Evan Hunter - Far From the Sea

“The same,” Kaplan said in his soft, tired, sad voice. “No change at all.”

“Have you seen the X rays yet?”

“They’re not X rays exactly. The scan works somewhat like a Geiger counter.”

“But there are pictures?”

“Yes, and I’ve seen the first of them. I didn’t want to call until I’d had an opportunity to discuss them with the radiologist.”

“What did they show?”

“Nothing. Well, that isn’t precisely accurate. There was a tiny dot that might or might not indicate something. We’ll know better when we complete the series.”

“What might it indicate? The dot?”

“A possible area of infection. But, really, it’s too early to tell yet. When the dye’s been more fully assimilated, we’ll have a better idea of what’s there.”

“When will that be?” David asked.

“Sometime this afternoon.”

“May I call you then?”

“Yes, of course.”

“What would be a good time?”

“Five? A little after five.”

“I’ll call you. Thank you, Dr. Kaplan.”

“Mr. Weber,” he said, and hung up.

His cousin Sidney came into the waiting room at a quarter to eleven. Sidney was a distant cousin, so damn distant that David hadn’t even known him till after his father moved down to Florida. Sidney was related on his mother’s side of the family, the Katz side. His mother’s uncle’s son’s son, which made Sidney a second cousin to his mother, a second cousin to his father by marriage only, and a total stranger to David.

Sidney lived in Fort Lauderdale. He came to Miami every Tuesday for rehabilitation therapy at the Veteran’s Hospital. Sidney had served with the U.S. Army during World War II. In the mechanized cavalry. A mine had exploded under his tank. He was a little older than David, fifty-three or — four David guessed, and he looked reasonably whole and healthy. But he collected his pension nonetheless, and he went every week for rehabilitation therapy. Sidney was a stream-of-consciousness talker who said everything that came into his mind. He did not need a conversational partner; Sidney was a one-man soft-shoe duet.

“So when did you get down here, Davey?” he said. “I came to see him right after the operation, you know, he looked fine then, the doctor told me there were no complications, it was cancer, huh, was that what it was, malignant, huh? I’ve been having trouble with the car, what kind of a car do you drive up there, had to get a new muffler, two hundred bucks it cost me, well, you have to have a car that runs, am I right? He didn’t know you were coming down, he said he didn’t want to bother you when you had that big case, how’d it turn out, did you win it or lose it? What’s happening with him, anyway, he’s still in Intensive Care? I call the hospital, they tell me his condition is critical, that’s what they tell anybody who calls about a patient in Intensive Care, his condition is critical. That doesn’t mean he’s dying, it only means he’s in Intensive Care. So how’d the big trial go? Where’s your office now, still in Manhattan? I don’t miss New York at all, you can shove New York. My mother’s still up there in the Bronx, neighborhood all full of spies and niggers, I can’t get her to budge. Says she was born there, and that’s where she’ll stay till she dies. I got this great house in Lauderdale, ask your dad, he’ll tell you. Swimming pool and everything, have you got a pool up there? Do you live right in the city, or outside someplace? You got a pool? I keep telling your dad he should move to Lauderdale, all these Cubans here now, it’s worth your life to walk up Collins Avenue. He tells me he likes it here, worth his life. Listen, I do my best for him. I take him anywhere he wants to go, he’s eighty-two years old, never did like to drive even when he was younger. I take him anywhere he wants to go, it isn’t cheap to run a car these days, gas is expensive, I had to put in a new muffler, cost me two hundred bucks. I’ve got close to sixty thousand miles on that little buggy, keep it in top-notch shape, where are you staying down here, at the old man’s apartment? You should be staying at the apartment, save a few bucks, what are you doing, staying at a hotel? It’s like a ghost town right now, all those reports about crime in Miami, there’s crime everywhere , am I right? Not only in Florida. They make such a big deal about it on television, it scares everybody off, it’ll kill this town, what they’re saying on television. I was telling your dad last week, he should be careful walking late at night, these Cubans. Still, there’s crime everywhere, am I right, look at Atlanta. What are you doing about his bills, are you paying his bills? I’d pay them myself, I told him I’d lay out the money, but I’m short of cash just now, I had to get that new muffler, you know, and Lillian, your cousin Lillian, had a big dental bill, it’s murder trying to keep up these days. But you should pay his bills or they’ll cut off his electricity, everything in the refrigerator’ll spoil, the apartment’ll stink like a city dump. The phone, too, you don’t want them to cut off his phone, you should be paying his bills, Davey, I’d pay them myself if I wasn’t so short of cash. How’d you come down here, did you drive down? What kind of car do you drive up there? When did you get here?”

“It’s eleven o’clock,” the pink lady said. “You can go in now.”

He had the feeling, as he passed the open doors to the rooms in the unit, as he passed the overflow beds in the corridor, that all of the people here looked alike. They were all old, they were all very sick, and they all resembled his father. Even the old women resembled his father. He could understand now the mistake he’d made yesterday, when he’d thought the man in the corridor bed was his father. They all looked alike in their misery and their sickness. They all looked as if they were dying.

“Hey, Morrie, how you doing?” his cousin boomed. “Look who’s here, Davey’s here! Do you know Davey? Can you recognize Davey? Can you recognize me , Morrie?”

“Hello, Sid,” his father said wearily.

“See,” Sidney said, “he recognizes me. Good, Morrie, that’s very good. I was just telling Davey he ought to pay your bills. I’d pay them myself, but I’m a little short of cash just now. You don’t want your electricity cut off, do you, Morrie? They cut it off in a minute nowadays, you miss a single bill you’re in the dark for the rest of your life. I was telling Davey...”

“Don’t bother him about bills,” David said. “How are you feeling, Pop?”

“Just wonderful,” his father said.

“You’re looking better.”

“I must look terrific ,” his father said, “the way they’re taking pictures of me day and night.”

“Pictures?” Sidney said. “What pictures? X-ray pictures?”

“No, technicolor pictures of my putz ,” his father said.

“That’s very funny,” Sidney said. “He’s still got his sense of humor, you see that? Keep your sense of humor, Morrie, that’s the main thing. Did you hear the one about the three old guys sitting around talking about their health? The first one says he’s in perfect health, these are three old cockers , you understand, Morrie?”

“Like me,” his father said.

“No, not like you,” David said quickly.

“So the first one says he’s in perfect health, except that he’s constipated, he can’t move his bowels. The second one, another old cocker , says he has no trouble at all with his bowels, but he can’t urinate, he has trouble urinating. The third old cocker , he says, ‘I have no trouble with my bowels. Every morning, as soon as I wake up, I move my bowels like clockwork. Then I urinate every morning like clockwork. And then I get out of bed.’ ”