She hoped that it was all right with Luc to say so.

“Oh, darling, I’m so sorry. You poor thing!”

“But he’s not gay.”

“Sorrier still! Oh, sweetheart, the gay man’s plague and you haven’t enjoyed the fruits from the vine? That’s heartbreaking!”

“Wendell.”

“I’m devastated. Watch the step now, precious, the concrete is not as
concrete
as one might hope.”

Inside the apartment, the full welcoming committee was equally pleased to see Lucy again, but considerably more sedate. Sadness prevailed for those lost since her last visit, as well as happiness for those whose lives had been preserved. Luc stood off to one side and observed the proceedings, quietly impressed by the number of people who treated Lucy as a saint. Men touched her
arms, or her fingers, with a delicacy that struck him as unnatural, as though they were desperate for the touch but genuinely believed themselves unworthy to commit the simple act. Lucy, on the other hand, kissed the men’s foreheads and gave them robust hugs. Tears flowed. The residents related how their lives had improved. Two were back at work, and three claimed to have been symptom-free for months. “You’ve given me back my life, my hope, my reason to live.”

“You’re a brave man, Jack. You didn’t want to do it, at first.”

“I was a ‘fraidy-cat! But it’s paid off.” Jack had always carried weight, but now his skin hung on him sadly, the extra pounds gone. He wore a midriff girdle to keep himself looking trim.

“That’s great. Still no guarantees. None last time, none now.”

The man put up his hands and would not hear another word. “We’re all at war, Lucy, like you told me. If I don’t benefit, someone else will. The beauty, though, is that I
have
benefitted.”

“Don’t hog every last speck of her time!” Wendell butted in. “Who among us is not enthralled? Share, Jack, share!”

Down a dark corridor, in the back rooms, sick men awaited her. They smiled, and valiantly raised their heads to the sight and sound of her. Luc’s stomach turned to see these ravaged bodies, the skin of one man a mere membrane over bones, the flesh gone. They smelled. The house smelled. Of disinfectant. Old vomit. Urine. A few had open lesions. These men also praised Lucy and what she had done for them, or for their friends. “My doctor told my lover a week. Here I am, Saint Lucy,
three months
since then. Not good months, but I’m here. I love beating the odds.”

“Stick it out, Garrett. Maybe this time we can do better. Who knows?”

“Whatever it takes, Saint Lucy. If it’s good for me, good. If it helps science, better. My doctor says, ‘What are you doing, how are you staying alive?’ He thinks he’ll win the Nobel Prize if he can figure me out.”

“But your lips are sealed, Garrett?”

“With bright pink paraffin! Not a peep escapes from me!”

After she had shared a word with everyone, and reminded each man again that she was offering no promises, Lucy addressed them as a group, offering the assurance that they were placing themselves at the leading edge of medical knowledge, dodging the ass-dragging government agencies, both American and Canadian. The men nodded, murmured a litany of complaint. Being on the edge, Lucy reminded them, meant hope. “As I’ve told you before, better to be a guinea pig for a new drug, with its risks, than taking the safe ones and dying. The day we have a cure will be months before it’s generally available. What’s the point of dying in that interval when you could get help? But it means taking a chance. You’re the guys who take the risks. For that, you get to sample the latest drugs, and by letting us see them in action you help us move faster, so you’re helping everybody who’s sick. Our knowledge increases, and knowledge is what this race is all about.”

She changed her tone after her speech, and became their physician. “I’ll need a blood sample from each of you. We’ll do that indoors. Later,
in an orderly fashion
—and that means no pushing and shoving in line, Wendell—come outside to the truck, one at a time. This will take a while, so your patience is appreciated.”

“Patience? Time?” Wendell questioned. “Who has time? We’re dying here, Pocahontas-child! You jabber jabber, we die die die. Will you get a move on? Or do I have to wait another
lifetime
to see any
results
around here?”

“Wendell, I have an especially long needle for you.”

That had everyone laughing.

“There you go with that
size
fixation again. Bigger badder better, that’s all you girls think about.”

“Is that why you became one of us?”

The comment elicited a series of groans from the motley collection of lab rats. Expecting Wendell to give her one right back, to catch her on the hook of his wit, they waited, their breathing hushed. He seemed flummoxed, standing with his hands on his hips in a posture of irate indignation, chin high.

“Well,” he gushed finally, “I suppose.”

Which won the day, and the dying men whom Lucy had come to save enjoyed a laugh.

Luc’s job, which he did faithfully, was to keep the vials of blood intact and together with the paperwork for each patient, without error. “Handle with care,” Lucy warned him.

“I know why I am here now. A healthy man might infect his own blood.”

“There’s that. A cut could be dangerous,” Lucy agreed. “Also, Luc, I need someone who won’t freak out with these people. Who won’t be scared to touch them, or be afraid to be in the same room, afraid to breathe the same air.”

“You be careful yourself,” Luc warned her.

“Yeah, yeah,” she intoned, and waved off the danger.

“No,” Luc said. “With the blood, be careful yourself.”

She was touched by his obvious concern. “Thanks, Luc. I will. Don’t look at me like that! I’ll be careful. Go! Bring me the black bag from the truck, please.” She crinkled her nose for him. “I get to be Doctor Lucy today.”

Wendell was the first to offer his arm, and Lucy Gabriel drew his blood with care. Not trained as a nurse, she had nevertheless learned how to do this and to administer
drugs intravenously. “What’s your schedule like, Lucy? Got time to socialize?”

“I’m around, but this is strictly a working trip. Tomorrow and Thursday I’m in the Village. Friday’s Newark.”

“Newark! You
are
a saint. Thank God for the bodyguard.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Famous last words. Knock on wood,
immediately!”

“We’re done.” She lifted up the tube with his blood. “Fine colour, Wendell.”

“I wouldn’t wish it on a vampire. So, no carousing?”

She shook her head lightly. “Do me a favour?” Lucy told him about the motel clerk in Paramus, whose name was Evan, and Wendell promised to give him a call.

In the truck, dressed in her grey wool coat against the chill, warmed also by an electric heater she had connected to the house power by running a line across the sidewalk, Lucy assessed each patient in turn. She administered an intravenous dosage and, after the consultation, selected the new cocktail. Pills were divided by size, shape and colour. Those whose illness was full-blown, who had not been brought back to good health by her previous visit, just kept alive, were placed on one sort of regimen. The healthiest went onto another, and those who were having manageable problems were given a variety of supplements. The work was tedious, as she had to be careful what she prescribed, and equally careful to note the dosage accurately. Each man checked and rechecked the prescription, the number of reds and blues, to be taken with what frequency and at what time of day. Each schedule was clearly written out, and although no patient was likely to be negligent, she stressed the importance of discipline. For some, the number of pills exceeded forty, while Wendell, relatively healthy, got off lightly with seventeen.

“Two less than last time,” he noted. “A couple are big mothers, though.”

“Wash them down with a shot of vodka, that’s my advice.”

“Will Camille be coming?”

“Tracing my steps, as usual. Expect her in a week. Maybe less. She’ll call.”

“Someday, Saint Lucy, when all this is over and we can go public, you’ll be enshrined.”

“I wish I could do more.”

“You’ve saved so many!”

“You’re saving lives, too, by agreeing to this.”

“That’s true.” He put his hand on his chest.
“I
should be enshrined. Someday, I want my head on a quarter. I want monuments and universities named after me—streets, hospitals! Is it asking too much to have my own day?”

“You want to be a national holiday?”

“What do you think? Be honest. Is it too much?”

Lucy laughed, and kissed him, smack between the eyes.

On the drive home to Paramus, Luc and Lucy were quiet. She was weary, while he was preoccupied with all that he had witnessed. They agreed to hook up in an hour, which gave them time to freshen and change and catch a nap. Dinner was found down the road, a noisy walk along the edge of the highway. Luc opted for steak, Lucy, a shrimp pasta. Talked out from her day, she was just as happy to adopt Luc’s quiet, grumpy demeanour.

After dinner, Luc walked Lucy back to the motel, then left again to return to a bar they’d passed. Lucy watched a little television until she couldn’t keep her eyes open and switched it off. She snuggled in under the covers.

The rage of traffic would not make it a quiet night. She was still awake, listening to the trucks, a distant siren, the endless rush of cars, when someone knocked
on her door. She looked through her peephole first, then admitted the motel clerk into her room.

He paced the floor after she had closed the door behind him. “I don’t know,” he said. “This is nuts.”

She recognized the fear, the conditioned and rational aspect of any patient worried about treatment outside the usual medical boundaries. Her patients, however, were desperate men, grasping for hope, and all she ever had to do was to allow that desperation to supersede the old and useless logic.

“I’m not here to force you.”

“I feel like I’m at a medicine show, buying snake oil.”

“No snake oil, Evan. More importantly, I’m not here to sell you a damn thing. Was that not made clear?”

He was a bitter man, she could tell, angry and prepared to die while shaking a fist at the sky. To have hope and life and health sprung upon him upset his way of being. He now didn’t know how to behave, or how to believe.

He looked at her finally, standing still, the shabby pear-shape of him exhausted, resentful and yet, ultimately, still longing for the miracle. Had the miracle come? His eyes appeared to wobble in their sockets. “I can’t believe this,” he said.

“You’re here. In my room. Give me the word, Evan, and everything will change.”

“You’re not some nutcase with a lab in your kitchen? That’s not what this is all about?”

“I represent a multinational, multi-billion-dollar pharmaceutical corporation. What we will do here, in this room, is illegal and would land me in jail, not to mention the corporate executives. But we have advanced immune-system therapies. You can wait a year and a half for further testing and government approval, although you might die by then, or you can start to be relieved of your pain right now. Tonight.
I’m tired, Evan. I’ve been saving lives all day. What do you say?”

His shoulders slumped, his lower lip trembling, Evan said, “I’m willing.”

“Good. I need to take your blood. Then I’ll plan the best scheme for you. After that, I’ll give you a shot, which will knock you off your pins. Everybody today found the shot hard to handle. I’ll give you your dosage, which you’ll have to follow without any variance, to the letter.”

“And that’s it? No strings?”