Horace Afoot (13 page)

The detective’s visit has settled somewhere near the back of my mind. Discovering that I was once William Blake has aroused his suspicion.
How sweet I roam’d from field to field and tasted all the summer’s pride
…. It will be amusing when he realizes how irrelevant the discovery is. What do things look like to him? I wonder. The world as puzzle—traces that lead to traces, clues to clues, where everything that doesn’t fit must contradict. Telling him I shed William Blake because I was tired of being William Blake will not satisfy him. People don’t just shed names like that, he’d say. And people like me don’t live in shabby, run-down houses in out-of-the-way places like this, either. Not unless there’s a reason; there has to be a reason. And he’ll always be on the lookout for it. I should feel sorry for him. Paranoia is the outcome of vigilance.

I might have spared myself this attention had I not tried to help Jane Doe. There’s an argument for
autarkeia:
the serenity of not caring. Peace and quiet. I aspire to a state of complete detachment but find myself tugged back again and again by circumstances, conventions, and a weakness for wanting to
be
good, which, like a weakness for wine, only
requires a desire to
feel
good. Futile inoculations all. I close my eyes and imagine myself running across the yard flapping my arms, lifting off, soaring on gusts of wind, crashing down, and lifting off again.

When I open my eyes the afternoon has slipped on. The sun has moved, leaving me in the lip of shade cast by the tall stand of trees at the edge of the woods. The clothes on the line are dry. As I gather them, the reddened skin on my chest and arms and face stings, feels cracked.

I carry the bundle of clothes upstairs, drop it on the bed, and begin to fold. The cloth feels rough and warm. I fold with deliberate, pared-down movements: right arm over left, pants legs smooth, one half fold, half again, press flat.

When the clothes are folded I make the bed. The little room is suffused with freshness and calm. I stand in the doorway and look into it as if through a lens: bed along the wall with telephone and
Selected Philosophical Essays
tucked underneath, mattress slightly sagging; a small round carpet, colors faded; a small table I found at some curb, dragged home, and cleaned up, which now it looks expensive and antique; the double-sashed windows through which the sun is slanting so that the whole room has the humble atmosphere of still life, a spirit of place, like van Gogh’s room at Aries—or Boethius’s prison cell.

The just-so feeling inspires me to go downstairs, put some rice and beans on, and open a bottle of wine. The pots boil, and the afternoon fades to early evening. I sit at the kitchen table, mesmerized by a glowing sense of calm.

The bottle empties. My silent lucubrations give way to alarm. I get up. Pace from room to room. Wine and sunburn combine into feverish restlessness. I go upstairs, look in the mirror. My face and chest are crimson, the skin hot to the touch. My tongue is red, my teeth are red, stained with wine. My whole being is stained, florid and flushed, red and toxic.

I lie uncovered on my newly made bed, too sore for the weight of even a single sheet. In the morning my chest, legs, face, and arms are aflame, swollen with blisters. In the mirror I look like a napalm victim. My lips are whitish, eyelids so swollen I have to tilt my head to see in the mirror. I drink glass after glass of water. It trickles down my chin and
chest and belly with flaming cold, seeps into the marsh of pubis, the only unburned part of me. It seems to belong to another body.

The walk to the hospital should take only half an hour. This calculation happens without forethought. I go into the bedroom and sit gingerly on the edge of the bed, rip apart the seam of my shorts, and manage to slip them on, feeling made from cracked plaster. The hospital gown I wore home the other day hangs on the back of the door. I slip it on, leaving it open at the front.

It is dawn, soft light and loud chirping high in the trees. I make my way up the front path to the street, walking like some ghoul from the movies: joints rigid, fingers splayed. A few yards up the street I turn back and return to the house, feeling ridiculous, swearing at myself as I go. Goddamnit. Goddamnit. Goddamnit.

The telephone is under the bed.

“Memorial Hospital.”

“Are there any doctors there who will make a house call?”

“You’ll have to come to the emergency room to see a doctor, sir.”

“I can’t get there. Is there someone who could come to my house?”

“I’m afraid not. Do you need an ambulance?”

“No. Just a doctor.”

“Have you been injured?”

“Sort of, yes. I’m sunburned.”

A pause. “You’d better come in if it’s that bad, sir. Do you need an ambulance?”

I hang up. The thought of being carted off makes me feel even more stupid. I go to the bathroom sink for more water, remembering that burns and dehydration go together. Between mouthfuls I consider the prospects. Drink plenty of water. Lie in bed. Try to sleep.

Hours pass. I lurch back and forth from the crisp white sheets of the bed to the faucet in the bathroom.
Selected Philosophical Essays
is no diversion at all. I try to muster all the indifference I am capable of. It seems the only given left to me.

The telephone rings, jarring me up. I reach under the bed and answer on the second ring.

“Hello?” Mohr’s voice is unmistakable.

“Yes?”

“Quintus Horatius Flaccus?”

“Hello, Mr. Mohr. How did you get my number?”

A pause. “From the form you filled out at the library.”

“Oh, right.”

“You don’t mind me calling, do you?”

“No.” I try to sit up but can’t do it without bending at the waist. A painful maneuver. “I’m just a little surprised. Nobody has ever called me here.”

“I am honored to be the first.” He laughs at his sarcasm. “I was calling, firstly, to say thank you. I enjoyed myself the other evening. Especially the wine.”

“I’m glad.” I say this with enough of a monotone to let him know that he needn’t continue.

“But that’s not why I’m calling.”

“No?”

“I wanted to tell you that I have just received a letter from Dr. Palmer. A funny coincidence, don’t you think?”

“Who?”

“Don’t you remember? The archaeologist I told you about? The one who inquired about the pipe collection?”

“Oh yes. The mound. I’d forgotten all about it.” I sit up. The ruse of an old librarian. To become more interested in your research than you yourself are.

“She writes that she has located the Wilkington pipe collection.”

I had been right in the beginning. The man does lack all intuitive sense. Either that, or he has calculated that taking an interest in my interest will result in further contact between us. I listen as he tells me about the professor’s efforts to locate the collection. He speaks as though the information will settle all questions that may be plaguing me. “It happens that the collection is for sale. The university is going to purchase it, and they want the Wilkington papers too.”

“Can you sell them?”

“You haven’t been listening,” Mohr says with a
tsk tsk
.

“I have a small problem.”

“Yes. You do,” he cuts in with a new, familiar tone in his voice. I realize that this isn’t a calculation, it is an act of friendship. I lie back down, resting the receiver between my ear and the pillow. “I was thinking that perhaps you would like to help me.”

“Help you? With what?”

“Microfilming the Wilkington Archive.”

“Microfilming?”

“It’s complicated, legally. The papers can’t be sold, so the university is going to pay to have them microfilmed. I was thinking that perhaps you would like to help me. There’s a lot to be done before they can be filmed.”

A pause. The intensity of light coming into the room has started to bother me. But drawing the shade would plunge the room into darkness and cut off the circulation of air. I can have light and air or darkness and no circulation. Mohr continues talking. “Of course you would be paid for the work.” The voice seems distant. The receiver is wedged into the pillow, and my ear has slipped away from it. “Mrs. Entwhistle is too busy, and the job is too much for me to do all alone.”

“Mr. Mohr.”

“Yes?”

I take the telephone and press it to my ear, propping myself up on one elbow. “Would you take me to the hospital?”

“Good Lord. What is wrong?”

“I’m burned.”

“My God. What happened? Never mind. I’ll be right. Over.”

I lie flat and look straight up at the ceiling. Mastering pain means learning to accept it, but in spite of my best efforts, the searing won’t go away.
Autarkeia
is not a theory. It is a state. With help on the way, I manage to have proven that much. As much as I would like to, I have no tolerance for pain because I have no attention span and can’t bend my mind away from myself. I’m too narcissistic and have no real experience of pain and don’t know how much worse it could be. And I am greedy for sympathy. At any rate, there is a vast difference between lying in pain and waiting for help. Strangely, with help now on the way, I want to feel
worse
. It occurs to me that I am not burned enough.

Should I go downstairs and be ready when he arrives? Or should I let him find me lying here? A peculiar sense of Samaritanism makes me think that I should let him come upon me. Give him the satisfaction of a rescue. A man on death’s doorstep, coming to the aid of otherwise hale and healthy me. It seems cruel to ask his help, but it also has the small ring of heroism to it. In a way, I’m doing him a favor.

His car pulls up outside. Doors open and close. He knocks at the front door before opening it.

“Up here,” I call out.

“My God, what have you done to yourself?” Mohr stops short in the doorway, then moves in for a closer look. “You look absolutely. Roasted.”

“I fell asleep outside.” I swing my legs over, and Mohr extends his hand to help me up. “I can manage,” I tell him and get to my feet without his help, which I suspect could topple him.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he says.

My chest, abdomen, and thighs are one soft, liquid blister, interrupted at the waist by my shorts. I touch fingertips to forehead and feel the same softness there.

“Can you walk?”

“It’s hard to bend my knees. The skin feels like it will crack.” I stand, dizzy from the effort, and maneuver stiffly past him.

“Go slowly.”

“I have no choice.”

At the car, Mohr opens the door and winces in sympathy as I slowly fold myself into the front seat. We drive with the windows rolled up and the air vents closed. Any direct circulation hurts. Mohr rambles on about the difference between first- and second- and third-degree burns and goes over all the possible names for my condition with an almost prurient delight. Solar-mediated affliction. Sunburn. Sunstroke. Sun poisoning. At the emergency entrance he opens my door and goes inside to find an orderly. I get to the registration desk on my own and recognize the man behind it. He shows no sign of recognizing me, which gives me small satisfaction.

I am taken to an examination room and told to wait. A few minutes later a nurse appears and asks a few yes-or-no questions. She slides a
thermometer into my mouth, jots some notes on her clipboard, and in a modestly conciliatory tone says a doctor will be in to see me shortly. She leaves without removing the thermometer.

I sit at the edge of the table and wait. The antiseptic smell, the extra-wide wooden door with a levered handle, the gleaming porcelain sink, the soap dispenser, scale, blood-pressure unit, poster from a drug company, everything nailed and tiled and stripped down to essentials. The austerity is appealing.

The doctor arrives. He is young and overweight with a scrubbed, pasty-white sheen that looks ghostly under the fluorescent light and comic in contrast to my crimson.

“Looks like someone forgot the sunblock,” he says with perfunctory cheer, slips the thermometer from my lips, and reads it. “Slight fever,” he remarks, shaking the glass stick and dropping it into a plastic tray next to the table. He tells me to take off the hospital gown, presses the skin on my thighs and chest, evaluates the blisters, jots notes as he goes along. “How long were you out there?” He stands back and puts one hand into his lab-coat pocket.

“All day. I fell asleep.”

“Any dizziness? Nausea?”

“Earlier. Not so much now.”

“Have you been drinking fluids?”

“Water.”

“Good. Keep it up.” He makes some notes. “I’m going to give you something to reduce the swelling. Prednisone, a steroid. It’ll help reduce the pain too.” He writes out a prescription and hands it to me. “You have a serious burn, and it will take several days to stabilize. In a few days the skin will begin to peel.”

“I feel like I’m going to split open.”

He wags his finger. “Don’t use any local anesthetic sprays or creams.”

“Why not?”

“False sense of security. The skin will be very tender for the next few days. When you’re numb you won’t know if you’ve hurt yourself, and you want the skin to heal, right? The pills will help with the pain. You’ll be fine in a couple of days.” He extends a hand and we shake.

“Do you know Dr. Henley?” I ask on a sudden impulse.

The doctor pauses at the door. “Henley?”

“She’s a psychiatrist. I think she has an office here.”

“Yes. Loretta Henley. Ask at the desk. They’ll tell you where her office is.”

I slide off the examination table, realizing as my feet hit the floor that I’m without shoes.

Dr. Henley is leaving her office when I arrive on the third floor with Mohr in tow. She seems startled. “My goodness. What happened to you?”

“I fell asleep in the sun yesterday.”

“Has someone looked at you yet?”

I tell her I was just looked at, but her attention seems distracted by Mohr, who is standing inconspicuously just behind me. The institutional glow of the hospital corridor emphasizes his sickly pallor. Henley is trying and failing to recognize him, and Mohr is embarrassed by the attention. “This is Mr. Mohr. He drove me here.”