“Sit,” his father said without a word, without a gesture. “Sit here, on this chair by my right arm. Sit down with me and all your pain will go away. Be with me, my son. I love you.”
The struggle between what is and what will be, between darkness and the light, between the flashing lights and the clear sky. “Sit down,” his father beckoned. “I’ve been waiting.” The struggle between life and death. Goodbye Gloria. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. No! Walter would not sit.
Dr. William Byron, Dr. Willie to anyone who knew him and every patient who had seen him more than once, looked down into Walter’s face. Dr. Willie’s was a friendly presence made up of smiles and good cheer. The joke among the Cardiac staff at Crawford Long Hospital in Atlanta was that Dr. Willie could tell someone they had six months to live and they would be happy to hear it. From him, that is. The first time Walter saw him was when he opened his eyes.
“Must be my magic touch again,” said Dr. Willie. Two residents and a nurse, standing just behind him, politely laughed and nodded to one another. Walter failed to comprehend. “You’ve come about, Mr. Sherman. Opened your eyes to the world. And you’ve done it with me right here, standing in your room, next to your bed. My magic touch, I tell you.”
“Where… am I?”
Dr. Byron told him. Further, he told him, pay no attention at all to the nameplate on his white coat. “Call me Willie,” he said. “Everyone does.” As for Walter, Dr. Willie said he’d had a heart attack. Paramedics saved him. The emergency doctors and nurses at North Fulton Regional Hospital, up in Alpharetta, stabilized him-somewhat, that is, since he never really regained consciousness while with those folks-then transferred him by ambulance to the Coronary Intensive Care Unit at Emory University’s downtown hospital.
“What day…?”
“It’s Friday, Mr. Sherman. You had your MI on Wednesday and you’ve been out of it pretty much until now. But I think you’re gonna be fine. We did an angiogram, a cardiac cath procedure, yesterday.”
“What’s that?”
“We inserted a long, thin tube in your groin-you might feel a pressure bandage there-and slid it up into your heart. Shot a little dye into your coronary arteries, took some pictures and got a pretty good idea of why you had so much trouble the other day.”
“What happened?”
“You had an infarct-that’s a heart attack-because a branch of your right coronary artery closed off.”
“Big heart attack?”
“Well,” chuckled Dr. Willie, “the only minor heart attacks are those that happen to someone else, if you know what I mean.”
“I think so,” said Walter.
“You need a bypass operation, Mr. Sherman. We’ve been waiting for you to come out of this, regain consciousness, get strong enough to undergo surgery. You have widespread artery disease. You’ll have another heart attack-and the next one you might not be so lucky with-if you don’t get some plumbing work done. I’ll schedule you for tomorrow with Dr. Ortega-great surgeon, the best. It’ll be four or five days…”
“No,” Walter said. “No surgery. Not tomorrow anyway. How soon will I be well enough to leave?”
“Without a bypass operation…”
“How soon, doctor? Please.”
“Monday. We’ll keep you the weekend. It’s a big mistake, Mr. Sherman. How old was your father when he died?”
“How do you know my father is dead?”
“Forty? Maybe younger? You talked about him, the day they brought you in. You’re nearly sixty, Mr. Sherman. You’re on borrowed time and your loan could be called any day. You understand?”
“How long will it take me to recover from bypass surgery?”
“Well, we can get you home-wherever that is-in four or five days, end of next week if everything goes well. Follow up and recovery, rest-four to six weeks. A man your age and weight, in the sort of physical shape you’re in, a couple of months. You may think you can’t spend a couple of months this way, but there’s a big upside to this.”
“What’s that?”
“Staying alive. You do want to stay alive? You don’t have to answer that. I know you do. I’ve been watching you. You do want to live, Mr. Sherman. You want badly to live. You need a bypass and you need it now.”
“I…”
“By the way, who is Gloria?”
“My wife.”
“Oh, well then,” said Dr. Willie, turning to look at the nurse holding Walter’s chart, “That’s good. We don’t have any contact individual for you. Nothing in your personal belongings to tell us where your family can be reached. We should call Mrs. Sherman immediately.”
“My ex-wife, doctor. No need to call.”
“As you wish.”
Saturday morning, Walter underwent quintuple bypass surgery. The following Thursday, a week after arriving at Crawford Long Hospital and eight days after his heart attack, he flew home to St. John. Dr. Willie gave him the name of a cardiologist on St. Thomas.
He didn’t call Conchita Crystal. Instead, he sent her a check returning her money, all except expenses, including the twenty thousand for the Isuzu Rodeo sitting in long-term parking at the Albuquerque airport. Although he wished he was, he wasn’t wealthy enough to forget the expenses. In addition to the car, travel alone had been more than thirty thousand dollars. He sent the check with a note explaining his refund and the embarrassing necessity for keeping the expense money. He really didn’t want any of it. She never cashed the check and she never called either.
Nothing was ever said between Billy and Walter about Tucker Poesy. Just a look, eye contact the first day Walter returned. He knew well enough if there had been any trouble Billy would have mentioned it. The trip home had taken its toll. The flight from Atlanta, the taxi to the ferry, the boat ride over to St. John, all of it was more than he counted on. Walter was tired and weak when he walked into Billy’s. Ike was shocked at Walter’s appearance, sunken eyes, thinner, older. He never expected to see his friend look like that. Billy was worried. God only knows what happened to Walter. He was a week late coming back and he looked like shit. What kind of a beating had he taken? Helen, however, could smell a hospital a mile away. She knew right off the bat. Heart attack. Had to be. He told his friends she was right and that he would be all right soon, that he was going to rest awhile at home and he would see them soon. “Maybe a few days,” he said. “Maybe longer.” They said they would check on him, if he didn’t mind. Of course he didn’t. St. John is a small island. Everyone knows everyone else. They were all family. “I’ll see you guys,” Walter said and then sat down to wait for Sonny to bring a car around, to drive him up into the hills, to take him home.
The bushwhackers thin out a little bit in March and a little bit more when April arrives. Rental prices go down-owners are more willing to take short-term guests, even for long weekends, instead of the two-week minimum at high season-and the room rates at the Westin and Caneel Bay are no longer scary. After February, Billy’s isn’t usually crowded before lunch. Walter recuperated quickly, as quickly as a man his age could. Dr. Willie knew what he was talking about. Walking was good for Walter. It was too hilly where he lived, so he drove down to the beaches and would trek across the sand from one end to the other, and back again. Sand walking was like water walking. Good for the stamina. Good for building up strength. As time went on, he took to doing it twice a day, in the morning before breakfast and again late in the afternoon. For her part, Denise showed a lot of her aunt in her. Even though she was more than thirty years his junior, she took command, asserted herself as she had not done before and assumed the mantle long worn by Clara before her. She cooked-she cared-she was there. And Walter was happy with it. He needed her. Dr. Willie had been right again. Six weeks. And all that time to think-think about what happened-think about who-think about the Cowboy.