Carry Me Home (121 page)

“As long as you understand the risks,” she’d countered.

Bobby’d smiled. “Let’s give it a shot. No pussy-footin around. We’re not politicians. We don’t have to do just enough to appease ...”

“Bob—” Wilcoxson had laid a hand on Wapinski’s bed but had not touched him. “We’re at a very critical point. But I don’t want you to think last shot and give up.”

“No, Doc. Really. I understand. We’re going to get through this.”

“We’re going to get through this,” Bobby repeated to Tony that evening. He was nauseated. The new chemo was kicking in.

“Yeah.” Tony wanted to believe, wanted to sound up, sound positive. “Hey, I ever tell ya—”

“About the good buddy?” Bobby chuckled.

Tony laughed too. “Naw, I was doing the farm books. This last spring, we got a hundred and fifty gallons of medium amber syrup from two hundred taps. At fifteen bucks a gallon that’s over twenty-two hundred bucks. Not bad, huh?”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah.”

The conversation lapsed. Bobby became more nauseated. He coughed. Tony cleaned his chin.

“How old am I?” Bobby asked.

“Thirty ... Yer about a year and a half older than me. Thirty-seven, huh?”

“Um. I thought I’d die at twenty-five.”

“Across the pond?”

“No. I mean even before Nam. When I was a kid. I thought I’d die by twenty-five. Even after Viet Nam—” again the cough, the cleaning, “I thought, you know ...”

“Yeah. I think I ... When I was bumming around. I figured ...”

Bobby wasn’t listening. He wanted to talk. He cut in. His words began to slur again. “God gave me twelve more years. I did a lot in twelve years, didn’t I?”

“Come on, Man. What kind of talk is this?”

“I married Sara. Then Noah—” coughing more frequently now, “Paul, ha! you should have seen your face when we named him Paul Anthony. Am ...”

“Paulie’s starting swim classes in January. I remember last summer, in the pond, he’s going to be a hell of a strong swimmer.”

“Um. Twelve years. The farm. The ...”

“Cut the shit, Bobby.”

“Really ...”

“Shit, Man! You’re bleeding. You’ve got blood in your mucus. I’m getting the nurse.”

Alone, in the solarium—Bobby in his room asleep, being watched by the floor nurses—they took special care of him—Tony sank into a cheap chrome-framed armchair. He too wanted to sleep but he couldn’t. He wasn’t sure if he should call Sara. He’d talked to her earlier. Talked to Linda, too. Had angrily told Linda about them asking Bobby to sign the autopsy permission form, but she’d answered that it was pretty much standard. He told his wife about Bobby, fully lucid, saying, “If it ever comes to where I’m on a respirator, I don’t want anybody but you or Sara deciding on the quality of my life. If I want the plug pulled, I’ll pull it myself.”

“Don’t,” Tony mumbled, “go unassing this AO, Man. Just don’t.” He slid farther down in the chair. His head rested on the hard seatback, his butt hung two-thirds over the edge, his knees were bent at ninety degrees supporting him uncomfortably, almost lying down. Tony’s eyes closed. His face sagged. He was in the room with Bobby but the room was dark, dank, small. They could not stand, could not sit, had to lie prone. Bobby was coughing, spitting up. He needed to pull him up, pull him through. Above, far above, outside the tunnel, they pulled, pulled the rope he’d looped over Bobby in the deep. Tony coughed. In sleep, dream, he raised his hand to clear his mouth but his hand was filthy with others’ sputum. His stomach tightened, churned ...

Tony sat up. He was stiff. His neck was sore, his legs below the knees were asleep. He could go to the Boyers’. Could find an all-night diner. Could sleep on the floor except the floor was dirty. He rose. It was after two. He checked on Bobby. The night-duty nurse was sitting in the chair beside his bed. The table lamp was on. In its light she’d been writing her shift notes. She looked up, put a finger to her lips. Bobby was not asleep but seemed to be resting. Occasionally his chest trembled in a feeble cough.

On Friday night Sara and the kids arrived. Bobby’s condition had remained stable. He had not eaten in two days, was being fed intravenously. His cough persisted. The blood content of the mucus had increased though not substantially. His eyes were bloodshot, the surrounding skin was black and blue as if he’d let his guard down and been pummeled. His skin was chalky. He was semilucid, semidelirious.

“Bob.” She went to him, kissed his forehead.

The children remained in the hallway with Tony. Bobby turned his head, looked at her, didn’t answer.

Sara kissed him again. “I’ll be right back.” She exited. In the hall she whispered to Tony. Tony nodded. To the children she said, “Pappee is very sick right now. And very tired. We’re going to let him rest. Uncle Tony will take you to the Boyers’. I’m going to stay here. Right now he needs me more than you need me. Tomorrow we’ll try to have you come in.”

Bobby coughed again, and again. He hadn’t slept since the onset of the coughing. “I talked to Mark Tashkor, today,” Sara said. “He heard from Victor Yannecone. The number of claims against the chemical companies has risen to two hundred and thirty-three thousand. Eighty thousand are for serious ailments. Something beyond chloracne.”

Bobby looked at her. His eyes showed no comprehension of her words. Sara gritted her teeth. She talked calmly of the children, of school, of the call from Vertsborg and of Jo having gone to see Miriam. Then she simply sat with him, held his hand.

Tony returned. He stood in the hall. He did not want to interrupt. He watched as Sara spoke, as Bobby watched her, as she repeatedly cleaned his face, as she silently cried, and as Bobby responded by crying too.

Then his coughing became much worse. There was much more blood. He gagged. Tony ran for the nurse. Sara stood. Her arms shook. She tried to clean him, his face. Her gentle hands bruised his chin. His platelet count had dropped to nothing. The nurse found no blood pressure. No pulse. Another nurse came. A technician, a medic. Immediately they began CPR, injected him, through the IV tube, with digitalis and/or other drugs.

“Call Dachik. Call Wilcoxson.” “Start a unit of platelets.” “Call the unit. He should be down there.” “Where?” “ICU.” “No time.” “I’ve got a pulse.” “Start another IV.” “Tony, call the Boyers.” “He’s bleeding everywhere.” “Dachik’s on her way.” “Is he still on that new chemo?” “What should I do next ...”

Next
. Bobby tried to sit up. There are wires everywhere. Trip wires crossing jungle trails. His face is covered with blood. There is blood everywhere. Its stench permeates the room. He can smell it, taste it, see it. They’ve left him behind. Boyers. Bowers. Bowers and Eton. There is mud everywhere. The hillside is slick as blood mucus, sliding down, sliding down. “Cover me.” Bobby’s voice in the commotion. “I’m going back up.”

“Stop the antibiotics. Just saline. And platelets.”

They did not move him but worked on him, over him, worked him over, all night right there in his room with Sara right there, Tony there, Bobby totally docile, flaccid, then springing up wide-eyed, shouting, being restrained, shouting, “Bowers! Eton! L-T ...” Then mumbling, “L-T ... L-T ... I can’t remember his name.” Then docile again. Coughing, being suctioned. Resting. Then lucid, semilucid, “Tony. Tony, are they on the wall?”

“He’s hallucinating,” a nurse said. “Spiders on the wall. It’s common.”

Tony eyed her. Shook his head. Said to Bobby, “Yeah, Man. Their names are on The Wall. Right there in Lincoln’s thousand-yard stare.”

“Good. I think of them ...”

On Saturday, they had moved him to the ICU, with the chemo and antibiotics suspended, with additional platelets, Bobby regained a sense of the present. His breathing came easier. His coughing subsided. His pulse was steady, his blood pressure palpable. He rested. Occasionally he woke, looked to see Sara, now in a surgical mask, beside him, holding his hand. “They stopped all the drugs,” she told him. “Lily said they’ll reintroduce them one at a time to make sure they’re safe.”

“Um,” he answered.

To her it was the sweetest thing he’d ever said.

“They said I could stay in your room,” Sara said. She yawned. “Bobby, I’m going up to the room. It’s all cleaned up. Tony’s here. Bobby, I’ve got to rest.”

“Um,” he hummed again. Then he said to her, “We’re going to get through this.”

By Sunday Bobby had improved enough to sit up, to be propped up, for short periods. He was lucid, yet confused. When Tony came in Bobby thought he was the doctor. When Sara sat with him he thought she was his Aunt Krystyna. The children came but Tony told Sara he thought it best if they did not see him. “Not yet. Not until he’s a little better.”

Sara acquiesced. She was exhausted. To Lily Dachik she said, “How much longer do you think?”

“I don’t know,” the doctor answered.

“He’s going to kill me,” Sara said. “I can’t stand this. I’m going to be dead and he’s going to be lying in his bed. I hate this. I hate chemicals. I hate veterans. I hate what this has done to us. Why do we have to use up our energy for this?”

Doctor Dachik tried to soothe her.

“You don’t understand.” Sara burst into tears. “I’ve watched him lose.... He’s lost the business. Lost the institute. Noah keeps collecting books for him so he can have more god damn books when he comes home. I’ve tried to be here for him. I have to work. I have to be in my classroom. It hurts. I’ve tried to be his wife. To take care of him. And ... I can’t watch him die.”

“Go home, then,” Dachik said. “He’s responding well. It could be two or three more months.”

Sara was too tired to drive home the night of the eleventh. She called her school principal, asked for Monday off. She spent the night at the Boyers’.

On Monday, the twelfth, Bobby was returned to his old seventh-floor room. The crisis had passed. He ate an entire breakfast, his first food in four days. Mentally, too, he was back.

“Oh, my God,” Sara beamed. “I thought we were going to lose you.”

“Naw. I’m okay. Are the kids at the Boyers’?”

“Yes. They’re packed up. We were going to drive back.”

“How’s Tara?”

“You know.”

“I don’t know how they handle that.” Bobby grinned. “Maybe I do.”

“Um.” Sara smiled.

“I saw him last night.”

“Who?”

“It was very beautiful. Like coming out of dark water. Like our wedding.”

“What was?”

“The Holy Spirit. I could feel his hand on me. I can’t describe it. He was speaking in a tongue I didn’t know yet I could understand. He told me to believe.”

“Bobby!”

“Really.”

“This is amazing.”

“It was like a bright light but not glaring. Not like looking into a headlight but very bright. Very white. It came from the cathedral of the eastern hemlocks. I could see the hemlocks around us. It was very bright. And it was the light telling me ... telling me about the healing side of believing. About the baptism in water and the baptism in fire.”

“Bobby—” Sara said. He had never spoken this way before, spoken about a supernatural faith. They were Catholic but this went far beyond their religious learnings. If she were not so thrilled to have him back she would have been embarrassed. Still she did not know how to respond. “This is phenomenal!”

“We have this power,” he said. “We’ve been given it by the Holy Spirit. I’m ... I’m trying to believe. I’m struggling ... I’m trying to get in touch with it each time. This isn’t the first time but I didn’t understand.

“Tell the kids,” Bobby continued. “Tell them there is a God. That he loves them tremendously. That he loves me, too. Just as much.”

“You tell them. Let me go back and get them.”

When Sara returned Bobby was not in his room. “Where ...”

“They’ve taken him back to the ICU. They shouldn’t have brought him up so soon. His friend’s with him.”

“Tony?”

“I think.”

Then, downstairs, Tony, pacing, to Sara, the children in chairs in the corridor, “Damn it. The shit’s hit the fan.”

Sara, “What? How? He was just ...”

“His blood pressure fell through the floor. His white blood count’s back to nothing.”

“This isn’t supposed to happen!”

“He’s bleeding again. Coughing up ... He thinks he’s on Hamburger ...”

“Is Lily ...”

“She’s in with him. Damn.”

“I ... I’ve got to take the children back to the Boyers’.”

Later that night Lily Dachik said to Sara and Tony, “The quality of his life has reached a point that we have to know if anything should happen, which is possible at any moment, ah, how would you like us to handle that? We really feel that resuscitating him at this point would be of no value. It would be bringing him back ah, ah ... only to die again.”

Now Tony couldn’t handle it. He kicked the wall. Stamped his feet. “Goddamn it! My best goddamned friend is dying. Best goddamned human being who ever lived ... Goddamn Agent Orange ...”

Sara sat with Bobby, alone, holding his hand. His eyes were shut. He was semicomatose. She was afraid to speak, to open her mouth, afraid she’d wail. She took a deep breath. “I’m back,” she finally said. “I’m with you now. Do you understand that?”

Bobby squeezed her hand.

“Noah sends his love. Paul and Am, too.”

“Um.” Bobby’s hum was very quiet, very weak.

Again she sat quietly, feeling helpless. Then she rose, left.

Tony entered, hugged Bobby.

“... omm.” Very weak.

Tony put his ear to Bobby’s mouth. “What?”

“... omm.”

For a time he tried to understand but he couldn’t decipher the word. Sara returned. “ ... m ... omm,” Bobby said.

“Are you saying ‘home’?” Sara asked.

“hi ...” Bobby said.

“High Meadow?” Tony asked. “Is that what you’re saying?”

Bobby opened his eyes. “... m. take care of Noah,” he said. “And Paul Anthony. And Am.”

Tears flood Sara’s eyes.

“... tony ... take me home. I want to die at home. carry me home.”

V
ETERAN’S DAY—IT IS
cool, clear. The sky is not crying. It is dawn. It is nearly a year. I have four small flags with me, maybe six-by-ten inches, on small wooden dowels. Would it in some way have defiled them, those who served, had I brought up eight, one for each grave?