Grey, White, and Black
(after William Carlos Williams)
Navneet K. Singha
College of Medicine, UIC
Class of 1993
Red Snail Days
Berliner Krankenhaus: the windowpane is lip tight;
old water sweats inside the glass but
outside, the big world river and
the drizzly skysheet, waxwhite,
with seagulls stuck in it like staples.
My finger on the window
traces cryptograms, thin snailpaths
on aquarium glass.
The tugboat is a slow snail, black burned red;
I watch it hum along while feeding.
A yellow lampshade,
taut on metal ribs,
crackles when I touch its skin.
The light sticks on the wire frame like butter.
I saw Maria's neck when she was sleeping, the glazed hair
and the linen edge pulled back;
veins pulsed like thin cocoons.
Her lashes spidered shadows on the pillowslip.
I touched her waxy arm and made a dimple;
the damp head, heavy as a ball,
rose slowly from its pool
of hair splashed brown around the pillow
and looked at me.
I drank my bedpan.
The nurses' breasts are hard like Easter eggs;
they go clank, clank in high-heeled shoes
beneath blue curtains, running,
a morning sound. The doctors
slosh their white coats with each step
and squeeze clear drops from clean-holed needles.
We came to your room, Maria.
You smiled at us through naked trees;
the lips bled through the snapping branches,
a pink tide drifting listlessly.
We looked down at your leg stumps' blooming roses;
our necks went soft to see them open:
bald knee-heads with no faces, only mouths,
we listened for the red-rose sound,
but only heard you breathing.
The spider chair; your fingers lifted
from the metal wheel in greeting.
We came like deer, you felt the warm breath in your palms.
Our tongues reached out to lick the salt off.
Your fingers deep into my hair like earth and trees,
they rooted before disappearing.
Peter Bulow
College of Medicine, UI-UC
Medical Scholars Program
The Boy With Chitin Skin
The boy's
hands are curved and turn
in his lap like pegged claws.
In the corner they left him to seethe, strapped
tight in a red leather wheelchair, chromed
coral, an indoor sea garden, steel
coffin; he shivers with rage and I think
he'll shoot, shrieking like shrapnel, break out,
to tear up the wardens.
while the sad moon faced children slurp oatmeal
I grip your wringing hands.
You suck me in
to your grinding chest,
gnashing knees, bobbing head, to meet
John with crabbed hands.
We lock foreheads as tight
as a clam shell you can't slip a knifeblade in;
I gave you my hand,
You took it and dug your nails
into my skin. Then you rocked me
and sang with a glass-cutting sound.
All words are drowned.
Peter Bulow
College of Medicine, UI-UC
Medical Scholars Program
Seizures
Jake was having a seizure when I met him. His thin, seven-
year-old limbs waved taut, slapping the floral couch his mother had
upholstered before leaving the family. "He'll be okay in a
minute," his father, Richard, said to me from where we sat in
wicker chairs. Richard went on with the interview—Had I ever
cared for a handicapped child before? One who couldn't talk?—but
I was watching Jake's eyes. Both his dark pupils were swung toward
the right side of his head, as though straining to retreat back
into their orbitals.
I wanted to move over to Jake, to stroke his forehead and
smooth the bunched skin on his cheeks, but his father was still
talking. "Jake's mother left the house in a mess," Richard said,
gesturing toward the room, but I only saw polished cherrywood
tables and a smooth, melon-colored carpet. The sole disturbances
in the room's composure were, scattered around Jake, a ball of
crumpled newspaper, a kitchen sponge, and a woman's patent leather
shoe.
" So we'll need some help with the cleaning, too." Richard
stood up and moved across the room to Jake, who was slowly sitting
up, pulling his body into a hunched form. His small eyes looked
straight ahead now, but still they did not seem to focus on
anything—or anyone—around him. "There you go, buddy," Richard
said, as Jake began to grope, silently, for the ball of crumpled
newspaper.
"See, Sharon?" Richard said as I stood up slowly. "See how
fast the seizure ended?"
The night after my interview, I dreamed of Richard's and
Jake's limestone house. From the sidewalk, the front porch lights
burned orange and attracted me through the darkness, but once
inside the home, it was dim and damp. Instead of turning toward
the living room—the only area I had seen during the interview—I
crossed the hall and moved slowly toward the staircase. I tried to
move faster, but my legs were thin and weak. The carpeting on the
stairs was thick; its pile cushioned my step. At the top, I turned
left as though I were following exact directions, and continued
down a hall. As I moved, my limbs became more frail and unsteady.
At the end of the hallway, I reached a creme-colored door. I
groped for a doorknob, but couldn't find one; my hand slid across
the smooth panels, pressing in vain for some sort of fixture.
Richard was overt about why he hired me over the three other
young women he interviewed: my bachelor's degree was from the same
state university as his. "I saw where you graduated from, Sharon."
He motioned toward my scanty resume. I had typed it on letterhead
of the temp agency where I worked since graduating two months
before. "And I just knew," Richard said, "you'd be a good
influence on us around here."
I think Richard pictured the two of us chanting university
cheers in the kitchen every morning, and swapping predictions about
the sports teams. "There—look," he would say, stabbing at the
college sports statistics in the newspaper. Jake would shuffle
around behind us, waiting to clamp onto the newspaper for his own
purpose of crumpling it endlessly between his small, grimy hands.
My enthusiasm for my alma mater, though, was tepid in
comparison to Richard's. His degree in business eventually
propelled him to a glass company which specialized in security
windows. The sports car he drove had tinted security windows.
My degree was in a murky, less lucrative area—psychology. I
had been nonplused by the lectures in packed classrooms.
originally, I did not even plan on majoring in psychology; my first
two years of college I was pre-med. I though that knowing things
like the five sections of the spinal cord would teach me how to
cure people, or at least how to care for them. I studied anatomy,
organic chemistry and physics constantly, so much that I began to
neglect other vital operations, like eating.
A counselor at The Willows, the center where I recuperated
that summer, suggested that I switch to studying psychology.
"Look, Sharon," she said, running her pen along the spiral ring of
her case notebook, "you want to pick a subject that's less
demanding, but that'll still use some of your finished course
work." As the ballpoint clicked along the metal ribs of the
spiral, I thought, cervical—seven vertebrae, thoracic—twelve
vertebrae, and so on. "Will I still be able to graduate," I said,
trying to remember if there were five or seven vertebrae in the
sacral section, "in four years?"
When I saw Richard's newspaper ad: "Childcare needed for boy
with seizure disorder. Light cleaning," I imagined wiping up a
toddler's drool after he suffered a gran mal seizure. I saw myself
in the kitchen, calm and resourceful, grabbing a dishtowel or
sponge for the task.
My first morning at work, Jake was sitting on the kitchen
floor, sucking on a large yellow sponge. "Hi, Jake," I said, but
he remained hunched over, silently intent on his toy. I knelt down
next to him. His small hands gripped the sponge, his fingers
stuffed into its wide pores.
I looked over at Richard, who was calmly shaking coffee
grounds out of a soggy filter. "Jake thinks the sponge has water
in it. He gets pretty thirsty from his Depakene syrup. It's one
of his anticonvulsants—l' Richard dumped the damp, dark grounds
into the garbage compactor and moved over to a cabinet above the
countertop. "I keep all of Jake's medicine in here. He takes it
after every meal—at least it cuts down on the seizures."
I looked at the tall, orange vials and wondered how I would
cajole a boy who could not talk or even focus on me, into
swallowing thick syrups and pills. "How much medication do I give
him?" I said.
"I've marked down all the dosages," Richard said, "but if you
happen to give him too much, don't sweat it. Karen—his mother—
and I would sometimes both give it to him, without knowing the
other did. All that'll happen is that he'll get real sleepy for
about an hour and not even want to play or eat."
Next to me, Jake still clutched the sponge—periodically
chewing on a corner—but now he was also rocking slowly back and
forth. I tried to picture him motionless, sleeping off an
accidental overdose, but I thought of myself, instead: hunched
over on the bed in my dorm room, too weak from missed meals to
review my biology notes.
"What does Jake eat for breakfast?" I said to Richard. He
was pouring coffee into a mug embossed with the company slogan:
"Shatterproof Dreams with Samuels Security Glass."
"We'll do all that now," Richard said, "before I've got to
rush to work." He set down his mug and moved over to Jake. "Let's
go, buddy," Richard said, bending down and prying the sponge from
Jake's grimy hands. Jake grabbed for it, but Richard was pulling
him up by his thin shoulders.
As I watched them—the deliberate, dark-haired father leading
his unwieldy blond son—I wondered about Jake's mother. Karen,
Richard had said. Was she so firm with her son, or maybe not
enough? Was her hair blonde? I looked around the kitchen for some
evidence of her, trying to detect meaning in the antique-blue
walls, the African violets lining the windowsill, the oven mitts
shaped like lobsters; their quilted claws reaching.
"That was the hard part," Richard said. Jake was installed in
his chair at the end of the table. He squirmed under Richard's
clamp.
"Okay," I hesitated. Was there a next step I should already
know? I felt as though I were back in my college dorm's cafeteria,
pushing my plastic tray along the metal counter, and marvelling at
the speed and ease with which people around me chose their entrees.
Once when I ate lunch with Todd, my physics lab partner, I was so
worried that he would notice my indecisiveness that I grabbed two
entrees—macaroni and cheese and a pizza burger. At the table,
though, Todd laughed. "Hey, Shar, you training for football?" he
said. I should have made some quip, or maybe smiled into his blue-green eyes, but instead I returned to the serving line and selected
a new dinner: a chef's salad. "Aren't you going to put dressing on
that?" Todd said, before changing the subject back to lab, and our
experiment on projectile motion.
"Right, Sharon, now go to the freezer and get out some frozen
waffles and sausages," Richard was saying. "I just pop it all in
the microwave." He released his grip on Jake, who surprised me by
remaining in his chair, still for a moment. "Jake loves his
breakfast food, don't you buddy?"
Breakfast food? The term sounded so generic, like
"foodstuff"; not an actual dish that Jake could taste and maybe
even savor. I opened the freezer, and groped around in the frosty
lumps.
My movement must have been too slow—and unsure—because
Richard soon joined me at the freezer, reaching around me. "Look,
it's simple," he said, pulling out two frozen slices of French
toast and a handful of smokey links. He dumped them into a purple
bowl on the countertop.
Behind him, Jake was bent forward, licking the table. For a
moment I thought he was having a seizure, but his arms lay flat and
smooth on the table, and underneath, his legs were swinging evenly.
"Jake looks hungry," I said.
"Just hold on another minute, buddy," Richard said, without
turning around. He handed me the bowl. "Now you just have to
microwave this, and set it down in front of Jake. He'll take it
from there," Richard said, winking. He pushed up the sleeve of
his sweatshirt, and consulted his electronic watch. "Now I've
gotta run upstairs and get cleaned up. Yell if you need anything."
"Right," I said, staring at the bowl's contents: French toast
in hard, brown-flecked squares, slick with preservatives. I looked
over at Jake, who was still licking the table, and wondered if his
mother had served him these same foods. Maybe some morning after
Richard left for work, I would scramble some eggs for Jake or cook
him some bacon. This could all be done in the microwave, I knew
from the recipes on easy cuisine that my mother frequently sent me.
As Richard exited the kitchen— he left the door slightly ajar— I open the microwave and slid in Jake's breakfast. "I'm coming,
Jake," I said, shutting the door and programming the microwave to
cook on High.
"He's not exactly retarded," I told my mother over the phone.
Her call awakened me even though it was only 9 p.m.; my arms and
back ached from bathing Jake and vacuuming, and I had gone to bed
after eating a tuna melt and cooked carrots.
"Sharon, I've never heard of epilepsy so bad that someone
couldn't talk. Does the little boy have many gran mals?" She
pronounced it "grahnd malls," as though referring to one of the
large shopping centers dotting the neighborhood where she and my
stepfather lived.
Jake's seizures probably damaged the left hemisphere of his
brain, I wanted to tell my mother, where all language originates.
I was afraid, though, that she might think I was studying biology
and anatomy again; "burning the candle at both ends," as she had
told me often during college. "Do the other girls there study so
much?" she used to asked me, and I would answer honestly: "I don't
know, Mom."
"Jake's sweet, Mom," I said. "I made him breakfast this
morning. Then Richard, his father, showed me how to give him a
bath. Jake kept trying to drink from the faucet—he put his mouth
right up to it."
"Did you eat breakfast?" my mother said. I knew I should not
have mentioned food, even in passing.
"Yes." A cup of raspberry yogurt, a slice of oatbran toast
and orange juice, but I wasn't going to specify for my mother.
Since my summer at The Willows, my mother constantly asked for my
daily menus, in detailed courses. I had told her that I still
followed the recommended meal plan from the center—it was stuck to
my refrigerator with a magnet shaped like a chocolate kiss—and
when she visited she surely saw that I was not emaciated. But
still, my mother seemed to doubt my nurturing abilities.
"Marty and I wish you'd come home and live with us," she said.
"You could find a decent job around here, Sharon." I imagined
myself back in an office cubicle, wearing a stenographer's headset.
"I know Mom, but I want to work with Jake," I said, twisting
a coil of phone cord around my index finger. It's what I've
trained for, I wanted to say.
In the mornings, we first tackled the toilet. "Jake sits down
to pee," Richard had told me. "It's the only way he'll go." Once
I coaxed Jake onto the toilet for the first time, though, I wished
Richard had given me further instructions. in front of me, Jake
sat hunched on the beige toilet, his pajama bottoms bunched down
around his calves. He stared down at the tiled floor, on which was
perched that morning's favorite toy—a man's leather belt with a
buckle shaped like an 'R.'
Jake was clearly more concerned with the belt than urinating.
Three times he lunged for it. Finally I grabbed the belt and
stuffed it under the sink, next to a basket of bath toys which Jake
had rejected long ago, according to Richard. "Now let's go, Jake,"
I said, pressing gently on his knees, to hold him on the toilet.
His dark eyes moved past me, and over to the sink. He ran his
tongue along his dry lower lip.
I stared at the sink, too, and remembered an old device of my
mother's. Whenever I could not, or maybe—would not—urinate, she
would turn on the sink faucet, and run the water just strong enough
that I could hear the low, thick stream.
With one hand still bracing Jake's knees, I reached to the
sink and pulled the smooth, brass handle crowned with a cursive
oc.1 As water streamed into the basin, Jake craned his head
further toward the sink, and the shining faucet. After a few
moments, when I was doubting my strategy, Jake slowly turned his
head, passing his gaze over me, and stared down at his own body.
With his head tucked and his chapped lips clamped, he began to
urinate.
Three mornings a week, Jake was bussed to a school for
developmentally handicapped children. "Jake's special school,"
Richard called the center, as though Jake were a member of an elite
health club, replete with saunas and weight-lifting equipment. I
never saw Jake's school—I just shepherded him out to the bus,
making sure his backpack didn't slide off his thin shoulders—but
whenever Richard mentioned it, I imagined the center where I stayed
for three months during college. The founders probably christened
it "The Willows" to give the impression of a serene, natural
retreat. After three months there, though, I had a different
association: I thought of the other young women in my therapy
group, and their lithe, pale figures swaying around me as they
leaned in toward the center of the circle to hear the counselor's
low-toned advice.
When I asked Richard more about Jake's school, he was vague.
"Karen hooked him up with the program about four years ago," he
said, leaning against the dishwasher. "Frankly, I haven't seen
much change in him, but now it's just part of his routine. Can't
hurt, I guess."
"What do they teach him?" I imagined Jake seated in a crowded
classroom, ignoring the teacher and other students to play with an
eraser he found on the floor.
"Oh, they stress some basic communication skills," Richard
said, "like getting him to show the things he wants, by pointing at
this picture board. It's not exactly like learning sign language—
you and I both know Jake wouldn't sit still long enough for that."
I was afraid Richard would grin or wink, so I looked away,
over at Jake's chair. Its back panel of wicker caning was worn
through and ripped in several places. I thought of the only chair
at my kitchen table. It was a stool which was too high to eat or
read on the table without hunching forward. It had been
inexpensive, though, at a local garage sale, and I liked the
grooves worn into its oak seat. I compensated for its awkward
height by always setting my plate or book on my lap.
Richard's voice continued; steady and nasal. "Mainly Jake's
school tries to get him to use some pretty simple games and tools.
Jake's mother bought into all that stuff—we've still got some
equipment in the basement, but it was pretty frustrating to try and
get Jake to use it at home." Richard glanced at his wristwatch.
"I mean, Sharon, can you imagine Jake with cooked hot dogs sitting
in front of him, and not letting him eat until he points at a
picture of food?"
I looked over Richard's head, this time into the dark, safe
door of the microwave.
I found Jake's picture board in the basement, on a shelf above
the washer and dryer. Jake had wet his bed the night before, and
I was waiting for his sheets to finish tumbling dry. The board
looked homemade; lines cut from black felt divided it into nine
squares. In each was a crayon drawing outlined in black marker:
a glass of milk; a toilet, a sweatshirt in the colors of the
University Richard and I graduated from. In the center was a
close-up photograph of Jake's face. His hair was lighter and his
adult teeth had not all grown in yet, but the most significant
difference was in his eyes—the small, brown pupils looked ahead as
though they were focusing on something or someone important. In
the dim basement, I stared at the board and imagined a blonde woman
holding it out to Jake, who sat next to her.
"Now where are you on this board?" she might say softly,
leaning forward and curving her arm around her son's shoulders.
"Where's my boy?"
From upstairs I heard Richard's low but strident voice. He
probably forgot something for work, I decided, or came home for an
early lunch. Carefully I set the board back on the shelf.
With an armful of warn sheets, I slowly climbed the stairs.
I paused at the entrance to the living room. Richard was lying on
the floral couch, his head resting on the lap of a woman wearing a
suede miniskirt and scoop-neck sweater. Her whitish blond hair was
dark at the roots in a zig-zag pattern down her part. Both she and
Richard were eating French fries from a greasy paper bag on the
carpet. I would vacuum, I decided, as soon as they left.
"Sharon, hi," Richard said, sitting up. "This is Sherri, a
woman I work with. Sherri Carlson, this is Sharon, our new helper
around here. Sharon went to the U., also."
Sherri. When I was a child my mother briefly tried this
nickname, but privately it made me seethe. I had been tall for my
age, a status which ceased to impress my male classmates by the end
of grade school. I think my mother called me "Sherry" in an
attempt to comfort and convince me that I was quite literally still
her baby, but in practice, the diminutive made me feel mocked.
"Hey," Sherri said. "French fry?" She held one out between
her long, smooth fingernails.
I shook my head—I had brought an egg salad sandwich and
nectarine for lunch. Wrapped neatly in foil, they were cooling in
the refrigerator between a package of bratwurst and a tub of cream
cheese.
Sherri shrugged. "No wonder you're so skinny," she said,
lifting the limp fry up to her mouth.
I shifted the sheets in my arms and glanced down at my waist.
I wondered what Sherri would have thought of me when I couldn't
wear my jeans without a thick belt. "Now that's just gross," she
might said, or "You're carrying it too far," like some of the women
in my dormitory had commented. The remark that had bothered me
most, though, was from my aunt Patsy who came to visit me at The
Willows: "Sometimes, honey," she had said, patting her thick, full
midriff, "I wish I could be anorexic for a week or two." When I
later told this to my mother, she said, "Patsy didn't know how to
deal with the situation, honey. How could she? She I s not a
professional." A professional what, I had wondered.
"Sharon, did Jake get off to school all right?" Richard said.
"Yeah, but on the way out to the bus, I had to keep pulling
the rubber spatula away from him," I said, making a tugging motion
with one of my hands. "He wanted to take it to school. it
actually looked kind of fun to play with."
Richard smiled, but he didn't laugh as he often did at my
reports of Jake's antics. Sometimes he even told me stories about
Jake when he was a toddler, like the time he lay down on a
playground, trying to drink from a mud puddle. "Just like a little
piggy," Richard had said, chuckling. But now, next to Sherri, he
seemed uneasy.
"Jake should be home in about an hour," I said.
Richard reached for a French fry, brushing against Sherri's
plump calf. "We'll probably be back at work then."
"Yeah," Sherri said, licking ketchup from her thumb. "We've
just got time for an ole' H.I. lunch right now."
"'High lunch?'" I said, thinking of "high tea" from British
movies I had seen with my mother.
"Sharon," Richard said quickly, "you're sure you don't want
some fries?"
"An H.I. lunch," Sherri said, grinning. "Holiday Inn."
I went back down to the basement and folded the sheets,
smoothing even the fitted corners. After Richard and Sherri left,
I sat out on the porch and ate my nectarine while I waited for
Jake's bus.
One morning near the end of my first month, I was helping Jake
out of the bathtub when his slippery body became rigid and still.
His eyes turned toward the sides of his head, and his body slumped.
Just before he collapsed onto the cold tile, I managed to hook my
arm underneath his neck and head. I yelled for Richard, even
though I was pretty sure that he and Sherri, who often stayed
overnight, had already left for work.
Jake's head shook and his body twisted from side to side.
Richard had told me about these extreme seizures, but that morning
I knew I wasn't ready. "It's okay Jake you're fine it's almost
over now, " I murmured, throwing the towel over his shuddering body.
"He okay?" Sherri stood in the doorway, in a lacy bra and
bikini underpants. "I was running late and Richard went ahead to
work. I heard you yell all the way down the hall."
I just nodded; my throat was too tight and dry to talk. Next
to me, Jake's convulsions had stopped and his head was still, but
his small eyes were dilated and moist.
"I'll pay you two hundred and fifty dollars," Richard told me
at the end of my sixth week, "to watch Jake for the weekend. "
Sherri had never visited the campus of our alma mater, and Richard
had football tickets for that Saturday's game. The University was
not a long drive, but it made sense to Richard to stay there
overnight. "I would take you, buddy," Richard said, reaching out
to touch Jake, who was circling the kitchen while he crumpled
newspaper. "But it might get too hectic."
"I don't know," I said, reaching down to pick up an ad insert
that had slipped out of Jake's clutch. I knew now not to bring
things over to him, so I waited there, by the table until he edged
toward me. I held out the ad casually and turned my head the other
way, toward the kitchen window. As I looked out at the driveway
and the tinted windows of Richard's car, Jake pulled the ad from my
hand, his bony elbow brushing my hip. I didn't turn back until he
had moved away, walking in his halted circles and vigorously
crumpling the ad.
The trick with Jake, I had learned, was not to look into his
eyes. He showed me this one morning when I was trying to give him
medicine. I held him on my lap as Richard did, with my arm around
his waist. Gently I tilted back his neck and brought the spoon up
to his mouth. This process had seemed to work well for Richard,
but Jake rejected my technique. When I learned forward, smiling,
and raised the spoon to Jake's lips, he jerked his head away,
butting the spoon with his head. He splashed bright red syrup over
both of us.
As I cleaned him up with a damp paper towel, I tasted the
medicine. It was thick and sour in my mouth. I quickly wiped the
taste off my tongue, wishing I could do the same for Jake after
every heavy dose.
I didn't tell my mother that I was spending the weekend with
Jake. She would protest, I knew, and accuse me of "running myself
down." Whenever she said this I imagined myself sprinting down a
dark hall, chasing someone who looked exactly like me. I might
have told my mother that I needed the money for groceries and
cooking supplies, or the truth—that my weekends were lonely.
Sometimes I went shopping with a woman who lived with her husband
beneath me. I always accepted Marita's invitations, even if I had
to invent errands. The last time we went to the mall, Marita
wanted to price leotards for the jazz dancing class she had been
urging me to join. I was more interested, though, in the
educational toy store. It was lined with rows of flexible brightly
colored toys with elastic joints and small bells. I imagined Jake
batting them around the kitchen or living room. When I showed
Marita the toys, she said, "These are expensive, Sharon. Isn't the
little boy just as happy playing with that household stuff you told
me about?" I fingered a ball covered with small, silver bells.
"Come on," she said, "I want your opinion—do you think I should go
with the unitard or a regular leotard and tights?"
On the phone, I knew that if I mentioned the emptiness of my
weekends to my mother she would offer to drive up with my
stepfather and cook rich meals that would cloud my studio apartment
with thick, spicy vapors.
If the phone rings, just let the machine pick it up," Richard
said before he left for the weekend. "Lately I've been getting
harassing phone calls at night." I wanted to question him, but I
was trying to block Jake from following his father out to the car.
"We'll have fun at home, Jake," I said, standing in between him and
the screen door.
Jake was restless that morning and afternoon. I tried to
interest him in a ream of newspaper, but he ignored it, walking
haltingly around the room. He followed me only into the kitchen,
where he stood in front of the sink and licked the rim until I
filled his plastic cup with water.
For supper I decided to poach eggs. If they turned out right—smooth and firm—I would make cheddar-cheese-and-egg sandwiches,
an invention of my mother's. As I picked out the cool eggs from
the refrigerator and filled the pan with warm water, Jake was
sitting on the kitchen floor, repeatedly spinning his red plastic
cup.
The water had just begun to boil in slow, wide bubbles when
the telephone rang. I clicked off the gas and was pushing the
scalding pot far back on the stove—to where Jake couldn't reach
it—when the answering machine switched on. "This is Richard
Samuels and I'm unavailable right now," the low voice intoned. On
the floor, Jake was still spinning his cup. "Please leave a
message at the sound and I'll get back to you..."
"Richard?" said a soft, thick voice. A female voice.
"Richard, please pick up."
On the floor, Jake looked up from his cup.
"I've been thinking about a lot," the voice said, "and we need
to talk. Mom even had some good ideas about everything ... She said
she'd watch Jake while you and I got away to talk ... Richard, please
call me here."
I moved toward the phone. I touched the smooth, slick
receiver. From the floor, Jake was still looking toward the phone—and me. I picked up the receiver, but the caller had just hung
up.
I finished poaching the eggs, but they were disappointing; the
albumin floated in thin white veils through the boiling water.
From his purple bowl, Jake ate one-half of an egg and smeared the
rest on the table in yellow and white streaks. on my stoneware
plate, I punctured the yolk with my fork before abandoning the
meal. As I wiped off Jake and the table, I heard the caller's
voice: "We need to talk." By hesitating to pick up, had I
thwarted a reconciliation? Richard would get the message when he
returned, I knew, but by then, everything might have changed.
Jake wriggled, and grabbed at the damp dish towel. I let him
take it from me, and he promptly stuffed it into his mouth. I
imagined the comfort he felt then; the warm, moist towel filling
the empty crevices of his mouth.
Richard called from his hotel room when I was tucking in Jake.
After reporting on the final score of the football game and the
campus bars he and Sherri visited, he said, "Everything okay there?
Any calls?"
I turned away from the phone. "Jake, get back in bed, " I
said. My empty stomach was beginning to ache.
"Is he giving you a hard time there?" In the background
I heard Sherri's strident voice: "Come on, Richard."
"No, we're all fine here." When I hung up I pulled Jake's
comforter over his wriggling body. "Come on now, Jake." I pressed
gently on his shoulder. "Let's get some sleep." My stomach felt
taut and wide.
Jake squirmed for a few moments, then turned his head and
began to rub it vigorously against the pillow. He did this for
quite a while; making a soft, whirring noise that reminded me of
brushing his hair in the morning after his bath. I always used a
pale yellow brush with soft, fine bristles that I had found shoved
to the back of a drawer. Even on mornings when he was particularly
active, Jake was still while I brushed smooth his short blond hair.
That night as I lay in the dark room, on the carpet beside his
bed, I imagined Jake talking. "Sharon, I'll get the phone and you
get rid of those poached eggs. I'm taking you out to Leoni's for
dinner," I made him say, in a voice would be as soothing as the
sound of his head rubbing against his pillow.
Carolyn Alessio
Indiana University
Graduate student, creative writing
Caring
The record said he was born 12 weeks early,
So his parents slowly left without him.
Manila files, filled one foot to the brim,
Chronicled how he grew — just barely.
Nurses saw each struggled breath, carefully
caressing and exercising little limbs,
And removing IVs in the oxygen tent, when
His weight and condition became steady.
His mother could only stare in disbelief
At the brown-eyed response to her grin.
Now small, strengthened lungs cried loud;
And his face started to express whims —
It was time to bounce the six-poundling out.
Margaret Hasenberg
College of Associated Health Professions, UIC
Class of 1991
Second Place (tie)
Shelly (May 1990)
My older daughter lost a friend recently.
The diagnosis was leukemia.
The course was rapid.
She lived only three weeks after diagnosis.
She was only 19.
My daughter was distraught.
Why Shelly?
She was bright, full of hope, brimming with potential.
Why did she die?
She was only 19.
Mothers are supposed to be wise.
But nothing I could say seemed right.
What do you say to your daughter
When you also are pondering the fact that
She was only 19!
Mary L. Anthony, R.N., B.S.N.
MacMurray College
Jacksonville, Illinois
The Basic Question Is Whether He Had Faith
in His Immortality, or Maybe He
Just Never Wanted to Grow Old.
Faded blue tattoos:
"BORN TO RAISE HELL" on left biceps,
"7UP and GIN" on the chest,
"MOM" and a heart on the right forearm,
Right forearm bent at an unnatural angle,
Radius and ulna gaping out under his gesture of love.
A hot bike of chrome and black paint,
A wild young thing with her arms wrapped around him,
Black pavement racing by his scuffed heavy boots,
Cool, hard metal gripped by hands wrapped in leather and studs,
His exhilaration and joy in the wind.
A flat tube of toothpaste was in his pocket,
for he had rinsed his mouth clean of the beer and cigarettes.
He was ready to kiss her when the time was right.
Now the lips are split open and the eyes matted shut,
Now it is blood that slicks back his hair.
The smell of gasoline in the room tells of crumpled metal tubes,
the tank that had ruptured when squeezed between his thighs.
Traumatic arrest squawking at us,
no response, no pulse, no breaths, no pressure.
A blanched oval is left on his chest when we stop CPR.
A half dozen lines, a tube down his throat;
he is naked except for MAST trousers and a pathetic
gauze dressing somebody slipped over his arm.
His audience has already drained away.
leaving three people to make the pronouncement.
The team is pissed off that he gave us nothing.
Even identification was thwarted,
he gave us nothing at all.
He won't even answer my question.
Jim Black
College of Medicine, UI-UC
Medical Scholars Program
First Place
The Pink Hair Ribbon
Julie Pease
College of Medicine, UIC
Class of 1991
Code
A beeper sounds, insistent, needling, and a man is dragged from
blissful unconsciousness. Dreams are interrupted as reality calls.
"Emergency."
"Drunk."
"Motor Vehicle Accident."
"Trauma."
The man thinks about the odd beings who destroy themselves so that
he can build himself. They exist and are defined only in terms of
how it is that they may come to die, and how the man may endeavor
to preserve them.
"Hypotension."
"Obtunded."
"Arrest."
"Code."
The man watches a crowd assemble in the little room with curtains
for walls. He listens to himself give orders, and watches with
satisfaction as they are executed, efficiently and precisely.
"Massage."
"Epinephrine."
"Blood gas."
"Shock him."
The flurry of activity escalates, and the man is enthralled. He
feels potent and in possession of healing powers. He is the
instrument of this creature's salvation even as it is the
instrument of his exaltation.
"We've got a rhythm."
"Wait. "
"Fibrillation."
"Shock him."
The man feels some uncertainty, and hesitates slightly, for the
form on the table refuses to comply with his demands. The man is
offended.
"No pulse."
"Asystolic."
"We lost him."
"I'm calling it."
Silence descends as people rapidly leave. The man washes his hands
in a corner, replaying the events in his mind until he's certain
that nothing inappropriate was done.
"Is there a family?"
"Ethanol level?"
"Two eighty six."
"Fool. "
The man walks back to his bed and his dreams. The failure was the
patient's, not his.
Steven H. Kroft
College of Medicine, UIC
Class of 1991
Cold Whispers...
one day at a time
as a scream in the night
dwells with its darkness
dreadful enemy that can not
be conquered,
leaves me revolting in misery.
Ah! How I wish something
could be done
and so, a helpless sigh
as I take it
one day at a time.
And If... if so be it!
for I can't fight anymore
But hold down to the hope
of seeing you better each day.
I'll never leave you alone,
though I'm weakened from the pain
at the thought of losing
my best friend.
Cold whispers of the night
bring with you another day
Let the shine of her smile
glow upon her face,
As she conquers life...lying on a bed.
Marisela Dominguez
College of Medicine, UIC
Class of 1993
Buddies For Life
They liked to go fishing together down at Clinton Lake on warm
summer afternoons whenever they could sneak away. Sometimes they
would work. ten hours a day, four days in a row assembling the
elevators for a new construction -job just so they could grab their
gear and head for a favorite fishing pond on Friday. They were
lifetime buddies.
Don loved to tinker, fashioning wind chimes out of old pieces
of electrical -pipe and fishing line or tearing apart old radios
just to see if he could make them work. Although a man of few
words, Don would occasionally come up with the ideal comment at
just the right time. I remember one time on the job complaining to
him about what a worthless individual our foreman was. He just
smiled at me and said "Now Pete, everyone in this life has some
sort of purpose . . . even if it's to serve as a bad example!" I
just had to laugh.
Murray loved to talk to people and would often start up a
conversation with a complete stranger, saying something like "How
you doin' today?" He never dreamed anyone might want to do him any
harm. I think he could have been a politician except that kind of
life would have been much too complicated for Murray. He liked to
keep things simple.
Like most elevator mechanics, Don and Murray both enjoyed
their beer and would frequently stop in at a favorite pub in town
trading steins of Blue Ribbon for stories about their latest heroic
feats. I can picture them now, parked on a couple of bar stools in
the Brass Rail, telling a few of the regulars how they spent the
day stacking elevator rails "two hundred feet above ground . . . on
cold, naked steel." occasionally they even told the truth.
Since they were both in their sixties and worked hard all
their lives, Don and Murray looked forward to retiring so they
could pursue their hobbies full time. But then Don got sick. It
started out as a little diarrhea, then he noticed he would tire
more easily than usual. Not one to let a problem go without taking
care of it, Don checked it out with a doctor only to receive a
stunning blow — cancer.
I suppose there are several times in a man's life when he may
need to switch gears, regroup, change his outlook. What determines
a survivor is how well he can do these things. As adaptable and
resilient as he was, I don't think anything could have prepared Don
for what was in store for him.
The tumor that they found on his colon required aggressive
treatment, which included surgical removal, along with about three
feet of large intestine. But modern medicine wasn't finished with
him yet. Along with the surgical insult to this body came the
indignity of the colostomy bag, the chemotherapy, the bland baby
food diet. I saw him a few days after the operation. With all the
tubes in him, he looked like hell — thin, pale, eyes darting
around like a trapped animal. And there was Murray by his bedside.
Despite the advances in medicine, the majority of cancer cases
end the same way — it's only a question of time. In Don's case,
they arrested the initial cancer, told him he could expect further
invasive treatment, and gave him two years to live.
Throughout all this Don tried to maintain a certain amount of
dignity. He endured the vomiting, the hair loss, the dizziness
brought on by the chemotherapy, accepting no sympathy from those
who were more than willing to give it. In fact, held laugh it off
and say "You can't feel sorry for me. Hell, I'm sixty-two!" He
accepted the inevitability of his own death with a positive
attitude, telling me at one point, "Pete, it may sound crazy, but
I figure I've got a golden opportunity here. Hell, if I only have
two years, I'm going to live them to the fullest." And that's
about what he tried to do, at first.
Of course Murray stood by him all the time. He would go over
to Don's house almost every day, hoping to fire up his interest in
some new project keep him busy, helping him plant tomatoes,
strawberries, and corn in the garden he was so fond of, hiding the
pain of knowing his best friend was dying. Whatever project they
started, they seemed to tackle it with a new intensity, as though
trying to cram a lifetime of living in the last remaining months.
Toward the end, the intensity gave way to desperation.
During this time, Don talked to me about the disease itself,
perhaps because I didn't shy away from the physical details, maybe
because he knew he couldn't share with Murray how his tired, old
body was slowly rotting away from the inside. oh, Murray did more
than anybody else to enrich the remainder of Don's life, he just
couldn't talk about it. Perhaps Murray figured it could happen to
him.
I learned a lot from my conversations with Don and from
watching him deteriorate over those last few months. I learned
that cancer can take away more than your life. It can strip you of
your character and dignity as well. Early on in the disease, Don
talked about hope, about beating the odds. Every time I came to
see him he would tell me about some new avenue of research he had
read about and ask me what I thought. But as the disease
progressed, his ideas for a cure became more and more far-fetched.
At one point, Don said to me in frustration, "Pete, you better be
a doctor quick and get to workin' on this."
There came a time when Don no longer got out of bed to talk to
visitors and friends, not even his lifetime buddy, Murray, who
never failed to come anyway. Life became meaningless to Don. He
had already made peace with the world, put his affairs in order,
accepted his impending death. He just wanted to die and be done
with it.
But life didn't let go of him so easily. It chose instead to
hold on until nothing remained of the man called Don. He died
without dignity. He breathed his last breath alone in a dark room,
withered away to a shadow of the man I knew, estranged from the
rest of the living world.
Though Murray never deserted him in life, I think he felt
relieved at Don's death, grateful for the end of the suffering. He
didn't shed any tears at the funeral. Instead he showed a calmness
about him, like someone who has seen hell and returned and now
could no longer be intimidated by it.
Afterward Murray just went on living, though more slowly, with
less enthusiasm. I stop by to see him as of ten as I can and we
talk about elevators or old times at the Brass Rail with Don. Mow,
there's a new problem. Last week Murray told me he had cancer of
the esophagus. He will need all the help I can give him.
Peter R. Curio
College of Medicine, UI-UC
Medical Scholars Program
| dementia 13
trails of discarded fragments
float in the slipstream
behind the being
that was him
Losing weight and memory
memory and weight
as if memory
had weight
like a heavy metal trophy
on a thick marble base
Torn from its place
tossed aside
so that when he walks by
I can hear the clatter
and feel the turbulence |
|
in his wake as
he becomes lighter and
lighter |
Prayer #3
Flexion Contracture |
|
Trying to stretch
your legs
out of the fetal position
you've assumed
attempting to return
to that watery eden
I feel the wetness
that you lie in now
cold and acrid
inhospitable
I stretch
your legs and
they spring back
like salmon
returning up river |
Daniel J. Brauner, M.D.
College of Medicine, UIC
Second Place (tie)
no one hears the cries of the poor
or the sound of a wooden bell
while Lubert Stryer screams
at Ed Paschke and John
Cheever.
Eliot Porter, M.D., watches,
dances in the rainforest,
through it.
S. David Lo
College of Medicine, UIC
Class of 1994
- the first two lines are carved in Wooden bells commonly found in Haiti.
- Lubert Stryer is the author of a biochemist text.
- Ed Paschke is a painter.
- John Cheever was a writer.
- Eliot Porter, a former physician, became a photographer instead.
I don't know how I ended up there, but I'm standing on a
white, dusty gravel road with occasional pot holes and bumps. I
can't see anything on the sides of the road because of the trees.
They're very tall and densely growing. Heavy, dark and green. In
front of one is a white pick-up truck (no cap) with a little rust,
a little dirt - runs great. And to the back bumper is tied this
thick, coarse rope. I've got the other end of the rope in my hand.
Then the pick-up starts to drive. Slowly. I have no problem
keeping up as I walk at a medium pace behind the truck. It's a
pleasant sunny day, and I even enjoy the surroundings as I go. But
- after awhile the truck starts speeding up. Not too much. And
I'm forced to jog a little. It's OK though. I can handle it. As
time goes on, I become somewhat fatigued, but instead of slowing
down, I feel the rope in my hand pulled harder as the truck
increases its speed. I now must run. Full, hard running and I
don't like it, but I do it. As I begin to get that strange taste
in my mouth, I know - I won't be able to keep at this pace for very
long. Even as I'm considering this, the truck once again speeds
up. As it does, I grab on to the rope with both my hands, my foot
hits a pothole, and I fall onto my chest. The truck keeps on at a
pretty good clip.
So I'm being dragged down a bumpy gravel road and the dust is
billowing up all around me. My legs are still moving around.
Still trying to run? Trying to get me back up even though if I was
up, I couldn't run along over the dry, sharp gravel and the
potholes. I sort of rest. But If I did, my head would be dragging
along and bouncing off the ground. I figure I'm lucky because at
least I don't have to deal with that.
So I start wondering why I don't let go of this rope. I
figure it might be because when I started this whole scene, I
thought I saw a fishing pole in the back of the pick-up. Maybe
there's even a six-pack of beer. And when this insane cigarette
inhalation is over, I'll be able to enjoy the time. But now I'm
bouncing all over and my vision is obscured by clouds of dust
hanging in the air. II m not sure, but maybe what I saw in the back
of the truck might have been a gun. Or maybe it was just nothing.
A stick or a piece of conduit.
My other concern is who's driving. I have a fear that it
might be me. If it is, I'll at least have the consolation that if
I die here at the end of my rope, at least this truck will have to
stop.
Christopher Vittore
College of Medicine, UIC
Class of 1994
Why Bother?
Overnight the storm had washed up
thousands of starfish onto the beach,
turned orange by the early sunrise.
Stepping between the stars I bent down
to throw one back into the water.
Then another star splashed in, and another.
I threw them in by the dozen, -
stars that were bent or lying upside down,
ones on dry sand or even missing an arm.
A jogger stopped my arm and asked,
"Why are you doing this? There are
thousands of starfish out here, and
they'll all be baked dead in a few hours."
"This is true," I said, "It is always this way
after a storm." I pulled away from his grasp
to throw another star back into the sea.
for Mike
8/21/90
Jim Black
College of Medicine, UI-UC
Medical Scholars Program
Vision Impaired
Feiruz Shehadi
ISIS Maintenance Office, UIC
In the Beginning
Feiruz Shehadi
ISIS Maintenance Office, UIC
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As I complete my third year as editor, and Body Electric's seventh edition,
I am continually amazed at the seemingly paradoxical yet inherent
position of literature and the arts in medicine. Wherever there are human
beings who live and die, work and play, the arts will always flourish. And I
thank all those contributors who have made Body Electric a showcase for
this phenomenon in the sciences.
This edition of Body Electric would not be possible without Suzanne
Poirier, PhD, whose dedication, patience, and work are greatly
appreciated. My gratitude is also extended to Hyman Muslin, MD, for
serving as our final judge in the competition that accompanies this
publication. And a special thanks to our faithful typist, Bernice Coleman.
Julie Pease
| Editor: |
JULIE PEASE
College of Medicine '91 |
|
| Advisor: |
SUZANNE POIRIER, Ph.D.
Department of Medical Education |
|
| Design: |
BILL MAYER
Office of Publications Services |
