warm twin bed. She will be thirteen years
old.
In the distance, a shot will crack across the dry cold air. It is deer-hunting
season. Somewhere out there, men in bright orange garments will be sitting,
waiting, shooting. Later they will drink beer, and eat the sandwiches their wives
have packed for them.
The wind will pick up, will ripple through the orchard, stripping the useless
leaves from the apple trees. The back door of Meadowlark House will slam, and
two tiny figures in fluorescent orange will emerge, carrying matchstick rifles.
They will walk toward me, into the Meadow, Philip and Mark. They will not see
me, because I will be huddled in the high grass, a dark, unmoving spot in a field
of beige and dead green. About twenty yards from me Philip and Mark will turn
off the path and walk towards the woods.
They will stop and listen. They will hear it before I do: a rustling, thrashing,
something moving through the grass, something large and clumsy, a flash of
white, a tail perhaps? and it will come toward me, toward the clearing, and Mark
will raise his rifle, aim carefully, squeeze the trigger, and:
There will be a shot, and then a scream, a human scream. And then a pause.
And then: " Clare! Clare!" And then nothing.
I will sit for a moment, not thinking, not breathing. Philip will be running, and
then I will be running, and Mark, and we will converge on the place:
But there will be nothing. Blood on the earth, shiny and thick. Bent dead grass.
We will stare at each other without recognition, over the empty dirt.
In her bed, Clare will hear the scream. She will hear someone calling her name,
and she will sit up, her heart jumping in her ribcage. She will run downstairs, out
the door, into the Meadow in her nightgown. When she sees the three of us she
will stop, confused. Behind the backs of her father and brother I will put my
finger to my lips. As Philip walks to her I will turn away, will stand in the shelter
of the orchard and watch her shivering in her father's embrace, while Mark stands
by, impatient and perplexed, his fifteen-year-old's stubble gracing his chin and
he will look at me, as though he is trying to remember.
And Clare will look at me, and I will wave to her, and she will walk back to
her house with her dad, and she will wave back, slender, her nightgown blowing
around her like an angel's, and she will get smaller and smaller, will recede into
the distance and disappear into the house, and I will stand over a small trampled
bloody patch of soil and I will know: somewhere out there I am dying.
THE EPISODE OF THE MONROE STREET
PARKING GARAGE
Monday, January 7, 2006 (Henry is 43)
Henry: It's cold. It's very, very cold and I am lying on the ground in snow. Where
am I? I try to sit up. My feet are numb, I can't feel my feet. I'm in an open space
with no buildings or trees. How long have I been here? It's night. I hear traffic. I
get to my hands and knees. I look up. I'm in Grant Park. The Art Institute stands
dark and closed across hundreds of feet of blank snow. The beautiful buildings
of Michigan Avenue are silent. Cars stream along Lake Shore Drive, headlights
cutting through night. Over the lake is a faint line of light; dawn is coming. I have
to get out of here. I have to get warm.
I stand up. My feet are white and stiff. I can't feel them or move them, but I
begin to walk, I stagger forward through the snow, sometimes falling, getting
back up and walking, it goes on and on, finally I am crawling. I crawl across a
street. I crawl down concrete stairs backwards, clinging to the handrail. Salt gets
into the raw places on my hands and knees. I crawl to a pay phone.
Seven rings. Eight. Nine. '"Lo," says my self.
"Help me," I say. "I'm in the Monroe Street Parking Garage. It's unbelievably
fucking cold down here. I'm near the guard station. Come and get me."
"Okay. Stay there. We'll leave right now."
I try to hang up the phone but miss. My teeth are chattering uncontrollably. I
crawl to the guard station and hammer on the door. No one is there. Inside I see
video monitors, a space heater, a jacket, a desk, a chair. I try the knob. It's locked.
I have nothing to open it with. The window is wire reinforced. I am shivering
hard. There are no cars down here.
"Help me!" I yell. No one comes. I curl into a ball in front of the door, bring
my knees to my chin, wrap my hands around my feet. No one comes, and then, at
last, at last, I am gone.
FRAGMENTS
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, September 25, 26, and 27, 2006 (Clare is 35, Henry is
43)
Clare: Henry has been gone all day. Alba and I went to McDonald's for dinner.
We played Go Fish and Crazy Eights; Alba drew a picture of a girl with long hair
flying a dog. We picked out her dress for school tomorrow. Now she is in bed. I
am sitting on the front porch trying to read Proust; reading in French is making
me drowsy and I am almost asleep when there is a crash in the living room and
Henry is on the floor shivering, white and cold-"Help me," he says through
chattering teeth and I run for the phone.
Later:
The Emergency Room: a scene of fluorescent limbo: old people full of
ailments, mothers with feverish small children, teenagers whose friends are
having bullets removed from various limbs, who will brag about this later to
admiring girls but who are now subdued and tired.
Later:
In a small white room: nurses lift Henry onto a bed and remove his blanket.
His eyes open, register me, and close. A blond intern looks him over. A nurse
takes his temperature, pulse. Henry is shivering, shivering so intensely it makes
the bed shake, makes the nurse's arm vibrate like the Magic Fingers beds in 1970s
motels. The resident looks at Henry's pupils, ears, nose, fingers, toes, genitals.
They begin to wrap him in blankets and something metallic and aluminum
foil-like. They pack his feet in cold packs. The small room is very warm. Henry's
eyes flicker open again. He is trying to say something. It sounds like my name. I
reach under the blankets and hold his icy hands in mine. I look at the nurse. "We
need to warm him up, get his core temperature up," she says. "Then we'll see."
Later:
"How on earth did he get hypothermia in September?" the resident asks me.
"I don't know," I say. "Ask him."
Later:
It's morning. Charisse and I are in the hospital cafeteria. She's eating chocolate
pudding. Upstairs in his room Henry is sleeping. Kimy is watching him. I have
two pieces of toast on my plate; they are soggy with butter and untouched.
Someone sits down next to Charisse; it's Kendrick. "Good news," he says, "his
core temp's up to ninety-seven point six. There doesn't seem to be any brain
damage."
I can't say anything. Thank you God, is all I think.
"Okay, um, I'll check back later when I'm finished at Rush St. Luke's," says
Kendrick, standing up.
"Thank you, David," I say as he's about to walk away, and Kendrick smiles
and leaves.
Later:
Dr. Murray comes in with an Indian nurse whose name tag says Sue. Sue is
carrying a large basin and a thermometer and a bucket. Whatever is about to
happen, it will be low-tech.
"Good morning, Mr. DeTamble, Mrs. DeTamble. We're going to rewarm your
feet." Sue sets the basin on the floor and silently disappears into the bathroom.
Water runs. Dr. Murray is very large and has a wonderful beehive hairdo that
only certain very imposing and beautiful black women can get away with. Her
bulk tapers down from the hem of her white coat into two perfect feet in
alligator-skin pumps. She produces a syringe and an ampoule from her pocket,
and proceeds to draw the contents of the ampoule into the syringe.
"What is that?" I ask.
"Morphine. This is going to hurt. His feet are pretty far gone." She gently
takes Henry's arm, which he mutely holds out to her as though she has won it
from him in a poker game. She has a delicate touch. The needle slides in and she
depresses the plunger; after a moment Henry makes a little moan of gratitude.
Dr. Murray is removing the cold packs from Henry's feet as Sue emerges with hot
water. She sets it on the floor by the bed. Dr. Murray lowers the bed, and the two
of them manipulate him into a sitting position. Sue measures the temperature of
the water. She pours the water into the basin and immerses Henry's feet. He
gasps.
"Any tissue that's gonna make it will turn bright red. If it doesn't look like a
lobster, it's a problem."
I watch Henry's feet floating in the yellow plastic basin. They are white as
snow, white as marble, white as titanium, white as paper, white as bread, white
as sheets, white as white can be. Sue changes the water as Henry's ice feet cool it
down. The thermometer shows one hundred and six degrees. In five minutes it is
ninety degrees and Sue changes it again. Henry's feet bob like dead fish. Tears
run down his cheeks and disappear under his chin. I wipe his face. I stroke his
head. I watch to see his feet turn bright red. It's like waiting for a photograph to
develop, watching for the image slowly graying into black in the tray of
chemicals. A flush of red appears at the ankles of both feet. The red spreads in
splotches over the left heel, finally some of the toes hesitantly blush. The right
foot remains stubbornly blanched. Pink appears reluctantly as far as the ball of
the foot, and then goes no farther. After an hour, Dr. Murray and Sue carefully
dry Henry's feet and Sue places bits of cotton between his toes. They put him
back in bed and arrange a frame over his feet so nothing touches them.
The following night:
It's very late at night and I am sitting by Henry's bed in Mercy Hospital,
watching him sleep. Gomez is sitting in a chair on the other side of the bed, and
he is also asleep. Gomez sleeps with his head back and his mouth open, and
every now and then he makes a little snorting noise and then turns his head.
Henry is still and silent. The IV machine beeps