Stephen Dixon - What Is All This? - Uncollected Stories

“And the sugar in your blood. Very important, you know.”

“It’s perfect. On my honor.”

“How can you be sure? Check. You always got to check. You take a urine sample this morning?”

“As I told you when I got here, I’m only holding this bed for my father.”

“Why doesn’t he come visit you, your old man? Shame on him. Son in a dreary place like this and his dad doesn’t visit? It’s not right. Now, if you were my son…”

“If he was your son,” Mr. Jacobs, another patient in the room, said, “you wouldn’t have to come visit him. He’d always be in the bed beside you, talking and dreaming of his pretty ladies.”

That’d be nice,” Spevack said. “My family always around.”

“What you say?” Jacobs said. “Can’t understand you. Put your teeth back in your mouth.”

“I said it’d be nice having my whole family around. Just like the ancient Chinese.”

“What? You reminiscing again? Wake me up when you’re through, as I’ve heard it all.” He shut his eyes, and between snores said for them to wake him when the dinner cart rolled down the hall. “I’m starving, though who can eat the garbage they give us here,”

“I like the garbage,” Spevack said to Ray. “Doesn’t give me heart-burn, which Mr. Jacobs should appreciate the value of. He’s had four major strokes and is working on number five, because you see the way he sneaks the salt shaker from under his pillow and sprinkles it on his food like it was air?”

“So I push off tonight or a week from now,” Jacobs said. “Isn’t anyone outside who’d care except maybe the social worker chap who checks up on me here, and him you can have on a silver platter. That’s why I sleep so much. When the end comes, let it happen during a beautiful dream.”

“He’s got nobody,” Spevack whispered. “You at least got a father and a good future in San Francisco., right?”

“San Diego.”

“Mr. Zysman knows all about California also. Didn’t you once live near San Diego, Mr. Zysman?”

“You joshing me?” Zysman said from under the sheet, as he never showed his face. “I was in L.A. — literally nearer the North Pole.” He was the youngest official patient in the room—68, and up until a few months ago, if Ray could believe everything he said from under the covers, he’d been a man about town—“A gadabout with two young cuties pinned to my arms, dinner every night at Sardi’s or the 21, and still a big-time operator and heavy backer of movies and shows.” But his Fifth Avenue apartment caught fire with him in it, most of his body had been burned, and he’d sworn never to let anyone see his body and face except professional people—“Doctors and maybe a few of the prettier nurses, but that’s where I draw the line.”

“Come on, Zysman,” Jacobs said. Throw off the wrapper and tell us about those gorgeous young ladies in Hollywood.”

“I can’t. You want to see a body of just scar tissue? And I used to be such a handsome rake. With a full head of hair and a big chest and powerful ticker and still able to get it up when I wanted to with the most exquisite and demanding showgirls. Now look at me.”

“I’m looking,” Jacobs said, “but all I see is a big lump under the sheet. Come on, show us that thing you used to dazzle your showgirls with.”

“Never.” He burrowed deeper under the sheets. “Not today, tomorrow, or in a million years.”

“We should all live so long,” and Jacobs went back to sleep.

They should get Mr. Zysman a private room or curtains he can pull from under his sheet,” Spevack said. “But every time he asks, they say they will, and then you never hear of it again. You should’ve gotten into one of those nicer homes I hear about in California, Ray. There they treat you like a golden-ager should.”

“Food, everybody.” It was Mrs. Slomski, one of the nurses’ aides. She wasn’t the most pleasant woman and seemed to drink on the job, but most of the men liked having her around. She was occasionally exuberant, told raunchy jokes and, for a few extra bucks, snuck in food for them they weren’t supposed to have.

“So how are you today, people?” she said.

“Sleeping soundly,” Jacobs said.

“And I’m not quite ready to sit up,” Zysman said, “so could you please slip my tray through the hole I made in the covers?”

“No chance. Today, good friend, you’re seeing the light.”

“Lay off the guy,” Spevack said. “It’s his business if he doesn’t want to come out.”

“But God’s own handiwork is out there for the viewing,” she said, pointing to the treeless parking lot and the home’s other wing.

“Not only that, the doctor ordered it.”

“What doctor? Name me names.”

“Doctor Gerontology, that’s who. He said: ‘Mrs. Slomski, I think it’d be beneficial today to have people see Mr. Zysman, and Mr. Zysman to face up to people seeing him,’ though naturally I can’t tell you the doctor’s real name. Professional courtesy and all that.” She placed a tray of food in front of Spevack and then tapped Zysman through the sheets. “You coming out, sweetie?”

“If you insist on seeing me,” Zysman said, “put a screen around the bed.”

“Enough dillydallying, Mr. Zysman. First of all, all the screens are in the new wing. Secondly, I raised six kids and saw to my own dear parents till they were in their nineties, so it’s not as if I don’t know how to handle people.”

“I said to lay off the guy,” Spevack said. “He’s got a bum heart and everything that goes with it. You continue and I’ll report your drinking habits to Kramer’s office. You’re probably tanked up even now.”

“You think they don’t know? They encourage it, in fact. Drinking and drug-taking are the two professional hazards that all nursing homes accept from their personnel, because how else could we bear looking at so many crotchety old men? Two.”

“Have some pity, Mrs. Slomski,” Ray said. “If Mr. Zysman doesn’t want to come out, respect that wish.”

“You, Mr. Barrett, should think to mind your own business. Talking about disgraces, you’re the worst. Occupying a bed that rightfully belongs to a senescent is one of the most despicable crimes against hunan nature a person could do. To me, you don’t even exist.”

“I’ll be occupying it for one more week. Then my father gets it.”

“Listen to that lie. You’re running away from the world, that’s what you’re doing. Or maybe writing an exposé for a scandal magazine. We’re wise to you — the whole staff. We all think you’re a misfit,” and she swiveled around to Zysman, said Three,” and flung the sheets off him. When they first saw his scarred body — his gloved hands covering his eyes and a scream so tight in his throat no sound came out — everyone but Mrs. Slomski had to turn away.

“Get a doctor,” Jacobs said, “My heart. My heart can’t take such a sight.”

Mrs. Slomski daintily put the sheets back over Zysman. “Now that wasn’t so terrible,” she said. The truth is, you don’t look half so bad as you think. It’s all in your head. Because nobody here hardly winced except for Mr. Jacobs, and you know what an old fuddy-duddy he is, besides being a great one for a practical joke. Take it from me: what I did was therapy. And now that everyone’s seen you, how about coming out on your own accord and eating these nice goodies?”

Zysman didn’t move. After about a minute Mrs. Slomski said how her curiosity just seemed to get the better of her at times and lifted the sheets off him though held them up in front of her so nobody else could see him. She let the sheets fall back on him and said “Know what? I think the poor man’s dropped dead on us.”