Louse

 

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About the Author

Copyright Page

 

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The author wishes to acknowledge:

H. H., for living so strangely.

Alex Todorovic, for the correspondence that started this. Rachel Andrews, for much inspiration. Christopher Connelly, for reading and rereading each and every draft, and for always providing keen insight.

E. L. Doctorow, for helping me see the promise.

My editor, Sean MacDonald, for taking so much care to make it what it is.

My agent, John Hodgman, for his fortitude, wit, and diligence.

My family: Margie and Joel, Adam and Staci, for all the encouragement along the way. The elders: Bessie and Harry, Lil and Seymour, for sticking around to see it published. And Christine, my beautiful wife, for the love and support this book needed to exist.

I am also grateful to Diane Gurman, Allan Hardy, Robert Ramirez, and Kathryn Sears.

Boredom is the root of all evil, and it is this which must be kept at a distance. Idleness is not an evil, indeed one may say that every human being who lacks a sense for idleness proves that his consciousness has not yet been elevated to the humane.

KIERKEGAARD,
EITHER/OR

And they said every one to his fellow, Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us.

BOOK OF JONAH 1:7

Poppy's Valium Librium Empirin #4 fills the brim of an unblemished vial. His syringe, capped by a short plastic nipple, rests on a puff of white gauze. A flaccid rubber tube coils into the shape of a circular maze. All the items are meticulously arranged on a hospital tray whose stainless steel reflects the dim red glow of camera surveillance lights. My hands are suited with rubber gloves. My face is masked. My hair is shaved from my head and arms. I smell of a sweet coconut-scented antiseptic.

“The nights feel longer, Mr. Louse,” Poppy says as he wakes from a deep sleep.

“Yes, sir.”

“The days feel shorter.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Mr. Louse?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Which one is it?”

“It is night, Poppy.”

“The nights feel longer.”

“Yes, Poppy. They do.”

Poppy breathes shallow breaths as I place his tray onto the corner of the western night table and bend over his body to search for a point of entry. As I hover over him, his forehead thickens into wrinkled folds of flesh. Within them, the folds contain clusters of what look like shattered pearls. The icy fissures cascade into tufts of a long auburn beard, greasy and patched with streaks of lint-gray. The slick hair languidly folds over his lips and jowls in such a manner that it's very difficult to read any form of expression on his face. If his beard should silently jostle around, I often imagine various affectations and looks, as, say, when one imagines life bustling about under the gaseous surface of a distant planet. I might perceive, for instance, phantoms of irony or bitterness or despair, a silent request whose message I feel individually responsible for.

Any kind of bodily motion shakes the few remaining hairs straddling his scalp; they shake and twist like antennae homing in on coded frequencies, always followed by his voice, his commands, which are delivered with a steady and stiff timbre. His eyes hide in the shadows of thick beetle-brows and high cheek bones. When they are visible, they are distant and shy, veiling his dictates with numb appraisals.

“Try here,” he says, rolling over onto his stomach. With a looping brown finger nail, he points me down the shingled path of his body. My eyes travel the curves of the nail to his loin cloth. The elastic waist hugs the bones of his hips, which are distended and sharply angle into his legs. His skin is like moth-eaten velvet and shimmers like the phosphorescence of a crashed wave. I fear that a slip of the finger will puncture or bruise its cloudy sheen.

As I take hold of the back of his knee I begin humming the third movement of Mozart's “Requiem” in the key of D minor. I am
to hum this as I search for a point of entry. Poppy's few remaining open veins appear and disappear and reappear. When I find a thin streak of blue that I think might take the needle, his tendons stiffen and his muscles contract. I uncoil the tube and tie it around his leg. Taut. Very taut. He likes to lose all sensation. He likes the rush that results when I release the tension. According to his last memo, I am to
constrict whichever part of [his] body [I have] to in order to find the most functional vein.

The low moan of the chambers' ventilation system changes frequency as Poppy sighs from the back of his throat.

“Tighter, Mr. Louse.”

“Yes, Poppy.”

I tie the band tighter.

He coughs a little, and then, as instructed, I take hold of the syringe between my forefinger and middle finger. I remove the plastic nipple from the tip of the needle and place it on the tray. I push the plunger with my thumb, stick the needle in the vial, and pull the plunger back up. When the liquid fills to the proper measure, I tap away the remaining air bubbles inside the tube. I say, “I am ready, sir.” He doesn't say anything in response. Confirmation that I am ready is all he requires.

I am to rest my left forefinger at the point of entry. I am to insert the needle slowly so that he feels it enter. I am then to insert it as deeply as it will go. I place my left forefinger over an open lesion and slowly and deeply insert.

His leg spasms a little.

He sighs again.

I push the plunger down, but only halfway. I am to push the plunger halfway, then I am to pull back. This works to mix his blood
with the compound, which is heavy on codeine, light on aspirin, caffeine, phenacetin. I wait a moment longer. Then I push the new mixture into his vein. I remove the needle as slowly as I inserted it and delicately replace it on the tray. I remove the rubber band and recoil.

I stop humming.

Poppy's foot trails off to the edge of the bed. His chest falls into his pillows. He picks up on Mozart's melody from where I left off, humming a nasal hum.