Patient Women (Novel)

Out of the blackout Nora hears a voice: Don't die baby don't die baby don't die baby don't die ....

Eyes rolling, head thrashing, her back arched on the gurney, Nora's scream rips out: Get  the fucking needles out of my mouth ....

What are they doing? They are pumping her stomach they are giving her charcoal she is hooked to an I.V. again...

Which flight deck which tank St. Joseph's. St. Francis St. John's ... Oh Mother of God she's conscious she's conscious she's still alive ....

Nora was never late; she either came on time or didn't come at all. Her lover drinks a scotch he doesn't want and waits for Nora to come, Nora who is never late. From the window, he watches a young couple kiss; they are seventeen, perhaps eighteen years old. He turns away, suddenly uncomfortable, and starts calling hospitals.

Her lover finds Nora in St. Luke's. She is pissy and her face is swollen. She recognizes him. She smiles, then grimaces.

"Make them take it out of my mouth," she whispers. "Please. Please. Make him take it out of my mouth."

"They're pumping your stomach," her lover tells her, crying, "Giving you blood."

Nora's voice rises and carries down the white halls: "That's the last damn thing we need around here, new blood."

She tries to laugh but whimpers instead, then whispers, so softly that even her lover, his earnest crying face pressed close to her cheek, cannot hear her:

"I'm choking ... Doesn't he know? Make him take it out of my mouth ...."

Finished, the trick asks Nora the usual questions:

"How long have you ...?"

Nora sits on the bed and crosses her legs. "Been doing this?" she asks.

The trick nods, eager.

Eight months. Yesterday till three. Today I've been here for eleven hours. I had conjunctivitis last week and couldn't work. I had gonorrhea in October; I worked till Billy got it, too. I'll be here tomorrow and Thursday and Friday and Saturday. I'll probably be here Sunday, too.

Nora smiles at the trick. How long have I been doing this? Let me see now ...."

Nora walks through Riverside Park. Drivers curse her as she walks in front of the cars to cross the highway. She sits at the water's edge, feet dangling in the Hudson. It is drizzling; the sky is pink and brown.

Across the river, billboards and Jersey factories light up. A Jersey boy drowned in the river the last time she sat here. Nora remembered vaguely: she bought the bottle of scotch, and dragged him out of his dormitory. He didn't want to come, had to study, he said, but finally, in a moment of abandon, surrendered.

They crossed the highway and sat on the rocks by the side of the Hudson, the George Washington Bridge in the distance. Nora told him that she was depressed; the Jersey boy said he liked her that way. They drank to that, and to the dismal twilight.

After that, the blackout: like a curtain dropping, Nora remembered nothing. She came to on the grass, flat on her back, wet. Stumbling to her feet, she whispered 'Matthew' into the deep night, and ran from the park to the city streets. Somehow, she convinced a cab driver to take her to Queens. Mrs. Nader answered the door, paid for the cab and put her to bed without asking.

For three days, Nora prayed and hoped against hope that he had run away, left the city, gone cross country, was even now heading to the home of a relative or a friend.

Nora spent three days with the detectives from the 26th Precinct before his body came up near the 14th Street pier, looking for a bottle of scotch on the rocks..