Choke (6 page)

And down the hall, the nurses are laughing, their hands cupped over their mouths. And from even that far away, you can hear Dina say, “It would serve him right.”

On my next visit, I’m still Fred Hastings and my kids both get straight A’s in school. That week, Mrs. Hastings is painting our dining room green.

“Blue is better,” my mom says, “for a room you’re going to put any sort of food in.”

After that, the dining room is blue. We live on East Pine Street. We’re Catholics. We save our money at City First Federal. We drive a Chrysler.

All at my mom’s suggestion.

The next week, I start writing things down, the details, so I won’t forget who I’m supposed to be from one week to the next. The Hastings always drive to Robson Lake for our vacation, I write. We fish for steelhead. We want the Packers to win. We never eat oysters. We were buying land. Each Saturday, I first sit in the dayroom and study my notes while the nurse goes to see if my mom is awake.

Whenever I step into her room and introduce myself as Fred Hastings, she points the remote control to turn the television off.

Boxwoods around a house are fine, she tells me, but privets would be better.

And I write it down.

The best kind of people drink scotch, she says. Clean your gutters in October, then again in November, she says. Wrap your car’s air filter in toilet paper for longer service life. Prune evergreens only after the first frost. And ash makes the best firewood.

I write it all down. I inventory what’s left of her, the spots and wrinkles and her swollen or empty skin and flakes and rashes, and I write reminders to myself.

Every day: Wear sunblock.

Cover your gray.

Don’t go insane.

Eat less fats and sugars.

Do more sit-ups.

Don’t start forgetting stuff.

Trim the hair in your ears.

Take calcium.

Moisturize. Every day.

Freeze time to stay in one place forever.

Do not get frigging old.

She says, “Do you hear anything from my son, Victor? Do you remember him?”

I stop. I feel my heart ache, but I’ve forgotten what that feeling means.

Victor, my mom says, never comes to visit, and if he does, he never listens. Victor’s busy and distracted and doesn’t care. He’s dropped out of medical school and is making a big mess out of his life.

She picks at the lint on her blanket. “He’s got some minimum-wage kind of job as a tour guide or something,” she says. She sighs, and her terrible yellow hands find the remote control.

I ask, wasn’t Victor looking after her? Didn’t he have a right to live his own life? I say, maybe Victor is so busy because he’s out every night, literally killing himself to pay her bills for constant care. That’s three grand each month just to break even. Maybe that’s why Victor left school. I say, just for the sake of argument, that maybe Victor’s doing his frigging best.

I say, it could be that Victor does more than anybody gives him credit for.

And my mom smiles and says, “Oh Fred, you’re still the defender of the hopelessly guilty.”

My mom turns on the television, and a beautiful woman in a glittering evening dress hits another beautiful young woman over the head with a bottle. The bottle doesn’t even mess her hair, but it gives her amnesia.

Maybe Victor’s struggling with problems of his own, I say.

The one beautiful woman reprograms the amnesia woman into thinking she’s a killer robot that must do the beautiful
woman’s bidding. The killer robot accepts her new identity so easy you have to wonder if she’s just faking the amnesia and was always looking for a good reason to go on a killing spree.

Me talking to my mom, my anger and resentment just sort of piddles out as we sit and watch.

My mother used to serve eggs scrambled with dark flakes of the nonstick coating from the frying pan. She cooked with aluminum pots, and we drank lemonade out of spun aluminum cups while we chewed on their soft cold lips. We used underarm deodorants made with aluminum salts. For sure, there’s about a million ways we could’ve got to this point.

During a commercial, my mom asks for just one good thing about Victor’s personal life. What did he do for fun? Where did he see himself in another year? Another month? Another week?

By now, I have no idea.

“And just what the hell do you mean,” she says, “about Victor killing himself every night?”

After the waiter’s gone, I fork up half my sirloin steak and go to
cram it all in my mouth, and Denny says, “Dude.” He says, “Don’t do it, here.”

The people all around us, eating in their dressy clothes. With the candles and the crystal. With all the extra specialty forks. Nobody suspects a thing.

My lips crack, trying to get around the chunk of steak, the meat salty and juicy with fat and crushed pepper. My tongue
pulls back to make more room, and the drool in my mouth wells up. Hot juice and drool slop out on my chin.

People who say red meat will kill you, they don’t know the half of it.

Denny looks around quick, and says, through his teeth says, “You’re getting greedy, my friend.” He shakes his head and says, “Dude, you can’t fool people into loving you.”

Next to us, a married couple with wedding rings, gray hair, they eat without looking up, each of them head down, reading a program from the same play or concert. When the woman’s wine is gone, she reaches for the bottle to fill her own glass. She doesn’t fill his. The husband’s wearing a thick gold wristwatch.

Denny sees me watching the old couple and says, “I’ll warn them. I swear.”

He watches for waiters who might know about us. He’s glaring at me with his bottom teeth stuck out.

The bite of steak is so big my jaws can’t come together. My cheeks bulge. My lips pucker tight to close, and I have to breathe through my nose while I try to chew.

The waiters in black jackets, each with a nice towel folded over one arm. The violin music. The silver and china. This isn’t the normal kind of place we’d do this, but we’re running out of restaurants. There are only so many places to eat in any town, and this is for sure the kind of stunt you never repeat in the same place.

I drink a little wine.

At another table near us, a young couple hold hands while they eat.

Maybe it will be them, tonight.

At another table, a man in a suit eats staring off into space.

Maybe he’ll be tonight’s hero.

I drink some wine and try to swallow, but the steak’s too much. It sits in the back of my throat. I don’t breathe.

In the next instant, my legs snap straight so fast my chair flies over behind me. My hands go to gripping around my throat. I’m on my feet and gaping at the painted ceiling, my eyes rolled back. My chin stretches out away from my face.

With his fork, Denny reaches over the table to steal my broccoli and goes, “Dude, you are way overacting.”

Maybe it will be the eighteen-year-old busboy or the corduroy guy in the turtleneck sweater, but one of these people will treasure me for the rest of their life.

Already people are half out of their seats.

Maybe the woman with the wrist corsage.

Maybe the man with the long neck and wire-framed glasses.

This month, I got three birthday cards, and it’s not even the fifteenth. Last month, I got four. The month before, I got six birthday cards. Most of these people I can’t remember. God bless them, but they’ll never forget me.

From not breathing, the veins in my neck swell. My face gets red, gets hot. Sweat springs up on my forehead. Sweat blots through the back of my shirt. With my hands, I hold tight around my neck, the universal sign language for someone choking to death. Even now, I get birthday cards from people who don’t speak English.

The first few seconds, everybody is looking for someone else to step in and be the hero.

Denny reaches over to steal the other half of my steak.

With my hands still tight around my throat, I stagger over and kick him in the leg.

With my hands, I yank at my tie.

I rip open my collar button.

And Denny says, “Hey, dude, that hurt.”

The busboy hangs back. No heroics for him.

The violinist and the wine steward are neck and neck, headed my way.

From another direction, a woman in a short black dress is pushing through the crowd. Coming to my rescue.

From another direction, a man strips off his dinner jacket and charges forward. Somewhere else, a woman screams.

This never takes very long. The whole adventure lasts one, two minutes, tops. That’s good, since that’s about how long I can hold my breath with a mouthful of food.

My first choice would be the older man with the thick gold wristwatch, somebody who will save the day and pick up our check for dinner. My personal choice is the little black dress for the reason she has nice tits.

Even if we have to pay for our own meal, I figure you have to spend money to make money.

Shoveling food into his face, Denny says, “Why you do this is so infantile.”

I stagger over and kick him, again.

Why I do this is to put adventure back into people’s lives.

Why I do this is to create heroes. Put people to the test.

Like mother, like son.

Why I do this is to make money.

Somebody saves your life, and they’ll love you forever. It’s that old Chinese custom where if somebody saves your life, they’re responsible for you forever. It’s as if now you’re their child. For the rest of their lives, these people will write me. Send me cards on the anniversary. Birthday cards. It’s depressing how many people get this same idea. They call you on the phone. To find out if you’re feeling okay. To see if you maybe need cheering up. Or cash.

It’s not as if I spend the money phoning up escort girls. Keeping
my mom in St. Anthony’s Care Center costs around three grand each month. These Good Samaritans keep me alive. I keep her. It’s that simple.

You gain power by pretending to be weak. By contrast, you make people feel so strong. You save people by letting them save you.

All you have to do is be fragile and grateful. So stay the underdog.

People really need somebody they feel superior to. So stay downtrodden.

People need somebody they can send a check at Christmas. So stay poor.

“Charity” isn’t the right word, but it’s the first word that comes to mind.

You’re the proof of their courage. The proof they were a hero. Evidence of their success. I do this because everybody wants to save a human life with a hundred people watching.

With the sharp tip of his steak knife, Denny’s sketching on the white tablecloth, sketching the architecture of the room, the cornices and paneling, the broken pediments above each doorway, all this while still chewing. He lifts his plate to his mouth and just shovels in the food.

To perform a tracheotomy, you’d find the dent just below the Adam’s apple, but just above the cricoid cartilage. With a steak knife, make a half-inch horizontal incision, then pinch the incision and insert your finger to open it. Insert a “trache” tube; a drinking straw or half a ballpoint pen works best.

If I can’t be a great doctor saving hundreds of patients, this way I’m a great patient creating hundreds of would-be doctors.

Closing in fast is a man in a tuxedo, dodging between the onlookers, running with his steak knife and his ballpoint pen.

By choking, you become a legend about themselves that these
people will cherish and repeat until they die. They’ll think they gave you life. You might be the one good deed, the deathbed memory that justifies their whole existence.

So be the aggressive victim, the big loser. A professional failure.

People will jump through hoops if you just make them feel like a god.

It’s the martyrdom of Saint Me.

Denny scrapes my plate onto his and keeps forking food into his mouth.

The wine steward is here. The little black dress is up against me. The man with the thick gold watch.

In another minute, the arms will come around me from behind. Some stranger will be hugging me tight, double-fisting me under the rib cage and breathing into my ear, “You’re okay.”

Breathing into your ear, “You’re going to be fine.”

Two arms will hug you, maybe even lift you off your feet, and a stranger will whisper, “Breathe! Breathe, damn it!”

Somebody will pound you on the back the way a doctor pounds a newborn baby, and you’ll let fly with your mouthful of chewed steak. In the next second, you’ll both be collapsed on the floor. You’ll be sobbing while someone tells you how everything is all right. You’re alive. They saved you. You almost died. They’ll hold your head to their chest and rock you, saying, “Everybody get back. Make some room, here. The show’s over.”

Already, you’re their child. You belong to them.

They’ll put a glass of water to your lips and say, “Just relax. Hush. It’s all over.”

Hush.

For years to come, this person will call and write. You’ll get cards and maybe checks.

Whoever it is, this person will love you.

Whoever will be so proud. Even if maybe your real folks aren’t. This person will be proud of you because you make them so proud of themselves.