Stephen Dixon - What Is All This? - Uncollected Stories

The nurse said…”

“Yes?”

The nurse said…the nurse said every time my mind…my mind every time…”

“Dad, come on, give it a rest.” He took his hand. It was cold, just as before the operation, so what good had it done? The first one turned out to be a failure. And when he and his sister brought him back to be examined the doctors said that, as they had previously warned, it was necessary to reoperate on about ten percent of the cases; drilling deeper and reinserting the tube into the patient’s skull and freezing that part of the thalamus they had missed. But they had never mentioned the possibility of reinsertion. All they said was that three to four percent of the patients never fully recover from the operation and another one percent die on the table, almost always because of a previous cardiac condition the desperate patient and family hadn’t disclosed. Andy and his sister hadn’t wanted him to go through it again, but he insisted. “For what good am I the way I am? A burden, a good-for-nothing burden on everyone if I don’t get myself fixed up quick and back to work. And you want to see all my money disappear and then yours too?”

“Dad?” Andy said. “Your hand feels wonderful…it really does.”

“Every time…every time…”

“Dad, let me see you give me one of your real good handshakes.”

“Someone,” the patient in the next bed said, “someone get that yellow jacket…that hornet on the lamp. Now get that one. I said get that one.”

That poor man,” Andy said. “Does he bother you much?”

But he was still trying to squeeze Andy’s hand.

“Say, now that’s what I call a grip. You’re getting much stronger. Why, I bet in a few days—”

“In a few days…”

“In a few days you’ll be able to pull out teeth just as you used to. I’m not kidding. The surgeon said they got it all this operation. That you’re really going to be able to walk by yourself this time.”

This time…this time…”

“Don’t repeat everything I say, Dad.”

“Every time my mind…my mind…it’s my godawful mind, Andy,” and he shut his eyes and seemed to be dozing off.

That’s fine, Dad — you sleep. I’ll just sit here — till closing, even. I promise.”

“Yellow jackets…wasps…hornets,” the other patient said. “Huge hornets and flying stinging ants. Iowa’s full of them, all trying to keep a working man from his sleep.”

He snapped his hands in the air at the insects. Then his feet began tremoring and his legs jerked up and down under the covers and his hands thumped the mattress. “Yellow jackets and hornets and flying stinging ants…”

“Flying stinging ants,” Andy’s father said, his eyes still closed.

That’s right. Huge stinging ants. Iowa’s full of them, the rotten pests. They’ll kill you.” Then the two men were quiet, their sleeps seemingly untroubled. Andy waited a few minutes, felt his father was really asleep this time, and left the room.

He took the elevator to the cafeteria on the fifth floor, got a cruller and coffee, looked around for a place to sit and saw, seated at the rear of the room, the surgeon who’d operated on his father. He went over to him.

“Excuse me,” he said, “but I wonder if I could talk to you for a moment.” The young doctor peered up from the coffee he’d been sipping. The nurse beside him whom he’d been talking to, cut his jelly doughnut in half with a fork.

“Pardon me?” the doctor said.

“I’m Herman Waxman’s son — Mr. Waxman on the seventh floor?”

“Oh, sure. Nice to meet you. I’ll be on that floor in fifteen minutes, so why don’t I speak to you then?”

“I might not see you. You fellows seem to come through the floor so rapidly that I’ve missed you each time. And I work late and can’t get here every night.”

“Tonight I promise I’ll be there at eight sharp. I’ll be making my rounds of all the Parkinsonians then, and I’ll make a point of looking for you.”

“Your coffee’s getting cold, Dr. Gershgorn,” the nurse said.

“Would you mind very much if I had my coffee with you?” Andy said to him. “I’ve some important questions to ask about my father’s operation.”

“Mr. Waxman,” the doctor said. “I appreciate and understand your interest and concern and all, but this is my one breaking during an uninterrupted five-hour stretch.”

“Just tell me if his operation was a success or not.”

“If I can remember correctly, your dad’s coming along nicely.”

“But his hands are still cold, and almost rigid. And when you saw him in that preoperative exam two weeks ago you said his hands would become warmer and have more movement after the operation. And there seems to be some damage to his speech and mind — even worse than before the first operation.”

“I don’t recall getting any reports on that. Maybe your dad is still drowsy.”

“But it was like that last night. And the nights and days before that, my sister said.”

“Well, so soon after an operation—”

The operation was a week ago, if you’d really like to know.”

“Now listen, Mr. Waxman. It’s impossible for me to talk accurately about this without his charts and records, so what do you say I see you upstairs?”

“I suppose you’re right.”

“I’m saying…well, I’m not trying to be evasive or anything, but this is a cafeteria.”

“Of course. I’m sorry. My apologies to you both,” and still holding his tray, he excused himself and made his way to a table across the room. A woman, whom he’d seen in his father’s room but mostly in the visitors’ lounge down the corridor, where she was always smoking, got up from another table and sat opposite him.

“You don’t mind, do you?” she said. “It’s only you’re the one person, other than staff, I recognize here, and I hate having coffee alone.”

“It’s fine; sit.” He reached for the sugar dispenser.

“I see you also like your coffee sweet,” she said.

“I usually drink it with nothing, but this hospital coffee’s such vile stuff that I—”

That Mr. Waxman — he’s your father, isn’t he?”

That’s right.”

“A sweet old man — just wonderful. Everyone on the floor loves him. He’s a lucky man also, having a son who lives close by, coming to see him so much. Don’t worry, your lovely sister told me all about you and your important TV news work. It sounds very interesting. And it’s nice that he also has a daughter who takes care of him the way she does.”

“Sheila’s devoted to him. She and Dad have always been close.”

That’s wonderful. Now the two boys of my poor husband — you can have as a gift. I’m not even sure they remember he’s alive.”

“Did your husband go through a similar operation?”

“Similar? The same. There’s only one way to cure them so far, and that’s the one they both went through. And now reinsertion also, drilling away like they were oilmen digging for riches, instead of well-paid surgeons. But he wanted it. Oh, we couldn’t talk him out of it for the world. But it won’t do him any good. And for this factory here to go ahead with it and take the last of our savings, was like taking candy from a baby — literally. Have you noticed him grabbing for hornets and such?”

That’s your husband?”

“Myron Dodd, bed number B. He did the same thing after the first operation for a week, and also repeating everything he heard, exactly like your dad does. And last time they also discharged him, saying he was in terrific shape — you should have seen how convinced the doctors were. And in a way he was, walking and speaking fairly well and gaining weight and using his hands as he hadn’t done in years. But three weeks after we got him home he collapsed in his chair as he was trying to push a hole through his baked potato, so you can see why I say it’ll happen again.”