This “presence” of the missing limb was a weird sensation, Ben said, but not necessarily bad. Phantom limb pain was another matter. Not long after surgery, Ben’s left foot and ankle cramped. Because they weren’t there, though, he couldn’t figure out what the hell to do to relieve it.
Sometimes, one of the nurses came in and massaged his “residual limb,” as they referred to what remained of his lower left leg. It was very sensitive to touch, and still swollen from the surgery, but the massage seemed to help.
He told me that he felt phantom pain more often late at night, when he was alone, and in specific regions of the missing limb — sometimes it came as a sharp, stabbing pain in his calf, other times he felt as if he had been given an electric shock through his heel. Occasionally, only strong, painkilling drugs would bring relief — which, he told me, made him wonder if he was doomed to become a morphine addict.
Those were his worst days at the hospital. On the whole, though, he seemed to have a determined outlook.
“I want to be able to manage on my own,” he said, whenever the subject of staying with us arose.
“We want the same thing,” I said. “You aren’t invited to move in forever. I don’t even know if you should still be there after six months.”
He laughed.
“We’ll stand by you either way. You know that?”
“Yes,” he said.
“The difference is, this way you don’t have to clean up the house before we come over.”
“I’ll think about it,” he said.
It was the day we got the news about Oregon that he made up his mind to stay with us — not because of his own fear of Nicholas Parrish, he told me, but because of mine.
37
THURSDAY AFTERNOON, JUNE 1
Eastern Oregon
The receptionist, Parrish decided, would have to go.
Whenever she thought he wasn’t looking, she stared at him.
Idiot. He was always looking.
She was afraid of him, he knew. He had lost his temper with her once, the first time he was here. She had been living strictly on his sufferance ever since.
A nurse opened a door and smiled at him. “Mr. Kent?”
Fat cow. What the hell was there to smile about? Maybe she’d go, too. Maybe there wouldn’t be a woman alive in the state of Oregon by the time he left it. Entirely possible, he thought. He was smiling by the time the woman was taking his blood pressure.
She finally left him alone to wait for the sorry excuse of a doctor to get around to seeing him. Doddering old fart probably wouldn’t have made it in a big city, Parrish thought. He passed the time waiting for the fool to appear by fantasizing a story about the physician’s past, one in which he had performed back-alley abortions, lost his license, and run away to this little burg — where no one knew enough to question his phony diplomas and licenses. Parrish convinced himself so thoroughly, he was carefully studying the engraved parchment on the wall when the doctor walked in.
“Ancient, but real, just like me,” the doctor said. “Let’s have a look at that shoulder, Mr. Kent.”
Oh, let’s.
“It seems to be healing nicely now,” the doctor said. “Scar tissue can’t be helped, but you were lucky not to face worse. Well, I won’t lecture you about ignoring puncture wounds — you’ve heard it all from me before.”
Yes, indeed he had. He studied the doctor, considered adding him to his list — but suddenly the old man was regarding him with an unwavering stare. Parrish looked away and said, “In the future, I won’t delay getting treatment.”
Screw the old bastard, he thought, glancing up at him surreptitiously. God was going to call the stupid quack’s number any day now, anyway. No use wasting the effort on him.
He wondered, briefly, if any of them had recognized him. But although only two weeks had passed, he was no longer the hot topic of news. He would be on the front page again, of course, but for now he looked nothing like the photographs, which no one would have seen for over a week now. He had dyed his hair blond and was wearing tinted contact lenses. Probably not even necessary in this little backwater.
That night, as he worked, he thought of Irene Kelly, who had made his shoulder stiff and sore. He did not like scars. He did not like pain. He chuckled a little at this thought. Not my own, he added silently, and pleased to find his sense of humor returning, went back to the matter at hand.
The next morning, he drove slowly past the clinic, smiling as he saw close to a dozen people waiting outside its door, their expressions varying from anger to puzzlement. One of them, hands cupped and pressed to the glass, was trying to see in.
“Some-bod-y’s laaa-te to worr-rrk!” Parrish sang, a little child’s taunting song. “The patients grow impatient!”
He found this remark such a heartening indicator that his true, clever self was making a comeback that he laughed all the way to the highway, ignoring — whenever he braked or took a curve — the occasional thump in the trunk made by shifting dead weight.
38
MONDAY AFTERNOON, SEPTEMBER 11
Las Piernas
I looked out the window of Jo Robinson’s second-story office, idly wondering what other troubled souls might have shared this view, watching the rain plaster red and gold leaves to the black asphalt of the parking lot below. Autumn. I had almost managed to hold out until autumn.
“So Ben spent the summer with you and Frank,” she prompted. I had been trying to tell her what had happened since the last time I had seen her, outside Ben’s hospital room.
“Yes,” I answered her, still watching the rain. If it hadn’t ever rained again, I thought, I might have been all right.
What a lie.
“Ben and Bingle have moved back to David’s house. He’s doing fine there. Bingle, too.”
“And you?”
I didn’t answer.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“ ‘To know, love, and serve God so that I may be happy in the next life,’ ” I replied.
She waited.
I glanced back at her. “Sorry — knee-jerk Baltimore Catechism response to that question. But you know why I’m here.”
“You tell me.”
“I’m here because I broke something at work.”
“Really? I’d think a hardware store could be of more use to you, then.”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?”
“Tell me what happened.”
So I told her how, coming into work one day, I had been told to report to Winston Wrigley III’s “God office,” which is how the staff refers to the glass enclosure near the newsroom. Wrigley deigns to visit the God office when he wants to view his minions in action, or, more accurately, to spy on whatever young, new female employee he has added to the roster.
There hadn’t been any new additions lately — sexual harassment laws were severely cramping WWIII’s style — so his current visit had the rumor-fueled newsroom aflame with gossip. These flames were fanned by the fact that he had two elegantly dressed couples with him, who joined him around the conference table at one end of the room. Before John Walters summoned me, I had heard that the paper was being sold to a big chain, that there were going to be layoffs, and that John was going to be fired for letting Morry mouth off to Wrigley before Morry left for Buffalo.