Chapter Three
You inherit from the dead, not from the sick.
(Congolese proverb)
I’ll be frank with you, I’m not too crazy about hospitals.
Wouldn’t you think, with what I do, what I’ve been doing for all these eons and more, I would get used to them?
Or maybe you wouldn’t, as you don’t know yet what exactly I do for a living.
Or a dying. Just wait a little longer; you’ll find out – unless, of course, you already reckon life’s too short.
And even more pathetic.
“Arnie?… Arnie!”
After a few moments – pretty painful moments for poor Cleo Cleaves, who is bending solicitously over him – Arnie Garth blinks his confused and bleary eyes and starts to look around.
“Am I paying for this set?” he asks weakly, which is not so surprising considering Cleo is still in the nurse’s uniform she was wearing for Bulge Entertainment’s most recently interrupted production, Fay’s Anatomy, attire that doesn’t look so much like anything the other nurses in this fancy hospital might be wearing, unless there has been an unfortunate laundry incident or a highly unexpected communal growth spurt.
“You’re in the hospital, Arnie,” explains Cleo. “A real hospital. You had a stroke. And a double heart attack. At exactly the same time. Which is quite rare – the doctors were pretty excited.” She finds that she can hardly talk through her tears. “I thought you were going to die!”
With this, she clasps the prone man and pulls his balding head towards her, through all the wires and tubes, in a huge emotional hug, looking for a moment as if she has suddenly sprouted a third breast.
In a muffled voice, the ailing man, struggling for a pocket of air amidst the quivering flesh, manages to mutter, “Don’t worry. If I die, you get to keep your apartment.”
Cleo pushes him back angrily, rattling his life supports. “I don’t care about the frigging apartment, Arnie. I was just being nice. Can’t you be nice, just this once?”
“Hey!” protests the man, his voice feeble yet insistent. “I didn’t get where I am today by being nice!”
“You’re in intensive care, Arnie.”
Arnie has nothing much to say to this, so he is not literally being interrupted when the room doors swing open and another, even more statuesque woman strides purposefully in, classic Louboutin heels clacking on the boarded floor.
Yet this particular person would classify as an interruption at the best – or worst – of times.
And the fact that she is flanked by two almost identical-looking young men in expensive suits and haircuts, clutching briefcases, doesn’t make her arrival any less of an intrusion.
The woman is of an indeterminate age and at first glance would appear to be of Asian origin – Chinese, perhaps, or Korean – although unusually tall.
A second glance would correct the first impression, as you might just begin to realise that the perfect smoothness of her skin and distinctive tilt of her eyes is more attributable to surgery than heritage.
Indeed, the old joke in her industry is that the cleft in her chin was once her navel.
The dazzlingly blonde hair and gargantuan chest would further indicate that nature, rather than being allowed to take its course, has been given all the assistance money can buy. Much of it Arnie’s, as it turns out.
“You’re not dead,” observes the woman, in a throaty, mid-Western drawl.
“Nice to see you too, honey,” confirms Arnie. “Who are your friends?”
“Not friends. Too straight for friends. Lawyers.”
“Lawyers?”
The men nod. One of them is on the cusp of talking but sees his client’s terrifying, bruised-plum lips begin to open and thinks better of it.
“Divorce lawyers, at first,” continues the woman. “But now they’re estate attorneys. I called a deathbed vigil to discuss the will. How are you feeling?”
“I’ll live, Melisande,” says Arnie, defiantly.
“Shit!” She turns slowly to her lawyers, which makes them think of a huge liner attempting to change direction. “No deathbed, guys. We’re back to the divorce. Go away – but not too far. Could be a false alarm.”
The lawyers withdraw gratefully to the relative safety of the hospital corridor. Cleo tries to stand tall in her fake nursing shoes and turns to the visitor.
“Melisande! The guy just had a stroke. And two heart attacks. All at once. You could at least pretend to look upset.”
“Can’t. The Botox won’t let me.” To the newcomer’s credit, she gives it a good go, but nothing moves. “See? Now, why don’t you hitch up your little nurse’s outfit, not that it could take a lot more hitching, and scram. Porn star mistresses have no visitation rights in California.”
Cleo shrugs, whatever, and heads sadly for the door. But she knows that she can’t leave her producer and lover to this heartless gorgon without one final, gently reassuring word.
“Call me, babe. If you recover.”
Throwing the prone and now uncontrollably shaking patient a deeply caring smile – because this is a very sweet and, in her own singular way, rather innocent girl – Cleo carefully manages to manoeuvre past Melisande, without one of those unfortunate bosom collisions so prevalent in their industry.
She is hampered in this endeavour, however, by the advent of a real nurse, popping in to see how her patient is doing.
On seeing the departing young woman moulded into a tighter and highly abbreviated version of the outfit she herself is wearing, the middle-aged, African-American healthcare worker gives a double take of which any silent comedian could be truly proud.
“Pardon me,” apologises Cleo, leaving the nurse to deal with the marital discord.
She, however, is more concerned with attending to the sick man on the bed and checking his blood pressure and IVs.
She chooses to ignore the domestic venom being hurled in both directions, as she can get as much of this as she needs at home.
“I moved outta the house, but it’s only temporary,” explains Melisande, “until I get it back in the settlement.”
“Why are you divorcing me?” asks Arnie, which causes even his nurse to raise her eyebrows. “Thought we had a good thing going. You go your way. I go mine. We file joint returns.”
“I’ve fallen in love with my boyfriend,” says Melisande.
“LOVE?” exclaims Arnie, at some volume and with a degree of saliva expulsion that makes both his wife and his nurse recoil.
“What is wrong with you?” He enlists the poor medical attendant into his diatribe.
“Can you believe this, sweetheart? I know you wouldn’t think it now, with more structural work to her name than the Statue of Liberty, but in her prime, this woman was God’s gift to erotica aficionados in fifty states and Canada.
She won the National Erotic Cinema Award for Best Three-Way four years running. Now she says she has found true love!”
“A life to be envied,” says the nurse, checking his oxygen levels.
“Yeah. Right. I know from love, Sister. Love is for wimps.”
“Okay, I was hoping we could do this painlessly,” persists Melisande. “A simple service. Snappy cremation. Tear-free mascara and a short probate. But I see that’s not in the cards. Although…” She turns to the nurse. “What’s the hospital’s policy on pulling the plug?”
“Fine,” says Arnie, gathering strength before the nurse can respond. “You wanna battle? You got it! I will skin you alive. I will leave you poverty-stricken and hopeless, like you were when I picked you up outta the gutter. I’ll… melt your silicone!”
His brows begin to knit as he winces in obvious pain. The nurse appears concerned, but Melisande just goads him along.
“Dream on, pornmeister. Good, good. Tell me more!”
“Begging for your next meal, selling that pathetic re-tread of a body to whoever has the small change to pay for it and eyesight bad enough to enjoy it.”
“Arnie. Bubeleh,” she says, sweetly. “You don’t have the balls.”
“No? Ask Cleo. I got botchie balls.” He nods towards the nurse. “Ask this lady. I got balls you could bowl with. I got balls so big that—” He suddenly falls back onto the bed, groaning and quivering, his eyes firmly closed. The nurse rushes towards him.
“Is he dead?” asks Melisande, solicitously. “Tell me quick. I can still catch the lawyers.”
The nurse checks Arnie’s pulse then nods sadly. “He’s dead.”
Melisande pumps her fists, then notices that the nurse is checking again.
“No, wait. Yes. He still has a pulse. It’s a miracle.”
“Well, praise the fucking Lord!”
“Ma’am, please watch your mouth. Mr Garth shouldn’t be disturbed. He’s had a life-threatening event.”
“Not life-threatening enough. Call yourself a carer?” Melisande makes for the door. “This ain’t over until the short, balding pornographer croaks!”
As the door closes, the relieved nurse makes a final check, then gently raises the sheet and looks downwards.
Arnie’s eyes pop open. “What?”
“Just checking for… bedsores.”
“Go away.”
As the exasperated woman stomps off, Arnie sighs and slowly covers his face with the sheet.
And this is where I come in.
Not that I haven’t been here all the time. Perish the thought. I’m kind of what you might call quietly ubiquitous. But this time I get a speaking part.
“Things not looking so rosy on the longevity front, huh brother?” I say, by way of an icebreaker.
Very slowly, Arnie lowers the sheet. What he sees, sitting casually on that chair right next to his hospital bed, is an incredibly handsome and impossibly muscular young man, with dark wavy locks, a gleaming Mediterranean tan and the brazen look of a Greek god.
Or, to put it another way, an absolutely premium blend of Gregory Peck, Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt.
I’m lying, I’m lying!