Удушье (Choke)

Dr. Paige Marshall stretches a string

of something white tight be­tween her two gloved hands. She stands over a deflated old woman in a recliner chair, and Dr. Marshall says, 'Mrs. Win­tower? I need you to open your mouth as wide as you can.'

Latex gloves, the yellow way they make your hands look, this is just how cadaver skin looks. The medical cadavers from first-year anatomy with their shaved heads and pubic hair. The little stubble of the hairs. The skin could be chicken skin, cheap stew­ing chicken, turning yellow and dimpled with follicles. Feathers or hair, it's all just keratin. The muscles of the human thigh look the same as dark-meat turkey. During first-year anatomy, you can't look at chicken or turkey and not be eating a cadaver.

The old woman tilts her head back to show her teeth wedged in their brown curve. Her tongue coated white. Her eyes are closed. This is how all these old women look at Communion, at Catholic Mass, when you're an altar boy and have to follow along with the priest as he puts the wafer on tongue after old tongue. The church says you can receive the Host into your hand, then feed yourself, but not these old ladies. In church, you'll still look down the Communion rail and see two hundred open mouths, two hundred old ladies stretching their tongues toward salvation.

Paige Marshall leans in and forces the white string between the old woman's teeth. She pulls, and when the string twangs out from the mouth, some soft gray bits flick out. She runs the string between two more teeth, and the string comes out red.

For bleeding gums, see also: Oral cancers.

See also: Necrotizing ulcerative gingivitis.

The only good part about being an altar boy is you get to hold the paten under the chin of each person receiving Commu­nion. This is a gold platter on a stick you use to catch the Host if it falls. Even if a Host hits the floor, you still have to eat it. At this point it's consecrated. It's become the body of Christ. The flesh incarnate.

I watch from behind while Paige Marshall puts the bloody string back into the old woman's mouth again and again. Gray and white bits of smear collect on the front of Paige's lab coat. Little specks of pink.

A nurse leans in the doorway and says, 'Everybody okay in here?' To the old woman in the chair, she says, 'Paige isn't hurt­ing you, is she?'

The woman gargles an answer.

The nurse says, 'What was that?'

The old woman swallows and says, 'Dr. Marshall is very gen­tle. She's more gentle than when you do my teeth.'

'Almost done,' Dr. Marshall says. 'You are being so good, Mrs. Wintower.'

And the nurse shrugs and leaves.

The good part of being an altar boy is when you hit some­body in the throat with the paten. People on their knees with their hands clasped in prayer, the little gaggy face they make right at the moment they are being so divine. I loved that.

As the priest puts the host on their tongue, he'll say, 'Body of Christ.'

And the person kneeling for Communion will say, 'Amen.'

What's best is to hit their throat so the 'Amen' comes out as a ga-ga baby sound. Or they make a duck quack. Or chicken cluck. Still, you had to do this by accident. And you had to not laugh.

'All done,' Dr. Marshall says. She straightens up, and when she goes to toss the bloody string in the trash she sees me.

'I didn't want to interrupt,' I say.

She's helping the old woman out of the recliner and says, 'Mrs. Wintower? Can you send Mrs. Tsunimitsu in to see me?'

Mrs. Wintower nods. Through her cheeks, you can see her tongue stretching around inside her mouth, feeling her teeth, sucking her lips into a tight pucker. Before she steps out into the hallway, she looks at me and says, 'Howard, I've forgiven you for cheating on me. You don't have to keep coming around.'

'Remember to send in Mrs. Tsunimitsu,' says Dr. Marshall.