“Yes,” said Bob; but he wasn’t listening very closely. There was a moving or shifting inside him — something slipping into something else, something about to happen, and he was afraid as the something made its approach.
The young man asked, “Mr. Comet, have you ever heard that the windows are the eyes of a house?”
Bob said, “I’ve heard that eyes are the window to the soul.”
“Yes, and that’s a lovely turn of phrase — and true too. But, that’s not what I’m here to talk to you about, now.” He shook his head. “What I’m here to talk to you about is, I’m here to talk to you about the eyes of your house. And Mr. Comet?”
“Ah,” said Bob.
“Are you happy… with the eyes of your house?”
The something Bob had been waiting for arrived: it was a surging sensation, as if his every globule of blood was suddenly moving not in any one direction, but away. He was quite sure he was dying now, and he called out, “Oh! Oh!” and the young man pulled a silver crucifix necklace from under his safety vest, knelt at Bob’s side, and began silently, reverently praying. But still and Bob wasn’t dying; he’d had a spell and the spell was passing. He apologized to the young man, who, returning to his chair, said, “No apology necessary.” The ambulance arrived and a paramedic came in without knocking, a lean man eating a sandwich. He set this delicately on the banister at the bottom of the stairwell and leaned over Bob. Bob looked up at the paramedic’s chewing face. He asked, “You’re not going to touch me and ask me if it hurts, are you?”
The paramedic swallowed. “I was going to do that.”
“Please don’t. It hurts. I think my hip’s broken.”
The paramedic pointed. “Move your toes for me?”
“But that’ll hurt.”
“Pain is good, though; it means your person is intact. An injury like this, it’s the nonfeeling you’ve got to worry about.”
“Well, I’ll move my toes some other time.”
“Unless you can’t,” said the paramedic. He stood and picked up his sandwich and left the house. He returned without the sandwich but with another paramedic, a stern man pushing a gurney. The gurney was lowered to the ground just beside Bob. The stern paramedic said, “Okay, sir? We’re going to get you to a hospital to be x-rayed and tended to, but first we have to transfer you to the gurney, okay? I need you to bear with us.”
“Wait,” said Bob.
They did not wait, lifting him by the legs and shoulders onto the gurney. They were gentle in their movements but the shift hurt terrifically, and Bob made a noise he didn’t know he was capable of making, a prelanguage, animal-mind noise, and the young man in the safety vest stood by, covering his face.
“Can’t you give him something for the pain?” he asked the stern paramedic.
“They’ll give him something at the hospital.”
“But he needs it now, can’t you see that?”
The stern paramedic paused to look the young man up and down. “What is your relation to this person?”
“My relation is that I’m the one who found him lying there.”
“But why are you here?”
“I’m here because I sell windows.”
“Sell windows to who?”
“To whoever has need of them.”
The stern paramedic decided to ignore the young man in the safety vest and occupied himself strapping Bob — panting, now, pain fading — onto the gurney. The gurney was raised up and Bob was wheeled from the house and to the ambulance waiting at the curb. The paramedics readied the rear of the ambulance to receive Bob’s person; the young man in the safety vest, meanwhile, had reappeared and was proffering a business card. Bob, arms bound, said, “Put it in my mouth.” He was embarrassed by the noise he’d made, and now was trying to reclaim a lighthearted attitude; but the young man didn’t understand that Bob was joking. “How about I tuck it into your shirt pocket?” he said, and he did this. Bob was loaded into the ambulance. “Good luck, Mr. Comet,” said the young man in the safety vest, and he waved as the ambulance pulled away from the curb.
BOB WAS TAKEN TO THE HOSPITAL AND GIVEN A LARGE INJECTION of Demerol, his first of many. The break in his hip was complete, the bone cleanly halved, and it x-rayed beautifully and doctors and nurses and orderlies came from all around to look at it and whistle and shiver. No one could say it wasn’t a nasty injury, and yet there was no damage to his spine, and a full recovery was expected. His middle was set in plaster, like an enormous stone diaper, with one tube coming out the front and another out the back. He was installed in a sunlit room with two remotes, one for his bed, and another for the television. A nurse came in and explained about the drip. “See this button? Whenever you feel pain, or if you’re bored, press it.”
“And then what?”
“And then blastoff. You want a hot chocolate?”
With the button his constant companion, Bob settled into his temporary hospital existence. After decades of rejecting the television medium he experienced a period of not just watching TV, but watching with enthusiastic interest. All his life he had believed the real world was the world of books; it was here that mankind’s finest inclinations were represented. And this must have been true at some point in history, but now he understood the species had devolved and that this shrill, base, banal potpourri of humanity’s worst and weakest and laziest desires and behaviors was the document of the time. It was about volume and visual overload and it pinned Bob to his bed like a cat before a strobe light. One woozy morning he found the business card the young man in the safety vest had given him. At the bottom of the card it read: Questions? Comments? Complaints? These words were followed by an 800 number, and he had his nurse dial for him. A female voice answered and Bob launched into a muddled speech celebrating the character of the young man who had been so helpful and empathetic. After a while the woman cut him off.
“Sir? What is your complaint?”
“I have no complaint. I’m calling to praise your outfit. Because you hired a winner in this person. I wish I could remember his name. Actually, no, I don’t think he ever told me. What if I were to describe him?”
“Are you a customer of ours?”
“Potentially I am.”
“Well, I’m not in sales. Do you want me to transfer you?”
“Not really.”
“Then I’ll wish you a good day, sir.”
“Oh, good day to you,” said Bob, and he handed the phone back to the nurse, flush with the belief he’d done the young man a good turn. Later that same day, Bob woke up from a nap to find Linus Webster pacing at the foot of the bed in his electronic wheelchair. The bed was on its tallest setting and so Bob could only see the beret and the bloodshot eyes. Linus wheeled around to Bob’s side. “How do you feel, buddy?”
“How do I look?”
“You look pretty fucked-up, Bob. But then, so do I, and I feel great. So: How do you feel?”
“Sometimes good, sometimes less good. How’s the gang?”
“Oh, you know. Old, weird. Maria wrote you a letter.” He held this up and set it on the table beside the bed. He spied the drip button and his eyes became wide. “They’ve got you on a drip? What are they giving you?”
“Demerol.”
“Demerol? That’s cute.” He was unimpressed.
Bob told him, “I have nothing bad to say about Demerol.”