the
charge, which was nearly the most debasing accusation he could
imagine. "It has nothing to do with sentiment. It has to do with
what's dignified and fitting. Those paintings were given in
friendship."
"Friendship is complicated," said Clay
Phipps.
"So is envy," said Robert Natchez. "So is
old stale jealousy. So is hate." He swirled his wine the way he'd
seen Phipps do it, drained his glass, and licked his lips. "Any
more of this?" he asked.
Phipps somewhat grudgingly got up to fetch
the bottle.
*
Augie Silver nestled the thin smock between
his skinny thighs and slowly, cautiously settled back onto the
examination table. "I feel like Mahatma Gandhi in this thing," he
said.
"You look like an anorectic Father Time,"
said Manny Rucker, his doctor for the past ten years. "Now lie
still and let me goose you."
Rucker put his soft hands on Augie's belly,
pressed under his ribs to palpate the liver, felt for enlarged
spleen, for hernia, for strangled loops of intestine. Augie blinked
at the ceiling and was almost lulled asleep by the visceral
massage. He'd spent the morning with electrodes taped onto his head
and glued across his chest. He'd given blood, produced urine
samples, labored mightily but without success to deliver a stool.
He was exhausted.
"You are one hell of a case study," said his
doctor, and the voice pulled Augie back to the waking present: the
hum of the air conditioning, hot light being sliced by narrow
blinds, the waxy paper of the exam table crinkling under him, the
smell of alcohol masking but not effacing the intimate aromas of
sundry sorts of human goo. "Rest awhile if you like. I'll come back
for you later."
Nina Silver was waiting in the consultation
room. She sat on the edge of a green leather chair and stifled an
urge to straighten the frames of the gold-sealed diplomas and
purple-bordered certificates: paraphernalia of reassurance,
fetishes of hope, pompous promises that things would probably turn
out O.K., and if they didn't, well, at least everything humanly
possible had been done. A silver pen stood next to a tortoiseshell
box that held prescription slips. Behind the doctor's imposing
chair was a pen-and-ink caricature of a fat woman bending over to
receive a shot in the behind: No Norman Rockwell prints for Manny
Rucker.
He bustled in, hands buried wrist-deep in
his labcoat pockets, and started talking before he'd even reached
his desk. "Nina," he said, "your husband is an extremely stubborn
man. He really should be dead about five different ways."
She swallowed and slid backward in her seat.
Her spine went soft and it took tremendous concentration, a
gymnast's concentration, to hold herself erect. The doctor bounded
around his desk, tossed a manila folder onto his green blotter,
then dropped so heavily into his swiveling, rolling chair that the
entire office seemed to quake around him. "I'm not saying this to
frighten you," he resumed. "I'm saying it because I'm impressed as
hell. I'm amazed.
"Listen. We don't yet know everything that
went on with him—we won't know that till the lab work is done, and
even then a lot of it will be surmising, reconstructing. But here's
the minimum we're up against."
Rucker bore down on the arms of his throne
until the springs creaked and the casters chattered against their
Plexiglas platform. He exhaled noisily, then leaned forward, opened
the folder, and spread his thick and hairy elbows on either side of
it.
"Last time Augie was in here, he weighed a
hundred seventy-four pounds, and he wasn't fat. He now weighs one
sixteen. That kind of weight loss, the dehydration, the metabolic
craziness, is very debilitating. His kidneys shut down for a
while—the function seems to be returning, but we can't tell how
badly they've been compromised. His stomach has shrunk up smaller
than a fist, which means it's going to be a long, slow process
getting the weight back on him. His spleen is enlarged, who knows
why. That's another obstacle to recovery."
The doctor
charge, which was nearly the most debasing accusation he could
imagine. "It has nothing to do with sentiment. It has to do with
what's dignified and fitting. Those paintings were given in
friendship."
"Friendship is complicated," said Clay
Phipps.
"So is envy," said Robert Natchez. "So is
old stale jealousy. So is hate." He swirled his wine the way he'd
seen Phipps do it, drained his glass, and licked his lips. "Any
more of this?" he asked.
Phipps somewhat grudgingly got up to fetch
the bottle.
*
Augie Silver nestled the thin smock between
his skinny thighs and slowly, cautiously settled back onto the
examination table. "I feel like Mahatma Gandhi in this thing," he
said.
"You look like an anorectic Father Time,"
said Manny Rucker, his doctor for the past ten years. "Now lie
still and let me goose you."
Rucker put his soft hands on Augie's belly,
pressed under his ribs to palpate the liver, felt for enlarged
spleen, for hernia, for strangled loops of intestine. Augie blinked
at the ceiling and was almost lulled asleep by the visceral
massage. He'd spent the morning with electrodes taped onto his head
and glued across his chest. He'd given blood, produced urine
samples, labored mightily but without success to deliver a stool.
He was exhausted.
"You are one hell of a case study," said his
doctor, and the voice pulled Augie back to the waking present: the
hum of the air conditioning, hot light being sliced by narrow
blinds, the waxy paper of the exam table crinkling under him, the
smell of alcohol masking but not effacing the intimate aromas of
sundry sorts of human goo. "Rest awhile if you like. I'll come back
for you later."
Nina Silver was waiting in the consultation
room. She sat on the edge of a green leather chair and stifled an
urge to straighten the frames of the gold-sealed diplomas and
purple-bordered certificates: paraphernalia of reassurance,
fetishes of hope, pompous promises that things would probably turn
out O.K., and if they didn't, well, at least everything humanly
possible had been done. A silver pen stood next to a tortoiseshell
box that held prescription slips. Behind the doctor's imposing
chair was a pen-and-ink caricature of a fat woman bending over to
receive a shot in the behind: No Norman Rockwell prints for Manny
Rucker.
He bustled in, hands buried wrist-deep in
his labcoat pockets, and started talking before he'd even reached
his desk. "Nina," he said, "your husband is an extremely stubborn
man. He really should be dead about five different ways."
She swallowed and slid backward in her seat.
Her spine went soft and it took tremendous concentration, a
gymnast's concentration, to hold herself erect. The doctor bounded
around his desk, tossed a manila folder onto his green blotter,
then dropped so heavily into his swiveling, rolling chair that the
entire office seemed to quake around him. "I'm not saying this to
frighten you," he resumed. "I'm saying it because I'm impressed as
hell. I'm amazed.
"Listen. We don't yet know everything that
went on with him—we won't know that till the lab work is done, and
even then a lot of it will be surmising, reconstructing. But here's
the minimum we're up against."
Rucker bore down on the arms of his throne
until the springs creaked and the casters chattered against their
Plexiglas platform. He exhaled noisily, then leaned forward, opened
the folder, and spread his thick and hairy elbows on either side of
it.
"Last time Augie was in here, he weighed a
hundred seventy-four pounds, and he wasn't fat. He now weighs one
sixteen. That kind of weight loss, the dehydration, the metabolic
craziness, is very debilitating. His kidneys shut down for a
while—the function seems to be returning, but we can't tell how
badly they've been compromised. His stomach has shrunk up smaller
than a fist, which means it's going to be a long, slow process
getting the weight back on him. His spleen is enlarged, who knows
why. That's another obstacle to recovery."
The doctor
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