listener with tiresomeand seemingly endless recitals meant to illustrate his daringly mad sense of humor, such as posing as a pregnant nun in a wheelchair when meeting a fellow priest at an airport and loudly and joyously exclaiming with his arms thrust out to the mortified arrival, “Oh, Jim! I’m so glad it was you!”
“Hey, Mayo! Good to see you!” Mooney exclaimed.
Mayo put an index finger to his lips.
“Oh, yes, sorry,” said Mooney in a lowered tone. “Forgot the time.” As the elevator door began to close, Mooney’s hand stabbed out to hold it back. “How’ve you been, Mayo?”
“Still on this side of the grass. Saw you passing by earlier.”
“Yes, I know. Couldn’t stop. I was taking communion to someone. Emergency. One of those things.” Mooney raised an arm for a glance at his watch. It was a chunky gold Rolex. “Oh, well, got to get back,” he sighed. “Lots of tourists due early at the chapel today.” The rounded walls of the priest’s little church were filled with mosaics of heralding angels chorusing “
Gloria in Excelsis Deo
,” and no matter the season, December or July, tourists gathered underneath its glass-domed nave to sing Christmas carols, often with an unexpected stirring in their hearts. As Mooney stepped into the elevator, Mayo glimpsed a scar at the base of his neck. The priest turned, pressed the ground floor button, and then lifted his hand in farewell so that Mayo saw the wide white Band-Aid that was wrapped around the top of a middle finger.
“Got some new stories for you, Mayo. Come and see us.”
“Yes, I will,” Mayo murmured absently.
“Oh, well, good! Make it soon, then! Okay? Make it soon!”
The elevator door whined shut.
Hands tucked into the pockets of his medical jacket, the neurologist lowered his head in thought, and as he listened tothe elevator’s lurch at the start of its descent, he tried to fathom why an icy tingling in his bloodstream was raising up hairs on the back of his neck.
A thump of the elevator stopping below.
Mayo looked up and stared abstractedly down a long hall and its rows of numbered patient rooms. What was wrong with him? he wondered. Which among the colorful and crowded palette of bizarre disorders of the mind had left the ghost of a brushstroke on his brain? A flash of white as a nurse appeared abruptly, emerging from an intersecting hall in the distance, and then an attendant, possibly Wilson, Mayo guessed. He waited until they had walked out of view, and then again began shuffling down the hall until he arrived at Room 406, where he stopped and stared sadly through the door’s observation port into darkness and a night light’s feeble glow. The room’s last occupant was a man named Ricardo Rey. He’d been Mayo’s patient. The one who had died. With a soul of patient kindness and the face of a white-haired elderly cherub, Rey was an official of the Spanish consulate who had come under Mayo’s care after suffering a devastating stroke. As the nurturing weeks of convalescence slipped by, Mayo’s outlook had grown cautiously optimistic, this in spite of a problem with the patient’s eyesight: he could not see anything beyond two feet. Then the matter turned somehow vaguely sinister, as Rey began reporting seeing people in his room who weren’t there. This included an incident in which the Spaniard, while sitting up in bed conversing with Mayo, interrupted himself in mid-sentence to turn and look up and a little to his left to inquire with aplomb and exquisite courtliness, even in the face of an apparition, “I’m so terribly sorry. Do I know you?” Mayo had at first not been overly concerned, attributing the visions toprobable damage to the ocular portions of Rey’s brain, but things changed when Mayo asked what the apparitions said to him.
“Nothing,” Rey had answered.
“Nothing? What about to each other? Do they talk to one another?”
“No, they don’t.”
“Well, then, what do they do?”
Here
“Hey, Mayo! Good to see you!” Mooney exclaimed.
Mayo put an index finger to his lips.
“Oh, yes, sorry,” said Mooney in a lowered tone. “Forgot the time.” As the elevator door began to close, Mooney’s hand stabbed out to hold it back. “How’ve you been, Mayo?”
“Still on this side of the grass. Saw you passing by earlier.”
“Yes, I know. Couldn’t stop. I was taking communion to someone. Emergency. One of those things.” Mooney raised an arm for a glance at his watch. It was a chunky gold Rolex. “Oh, well, got to get back,” he sighed. “Lots of tourists due early at the chapel today.” The rounded walls of the priest’s little church were filled with mosaics of heralding angels chorusing “
Gloria in Excelsis Deo
,” and no matter the season, December or July, tourists gathered underneath its glass-domed nave to sing Christmas carols, often with an unexpected stirring in their hearts. As Mooney stepped into the elevator, Mayo glimpsed a scar at the base of his neck. The priest turned, pressed the ground floor button, and then lifted his hand in farewell so that Mayo saw the wide white Band-Aid that was wrapped around the top of a middle finger.
“Got some new stories for you, Mayo. Come and see us.”
“Yes, I will,” Mayo murmured absently.
“Oh, well, good! Make it soon, then! Okay? Make it soon!”
The elevator door whined shut.
Hands tucked into the pockets of his medical jacket, the neurologist lowered his head in thought, and as he listened tothe elevator’s lurch at the start of its descent, he tried to fathom why an icy tingling in his bloodstream was raising up hairs on the back of his neck.
A thump of the elevator stopping below.
Mayo looked up and stared abstractedly down a long hall and its rows of numbered patient rooms. What was wrong with him? he wondered. Which among the colorful and crowded palette of bizarre disorders of the mind had left the ghost of a brushstroke on his brain? A flash of white as a nurse appeared abruptly, emerging from an intersecting hall in the distance, and then an attendant, possibly Wilson, Mayo guessed. He waited until they had walked out of view, and then again began shuffling down the hall until he arrived at Room 406, where he stopped and stared sadly through the door’s observation port into darkness and a night light’s feeble glow. The room’s last occupant was a man named Ricardo Rey. He’d been Mayo’s patient. The one who had died. With a soul of patient kindness and the face of a white-haired elderly cherub, Rey was an official of the Spanish consulate who had come under Mayo’s care after suffering a devastating stroke. As the nurturing weeks of convalescence slipped by, Mayo’s outlook had grown cautiously optimistic, this in spite of a problem with the patient’s eyesight: he could not see anything beyond two feet. Then the matter turned somehow vaguely sinister, as Rey began reporting seeing people in his room who weren’t there. This included an incident in which the Spaniard, while sitting up in bed conversing with Mayo, interrupted himself in mid-sentence to turn and look up and a little to his left to inquire with aplomb and exquisite courtliness, even in the face of an apparition, “I’m so terribly sorry. Do I know you?” Mayo had at first not been overly concerned, attributing the visions toprobable damage to the ocular portions of Rey’s brain, but things changed when Mayo asked what the apparitions said to him.
“Nothing,” Rey had answered.
“Nothing? What about to each other? Do they talk to one another?”
“No, they don’t.”
“Well, then, what do they do?”
Here
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