Slices Read Free

in the middle of the night to the
Star-Spangled Banner and some old film of a flag blowing in the wind,
telling you the day was over and it was long past time to go to bed.
That was back when days used to end, before CNN and infomercials,
before all our days bled right into each other.
    I
remember the headline and I want to see if the news is on, see if I
can find out what they were talking about, but I’m not awake
enough to find the remote. I just close my eyes and go back to sleep
again, wondering what I’m letting the TV whisper into my
dreams.

    Third
night I break down and call you. I don’t want to bother you, I
know you’ve got school to worry about, that’s why you’re
not out here — not that you want to be, any more than I do. But
I don’t know who else to call — feel like I lost track of
all my friends when I was still trying to get rich playing the
dot-com field, and you see how well that worked out, so, yeah. I
don’t know who else I’ve got left. You sound kind of
annoyed to be hearing from your big brother, and I think I hear some
boy’s voice in the background, but I’ve got to ask you if
you’ve been watching the news. If you’ve seen or heard
anything.
    Because
something’s wrong here.
    When
I got to the hospital this afternoon, the same guy was still slumped
over on the bus-shelter bench. Was still there when I left tonight,
same position, and I kept my eyes straight ahead of me and kept
walking and convinced myself that wasn’t blood down the front
of his shirt, that he was still breathing.
    More
people on the bus tonight sick, coughing, looking miserable. Pale
skin and dark-circled eyes. A couple people were wearing surgical
masks, or whatever you call them, looking around, flinching each time
someone coughed.
    Restaurant
at the hotel was mostly empty but still slow, one waitress trying to
do the work of four, and she kept apologizing — everyone else
had called in sick. Guy at the table next to me was reading a
newspaper, and I could just see the headline on the local section —
“Mystery Virus at Three Hospitals.” I got up to ask him
if I could borrow the paper when he was done with it, but he started
coughing himself, eyes watering from the strain of it, and I just
kept walking past him and into the bathroom. I turned on the water in
the sink as hot as I could stand it and washed my hands over and over
again. Like Mom would make us do — best way to keep from
getting sick, she’d say, scrubbing and scrubbing at my hands
until they were red and raw from it. I stared at myself in the
mirror, trying to see if I looked pale.
    I
get back to my table and my food’s there now, but my appetite
isn’t, and I drop a twenty on the table and walk out, head back
to my room, pick up the phone.
    You
haven’t been watching the news, you tell me, but you promise
you will, you promise you will if that’ll get me to stop
babbling, and have I been drinking?
    No,
I tell you, I haven’t. But it’s not a bad idea.

    Four
days later and I haven’t heard back from you, and everything
here has gone off the rails.
    I’ve
seen people collapse on the sidewalk. I’ve seen dozens of
people wearing surgical masks now and I want one myself but the
stores are out of them.
    I
hear the siren sound of ambulances tearing down the street almost all
the time now. The hospital’s getting harder and harder to take.
I’ve seen patients choking and gagging, strapped to gurneys and
wheeled away out of sight. Mom still keeps insisting there’s
something wrong with her, that she’s burning to the touch and
white as a ghost and can’t breathe, but she’s fine,
anyone can see just looking at her that she’s fine.
    But
she’s about the only one. They came in while I was there and
carried her roommate out on a stretcher and the old woman looked dead
to me and I asked the nurses and they wouldn’t tell me, they
wouldn’t say a goddamn thing, and some of the doors in this
wing are covered in plastic sheets now