The Children's Hospital

68

Rob was eating his lunch when Ishmael accosted him. He really should have eaten it on the way to the lab — he had a cell culture cooking there, and Dr. Sundae could not be relied upon to check it for him. He thought she probably had the botch in her brain, but he kept asking Jemma to check on it. He was salting his macaroni and cheese when Ishmael reached from behind him to put a hand on his wrist.

“There’s already enough salt in the sea,” he said. Rob shook his hand off. They weren’t exactly pals anymore. In a better, less exhausted world, somebody would have arranged an intervention for his erratic behavior. Off and on he was paranoid, and violent with himself. More than one person had seen him standing in some alcove off the ramp, pulling at his hair or biting his fingers. And there wasn’t a person above the age of twenty-one who hadn’t had him pop up and charge them with something improbable — stepping on a dodo or poisoning a mountain or uncoloring the sky. These accusations were almost quaint, but lately he seemed to like more and more to accuse people of wild vile sexual transgressions, and sometimes new mothers and fathers covered the ears of their children when he came around. And yet most of the time he was sober and clear-headed and totally normal, an able organizer and cheerleader for all their futile efforts against the botch.

“I like salt,” Rob said, not turning around to see which Ishmael was standing behind him. But he couldn’t eat with the man staring at the back of his head, so he said, “Want to sit down?”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Ishmael said, and took the spoon that Rob was going to use for his ice cream to help himself to the macaroni and cheese. “I miss you,” he said, around a mouthful.

“I miss you too,” Rob said, because his mother had taught him that you always had to say that back to people, even when you didn’t mean it.

“We used to be friends, didn’t we? Weren’t you my pal?”

“Sure,” Rob said.

“Golden days! I miss them too. I was happier then, back before I knew.”

“Well, we were all having a pretty good time there, for a while. Things are harder now. But it doesn’t mean that there’s not something good coming.” Ishmael laughed out loud at that, and Rob blushed, because it sounded so dumb. If he were someone like Father Jane he might be able to say the same thing in a way that would seem proudly hopeful instead of simply naïve.

“Maybe for somebody, but not…” Ishmael cocked his head, and put down his spoon, and leaned over the table. “You know, I was going to say, not for you. But who knows? And you’re not like everybody else, anyway. I mean, everybody knows it. You’ll get the Best Boy award, when this is all over, and they are all sitting around deciding who has been the Biggest Whore or the Whiniest Worm or the Handsomest Hip. I can see it.”

“Um… thanks.”

“It’s just a fact. Don’t thank me for it. There aren’t many like you… trust me! I see into all the places that people try to hide. It’s what I used to do, I’m sure of it. I illuminated and I judged and I wanted to punish. I wanted it so bad!” He struck a fist on the table, catching the edge of Rob’s bowl and sending macaroni flying.

“Take it easy there, pal,” Rob said.

“Pal! Now I’m your pal! Your long-lost, neglected pal! Well, that’s fine. Even if it does stand for Personal Ass Licker. That’s its own distinct pleasure, and don’t I know it?”

“Have you been drinking?” Rob asked him.

“I wish! I don’t need to, not anymore. It helps nothing, to drink. But back to our story. You and I were going to move in together. Best Boy and Angriest Aardvark. Can’t you see it?”

“No.”

“But don’t tell me,” he said, “that you haven’t ever thought about it. Didn’t I just finish saying that I see all the places that nobody else sees?” He leaned over the table, and then climbed up on it one knee at a time, so even though Rob pushed back his chair, Ishmael could push his face right up against him, so his hair touched Rob’s hair and their noses were nearly touching. He put a hand right on Rob’s belly and said, “Don’t tell me you’ve never thought about it.”

Maybe he had, but that had nothing to do with the sudden panic that rose in him. All the late days in PICU, surrounded by a deadly illness whose rules of contagion were still unknown, had not made him feel suddenly so unsafe, so threatened, as he did now. It felt suddenly like Ishmael was pressed close against him, though he still lay atop the table. Chest to chest and hip to hip and thigh to thigh, Rob suddenly felt him pressing in. Ishmael whispered his proposition, and Rob shouted back the first thing that popped into his head: “I love my wife!”

That worked. Ishmael leaned back, and climbed back down into his chair, and then stood up. “So you do,” he said, now sounding very sad. “I can’t argue with that.” He gathered two handfuls of the scattered macaroni and put them in his pocket, and then walked away.