“I don’t want to see my father! I want to see Dr. Tallman!”
“He’s not here, dear. I’ll just buzz you in.”
Mary came out of the nurse’s station to meet him. Middle-aged, kind, motherly, she radiated the kind of brisk competence that Eliot admired, and had seen so little of in his own disordered household. Or at least he would have admired it if it weren’t for the motherliness. She saw him not as the intellectual he knew himself to be, but rather as the skinny, short, floppy-haired kid he seemed to be. He was smarter than Mary, smarter than Aunt Sue, smarter than most of the world, so why the hell couldn’t the world notice that?
“I want to see Dr. Tallman!”
“He’s not on the ward, dear.”
“Call him!”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that. Eliot, you seem upset.”
“I
Motherliness gave way to professionalism. “You know I can’t discuss this with you.”
No one would discuss anything with Eliot. He didn’t count. The rational world didn’t count, not in here. Eliot glared at Mary, who gazed calmly back. He said, “I’ll sign them! I will!”
“You’re underage, Eliot. And your father is non compos mentis. Did you come to visit? He’s in the day room. But if you’re going to upset him, it might be better if you chose another time to visit.”
Eliot bolted past her and ran into the day room.
His father was not flinging furniture. He slumped inert in a chair, staring at the TV, which showed a rerun of
“Hey, Dad.”
“Hey, Eliot.”
Alex Trebek said, “The tendency of an object in motion to remain in motion, or an object at rest to remain at rest, unless acted upon by an outside force.”
“How are you doing?”
“Just fine.” But he frowned. “Only I can’t quite … there was something …”
Someone on the TV said, “What is ‘inertia’?”
“Zeus,” Dr. Tremling brought out triumphantly. “Who would have believed—” All at once his face sagged from underneath, like a pie crust cooling. “Who would have believed …” His face crumpled and he clutched Eliot’s sleeve. “It’s real, Eliot! It’s loose in the world and nothing that I thought was true—”
“It was a
Three patients slowly swiveled their heads at Eliot’s raised voice. He lowered it. “Listen to me. Please listen to me. The doctors want to do a procedure on you called Selective Memory Obliteration Neural Re-Routing. It will remove the memory of the … the incident from your mind. Only Aunt Sue—”
“Where’s the pig?” Dr. Tremling said.
Eliot rocked back and forth with frustration. “Even if Aunt Sue won’t sign the papers, if you can seem reasonably lucid—in compos mentis—then—”
“I asked you to bring the pig!”
“It’s broken!”
Dr. Tremling stared at Eliot. Then he threw back his head and howled at the ceiling. Two orderlies, a nurse, and four patients sprang to attention. Dr. Tremling rose, overcoming the inertia of his drugs, and picked up his chair. His face was a mask of grief. “It isn’t true. Nothing I believed is true! The universe—Zeus—dice—”
Eliot shouted, “It was just a fucking toaster pastry!”
“I needed that pig!” He flung the chair at the wall. Orderlies rushed forward.
Nurse Mary grabbed Eliot and hustled him out of the room. “I told you not to upset him!”
“I didn’t upset him,
“Your father does not have a brain tumor, and you need to leave now,” Mary said, hustling him down the hallway.
A male voice said, “I’ll take scientific terms for 400, Alex.”
“It’s his brain!” Eliot shouted. He meant:
Mary got him to the door of the ward, keyed in a code to unlock it, and waved him through. As he stalked off, she called after him, “Eliot? Dear? Do you have enough money for the bus home?”
