Teaching the Dog to Read (7 page)

“So what the hell happened, you keeled over?”

“Yeah, as soon as I got out of the car it knocked me flat. Thank God I got as far as the hospital. What if I were still driving and crashed into something?”

“Yeah well, it looks like you
did
crash into something—death.”

Annoyed, Tony Night shook his head. How was he supposed to have known about the bum heart? Tony Day had never brought anything about a bad heart into his dreams. And anyway, who dreams about having a heart condition?

“Who’s that?”

Back to the door, Tony Day didn’t know who Night was talking about. “Who’s
who
?”

Tony Night gestured with his chin toward the door. “
Him
.”

Day turned halfway around in his chair. Standing a few feet away was one of the handsomest men he had ever seen. Movie star handsome with long black hair combed straight back, sharply chiseled features like a 1930’s Fascist statue, and eyes that would make any soul sigh, male or female. The tall man was dressed in a gunmetal gray suit tailored so perfectly to his thin body that it looked like it had been poured onto him. In his hand he held a short fat lit cigar but strangely no smoke came from it, even when he took a puff and exhaled. The end glowed bright orange when he drew on the cigar but not one thread or curl of smoke came off it.

The guy checked the time on his wristwatch. Tony Day recognized it immediately—a Lichtenberg ‘Figure’. Instinctively Tony looked down at his wrist but his Lichtenberg was still there.

“Len Fischman.”

“Excuse me?”

“My name is Len Fischman.” Another puff on the cigar. Fischman squinted one eye almost closed, as if smoke had gotten into it. But there was no smoke.

“Who are you? I mean, besides Len Fischman?”

“Number 43 or 44, I’m not really sure which because I never checked. I didn’t care, you know what I mean?”

The Tonys glanced at each other, as if one might know what this Len was talking about and could fill the other in.

“What is—” both of them spoke this at the same time. Tony Day shut up and let his counterpart finish the sentence.

Tony Night said, “What is 43 or 44?”

“Incarnation. I came right before you. Sometimes it happens immediately after someone dies, sometimes it can be millennia. You came immediately. Don’t ask me why.”

When neither Tony said anything and looked baffled by what he had said, Fischman continued with noticeable exasperation at their confusion “
Reincarnation
? Past lives? Come on boys, you can’t be
that
dense.”

Still the Tonys remained silent.

Fischman rolled his eyes, put the cigar out on the floor and slid both hands into his pockets. “When were you born?”

“March 7.”

“What year?”

“1973.”

“Exactly. Well, on March 6, 1973 I was driving a brand new Porsche I had picked up at the factory in Stuttgart along the Dalmatian Coast with my fiancée Alice—”

“
Alice
, did you say?” Tony Day didn’t like hearing that name of his dream woman coming from this Len Fischman.

“Yes Tony,
Alice
. We were supposed to get married in Dubrovnik the next week. We had spent a fine Spring afternoon drinking way too much of a tasty regional wine called
Grk
and were driving back to our hotel when a large orange truck coming towards us blew a tire and drove right into us. Boys, the next day you were born. Now do you
capite?”

“I’m you, reincarnated?” Tony Day asked incredulously.

“That is correct. And that is why you have been dreaming about a lovely woman named Alice.”

“Why are you here?” Tony Night asked. Tony Day was too stunned to say anything.

“To accompany you over to the other side. It’s a nice system— Whoever preceded you comes back to guide you.” Fischman smirked at the joke he was about to make. “Anyway, you’d have a hard time understanding Gorbog if he came for you.”

Both Tonys remembered the strange name—it was written on the box that held the can opener in Tony Night’s dream.

“Who is Gorbog?”

“The great granddaddy of us all, brother—the first in our blood line. 27,000 years ago Gorbog was born in what is now Russia. You’ll meet him eventually. By then, after you’ve acclimated, you’ll understand him. He’s actually quite chatty. ”

“But I don’t
want
to die. I’m not ready.” Tony Day wailed.

“Me neither,” Tony Night agreed, shooting a hurt look over at Tony Day for not having said ‘we’ don’t want to die.

“Boys, I didn’t either; I was about to get married. But it’s out of your hands.” Fischman pointed to the body lying on the bed. “Once the motor conks out, that’s the end of you.”

“Is it going to happen soon?”

“I dunno. That’s always up to your body. I’m just here to introduce myself. Normally I wouldn’t show up until after you died, but because you guys traded places they sent me across a little earlier than usual.”

“
Across?”

Fischman looked from side to side as if to make sure no one could hear what he was about to say to the Tonys. “I’m not supposed to tell you this till it’s over, but the Afterlife? It’s over there. Two steps away.” He hooked a thumb out to the side like a hitchhiker trying to catch a ride. “You wanna take a little look at your new home?”

“No!” both Tonys shouted.

Fischman held up both hands, palms out in surrender. “Okay, okay I was only trying to make it easier for you when the time comes. It’s really nice over there, believe me. I didn’t even want to come over here now and leave it.”

“No!”
The Tonys said again, even more adamantly.

The door crept slowly open and Lena Schabort entered.

Eyebrows raised, Len Fischman checked her out from top to bottom and gave an exaggerated approving nod. When she saw the body of Anthony Areal on the bed, she quickly covered her mouth with both hands and began to weep. Lena tried to muffle the noise with her hands by pressing harder against her mouth but that only made new louder sounds. She stood there unmoving, paralyzed by what she was seeing.

Tony Night got up from his chair and was going to go to her, but Fischman shook his head. “You’re in a coma. She can’t see either of you. Only the Tony she knew, and that’s old dead weight over there.”

When she was able to calm down a little and gather herself, Lena walked to the side of the bed and looked down at her new love. Hesitantly, she touched his right hand with her index finger but for seconds, as if afraid even one touch might worsen his condition. Then she did something else that made all three men in the room catch their breath.

Bending over the still body, she stretched her arms out and without touching Tony, put her hands near either side of his face, as if cradling it. Leaning forward, she lowered her forehead until it almost touched his. She stayed in that reverent position for a long time.

Both Tony Day and Len Fischman eventually looked at Tony Night with great sympathy and a little jealousy in their eyes. It was so plain this woman was crazy about the Tony Areal she knew and her grief was palpable. It was clear that when he died she would be crushed.

To make matters worse, outside on the street a cacophony of auto horns went by and from their cheerful, uneven rhythm it sounded like either a wedding party celebrating, or some sports team had won a game and this was a spontaneous victory parade announcing to the world the good news.

When Lena finally drew her hands back and lifted her head, she sat down in one of the chairs next to Tony’s bed.

“You don’t have to see this if you don’t want.”

“What?” Tony Night had been so absorbed watching Lena’s every move that he’d barely heard Fischman speak.

“You don’t have to watch this. You’re in a coma. Both of you can go back into it. I don’t know what’s going on in his head now, but probably nothing. His brain is probably blank and biding its time till the body’s clock runs down. You don’t have to see this if you don’t want. I wouldn’t.”

The Tonys looked at each other but neither had an answer.

“If it makes your decision any easier, you can come out again whenever you want. So long as the body is still alive, you—”

“—can come out again. Yeah, we heard you,” Tony Day cut in. He looked at Night who absolutely bereft, kept staring at Lena. Day knew it was his call and looking at Fischman, barely nodded his assent. All three men disappeared.

A few moments after they were gone Lena took a cell phone out of her purse and called a number on the phone’s speed dial. The whole time she waited for it to connect, she stared at Tony and kept wiping her eyes with her free hand.

Her head snapped up when the other person answered. She said only “I need your help,” then paused and sucked in her lower lip while listening to the answer. She nodded assertively at something that was said. “Yes. Yes, I’m sure. I wouldn’t ask for your help if I wasn’t sure. He
is
the one but there’s a problem now. Only you can help me.” She listened and kept nodding at what she heard.

A minute later she disconnected the phone without saying anything more. Dropping it back into her purse she reached in for something else: a pad of paper and a black roller ball pen. She put the purse on the floor next to her chair, the pad and pen in her lap. She looked at Tony. She wasn’t ready to begin yet and needed to see him before she did. Twice Lena picked up the pad only to put it down again. She dropped her chin to her chest and closed her eyes. An idea came and she smiled for the first time since hearing the bad news about him earlier at work. Picking up her purse she rummaged around inside it until she found the can opener he’d left on her desk what seemed like a long time ago. Taking hold of both sides of the tool, she opened and closed them several times. Once she held it up as if to show him what she was doing—open closed open closed… As if he could see. If only he
could
see now.

“I love this thing so much, Tony. You have no idea what it means to me.”

She put the opener back in her purse, zipped it closed, took a deep breath and picking up the pen and pad, began to draw.

One look at her work was all that was needed to tell Lena Schabort was a terrible artist. She drew a head as round as a balloon that looked like something a young child would draw. She put ears on this ‘head’ that looked like handles on a teacup rather than human ears. The eyes she drew were ridiculous, as was the nose and mouth. Again, when she finished the sketch it resembled something a six or seven year old might draw in kindergarten with a thick crayon.

A nurse came into the room, checked the chart at the foot of the bed and the glowing yellow numbers on the complicated looking machine Tony was connected to via multiple wires. Lena asked if there had been any change in his condition since he was admitted. The nurse gave a small tight smile and said she didn’t think so, but Lena should ask the doctor when she made her rounds in the next half hour. Lena thanked her and said she would.

After the nurse left Lena tore the sketch out of the notebook, dropped it into her purse and began another. By the time the doctor arrived almost an hour later, she had completed seven and was working on an eighth. The difference between her first drawing and the latest one was astounding. If the first looked like the work of an untalented child, the eighth looked like the highly polished and professional product of a very good street portrait artist. Anyone who knew Tony and saw this drawing would have immediately said it was him to a tee. What’s more, it was a portrait that caught something ineffable and strikingly intimate about him despite the fact it was a simple black and white drawing.

The emergency room doctor entered Anthony Areal’s room with the pompous,
l’etat c’est
moi
-drama of a famous opera star making her first appearance on stage to a richly-deserved ovation at the beginning of a performance. Doctor Mukherjee was good at her job but nowhere near
as
good as she thought she was. Privately the nurses called her “Dr. Legend” as in ‘she’s a legend in her own mind.’

When she saw the woman sitting by the side of the patient’s bed drawing, the doctor did an instant assessment of her (face, hair, clothes, purse…) and then mentally chose which of her professional personas to present—firm but pleasant with a soupcon of professional know-it-all arrogance thrown in. “I’m Doctor Mukherjee,” she said in an assertive voice while looking at the clipboard she carried, as if searching for some detail there. “And you are?”

“Lena Schabort. I’m his fiancée.”

“I see.” The doctor slid a pair of thick blue eyeglasses out of her left breast pocket and put them on. Taking the chart off the hook at the foot of the patient’s bed, she examined the information there while carefully keeping her face blank. Then she looked at the numbers on the machine next to the bed and wrote several things on the chart. After a while it was only pretense because she was really only waiting for Lena to bombard her with questions which was what loved ones of the critically ill almost always did. Was there hope? Would they survive? Could anything more be done? Can they hear us? Do they know we’re here? Dr. Rani Mukherjee had heard all these questions so many times over the years in voices that ranged from the petrified to the outraged. As a result she had developed a litany of automatic, highly technical responses that in most cases calmed but did not specifically encourage the questioners. She did not believe in creating false hope.

From the information on this man’s chart, things did not look good for him and she was prepared to say exactly that if his fiancée wanted to know the truth. If the woman asked if he would recover, the doctor would say something along the lines of it’s too soon to tell—What’s happened to him is
extremely
serious and though he’s stable for now, there’s little else we can do until—

“Doctor?”

Here it comes.

“Yes?”

“Are you her?”

Certainly not expecting
this
, the doctor paused and frowned. “Excuse me?”