The Marriage Plot - Jeffrey Eugenides [124]
In his bedroom, he got down his medical books, trying to figure out what was wrong with him. He’d bought an entire set at a garage sale, six huge color-illustrated textbooks with deliciously gruesome titles: Atlas of Diseases of the Kidney, Atlas of Diseases of the Brain, Atlas of Diseases of the Skin, and so on. The medical books were what first got Leonard interested in biology. The photographs of anonymous sufferers exerted a morbid attraction for him. He liked to show particularly gross pictures to Janet to make her scream. Atlas of Diseases of the Skin was best for that.
Even with the lights on in his bedroom, Leonard couldn’t see that well. He had the feeling that there was something physically behind his eyes, blocking the light. In Atlas of Diseases of the Endocrine System he came across something called a pituitary adenoma. This was a tumor, typically small, that formed in the pituitary gland, often pressing on the optic nerve. It caused blindness and altered pituitary function. This led, in turn, to “low blood pressure, fatigue, and the inability to handle difficult or stressful situations.” Too much pituitary function and you became a giant, too little and you were a nervous wreck. As impossible as it sounded, Leonard seemed to be suffering both states at once.
He closed the book and collapsed on his bed. He felt as if he were being violently emptied out, as if a big magnet were pulling his blood and fluids down into the earth. He was weeping again, unstoppably, his head like the chandelier in his grandparents’ house in Buffalo, the one that was too high for them to reach and that every time he visited had one fewer bulb alight. His head was an old chandelier, going dark.
When Rita returned home that evening to find Leonard, fully dressed, in bed, she told him to get ready for dinner. When he said he wasn’t hungry she set one less place at the table. She didn’t go into his room again that night.
From his first-floor bedroom, Leonard could hear his mother and sister discussing him as they ate. Janet, not usually his supporter, asked what was wrong with him. Rita said, “Nothing. He’s just lazy.” He heard them doing the dishes, Janet going into her room after dinner and talking on the telephone.
The next morning, Rita sent Janet in to check on him. She came to the edge of his bed.
“What’s the matter with you?”
Even this little show of sympathy made Leonard want to burst into tears again. He had to struggle not to, covering his face with one arm.
“Are you faking?” Janet whispered.
“No,” he managed to get out.
“It smells in here.”
“Then leave,” Leonard said, even though he wanted her to stay, wanted more than anything for his sister to crawl in beside him like she used to do when they were little.
He heard Janet’s footsteps cross the room and go down the hall. He heard her say, “Mom, I think he’s really sick.”
“Probably he has a test he didn’t study for,” Rita said, cackling mirthlessly.
Soon they left and the house was quiet.
Leonard lay under blankets, entombed. The bad smell Janet had detected was his body rotting. His back and face were covered with zits. He needed to get up and wash himself with pHisoderm but he didn’t have the energy.
In the corner of his room was his old table hockey set, the Bruins against the Blackhawks. As a twelve-year-old Leonard had mastered the skills required to beat his older sister and all his friends. He insisted on always being the Bruins. He’d made up names for each player, one Italian, one Irish, one American Indian, and one French Canadian. He’d kept stats on each player in a notebook reserved for that purpose, with a drawing of a hockey stick and a flaming puck on the front. As he played the game, sliding the metal rods to move the players around the ice and flicking the knobs to shoot, Leonard gave a running commentary. “DiMaglio takes the puck off the glass. He passes it to McCormick. McCormick