Choke

Chapter 17

AT ST. ANTHONY'S, THE FRONT DESK GIRL yawns behind her hand, and when I ask if maybe she wants to go get a cup of coffee, then she looks at me sideways and says, "Not with you."

And really, I'm not hitting on her. I'll watch her desk long enough for her to go get some coffee. This isn't a come-on.

Really.

I say, "Your eyes look tired."

All she does all day is sign a few people in and out. She watches the video monitor that shows the insides of St. Anthony's, each corridor, the dayroom, the dining room, the garden, the screen switching from one to the next every ten seconds. The screen grainy, black-and-white. On the monitor, the dining room shows for ten seconds, empty with all the chairs upside down on each table, their chrome legs in the air. A long corridor appears for the next ten seconds with somebody heaped on a bench against one wall.

Then for the next ten furry black-and-white seconds, there's Paige Marshall pushing my mom in a wheelchair down some other long corridor.

The front desk girl says, "I'll only be gone a minute."

Next to the video monitor is an old speaker. Covered in nubby sofa mohair is this old radio kind of speaker with a dial switch surrounded by numbers. Each number is some room in St. Anthony's. On the desk is a microphone you can use to make announcements. By turning the dial switch to a number, you can listen in on any room in the building.

And for just a moment, my mom's voice comes from the speaker, saying, "I've defined myself, all my life, by what I was against..."

The girl switches the intercom dial to nine, and now you can hear Spanish radio and the clatter of metal pans back in the kitchen, back where the coffee is.

I tell the girl, "Take your time." And, "I'm not the monster you maybe heard from some of the bitter, angry types around here."

Even with me being so nice, she puts her purse in her desk and locks it. She says, "This won't take me more than a couple minutes. Okay?"

Okay.

Then she's gone through the security doors, and I'm sitting behind her desk. Watching the monitor: the dayroom, the garden, some corridor, each for ten seconds. Watching for Paige Marshall. With one hand, I'm dial-switching from number to number, listening in each room for Dr. Marshall. For my mom. In black-and-white, almost live.

Paige Marshall with all her skin.

Another question from the sex addict checklist:

Do you cut the inside out of your pants pockets so you can masturbate in public?

In the dayroom is some grayhead, facedown in a puzzle.

In the speaker there's just static. White noise.

Ten seconds later, in the crafts room is a table of old women. Women I confessed to, for wrecking their cars, for wrecking their lives. Taking the blame.

I turn up the volume and put my ear against the cloth of the speaker. Not knowing which number means which room, I dial-switch through the numbers and listen.

My other hand I slip into what used to be my britches pocket.

Going number to number, somebody's sobbing on number three. Wherever that is. Somebody's swearing on five. Praying on eight. Wherever that is. The kitchen again on nine, the Spanish music.

The monitor shows the library, another corridor, then it shows me, a grainy black- and-white me, crouched behind the front desk, peering into the monitor. Me with one hand crabbed around the intercom control dial. My other blurry hand is jammed to the elbow inside my britches. Watching. A camera on the lobby ceiling watching me.

Me watching for Paige Marshall.

Listening. For where to find her.

"Stalking" isn't the right word, but it's the first word that comes to mind.

The monitor shows me one old woman after another. Then for ten seconds, there's Paige pushing my mom in a wheelchair down another corridor. Dr. Paige Marshall. And I dial around until I hear my mom's voice.

"Yes," she says, "I fought against everything, but more and more I worry that I was never for anything."

The monitor shows the garden, old women hunched over walkers. Mired in gravel.

"Oh, I can criticize and complain and judge everything, but what does that get me?" my mom keeps saying in voice-over as the monitor cycles to show other rooms.

The monitor shows the dining room, empty.

The monitor shows the garden. More old people.

This could be some very depressing website. Death Cam.

Some kind of black-and-white documentary.

"Griping isn't the same as creating something," my mom's voice-over says.

"Rebelling isn't rebuilding. Ridiculing isn't replacing ..." And the voice in the speaker fades out.

The monitor shows the dayroom, the woman facedown in her puzzle.

And I dial-switch from number to number, searching.

On number five, her voice is back. "We've taken the world apart," she says, "but we have no idea what to do with the pieces ..." And her voice is gone, again.

The monitor shows one empty corridor after another stretching into darkness.

On number seven, the voice comes back: "My generation, all of our making fun of things isn't making the world any better," she says. "We've spent so much time judging what other people created that we've created very, very little of our own."

Out of the speaker, her voice says, "I used rebellion as a way to hide out. We use criticism as a fake participation."

The voice-over says, "It only looks as if we've accomplished something."

The voice-over says, "I've never contributed anything worthwhile to the world."

And for ten seconds, the monitor shows my mom and Paige in the corridor just outside the crafts room.

Out of the speaker, scratchy and far away, Paige's voice says, "What about your son?"

My nose pressed to the monitor, I'm so close.

And now the monitor shows me with my ear pressed to the speaker, one hand shaking something, fast, inside my pant leg.

In voice-over, Paige says, "What about Victor?"

And for serious, I am so ready to trigger.

And my mom's voice says, "Victor? No doubt Victor has his own way of escaping."

Then her voice-over laughs and says, "Parenthood is the opiate of the masses!"

And now on the monitor, the front desk girl is standing right behind me with a cup of coffee.