Stanley Elkin - Boswell

“Sleep,” the fourth voice said, “if anybody had ever told me I’d be lying down for as long as this and not be able to sleep, I’d have said he was crazy.”

So that was it, I thought. That explains the peculiar sound of the first man’s voice. He was lying down. I was probably lying down also. Then I wondered why I was lying down. I wondered why it was so dark.

“Excuse me,” I said, “where are we?”

“Another county heard from,” said the second voice.

“He must be coming out of it. I’ll bet he has some headache,” the fourth voice said pleasantly.

“I’m James Boswell,” I said. It occurred to me that

if I introduced myself they might tell me their names, and where we were, and why it was so dark.

“How do you do?” the third voice said.

“Charmed,” the second voice said. “All right, everybody get some sleep. That’s the best thing.”

“Promise me. Promise me,” said the first voice.

“Tell him,” the third voice said.

“Buddy? Buddy?” the second voice said.

“Are you talking to me?” I said. I was the fifth voice.

The second voice ignored me. “He dropped off,” he said after a while. “I’m next.”

“Right,” the third voice said.

No one said anything else. I wasn’t tired. I hadn’t been asleep and couldn’t remember when I had been asleep, but I wasn’t tired. It was very dark. If I hadn’t been asleep I should have been able to remember how it had gotten dark.

I wondered if I could move my arms. I pushed them laterally away from my body. I was surprised how easy it was. Suddenly my hands touched something solid and metallic and cold. Bars. So that’s how they do it, I thought. I tried to sit up but couldn’t manage it. It was peculiar. I remembered the fourth voice had spoken of pain but I felt no pain. Probably the fourth voice didn’t either. Men tended to boast about pain. Most of it was just talk.

Then, suddenly, without any effort on my part at all, I understood what had happened. I started to shout. “I’m James Boswell. I’m James Boswell. I’m James Boswell.”

“Listen,” I yelled, “you can ask my uncle. Ask Herlitz. There’s been a mistake.”

Of course, I thought. I still had the mask on; they had sealed the eyeholes. That’s why it was so dark. The idiots, the lazy god-damned idiots — they had buried me as The Masked Playboy!

“I’m James Boswell,” I screamed. “I’m James Boswell!”

“Now, now, now, now,” a new voice, close to me, said.

“Not in a common grave,” I pleaded. “For God’s sake, not in a common grave. I have a name. I’m James Boswell! Take off the mask and you’ll see.”

“That bandage has to stay on,” the new voice said.

“Not in a common grave,” I said.

“Get him out of here,” the second voice said suddenly.

I was very grateful. “Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate all you’ve done. I realize how it must be for you, but I have a name. I’m James Boswell.”

“We’ll put him in 508,” the new voice said.

Sure, of course, I thought, thirteen.

Hands were suddenly lifting me, scooping me out of the grave.

“He weighs a ton,” another voice said.

Ah, I thought sadly, dead weight.

They shoved me onto some sort of slab and began to wheel me through the dark. It was very pleasant. Sure, I thought. I’m James Boswell. Fair is fair.

“I must have given you people some trouble last night,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“It was the morphine talking,” the nurse said. “You’re off it now, anyhow. You have too many anxieties to take morphine.”

“My pain is very bad,” I said.

“We’ll give you some codeine,” the nurse said. “Is there anything else you need?” she asked when she had finished bathing me.

I shook my head. “Nurse,” I said, “am I going to die?”

“Of what?”

“Well,” I said, “my beating.”

“No, of course not.”

“There’s no sclerotic damage?”

“Sclerotic damage?”

“Well, the bandages,” I said.

“Those are for your bruises.”

“What about a concussion?”

“The x-rays were perfectly clean. Look, Mr. Boswell, your doctor should be telling you all this.”

“Was there any damage to the kidneys? To the lungs?”

“Really,” she said, “you do have anxieties.”

“Was there?”

“I doubt if you’ve even been checked for any. You haven’t even any broken bones. You were just very badly beaten up.”

“I’m not in any danger, then?” I said.

“Only from the nurses,” she said pleasantly.

“Where did you go to school, Doctor?” I asked after the nurse had left.

“The University of Chicago.”

“The University of Chicago, that’s one of the best in the country, isn’t it?”

“Well, it’s certainly a top-flight school, yes.”

“This may seem too forward,” I said, “but if you don’t mind me saying so you strike me as being a very excellent doctor.”

“Well, thank you very much.”

“I’ll bet you were at the very top of your class.”

“I was second in my graduating class,” he said.

“Second,” I said.

“A young woman was first. Dr. Angela Shauffert. She became a mission doctor in Africa and was killed during one of the tribal wars. It was a terrible waste.”

“Well, you’re the top now,” I said suddenly.

“What’s that?”

“I mean if she was first and she’s dead, that means you’re first now. I mean, there’s no living doctor who did better than you did in your graduating class.”

“Well, I suppose that’s true, though I don’t see what difference it makes,” the doctor said.

“You’re very modest, Doctor,” I said. Closing my chart, he shrugged and prepared to leave. The nurse came back with a mirror and held it in front of my face.

“How many stitches did you say I had?” I asked the doctor.

“Thirty-seven.”

“That must be the record,” I said.

“Hardly,” he said, “but it would almost make a good pair of pants.”

“Will there be scars?”

“No, I don’t think so. Most of them will heal very rapidly.”

“I look pretty bad,” I said.

“Did you know I saw the fight?” the nurse said to the doctor. “It was awful. I thought those things were fixed.”

“He damn near killed me,” I said. “When I collapsed in the dressing room I thought I was finished.”

“Well, you’ll be fighting again in no time,” the nurse said.

“In no time is right,” I said.

The nurse took the chart from the doctor and went out of the room. The doctor was about to follow her when I called out to him. “Oh, Doctor,” I said, “one other thing.”

“Really,” he said, turning around, “you’ll be fine.”

“No,” I said, “it’s not about that. Have you ever had anything in the Medical Journal?”

“Well, I have, yes.” He laughed. “You seem so interested.”

“I am interested,” I said. “Could you bring me a copy?”

“Of the Medical Journal?”

“Of your article in the Medical Journal. Now that my bandages are off and I can read again, I’d like to read something really worthwhile.”

“But it’s technical. Anyway, it has nothing to do with anything you’ve got, if that’s what you’re driving at.”

“No, of course not,” I said. “Please, Doctor.”

He brought his article when he came to see me today. It was about how blood pressure can affect the secretion of certain glands. As he had warned, it was very technical and I had to read it through three times before I could begin to understand it. But even on first reading I realized that the doctor was right, and I started to feel very good about him, and very proud of the both of us. When I put the article down I leaned back contentedly. That man has dressed my wounds, I thought, taken my. blood pressure.