The Resurrectionist

7

Sweeney hooked his feet under the bureau and did sit-ups. This was his preferred method for avoiding sleep. He had been getting by on three to four hours a night for months now. What sleep he did get was fitful and, because of the dreams, sometimes more debilitating than restorative. The therapist out in Shaker Heights had promised they’d stop eventually. So far, she was wrong.

The dreams didn’t always center on Danny. Occasionally, they would feature people and places from Sweeney’s childhood. Sometimes the setting was the pharmacy. Sometimes an enormous shopping mall or a hot and confining bus or a stretch of off-season beach. But in every dream, whatever the locale, he was searching for something he had lost — money, keys, jewelry he’d bought for Kerry, the deed to his father’s house. In his dreams he had searched for his Honda, a beagle puppy, his college diploma, his driver’s license, his uncle’s toolbox, and an overdue library book titled Roots of the French Revolution. The therapist had suggested he keep a notebook by his bed and write the items down.

She had also suggested he attend the coma families support group that met once a month at the Holiday Inn on Royalton. His first meeting was also his last. He was horrified to find that members new to the group had not only to introduce themselves but to explain their loved one’s condition and the coma’s proximate cause. On impulse, he’d made up a story about a swimming pool accident. But when the group broke for coffee, a woman approached and called him on the lie. She had someone at the St. Joseph. She knew all about Danny, she said. Mrs. Heller had told her about Kerry and she knew “the whole truth.”

He ran from the Holiday Inn and almost hit a taxi on his way out of the parking lot.

But one good thing had come from the meeting. He learned that the dreams weren’t uncommon. The wife of a man who had been shot in the head told about a recurring nightmare in which she exited a car but closed its door on her raincoat. She ended up being dragged down the block as the car began to accelerate. At that, the woman next to Sweeney had leaned into him and whispered, “In mine, I’m at the zoo and all the animals are getting loose.”

Now he avoided sleep as much as possible, drinking coffee all day, keeping the lights and the radio on whenever he was at home. He’d been tempted to try some chemical solution to the problem. To either dose himself with amphetamine or narcotize his brain into his own, controlled coma. But like most of his colleagues, he’d been conditioned at school against self-medicating.

What he did in lieu of sleep was exercise. He couldn’t bear the sociability at the gym but he loved the old-fashioned regime of solitary calisthenics. In the privacy of his bedroom, by the glow of the muted TV, he jumped rope, pulled on a chin-up bar he’d mounted in the doorway, and ran through sequences of push-ups and sit-ups. As a result, he was college weight again and his arms and legs and abdomen had become toned and taut. And if his brain still, sometimes, screamed for sleep, he was learning to ignore its demands. What he found more difficult to ignore was the irony his new habits had produced. His muscles had grown hard as his son’s had atrophied. And Danny had achieved perpetual sleep while his father had made himself into an insomniac.

He hit three hundred, unhooked his feet and lay down on his back. The ceiling was cracked and water-stained. His room sat directly below 103 and he tried to picture where, exactly, Danny’s bed was located.

The admission and assessment team had spent two hours with the boy. Sweeney liked the idea that they were starting fresh instead of relying on the St. Joseph files. Alice — she insisted he call her by her first name — had explained that the doctors would meet in the afternoon, compare notes, and work up a prognosis and a schedule of therapies and medications. She told him that at the beginning they’d be reassessing almost constantly. Then she had dismissed the team and bought him dinner in the cafeteria.

The place was even seedier at night. They ate a runny stroganoff and Jell-O and, as he knew she would, she asked about the circumstances of Danny’s accident. He didn’t want a replay of the morning’s episode with Nora, so he said, “It’s all in his records,” and Alice didn’t push for anything more.

He stripped off his trunks and his T-shirt, threw them in the sink, and stepped in the shower. The water was hot and the pressure was high. He sat down at the far end of the tub and let the spray blast his body.

Kerry and he had often showered and bathed together before Danny came along. She’d reach up to wash his hair and he’d run the soap over her belly and between her legs. Afterward, he liked drying her off, wrapping her in a towel, and pulling her backward into his arms.

Now he placed a hand on his cock, then just as quickly took it away. He thought he heard a phone ring, got up on his feet, and turned off the water. The bathroom was entirely fogged. He climbed out of the tub and ran, dripping, into the living room. An old black rotary phone sat on the floor next to the sofa, but it wasn’t ringing. He squatted and picked up the receiver, put it to his ear, and heard nothing. Tomorrow he’d have to call from the pharmacy and have it turned on.

THE CLINIC PHARMACY was a cave. It was located in what had been a walk-in bank vault built, by the original Peck, in the recesses of the family manse.

Ernesto Luga, the second-shift pharmacist, asked more questions than he answered. He was leaving the Clinic in a week. He had scored an opening at the new Wonder Drug out at the new Wonder Drug Plaza in Flanders. According to Ernesto, he’d be making double his current salary by the end of his first year.

“An’ you actually get to work with people,” he said, “instead of, you know. .” trailing off because he knew about Danny.

“What’s his story, anyway?” Ernesto asked.

Sweeney was doing Ernesto’s inventory. Ten minutes into his inaugural shift, Sweeney knew there was nothing he needed to learn.

“He’s in a coma,” Sweeney said and began to count the bags of saline again.

“Everybody in here’s in a coma,” Ernesto said. “I meant, you know, how’d it happen?”

Sweeney braced the clipboard and jotted numbers, then looked up. Ernesto was sitting on a countertop, eating a tuna sandwich.

“You really need to know?” Sweeney asked.

Ernesto chewed with his mouth open and nodded.

“We were at an Indians home game. They were playing the Tigers. We’d been given box seats by a drug company rep I know.”

“What company?”

“What difference does it make?”

“Forget it,” Ernesto said. “Go ’head.”

“Bottom of the eighth. We’re down by one. Sizemore hits a shot into the stands. And I didn’t manage to stop it.”

Ernesto stopped chewing and they stared at each other. Then he swallowed and said, “You mean it hit your kid?”

Sweeney continued to stare at him. “It was the first game I’d ever taken him to.”

He started to turn back to the inventory and Ernesto said, “Bullshit.”

It sounded more friendly than angry, and when Sweeney looked up, the pharmacist was grinning and had strands of tuna and mayonnaise on his chin.

“Excuse me?” Sweeney said.

“C’mon,” Ernesto said. “That’s bullshit, right?”

“Why would I lie about my son’s coma?”

“Beats the shit out of me,” Ernesto said. “But if that’s what happened, you’da sued the shit out of the franchise and you wouldn’t be living down in the basement.”

Sweeney pointed at the chin with his pencil. “You got some tuna there,” he said and Ernesto wiped it away with his hand.

“You’re not gonna tell me what happened, are you?” Ernesto said.

Sweeney smiled and said, “What else do you do all night besides eat tuna sandwiches and flirt with the nurses?”

Ernesto slid his ass off the counter and tossed his brown bag and empty Coke can into the trash.

“These nurses?” he said and threw up a hand in disgust. “Don’t even bother. None of them got a sense of humor. ’Cept the ones with that bitchy sense of humor. And you don’t need that. This place is gonna drive you crazy, you know.”

“Why’s that?”

“Lots of reasons. You were running a big store back home, right? Lots of customer service, dealing with the people. You don’t deal with no one here. Specially on third shift. I did eleven to seven my first six months, I almost went batshit. No kidding. You’re filling the same meds, night after night. You got the skeleton crew, right? You dying for the janitor to come down, tell his same stupid jokes. Really, I don’t mean to depress you or anything, but you made a bad move here.”

“Thanks for the concern, Ernesto.”

“Big turnover on the third shift. That’s another reason I’m getting out. I earned my way to second shift and they keep scheduling me back to third every time we’re short-staffed. Look at tonight. I’m supposed to be down La Concha — hey, you play dice?”

Sweeney shook his head and Ernesto went on.

“Here I am training you instead.”

The notion of Ernesto training him struck Sweeney somewhere between sad and annoying, but he said, “Speaking of training, maybe you could run down the routine for me.”

“Good idea. I told Nora I’d give you an hour and if you knew your shit I’d leave you alone.”

The room was more drug closet than pharmacy. A claustrophobic wouldn’t have lasted. There were no windows beyond a small pass-through rectangle cut into the wall where the nurses and the occasional doctor would pick up their orders.

“You won’t see much of the doctors,” Ernesto explained. “They keep one resident on at night. Right now it’s Tannenbaum. You meet Tannenbaum yet?”

Sweeney shook his head and Ernesto went on.

“Unless there’s a problem he just sleeps all night in the lounge. Anyway, you’ll find all your med orders there in your in-box when you get here. Mostly it’s the same old shit unless one of the patients develops an infection or something. Sometimes Dr. Peck, the lady, she’ll mix things up on you. But basically, you’ll just be filling your bags and syringes and putting them up on the tray. There are six night duty nurses, two to each floor.”

“For fifty patients?”

“It’s not exactly intensive care, you know? They do their rounds, check the monitors, hang their bags, maybe roll somebody or give a sponge bath or change a diaper. But mostly they’re drinking coffee with Romeo and reading their romance novels.”

“Back up a second,” Sweeney said. “The nurses don’t fill their own syringes?”

Ernesto shook his head.

“So there’s nobody double-checking the meds?”

“It’s all on you, bro,” Ernesto said. “So you got to pay attention.”

“That’s unbelievable,” Sweeney said.

Ernesto seemed amused. He checked his watch, clapped Sweeney on the back, and said, “I got to get running now. My boys are waiting for me. If you get hungry you can have the rest of my sandwich. It’s in the fridge.”

He moved to the door and said, “Anything I forget?”

“I don’t think so,” Sweeney said. “Thanks for staying late.”

“De nada,” Ernesto said, slipping out of his smock and hooking it over his shoulder. “You’ll get the hang of it real quick. And listen, if you start thinking you made a mistake, I can put a word in for you down at Wonder Drug.”

“I appreciate that,” Sweeney said.

And then Ernesto was gone and he was alone in the vault. He turned the radio on and fiddled with the tuner until he found a station playing Philly soul. That was one improvement over the chain stores. Most of them pumped in a loop of Muzak day and night. The same shit over and over.

He moved to the service window, stuck his head out, and looked down the corridor, then turned up the volume on the Stylistics doing “Stone in Love with You.” Kerry had loved this stuff, called it “blue lightbulb” music, and would never tell him what that meant.

He took a small stack of med orders from the in-box and thumbed through them. Lots of requests for bags of Jevity, various antibiotics, insulin, blood thinners and diuretics, Verapamil. Light work and nothing out of the ordinary. He could fill everything in less than an hour even if he dawdled. If nothing new came in he’d be sitting on his ass until dawn.

Which, he knew from experience, was unacceptable. It was never a good idea to leave his mind unoccupied for too long. To be idle was to be in danger. Because in unoccupied moments, he would remember. Images would come. Sequences from the old life. One man at that group meeting had used the phrase memory is the enemy and Sweeney had seized on it.

He worked as slowly as he could, rechecking each script he filled, hoping that one of the nurses would visit and he could introduce himself, try to pull someone into a conversation. But by 1:30 all his work was done and his in-box was empty. No one had come by to meet the new guy.

For the next half hour he went through the room methodically, played cop, opened every drawer and cabinet. Then he played efficiency expert and rearranged everything he found. And then he put it all back the way he’d found it.

By 2:30 he decided to find the floor nurses and introduce himself. He pulled the steel shutter down over the order window and secured it, moved into the corridor, and locked the door. It was silent in the hall. He walked past a row of closed doors, trying and failing to keep his steps from echoing.

He came to the nurses’ station and found it deserted. Ernesto had said there were two nurses assigned to each floor. It seemed unlikely that they’d all break for coffee at the same time. Then again, this wasn’t an ordinary hospital and he had no idea what Clinic protocol entailed.

The station consisted of a tall, grand semicircular desk made of glossy wood and set in the center, but toward the rear of the first floor’s enormous foyer. It was flanked by a chalkboard that had been mounted on the rear wall. The board had been gridded and patients’ names were written in boxes down the left margin. Next to the names were written various notes — vitals, meds, therapies, schedules, and, Sweeney assumed, attending nurse. It was an intricate system of notation, using shorthand and different colored chalk.

He found his son’s name, printed in yellow, and read across the grid. He could make out the meds, of course, and the latest BP, pulse, and temp, but there were several boxes that he couldn’t decipher. The final box in Danny’s row read “Rey.” He decided to look in on room 103.

The door was partially closed. Rather than push it open, he squeezed inside. A woman in white was bent over Danny’s head doing something to the boy’s mouth. Sweeney didn’t want to startle her but she seemed unaware of his presence. Finally, he cleared his throat.

She didn’t respond. Didn’t turn or flinch.

He said, “Excuse me?”

In a low voice, she said, “You must be the father.”

“I’m sorry to bother you—” he began and she cut him off.

“You’re not bothering me,” she said. “I’ll be with you in just a second.”

He took it, for some reason, as a request to wait outside. He stepped back into the hall and then felt stupid when he heard her say, “Where’d you go?”

He stepped back inside. She was standing now, stroking Danny’s forehead. And she was stunning. Tall and lean, she gave off an immediate impression of physical strength and, just beneath that, even in the archaic nurse’s whites, a kind of dark carnality. Her hair was black and long, brushed back over her head, barely tamed and at odds, somehow, with the uniform. Her eyes were a brown or a blue that was so deep they appeared black. But it was her cheeks that dominated the face — high and protruding and just short of jeopardizing her beauty. Sweeney noticed she had what may have been the longest fingers he had ever seen, and they were holding what looked like a miniature bottle of catsup in her free hand. He gestured to the bottle and said, “What have you got there?”

She held the bottle out in the air. He stepped forward, grabbed it, looked at the label, and said, “What the hell is this?”

“Just what it says. Tabasco.”

Sweeney looked up at her and waited for the explanation. There was a clipboard resting on Danny’s stomach and the woman picked it up and hugged it.

“What were you doing with this?” Sweeney asked.

“I was swabbing a half teaspoon onto your son’s tongue.”

He felt anger coming on now and, right behind it, the fear that he’d lose control.

“And who told you to do this?”

“Your new best friend,” she said.

He looked down at Danny and then back at the nurse.

“Alice,” she said. “The amazing Dr. Peck.”

He stood there trying simultaneously to process the words and calm himself.

He said, “Who the hell are you?”

She came to him and took the Tabasco from his hand. He surrendered it and she shifted the clipboard under one arm, took Sweeney by the elbow, and walked him into the hall. The light was better and he got his first close look at her.

“I’m Danny’s nurse,” she said, releasing his arm and extending her hand. “Nadia Rey.”

He shook and forgot to introduce himself.

“Is this a standard thing? Putting Tabasco on a patient’s tongue?”

She nodded. “In some cases.”

He tried to think, tried to gauge how upset he should be.

“You don’t think that’s intrusive?”

Nurse Rey brought her own tongue out and wet her top lip before she said, “Does Danny like spicy foods?”

It caught him off guard, her referring to his son as if he existed in the waking world. Before he could reply, she said, “There’s no wrong answer, Sweeney. If he did, then we’re rousing a favorable memory. And if he didn’t, then the possibility for response is even stronger.”

She’d called him Sweeney. Not Mr. Sweeney. As if they’d already met.

He said, “And was there any response?”

“He just arrived here today,” she said. “It’s too early to start looking for signs.”

“I’m aware of that,” he said.

She looked down the corridor beyond him but she said, “Did you get lonely down in the vault?”

He followed her gaze but the hall was empty. He turned back to find she was staring at him. “It’s a little slow,” he said.

“There’s really no need for a pharmacist,” she said. “It’s just a state requirement for licensing.”

He wondered if he should take offense at the comment. But he was glad to have someone to talk to and he wanted to prolong the conversation.

He changed his voice and said, “So you met Danny?”

She smiled for the first time. “Danny and I are going to be good friends,” she said and there was nothing patronizing or phony about it. He was about to ask her if he could buy her a coffee, but she looked at her watch and said, “Are you looking for the game? Did Ernesto fill you in?”

He didn’t know what to say.

“Look,” she said, “it’s not like I approve. I’m down here doing my rounds.”

He nodded and said, “I can see that. I’m not accusing you of anything.”

“It doesn’t make any difference to me,” she said, “if you want to play or you want to talk to them about it. But whatever you do, if you want some advice, handle it yourself. You don’t want to bring either Peck in on this. You just got your son settled in here.”

“Who said anything about Peck?”

“They’re up in 306,” she said.

“Thanks,” Sweeney said. “I’ll go talk to them.”

“Do whatever you want,” she said. “I’ve got to get back to work.” Then she turned and started toward another room and he heard her mutter to herself, “Fucking Ernesto.”