Walker was dreaming he was a contestant on Let’s Make a Deal. The show was staged in the lobby of Mercy Hospital, and Monty Hall had just directed him to turn his attention to a row of doors marked 1, 2, and 3. He removed his oxygen mask and was asking about the prizes, when the voice of Jay Stewart boomed from the paging system in a tone of suppressed excitement.
“Behind one of these doors, Mr. Peter Walker, you’ll find…”
A curtain over the information desk swung back to reveal a jar in which floated a pinkish-white brain. One of its lobes was darkened with something that resembled tomato black rot. A clamor of ooohs and aaahs went up from the audience seated in the emergency waiting area.
Monty Hall held up a hand for silence as Jay Stewart continued. “Yes, Peter Walker of San Francisco, California, it’s the trip of a lifetime. An all-expense-paid cancer of the brain valued at three hundred thousand dollars in medical bills, one to two months of seizures, and nonstop excruciating pain!”
Walker shifted uneasily, not wanting to seem ungracious, but he really didn’t want a rotted brain.
“Or, Peter Walker, you could win…” Another curtain opened in front of the men’s room. “…an incredible course of cancer of the liver with metastasis to…everywhere! Value? Two hundred thousand dollars in medical expenses, and six months of being sicker than hell!”
Walker nodded uncertainly. It wasn’t much of an improvement over the brain cancer, but it was cheaper.
“Our final prize…”
Carol Merrill, attired in a low-cut nurse’s uniform, pranced into the lobby carrying a rhinestone-encrusted shoebox. A drum roll sounded from the men’s room.
“…is a FABULOUS…”
Jay Stewart’s voice rose and broke with the excitement. “CANCEROUS…”
Several nurses in the audience wrung their hands and sobbed.
“…MOLE on the right little toe! Valued at only fifteen thousand dollars in medical expenses, amputation of the digit, and special shoes for the rest of your life!”
Ripping off the cover of the box with dramatic flair, Carol Merrill pinched the puny, discolored digit between her forefinger and thumb and held it up for the spectators’ approval.
The audience went crazy, shouting and leaping out of their seats.
“This is your last chance, Peter Walker.” Jay Stewart was back in control, his voice taking on an edge of warning. “Is it door number one, two, or three? The choice is yours!”
No longer willing to have their responses ruled by cue cards, the audience wailed their encouragement. “Door one!” some of them screamed, brandishing their stethoscopes. “No! No!” the rest of them shouted, “It’s door number three!”
No one was yelling for door number two, he noticed. That was enough for him; the little toe was definitely behind door two. He opened his mouth to speak, when Monty Hall suddenly turned and dismissed him with an air of contempt. “I’m sorry, Mr. Walker, but your time has run—”
“Number two!” Walker shouted over him. “I want number two!”
Monty Hall turned to the audience wearing a ‘should-we-make-an-exception-just-this-once?’ expression.
Mass hysteria ruled the day.
Receiving the go-ahead from Monty, Carol hurried to the door marked by a gold-sequined ‘1’, pulled the knob and enthusiastically beckoned him to come and see what he’d chosen.
Herded forward by a bank of three television cameras, he desperately tried to explain that he wanted door number two. Number one was definitely not the toe.
Beyond the door was nothing more than an endless black void. Cautiously backing away, he felt someone rush up from behind and push him into the vortex.
As he fell through the dark, all he could think of was that by some horrible mistake he had been given the brain cancer and was rapidly losing his faculties. But then again, maybe the network had pre-planned this real-life tragedy, hoping to elicit thousands of sympathetic letters from the home viewers. Why else had he been the only contestant required to wear a hair shirt?
“Number two!” he yelled again, his lungs aching for more air. “I said NUMBER TWOOOO…”
“Do you have to go to the bathroom?”
Walker was sure the feminine voice belonged to Carol Merrill. She was going to tell him it had all been a hoax and he was actually going to receive the toe as a consolation prize for being such a good sport.
“I told you number two. Did I get the toe?” He was coming up through the mist.
“Do you have to pee or move your bowels? You were screaming ‘number two,’ and I never know which is which. Some people mean pee when they say number two, some mean the other. Which is it for you?”
He opened his eyes and looked into the face of a redheaded Carol Merrill.
The attractive face smiled down at him. “Hi. Remember me? I'm Cat, your nurse. Do you have to go to the bathroom, or were you having a nightmare?”
He wiped the sweat from his face with the corner of the bedsheet and blinked. “Nightmare,” he said, fighting for breath. He pulled himself up to face the woman he’d christened ‘Bigfoot’ on his last admission to the Dump. “I know you. You’re the one who told the X-ray lady to go back to hell.”
Cat recalled the incident. The witchy tech in X-ray had clicked off a chest film without telling anyone in the room she was going to shoot. It was a trick the X-ray techs at Mercy Hospital liked to pull. When Cat complained to the techs, they all used the standard rationalization that a little X-ray scatter never hurt anyone and that people got more radiation by crossing the street on a sunny day.
What they didn’t add was that the street they referred to was on Three Mile Island or Chernobyl.
When she pressed administration to enforce the safety policies or at least issue X-ray badges to the nurses for routine-level checks, she was told that any move made to correct the situation would not be cost effective.
“I remember,” Cat said. “She was the same tech who followed me to my car one day with the fluoroscope and threatened to zap my ovaries and my tires if I didn’t stop complaining. The ovaries I could live without, but I’d just bought four new whitewalls, so we’re all still getting zapped on a routine basis. Now, tell me about this nightmare of yours.”
Walker rubbed his eyes. “I was a contestant on Let’s Make a Deal. I picked door number two, where I could’ve traded in a pair of cancered-up lungs for a cancerous little toe.”
She noticed that his shoulders, which a year ago had been broad and muscular, were now shrunken, caving inward toward the rotting center of his body. To her trained eye, she knew that his time was limited. His labored breath and dusky coloring indicated Thursday night or Friday as departure time, but the part of his spirit that was visible said something was hanging him up and he wasn’t quite ready to go.
“Those are called wish dreams. I know them well.” She adjusted the oxygen flow dial on his mask, watching his expression closely. “If we could only make them come true, we’d all be able to fly, turn our in-laws into broccoli, or get rid of lung cancer on a bet.”
Walker stared out the window at the black billboard, until a coughing spasm shook his whole body. He used the muscles in his shoulders and abdomen to facilitate each breath.
She caught his eyes. “What’s bugging you—I mean besides the prognosis?”
He held her gaze for a moment, then turned his eyes toward his hands, which were busy twisting the top sheet. “Nothing. I’m fine.”
“And I'm Flash Gordon. Something is really bothering you—what is it?”
The directness of her was like a knife at his throat. He began to sweat, and the claws tearing at his lungs became a searing pain pulling at every fiber of his attention. “Get me some of that liquid morphine,” he choked. “I need it.” In his own pleading voice he heard the desperate voice of every wino who had ever come into his bar and begged for a drink. Horrified, he recalled the faces of the ones he’d turned down. Had they all known this fear?
When she returned with the liquid narcotic, he jerked himself into a sitting position and hastily drained the medicine cup. For a moment he was confused, not knowing what to do with the empty cup until she took it from him and he fell back into his pillow, exhausted.
“Are you ready for more, Walker?” she asked softly.
He looked up at her, puzzled. “What do you mean? I’m not supposed to have any more of that stuff for another three hours. Did the doc change the order?”
“What I’m asking is, are you ready for the big guns yet?”
His throat went dry, turning his voice to a whisper. “No! Uh- uhn. I’m fine.” He tried forcing a smile, which stumbled and died before it hit his mouth.
The mattress sagged under the weight of her body as she sat down on the bed next to him. He was glad for the nearness of her.
“Tell me what’s going on inside here.” She tapped his forehead.
“What?” The narcotic’s first wave washed over him, lifting him up, away from the place of fear. He stopped shaking and studied the curve of the woman’s waist. He wanted to crawl into her lap and caress her. Sadly he realized there was nothing even remotely sexual behind the thought.
“Is there anything you want to talk about?”
“No. Uh-uhn. Fine. I’m fine.”
“You seem frightened.”
The wave subsided, but stayed on in his chest, holding back the burning. He could feel drops of sweat running down his back in small streams.
“I’m fine.” He wished she would stop looking at him as if she could reach inside and pull his thoughts out into the open. “It’s just that sometimes I get this black hole kind of feeling and I can’t see what’s at the bottom. I’m afraid that if I let myself fall in, I’ll get stuck there forever, but be conscious the whole time, and it’ll be an eternity of nothingness. If that happens then I’ll…”
She tilted her head. “You’ll what?”
“I don’t know,” he croaked, starting to cry. Through the haze of his tears, he caught a glimpse of the billboard and shuddered. Instead of letters, there was a hideous bleeding red mouth opening wide. It wanted him. Its breath poured over him, sinking into his lungs, making the pain unbearable.
Closing his eyes against the mouth, Walker let himself fall into the open circle of the woman’s arms.