The Architecture of Fear (21 page)

"No, not today," Mr. Benjamin said.

"That's too bad."

And just then one of the nurses came into the room. She was one of the old hands, and she said hello to Charlie, fluffed up his pillow, took his temperature, and gave him a shot all the while she talked, but it was small talk. The nurse ignored Mr. Benjamin, as she tore away the bandages that covered the drainage tubes in Charlie's stomach. Then she pulled out the tubes, which didn't hurt Charlie, and cleaned them. After she had reinserted the tubes—two into the right side of his abdomen, one on the left—and replaced the bandages, she hung another clear plastic bag of saline solution on the metal pole beside the bed and adjusted the rate of fluid that dripped into the vein in Charlie's right wrist.

"Who died?" Charlie asked her, wishing one of the pretty nurses' aides had been sent in or had at least accompanied her.

She sat down on the bed and rubbed Charlie's legs. He had lost so much weight that they were the size his arms had once been. This nurse was one of Charlie's favorites, even though she was old—she could have been fifty or sixty-five, it was difficult to tell. She had a wide, fleshy face, a small nose, and perfect, capped teeth. "You'll have to know anyway," she said without looking up at him. "It was Mr. Benjamin. I know how close you felt to him, and I'm so very sorry, but as you know he was in a lot of pain. This is the best thing for the poor man; you've got to try to believe that. He's in a happier place now."

Charlie was going to tell her she was crazy, that he was right here and had a mistress and a wife and an architect job to go back to, and that it was all bullshit about a happier place, but he just nodded and turned toward Mr. Benjamin. She made a fuss over Charlie, who was ignoring her, and finally left. "Are you sure you'll be okay?" she asked.

Charlie nodded. His mouth felt dry; the Demerol would soon kick-in. "Yeah, I'll be fine." Then, turning back to Mr. Benjamin, he asked, "Are you really dead?"

Mr. Benjamin nodded. "I suppose I am."

"You don't look dead."

"I don't feel dead. My goddamn legs are still aching and itching like hell."

Charlie's face felt numb. "Why are you in here if you're dead."

"How the hell should I know. There are worse places I can think of. I just got out of bed and walked in here, same way as I always do."

"Are you going to stay?"

"For a while. Do you mind?"

Charlie just shook his head and took comfort, as he always did, in Mr. Benjamin's presence. But then the man in the next room started screaming again, praying to God to relieve him of his pain, begging and whining and whimpering and waking up the other patients.

It was difficult to rest with all that commotion going on.

***

The Demerol came upon him like a high tide of anesthesia. It soaked into him, and everything in the hospital room turned white, as if the molding and wall panels and ceiling scrollwork and inlaid marble chimneypiece were carved out of purest snow. He dreamed of winter and castles and books he had read when he was a child. He was inside a cloud, his thoughts drifting, linking laterally, as he dreamed of chalk and snow and barium, of whitewash and bleach, of silver and frost and whipped cream, of angels and sand, of girls as white as his Demerol highs, chalky and naked with long white hair and pale lips, long and thin and small breasted, open and wet and cold, cold as snow, cold as his icicle erection, cold as his thought of glacially slow coitus.

He woke up shivering in a dark room, sweat drying on his goose-bumped skin. Gray shadows crawled across the room, a result of traffic on the street below.

Mr. Benjamin was still sitting beside the bed.

"Have you been here all this time?" Charlie asked. It was late. The nurses had turned out the lights in his room, and the hallway was quiet. If he listened carefully and held his breath, he could hear the snoring and moaning of other patients between the tickings of the clock. His mouth was parched, and he reached for the water tumbler. It sat on his 1950s-style night table, which also contained the remote control unit that turned the television on and off and also allowed him to buzz the nurse's station. He poured some ice water into a paper cup. "You look more... real," Charlie said.

"What do you mean?" Mr. Benjamin asked.

"I dunno, you looked kinda weak before."

"Well, I'm feeling better now. My legs stopped itching, and they only ache a little bit now. I can stand it, at least. How about you?"

"I feel like crap again," Charlie said. "I thought I was getting better." The pain in his stomach was intense and stabbing; it hadn't been this bad in a long time. "And I know that old fat Mrs. Campbell isn't going to give me another shot until I start screaming and moaning like the guy across the hall."

Charlie's night nurse thought he was becoming too dependent on painkillers.

"He's getting worse," Benjamin said.

"Who?" Charlie asked.

"The guy across the hall, Mr. Ladd. Rosie told me he's had most of his stomach removed."

"I just wish he would stop crying and begging for the pain to go away. I can't stand it. He makes such a racket. There's something pitiful about it. And he's not the only one who's in pain around here."

"Well, who knows, maybe he can cut a deal," Mr. Benjamin said.

"You're not dead," Charlie said.

Mr. Benjamin shrugged.

"I thought you said you had all kinds of contracts to build new buildings and stuff. You said you wanted to work until you dropped dead, that you wanted to travel and all. And what about Miss Anthony... and your wife?"

"It's all gone," Mr. Benjamin said.

"Doesn't it bother you?"

"I don't know," he said, surprised. "I don't really feel anything much about it. Maybe a little sad. But I guess not even that."

"Tell me what it's like to be dead."

"I don't know. The same as being alive, I would suppose, except my legs feel better."

"You're not dead," Charlie said.

"I'll take your word for it, Charlie."

***

Charlie became worse during the night. He used the speaker in the night table to call Mrs. Campbell for a shot, but she told him he wasn't due for another hour. He tried to argue with her, he kept calling her, but she ignored him. He listened to the clock on the wall and turned this way and that, trying to find a comfortable position. Goddamn her, Charlie thought, and he tried to count himself to sleep. If he could fall asleep for just a little while, it would then be time for his shot.

Goddamn, it hurts...

And Mr. Ladd across the hall started screaming and whining and trying to make a deal with God again. Charlie gritted his teeth and tried to pretend that the room was turning white and that he was numb and frozen, made of blue ice. Ice: the absence of pain.

"Mr. Benjamin, are you still there?" Charlie asked.

But there was no answer.

Finally, it was time for his shot, and Charlie slept, drifting through cold spaces defined by the slow ticking of the clock.

***

Although it was four in the morning and everyone was asleep, the nurses and orderlies ritually closed the doors, as they always did, when they wheeled a corpse down the hallway.

Charlie was awake and feeling fine when Mr. Benjamin brought Mr. Ladd into the room; the pain was isolated and the metallic taste of the drugs was strong in his mouth. Mr. Ladd appeared nervous. He was in his sixties and bald. He was thin, emaciated-looking, and his skin was blemished with age marks.

"Our friend here hasn't quite gotten used to being dead," Mr. Benjamin said to Charlie. "I found him wandering around the hallway. You mind if he stays a while?"

"I dunno," Charlie said, although he didn't want the old man in his room. "What's he going to do here?"

"Same thing you're doing. Same thing I'm doing."

Mr. Ladd didn't even acknowledge Charlie. He looked around the room, his head making quick, jerky motions; then he walked across the room, sat down on the stained cushion of the windowseat, and looked down into the street.

"At least your pain's gone," Mr. Benjamin called to him, but the old man just stared out the window, as if he hadn't heard him. "How about you?" Mr. Benjamin asked Charlie.

"I'm okay, I guess," but then someone else came into the room. A middle-aged woman in a blue bathrobe. She exchanged greetings with Mr. Benjamin and walked over to the window. "You know her?" Charlie asked.

"Yeah, I sat with her some yesterday and tonight she was real bad. But I guess you can't win. I left Mr. Ladd to be with her. Now they're both here." Mr. Benjamin smiled. "I feel like a goddamned Florence Nightingale."

But Charlie had fallen asleep.

***

He awoke to bright sunlight. His condition had deteriorated further, for now he had an oxygen tube breathing icy air into one nostril, while in the other was a tube that passed down his esophagus and into his stomach. His private nurse Rosie was in the room, moving about, looking starched and efficient and upset. His mother sat beside the bed, leaning toward him, staring at him intently, as if she could think him well. Her small, delicate face seemed old to him, and her dyed jet-black hair looked as coarse and artificial as a cheap wig. But both his mother and Rosie seemed insubstantial, as if
they
were becoming ghosts. His mother blocked out most of the light coming through the windows, but some of it seemed to pass through her, as if she were a cloud shaped like a woman that was floating across the sun. Her voice, which was usually high and piercing, was like a whisper; and her touch felt dry, like leaves brushing against his skin. He suddenly felt sorry for his mother. She loved him, he supposed, but he felt so removed from her. He probably felt like Mr. Benjamin did when he died. Just a little sad.

Charlie just wished that everyone would leave. He looked toward the light and saw Mr. Benjamin, Mr. Ladd, and the woman who had walked into his room last night standing near the window. He called for Mr. Benjamin; neither Rosie nor his mother seemed to understand what he was saying.

"Mr. Benjamin?"

His mother said something to Rosie, who also said something to Charlie, but Charlie couldn't understand either of them. Their voices sounded far away; it was like listening to static on the radio and only being able to make out a word here or there. It was as if Rosie and his mother were becoming ghosts, and the visitors, who were already dead, were gaining substance and reality.

"Yes?" Mr. Benjamin said as he walked over to the bed and stood beside Charlie's mother. "I'm afraid you've had a bit of a setback."

"What are they still doing here?" Charlie asked, meaning Mr. Ladd and the woman who had come into his room last night.

"Same thing I am," said Mr. Benjamin.

"Okay, what are
you
doing here?"

"Making sure you won't be alone."

Charlie closed his eyes.

Perhaps his mother sensed the presence of the visitors, too, for she suddenly began to cry.

***

Charlie's mother stayed for the rest of the day. She talked about Charlie's father, as if nothing was going wrong with their marriage, as if she could simply ignore the other dark-haired woman who had come into her husband's life. Charlie knew about Laura, the other woman; but he had learned a lot about such things from watching Mr. Benjamin's wife and mistress come and go every week. He supposed it was just the way adults behaved. He couldn't stand to see his mother hurt, yet he couldn't get angry with his father. He felt somehow neutral about the whole thing.

She sat and talked to Charlie as she drank cup after cup of black coffee. She would nod off to sleep for a few minutes at a time and then awaken with a jolt. At five she took her dinner on a plastic tray beside Charlie's bed. Charlie couldn't eat; he was being fed intravenously. He slept fitfully, cried out in pain, received a shot, and lived in whiteness for a while. When he was on the Demerol, his mother and Rosie would all but disappear, yet he would be able to see Mr. Benjamin and the visitors. But Mr. Benjamin wouldn't talk much to him when his mother or hospital personnel were in the room.

Finally, Rosie's shift was over. Rosie tried to talk Charlie's mother into leaving with her, but it was no use. She insisted on staying. Mrs. Campbell, the night nurse, talked with Charlie's mother for a while and then left the room, as she always did. Charlie would need a shot soon.

His mother held his hand and kept leaning over him, brushing her face against his, kissing him. She talked, but Charlie could barely hear or feel her.

***

Charlie came awake with a jolt; it was as if he had fallen out of the bed. He was sweaty and could taste something bitter in his mouth. The drugs were still working, but the pain was returning, gaining strength. It was an animal tearing at his stomach. Only a shot and the numbing chill of white sleep would calm it down... for a time.

"Hello," said a young woman standing by the bed beside Mr. Benjamin. She had straight, shoulder-length dark brown hair, a heart-shaped face, blue eyes set a bit too widely apart, a small, upturned nose, and full, but colorless lips. She looked tiny, perhaps five feet one, if that, and seemed very shy.

"Hello," Charlie replied, surprised. He felt awkward and looked over to Mr. Benjamin, who smiled. It was dark again. He turned toward the spot where his mother had been sitting, but he couldn't tell if she was still there. He could only hear the clock and the sound of leaves rustling that he imagined might be his mother's voice. The room was dimly lit, and there seemed to be a shadow, a slight flutter of movement, around the chair. Except for the visitors, the hospital seemed empty and devoid of doctors, nurses, orderlies, aides, and candy stripers. Charlie felt numb and cold. The air in the room was visible... was white as cirrus clouds and seemed to radiate its own wan light.

"This is Katherine," Mr. Benjamin said. "She's new here, and a bit disoriented, I think." Katherine seemed to be concentrating on the foot of the bed and avoiding eye contact with Charlie. But Charlie noticed that she didn't seem as real, as corporal, somehow, as Mr. Benjamin. Perhaps she wasn't dead long enough. That would take some time. "I'll step aside and give you a chance to win this time," Mr. Benjamin continued.