Interstate (30 page)

You call your wife. You first asked the doctor if he knew a good place to. “You want privacy, naturally,” and you said “That, a door I can close, place that doesn't look out on anything and have people coming through and no one can look in.” He said his office, “cubicle's more like it, where I do my more complicated paperwork and phoning and can catnap sitting up,” and that he'd leave you alone in it. Margo wanted to speak to her mommy but you said “After, another time, when I call next and I'll be calling a lot, I promise. But you see, I'll be talking to her for the first time since New York,” and she said “So?” and you said “So, I have to be more unmistakable?” and she said “I don't know what you mean. It's just I have to speak to her.” You said “After I tell her some things I'll see if she wants to talk to you. She might not. Or she probably will want to but not be able to, so don't be offended if she says no. But I will ask her for you, if I'm able to, since by that time I'll probably be in terrible shape too, but she may be too broken up—let's say she will—to talk to anyone after that including me.” The doctor unlocks the cubicle door, says “I can't give you the key, it's my only one and I have to go through all sorts of bureaucratic rigmarole to get another one, and the door locks automatically when you close it and there's no way to keep it unlocked if you leave the room. That is, if the door's firmly shut. Please don't, if you leave the room and want to return, keep the door ajar with a chair or shoe or anything. There's been thievery in the hospital, some we think by staff, and I have important papers and possessions in the room, though they even take thermoses and telephones.” “A shoe?” and he said “Why would I have one in there? It's one of two. I keep a pair handy for jogging—running shoes. If you get locked out, ask the nurses' station to summon me over the public address system and I'll come fast as I can to unlock it.” Margo was taken to a room with a TV. The doctor suggested it. “We have several spare private patient rooms. We can move in a TV if one isn't there, get her soda and snacks, she can sit in the chair or even on the bed—it's okay, we'll remake it, plenty of linen here—and she can watch her favorite shows with a remote control. Of course, all this depending on how long you'll be.” “I'll need some time to prepare, to think; you know, and then to get over it after I call. And Margo doesn't know how to use one of those control things, that I know of. And I don't think she has any favorite shows or watches any TV except for some popular two-hour one on Friday nights and maybe a nature film and occasionally, it doesn't count though, a video movie with us or for them if it's gentle and clean.” “Strict about it, that it? Feel it'll hurt their intellectual and moral development?” and you said “In a way. But she doesn't especially like TV and I think even those two Friday-night hours and nature film are for our benefit, to show she's so-called normal, one of the kids. And because she didn't, the other didn't, or at least that's the way it worked.” “Oh, she likes it all right but I bet is only trying to please you, your obviously being book- and high-minded people, to think she doesn't. But she'll change soon, or would have if this thing didn't happen today—now for a while everything will be out of whack—and go at it avidly, I was going to say,” and you said “Maybe. But I hate TV for them; hated, hate. All that violence and emphasis on money and beauty and body and the commercials one-two-three and in all of it kittenish to what I now hear, even in the ads, is semiexplicit sex. Suppose she sees a show now with violence in it, what'll I do? The sex and stupid stuff I don't mind for her at this moment, but the violence? Suppose it's about one or two deranged men who kill a person cavalierly, or even a kid or even a kid in a car and even from a car this kid's killed? But a random smiling crime on the run, even if the killers get it at the end or repent. She'll fall apart. I will too at hearing she saw it. Maybe someone can watch the TV with her. To clear the programs and just to be there to talk to if she suddenly wants to. Or maybe you have some family-movie videos, movies from thirty-forty years ago when there wasn't as much blown-out brains and blood in them,” and he said “We don't have VCRs here. She'll be all right, really. It'll be a good distraction. Look, I have kids too. And I know, for they're around the same age as yours and a third who's a bit older and also because of the patients I see and talk with, that what happened to her today and what she sees on TV and the movies are two distinct things. One's fantasy and entertainment, the other's real and repulsive, but for some reason, even if they haven't seen a lot of it on TV, they're able to separate the two more easily than me or you.” “You've kids my age—my kids' age? And two—three? You seem so young to—too young to. Maybe I started too late. Anyway, I'll try to get her away from the TV soon as I can. I won't try to get through with the phone call to my wife soon as I can, but over it after, and maybe sooner to it.” You shut the door. Just before you did you said “What happens now to my younger girl? More slicing up? I should ask my wife first if she wants Julie to go through with more of that, but
I wouldn't know how to go
about it. With both of us so uncollected, there can't be a way,” and the doctor said “I'm afraid you haven't a choice, sir. Someone's been killed. We only did an exploratory on her, to see what could be salvaged if you'd agree, though nothing could. But first a few holes for tubes and other medical procedures to try to resuscitate her, even if everything was predetermined the minute we saw her. The county medical examiner will perform a thorough examination of her because foul play's been suspected,” and you said “Foul play? She was murdered in front of me, or by two guys in front of me, she was right behind me or to the side in back. Now I forget where she was sitting but she had to be because Margo was right behind. I mean—” and he said “The term's a technicality. He'll also trace and then locate the bullet if it didn't exit. Our preliminary exam indicated it didn't, but it's easy to miss the exit hole. Or even a second bullet, since the entry and exit holes for it may be in some more unyielding areas of her body or they closed. Then his office will contact you to arrange for a funeral home to pick up your daughter. If he can't reach you—before you leave here you'll want to give me all the phone numbers where you think you might be. In fact, let me have them now, I might miss you later,” and you gave your home phone number—“I think that's right, I'm so confused now, but up till last year I think I was the only Nathaniel Frey in the phone book”—but couldn't remember at all the numbers of your in-laws and your wife's sister. “This is her folks' names and address: they're listed in the Manhattan book as a couple, his name first, and here's my brother-in-law's name in New Haven. I might just drive north—not drive, take the train or hire a cab or something—to be with my wife, and she might go to her sister's or stay at her folks' or even fly home to be with me and Margo. I'll have to make sure to coordinate it, so we don't get, you know, that'd be terrible, wouldn't it? But I guess it'll all depend where Julie's taken to. And where would we? I don't know of any home where we are, but that shouldn't be tough to find. Several are nearby, not next door but within blocks, and by then friends or my wife's family will help if I want to bring them in. But if he can't reach me?” and he said “The coroner? Then he'll get instructions from one of those close relatives or place her in a home here and tell you when he does contact you. He has a small office and no facilities for storing the subjects he's worked on, excuse me for putting it like that. He should be done tomorrow afternoon, since he's probably picking her up right now.” “Maybe I should go to him, help him put her in his truck or van if he didn't come with anyone and you're short-staffed, and go with him to provide information he might want. And to stay with her, but in another room while he's working on her, till she has to go to a home, and maybe even there's where my wife can meet me—the coroner's—but I have to make that call to her first and what would Margo do all that time?” and he said “It's also not necessary; he has all the data he needs from us and the police.” “But there are little specific health details he might want to know about her that only her pediatrician and parents know, and my wife ten times better than I, and he doesn't have her records, does he? Did you call her pediatrician for them? I don't remember giving anyone her name and phone number. That one I could never remember—it didn't have to take something like today—and would always ask my wife for, who'd produce it on the spot. Among other things she has a head of a thousand phone numbers and all our Social Security numbers, but I can give you the doctor's name or the group practice's,” and he said “He won't need any of that for what he'll be doing,” and you said “So, that means I'm done here. I can go whenever I want with Margo after I make my call. It's hard to believe. There must be something I haven't done, attended to, that sort of thing—answered,” and he said “Outside of the call to your wife, if you're still up to it, and what you want the police to do with your car after, I can't think of anything. You will want to contact them before you go if they're through with the car and you're planning to leave it behind, as I don't know how long they'll want to take care of it before they park it in a private lot. Perhaps you'd like me to deal with them, you shouldn't be bothered,” and you said “I can call them from where I end up or in a few days, send them the title and registration and tell them to sell it or give it away if they want. Maybe for the hospital; you've all been very kind. But it's almost an old car, lots of miles and stains and banging up and now even worse. It might get a couple of thousand if the buyer isn't repelled by what happened or think there's a curse attached. Though even if it were new and worth umpteen thousands it wouldn't stop me from never wanting to have anything to do with it again or anything we left inside it or even file an insurance claim, other than for going what I probably have to go through, like signing the ownership papers with my wife's and my name, to get rid of it,” and he said “It's a generous offer, one you or your wife might have a change of mind about later, but I'd think it'd be too complicated for the hospital to get involved in something like an auction or sale, though thank you.” It's a little room, a cubicle as the doctor said. As they were walking to it he said “It's something, isn't it, those floods down South. With only a slightly stronger wind or high pressure—something blown in from the ocean or up from the Gulf—and then a similar weather pattern that stopped the clouds over the South for so long, we would have got a huge dose of it ourselves,” and you said “What, because of the rains? I wish we had. I wouldn't have driven back today, or yesterday if I had heard it was on the way, or tomorrow if it happened today, if we started to get what they did or anything near. That is what you mean, right?” and he said “There's never been anything like it in the weather annals there. We've had periodic heavy wettings recently, nothing for several days. But they've had, Virginia on down, twenty-six straight days of rain and five to seven inches of rain in some places for six consecutive days. You can understand why the rivers wouldn't hold—the levees. A few billion acres of land covered over, I read. Entire towns and one capital city under water, or to the first or second story, and one of our oldest universities totally flooded. What a catastrophe. Six states have already been declared federal emergency disaster areas and a seventh is on the way. Municipal water systems knocked out for weeks, the pestilence that can occur if people so much as brush their teeth with tap water in thousands of homes. Billions in property damage, not acreage loss. Maybe a few million acres covered or totally saturated. And to top it off, it's continuing to rain in biblical proportions with no end in sight. What was it, eighty days, forty days, forty-eight? You can almost begin believing that it happened because of something horrific the region's done, for why was every other region spared? Just think what's going to happen to fruit and citrus prices the next year and traveling this summer if some of those major bridges go and highways are ruined,” and you said “I've been listening to it on the radio now and then and seeing it in the papers the last few days but for some reason I haven't paid much attention. Could be it's just too big a calamity to imagine or care about as a whole or there hasn't been enough reporting of individual tragedies about it except for things like ‘My family farm's gone,' ‘The homestead where my ancestors grew up is finished,' I can't get to work and I need the money, now even more so to pay off this damage,' ‘My car and camper both destroyed along with the carport they were in,' ‘Our only family tree's on my mother's computer that floated away,'” and he said “Picture I get is different, sir. Seventy-one deaths so far overall and thousands of livestock, if you care about animals the way I do. An entire Boy Scout troop lost while spelunking, quarter-million people living in shelters now, but all that neigh-bor-aiding-neighbor attitude down there, with some people driving hundreds of miles to help and even coming from other states when the call went out for sandbaggers to work twenty hours straight. One man who sandbagged for a storeowner he hated like hell, he said, but in times of crisis like this, he added, what else can you do but pitch in?” and you said “Then I must be wrong, didn't read enough or not the right newspapers and wasn't listening to the radio at the right times. I didn't mean to sound heartless about it.” Little room, little cubicle, normal-size cubicle, how big do you suppose? Big as three old telephone booths, some height. Big as your second-floor shower-bath at home plus connecting linen closet, same height. Big as two cars of your model and make, one on the other. Your car. What things of hers you leave behind in it? Dollies, clothes, games, toothbrush, you've said all this, her own special toothpaste gel with an unusually large flat cap so the tube can stand on it, books from your local library, let it all go. To the library you'll say, well, you'll say nothing. You'll just pay by check sometime after the bill comes for all your overdue books and never if you can help it go near that library again. No windows, so, windowless, diplomas on the walls, bookcase full of medical books, papers neatly stacked on the narrow desk underneath, pencils, long yellow writing tablets, couple of coat hooks on the door with medical jackets on them, hanger with street clothes on a wall hook, tie on another, running outfit and athletic shorts on a third, running shoes and hightop sneakers so maybe he also plays basketball, towel on another wall hook, under it a long black rubber tubing he probably exercises with. You pull out the drawers looking for what? Phone book because you forget your area code and don't want to dial Information and speak to anyone for it. It's a new one, changed the past year when the state divided into two codes, and all you can think of is the old. Shaving gear, bottle of aspirins, pint bottle of rye or whatever the smallest size is that isn't the souvenir kind, half pint. A glass. You shouldn't, it's not yours, there's barely a quarter-bottle left, which means around two shots. He may be saving it for a bracer, after this difficult shift with your dead daughter, for instance, or right after you go. But he wouldn't mind, he'd understand, not mind that much, you might even tell him if you see him again and a few months from now send him a fifth or liter of one of the best Irish whiskeys, if you remember his name, and pour a finger of it, two fingers, practically emptying it, and shoot it down and put the bottle back in the drawer. Glass was clean when you picked it up, no sink in here so unless you wash it he'll know you drank from it. But again, you're almost sure he won't mind. He's a nice guy, you can tell by what he said and the way he smiled and all the time he gave you. What doctor do you know would do that? Maybe all of them, in this situation, if they weren't called to another emergency, and anyway by the time he finds the glass, which could be today if he takes that bracer, you'll be gone from here though you don't know where yet, and you look for your hanky, no hanky, you must have used it on her in the car and left it there or thrown it away, and dry the glass with your bloody, dirty shirt—even worse than stealing his liquor, as the hanky would have been, but here he won't know and he'll probably, since he'll also probably smell the whiskey on it and notice the bottle almost empty, wash the glass before using it. Framed photo on the desk of him and his wife and two sons, or you assume they are, and who else could they be? Framed photo on a bookshelf of him and this same woman and now three children, so you know they're his. But he said two were around the same age as yours and one a bit older, which isn't so here. Was he saying that to show something, do something? What's the difference what it means if he was only trying to help? All facing the camera, posed in a way you never would with your family, and by a professional it seems—cloudy blue backdrop that doesn't exist in real life except as a photographer's prop or maybe it's just worked into the print, but to you it looks like life after death, to them maybe it's heaven on earth. Anyway, something else you'd never do, pay a pro to photograph you, doctor and his wife sitting on a red Victorian loveseat, three- or four-year-old girl squeezed between them with a hand on each of their closest knees, same two boys behind them and looking about three years apart but several years older than in the desk photo, so that one probably taken before the girl was born, doctor serious, wife looking giddy to almost delirious, both seemingly unaged since the earlier photo and doctor looking even younger in this one, must be the more youthful haircut and the jogging and exercise or the photographer touched them up. Do you have family photos where you're all in them? Maybe only one, or two or three, but one you remember and is inside a plastic sheath tucked away in your billfold and which used to be pinned above your desk at home but you haven't looked at since you stuck it in there: first time Julie was taken outside, when she was a couple of weeks old. Your mother-in-law had come down to help out and took it. On the grass in front of your apartment building then, Margo seated between your wife's spread legs and waving a lolly, you kneeling beside them holding Julie who's crying hysterically while everyone else is smiling. Diaper pin or rash, soiled diaper, stomach bubble or hunger, any one of those could be it, your wife