10

Jerry was eating breakfast and talking to the man in the opposite bed when Lida came in.

“Hey!” he said when he saw her, stopping mid-sentence and drawing the curtain between the two beds. He pushed the tray away and got back under the sheet.

She began to clear the magazines from the bedside chair.

“No,” he said, taking her hand. “Come here.” He laid her fingers over his erection. She pulled back, gesturing toward the curtain. “He’ll be gone tomorrow,” he whispered.

“What about your heart?” He was there for his heart. He was scheduled to have open-heart surgery.

“It’s okay, really, come on.” He pushed her head down toward his penis, pulling the sheet back. “Please, Lida, it’s okay.” He had a tube in his leg just below his testicles, and a gauze patch over it which reeked of iodine.

“I’m afraid,” she said. “I’m afraid you’ll die.”

“Please,” he repeated, sounding desperate.

He laughed afterward, showing her the little machine strapped to his body. “It monitors my heartbeat,” he said. “They’re probably going crazy back there.”

He was operated on two days later, then spent five days in intensive care. On the sixth day, he was back in his room.

When she walked in, he was standing in front of the small sink in the room. He had a new roommate now, a bulky black man, and he introduced Lida to him. Then he pulled the curtain that ringed the sink.

He was wearing white support hose and a hospital gown. And Sperry Top-siders. He looked silly.

“You need a garter belt,” she told him.

He lifted the gown and pointed his erection at her, laughing. She was mesmerized by the long row of stitches that ran up his thigh and into his groin. “I can walk up the hall now,” he said, grabbing a bathrobe.

They stopped by a row of television sets. “I’ll show you my heartbeat,” he said, pointing at one of the sets. “That one, fourth row down.”

“Yours doesn’t look like the others.”

“That’s what you do to me.” He laughed, and so did the orderly who was monitoring the sets.

He guided her across the hall. It was a lounge, empty at this hour. They sat on a vinyl sofa and he kissed her. “We,” he said, “are going to have a problem with that door.”

“What do you mean?”

“It doesn’t lock.” He began scanning the room, his eyes serious and calculating. He got up and walked over to a table. Someone had been sitting there working on a jigsaw puzzle. He pulled the chair into a corner of the room. “Push that door shut,” he directed her.

She did, then went over to the window, yanking on the drapery cord. “This is insane,” she said, wondering at her participation. “If I’m ushered from this hospital in disgrace, I’ll never forgive you.”

He sat on the chair and positioned her over him. “Why aren’t you wearing any underwear?” He laughed.

He came almost as soon as he entered her. “Screw you,” Lida said. “Next time it’s my turn.” He got up and wiped his penis against his robe. He started toward the door.

“Oh, please”—she touched his arm—“please, let’s stay and talk.”

“I’m bushed.” He made a tired face. “You really wiped me out.” He put his arm around her. “Come on. I’ve got to get back to bed.”

“Talk to me,” she demanded.

“I can’t talk. I’ve got to get to bed. You are some kind of tranquilizer.” He grabbed her hand and held it, closing his eyes.

“I’ll go,” she said, disengaging her fingers and wishing he’d object.

“Can you come on Friday?”

She fairly flew into the room and stopped short. There was another man in the bed. “Where is Jerry?” she demanded of the black man to whom she had been introduced.

“He went home yesterday.” The man laughed.

Lida began crying and didn’t stop until she was home.

Later, Jerry called. “You didn’t go to the hospital this morning, did you?”

“Yes,” Lida said evenly, “I did.”

He gave a half-laugh. “I came home yesterday,” he said.

“I discovered that.” Her voice was still hard, but the bridge of her nose ached with holding back her tears.

He was silent. Then he said, “I just didn’t have a chance to call you until now. I mean, I couldn’t call you.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m at home.”

She strained to hear the sounds behind him. “How is it that you’re calling now?”

“They went out,” he said. “Well, some of them went out.”

She began crying. “Talk to me. I feel so terrible.”

He sounded nervous. “I can’t really do that right now. You know, little pitchers?”

“Will you call me?” she pleaded.

“Yes.”

“Soon?”

“Yes.”

She let him hang up. But two weeks later, he still hadn’t called.

“Except for the ending,” she told Diana, “it makes a rollicking good story.” Lida made her voice big, in imitation of Jerry’s. “Queen of the Coronary Corridor!”

But Diana was serious. “You really ought to get over this,” she said. “He just turned out to be a bastard.”

Another bastard. “I know that,” Lida said, “but knowing doesn’t help. I just feel so fucking stupid.”

“Why should you feel stupid? The guy is a jerk. He deserves Lucille.”

“Nice try, Diana, but I behaved like a jerk. I let Jerry Felton turn me into some kind of circus act. And don’t you see? The fact that it’s Lucille makes it worse?”