* * *
Fraser suddenly twitches and unhooks himself. He tries to clear his throat but starts coughing. Helen springs onto him. Finally disentangled, Fraser’s face drains and he tells them he will invite the priest to come this week. Clear-eyed, he says he needs to ask the doctor some questions, but basically he’s decided he has had enough. Straight up. Both hands firmly in the air, he silences the court. “She will arrive soon.”
They wait.
* * *
The doctor arrives and Vernon ushers her in sheepishly, looking around for an obscure seat. Pierre and Alan come inside and immediately strike up conversation with the lovely lady about her clinic, how does she deal with the hospital inefficiencies, etc.
She politely replies and quiets them down, taking in Fraser’s somber silence while gently checking his pulse and pressure.
“How long would I last, Doc, if I stopped the dialysis?” His question jumps out, slashing through the goodwill words that were dancing about, trying to pretty up the air. The broken letters clatter to the ground loudly as the doctor answers.
In a neutral tone, she says it’s hard to tell — it could take a week, to about three, depending on diet — but it is really not a pleasant way to go.
Helen cringes, squeezing the shards in her stomach, Vernon winces, and Ata just stares at the doctor’s open-toe shoes, and then at every detail she can find.
“Explain to me, please, the different stages I would have to look out for, what really would happen.”
Doc explains the physiological deterioration in measured, medically undressed terms. And Pierre sniffs and shoves his glasses higher on his snout, up against his pale, narrowed eyes.
Fraser’s turtle shell is his home, now collecting the deadly descriptions, tucking them neat, like old gazettes pushed up inside a tin roof, in the crevice of a shingled wall to stop the leaks. His eyes marble over, but not from the toxins. The macabre picture he is collecting polishes his eyes, stoking little blazes and making them smaller, harder, shinier, until Doc finishes. A flat, waddish note. It sticks in Fraser’s craw, choking. And Helen is too crippled, too wrecked, to help.
Doc pats his back and he swallows. Ata swallows, painfully. Smarting tears and a shudder.
“You do understand I cannot agree to this, don’t you?”
* * *
Alan is the least surprised, and most composed, as they all watch the enormous words Fraser begs to release slide around on the floor like wet slugs — the request for a nicer ending, from someone other than himself, perhaps even the doctor. Departure. Euthanasia.
“You cannot be my patient if you choose that. Euthanasia is not something that is accepted here. And in any case, it is only ever considered by physicians illegally, when there is no choice or no possible treatment to prolong life.”
Vernon finishes examining all the nicks on his hands and fingers, fingernails. He looks up at Fraser, long and hard.
“Euthanasia.” Fraser tastes the term. The doctor had made it light instead of ugly. An airy, ticklish feel to it. He keeps it in his right cheek for a while. “Vernon, I’m ready for my bed.”
Vernon snaps to attention and leaps to his side. He almost lifts Fraser the short distance as everyone shuffles their eyes and shame and hurt. Fraser’s whole weight leans on Vernon, then they hear his dismissal. As he slinks out of the bedroom they try to decide who should go in.
* * *
“But what you not satisfied with now?”
God of Design raises his head with great effort to look at the artiste, and shrugs. “It’s nothing.” Perfectly at home in his home, Slinger settles better into the hanging chair and leans against one side of the bent cane. He swings his legs just short of a footstool and the artist-girl kindly rises, to push it to him. “No, no, no, don’t…,” he objects, waving her back, but she’s already done it. “Youall mustn’t…” He sighs instead of finishing the sentence. And then, still tipping his head onto the inside of his basket egg, he flexes off his black rubber slippers and slowly rests one foot on the stool, the other across his ankle. Everyone gazes at his white long toes. He wriggles them, glances at their waiting faces, then wriggles them energetically. “Come on, people, it’s nothing, it’s just me. Youall should be celebrating all-now.”
The band was a success, everyone agreed, and one of the dancers, who has some of Firerago’s blood in her, yelps, “Yes! Oh Gawd, what allyou waiting for? I for one want somet’ing to drink.” And she carries the manager off to see what the kitchen has in store for them.
The chatter and remember-talk, remember-laughs, filter nicely through the orchids in the veranda. Slinger adores his plants and home so much he becomes soft and swollen in it, like a succulent plectranthus leaf himself. He knew he had to “cheers” with them although he didn’t feel like drinking anything, and that they were genuinely pleased with the saving-grace band and how it had turned out. He was too. Despite the impromptu finale performance that no one had told him anything about, and the almost waste of a design theme that could have been completely amazing, they did come away with Band of the Year and the Queen of Carnival title.
“So yuh know what would’a be going on if I had a costume”—King of the Band beats his broad chest—“would’a be more licks! Every year now — licks in they skin. They…”
The delicious rumble of the best actor wraps Slinger gently in his perch. The man walks over and rests his arm on the top of the womb-chair. He chucks his chin at Slinger, meaning “You okay, Sling?”
Slinger blinks both eyes like a baby and nods silently that he’s okay, nothing to fuss about.
They all know Ata is leaving them, but no one has said anything to her yet. She watches Slinger exchange a glance with the beautiful man, the tenderness between two people of the same sex that speaks of unspeakable intimacies shared, kept secret forever. The only other glance that came tender close was a father looking at his delicate child. Protective loving.
God of Design catches Ata’s eye. “It’s a shame you have to go,” he offers with a wilty expression. She smiles and acknowledges the gesture. They had spoken well, better than Ata thought it would have gone. And of course he understood that she had to move on to something that is more her own. He, of all people, knew about the creative process and what one must do — to find the thing you do best, with passion. In theory at least, for he had always been driven without hesitation to the point now where he feels used and limp.
Slinger had stopped himself from speaking about his secrets and divine ways. It would sound vain and mad, unless they were versed in flowing metaphoric speeches and public statements. Ata recognized Slinger’s way with untouchable words from the first time she saw him on TV. He became a different person, controlled by some hidden ventriloquist. The voice rolled out of a serious, scathing, or sad expression perfectly. So convincing, you forgot to look for a flaw. As the rich voice rolled out intricate layers and explanations, a tapestry of mas and its history with cultural and universal references, rich and deep as the sea — listeners and viewers swam with him. Some saw things they could never have imagined. Some drowned. Some steupsed and turned away, settling to the cloudy bottom grumbling that this man liked to use them big words but he could “real talk.” And the adorer-fish gawped and adored. Occasional theatrical gestures at the interviewer or camera were all part of the magical act of delivery, so well timed you could see them punctuating Slinger’s words in print. But at the end, with a quirk of his mouth, a twinkle of his eye, you see he knows — that you could swim in the waves of his words but not be able to touch them. No one could rearrange a shade or a speckle of his mirage. The sea was ethereal. As intangible and immortal as he, the ventriloquist, would like to be. This is how Ata would like to write.