Wonder Boys - Michael Chabon [139]
“How long have you been smoking marijuana, Grady?”
“Awhile,” I said.
“How long?”
“Spiro T. Agnew was our vice president, I believe.”
“That’s probably not the problem, then. Any major changes in your lifestyle over the last month?”
“One or two.” Immediately I thought of Wonder Boys. It was almost exactly one month since I’d begun my ill-advised attempt to slap an ending onto it. Thinking it over, I saw that the spells had increased in both frequency and intensity as the effort went awry and Crabtree’s arrival drew near. “I haven’t been eating as much. I’ve been drinking a lot the past couple of days, which isn’t good for me, I know.”
“And your wife left you.”
I sat back down on the edge of the bed. My blue paper dress crinkled loudly.
“Is that in my chart?” I said.
“I spoke with the woman who saved your life,” he said, his voice flat and free from melodrama, as though everyone had such a woman, or knew, at the very least, where one could be hired.
“Uh huh.” I touched my fingers to my lips, still tender and sore from the repeated pressure of Sara’s lifesaving kiss.
“She’s worried about you,” said Dr. Greenhut. Surreptitiously he glanced at his watch. To make this gesture less apparent he wore the watch turned around, with the face strapped to the inner part of his wrist. He was a nice kid, and trying to take an interest in my case, but I could see that I was only a minor knot of turbulence in the laminar flow of exhaustion across his life. “You ought to see a doctor, Mr. Tripp. An internist.”
“I’ll do that,” I said.
There was a pause. Dr. Greenhut looked down at the clipboard in his hands, then back at me. “I think you really ought to consider seeing a therapist, too.”
“You heard about the dog,” I said.
He nodded. He grabbed a leather armchair behind him, dragged it over to the foot of my bed, and cautiously lowered himself into it, as if he feared he might not be able to get back out.
“You have a drug problem, Grady, all right?” He said this without any particular gentleness or disdain. “And it seems clear that you haven’t been caring for yourself. You’re malnourished. Okay? That dog bite on your ankle? It’s infected. You’re lucky they brought you in when they did. Another day or two and you might have lost the foot. We had to pump you with a massive dose of antibiotics.”
“Thank you,” I said, in a weak little whisper.
“As for your spells, I don’t know. You’ve been experiencing a good deal of anxiety, lately, I understand. That may explain them.”
“They’re anxiety attacks?”
“Possibly.”
“That’s a little disappointing.”
He rubbed lightly at the corner of his mouth with a knuckle. I supposed that he was too tired to smile.
“So is my friend—Sara—is she still here?”
“No,” he said, allowing a faint flicker of pity into his eyes. “She said she had a houseful of party guests.”
“I have to see her,” I said. “Are you going to give me a hard time if I want to check out?”
“Mmm.” He reviewed my case carefully for a few seconds, without recourse to the notes on the aluminum clipboard under his arm. In the end I believe he based his decision on a certain look of desperation in my eyes.
“Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll let you walk, on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“That it’s the last stupid thing you ever do.”
“I better get back in bed then,” I said. He didn’t reach for his mouth this time. “Just kidding.”
“Look,” he said, openly consulting his wristwatch now. “I can’t really keep you in here if you want to leave. I’ll speak to the nurse. I’m going to write you a prescription for a course of ampicillin, for that bite of yours, all right? Have it filled on your way out, and make sure you follow it all the way to the end.”
“To the end,” I said. “Hey, thank you.”
But he was already out the door, the tails of his jacket billowing out behind him. A minute later a nurse came in and unhooked me from my dinner. I put on the mud-stained jeans and the shirt that smelled of flopsweat and the corduroy jacket with the torn pocket. It was as I started out of the room that I learned