Slices Read Free Page B

little
ritual mom ever taught me and I am not
sick and
they can’t keep me here.
    A
few miles outside the city limits and I notice something’s
wrong.
    No,
what I mean is — I notice nothing’s wrong.
    I’m
not hearing sirens any more. There’s not many people on the
streets, but the people I do see look bored, polite, incurious, not
anything like the look of fear and distrust I’ve been seeing
everywhere.
    I
see a newspaper box, and the front page is talking about the economy,
talking about terrorism, talking about the fucking weather. I
scramble through my pockets and all my change is gone, I spent the
last of it on the bus, and I see a crumbling low cinder-block wall at
the edge of a parking lot and there’s nobody around and I pull
one of the blocks out like a rotting tooth and swing around and toss
it into the glass front. I pull a paper out of the wreckage and try
not to cut myself and I keep moving in case someone heard the noise.
    I’m
dropping a trail of discarded pages behind me as I tear through the
paper in disbelief. Nothing. Nothing about this. But this is the
local paper, the same paper I’ve been reading. Two different
editions? One for inside the city, one for everywhere else? That’s
crazy.
    Then
I think of something even crazier.
    Maybe
the city isn’t really sick. Maybe it only thinks it is.

    I
have a hell of a time making myself go back into the hospital. I
spend at least an hour outside, pacing, wishing I still smoked so I’d
have at least an excuse to be out here. I don’t want to go in,
but I know, I just know it, that if there are any answers to all
this, this is where I’m going to find them.
    Mom’s
asleep. I’m just about to leave when the nurse comes in, and I
try talking to her about what’s going on, but she just shakes
her head fiercely and says, “Not here.”
    She
backs out into the hall, looks around, gestures to me to follow and
she’s gone. I hurry to catch up. She hasn’t turned to
look at me — she’s unlocking a door and it’s a
small supply room, not much bigger than a closet, and she looks
around again and pushes me inside.
    I
stand there blinking as she steps in after me and shuts the door. The
air in the room is antiseptic and sharp, and she’s standing
uncomfortably close.
    “Your
mother isn’t sick,” she says.
    “I
know that — ”
    “She
hasn’t been sick this entire time. Just the people around her.”
Her voice is flat and clipped, and there’s some accent there I
can’t place. The buzzing of the filament from the room’s
single light bulb makes her voice sound like a recording. “Your
mother came in here weeks ago, she says she’s very sick, she
lists off all the things wrong with her, and she’s not sick. It
doesn’t make sense, the things she’s saying. There is no
sickness with all the symptoms she talks about.”
    “Yeah.
She’s a hypochondriac. I know that. But — ”
    “She
is here two weeks when other people, they start getting sick. They
have what she claims to have. Nothing like it in the world until she
makes it up and now I have a hospital full of cases, streets full of
cases. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
    “No.
No, I don’t.” The sound of blood rushing in my ears was
like the ocean. I wanted to sit down. “Do you think —
she’s causing this to happen? Is that what you’re
saying?”
    “What
do you think?”
    I
didn’t say anything. When I finally spoke, it was like someone
else talking in another room. “I think you’re right,”
I said, the words sounding small and muffled in this tight space. “I
think — I already knew that.”
    “Where
I come from, we know what she is. We would know what to do.”
    “What
she is — ?”
    She
nods. “Witch. We know.”
    “What
— ” The word came out like a dull laugh, and then nothing
followed it. “What would you do?” I finally asked.
    “ I would do nothing,” she said, arms folded over her chest. “You are her son.”
    “So
I have to