Final Call

Anne Merritt

Dear Colet,

Although it has been over a decade since we last corresponded, you are the only person I can write to as the revolving doors spit me out at 3 a.m., the putrid odor of melena wafting from my untied shoelaces, lips molting after twelve hours of dehydration because–and you will reprimand me for this–I neglected to bring quarters for the vending machine again.

The chrysanthemums on my back porch are rotting. I notice this not because I see flickering shadows of limp magenta thumbprints in dim lantern light as I approach, but because the impetuous wind or mailman must have knocked the watering can over, half a gallon of swollen spiders and fugitive leaves from the neighbor’s lawn now splattered across my entryway. My sneakers sink into a dank doormat. It is nice to be home.

You used to chide me for my uncanny ability to murder all living things outside the hospital walls. Sunflowers, tomatoes, moths. The stakes got higher with rats, fish, and finally a raccoon in broad daylight. On that sweltering mid-August morning, sweat beads heavy in my palms, I raised your rifle and fired. Arms crossed, feet planted wide apart, I stared at two bloodshot eyes boring into mine as its torso twitched on scorched pavement. A magnet for diseased and rabid creatures, you would half chuckle, combined with a lame lack of empathy and accountability. But you loved me still.

If you knew that tonight was my last in the concrete prison that I have inhabited since we met, you would greet me with a face as serene as pond water in the dead of winter, not unlike the young woman I cared for this week. It wasn’t the morphine but the jaundice in those last seventy-two hours that killed her. Yellow everywhere, Colet–the whites of her eyes, the delicate underside of her tongue, arm tattoos discolored and sunken, cheekbones hollowed out like desiccated lemon skins. A sliver of collapsing sun against the lackluster blue of hospital blankets.

* * *

As you had gently warned me back then, my days in the hospital would be numbered if I couldn’t escape. I got a glimpse of the exit that very first night we met, our reckless promenade through Union Square, blinding yellow lights stalking us like bejeweled eyes, tracking our every step. Just back from Afghanistan, you were a stronger life force than all of the city’s unwanted chaos–gripping my hand firmly in yours, beret masking your shaved head, swaggering across wet grass in your old army boots, a pack of Marlboros inching out of your back pocket. 

Later that night, in a packed basement in Greenwich Village, your arm draped casually over my shoulder, we listened to three sets of jazz and I took swigs from a pitcher of tasteless beer until the notes blended together. On the ride home, we staggered from one subway car to the next until we landed in a vacant one. You awkwardly heaved each set of metal doors open as we raced by a massive graffiti lion in the underground tunnel.

After peeing half-crouched on a toilet that reeked of excrement, I gripped the seat for balance as I teetered back to you. Suddenly aware of the tension in my limbs, I stretched out on the bench, dangling kitten heels over the armrest and surrendering my head to your thighs. My lips trembled as your fingers caressed them then penetrated my mouth. Over the next ten stops, as the train jolted us over and over again without warning, your hands skirted slowly between the buttons of my shirt and then slipped softly beneath my jeans.

I never told you about the young woman who rolled in from the ambulance bay later that day. Writhing on the stretcher, rattling the rails, screaming profanities, pulling out clumps of her own hair. I knelt down to meet her gaze. She glared at me for half a second then pursed her lips and spat in my face. 

Ginny Garcia, her last name had changed but I wouldn’t have recognized her anyway. It turned out she lived in the tenements in Queens not far from where I had grown up. The scribblings of a psychiatrist in her chart alluded to her uncle molesting her when she was four. Back when I was ironing school uniforms, she was skipping class to slice her wrists with a razor blade and smoke crack down by the five and dime. I blamed her anyway as I walked away, ashamed and wounded. But I held the deepest anger for myself.

* * *

Hands outstretched, I feel my way up the spiral staircase to the bedroom where I stuff my scrubs into a garbage bag that houses five other sets, all of my sleep shirts, and a single pair of purple lace underwear. I listen to the rhythm of a creaking bed frame through plaster–the hairdresser next door heaving in pleasure, stage four melanoma chipping away at her pelvic bones, good for her. But sixty seconds later, by the time I peel my undershirt and socks from damp skin, there is only silence.

* * *

The night your mother died, we made love three times and you bit my lower lip until it bled. We awoke bleary-eyed and ravenous. The underground bar we stumbled into had sticky floors and drawn shades. Beneath the harsh light of a naked bulb, I wore flannel pajamas under a wool coat. An untethered bosom, sagging well below my waistline, jiggled with each bite. Smoky wisps of hair escaped beneath your hat, as you puffed tiny o's up, up into the wooden beams. You wouldn’t go to her funeral, you said. There was the hassle of flying back to Sweden on such short notice, and then something unintelligible about your older brother. I didn’t say anything. We had only known each other a few weeks back then, but your jawline stiffened as you spoke. 

I should have told you to hell with the ticket cost. But I had seen enough dead bodies to know that it was too late. A redeye moments after your brother had phoned might have gotten you there in time, but no sense in bringing it up now. There would be so many words left unsaid between us in the months to come–the casual consequence of assuming by our late twenties that we’d already seen it all, or most of it anyway.

* * *

I lived alone for a decade before we met. Although I had grown accustomed to the smell of days-old curry and muddy dog hair on my walk down the long, carpeted hallway, I never expected to hear my TV blaring from the entryway. I’d find you sprawled on the futon, snoring deeply, your limp arms cradling an empty bottle of Jack Daniels. Half delirious, my body still amped up from the wards, I’d strip naked and perch on a kitchen stool while I gulped half a gallon of orange juice straight from the carton. 

Days, then months, dragged on. It rained heavily all spring, a cold persistent wetness that would not let up. We missed the cherry blossoms that year. By the time I remembered to check the date of peak bloom, it had already passed. 

My mind raced faster and faster. When I was on call, I stayed up all night binging on “I Love Lucy” reruns. I checked my pager during commercial breaks. At some point, only you would remember, I started to check it every few minutes. What if I hadn’t heard it go off? What if the battery died at the exact moment they were trying to reach me? Like the gullet of a captured frog, I clenched it in my fist, fingertips white as ash, suffocating it until sunrise.

When I wasn’t on call, I lay in bed and stared at the second hand of the alarm clock until it ticked into the wee hours of the morning. My body trembled in anticipation of those revolving doors. After a stretch of eighty long hours, one infant dead and her mother in a deep coma, I started ripping my hair out in clumps and, as our eyes met, I pursed my lips, paused, and spat in your face.

* * *

You departed on a gray November day. You were off to Germany, and I was in my final weeks of residency. We hadn’t discussed it much but neither of us was going to change our mind, not then. The hospital was a shrine to which I had resigned myself. The army was your home, more than our shabby studio apartment ever had been. As I watched you pack your gear, I marveled at how you managed to fit an entire decade in chronological order into the compartments of a single rucksack. As you sauntered down the hallway, shoulders bearing the burden of its weight, arms swinging with defined purpose, you only turned back once–a brief wave, then I closed the door and leaned back heavily against it. I closed my eyes for a moment. No tears, you had made me promise. I paused for a long minute, but nothing happened. Dry as bone.  

* * *

During my first week at the new job, you stayed up drinking bourbon and watching late night television so you could answer my call on the first ring. “Hey, I’m home,” I would say. But I wasn’t. The apartment was oddly unbalanced. The vacant corner where your vinyl arm chair used to sit irked me more than it should have. The lull of your mildly concerned voice through the speakerphone as it reverberated against naked walls made me shiver. 

“How was it?”

“Fine. Long day.”

“Do you like being the boss?”

“Not really. Worried I’m going to miss something.”

“Ah you’ll miss something darlin’. The survival rate ain’t twenty or even ten, it’s zero. We all die.”

“Yeah. I know that.”

I had never asked if you had killed anyone because it didn’t matter. There was a dangerous but fleeting ecstasy that fueled me. Save the baby-faced salesman who overdoses on heroin only to see him back the next day for a gunshot wound, blood seeping through his crisp white button down. One month later, listen as he rambles on about the purpose of life, all the while secretly glancing down at your wrist watch. Slow your voice so it’s smooth as molasses. Relax your facial muscles to remain expressionless. A fresh alcohol pad is your holy water–use it to wipe the blood off your shoes before you walk into the next room so you don’t appear inattentive or worse yet–incompetent. Call the chaplain early, she never gets there on time. Don’t chew your nails down to the bed, even though you desperately want to. The waiting room is bursting at the seams, filling up with people you cannot cure.

Then it all ends Christmas Eve when he drives head on into a highway barrier–dead on scene. The medics bring him in anyway. He looks so young, they say. You pound on his chest, break four ribs, sweat profusely through your face mask. After the second push of epinephrine you make the call. Time of death, 3:42 a.m. “Save” is a misnomer, a softened veil for the crude and fiery role you play.

* * *

We didn’t talk much after that last phone call. It was better that way. I needed laser focus at work, no distractions. I later heard from an acquaintance that you’d married a traveling nurse, blond and all legs, from a small town in Georgia, but I didn’t ask any questions. Jealousy was never my thing, and we’d had a good run of it anyway. 

With you gone, the hospital became my solace. My pager took up permanent residence on your old pillow. Stale deli sandwiches invaded the refrigerator. I did everything I could to stay awake at night–TV blaring, lights on, eyelids forced open by sheer willpower. Otherwise the nightmares would come–a little girl turning gray then blue faster than I could prepare to intubate, an old man ripping out his own eye, a woman stabbing herself repeatedly as I wrangled the kitchen knife from her hand. I’d be trembling and spent by morning, but that was okay. The fatigue dampened the fear well enough for me to function.

And then it happened. Saturday night, 1 a.m. A spunky middle-aged woman with frosted hair, polka dot glasses, and turquoise earrings. A music teacher at a nearby elementary school. We were talking, laughing, and then her eyes rolled back. Just like that. Fluidly and calmly, I began the choreographed dance–one step, two step, three step–intubation, central line, pericardiocentesis. I kept draining fluid from around her heart. But her heart would not start again, and the fluid would not stop. 

I don’t know where the prayer came from, but the last time I remember hearing it was in Sunday school before first communion. Our Father, who art in heaven. I wasn’t religious but what did it matter? Hallowed be thy Name. Anything might help, and it couldn’t hurt. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Oh Lord, I will repent, I will repent if you let me save her. Just this once. On earth as it is in heaven. How is there an overflowing river like this? More syringes, more syringes! Give us this day our daily bread. What time is it anyway? Let’s check again for a pulse. And forgive us our trespasses. No, don’t call the chaplain yet. As we forgive those who trespass against us. Please, Lord, you have given me these hands. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. The nurse put his hand on mine as it feverishly pumped the syringe. “Let’s call the chaplain,” he whispered so that only I could hear. “It’s time.” For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.

“Time of death, 2:15 a.m.” I peeled off my gown and gloves and walked out of the room. Dry as a bone.

* * *

She was all bones and far too yellow, Colet. Again, I didn’t recognize her, and only made the connection when I read through the chart and saw my own scribbled note from the day we had met. But it made sense that she would be here. She reached for my wrist and strained with all the force in her delicate body just to clasp her fingers around it. Her voice was nothing but a hoarse whisper. Our eyes locked–ghostlike orbs, wide and wandering, surrounded by a golden halo of sclera. “Doctor, it’s been this bad before, what do we do next?”

But this time was different. It was the end for both of us. “Morphine,” I whispered. “It will help your breathing and the pain, you look uncomfortable. What do you think?”

“Yes, Doctor. Let’s do that,” she heaved a sigh of relief and dropped her head against the pillow. Too firm and unforgiving, these pillows. It’s a shame they don’t have goose down, she shouldn’t have to die with her neck contorted like this. I crouched by the bedrail as she slipped in and out. Suddenly, she jolted forward. “Doctor, I am in an elevator. The doors are opening. What should I do?” My mind drifted back to the raccoon and to your eyebrows, raised in disbelief as I pulled the trigger.

* * *

As I write this, I imagine you back in the sleepy hills of Sweden at the small elephant table in your grandmother’s kitchen. The smell of fresh banana bread in the oven, a red-checked tablecloth pressed that very morning, fingers drumming to organ music from the drawing room. Reading glasses inching down the bridge of your nose, you lean back from the newspaper to turn your attention to a swallow perched on the sill. She pecks intrusively at the glass, her gaze locked on your great grandfather’s gold-plated pocket watch dangling in a dome at the center of the table.

I wrap myself in your old flannel shirt and collapse heavily onto the mattress. As my spine coils around my pillow, sirens wax and wane. I peel dead skin from my lips. My alarm clock, high on the dresser, faces the wall.

The melena is fading but still present–seeping up the stairs and in through a crack under the door. As I drift off to sleep, I spiral into a sea of blood-tinged blankets, jaundiced skeleton fingers reaching for my throat, beady human eyes embodied in a ravenous raccoon. This much I know– it will be gone by morning.