Charles Bock - Alice & Oliver

“Right—”

“Closing your eyes and having a tantrum.”

“Here we go.”

“Shouting: I don’t want to grow up. ”

“Woman’s idea of being a man. Married. Boring-ass nine to five. Crying infant sucking every spare dime. Balls safe in wifey’s purse.”

Alice absorbed the blow. “It’s a difficult thing to give your body to doctors,” she admitted. “I know when I’m weak and ill and in pain, I become complicit. I almost feel like I’m my baby, looking up at me to take care of her. I do understand what it’s like to be that helpless—”

A shrug of the shoulders. He kept staring to the right of her ear.

“I’m more than cogent enough to watch what the doctors and nurses do to me. I listen to their explanations. Believe me, honeysuckle, I’m not happy about…about this .” She motioned with her hands. “Part of me that feels as if their medical work is separate — I’m watching a television show where doctors discuss my status.”

“Right, it’s so goddamn infantilizing.”

“And it doesn’t seem like I’m actually doing anything. I’m lying there, passive, letting them pump me with poisons. All I can do is hope that a donor match comes through. So I can go through some other horrible procedure that might save my life.

“I don’t know you at all,” Alice said. She felt herself tearing up. “But you’re making me very angry at you.”

He flinched.

Running a hand through his hair, sweeping his falling bangs back. Merv avoided eye contact, instead looking at the pamphlets on the wall behind her.

That stare of hers, still boring in.

“I sat in that forsaken bed for more than a month,” Alice continued, “and believe me, the day’s empty spaces, they grow until they become spectral. Spectral . I know all about silence expanding until you’re sure it will never end. Every beep and knock swallowed, and you want to scream, No, fuck it all, just fuck it —”

Her eyes were unblinking, shining and gray and blue, not flinching.

“I’d trade with you in a heartbeat,” she said.

Merv gathered the courage and looked at her. Her pert nose sniffed at its bridge. Her nostrils flared.

“Before Buddha was Buddha,” Alice said, sniffing again, “he walked out on his wife and their baby. Being Buddha meant he had to be free, and freedom meant he could not have any commitments.” She spoke through tears, her words blubbery, progressively more difficult to understand. “I’ve always wondered: What about the wife he left? What was she supposed to do?”

Alice’s voice cracked. “It’s disrespectful to challenge a teacher by asking, is what I’ve found. They go mystical and tell you the personal has to be sacrificed for the universal good. But for the good of the wife, they give no answer.”

“There’s no answer,” Merv said.

“The most inclusive peaceful loving religion there’s ever been, understand? So I hear you that you can’t trust medicine. But it’s not like the other choices are any better.”

“Any God you want to pick,” Merv said. “He’s got to be one throbbing asshole.” He seemed to mull this. “Or maybe it’s that whole pay-attention-to-the-words-and-not-the-messenger deal? You know, like my high school gym teacher always said: It ain’t queer if you get paid for it. ”

“Horrible.” Alice’s eyes were delighted. Her protective paper mask stretched, extending with her smile.

Some night nurse made her way down the hall, vanished.

“I’ve been telling myself People get sick every day, ” Alice said. “But then I think: They aren’t me. ” She pantomimed a curtsy, as if to say, See, I can feel sorry for myself, too.

“None of the choices are worth a damn.” His hand, pale, callused, moved atop her thin, gloved one. He asked, “Where does that leave you?”

“Oh.” She waved him off. “What does anyone have? The people you love. The love you feel for others.”

“Passion,” Merv answered. “Living in the moment.”

“I try to tell myself, I am my decency. In any given moment, I can embody my best humanity.” She fingered the edge of her mask near her nose. “Sounds grand, anyway.”

Awaiting a response that she assumed would shred her, half-wincing in anticipation, she was aware now of his eyes, this man examining her with such intensity it was as if he were looking inside of her, searching — but for what she did not know. It seemed there was some wildness dawning inside him. It made her self-conscious. She worried she might blush, that this man was just unhinged enough to lean in and kiss her; she was certain he was about to try.

But no. He was a counselor, accompanied by an imagined acoustic guitar, crooning to campers gathered around a crackling fire:

It’s too late to complain

Bad, bad timing

Ugly saying

FLAT-OUT FUCKED

FLAT-OUT FUCKED

FLAT-OUT FUCKED

—

When Alice arrived back at her room, she still felt out of whack, unnerved by the scratch in his voice as it hit its pained, wailing apex. In the same way that his screaming had revealed the limits of his singing range, their conversation seemed to expose the outer limits of their respective sanities. Alice was sure this man was deranged. A part of her did not particularly mind, and even felt exhilarated by him. But she also felt relieved to be finished with this challenge, like a cat whose hair had stood along its back for too long.

Her room was dark, but she could make out the outline of her bed, propped up at a ninety-degree angle, her grandmother’s quilt turned back, the exposed mess of tangled sheets. Alongside, the rolling tray was agog with plastic pitchers, half-filled cups of water, plastic hospital dish covers, and a cardboard take-out soup container. Scant light filtered in through the windows, while the furthest edges of a more potent source emanated from the high far corner, the flashing colors of the soundless newscast visible above the separating wall. In the room’s stillness, she felt odd, almost contemplative, but also anxious. She wanted to call to see how things went with the child, say good night to Oliver, but knew better than to wake the baby.

It only took a few seconds before she realized something smelled foul. Worse even than the dry ice at home.

Mrs. Woo was moaning, and through her tube, her sounds were garbled, but obvious in their pain. Alice pushed her IV pole as quickly as she could, reaching the nurse bell. “Something’s wrong. The other woman in here — please come. She needs help.” Her hands felt clumsy, her legs heavy, but she managed her IV unit around the bed, toward the partition. Mrs. Woo sensed her presence. Before Alice could say anything, lights were hit; an orderly and a nurse were rushing around her.

“Damn.” The orderly took a whiff, the pair now disappearing behind the partition. Alice heard rustling, the nurse telling Mrs. Woo they were going to take a look, instructing the orderly in turning the old woman on her side, telling Mrs. Woo not to worry, she was going to make sure the breathing tube was clear and remained in place. “We’re going to take a look,” the nurse said. “It’s okay, dearie. You just had an accident. It happens to the best of us.”

—

Two nursing assistants, both massively overweight, would soon arrive to clean and strip the sheets. The taller would say, “Always at night they do this.” The nurse would promise Mrs. Woo that she’d check back with her and would order the assistants to stay with her, make sure that tube stayed clear. The nurse would take Mrs. Woo’s hand for a moment and assure: “You’ll be okay,” and when she left, the assistants would grouse and bump and knock about, making jokes as they cleaned. Alice would wish she had made eye contact with Mrs. Woo, and finally she would not be able to take any more, and with what strength she had, Alice would say, “She’s sick. Can’t you respect that?”