Amy Bloom - Lucky Us

A pillow, I said. Does he need a pillow?

Not right now, the doctor said. Is he lying down?

I said he was.

Here’s what we’re going to do — it’s going to be a little scary but you have to do this, and you have to do this now.

Tell me, I said. Do I have to wash my hands?

We’re not going to worry about that now, he said. Get your sharpest knife and get a napkin.

A napkin? A linen napkin?

I waved my arm frantically at Danny — Get a napkin! Hurry!

Now, tell him that you’re going to help him.

I’m going to help you, I said to Francisco, and he kept his dark eyes on me. I told the doctor, I told him.

That’s good. Get on your knees on your — are you right-handed or left-handed?

Right.

Get on your knees on his right side. Feel his Adam’s apple. Do you feel that?

Yes.

Good. Do you feel that there’s a smaller bump a little farther down?

I did feel it but I had to press on Francisco’s soft skin and his fleshy neck and I apologized to him.

Now, in between, the doctor said, there’s a little valley. Use the edge of the knife in that little valley and make a sideways incision. Just a cut, sideways, just through the skin and half an inch across. And then you’re going to open up the cut a little bit. You’ll see a membrane, a thin, translucent membrane, like frog skin, and you’re going to cut through that too. Then you’re going to keep that incision open with your thumb and forefinger.

I worried that I would cut his throat.

And you’ll need the napkin, to blot the blood that will come out. It won’t be a lot of blood. It’ll be okay.

Danny, I screamed, Napkin! Danny was standing right next to me and put it into my hand. I gave him the receiver.

You tell me what the doctor says, I said, and you look away.

I pressed the knife into Francisco’s neck until blood began to seep. I spread the edges of the cut apart with my thumb and forefinger.

He says you need a straw, Danny whispered, while staring at the kitchen clock. You need two.

Go get the straws, I said, from the pantry. I kept the knife in. I picked up the receiver with my left hand.

I made the incision. He looks like he’s going to die.

He’s not going to die. Take the paper straws and put them in the incision.

Do I take the knife out?

He paused.

Yes, take the knife out right now. Put the straws in and blow into them a few times. Four times. Puff into them.

Danny handed me the striped paper straws and I put them into the incision, like into a milkshake. I puffed into them. Francisco turned dark pink, then pale pink. Tears ran down his face.

Yes, yes. Will he be okay?

Well, he can’t talk, the doctor said. But he can breathe. Keep the straws there. Do you have any tape?

I turned to Danny. Do we have tape?

He brought me the Scotch tape and held the phone to my ear, because my hands were starting to shake.

Now, wrap the straws with tape and then tape the bottom to the skin. You want to stabilize the straws. I looked at Danny and he gave me the receiver. He wrapped the straws in tape and then pressed the ends to Francisco’s throat.

Do you have scissors? the doctor said.

Scissors, I said, and Danny ran to my room and got my sewing scissors and he made two very neat cuts in the tape.

We’ve taped it, I said.

Good, the doctor said. This is very good. Now, trim off all but two inches of the straws.

I did that.

Now, he said, I’m going to call the operator and get an ambulance.

I gave the doctor our address and phone number and he gave me his phone number and Danny and I sat on either side of Francisco, stroking his hands and watching the straw.

You saved someone’s life tonight, Dr. Snyder said.

I washed my face and hands over and over, trembling, until the ambulance came. I told Danny what a wonderful job he’d done. We followed the ambulance, in Francisco’s car, with Danny leaning forward the whole time, his chin on the dashboard, peering through the fog. We got to the hospital twenty minutes after they’d checked him in and gotten him settled. There was really nothing for us to do, but we couldn’t sit or sleep. We walked around the hospital and ate the stale pastries in the cafeteria. I told Danny that for the purpose of visiting hours, we were going to say that I was Francisco’s daughter and Danny was his grandson, and Danny beamed. Who was your mother? he asked. I said that I never knew my mother. He shook his head. I know, I said. What a pair.

We begged the nurse to let us sit in Francisco’s room and watch him sleep. Danny slid off my lap to stare at the sleeping man in the next bed, whose leg was held up with pulleys and was the size of an entire mottled human being. Danny asked me what the man had and I told him to ask a nurse. He stood in the hall and waited for a nurse and he whispered his question. She said, Elephantiasis, and Danny reported back and we liked how awful that sounded. Danny said elephantiasis about ten more times.

We went to the hospital for the next four days, at dinnertime, and each time, we just missed Bea and Carnie. We brought in some fruit and Francisco said, “Oh, the Torellis of yesteryear.” We smuggled in vanilla milk shakes from Kriegel’s and shared them. We took turns holding hands. On the last day, I met Dr. Keith.

“You’re the little surgeon,” he said.

“I am.”

The nicest nurse, the one Francisco liked, said, “You’d make a great nurse.”

Dr. Keith didn’t say anything until the nurse walked away.

“You wouldn’t,” he said. “You don’t have the right temperament. But you are damn good with a knife.”

DANNY AND I BROUGHT Francisco home. I thought we might move him into my father’s old room but Danny said, “He won’t like it up there. It’s lonely. If you put him in your room, I’ll be right across the hall and I can get him things. Like water, or anything. I can help.”

I opened the windows in the attic bedroom to get rid of the smell of urine and old man and menthol. I cleared out every trace of my father, except his glasses and his books and an almost empty bottle of my father’s aftershave, Zizanie, which he’d worn since I was a little girl. The scent used to last from Sunday to Tuesday in my mother’s house.

I slept on the living room couch for a couple of days, in case. Finally, I looked in on Danny and on Francisco and gathered up my blanket and pillow, my radio, my books, and my pajamas and I went up to the attic room, which was just what I wanted. I put my father’s glasses in their alligator case into my nightstand and the Zizanie bottle in my bottom drawer. I set my pile of Little Blue Books and poetry on the bookshelf next to his books. I could hear my father quoting John Cowper Powys on Whitman: “ ‘He restores to us courage and joy even under circumstances of aggravated gloom.’ ” He would always say “gloom” in his deepest voice, lowering his eyebrows and making me laugh. My father quoted everyone, from Shakespeare to Emerson, on the subject of destiny, and then he’d point out that except for the Greeks, everyone agreed: The stars do fuck-all for us; you must make your own way.

I CALLED ON DR. Snyder. There wasn’t a nurse out front. I sat in his waiting room with a bottle of Macallan Scotch in my lap, leafing through magazines, until he walked in. I was a little disappointed. He was plain and furrowed, with thinning hair. I had to say my name twice, and my address, before he knew who I was. He brought me into his office, a room just big enough for his desk and chair and my chair. I put the Scotch on his table and told him that Francisco had come home, and he said that was great news. We looked at each other. I told him what Dr. Keith had said about my surgical skills and he laughed. Bob Keith’s no fool, he said. I crossed my legs and let my skirt ride up to my garters. Dr. Snyder came out from behind his desk and pulled me up. He pulled at my bra until he held my bare breast and I pressed my hand against him until he was so hard, I thought he’d hurt himself. We necked on his desk, pushing his files and his pens to the floor, until his nurse knocked. I straightened my skirt and my bra. He straightened his tie. I took a quick look in the mirror and reapplied my lipstick, while he watched. He looked over my shoulder and wiped the red off his chin. We looked at each other in the mirror. We were breathing hard and still a little excited and beyond that, deeply pleased with each other and ourselves.