Choke

Every little breeze seems to whisper squamouscarcinoma.

Birds in the trees seem to twitter histoplasmosis.

Everybody you see naked, you see as a patient. A dancer could have clear lovely eyes and hard brown nipples, but if her breath is bad she has leukemia. A dancer might have thick, long, clean-looking hair, but if she scratches her scalp, she has Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Page by page, De

"Losing your sense of taste," I tell De

And without looking at me, looking back and forth between his sketch and the new dancer, De

Even if my mom died, I'm not sure if I'd want to go back and get readmitted before my credits start to expire. As it is, I already know way more than I'm comfortable with.

After you find out all the things that can go wrong, your life becomes less about living and more about waiting. For cancer. For dementia. Every look in a mirror, you scan for the red rash that means shingles. See also: Ringworm.

See also: Scabies

See also: Lyme disease, meningitis, rheumatic fever, syphilis.

The next patient who presents herself is another blonde, thin, maybe a little too thin. A spinal tumor probably. If she has a headache, a low fever, a sore throat, she has polio.

"Go like this," De

The patient does this.

"Beautiful," De

And she does.

"Dude," he says. "Workshop models are never this hot."

All I can see is she's not a very good dancer and, for sure, this lack of coordination means amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

See also: Lou Gehrig's disease.

See also: Total paralysis. See also: Difficulty breathing. See also: Cramps, tiredness, crying.

See also: Death.

With the edge of his hand, De

"You got any cash left over, dude?" De

But I'm broke, and the girl moves on to the next guy down along the stage.

"Let's see, Picasso," I tell him.

And De

"Dude," I say, "you made her look too young."

The next patient is Cherry Daiquiri again, coming back around, not smiling this time, sucking hard on the inside of one cheek and asking me, "This mole I have? You sure it's cancer? I mean, I don't know, but how scared should I be . . . ?"

Without looking at her, I hold up one finger. This is interna­tional sign language for Please wait. The doctor will see you shortly.

"No way are her ankles that thin," I tell De

I lean over to see what De

The downstage dancer gives me a filthy look.

De

"Dude," I say. "You know, you're not a very good artist."

I say, "For serious, dude, I don't see that at all."

De

To Cherry crouching there in front of us, I say, "If you're really serious about saving your life, I'm going to have to talk to you someplace private."

"No, not dictionary," De

And Cherry dangles one leg over the edge and starts climbing down off the stage.

I ask him, what's in my mom's diary?

And drawing his little pictures, seeing the impossible, De

Chapter 17

At St. Anthony's, the front desk girl yawns behind her hand, and when I ask if maybe she wants to go get a cup of coffee, then she looks at me sideways and says, "Not with you."

And really, I'm not hitting on her. I'll watch her desk long enough for her to go get some coffee. This isn't a come-on.

Really.

I say, "Your eyes look tired."

All she does all day is sign a few people in and out. She watches the video monitor that shows the insides of St. Anthony's, each corridor, the dayroom, the dining room, the gar­den, the screen switching from one to the next every ten seconds. The screen grainy, black-and-white. On the monitor, the dining room shows for ten seconds, empty with all the chairs upside down on each table, their chrome legs in the air. A long corridor appears for the next ten seconds with somebody heaped on a bench against one wall.

Then for the next ten furry black-and-white seconds, there's Paige Marshall pushing my mom in a wheelchair down some other long corridor.

The front desk girl says, "I'll only be gone a minute."

Next to the video monitor is an old speaker. Covered in nubby sofa mohair is this old radio kind of speaker with a dial switch surrounded by numbers. Each number is some room in St. Anthony's. On the desk is a microphone you can use to make a

And for just a moment, my mom's voice comes from the speaker, saying, "I've defined myself, all my life, by what I was against..."

The girl switches the intercom dial to nine, and now you can hear Spanish radio and the clatter of metal pans back in the kitchen, back where the coffee is.

I tell the girl, "Take your time." And, "I'm not the monster you maybe heard from some of the bitter, angry types around here."

Even with me being so nice, she puts her purse in her desk and locks it. She says, "This won't take me more than a couple minutes. Okay?"

Okay.

Then she's gone through the security doors, and I'm sitting behind her desk. Watching the monitor: the dayroom, the garden, some corridor, each for ten seconds. Watching for Paige Marshall. With one hand, I'm dial-switching from number to number, listening in each room for Dr. Marshall. For my mom. In black-and-white, almost live.