Sparta (37 page)

“Good to see you,” said Jock. “How 'bout them Braves?”

“Still on the wrong side. I'm sorry for you, man. How 'bout them Yankees?”

They grinned at each other.

“So, Jen told me you'd be here,” Jock said. “How's it going?”

“Good,” said Conrad. “How's the world of medicine?”

Jock squinted and rubbed his eyes behind his glasses, pushing his fingertips into the sockets. “You don't want to know.”

“He gets a little time off every two weeks,” said Jenny. “But only to sleep.”

“Sounds like us,” said Conrad. “Only for us it was every three weeks.”

“In the sleep-deprivation competition,” said Jock, “you guys win. In fact, you guys win in every way. I have to admit, Iraq beats Mount Sinai.” He raised his hands in surrender. He moved past Conrad to kiss Jenny. He was much taller than she, and when he leaned down, he put his hands on her shoulders as though to steady her, or himself.

“What's for dinner?” he asked. “God, it smells good.”

“It's called tilapia,” Jenny said. “Which is either the name of an exotic species from the South Pacific or a made-up PR name for Mississippi catfish.”

“Catfish is delicious, you know,” Jock said. “I've had it.”

Jenny made a face. “With or without whiskers?”

“Don't be a fish snob,” said Jock. “You're meant to make a sauce with the whiskers.” He opened the fridge for a beer. “Man, I stink. I'm going to take a shower. Back in a mo.”

Conrad took another swig. Jenny's face was intent, and the steam rose around her. She leaned over, sniffing, then poured olive oil into the pan. She shook out more flakes, then turned the heat down.

It reminded him of a cockpit, his sister's tiny space, where she checked and monitored, turning dials, summoning up heat and fire, sending up clouds of steam, sizzling drops of fat, the smell of herbs and garlic.

“How did you learn to cook?” he asked. “Did Mom teach you?”

“I guess,” she said.

“You like it?”

“When I have the time, and if I'm having someone over. Otherwise I eat cereal or scrambled eggs. Grilled cheese sandwiches.” She glanced at him. “Can you cook?”

He shook his head.

“You should learn. Maybe that would make you feel better.”

He took another swig. “You think I don't feel good?”

She glanced at him again.

“You don't seem very chipper,” Jenny said.

“I'm chipper,” he said. “I'm very chipper.”

“Could you talk to someone? A therapist?”

He gave a dismissive wave, using his hand holding the beer. The bottle slammed against the wall. “Oops.”

Jenny said nothing. She shook the frying pan, sliding it heavily back and forth over the burner.

When Jock came back, he looked damp and fresh, his hair slicked and dark. He rubbed his hands together.

“Now,” he said. “Let me have a beer. Then let us have the meal. Then let us watch bad TV, and then let us become unconscious.”

When the food was ready, they took their plates into the living room. This was long and narrow and dim, high-ceilinged, gloomily elegant, though the furniture was random and shabby. Two ponderous mismatched upholstered chairs faced the inner wall and the worn red sofa where Conrad would sleep. Near the doorway was a round table with two high-backed wooden chairs. Conrad brought in his chair and set it at the table.

Jock took a bite and shook his head. “Hmm-hmm. That's mighty good catfish!”

“Don't.” Jenny lowered her fork and looked at the white flakes distrustfully.

“Okay, it's not.” Jock raised his hand in apology. He had pale slender fingers. “It's jalapeño, right? I know that.”

Conrad poked at his fish. “Do you have a bowl to put the whiskers in?”

“Very funny,” Jenny said. “Tomorrow, you cook.”

This gave Conrad an odd, complicated lift.
Tomorrow.

“Actually, it's pretty good,” Conrad said. “Whatever it's called.”

“Pescado de gato,”
said Jock.

Conrad said to him, “So, you're in rotation? What are you doing now?”

“ER,” said Jock.

“Intense,” said Conrad.

“That's the word,” said Jock, nodding.

“How you finding it?”

“Some ways, good,” Jock said. “Everything happens at once. You go in with the whole team, working at top speed on a patient, you all work your asses off, and then you're done. You hand the patient off to another department, and you start over with someone else. It's an eight-hour adrenaline rush.”

“How do you come out?” Conrad asked. “What percentage do you save?”

“Huge,” Jock said. “Half the people coming in are just scared. Bandage 'em up, give 'em Tylenol, send 'em home. Or send them to see their primary physicians. Half the others need attention, but they're not a big risk. Bites, burns, falls, but not fatal injuries.”

“But the rest…” said Conrad.

“Are serious. Out of them, we save half, maybe three-quarters. The numbers are still really good. Yesterday a guy came in while he was having a stroke. His wife brought him by cab, didn't want to wait for the ambulance. He couldn't stand up straight. He was leaning against the wall. Double vision, slurred speech, just walked in the door. Jesus. He was right in the middle of it. We had him down on the table within ninety seconds, hooked up, IVs, monitors, everything.” He shook his head.

“And he was okay?” Jenny asked.

“Fine,” Jock said.

“At Quantico, during IOC, we went to the local ER as observers,” Conrad told Jock.

“What's IOC?” Jenny asked.

“Infantry Officer Course,” said Conrad. “It was so we'd get to see what trauma was like.”

“Takes getting used to,” said Jock. “The sight of pumping blood is a physiological shock. Your blood vessels dilate, your blood pressure drops just to see it. Some people hit the floor. Men, women, anyone.”

“Yeah,” Conrad said. “It's tough, seeing that stuff. Your mind kind of refuses to process. You think,
No, that can't be right. All that blood can't be coming out of his chest.
Or,
That hand can't be lying there on a different gurney from the arm.
”

Jock nodded. “Shock can paralyze you. Someone else can end up dying because you didn't act fast.”

“It took us a while to get over it.”

Later they'd made jokes about it.
Where did I leave that hand? I just had it. It was right here at the end of my arm. Did you take it? Hand it over.

In-country they made jokes about everything. Politically incorrect, seriously offensive jokes about bodies in ditches, wounds, missing limbs, babies. Black humor.

It was a way to name what was happening, to speak the horrors, to render them powerless. It was the only way you could say how bad it was. He wondered what the ER jokes were, but he didn't know Jock well enough to ask.

After dinner Conrad did the dishes, filling the sink with steaming hot water, snowbanks of soapsuds. He scrubbed the plates, the silverware, the pots. He set the clean dishes in the rack to dry, drained the sink, sponged it clean, and turned over the heavy iron skillet and left it in the sink. He dried his hands with a feeling of accomplishment.

They watched bad TV. Jenny had TiVoed something she wanted to see, but she couldn't get it to work, so they watched a survival show about a bunch of idiots on an island in the South Pacific. The competitors shinnied up ropes and jumped into the water; they clambered through a tropical forest and tried to build fires.

“Jesus,” Conrad said, “look at them trying to put up a tent. I'm glad they're not protecting our asses in Iraq.”

“They're probably glad, too,” said Jenny.

“What kind of asshole goes on a show like this?” asked Conrad.

“Someone without a job,” Jenny said.

“Someone without a higher brain,” said Jock.

“Seriously,” Conrad said. “Who would do that?”

“Oh, I don't know,” said Jenny. “I can see someone wanting to do it. It's exciting and exotic and you get to go far away, and it pays money. And they'd feel famous. It's a big adventure. Like going to Iraq.”

“Right,” Conrad said. “We had a lot of crossovers from survival shows to the Marine Corps.”

He was actually glad to watch this, irritating though it was. It was a relief just to give his head a rest, to fill his mind with different images from the ones that lived in his mind. The guy with the mullet sliding down the rope into the water. The blond girls who hated each other but pretended to be friends. The snake moving through the underbrush. The skinny guy trying to put up the tent, swearing each time it collapsed.

“Do they vote on who they like? Or do we vote?” He wasn't up on reality shows, something else he'd missed. “Can you vote to disqualify everyone?”

When it was over and the wrong person had lost, Jock stretched and stood up.

“Okay, guys,” he said. “I'm dead. I'm more than dead. I'm hitting the rack. Anyone want to join me?”

“Con?” Jenny asked. “You or me?”

Conrad laughed. “You go this time.”

“Night, Con,” Jock said. “Good to see you. Sorry we don't have a guest room for you. We will when we move. Into our own apartment.” He looked at Jenny, who shook her head.

“No problem,” Conrad said.

Jock went back into the bedroom, but Jenny stayed, curled up on the sofa. She looked at Conrad and made a face.

“See what I mean?” she said.

“Dude wants a commitment,” he said.

“I'm dragging my feet,” she said. “What do you think?”

“Indecision is a decision,” Conrad said. “You've got to decide.”

“That's the Marine way,” Jenny said.

“How we're trained,” Conrad said. “How it is.”

“Yeah,” she said. “You say that like you know what you're doing. But you seem…” She faded away.

“What? I seem what?”

“I don't know. You seem like you're saying it, but you don't mean it.”

Conrad was sitting in one of the huge square chairs.

“You keep going no matter how you feel,” he said. “You just go ahead. Charlie Mike, continue the mission.”

Jenny looked at him. “Are you going to be okay?”

“What do you mean?”

“Can you sleep?”

He made a seesaw gesture. “You might hear the TV on, late. I'll keep it low.”

“I'm not worried about you keeping me awake.”

“I'll be fine,” he said. “Thanks for letting me stay.”

“As long as you want,” she said. “But I wish you'd see someone. I can get you a name. Or Jock can.”

“Good idea,” Conrad said. “I'll think about it.”

“Anyway.” Jenny yawned. “You're sitting in the good-luck chair, by the way. I found it out on the sidewalk, and some friends helped me carry it back. When I was cleaning it out, I found an envelope stuck down in the crack between the back and the seat, with two hundred dollars in cash.”

“Whoa,” said Conrad. “What do you think? Drug money?”

“No idea. No name, no writing, no address. By then I didn't even remember exactly which building it was in front of, just the block. There was no way to return it. I thought maybe the person had died and no one else knew it was there, the apartment was cleaned out, and the chair was put out on the street.”

“You lucked out.”

“I know. At first I felt guilty, like I should find out whoever it was who had died and give the money to the family. They had to be poor. I thought of some old person, living alone and getting wacky. Then I thought it was a drug dealer and he'd stuffed the money out of sight when someone came in, and before he could get it, he was arrested. Or killed. I had a lot of stories. For a while, every time I saw the chair, I felt guilty. Like, what should I have done differently?”

“Jen,” Conrad said.

“No, I know I wasn't
bad
, but it wasn't my money.”

“And so what happened?” asked Conrad.

“Then one day I thought,
Okay, that's it. Stop. You can't give the money back. There's no way you can undo this, and you didn't do anything wrong. So just
quit.
”

“And so that was it?”

“More or less. I hadn't taken the money, and I couldn't return it. I stopped feeling guilty. I just thought,
Okay, this is what happened. It's not my fault
.”

“Right.” Conrad nodded slowly.

“Con,” Jenny said. “Are you okay?”

“I'm good,” he said.

There was a pause.

He nodded again.

“I feel like you're trapped inside yourself,” said Jenny. “Like there's something in there with you.”

“I'm okay,” Conrad said. “I'm fine. It's over.” He stood up. “Okay, it's late. I'm going to hit the rack.”

Jenny stood, and they began to take the cushions off the sofa, piling them on the floor. Conrad unfolded the metal frame, lifting it in an awkward arc as it reared and then settled jerkily onto the floor. Conrad and Jenny made it up together, tugging the sheets onto the corners. The pillowcase was covered with faded smiling Dumbos; Conrad remembered it from home. It was Jenny's; no one else was allowed to use it.

“I can't believe you're letting me use this,” he said.

“Special circumstances,” she said. “Honored guest.”

The sheets were clean but unironed. He thought of Jenny at the Laundromat, reading a magazine, waiting for the machines to finish churning and whirling. It was strange to think of her living on her own.

“Thanks, Jen,” he said.

She smiled at him. There were dark circles under her eyes. “Glad to have you here,” she said. “Wake me up if you can't sleep. If you want to talk.”