His father nodded. He closed his eyes. Bessie went to the bed. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” she said.
“You rest now,” David said.
Bessie leaned over the bed.
“Sleep well, Morris,” she said, and kissed him on the cheek.
“I was here, Morrie,” Sidney said. “I’ll see you Tuesday. So long, Morrie.”
David went to the bed and kissed his father on the forehead. He still felt damp and hot. He turned away from the bed. Bessie and Sidney had already gone out into the corridor. He stopped at the nurses’ station. The Cuban nurse was on duty this evening.
“How’s his temperature?” he asked her.
She looked at his chart. “A hun’red an’ one,” she said. “But tha’s rectal, it’s not so high.”
“Everything else okay? His heart? Is his heart okay?”
“Yes, fine,” she said. “Please don’ worry, Mr. Weber, we takin’ good care of him.”
“I know that,” David said. “Thank you.”
Bessie and Sidney were waiting just outside the door to the unit.
“What was it they found?” Sidney asked at once.
“A small abscess,” David lied. “They drained it. He’ll be fine now.”
Sidney looked at him.
“He doesn’t look like he’ll be fine,” he said.
“He’s still groggy,” David said.
“But he looks lousy. I never seen him look so terrible. Even after the first operation, he looked better than he does now, am I right, Bessie? I picked you up that day, you remember? Drove all the way from Lauderdale, stopped at the house to pick you up, drove you here, we were here right after the operation. He was groggy then, too, but he looked a hell of a lot better than he does now, this was before I started having all the trouble with my buggy, he looked much better than he does now. You want my opinion, Davey, I’d ask the doctor to amplify on what he told you, find out just what it was they discovered in there, putting an eighty-two-year-old man under the knife for the second time in a month, he’s no spring chicken, your dad. I’d find out just why they went in, and just what they discovered in there, what it was they did in there. I’d ask for amplification, Davey, you know what I mean?”
“I’ll do that, Sidney,” David said. “When I talk to the doctor later.”
“I’d do it now,” Sidney said. “I’d go right in the waiting room and use the phone on the desk there and call the doctor and find out whether they got everything they went in for. Otherwise, they’ll want to go in again in two, three weeks, there’s only so much shock the human body can take, he’s eighty-two years old, you know, that’s not a spring chicken. Even when Lillian, your cousin Lillian, went in to have her plumbing fixed, it was a tremendous shock to the body, simple little thing like a D and C, am I right? She’s only forty-eight years old, never been sick a day in her life, still it was very upsetting to the entire system. Your dad looks terrible, Davey, I never seen him look so bad, I don’t even think he knows I was here today, you know that? He didn’t blink his eyes when I told him to, when I asked him if he recognized his own cousin who takes him wherever he wants to go in a car that’s falling apart already, I don’t think he knew it was Sidney there talking to him. Well, you tell him I was here, willya? Convince him I was here. I don’t think he realizes it, I mean it. I don’t have to be in Miami on Thursdays, you know, I only came to see your dad, I don’t think he even knows I was here. Well, listen, I’m not asking for a medal. Just tell him I was here, okay? Tell him I’ll be back on Tuesday, will you still be here on Tuesday? When are you going home?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Well, it all depends, I guess, don’t it? I’d stay here as long as possible, Davey, you never know.”
“Yeah,” David said.
“So that’s it,” Sidney said, “I gotta get back to Lauderdale, there’s a leak in my swimming pool, the guy says he can fix it for six hundred bucks, how do you like that? I’m gonna drain the damn thing myself, patch it up myself, who needs him? Six hundred bucks? What does he think I am, the Chase Manhattan? I can fix it myself, the hell with him. Well, I’ll see you, Davey, let’s hope he makes it through the night, huh, the way he looked in there.” Sidney shook his head. “I’d drop you off, Bessie, but I gotta go in the opposite direction, pick up some Venetian blinds Lillian ordered, your cousin Lillian, Davey. So I’ll see you, okay?”
He limped away, up the corridor, and turned the bend out of sight.
“What do you think?” Bessie said.
“I don’t know.”
“You think it was right to lie to your father?”
“I think so. If I’d told him they found nothing...”
“I guess you’re right,” Bessie said. She thought this over for a moment. “I guess so. If he thinks he’s getting better, maybe he will get better.”
“Yes,” David said.
“So,” Bessie said, and sighed. “Did you pick up his mail? When you were at the building?”
“Damn it, I forgot,” David said.
“You forgot the mail,” she said, “I keep forgetting the scissors. Don’t worry about it, I’ll stop by the building tomorrow morning. He might want to see his mail before he...”
She let the sentence trail.
“Just the first-class stuff,” David said. “If it isn’t any bother.”
“It’s no bother,” Bessie said. “I do the best what I can.” She sighed deeply. “I’ll pick up the mail. I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, and hesitated. “You’re getting enough to eat?” she asked.
“What?” he said.
“Because... it wouldn’t be much... but if you want me to cook something for you...”
“No, that’s all right, thanks,” he said at once.
“I could make you something,” she said.
“Thanks,” he said, “I’ll be okay.”
She shrugged, as though she’d been expecting him to refuse her invitation and was not terribly surprised or disappointed now that he had. He thought, Hey, come on, I hardly know you, lady. I mean, go cook his meals, okay? Whoever he may think you are, you’re not my mother.
“All right,” she said, “I’ll meet you by the Emergency Room, ten-thirty tomorrow. I know you like the Main, but I like the Emergency.”
“Yes, fine,” he said.
“Good night,” she said, and sighed again.
“Good night, Bessie,” he said.
He sat alone in the disco bar, drinking.
He had already drunk two martinis. He was on his third martini. The bartender came up to him. The lights over the dance floor flashed and beeped. Beep, beep, beep. Like the little lights on the machines all around his father’s bed.
“How you doing here?” the bartender asked.
“Fine,” David said. Fine and dandy, he thought.
“You all alone down here in Miami?” the bartender said.
“All alone,” David said.
That wasn’t quite true. He had his father. But that was the same as being all alone, wasn’t it? Hell with it, he thought. I’m not under oath here.
“You interested in somebody?” the bartender asked.
“I’m interested in everybody,” David said. That was true. He was an interested observer of the entire world, officer of the court, minion of the law.
“You want somebody?” the bartender asked.
“I want another martini,” David said.
“Beefeater martini, two olives,” the bartender said, and walked away.
Do I want somebody? David thought. Yes, I want somebody. Who do I want? Whom, excuse me. My mother, he thought. I want my mother. Your mother is dead, somebody said. His father. The somebody was his father, at two o’clock in the morning. On the telephone. It always came on the goddamn telephone. Your mother is dead, his father said.