Bruce Wagner - I’m Losing You

Ursula smiled, raising her leg with its flowery tennis shoe atop the steel half-door. Princess Kay of the Milky Way, ha! hoisting herself up, Mama, come!—

Faces carved in butter.

Perry Needham Howe

It turned out to be old-fashioned appendicitis. When the doctor said there was something else, Perry got the gooseflesh: he didn’t want to know. No, listen, said the doc, the nodules shrank, saw it on the pre-op X ray, plain as day. Little buggers were practically gone from the left lung altogether. But what did that mean ? Naturally, the doc didn’t know. Was it a good thing? he asked, animatedly cautious. Yes, said the doc, it was definitely a good thing. Then Perry pulled back emotionally because he didn’t want to get sucker-punched — that’s what cancer liked to do, ambush for a living. He asked what they were supposed to do now, and the doc said nothing, nothing to do but “follow it,” eyes peeled, ears to ground. The producer giddily theorized he was making so much money even the cancer was intimidated and the two men shared a nicely cathartic moment of comic relief. Perry asked if he was still going to die, a bullshitty question but he wanted to know. It’s a good question, said the doc. Then he gave him the trusty Zen of Common Sense standby, the old listen-whatever-you’ve-been-doing-don’t-stop-because-you’re-doing-something-right speech. When the doc left, Perry got on the phone to his wife.

Rachel brought mail and a videocassette to the hospital. She looked terrible. When Perry asked what was wrong, she broke down and confessed — she never returned the watch. She gave it away to a homeless person instead. Perry was further confounded when she handed him a personal check for fifteen hundred dollars, less than half the cost of the misappropriated item. She wanted to know if he would be kind enough to deduct the balance from her bi-monthly paychecks — unless, of course, he wished to prosecute. Rachel said she was prepared for that. When he pressed her to explain, she fled in tears.

Perry popped the “Calibre 89” into the VCR, perusing the cover.

Calibre 89

THE MOST COMPLICATED WATCH IN THE WORLD

Total development time : 9 years

(Research and development 5 years — manufacture 4 years).

Total diameter . 88.2 mm. Total thickness : 41 mm.

Total weight : 1100 grams Case : 18 ct. gold

Number of components : 1728, including 184 wheels—61 bridges—

332 screws—415 pins—68 springs

429 mechanical parts—126 jewels—2 main dials

24 hands—8 display dials.

The two-sided Patek denoted the time the sun rose and set; the date of Easter; the season, solstice, zodiac and equinox. There was an alarm too — when the carillon of its “grande sonnerie” sounded, the melody was nothing short of an especially composed theme of some sixteen notes. A pinion drove an astral map with a night sky that, thanks to a “modern method of gold evaporation under vacuum,” was able to show twenty-five hundred stars grouped in eighty-eight constellations. This supreme mechanism (forty-eight thousand man hours in the making) was even a thermometer. The tape showed its works in micro-, fetishized detail; one of the satellite wheels depicted within took four hundred years to make a single revolution.

“Where’s Harold Lloyd?”

The sprightly old man from down the hall peeked through the door at the monitor. “Well, hey there. How you doin’ today, Severin?” He freeze-framed while his visitor took a closer view of the enlarged cog.

“Where’s Harold Lloyd?” he demanded. “Didn’t you ever see Safety Last ?”

“Now, which one is that?”

“Harold Lloyd! Hanging on for dear life from the hands of a big clock.”

“I know the image well, but am embarrassed to say I’ve never seen the film.”

“A beautiful movie. So when are you checking out? If you’ll excuse my use of the term.”

“Tomorrow morning. You know, I’m actually getting a lot of work done. I’m gonna miss the place.”

“‘Please don’t talk about me when I’m gone,’” sang the old man. “Heard the one about the guy who married an older woman?” Perry smiled, cocking an ear. “She comes out of the bathroom on their wedding night and Junior jumps her. ‘Hey!’ she says. ‘Slow down! I’ve got acute angina.’ And Junior says, ‘I sure hope so because you’ve got ugly tits.’”

Perry began to snigger — guardedly, because he was already sore from the earlier jag. Then he couldn’t help himself and laughed until he almost bust a gut.

Severin Welch

To be his age and so rich, with a cancer: sweet Jesus, but that was the hand you were dealt. The Kid said it was in remission, but that was always a crock — no self-respecting cancer knew from “remission.” The Kid should be free and clear. Turtletaub should have it, right in the prostate or deep in the anus better yet, sitting poolside with his purloined scripts and Lady Schick’d legs. The old man prayed the cells were already splitting like sonsabitches, tarring up his stool but good.

Severin liked the Kid. The Kid was hung up on high-dollar watches. People were crazy any kind of way and so what. He could sure as hell afford it. The Kid was a swell connection to make; you never knew how you’d meet people (it helped if you left the house). He’d really opened up to the old man, gotten intimate about his disease and all…He could help him find an attorney, a Kid like that was bound to have them on retainer. Because I will have to deal with Mr. Turtletaub eventually, no way around it. He’d ask about it before he checked out in the morning — much as Severin loved the phone, some things were best done mano a mano. And pronto. No time like the present. Why wait. Kid seemed in pretty good shape. Good mood. Why not? Stroll over and watch some more of that crazy cassette, chat him up. Severin had already given him a little background. Not much, just a taste. The Kid was cordial — a real gentleman.

He turned and walked toward Perry’s room, not caring anymore, not really. No expectations. Only wanting justice or a measure thereof — to be acknowledged and credited, partially recompensed. He’d solicit his new friend’s help, his new friend who had to have as much money — more! — than any Turtletaub could ever dream. Plus he’d kicked cancer’s ass, and how was that for clout?

Severin spied him at the end of the hall in a natty robe, sharing his super-complicated mania with the Vietnamese nurse. As the smiling old man got closer, he shrieked and toppled, eyes rolling back in his head. They were dragging him from a great pyramid; a stone had fallen and was lying on his chest. He surfaced on a bed. Perry held his hand and they had the old man’s teeth out. He was crying. Doctors were everywhere and Zev shoved a needle in while Lavinia hooked him to a machine — the scanner! — wired into Voices of America like a switchboard Medusa. Why don’t Molly ever come? What went so wrong with that girl? You wait and you wait and— Can you hear me? asked a smooth-faced Doogie. Someone kept lifting the stone and dropping it down, lifting and dropping, like him and Joey used to pin beetles with a rock on the thorax— Can you hear me, Mr. Welch? Tried to speak. It’s okay , said Nurse Lavinia, the Kid nowhere in sight. It’s all right, you’re going to be fine …saw the Kid again, old man’s vision suddenly lake-stream clear, bad Samaritan Perry just outside the door, helpless — he looked so pained and so lost, Severin wanted to talk to him, prop the Kid up and make nice, he felt bad, too much death in that extremely wealthy young man’s life already, didn’t want any part of that ghoulish diorama, he wished the Kid would just look away: hooked up now to his Radio Shack gills, American Voices filling him up: house of the rising souls— Can you hear me, Mr. Welch?