“My husband’s been a saint.” Alice felt happy to volunteer the information; saying the words was a relief. “The pressure Oliver must be under— Sometimes, I feel guilty for getting this. Ridiculous, I know.”
He’d taken a few steps ahead, but stopped, and turned now, so he could watch her.
She kept on, dissembling: “I once heard that when you get past the honeymoon and the bliss, most marriages are one good fight away from being kaput. With us, the baby had already added a lot of strain. And all this dropped in Oliver’s lap.”
The keyboardist—“Mervyn? Merv? Thank you, Merv, I won’t forget this time”—asked if Alice was doing all right, volunteered to slow down, and, after a bit, admitted that he hadn’t added up all the signs with the girl, but “she must’ve taken her jacket with her, too. When you think about it, pretty big hint, right?”
“He’s been better than anyone has a right to ask for,” Alice murmured.
“Last thing she did: rubbed her hand on my cheek. Gave me this look, all soft and dewy. You don’t even know is what she said.”
Alice noticed him now, studied him, thinking. Her voice was sudden with amusement: “How could anyone have walked out on you?”
He laughed, a little.
“Really now?” She did her best to bat what was left of her lashes. “Who could say no to such a studiously and meticulously unkempt nature? That undernourished and malodorous body?”
Again he smirked. “That’s me. Your generic, by-the-numbers, brooding antihero.”
Alice’s hand on her pole halted their progress. “I’ll admit,” she said, a bit winded, but sounding happy. “I’d stop you on the street.”
“There we go.”
“To settle a question about my income tax.”
Hers was a mischievous yelp, score for her side. The musician felt at his jaw as if smarting from a slap. “You’re right,” he said. “I can’t really blame her, leaving that freak-ass situation. Funny thing is, I am the responsible one. Rest of the band’s out chasing tail, I’m the idiot hauling their gear.” He stared at the floor, thrummed his fingers at the exposed knee in his jeans, as if for emphasis. “I mean, I’m old enough to understand how much of a cliché it is: guy playing rock music. Do this long enough, you better get some kind of comfort level with reality.”
“So that’s your angle?”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re the smart sensitive one? The good man left behind?”
He considered this. “I got one for you. Singer I used to play with. His girlfriend told him, I can’t come over, I’m on my period. Swear to God, Donovan goes back: You’re not bleeding out of your mouth, are you?”
Alice snorted. “I might have gone out with that man.”
“It’s not even that he tells the story, you know? It’s that he likes telling that story.”
“But not you,” Alice said.
Staring away, down, Merv seeming to concentrate on the wheels of the units. He tapped out the opening of an exercise for the piano, his fingers dancing in rapid, minor movements.
“Honest and revealing is your thing,” Alice said.
“Dunno.” His face stayed serious. “We’d have to discuss it over ice cream.”
A current ran through her stomach.
“Oh, you’re more into gelato?”
“Please, either way….Wait—that’s how you work?”
The deadpan gave way to mischief, a scraggly grin. “I’d ask you to get some with me.”
A gasp, only with an upturn at the end, something near delight. “It sounds safe and nice.”
“And innocent,” he said. “Don’t sleep on innocent.”
“A creamy cool treat,” Alice thought aloud.
“Only you’ve got licking.”
She caught on: “Mouths and wetness.”
“Throw in a daddy issue—”
“Well.” Alice’s voice made clear this discussion was completed. She looked at him for a time. “You may not look like much—”
“Yeah. But I’m actually less.”
It was his turn to let loose, a full Cheshire smile. She laughed, leaned into him with her shoulder, nudging him just a bit. The musician flipped some kind of interior switch, became intensely alert, his arms extending, ready, just in case. After a moment he understood the nudge had been a form of approval, saw she was steady.
Still he asked, “You okay?
“You know,” he said. “It’s good to vent to a stranger. I guess.”
Moving into another right turn, a bit slower and more carefully this time, Merv concentrated on the rollers of each IV pole, guiding them in a wide arc, making sure all their wheels stayed on the linoleum. Once this had been negotiated, and it was clear Alice was not going to be giving in to his particular strangerness, that no venting would be forthcoming, he started again. “That ice cream line usually gets me in the door. Not that I’m Mr. Great Pickup Artist Bullshit Guy — back when I drank, I used to really be something. Only, it got to the point where I’d get a girl home, and I’d be thinking: You fucking pig. I can’t BELIEVE you fell for my shit. How can you be so stupid you’d let ME fuck YOU?”
Merv grimaced, shook his head at the memory. “I couldn’t wait to get away. Man hates himself that much, big mystery why I’m an alkey.”
Realizing what he’d said, Merv gauged his companion’s reaction, received nothing, Alice remaining inscrutable.
“Whaddaya think,” he said. “Another go-around?”
—
Not another go-around. Another lap was too much, but she wasn’t ready to get back to her depressing room, either. So he placed one hand on her shoulder, another on her hip, and eased her down into a metal folding chair. “Please assure me you haven’t been roaming the halls to pick up chemotherapy patients,” Alice said.
Some sort of timer must have gone off during their walk, because the overhead lights were blessedly dimmer, which furthered the hallway’s already somber feel. Sneakers were squeaking around the near corner, some nurse laughing with another. “It’s fine with me if you are,” Alice continued. “At least that’s original. It’s actually the most warped, high-concept, black screwball comedy imaginable.”
Mervyn’s hair was in need of weeding and trimming. His flannel shirt was missing a button at its collar; its opening showed a concavity. He was looking down, and his smirk had transformed, more of a wince, as if he were sucking on a sour lozenge. Checking on her from the corners of his eyes, he began revealing information whose beats were all too familiar: nonexistent blood counts, an enlarged spleen, demands from the emergency room doctor that he be admitted to a hospital right pronto.
The emergency room doctor told him the two main candidates for his illness were lymphoma and AIDS. What does anyone do when you hear this, he recounted. He recalled the numbness. Pretty much in shock when they finally admitted him to this place, putting him in a private room. Two orderlies in blue protective outfits then erected a plastic bubble around him. He watched it go up. The next three days, his father basically sat vigil at the side of Merv’s bed, staring with cloudy eyes and a hangdog face. Friends came by, and from the way they looked at Merv he understood they all assumed he was about to die, were trying to remember his face for future lyrics and songs and shit.