The Sandman (10 page)

“I want to take you in my mouth,” she said. “I want you in my mouth.”

Harry pulled out, turned and slid up on the seat. She got down on her knees in front of him, opened her lips and took his cock into her mouth. He felt as if he were going to explode. He held her head and as she licked him and sucked him, she frantically moved her head back and forth. When Harry looked down she was masturbating herself with her left hand.

“Oh, Gooooooddd, Harry,” she said, as she came up for air. “Oh, Goooooooddddd!”

“Christ,” Harry said. “Not so loud, will you, June?”

As soon as he said it, he could feel himself go limp. Oh shit … shit … he wasn’t going to make it.

“Oh, Goooooddddd, Harrrrry,” she cried again.

But now she was on the floor by herself, masturbating. Harry felt like an anachronism. She didn’t need him. A robot would do just fine. He wished to hell she wouldn’t yell so loud. The bitch. He had to make it. He pulled her up, grabbed her hair, and shoved her back on the operating table and shoved his cock inside her. She gave out with a yell that could have been heard in the Bronx.

“Take it, bitch,” Harry said. “Take every inch.”

“We have got to get back,” said Sally Rodgers. “We’ve got to.”

“I know,” Hargrove said. “But I want to say one thing. Men suck. They suck. After you get through all your feminism, all your intellectual arguments, it comes down to the old suck number.”

“I know,” Sally said. “Still, what are you gonna do?”

“I’m going to be gay,” Hargrove said. “You ready for that?”

Sally looked at her with huge eyes.

“We have to get back,” she said.

“What are you doing there, young man?” Esther said, staring up at him, wide awake.

“Sorry,” Peter said, smiling, “I was just checking the monitor here. I didn’t mean to waken you.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” Esther said. “I was having a bad dream anyway.”

“Really,” Peter said. “Tell me about it.”

“I was just dreaming of my husband … my late husband … I was having an argument with him.”

Peter reached into his pocket, felt the syringe with the 500 units of insulin. He ran his fingers along the steel tip.

“What were you arguing about?” he said.

“Well … it wasn’t exactly an argument. He was making me feel guilty for my life now. Oh, it’s too late to go into it all. It’s just that … this is all very depressing for me … just when you think you are starting to live, you get hit with something like this. Then you start to feel guilty … You know, ‘Maybe I’m being punished for living this sort of life.’ You know the feeling.”

Peter smiled and pulled up a chair. He felt an infinite tenderness toward her.

“I do indeed,” he said. “I know exactly what you mean.”

“You’re not just saying that?” Esther said, suspiciously.

“No, Esther,” he said, “I am not just saying it.”

“What’s your name?”

“Peter,” he said, “Dr. Peter Cross. I’m going to be your anesthesiologist.”

“You mean I need surgery?” She began to get excited.

He reached toward her and took her hand.

“We’re going to give you some tests in the morning. I’m going to be taking good care of you. You must trust me.”

He spoke in a peaceful, reverential monotone, just like the Methodist ministers Lila Lee had taken him to hear before she got sick.

“I do,” she said. “I don’t know why I do … but I do. You seem to really care about me.”

She smiled at him, and he squeezed her arm.

“I do care, Esther,” he said. “I care very much. I have talked to your son, and I know what a special person you are.”

“Barty?” she said. “He’s such a square.”

“But he loves you very much, Esther. He cares for you deeply. I don’t think I’ve ever met a son who cared for his mother as much as he does you.”

A tear came to her eye, and he felt her hand grip his forearm.

“I like you,” she said. “And I’m sorry I’m crying … I am
trying
to be brave.”

“You don’t have to try in front of me, Esther,” he said. “You don’t have to be anything but yourself. I like you fine, just the way you are.”

“I can’t make it,” Harry said. “I just can’t get it off.”

June Boswell was upside down, her legs wrapped around Harry’s neck. Her neck was breaking from her own weight and she was exhausted, having come six times.

“We’ve got to get the hell back,” she said. “I’m sorry, Harry. I really am, but we’ve got to get back.”

Harry was livid.

“You’re sorry?” he screamed. “You’re fucking sorry? Shit.”

Enraged, he looked down at her, her big breasts hanging down, her legs covered with sweat, and her crotch all moist and smelling of the East River, and he felt sick.

“Shit, June,” he said.

Impulsively, violently, he took both her legs in his hand and flipped her over the table. She landed on her back on the floor.

“You bastard,” she said. “You shitty male chauvinist bastard. I fucking hate you. You impotent ape.”

She began to mimic a baboon, tickling her underarms and jumping about.

“Ummmga, ummmga,” she said. “Ape can’t make it.”

Harry started to smash her, then he realized where he was and turned to find his pants.

“Asshole,” she said, picking up her dress. “You’ll be sorry, asshole.”

“Yeah, right,” Harry said, and he hit her in the face.

“So many of the doctors just don’t care about the patients,” Esther Goldstein said. “You know what I mean?”

“I do indeed,” Peter said.

“I believe you,” she said, patting his hand. “I really do. I wish you and Barty could be friends. You’re strong. I can see that. He’s such a weakling … and it’s my fault.”

“Nonsense,” Peter said. “It’s not your fault at all. You’ve done all you could.”

“But I did too much,” Esther said. “I made him a baby.”

“No,” Peter said, reaching for the needle. “He’s a fine man. It’s all right now. You’ve done fine. Now you deserve to be free.”

She smiled as he stroked her arm and then her forehead.

“Yes,” she said. “That’s what I keep telling myself. But I still feel such guilt.”

“No more,” Peter said. “No more … From now on you will be free … free of all of it. Now, just relax … lie back … and shut your eyes. I’m going to give you something that will make you feel good. Really good. Okay?”

Esther Goldstein smiled.

“Okay,” she said. “Sure … I like you, Dr. Cross …”

“Call me Peter,” he said, sticking the syringe into her IV drip.

“Peter,” she said, dozing, “you’re my friend.”

“Look,” Sally said, “I don’t want to hear about this, okay?”

“I’m having an identity crisis and you don’t want to hear about it,” Hargrove said. “That’s fine. That’s really fine.”

She got out the bottle of Jim Beam again, but Sally got nervous and pushed her hand back down in the bag.

“Please,” she said. “We’ve both got our exams coming up. I don’t want to get thrown out. Now I’m going back down there.”

“Don’t worry,” Hargrove said. “I just saw Yvonne heading that way.”

Yvonne Neslogites walked down the hallway toward the central monitoring desk. She was a tall, thin woman with black hair and long, skinny legs. She felt she looked like an anorexic and often wore loose-fitting clothes so she might seem to possess a little more bulk. It seemed the crucial irony of her life that everyone in the world looked good thin but her. She merely looked runty, plucky at best. Like a cockney guttersnipe, a friend had once told her. Now she scraped along the hall, and got to the central monitoring station. She looked at her watch. Three twenty, only four more hours to go. She knew June would be glad to see her. She must be tired. But June wasn’t there. No one was there. She looked over at the EKG readings … someone ought to keep up with those. Then she heard something in the hall behind her and she turned, sharply, in response.

She lay there in front of him, in perfect sleep. It had been so easy. Just hit her with the insulin, and she had fallen off into a coma, into a place beyond dreams. He felt the icy beauty of it throughout. Inside, the Space grew smaller. He felt solid, real … God, it was good … Her brain was gone, and very soon her heart would be his own. He stared down at her hand, caressed it. Then quietly, tenderly, he placed it over her heart.

Yvonne turned and saw June Boswell straggling up the hall toward the nurses’ station. Her face was very, very red, and one of her hose was slightly twisted. From the other side of the hallway, she saw Rodgers and Hargrove coming back. What the hell was going on? She puts them in charge for a half hour and they screw up. Now she had to get the EKGs read … especially that new patient, Goldstein. She reached over in the tray and picked it up.

“Yvonne,” June said, “I’m sorry.”

Yvonne put the EKG printout down.

“What’s wrong?”

“I got sick to the stomach. The flu … I don’t know. I had to use the john.”

“It’s all right,” Yvonne said. “I understand … but don’t leave your post again. Really … if anything happened here …”

June buckled, and Hargrove and Rodgers caught her before she hit the floor.

Peter crouched by the door, watching the nurses. If they turned his way, he was done. Quickly he began to crawl down the hall toward the janitor’s stairs. He had wanted to stay, to share it with Esther … She had triumphed … like Lorraine Bell … she had triumphed. But he must move fast. He reached the door to the stairs, straightened up, and looked back at the nurses’ station. All three of the nurses were huddled, talking to June.

As he made his way down the stairs to the first floor, he felt as though he were flying. And he blushed, nearly started to laugh, for no one else could see him hovering there, in the lobby of Eastern Medical, like some rare, fantastic bird of night.

Yvonne Neslogites stood in front of Dr. Beauregard’s cluttered desk. Her left eyebrow twitched, and her palms were cold. In her hand she held a book, How to
Put on Pounds Sensibly
. She beat it against her skinny thigh and breathed in and out like a spluttering engine.

“Okay,” Beauregard said, sitting coiled, his hands clasped in front of him in an effort to keep himself under control. “Let’s go through this one more time. You tell me that you were in charge of the desk, but you left at ten of three to go help Dr. Thompson with a cut-down.”

“That’s right,” Yvonne said. “He was having trouble finding a vein on Mrs. Martin. I had to help him with her.”

“And when you left, June was in charge of the two aides, Jane Hargrove and Sally Rodgers.”

“That’s right.”

“And?”

“They went on break at about two or three minutes before three … they went to the canteen to have a Coke. June was on her own. At approximately twelve after three she got sick and had to leave the desk. We all got back at the same time … about three twenty-six. I know because I happened to look at my watch then. June got back about three twenty-eight. She was weaving, almost fainting. We found Mrs. Goldstein at about quarter to four. When we checked the EKG … but if that buzzer—”

Beauregard nodded his head and cut her off.

“We’ll get to that in a minute.”

He punched his phone.

“Brigette. Send in Hargrove and Rodgers.”

A second later the two aides came through the door. They looked as though they had seen a plane nose-dive onto the Long Island Expressway.

Jane Hargrove had large blue bags under her eyes. Sally Rodgers’s skin looked like oatmeal. Both of them nodded to Yvonne and Beauregard and then dropped their eyes to the floor.

“All right,” Beauregard said, “what happened?”

“I don’t know,” Jane Hargrove said. “I was on a break. I mean we were both on a break.”

“That’s right,” Sally Rodgers said, “but we were only just down the hall. If June would have called us, we would have been right there. But I’ll tell you what was even stranger …”

“What’s that?” Beauregard said.

“The buzzer. It never went off.”

“Maybe you just didn’t hear it,” Beauregard said. He stared at them hard. They both dropped their eyes as if on cue.

“Are you sure you were both in the canteen?” he said. “You didn’t go anywhere else.”

“No,” they both said in unison.

Jane Hargrove ran her long fingers through her black hair. “We sat in the canteen the entire time. If the oscilloscope had gone off, we would have heard it.”

“How about June?” Beauregard said. “Was she too sick to hear?”

Everyone was silent.

Beauregard pounded a huge fist on the table, scattering his papers around the room. Sally Rodgers gasped.

“Look,” he said, “I don’t have time to play politics here. A patient has died. There is going to be a goddamned big deal made out of this. I don’t like the looks of any of it … and if you two don’t cooperate with me, you’re through here. You understand. Now, what was wrong with June?”

The women exchanged nervous looks, and Beauregard sat straight up in his chair.

“She was sick,” Jane Hargrove volunteered. “She was very sick. She said it just came over her … She felt she was going to faint …”

“Yes,” Yvonne said. “She said … she fell in the ladies’ room. She hit her head on the sink when she was trying to put some cold water on her face.”

“Did you know that June was sick, Yvonne?”

“No.”

Beauregard got up again and punched his fist into his open palm.

“She never mentioned she was sick at all?”

“No, Doctor, she didn’t.”

“Where is she now?”

“Home. She has the flu … I called her this morning. She had to go see Dr. Chapman.”

“That’s very strange,” Beauregard said. “Very weird … Everybody leaves, and nobody hears the buzzer.”

“But I’m telling you,” Hargrove said. “If that buzzer had gone off, we would have heard it. You know how loud those things are. We checked the ‘scope and it was on.”

Beauregard punched his phone again.

“Brigette, send in Jimmy Myers.”

Beauregard waited, tapping a pencil on his fingers. The door opened and a monstrous man weighing three hundred pounds came waddling into the room. He wore size forty-six chinos with huge tool pockets which seemed to hang down to his ankles. Hammers, screwdrivers, saws, and wiring hung off him. He looked like a junk sculpture. His hair stood out like spokes and his cheeks were blotched red. In his chubby pink fingers were two Hostess Twinkies.