The Dead and the Dying (3 page)

Dr. Alice Huston

"You ever had a weird student?" I ask, as Harry Gillespie and I sit in the cafeteria.

"I've never had a
normal
one," he replies, taking another swig from his bottle of water. "There's something wrong with all of them. Eating disorders. Attention deficit issues. Paranoia. Some of them are even psychopaths. You know the ones I mean. Bunch of fucking freaks. The funny thing is, the real fuck-ups often turn out to be the most successful graduates. Captains of industry, that sort of thing. Crazy world, huh?"

"But within that range," I say with a half-smile, "have you ever had one who's weird in a different way?"

He frowns. "Go on."

"I just mean..." Pausing, I realize that I need to be careful here. For one thing, I can't name any names; for another, I have to make sure I don't sound like some kind of paranoid jerk. I want to be fair, but at the same time I need to talk to someone about my concerns. Paula Clarke's essay really got to me, and while I'd like to write it off as being nothing more than some colorful rhetoric, I can't help wondering if she really believes some of the things she wrote. "There's this girl in one of my classes," I continue, "and sometimes I think she's a little... scary."

"Scary?"

"She concerns me."

He pauses. "In what way?"

"At first it was just her general attitude. She's very quiet, but in a way that seems like it might be more than just shyness. I'm the last person who'd ever judge anyone just because they don't talk too much, but this seems like a kind of insularity that borders on a disability. She's a graduate student, twenty-three years old, but she seems shut off from the world, as if she genuinely doesn't know how to comport herself. When she makes eye contact with me, which is pretty rare, she has this expression of contempt, almost as if she resents the fact that she has to listen to what I have to say. Sometimes, I feel as if she just says whatever she thinks will shut me up the fastest."

"World's full of people like that," Harry replies. "Forget about it. Is she hot?"

"She's dowdy," I reply. "You wouldn't like her."

"I dunno," he says with a grin. "I could fuck some vigor into her."

I smile, even though I feel nauseous. Harry's one of those stone-aged men who think their pathetic little jokes are funny. The only reason I spend so much time with him is that I need to keep reminding myself how dumb men can really be.

"Fuck, I've got this girl in one of my classes. She's got the best tits ever. Not that I've seen them, of course, but she wears these low-cut tops, and it's so fucking hard not to stare." He pauses. "Sorry. I got distracted. So this difficult student of yours. Apart from being a bit of a Wednesday Addams, is there anything else wrong with her?"

"She handed in her first essay the other day," I say, feeling a sense of dread in the pit of my stomach. "Some good work, but also some truly mind-blowing rhetoric that bordered on a call to arms. It was almost as if she was running off some kind of political pamphlet about how men and women can't interact without violence, and women have been on the short end for so long that they need to push back and overthrow their oppressors."

"So she's a feminist?" Harry asks with a grin. I already know his view on feminism, and the last thing I need right now is to hear him launch into another of his grand speeches.

"This isn't feminism," I reply. "This is something way more vitriolic. If she believes this stuff, it's as if she genuinely thinks that there needs to be armed conflict between the sexes. She actually made the point, toward the end of the essay, that the gender war could be a global conflagration. It was almost as if she wants to see men and women tearing chunks out of each other in the street. It wasn't rhetorical discourse, either. There were times when the passages seemed to run out of control, as if she couldn't help myself." I pause for a moment. "To be honest, I feel weird whenever I'm in the same room as her."

"Relax," he replies. "You know what some of these students are like. Full of firebrand rhetoric, but the second they have to actually do anything in the real world, they just turn to jelly. This girl of yours probably gets off on writing all sorts of crap, but it's all just stuff from her head. Sure, she might be nuts, but I guarantee it'll never get further than some flowery prose and a few vindictive ideas." He pauses. "Actually, I think I might know which student you're talking about. Kinda short, plain, not unattractive in her own way but definitely not the kind of girl you'd notice across a crowded bar, if you know what I mean. Her name's -"

"I don't think we should get into personal details here," I reply hastily.

"Paula Clarke," he says, grinning at my discomfort. "That's who you're on about, right? Come on, admit it." He waits for me to reply. "She stands out like a sore fucking thumb," he continues. "She doesn't seem to have any friends, and she slinks about as if she's trying not to get noticed. Sometimes I spot her on the campus, and I swear to God, there's something so fucking
weird
about her. You know in comics when someone stinks, and they have wavy stink lives coming off them? Her weirdness is almost like that, almost weird. Fuck, I get a slight chill whenever I see her."

"I'm not saying that she's dangerous," I continue, still uncomfortable with the idea of using her name in the conversation. "I just think she's got some unusual ideas, and I can't shake the feeling that she's looking at me, at
all
men, as if we're monsters. Animals. If even half of what she wrote in that essay was true, she seems to think that men are these absolute bastards who go around expressly trying to ruin the lives of every woman they meet."

"Aren't we?" Harry replies with a smile. "You know what I mean. It's just in her head. She's probably led a very insular life, raised by a crazy mother or something. The girl's probably a lesbian, and she'll grow up and live alone with a bunch of cats, and even though she'll be fucking miserable, she'll think she's the only person in the world who saw through the illusion and understood the truth. It comes down to ego in the end. She thinks she's right and everyone else is wrong. Just ignore her as much as possible and wait two years until she fucks off back to the real world. There's no point fighting against her. She believes what she believes, and it's got nothing to do with logic."

"It's just that she writes so convincingly about violence," I point out. "She goes into detail, almost as if she genuinely thinks about this kind of thing. It's as if what she wrote in that essay was just the tip of the iceberg. I guess it scares me a little to think about the kind of mind that would come up with something like that."

"Then report it," he says. "If you think she's planning something, or that she
could
plan something, file a report."

"No," I say firmly. "This is nothing more than a clash of personalities. She's probably a perfectly nice girl underneath it all. She just comes across as being a little..." My voice trails off as I try to find the right word. Even though there's something about Paula Clarke that unsettles me, I can't shake the feeling that I'm being unfair by talking about her in this way. "Forget I said anything," I add eventually. "She's just a precocious student with some unusual views and some odd ways of expressing herself. The world would be a boring place if everyone was the same."

"Well," he replies, "you should still be careful. Remember Joey Hitchings? He worked at one of the colleges a little further upstate. Poor guy was killed in a mugging late one night while he was leaving the campus. His wallet was stolen, but the weirdest thing was, the mugger stabbed him several times in the chest, and once in the groin." He pauses. "Rachel Clarke was one of his students," he adds, and then he stares at me for a moment, before smiling. "Relax. I'm just winding you up. It's a true story, but I'm not suggesting she had anything to do with it. Just..." He laughs nervously as he finishes his bottle of water and gets to his feet. "I've got class. Don't let me wind you up too tight, okay? Deep down, Paula Clarke's probably a perfectly lovely young lady, once you get past the outer layer of vitriolic proto-feminist bullshit. Don't forget, even though I'm a college professor, I'm only one step up from being a total fucking Neanderthal."

"I'm not saying that Paula Clarke is dangerous," I reply firmly. "I'm really not."

"She's just one of those weird students we all get lumbered with from time to time," Harry replies. "Don't worry about it. Just put up with her and be glad when she's gone."

Once he's headed back to class, I find myself lost in thought for a moment. I keep telling myself not to be worried about Paula Clarke, but there was something about her essay that concerned me. She's not like the other students. I'm not saying that she's a little weird or a little freaky; I'm saying that she's deeply, irrevocably different, and in my experience people like that tend to be problematic.

Problematic and, potentially, extremely useful.

Joanna Mason

"Frankly, this looks good," says Dr. Gibbs, staring at my chart as we sit in his cold, quiet office on the first floor of the hospital. "Definitely in the upper range of our expectations. I'd say we're right on track, although obviously there's a way to go."

I wait for him to continue, but something still seems to be bothering him. I've been seeing Dr. Gibbs, on and off, for five years now, and in that time I've come to get a better understanding of the way he approaches good and bad news. Right now, he seems genuinely pleased with the progress I'm making, but there's a sliver of concern in his eyes, as if he can't stop worrying about something. I hate it when he tries to hide things from me.

"How are you dealing with the side effects?" he asks.

"They're getting worse," I reply.

"If they're interfering with your work -"

"I can manage."

"I'm sure you can, but -"

"I can manage," I say firmly. "It's doable. I'd rather go back on the drugs I had last time, though."

"These new ones are much more effective."

"They cloud my mind," I tell him. "It comes and goes, but I'm finding it harder to think sometimes. The old ones didn't affect me like that."

"You need these drugs," he says firmly.

"I don't feel like myself."

"I'm afraid you'll just have to deal with it," he says. "If they're interfering with your work, the answer is not to quit the drugs. The answer is to take a leave of absence while you fight this thing."

I sigh. He's right, but there's no way I'm quitting. My job is the only thing that keeps me sane right now, and if I quit then I'd just be another sick person. I'm
not
a sick person. I'm just someone who happens to have cancer.

"It's funny," he says after a moment, setting the chart down on his desk. "When people come in here and get an update, they always ask the same thing. They want a number. They want to know their chances of survival over a year, five years, ten, whatever. I tell them I can't do that. I tell them a number would just be plucked out of the air, and it wouldn't mean anything. Still, they insist. I keep going, telling them that it would be unethical of me to say they've got a 50% chance, or a 60% chance, or whatever. But they keep insisting, and eventually I give them a number, and they cling to that number for the rest of their treatment. If they survive, they remind me they beat the number. If things go bad, they spit the number back at me." He pauses. "In twenty years of dealing with this type of cancer, only one patient has ever failed to ask me for a number."

We sit in silence for a moment.

"If it'd make you feel better..." I start to say.

"No," he replies with a chuckle, "no, there's no need. I just find it interesting. As I've said before, your chances are good. This is the second time you've had basically the same cancer, and once again, you're getting it licked. That's pretty impressive, Joanna. Not miraculous, but certainly impressive. I just..." He pauses again. "What we talked about last time is still relevant. You said you'd do some research, and I have to ask if you've come to any kind of conclusion? My advice on the matter certainly hasn't changed in the interim."

"I've been rethinking my decision," I say, feeling my heart start to thump. I knew this question would come, and I've had my answer prepared for a few days, but it's still... uncomfortable. For a fraction of a second, I'm filled with doubt, and I consider changing my mind again. Damn it, this would be so much easier if I could roll into Dr. Gibbs' office with a few shots of whiskey in my belly. "I've been thinking about it," I continue, already aware that I'm stumbling with my words a little and betraying my nerves, "and, um..." I pause again.

"And?"

"And I think maybe you're right."

"So you'd be willing to go for it?"

"I've had this cancer twice now," I reply, feeling a kind of icy resolve in my heart. "I don't want it a third time."

He stares at me for a moment. "It runs in your family, Joanna," he says eventually. "There's a seam of this thing running right through your genetic make-up, and I don't think you can escape it, not without... A double mastectomy is a drastic option, but in cases such as yours, it's the only really effective way of beating the cancer permanently. You're already lucky that it hasn't metastasized, and -"

"We don't know that for sure," I remind him.

"All the checks so far are looking good," he says, "but you're right, we shouldn't count our chickens just yet. Still, you're doing good, but getting rid of the entire problem area, if you don't mind me describing it like that, would dramatically improve your long-term chances of survival. You can have reconstructive surgery. You can get these things rebuilt. It's not the life-changing thing it used to be." He pauses, and then he sighs. "Who am I kidding? It's still a big thing, but the point is, you have to focus on the positives. In this case -"

"I'll do it," I tell him.

Silence. It's as if my words are slowly settling in the room, like a kind of fine dust.

"You've thought about this?" he asks eventually.

"What's there to think about? It's a simple question. Do I want to live or do I want to die? I want to live, therefore I need to do this. Where do I sign?"

"That's a very straightforward way of seeing it. Have you spoken to other people about it?"

"My body," I reply. "My decision."

"And you're sure?"

I nod. "Everything I said last time... That was all just an instinctive reaction. It was my gut talking. I was in shock. I've had time to think about it since then, and it seems like the logical choice." I take a deep breath. "I don't want this coming back. I don't want to wake up one day, go to the bathroom, get into the shower, and feel another lump. It's happened to me twice already, and I can't let it happen again." I wait for him to say something. "When can you do it? Today? I'm ready today. I've got a clear schedule until Monday, so let's whack me on a table and get these puppies off."

"We'll have to look into getting you booked in," he says.

"I want it done soon," I reply, determined not to slip into the achingly slow hospital schedules that drag even the simplest procedures out until they last forever. "Every day we wait is another day that this cancer could creep out to another part of my body. My lungs. My liver. The cancer's reaching out to the rest of my body, like Adam reaching out to God, and the longer we wait, the more chance there is that their fingers could touch and I'm a goner. I'm ready for this and I don't want to wait."

"It could take a few weeks to get you a slot. Your insurance is pretty good, but obviously there's a reasonable backlog."

"I'd rather do it now."

"There's a process," he replies wearily. "I'll hurry it along as much as possible."

"Are you sure it wouldn't be easier if I just cut them off myself?" I ask. "I could drink a bottle of whiskey stick a piece of wood between my teeth and grab a pair of scissors. Hey presto, instant weight loss." I wait for him to smile, but there's a hint of sadness in his eyes. "I know they're not the biggest specimens in the world," I add eventually, "but still, it wouldn't be bad to suddenly lose a few pounds. Do I get to keep the nipples? Do they sew them back on, or do I get them in a jar, or -"

"You're rambling," he says suddenly.

I take a deep breath. He's right. I hate this, but I also know I've got no choice. Breast cancer killed my mother and both my grandmothers. There's absolutely no doubt that I'm next in the cross-hairs, and if there's one thing that scares me more than this surgery, it's death. That's why I want to get it over with as fast as possible; I'm scared that I might lose my bottle and reverse the decision if I'm given long enough to mull over the possibilities. It's better to strike now, while I've got my head straight. The thing that scares me the most is the thought that I might change my mind.

"If I pay more," I say after a moment, "can I get it done today?"

"Not unless you've got a few million stashed away somewhere."

Sighing, I realize that he's right. Damn it, if I'd just made this decision a few weeks ago when the subject first came up, I could be getting the surgery in the next few days. As it is, my own indecision has left me vulnerable. Why was I so dumb? I guess it must be the drugs affecting my mind again. The old Joanna Mason - the
real
, drug-free Joanna Mason - would have made the right decision ages ago.

"A couple more weeks should be fine," he replies, switching to that soft voice he uses when he's trying to sound calm and soothing. It never works. "I'm going to schedule you today, and you'll get a letter after the weekend with a date and a time. After that, you just need to focus on eating healthily, getting some exercise, and putting yourself in a positive frame of mind for when the surgery comes around. Maybe see a counselor."

I smile. Gibbs is always pushing me to see a counselor, even though he knows that I'd never, ever stoop so low. Counselors are for people who can't deal with things on their own terms. I'm stronger than that.

"Seriously, Joanna," he continues. "Don't underestimate how much this is going to affect you."

"What you mean," I reply after a moment, "is that I shouldn't
overestimate
my own ability to deal with it."

"Speaking of which," he says with a sigh, "how are you doing regarding the other matter?"

"What other matter?" I ask, even though I know full well what he means. He's referring to the same thing that everyone else has been referring to for the past few weeks. I swear to God, I don't think I've had one conversation recently that didn't include a little side discussion of the impending moment.

"Sam Gazade is going to be executed by lethal injection at midnight tomorrow night," he continues. "Twelve years after everything that happened, justice is finally going to be served. That has to feel... good? Right? You must have some kind of emotional reaction, Joanna."

"You're an oncologist," I reply. "Shouldn't I be talking about Sam Gazade to my therapist?"

"You don't have a therapist," he points out.

"Exactly."

He sighs.

"I have a little empathy for Gazade," I continue. "After all, I know what it's liked to be hooked up to a load of poison. The only difference is that
you
guys only deliver enough to kill the cancer and make me sick, whereas the prison's going to pump Gazade full of a lethal combination of drugs as part of some misguided act of communal revenge." I pause for a moment, as I realize that such a flippant answer is never going to be enough for him. "Everyone keeps asking me if I'm going to go and watch the execution," I continue. "It hadn't even occurred to me that I
could
go, but everyone wants to know. It's like they think I should stand there with a cocktail in one hand and a cigarette in the other, and have my own little party as the bastard takes his last breath. Probably with the families of his victims standing right next to me."

"So if you don't go," he replies, "what
will
you be doing at midnight tomorrow?"

I pause for a moment. "Eating healthily," I say eventually, with a smile, "getting some exercise, and putting myself in a positive frame of mind for when the surgery comes around."