The Nirvana Plague (2 page)

“They’re high quality though. Very good work.”

“Young, dumb, and et cetera. Long time ago.”

“Did you like the navy?”

“Loathed it. But it paid for shrink school.”

“And those tattoos.”

“Yup. Three months’ pay. And now I have to go to work in long sleeves.”

“You don’t really like your job, do you?”

He pulled his chin in, ducking a punch. “Now and then. When I get an interesting case or an interesting patient. Like this fellow the police just called about. He was brilliant before he got sick. He was on the team that found the first proof of extrasolar life. I think they were considered for a Nobel prize. There are videos of him lecturing and giving talks about it. He’s still brilliant. Much smarter than me anyway. I would like to be able to help him get his life back.”

“Can’t you?”

“It’s hard. I’ve been treating him for years. We still know so little about how the brain gets broken. Sometimes I think we don’t want to know really.”

Susan leaned back against the counter behind her, studying him.

He admired her figure. The bartenders here all dressed in tight black shirts and slacks.

“So here’s my question for you, doc,” she said, an impish light in her eye. “What’s a shrink with bad ass tats doing hanging out in a dead bar on a weeknight flirting with the bartender rather than going home and getting busy with his lovely wife? If you don’t mind me asking.”

Marley didn’t like it. “You ask some questions.”

“I’m just curious.”

“Curiosity killed the cat.”

“But you like your wife, don’t you?”

“Crazy about her actually.”

“So you’re iffy on your job and crazy about your wife, but you work late and you drink later. I’m just curious.”

“Do I need to call my lawyer, officer?”

“Why, are you guilty of something?”

“I think my wife thinks so.”

“Ya think? Husband comes home late every night…”

“Not about that,” he said, waving the idea away. “It’s not that.” He felt the alcohol loosening his reserve, but he didn’t fight it. “She’s disappointed in me.”

Susan’s expression changed. She saw the guilt in his face.

“Things were supposed to be different,” he said, not looking at her. “Life wasn’t supposed to be this easy.”

“Can you fix it?”

“I don’t know.”

Alice slid her finger down the 6:00 o’clock meds checksheet, stopped on an unchecked name. “Roger didn’t get his meds.”

The charge nurse, Mary-Lynn, was sitting next to her, pounding out her shift report. Without looking up from her screen or breaking the rhythm of her typing, she said, “Have Miles take care of it.”

Alice picked up a phone and punched the
Miles
button. “Hey, Miles? Where are you, hon?”

A man’s voice came back: “Where do you
think
I am, sweetcheeks? I’m sitting down here in the breakroom eating donuts, drinking coffee, and watching the freakin’ news. And lemme tell you, Lil Miss A, this here is some freaky-ass news too.
Goddamn!
”

Alice laughed. “Well, I need you up here, hon.”

“I
know
where you need me, you sweet—”

“Now you behave. Just get your buns out here to the station, will you? Roger didn’t pick up his meds. Mary-Lynn wants you to go check on him.”

“God
damn!
That is some fucked up shit now!”

“Look, it won’t take you two minutes—”

“Not that, sweetie. This freaky shit on the news. Did you hear about what’s going on in India now? It’s the goddamn black death. They think it’s Ebola. I shit you not. Ee. Bo. Luh. Now how are you going to quarantine a country the size of India? You know how many
people
there are in India?”

“A lot. Can you just shimmy up here and take care of this, please, so Mary-Lynn can finish her report?”

“Yeah, all right, I’m coming. Keep your pantyhose on.”

“I’m not wearing pantyhose.”

Still without looking up, Mary-Lynn said, “Is he talking dirty again?”

Alice hung up the phone. “No, he’s fine.”

Miles came round the corner and stuck his lips up to the hole in the glass that encased the nurses’ station.

“You mean you took them off already, sweetcheeks?” He smooched his lips at her. “Why didn’t you call me first? You
know
I like to watch!”

Struggling not to break a smile, Alice slid Roger’s meds out on the counter to him. Three colorful capsules in a paper medicine cup.

“I saw him in the rec room a little while ago.”

“Yeah, OK,” Miles said with a wink. “How you comin’ with that report, Miss Mary-Lynn? ’Bout ready to go home?”

“Fine,” she answered into her screen.

“Back in a flash!”

He spun round and sauntered off, cup in hand.

“Am I gonna have to write him up again?” Mary-Lynn muttered.

“He’s fine. Besides, it only encourages him.”

Miles found Roger standing in front of the bank of windows at the back of the recreation room, staring out toward Lake Michigan.

“Ho ho ho!” he said, sidling up so he wouldn’t startle him. “How’s my man, Rog? Christmas is coming, you know, Rog. Santa ain’t gone bring you no goodies if you don’t act like a big boy and show up for your meds.”

Roger was Miles’ favorite patient. His three-day commit had run out a week ago, but he’d stayed on voluntary. He was a chronic. He’d been admitted once or twice a year for as long as Miles had been there.

Roger hadn’t reacted to his approach, so Miles took a step closer.

“Yo, Rog? You there? Yo, Rog! Anybody home today?”

Roger just stood there in his patient-brown scrubs, staring out. The sky over the lake was brilliant blue. Dozens of miles away, out over the lake, the big jets circled in toward O’Hare.

Miles touched him on the elbow. “Yo, Rog? Roger?”

Roger turned his head toward Miles. His eyes seemed to take a long time to refocus from the distant jets to the orderly’s face.

Miles smiled a big friendly smile. “Hey, man! Gotta take your meds, pal.” He extended the little cup toward him.

Roger didn’t even look at it. Still looking Miles in the eyes, he said very calmly, “There’s no need for it.”

Miles kept the big threatless smile on his face, but behind it he was calculating how to respond. This was a different mood than he’d seen on Roger before.

“Yo, Rog,” he said, confidentially, “Miss Mary-Lynn Stick-Up-Ass is ready to go home. You’re the only one hasn’t popped his pills. You know how it is.”

Roger’s gaze turned back to the window. Then he said, slowly, like he was repeating a clever remark: “How it is.”

He was so close to the window, the words condensed on the cold glass.

“Rog, you OK, man?”

As if in reply, Roger repeated it again, carefully savoring every word: “How. It. Is.”

Miles gave up and walked away.

Roger continued talking to the window, thoughtfully: “How is it? — It is. — Is it? — It is. It. Is. It is it. — How is it it? — It is how it is. — How? — How it is.”

“He’s fine. Besides, it only encourages him.”

In her unkempt apartment north of Chicago, Associate Professor of Biology Dr. Karen Hanover came from the kitchen with a relatively clean water glass and a fresh bottle of cheap California red, sank into her favorite chair, poured herself a generous drink, and flicked on the news.

The news was not good. The news was never good. Good news is an oxymoron.

She kicked off her shoes and folded her legs into the chair. She was a small woman, but middle age was filling in her figure. Blond hair, cheaply cut. Sharp features. Thin lips.

Along with the wine she’d brought to her nest in the chair a bag of old-bay-seasoning potato chips. She didn’t know what was in them, but they were cheap, and they went well with wine, and they reminded her of school days in Maryland: cracking fresh hot crabs, drinking cold beer, arguing passionately naïve politics. In those days, things still made sense.

The phone bleeped beside the bottle of wine.

“Hello?”

A woman’s voice said, “Mrs. Hanover?”

“Yes.”

“This is Dr. Marley’s office. Please hold for Dr. Marley.”

Hold music. Caller didn’t even wait for a reply.

I should have someone to put people on hold for me, Karen thought. Hello, Dr. Marley? This is
not
Dr. Hanover, but if you wait long enough she
might
come on the line. Do please hold.

Fucking
Edelweiss
, that was their hold music.

“Hello?” said a male voice, “Mrs. Hanover?”

“Dr. Marley, I presume?”

“Yes.”

“Something about my husband?”

“Yes, didn’t Beatrice tell you?”

“No.”

“Well, I’ve just had a call from the shift nurse at Joplin. Roger is refusing his medication. Have you spoken to Roger today by chance?”

“No,” she said. “Not by chance. Why?”

“I thought you might have some insight into why he is refusing to comply with his treatment regimen. I’ve never had a problem with Roger’s compliance before — not while in the hospital anyway.”

“Did you ask him — by chance?” She didn’t like that crack about “not while in the hospital.”

“I wasn’t there,” Marley said. “I’m in my office. I had rounds earlier today. Roger seemed fine.”

“So you haven’t spoken to him about it?”

“Not personally. I just got off the phone with his nurse.”

Karen crunched a chip noisily into the phone, and continued talking while she chewed. “I’m sure Roger has his reasons. Why don’t you ask him what they are? He may be psychotic, but he’s not irrational.”

“Yes, well, I’m sure he does have his reasons, Mrs. Hanover,” Marley said dryly. “But if we accepted his reasons for his actions he wouldn’t be in the hospital, would he?”

Karen stopped a second chip just short of her teeth. Well, that was a good point. She toned it down a notch: “What is it you want from me, doctor?”

“I want to know whether you want us to medicate your husband involuntarily.”

Karen resisted the temptation to ask him why he needed permission to do something involuntarily. “No,” she said, “not until you’ve discussed the problem with him personally — yourself.”

“I’ll see him tomorrow. But you know it’s important to maintain consistent blood chemistry levels. It’s not a good idea to skip dosages.”

“I don’t want him forced to do anything. It’ll only frighten him. I’m sure that’s worse for his psyche than letting his blood chemistry slip a little.”

A pause.

She waited. She took another drink of wine, watching the muted images on the screen — something about oil rig fires in Brazil.

Finally Marley said, “You’re right.”

That stunned her a second time. In all the years this fellow had been helping Roger in and out of the hospital, she had never gotten to know him. One doctor was as a good as another and none them worth much.

“Missing one dose won’t affect him too much,” he continued. “I’ll see him in the morning. And I’ll call you back and let you know how it goes.”

On the television, an orange jet of flame shot into the heart of a vast plume of black smoke, dancing like a dragon through angry clouds.

“You know, doc,” she said, “the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Who knows, maybe Roger’s world is a better place now than mine. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t want the meds. Maybe he doesn’t want to come back to the real world.”

“Or maybe he just can’t tell which world
is
real.”

“I wonder if any of us can.”

She hung up and unmuted the television. Three oil wells had been blown up by suicide bombers in their struggle to bring down the US-controlled military government. What’s the difference between a terrorist and a protestor? she thought. When a protestor blows himself up, he doesn’t take anybody else with him. Or doesn’t mean to anyway.

Marley scheduled Roger Sturgeon for his first interview the next day.

Miles knocked, then led Roger into the small exam room. Marley was sitting in the corner, drinking coffee, catching up on his patients’ charts.

“Morning, doc,” Miles said with a big smile. “Here’s Roger. He’s been a very bad boy.”

“Thanks, Miles.”

Marley stood and put out his hand.