Because of what he did for me, I’ve got David Samadi’s back for life. I consider him my homeboy. And I consider his robot my homeboy too.
When old Yurok Indians get sick, eels, along with acorn soup and seaweed, are the food they crave. When I returned home from the hospital, I wanted Peeps and Peanut M&M’s, cocktail weenies and marzipan. But I was only allowed clear liquids at first, and then soft food, pabulum.
Is there a less virile look to present to one’s wife than an open plaid robe, a catheterized penis, and a urine-collection bag taped to your thigh? What can you do with this? I mean, fashion-wise? Tape the bag at a sort of rakish angle? I would look in the mirror at myself and think: This must be the most abject, undignified, de-eroticized version of a man possible. If I were ever asked by some young, sensitive writer just starting out, what key lesson I’ve learned in life (which I’ll never be), I’d probably say that there is no aperture of egress, however tiny and exquisitely sensitive, that can’t be turned into an aperture of ingress.
I should read you the instructions they gave me at the hospital…There were like twenty-three pages of instructions…it was like a fucking novel…Take one Cipro two times a day, one Colace every eight hours, fifty milligrams of Lopressor two times a day, one oxycodone every four hours, plus applying antibiotic and lidocaine to the “entry site” of the catheter, rinsing the urine-collection bags, repositioning the taping of the catheter and the bag (to prevent blistering), what to do if you experience abdominal distension, bladder spasms, bloody drainage, ankle swelling, perineal discomfort, scrotal swelling, painful sneezing, what to eat until you pass gas, what to eat once you have passed gas, etc., when to call to get the results of the pathology report about whether there’s additional cancer in surrounding tissue, when to call to schedule the removal of the catheter…I should read some of this to you…seriously…Mom, you didn’t bring that too, did you? My discharge packet from Mount Sinai? No?
Anyway…Mercedes would bring me scrambled eggs and toast, or macaroni and cheese, or just pastina with butter, or whatever…and she would have made exactly the same thing for herself, so I wouldn’t be envious of what she was eating…And I’d say, You don’t have to do this, y’know — sit here with me and eat, it couldn’t be all that appetizing. And she’d say, I want to. And when we were finished eating she would lie next to me, my catheter trailing down the side of the bed into that bag that I’d lay on the floor…and she’d hold my hand. And I don’t think I ever felt more loved than at that very moment. It was just the most wonderful thing. Isn’t it crazy that when I was in this abject, humiliating state, somehow that week was a kind of honeymoon? Really. Like a kind of honeymoon in Paris or something…It was.
If I were to make a coat of arms, an escutcheon…or perhaps a new tarot card…to represent love, to represent caring…it would feature a catheter, a dish of scrambled eggs, and clasped hands…
It was just the most beautiful thing anyone had ever done for me…it was the most romantic thing in the world…For Mercedes…this sweet, sweet person…to hold out her hand to me like that…It was just the most…it was the happiest moment of my life—
MARK’S MOM
Okay, that’s enough…I mean, if we’re going to have any time for questions, for the Q and A. (MARK’S MOM is putting on lipstick, fishing car keys from her bag, ready to go. MARK gives her a…a sort of beseeching look, and then sighs.)
MARK
In the words of the great Maximilien Robespierre, “I no longer have the strength to battle the aristocracy’s intrigues.” (He bows deeply.)
Dōmo arigatō.
Part III
Q&A (MARK gets down from the table. He notices that both his shoes are untied [they’re brand-new shoes his mother bought him especially for the reading, and they’ve got those slippery, waxy laces that tend to unknot themselves], and he bends down to tie them. And when he stands upright again and looks around, his mom is gone. Gone. He reconnoiters the entirety of the food court, his eyes panning rapidly back and forth as he weaves around the tables and banquettes, and paces several times around the circumference of fast-food franchises — past the Popeyes, Hawaiian Grill, Taste of India, Burger King, Taco Bell, Johnny Rockets, Red Mango, Subway… But she’s nowhere to be found. The PANDA EXPRESS and SBARRO workers have also vanished. The disappearance of his mother immediately triggers a state of acute panic. His pulse thrumming in his ears, a flood of gruesome thoughts and premonitions fills his head.He embarks upon a frantic, redundant search of the adjoining areas of the empty mall, descending the motionless escalator, striding past the You Are Here directory, past the lobby of the AMC multiplex, past the Limited, Clarks, f.y.e., Vans, Macy’s, Foot Locker, Kohl’s, Sears, JC Penney, Sunglass Hut, Bath & Body Works, Sephora, past a threading station, and an electronic-cigarette and tongue-ring kiosk, and then bounding back up the inert escalator several steps at a time, reprising the search of the food court, and then back down the escalator and past the very same stores and the very same kiosks yet again…like those looping, wraparound backgrounds in early video games…until finally, through a corridor of gumball machines, he reaches the restrooms, which somehow he’d failed to notice the first time around.Trembling, his heart pounding in his chest, he knocks on the door to the ladies’ room.There’s no response.He knocks again, harder, more insistently.)
Q. Mom, are you in here?
A. Yes.
Q. Are you okay?
A. Yes.
Q. Mom, I’ve been looking all over for you! I was so worried…I was going crazy.
A. Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry. You really need to come in here. I have to show you something. (He stretches his neck, which is clenched tight with tension, takes a deep breath, and lets out a long, long exhalation of relief.)
Q. Show me what, Mom?
A. Just come in. (MARK enters the ladies’ room.)
Q. Where are you?
A. I’m in here. (He walks over to a closed stall.)
Q. Hey, uh…I think I’m gonna wait outside for you, okay?
A. No, come in here. I have to show you something! (He slowly opens the door to the stall. His mother is on her hands and knees in front of the toilet staring down at something on the floor with the intense absorption of a…a myrmecologist examining an anthill.)