The Portable Veblen

20 SOMETHING BAD MUST HAVE HAPPENED

Veblen navigated the ICU, where murmurs from the frail human chain rose softly in every room. Just having to name Paul at the nurses’ station flooded her with emotion.

She found him lying thirty degrees semiupright behind a curtain, intubated, breathing on a ventilator. Mounted on the wall above his head was a screen with the running script of his functions. Wires crisscrossed to many parts of Paul. To one side of the bed was an IV stand holding up a dangling bladder of fluid, which drained through a clear tube connected to a starfish of plastic taped to his hand. A small box mounted on another stand directed more wires at Paul’s head, half mummified in an inverted funnel of bandages, and an ICP monitor ran to the suboccipital burr hole in his skull. Foam cylinders expanded and contracted slowly around each leg.

She moved closer and peered at his bandaged face. The skin around his eyes was splattered with tiny red marks, as if he’d been attacked by a pin. Dark purple welts rose from under the loose neck of his gown.

She placed her hands on the skin near his elbow, and kissed his head.

His eyelids fluttered, only for a moment, to the sounds of the machines, hiss and beep, beep and pump. For a short while she watched his vital signs on the monitor, but the slightest deviation made her lurch.

She bit into her arm.

A nurse walked by and told her to drink some water. “You get dried out and tired in here,” she said. Veblen went and drank from a fountain, but probably not enough. It was too cold.

• • •

THE MEDICAL BUSINESS had so many arms. In a daze, she fixated on how many product lines were in her range of vision at any given angle. Pharmaceuticals, latex gloves, sanitizers. Monitors, data retrievers, linens. Mechanized beds. She thought of the multitudes of crafty sales reps coming round and acting fun and sassy just in order to shove all this stuff down the hospital’s throat. And yet, so what? What was the point of noticing this? Was a hospital supposed to be thrown together by local artisans and craftsmen? What was there to do?

• • •

SHE CALLED ALBERTINE and discovered she was in Atlanta for a conference. They talked but how could she not know her best friend was in Atlanta for a conference? What was wrong with her? Why was she so — limited?

• • •

IN THE LATE AFTERNOON, the Vreelands signaled their arrival from the parking lot. She migrated through the corridors to guide them in.

“Any change?” Bill asked.

“Not yet.”

“What the hell happened?” Bill wanted to know.

As they slipped through the hospital, Veblen told them what she’d learned from Susan Hinks and the first responder’s report. The last part of the trial had been abruptly called off. Paul had tried to speak to Cloris Hutmacher in the parking lot; somehow she’d hit him with her car, he’d injured his head; surgery had been performed to remove the hematoma and release pressure.

“Holy Jesus,” said Bill. “Did I predict this, people? Did I?”

“I don’t understand,” said Marion. “How on earth?”

“What did I tell him? Did he listen?” Bill cried out, but Veblen stopped him.

“There’s something I want you to see.” She handed him a copy of Paul’s letter, which Susan Hinks had brought her. Copies of the letter had mysteriously come spewing out of a vent in Building 301, raining down on a meeting of the Daffodil Society, which was planting bulbs. The Daffodil Society members had been of mixed minds about what to do with the letters, but had decided by a vote to send them to their intended targets.

Bill read, and began to shake. “That’s my boy,” he whispered. “Marion!”

As Marion read, Veblen told them that James Shalev had supplied his view of the incident, for he’d arrived at the VA just in time to see Paul waving his arms at a white Tesla in the parking lot. He reckoned Paul was signaling the driver about something. And then — and this is what he was clear on, and would be required to testify about repeatedly — he saw the Tesla speed up, throwing Paul into the air.

“Oh my god!” cried Marion.

“Jesus!” Bill cried out savagely. “We’re going to ream them good!”

In the elevator an older man in a wheelchair was pushed by a younger man who might have been his son.

“Are you okay?” Justin said to him.

“What’s that?”

“Are you okay?” Justin said again.

“He’s just fine, thanks,” the younger man said as the elevator doors opened, and he pushed the wheelchair out.

“He’s not fine,” called Justin. “Is Paul fine?”

“We hope so,” Veblen said, leading them down the corridor.

“I want to give him a lizard,” said Justin.

“We’ll get to the bottom of this and then some,” said Bill, as they pushed through the curtain.

“Be very careful of those tubes,” Marion said. “Justy? Do you see?”

“I see.”

“Oh, baby,” Marion said, taking account of her unconscious, monitored son. She gently found a way to kiss his head.

Bill grabbed Paul’s cannulated hand. “That’s my boy. We’re going to bring those motherfuckers down!”

Shortly the fuzzy outline of two figures loomed through the curtain:

“… from the windshield or impact with the ground. The patient presented with abrasions on the palms, face, knees, elbows, hypoxia, hypotension, and with CT scan a five-centimeter subdural hematoma at the occipital lobe. Incongruously, we’re also detecting signs of manual strangulation — petechiae around the eyes, ecchymoses on the neck, scratches here around the chin — it doesn’t quite make sense.”

“Glasgow rating?” asked a woman.

“Nine. His pupils are reactive. He’s received mannitol—”

“And he’s on a ventricular catheter?”

Veblen stiffened.

“Yes, his ICP’s steady now at fifteen mmHg.”

“I assume you’re aware that the major morbidity from this type of injury, post-CSF drainage, is from thromboembolism?”

“Yes, he’s receiving low-molecular-weight heparin in his drip.”

“And have you considered therapeutic hypothermia?”

“Since this may be multitrauma, we don’t generally—”

“May be? Does he have multiple traumas or not?”

This voice, a woman’s, was deeply known to her.

Notes were shuffled. “He has a greenstick fracture of the left humerus, a clavicle fracture, and a left proximal fracture of the tibia.”

“It’s safe to assume that anyone with brain injury who has lost consciousness could benefit from therapeutic hypothermia, is it not?”

“Yes, I suppose based on theoretical considerations it’s reasonable.”

“I wouldn’t waste another moment,” the woman said.

Veblen jerked back the curtain. “Mom?”

Melanie stood there, radiant and imposing, her features etched with purpose. She had on a crisp seersucker jacket and white blouse over gray pleated pants, and towered over the stooped man in the white jacket.

“Hello, Veblen. This is Dr. Munoz, who has been assigned to Paul.”

Bill and Marion pressed in.

“What a terrible accident!” Melanie said with surprising warmth, embracing both of them.

“Well, I tell you one thing,” Bill said. “Hutmacher’s going to pay for this if I have to hunt down every high-level executive and turn their lives into a living hell!”

Dr. Munoz said, “Are you the parents?”

They acknowledged their son eagerly, Veblen noted.

“We’re seeing positive signs. He’s regained consciousness twice. The hematoma was relatively small and we removed it within ninety minutes of onset, so there’s every reason to believe your son will come out of this with little or no debilitation.”

“Do you know my son?” said Bill. His voice strained and shook. “He was a neurologist here at Stanford, and now is running trials at the VA center. He was conducting a trial to help brain-injured patients when this happened.”

“What an unfortunate coincidence.”

“I’ll tell you what’s no coincidence. My boy was alerting the authorities about some serious corruption this morning when this happened. You’ll be hearing more about this case, I can tell you that!”

Within a few minutes Linus joined them, and Veblen began to feel numb. The meeting that she had anticipated for so long now seemed irrelevant, and she wished them all to leave.

“We love Veblen,” said Marion. “You did a beautiful job with that girl.”

“I think so,” said Melanie.

• • •

THEY GATHERED in the waiting room, discussing the facts of the case as they knew them, theorizing on what Cloris might have hoped to gain by mowing down Paul, and all of them taking turns clutching and propping up Veblen, pacing with her in the hall. She finally excused herself and returned to Paul’s bedside. She couldn’t stand the sight of anybody. Eventually Linus came by to say he and Bill were doing a food run, would she like anything? She shook her head.

Marion came in awhile later. “Go on, go have something to eat, or at least something to drink,” she said. “You’ll need your strength.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Go get some fresh air, then,” Marion said, and Veblen complied so Marion could have her turn with Paul.

EXTRA CHICKEN BURRITO.

“Sure you don’t want some food, Veb?” Linus was out in the hall. “We’ve got an extra chicken burrito here.”

“No, thanks.”

“Come sit with us awhile.”

Reluctantly she found herself in the waiting room, listening to the banter of her mother and Bill. Justin had fallen asleep in a chair in the corner, his chin resting on his chest.

“For years, Melanie and I have worked tirelessly on conservation at the Grand Canyon,” Linus was saying. “Melanie has taken several trips on her own.”

“Now, were these trips dory or pontoon?” Bill asked.

“Dory,” said Melanie. “Pontoons are for the birds.”

“That was my outfit,” said Bill. “We were the only dories operating then. Do you remember any of the oarsmen?”

“Let’s see, Don Blaustein, Kirk Chung—”

“Ah!” cried Bill. “My buddies!”

“François?”

“Yes!”

“Mitchell?”

“Yes, yes!”

“He made a pass at me,” Melanie said.

“Oh crap, yes, Mitchell was a hound,” said Bill. “Not to say you weren’t special.” He cleared his throat and recited:

“‘When your spirit cries for peace, come to a world of canyons deep in an old land…’”

“My god, we knew August Fruge!” cried Linus. “He was with the UC Press for many years and put out many fine wilderness books. Almost published Melanie’s monograph, ‘Backroad to Unkar.’”

“I’d like to read that,” Bill said. “The canyon was my world, seven years running.”

“It’s a very thoughtful piece about communing with the earth,” Linus said.

“How can you talk about the Grand Canyon when Paul’s in a coma?” Veblen said suddenly, incensed that they were getting along so well.

“Ahem, we’re trying to keep everyone calm,” said Melanie. “He’s not in a coma, Veblen. Come sit here.” She patted the seat beside her. “It’s an induced state of rest.”

Veblen didn’t move. She was tired of hearing about her mother’s “wonderful” one thing she ever did besides sitting at her command post scratching, and she was tired of Linus making a myth out of it. “It’s the only thing you’ve ever written, so don’t make such a big deal.”

“Well! That’s a wonderful thing to say,” said her mother.

“I’m going.”

“Veblen, come back and apologize,” said Linus.

“No, I don’t need that right now,” said Veblen, angrily.

“Veblen, now!”

And with that, Veblen did something else that was very unlike her, more unlike her than just about anything she’d ever done. She threw herself at Linus like a bull, and he staggered back. “Stop! Making! Everything! About! Her!” she cried.

“We’re here advocating for your fiancé, and this is what we get? We’re going to say good night,” said Melanie, pulling Linus by the arm. “Grow up, little girl!”

She held back ten seconds, then ten more. Then she ran after them, missing the elevator, tearing down the empty stairwell. She caught sight of them exiting through the automatic doors in the lobby. “Stop. I need to talk to you!”

“You’ve humiliated me in front of the Vreelands,” Melanie said, walking on.

“Stop and listen to me,” Veblen said. “I’m serious, stop walking right now and turn around!”

Her throat was parched. She watched her mother’s angry buttocks propel her mother’s bulk a few more steps, but then the angry buttocks gave up. The angry buttocks pivoted around.

Linus looked grim. Very grim.

“What is it, Veblen?” said her mother.

Well, she didn’t know what it was. Her mother had an IQ of 185 and could beat her in a game of chess wearing a blindfold. Couldn’t she be the one who knew what it was, for once?

“Does it really matter if you’re humiliated right now?” Veblen said, weakly. “Do you really have to be the number one priority right now?”

“What do you think I spend every second of every day since the day you were born thinking about, Veblen? Do you think it’s me? You are very, very spoiled. We will spend the night and leave promptly in the morning.”

“Do what you need to do,” said Veblen, crossing her arms.

“That expression is vile,” Melanie said.

• • •

VEBLEN SPENT THE NIGHT in the hospital next to Paul in a cot, not wanting to leave his side. Nurses came and went all night long, and all through the night she tracked the sounds of the monitors.

She turned over, eye to eye with the catheter bag, which was now half full of Paul’s pale urine, clearly stamped with the name “Hutmacher” on the outside. Sick! Every hour or so she’d rise and look at Paul’s face, and place her hand on his forehead, and say his name.

In the morning she regarded herself in the institutional bathroom mirror, under fluorescent lights. Things didn’t look too good. After she splashed her face with water, dried it under the hand blower, and brushed her knotted hair, it was relatively convenient to wind through the hospital to her office in Neurology and explain to Dr. Chaudhry what had happened to Paul and why she would not be at work that day.

“He’s here in the ICU?” Chaudhry asked, and when she told him why, he was stunned. “That takes the cake.”

“Definitely.”

“Veblen, I’m very sorry. Please take all the time you need.”

“Thanks.”

She returned to Paul’s room, and Dr. Chaudhry came by an hour later. He’d conferred with the doctors in the ICU and been told that Paul’s prognosis was good. Then Laurie Tietz came by with a large latte and a big blueberry muffin, and gave her a long, warm hug.

• • •

8 A.M.

Veblen sat beside Paul thinking of ways to cheer him up. She picked up the telephone by the bed as if a call had come in. She said, “What are you selling? Life membership in the golf and country club? Errrghhhhhhhhhhhhhlllll—” She gurgled and retched and hung up in burlesque fashion. When there was no response she added, “Remember you said you liked it when I did that? I hope you remember.

“I can’t wait to go to Tacos Tambien as soon as you’re better. Carnitas! Lime! Cilantro! Yeah!”

No reaction. Nothing at all.

“Let’s share more grievances,” she tried. “I’ve been way too uptight about that. What was I afraid of?” She stopped a moment to find something unpleasant Paul had tried to share with her. “You know, I hate smelly hippies with bags of excrement in tree houses too. Have I ever told you that?”

Nothing. “Paul, and you know what else I can’t stand? Nudists. And you know why? The ist part. Give me an ecologist, a violinist, an artist. But if you’re just a nudist, get a life, you know what I mean?”

She checked the monitor — to her disgust for nudists, his vitals showed no response.

“Turkey balls aren’t as good as regular meatballs, you’re absolutely right, and I’ll never make them again, so help me god.”

She looked at him closely.

“And what’s so great about corn on the cob, compared to love?”

Saying love, Veblen felt something break inside herself that was brilliant and deafening, a desperate roar. It was a pinch, a crack, a tear. It was roaring, sweeping, aching, bending, a torrent carrying her away.

• • •

8:20 A.M.

“You know, I’ve been thinking about you and Justin and — from the outside it’s easy to be judgmental but — it was your childhood too—” Paul twitched, and maybe she’d hit a nerve. “It’s uncool when he steals people’s underwear, definitely. And you know how they call themselves a tripod? Well, that’s so cruel and unfair to you! It hurts just thinking about it.”

She looked up and saw Bill and Marion standing behind her, confused and wounded by what they had heard.

“Oh! But I hope — don’t take it the wrong way!”

They retreated quietly, and her instinct was to regain their approval, to follow and mend. But she didn’t.

“Paul, I’ve alienated both of our families. Ha! The way you wanted it. Now it’s just us.”

• • •

11:00 A.M.

Paul’s colleague James Shalev stopped by. He told Veblen he’d been part of the trial from the start, and now that he’d witnessed the accident, he felt like he had something to say about the whole symbiotic FDA / pharmaceutical industry / DOD triumvirate that wasn’t exactly positive.

“I was with him at DeviceCON the night he found out his device was out. It was mind-blowing. We even talked about it being risky, like in The Fugitive. Unbelievable. He’s a hero.”

“Thank you,” Veblen said.

• • •

11:30 A.M.

Paul’s friend Hans showed up; he’d heard the news from the Vreelands.

“Hey, Veblen,” he said, embracing her. “He knew this was about to happen, and he told me to take care of you if it did.”

Veblen listened, a lump in her throat.

“I’ve already written down everything he said to me that morning and put it in a safe place. I’ll be the first person up on the stand to testify. He’s my man.”

“Mine too,” Veblen said.

• • •

12:00 NOON

Linus came in carrying a bag. “So what’s the news?”

“It’s wait and see,” Veblen said. “He’s stable. Where’s Mom?”

“She’s out in the car. She’s a little shaky. She is upset and doesn’t want to make it worse by coming inside. But she wants me to tell you she’s standing by. We’re going home today but she’ll be waiting by the phone, of course.”

“Fine,” Veblen said.

“Here’s a bite to eat, we picked up some items at that bakery you like,” Linus said.

“Thank you.”

Linus shook his head. “This is a terrible thing, babe. Is there anything I can do?”

“I’m sorry I attacked you last night,” she said, and hugged him.

“There, there,” Linus said. “I’d blow my top too, if you or Melanie were hurt. I’m going to take your mother home now and you call later when you can, all right?”

“All right.”

• • •

THE DAY WAS LONG and dreadful. Whenever his eyelids flickered, she wondered if he was seeing the world like a newborn, “one great blooming, buzzing confusion,” as William James imagined it.

She remembered a concert they had attended in San Francisco one evening in the fall, shortly after they met. The program included three concertos, and ended with Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto no. 1 in B-flat minor, op. 23. It is the showy yet rousing concerto heard when advertising any pianist’s greatest hits. And Veblen kept waiting for the theme at the beginning to return, but it never did, which was a buzzing confusion to her untrained ears.

ENDING OF PETER ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY’S PIANO CONCERTO NO. 1 IN B-FLAT MINOR, OP. 23.

Paul stood in ovation as the young pianist took his bows. “My god, that ending,” he said, in awe. “That’s probably my favorite finale in all of classical music.”

She had been puzzled. “Really? In all of classical music?”

“The way it builds. It’s just about perfect.”

It was a moment in which she sensed unplumbed depths in him, and a minefield of shallows in herself. She’d have to listen to it again. To everything again.

• • •

SHE USED TO THINK falling in love was alchemy, that animals had weddings, that coal was a gemstone, that mountains were hollow, that trees had hidden eyes!

• • •

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, just as Veblen pushed up from the cot, as the new shift began to bustle, she heard a voice say, “I’d kill for a cup of coffee.”

She looked up. Paul’s eyes were open, and he smiled, as if there were nothing strange about being attached to an IV with a cannula in his hand, his head fully wrapped, his leg in a full cast, a profusion of tape all over his chest, cardiac monitors and brain monitors beeping and signaling on a nearby screen, a catheter lodged deep in his urethra.

“Paul!”

“I guess something bad must have happened,” he said.