Cross Dressing (11 page)

Dan went to Michael’s bedside. “What the hell is going on?” There was an urgency in his voice. “I thought you just needed a shot of penicillin.”

Father Michael shrugged weakly. “They think it’s more than that,” he said from under his oxygen mask.

Dan looked at the clipboard hanging at the end of the bed. He made an odd gagging sound when he saw his own name listed as patient. “Holy Kuh-rist! This was supposed to be a quick fix, a shot in the butt. The second those bastards saw you were insured, they called every specialist in the hospital. I bet you’re not even sick. They’re just running up a big tab.” He slapped Michael’s shoulder. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.”

“I want to stay,” Father Michael said.

“Oh, jeeeeezz.” Dan sounded like he had a slow leak. He slumped onto the edge of Michael’s bed, panic setting in. Dan began to worry about getting caught, about being charged with
felony insurance fraud, about going to prison. He had to get Michael out of there. “C’mon,” he said. “We’re leaving.” Dan started exploring the how-tos of undoing the tubes and wires attached to his brother.

“Dan, stop it,” Michael said.

Dan ripped the adhesive monitors from Michael’s chest.

“Oww!”

“This is insane!” Dan snarled. “You’re not staying here. We’ll go to a drugstore, get you something over-the-counter so nobody goes to jail.”

“Father! What are you doing?” a woman asked, out of nowhere.

Dan spun around and saw a very large old nun coming toward him. It was Sister Mary Anthony, a sixty-nine-year-old bowling ball of robes and rosaries. Dan couldn’t tell by her habit if she was a Sister of Charity or a Lady of the Sacred Heart. All he knew was that she looked like she outweighed him and that she might produce an eighteen-inch ruler at any moment and do him some harm. “I asked what you were doing, Father.” The question was accusatory.

“Uh, he, uh, this looked a little loose,” Dan said, pointing at the IV. “Can’t take any chances, right?” He turned back to look at Michael. “How’s that feel … Dan?” He smiled and patted his brother’s hand.

Sister Mary Anthony gave Dan the evil eye as she checked the IV and reattached the heart monitor. With that taken care of, she snatched Dan’s arm and forced him to the door. “Thank you, Father, but we don’t need
your
help.” She seemed quite bitter about something. “Now, go on back to your rectory. I have to get Dan here in for some tests.”

F
ernando’s Dance and Social Club was in the basement of an old office building not far from the San Fernando Mission
Cemetery. It opened in the late 1950’s and a flood of Mexican immigrants quickly made it the most popular nightspot in the Valley. Its popularity waned as the years passed and now it was just a refuge for older men who had come to California from Mexico decades ago.

Like the clientele, the interior was in decline—faded, shadowy, sad. The decor evoked another time and place as well as the memories of people long forgotten. One dimly lit wall was dedicated to the art of the bullfight. It was covered with old black-and-white photos of famous matadors, picadors, and cape-men—gauchos all. There was a small and neglected shrine to Benito Juarez in one corner of the room. Day or night, it was equally dark inside the club. A string of small red and amber lights was embedded in the entire length of the bar. As customers leaned over to order drinks, the lights lent an uncanny blush to their faces and caused chins and noses to cast peculiar upward shadows.

It was a typical weekday afternoon, five older men and one woman, each sitting alone. The bartender pushed a fine shot of Mariachi tequila across the bar to the old gentleman who had come to Los Angeles from Oaxaca fifty years earlier. The man shook his head and said he did not order a shot of tequila. The bartender told him the woman at the end of the bar had sent it. She said she wanted to dance to a slow song.
“Creo que ella siente sola,”
the bartender said.

This struck a chord with the old man. He knew all about loneliness. He looked down the bar and acknowledged the woman with a mannerly nod. He sipped the tequila, then went to the jukebox and considered his options. He saw
“Aquellos Ojos Verdes”
and smiled. He fed the machine some coins and the song drifted into the room, sweet and nostalgic. The man smoothed the front of his shirt, then checked his hair in the reflection of the glass. He wanted to be presentable. He went to the woman and bowed in a courtly style.
“Le gustaria bailar?”

“Sí.”
Ruth smiled demurely, then took the man’s warm, weathered hand. She had left the Care Center earlier that morning feeling unwelcome and unwanted. In view of the fact that she hadn’t seen Michael in two days, Ruth feared he had simply left her among strangers. She had been abandoned before and wasn’t going to suffer that fate again, so she left the Care Center and set out for her old nursing home where she had friends. But she got lost along the way. She wandered the streets for hours before ducking into Fernando’s. Something about the place called her inside, maybe the promise of meeting someone else who was alone.

As they moved slowly around the dance floor, Ruth returned to her youth, when lots of men had asked her to dance. She wondered where those men, and those days, were now. She closed her eyes and appreciated the feel of the man’s hand against her back, of her hand in his. It had been too long since she had been held this way, or any other.

D
an couldn’t sleep. Too many thoughts were crashing around inside his head. His whole world was collapsing. All he could do was lie in bed and try to figure out a way to prop it up.

At eight Dan called his office to say he was sick and on his way to the hospital. He wanted to leave a paper trail of some sort about the hospital visit. He figured a phone message to the head of Human Resources would cover him on the off chance that the insurance company ever called to verify the claim.

As Dan was about to leave for the hospital, it occurred to him that he ought to be wearing clerical garb. As he changed clothes, Dan thought of how he should act while dressed as a priest. He wanted to be prepared in case anyone approached him about something spiritual. Assuming he wouldn’t be called upon to perform any of the sacraments, Dan figured he
could get by with a small set of Catholic facial expressions. He posed in front of the mirror and tried, without much luck, to conjure a look of benevolence. He had more success with his look of judgmental disdain. Dan wondered if he would need a look that said he really cared about others. The priests from Dan’s youth never looked that way to him. They always looked mean and serious and unamused. Dan figured he’d go with that.

He tugged at the clerical collar, trying to get some breathing room. He looked in the mirror and, for the briefest—most unlikely—moment, he thought he felt like a priest. The power vested in the uniform made him uncomfortable. It was as though he had been given serious responsibilities regarding other people’s souls. He didn’t like the way it felt. Not one bit. He preferred being responsible for just his own. Dan wondered why anyone would choose this life. It wasn’t exactly what you’d call a glamour profession. People always asking for forgiveness, begging for miracles, demanding selflessness on your part. And the celibacy. Forget about it. These were the exact reasons Dan had dropped out of seminary in the first place.

Dan was on his way out the door when the phone rang. It was Karen, his attorney, calling to say he had been served with some more papers. Dan violated the Second Commandment and told Karen he’d call her later.

He got to the hospital and snagged a wheelchair from the maternity ward in case his brother was too lazy or too weak to walk. As soon as visiting hours started, Dan was in Michael’s room. This time Dan wasn’t taking no for an answer. He began issuing orders the moment he walked in the room. “C’mon, bro, saddle up, time to get going.” He wanted to get out as quickly as possible, and he certainly didn’t want to run into Sister Mary Anthony again.

Michael’s comatose roommate was still there, lingering.
Dan walked to the curtain separating the old man’s bed from Michael’s. He yanked the curtain back, scaring the hell out of a man in a full body cast. Dan looked at him for a moment. “Excuse me,” he said. Dan turned to the comatose roommate. “I don’t suppose you have any insights on this.”

Given how things were going, Dan figured they’d moved Michael to a private suite on the top floor, something with a city view and a $10,000-a-day price tag. He looked for someone who might have some information. He cornered an orderly in the hallway and asked where Michael was. The orderly refused to make eye contact. Dan attributed that to the priest outfit and guilty feelings on the orderly’s part. The orderly directed Dan to an office at the end of the hall.

The nameplate on the door read “Dr. Wu.” Dan knocked once and walked right in. “I’m looking for Dan Steele. He was in room 605 yesterday. You know where he is now?”

Dr. Wu tensed at the question, but he relaxed when he looked up and saw a priest. Priests were so understanding, he thought, so at peace with everything. This would make Dr. Wu’s job much easier. “Come in, Father,” Dr. Wu said.

Dan instinctively target-modeled him as a “Doc in Hock.” He was a thirty-eight—to—forty-two—year—old, student-loan-paying, credit-card-balance-carrying, steak-eating A&E viewer who had considered Rogaine. “Please, sit down.” Dr. Wu gestured at a chair.

“I’m not in a sitting mood,” Dan said.

Dr. Wu nodded. “Are you the family’s spiritual adviser?”

“No, I’m the family itself. Could you just tell me where he is? I’m in kind of a hurry.”

Well
, Dr. Wu thought,
that certainly put things in a new light.
Still, it was better to have to tell a brother who was a father than a loving mother or wife—much less chance of one of those big emotional scenes that made the doctor so uncomfortable.

“Can you hear me, Doctor? I’m still here,” Dan said. “Waiting. Dan Steele, remember?”

“What? Oh, yes,” Dr. Wu said. “Forgive me, Father. Just gathering my thoughts.” He leaned forward onto his desk and looked at a document, then looked up at the priest. “Uh, Father … Dan’s gone
home,”
Dr. Wu said. He nodded slowly as if that said it all.

“No, he’s staying with me,” Dan said. “I’d know it if he’d gone home.”

Fortunately Dr. Wu had been trained to deal with denial. What he didn’t want to do was hit the poor man right in the nuts with the hard facts, so Dr. Wu again tried the soft approach. “Father, I’m sorry,” he said. “Dan left us.”

“I heard you,” Dan said. “But I don’t think he’d leave without me.”

Dr. Wu gazed at Dan with understanding eyes. “Well, Father, we don’t always get to choose when we coil up our ropes, do we?”

Dan cocked his head toward the ceiling and looked at the light fixture. Then he looked back at the doctor. “Ropes?” The doctor smiled sadly when he realized the priest simply wasn’t fluent in euphemism. “What the hell are you talking about … ropes?” Dan asked.

“I’m sorry, Father. I thought you knew. Dan’s dead.”

“T
HERE MUST BE SOME MISTAKE,” DAN INSISTED. “HE WAS
fine yesterday.”

Dr. Wu acknowledged that, although doctors sometimes made mistakes, diagnosing death was something at which they were fairly adept. There was no mistake. Dan was dead.

It didn’t hit Dan all at once. There were too many variables to consider, too many implications, and Dan was too upset to consider all that at present. The only thing he could think about was his brother. Michael was dead. Gone. Forever. Dan just sat there, his eyes unfocused and staring into space. After a minute he looked up at the doctor. “He’s dead?”

Dr. Wu nodded and began to explain. “As you know, when you brought Dan in yesterday we ran a GI series as well as CT and MRI scans and a WBC nuclear scan. That led us to a small intra-abdominal abscess and sepsis. We consulted with Surgical and Infectious Disease Services and they put him on an experimental antibiotic to fight the infection.” Not wanting to add insult to injury—or in this case, to death—Dr. Wu neglected to mention that the hospital was charging five thousand dollars per cc for the newly patented antibiotic.

Dan was stunned. He didn’t hear a word Dr. Wu said. He just sat there thinking about Michael. A million thoughts and images—mostly from childhood—raced through his mind. He
thought about how he and Michael had protected each other, as best they could, from all the fears and insecurities that their miserable childhood handed them.

Dr. Wu knew that Dan wasn’t listening, but he continued nonetheless. “Since the infection didn’t respond to the antibiotic, we did an exploratory laparotomy,” Dr. Wu said. “It took about twelve hours to resect his colon and distal pancreas.” The doctor looked back at the document on his desk and marveled that they were able to charge $1,500 an hour plus some weighty professional fees for that surgery.

Dan started to cry when he remembered the day he learned his father had abandoned them. He’d been gone for a week without any explanation. Then one afternoon, the phone rang. Dan picked it up at the same time his mom did. Dan didn’t say anything; he just listened. It was his father saying he’d had all he could take. He wasn’t coming back. “But what about the boys?” Ruth had asked.

“You can keep ’em,” he said. “I sure as hell don’t want ’em.” And then he hung up.

That was the last thing Dan ever heard his father say. And he never repeated those words to Michael. He kept that to himself. All he told Michael was that their father wasn’t coming back. The two boys made a vow to be better men than that and to take care of their mother.

As Dan wiped the tears from his face, Dr. Wu continued. “After the surgery, Dan’s oxygenation dropped badly. We suspected a pulmonary embolus. So we did a nuclear VQ scan, an arteriogram, and an emergency cardiopulmonary bypass to remove the clot.” Expensive procedures all.