I Can Hear You
I was in a coma when I met you. I heard every word you said, though, remembered it, too. Better than I usually remember conversations. And I recognized you when you came in the room to find me awake.
"Hello, Elizabeth," I said. You remember? Of course. I don't think you were even surprised, although your eyes widened just a bit and the tray you were carrying rattled with the sound of ice water in a plastic pitcher, and I could see the jello wriggling like some trapped sea blob. You went over and put the tray down for Mr. Pabst in the next bed, who said, "Rootateetoot, rootateetoot," which is all he ever said.
Of course, as a nurse, you know we can hear everything. Maybe that's why you talked to me as though I were awake. You told me all about Georg. Your "muck of a relationship," you called him. In fact, you rarely used his name, maybe only once or twice. Mostly he was just "My relationship", and quite often "My muck of a relationship." You emphasized the words, as if that made it somehow objectified, made it an it rather than a you and him, although the it was yours. The thing, the muck, the relationship aka Georg. That name itself is foreign. A Slavic form of a name for a guy we'd call George. So the whole thing was somehow out there, away from you, and reified, “thing-ified”. And you were speaking to someone who had been himself made into a thing in a car crash ... Anyway, so you're carrying a torch for this Georg, who is just like me now, just another it you can safely talk to, even though you know better. Because I can wake up. And I'll know all about it. About you and Georg, your relationship or your muck of a relationship. Oh, never mind. You know all this. When a guy's been caught between the worlds for awhile he gets talkative. He wants to nail himself down with talk. Give a history to things, name things, get back into the continuum, you know.
"Elizabeth and Georg," I said.
"Yes." And you looked down. A guilty bit of business, looking down; and fussing with your hands like that, as if you were rubbing lotion or something into the skin.
"That doesn't work," I told you. "Numerologically or something."
"Do you believe it that stuff?"
"I don't know. But it sounds wrong. The names. They clang. So the numbers must be wrong."
You looked at me now. There was a funny mix of amusement and urgency to your expression. Then all businesslike you said, "I should get the doctor on duty in here ..."
"Not yet, all right?"
You sighed. "You heard it all. It's just like they say. I never experienced it. Didn't believe it, really."
"Because you're a science type, right? Or from Missouri. You know. I'm from Missouri. You gotta show me."
"I'm not. Neither one. I'm just a nurse."
"No, you are not 'just a nurse', you are a very good nurse."
She fiddled around some more, picking off lint, that sort of thing. "I've got to ..."
"So, what about Georg? Is he dead?"
She opened her mouth as if to scream, even covered it. She thought about his grubby townhouse. The whole place was thick with dust, and everything smelled like stale cigarette smoke. The sink was always full. The fridge smelled of spoiled food. He subscribed to every newspaper in the world and they were all over the chairs, open on the kitchen table. There were ring shaped stains on everything, the papers, the counter tops, even the rugs where he'd set down a cup of coffee or a drink of some sort, his famous single malt Scotch which he bought at the supermarket. There were even rings and spills and cigarette burns on his vinyl records, which he supposedly valued. His house smelled, he smelled. He was named Georg after his uncle from Hungary but he was as American as a Big Mac. He was a Big Mac. He was a cheap old movie memory of the man's man with his unshaven, unkempt look, the tie loose, the slacks cinched and low slung under a belly like a squash about to burst open. Actually, he was a total creep, a worthless piece of gone over beefcake. He couldn't even get it up half the time. He treated her like she was a blow job with a lot of useless extras. He'd tell her to leave right afterwards; he had to get up early. She was going to work in two hours but he needed his eight before he went off to his high end temp job in some software shipping department.
No, she didn't kill him. She didn't need to. She just watched him lie there and choke on his own vomit. She looked at his bloated face. At the mess. She smelled him in the vomit, the last of him, poking out of his mouth like stuffing from a packed turkey. She sat there on the edge of the bed and looked at him. And then she left. They didn't even call her in for questioning. No one called her. No one told her. She saw the obit, and turned to the want ads, seeing if she could find another Miata like the one she'd totaled. Because of him. She'd been so furious with him that she'd driven without even looking at the road and run right into something. Didn’t even look to see what it was but backed up, forced it into drive and somehow managed to get the thing home. Declared it a hit and run and got Blue Book value.
"I've got to call for the doctor."
You come over and press the button. You begin checking my vitals. My vitals. What a strange thing to have now, after all this. But I wonder, though. Was it you? Was it you all along?