“I told a fib. Gee whiz, but I’m an incorrigible fibber.”
“So you have had more?”
“Yeah.”
“I wish you would show a little more confidence in me. It would make things easier. I can’t diagnose without your help.”
“You’ve got it,” said Ogle. “So what
“Be patient. I know it’s difficult, but I’d like to do another series of tests. The last ones weren’t conclusive.”
Ogle tangled his legs in the sheets in frustration. His voice, ground to an edge against the whetstone of exasperation, was sharp, high, keen. “You have an
Bartlett shot his cuffs once or twice. “I don’t think there would be any point to that. I might have to retract it. I wouldn’t want to raise – or dash – your hopes.”
“Hey, the last time I looked you were human. The first mistake is on me and no complaints.”
“I have no intention of saying anything,” said Bartlett with more firmness than Ogle had thought him capable of.
“Look then, Doctor,” said Ogle, bargaining. “Leave a pass for me at the desk. I’m going crazy here. This place is driving me crazy.” There it was. An undercurrent of fear, even mild hysteria, in his voice.
Bartlett caught his wheedling tone, sensed the desperation, and immediately recovered his equanimity. He had something this person wanted.
“Do you have someone to accompany you? A friend or relative?”
“No. I don’t need someone to accompany me. I don’t need training wheels. I just want to get out of here for a while. This place is getting to me.”
“I’m sorry if you find us lacking,” said Bartlett. He pocketed his pen-light and smoothed his white jacket with his palms, readying himself to depart. “But we’re not a grand hotel. Bear with us.”
“The pass,” said Ogle, hating himself, but none the less begging.
“I’ll leave one at the desk – on condition you’re accompanied by someone.” Bartlett showed his teeth in a medical smile. “Charm one of your friends into going for a stroll with you.”
He went out.
Ogle lay without moving a muscle until he felt the shame drain out of his face. He supposed he had no choice. There was no one else. He got out of bed and went to the pay phone at the end of the hallway. He dialled Barbara’s number. They had lived together for two years before separating six months ago on fairly amicable terms. She had simply had enough of him. Too much drinking, irresponsibility, and scorn.
Her voice conveyed no hint of alarm or even surprise as he explained what he wanted, his body involuntarily writhing and twisting on the hook of his embarrassment.
Yes, she would come.
No, not tomorrow. The day after. When she finished work.
No trouble. Take care.
Then there was nothing but a dial tone in his ear. He couldn’t remember having said goodbye. Ogle put the receiver carefully back on the hook.
It was the following day that Ogle saw Morissey weighed for the first time. The weighing took place weekly and the results were meticulously recorded.
Morissey was afflicted with a rare metabolic disorder that was slowly making him waste away, imperceptibly killing him inch by inch, or rather, pound by pound. Nothing arrested the melting of the flesh from his bones, not the 2,400 liquid calories daily dripped into his veins by tubes, not the three hearty meals he dutifully choked down every day. For Morissey, every weighing marked a stage on his journey to extinction.
At eleven o’clock the scale was pushed into the room by Albert and David.
“Weigh-in time, champ,” said Albert.
“Please, Mr. Morissey,” said David, seeing the terror which crossed Morissey’s face at the sight of the scale. “Co-operate. Relax.”
This admonition was followed by an uneasy silence that made Ogle sit up in bed. The two orderlies were watching Morissey closely. He had burrowed down into the bedclothes and his bony hands were clinging to the metal railing of the bed. His eyes swivelled cautiously in their sockets.
“Ah, shit,” said Albert. The old boy in 44 had tried to bite him earlier, and now he had to put up with this. “We got to go through all this again, champ?” he inquired bleakly.
“Bugger off with that scale,” said Morissey. “Weigh your own fat, lazy ass with it.”
David went to the bed and took him by the wrist, handling it as carefully as if it were made of balsa wood. “We’ll just slide the railing down so you can get out a little easier,” he said. A certain emphasis of pronunciation, vaguely foreign, lent his voice a lulling quality. His red hair, profuse and crested, bobbed in the sunshine as he worked on Morissey’s grip.
“Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!” roared Morissey, “you’re hurting me!”
He wasn’t, of course, and David was affronted by the accusation. “Mr.
“Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!” yelled Morissey unconvincingly.
“Shut your gob,” said Albert. “You’re scaring the chickens.”
A nurse stuck her head in the doorway. “Trouble, fellows?” she asked.
“Nah,” said Albert, “we’re just weighing the champ here. Same as always.”
She nodded understandingly and went away.
Gradually, patiently, David had worked Morissey to a sitting position on the edge of the bed.
“Now,” he said, “if you please, step down on the scale, Mr. Morissey.” Old-world courtliness.
“Hop on,” said Albert.
“Jump down a fucking well yourself,” replied Morissey.
“It don’t bite,” said Albert. “What the hell is the problem?”
“I ain’t climbing on that scale,” said Morissey with trembling lips. “It ain’t correct; it lies.” Tears pricked his eyes and he snuffled.
“Okay,” said David to Albert, “lift him now.”
And a stunned Morissey was snatched off the mattress, hospital gown fluttering, and lowered onto the scale. He slumped purposely, a passive dead weight in David’s arms. Albert manipulated the sliding weights and tried to shield the reading from Morissey’s view.
“What is it?” implored Morissey, craning his neck. “I’m heavier, ain’t I? I’m heavier, ain’t I? Oh, God, sure I am.”
“You’re a regular jumbo,” said Albert, tinkering. “But shut up for chrissake. I got enough trouble with this metric shit, without you making that noise.”
“I seen it!” Morissey shouted. “I lost another pound! Oh, sweet Jesus, another pound!” He began to sob and fling his body around recklessly in David’s arms. “I’m dying. Don’t nobody know I’m dying?” he moaned.
David stroked his matchstick arms like a mother soothing a child. “Hush,” he said. “We’re almost through.”
Morissey contorted himself in David’s arms, flailing his bony limbs. “I’m dying!” he cried. “Don’t you care, you bastards? Don’t it signify?”
David turned to Ogle. “Help me, please,” he said. “I can’t hold him.” But he read on Ogle’s face Ogle’s inward disturbance, the facial hieroglyphics of his own anxiety made manifest in Morissey’s struggle to free himself from the prison of his disintegrating body.
“No,” said Ogle numbly. “I can’t.” He turned his face away from Morissey’s ugly head, each bone of the skull ridging the skin, each indigo vein a distinct, anxious swelling. He found his feet and scurried out the door. His bathrobe flapped around his calves as he marched down the corridor. In his agitation he dodged beds, lounge chairs, and wheelchairs loaded with patients. All these people had been removed from their rooms and left in the hallway while the cleaning staff plied mops, scrub brushes and floor polishers in a wholesale cleaning.
