In the Balance

Ben Cross hated doctors. Always had. He swore to everyone he ever knew that he would never go see a doctor, whatever the emergency. Two years ago, when he had all the symptoms that betokened pneumonia, he had forbade his son from even mentioning the word medicine.

"I've been kicking around on this earth for eighty years," he gasped to his son, stopping every few moments to gulp in a helping of healthy air. "Never once been to a doctor. Didn't even have a doctor deliver you, you know. An old midwife did that--you remember Ms. Robinson, lived just down the road here apiece." A coughing fit racked his weary body. "Nine pounds you was, healthy as a mare colt. Didn't need no hypocritical bigshot in a white coat to do that job. Ms. Robinson did just fine, and pretty damn cheap she was too. She died long about twenty years ago, right in the middle of the blizzard of 1972. She died--I'll have you know--in a hospital."

There was no reasoning with the man. His son had gone to law school in Chapel Hill, then landed himself a pretty lucrative job in Charlotte. He had escaped the old rustic ways of his folks in the sloping hills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. He knew, though, that his father would never change. It was not that old Ben Cross didn't fear death, for he unmistakably did. When Jeremy Cross was in school, his father had been violently kicked in the stomach by a rambunctious horse he was trying to teach manners to. His mother didn't even mention this event in her letters to her son until some time after Ben had managed to recover. Jeremy learned, though, that his father had writhed in pain for a good week, his sweating soaking the bed so that it had to be changed daily; for four weeks thereafter, after the physical pain had subsided to a level commensurate with the hearty stamina of a country dweller, Ben Cross had refused to get out of bed, even so far as to stagger to the bathroom to relieve himself. The pain was gone, but the memory of that pain lingered on, and it scared the man. As well it should, Jeremy swore; his father could have ruptured his appendix and died right there in that sickbed. His father had been afraid to get up: I could tear up something that's trying to fix itself in there, he would moan, or My heart will give out if I try to tax my weary body right now. Even Mrs. Cross, normally a good-hearted simple woman in love with and in fear of her tradition-minded husband, had asked him if she shouldn't send for a doctor. This only made the man's black eyes blaze a fiery red: "Hell no, people die in hospitals, Mildred, don't you know that? Have you forgotten your aunt Barbara. Went in to a hospital with a broken hip and nothing else wrong with her; next day, they find her laying there in that hospital bed as dead as a skint possum. No hospital, ever! I may die, but the Lord is going to have to come and take me himself; I sure as hell won't let them people send me to him." Mildred had never broached the subject again. She had died--at home--five years ago.

Life had gone on pretty much the same for Ben Cross since his wife died. He lived a lonely life sandwiched between the past and the future, between life and death. He didn't talk to his son much, but that wasn't so unusual. Plenty of his rustic friends, those who were still alive anyway, complained of having alienated their sons and daughters, a malady they took no responsibility for themselves but instead blamed it (and everything else wrong with the world) on modernity. Every day for Ben was like the one before it and, if it didn't rain or snow, the day after it. He got up when he wanted to, somehow managed to do nothing quickly enough to pass many hours, walked down to the country store a half mile down the road to spit tobacco and nap with his dwindling circle of cronies, came home, ate a little something, and went to bed. He was used to this schedule; he even liked it.

Then there came one morning when he didn't wake up, at least not at home. It had been a morning like any other. After eighty years of trying, he still couldn't remember having fallen asleep, yet he knew he had and he knew that he had done so in his own bed. Morning never came easy for his old body. He had to let consciousness kind of sneak up on him. He would lie there just between the worlds of life and dream, and sometimes he would see his wife there. Gradually, he knew which world was calling him and he drifted into wakefulness, first stretching the old bones to make sure all of them were still working properly, making a few guttural noises of displeasure at life itself, and then--last of all--he would open his eyes.

He refused to have an alarm clock. His son had bought him one for Christmas some odd years back, and he had made him return it.

"I appreciate the gift son, but I just can't let that thing stay in this house." His son had naturally asked him why, not bothering to hide his disgruntledness. "I just can't. I've lived on this farm all my life, boy. I rise and set with the sun. I couldn't go to sleep a night with those glaring digitalized numbers glaring at me. And even if I needed to wake up early, that damned alarm would scare me shitless."

As a matter of fact, Ben had just been thinking of that Christmas the night before. It had been the last time he had seen his son. They had exchanged words, all because of that damned clock, and the boy had gone back home that very afternoon. Why had he been thinking about that last night?

Ben Cross never had time to search for an answer because when he opened his eyes that morning, instead of seeing his own simple, cluttered room, he saw a white, stark, sanitized room. For a minute he didn't know where the hell he was, but that was only because he had never been to this place before. The start this unplanned-for sight gave him was enough to get his old brain up and running, though, and it didn't take him long to realize that he was here--in a hospital room. The nurse that presently stole into his room only confirmed his theory.

"And how are we today, Mr. Cross?" she asked in the perkiest voice the gruff old man had ever heard. Jeez, where do they get these people, he wondered. Nobody is that damn happy when they're not at work. She didn't even look like a woman in that white uniform, although she was obviously not a day over thirty and more than likely had some tits hiding in there somewhere; Ben couldn't see any, though.

His response to her inane question was almost immediate. "What the fuck am I doing here?" he screamed at her.

Her face didn't even respond, he noticed. Is this the common sort of greeting they receive here from their patients? Stop, he urged himself. You are not a patient. Hell no, I don't know what you are, but you are sure as hell not a patient, and you're going to get right up out of this bedsore-encrusted bed and walk--no, run--out of this chemical-stinking place right back home. They think I'm sick, wait till they see me outrun all of them. He started getting out of bed.

The nurse, whose name tag bore the name Judy, rushed over to him and pushed him back onto the bed. "And where do we think we're going?" she queried in that same idiotically chipper voice. Ben wanted to slap her. He almost did it; only the IV line sticking out of his hand, which he just now took note of, prevented him from doing so. He stared down at his hand, horrified. My God, he cried, there's a fucking needle sticking out of the back of my hand! He reached over with his left hand and plucked it out, throwing the needle across the floor.

"I don't know where we're going, missy, but I am getting the fuck out of this death-hotel." He made another push to rise from the bed.

"I'm afraid I can't let you do that, sir." Now she was almost singing to him. "You are a sick man, Mr. Cross. You have to let us help you."

"Like hell. Get the hell off of me, bitch!"

As if by magic, two orderlies appeared at the door. Ordering Judy to stand aside, they forced Ben back onto the bed. One held him down, which was more of a job than the bulky young man was used to encountering from an emaciated octogenarian, while the other man pulled out a needle and gave him a shot in the right arm. Ben, now realizing his helplessness, only glared at the two men, cursing them silently under his breath.

"Don't make us tie you down, sir. Everything we do here is for your own good." He actually smiled down at the tired old man on the bed. Presently, the orderlies left the room as Ben muttered "Godless nazis" at them under his breath. Whatever they had given him, it sure worked fast. Ben was already beginning to feel sleepy--no, not sleepy, tired. He was finding it hard to even blink his eyes. The panic that had only now had time to work its away throughout his system was not even strong enough to let him think of resisting anymore. At least, not for now.

Judy, radiating effusive helpfulness, also turned to leave now. "Just rest, Mr. Cross. We're going to take care of you. The doctor," she added, "will be in to see you shortly."

"Who? Dr. Mengele?" he muttered. Nonplussed, Judy left the room and closed the door behind her. I'm trapped! Ben's mind cried. They've got me.

When the doctor left his patient's bedside, he met Jeremy Cross at the door. Instantly, he recognized the resemblance and hoped that the second generation didn't sprout too closely to the tree. His patient had been sleeping when he entered, which was just how the doctor wanted it. In the course of the examination, though, he had stirred and then, quite suddenly, lashed out at the doctor with a fist, barely missing him as he leaned over his chest. The doctor, having already seen all he needed to see, had immediately given him another dose of tranquilizers and rushed out. He was not as quick as he hoped, though, for here was another Cross behind door number one.

"What's wrong with him, Doctor? I just got here. They, somebody, called me and told me to come but they haven't told me a single thing." His face revealed the worry he was experiencing, the kind of worrying that betokened more guilt than genuine concern. It was a look all too common to the doctor.

"Your father is fine. Follow me to my office, won't you?" He tried to sound civil, but he feared that after all these years he was becoming too harsh and calculating. Soothing loved ones was the part of the job he hated most; that was a job for preachers and funeral directors, not for doctors. He strode stiffly down the hall and into a brightly-lit office.

Even here the hospital coldness worked its way into Jeremy's bones. Suddenly, he became conscious of just how much he himself didn't care for these places. It wasn't just the air, he realized. It was these people, these automatons parading around in white uniforms, acting as if they alone controlled the fate of humankind. The air was nowhere near as austere as these people were. The bright light of the office didn't help, either. It was as if they employed such lighting so as to hide the shadows that lurked in their own faces. All of this was as if merely for effect.

The office itself was a perfectly typical doctor's office. The diplomas, the innocuous little medico-funny portraits on the wall, a few green plants in the corners of the room. Jeremy found himself wondering if anyone really ever read those diplomas. The doctor, whose desk bore the nameplate DOCTOR JOSEPH REEVES, motioned him into a chair, a plush, velvet-like thing that seemed to swallow and engulf him in positive ooziness when he fell into it. The desk was very neat, Jeremy noted. How can they have such neat offices and still write like a god-darned chicken? He stopped himself; he was falling into superstition and popular folklore. A moment of crisis and suddenly he was reverting to mediaeval thoughts and actions. Shit, he told himself; you're starting to sound just like . . .

"My father, Doctor. What's wrong with him?"

"Your father, Mr. Cross, is fine right now. He is resting. We were forced to sedate him not long ago after he created quite a, um, situation."

"I can imagine, what with his mortal dread of doctors. But I asked you what is wrong with him, not how he is." Jeremy unconsciously scooted up a few inches in his seat.

"Physically, Ben Cross is in wonderful shape for a man his age--even for a man my age." He paused, as if for effect. "What we are concerned with here is his mind, his mental state."

"What do you mean. Has he had a stroke or something? Senility? God, is it Alzheimer's?" "We don't know exactly what the root of the problem is. The fact that we have no records whatsoever concerning him has only served to slow us down. He is not in any danger, I can assure you. Here, we can watch over him and care for him."

Jeremy felt as if this conversation was going nowhere. "What happened to him? How did he get here?"

The doctor rocked back in his chair, linking his hands together into a little bridge.

"Your father was found last night roaming the streets a couple of miles from his home. He was quite disoriented. A police officer discovered him listing about in an alley off of main street. When he approached him, the old man--excuse me--your father only muttered a few incoherent phrases. Eventually, he was brought here to the hospital. We found out his vital information, such as his name and next of kin from his wallet. We then called you immediately. As of now, though, I can tell you little more. Whatever triggered this episode is almost surely not physical. Such a mental shutdown--or overload--is not uncommon in a man of your father's advanced years. We are supervising his physical needs, and presently a neurological evaluation will be made. Then we can tell you more."

With that, and a trusty "Don't worry," Jeremy was dismissed from the office. He wandered down to the nurses' station at the far end of the corridor. Five minutes later, he was at his father's bedside.

This was all right. Hazy clouds of half-consciousness were swirling into Ben Cross's mind, preparing him for his return to the living world. Something was a little strange, though. These clouds were pretty misty, and they seemed to jump around a lot more than usual, as if instead of clearing the way for his destination they were scrambling around to hide something from him. What is wrong? he mumbled to himself. Am I dying? Then he remembered the dream. A hospital! He had dreamed he was in a hospital, of all places. Suddenly, the mists parted and he came awake.

"Wha?" was all he could articulate.

"Dad. It's me, Jeremy."

"Jeremy. What are you doing here?" It was as if his tongue had somehow inverted itself during his sleep, so that his words just seemed to be soap bubbles of articulation.

"I'm here to see you, Dad. I'm here to take care of you."

He looked around. Solid white, even the forced grin on his son's face. He hated that look; it betokened of his mother, God rest her soul. All smiles and optimism for the real world, but get home with her when she was tense or upset and Katey, bar the door. He had always hated fakery.

"How do you feel, Dad?"

That was a good question. How do I feel? Ben asked himself. The answer came unbidden: like shit. He hadn't felt quite like this since. . .--since that night a lifetime ago when he had gone out with his friends to the honky tonk just over the county line for the first time and gotten skunk-stinking drunk. That had somehow been fun, though. You just puke your guts out and feel better. Here, though--in this place, you puke and they stick some more needles in your arm and a thermometer up your ass.

He leaned over toward his son, unable to think about how good it was to see him again; he had been afraid that he would pass over before ever seeing his son again, given all of the fighting they had done recently. Not seeing him would have been better than this, though; on that point his conscious and unconscious selves agreed. Here I am, for the show. A scrawny, old man with tubes sticking out of him like some damn puppet, set here for one last performance.

"Son," he whispered, his eyes darting around in the sea of light for a sign of movement from without the room, "they are going to kill me here."

Jeremy was only slightly taken aback. He had expected just such a statement from his old man, but the tone in which the words had come was foreign. There was no hysteria present, no quaking in the inflection. It was not a plea or a curse, it was merely a statement of fact.

"Don't be ridiculous, Dad. These people are going to make you better. You just have to trust them, Dad. And me--trust me. I won't let anyone hurt you."

Ben Cross came as close as he could to a laugh.

"What do they say is the matter with me. Tell me that."

"They don't know yet. They're going to run tests."

"Tests!" he screamed, although to Jeremy it was only a hoarse whisper. "What tests? Take a little blood, swirl it around in some little tubes and go ooh and aah around it? Haul a bucket of piss out of here to study? It's all a game, son. Medicine is the oldest game in the world, my boy, and God was the first doctor. They're draining me, son, draining the life juices right out of me, so I'll get weak. They're pumping me so full of drugs that when they do finally decide to let me go--and I don't mean back to my house down the road--I won't know whether to pray to Saint Peter or ask him to dance."

"Stop it, Dad. You're talking crazy." Jeremy didn't know what to say to the man, had never really known how to talk to him. Comfort him? There was no way. The only way to comfort him was to leave him all alone.

"Answer one thing for me, Jeremy. Why did they bring me here?"

"You were wandering the streets, lost, down in the middle of town."

Ben didn't let him continue. "That's a lie. I never left the house. I went to bed last night like every other night. They claim I walked all them miles in the middle of the night? Hell, at my age, I couldn't do that even if I was feeling good. And I was--feeling good, I mean. Feeling normal, anyway. I didn't leave that house, Jeremy." Now the words were a plea, a plea for understanding and acceptance. "They came and got me, son. No one called them, no one found me and brought me here. They just came and got me."

Jeremy almost believed it. This was his father talking to him, speaking with the old man's lips and eyes, not a sick man. Still, he couldn't believe such foolish talk. Of course, his father didn't remember walking the streets last night. That was the very reason they had brought him here.

His father was finished talking. "I'm tired, son. Whatever they're doping me up with, it's sure a mule-kicker."

"Just lie down and rest, Dad. We'll talk more later." Already he could see his father's pupils begin to dance around in their iris-shaped dance floors. He really is an old man, he realized for the first time in his life. It was a painful revelation. Sleep was coming quickly to his father, swooping down on him like a . . .--like a vulture, he thought.

"I love you, boy." The words came from a mile away.

"I love you too, Dad." It made Jeremy's skin prickle a little when he added, "I'm not going to leave you." He thought his father smiled a little when he said it.

He did leave him, though. He had been sitting there for hours, just watching the breaths seep in and out of the bones and skin that had long ago been his father. He knew his father would sleep for hours; those pills had been designed to knock him out for the night. He wondered why no nurses came in to check on the patient, but he figured it was because they knew he was in here keeping vigil, guarding the weary spirit from the clawed hands of the Death angel. Anyway, didn't the doctor say that his condition was inherently mental? There was nothing really wrong with him physically, so why would they need to check on him as long as he was sleeping. No reason to wake the old grouch, they were probably thinking.

Jeremy wandered down the hall to get a cup of coffee. It was right down the hall from the room. If anything happened, he would be able to see or hear it. The bright lighting of the hall almost snow-blinded him as he made his way down past the nurses' station to the canteen. The silence of the place rang in his ears. He glanced at his watch. 4:30 in the morning, in the middle of a big hospital. Surely this was the real graveyard shift. No matter what they did, no matter how many green plants and soft pastels they scattered over the floors and walls, no matter how everyone in a uniform smiled at you as if to say "Everything will be all right," you just couldn't get death out of your mind here. Death permeated everything.

Of course, the coffee machine wouldn't work. He pumped up to two dollars into it before he finally gave up. I can just get a sip of water back in the room, he decided.

He turned suddenly to return to his father's bedside and almost collided with

(Death)

--a man in a black suit and a grim visage on his face. Jeremy stuttered backwards a little bit, muttering a humble apology before advancing.

"Oh, hello," he stammered, adding "Father" when he saw the collar around the man's neck. This is a priest? he immediately thought; this guy should be playing linebacker for the New York Giants, his mind stated. The priest was immense in stature, fully six foot four and two hundred fifty pounds. He smelled of that water all priests wear, which is somewhere between a mix of cheap aftershave and incense. Probably holy water; what else was there to do with it?

Jeremy had never been particularly religious. Sure, he feared God--just in case, mind you--but he doubted you could call cowardice in the face of atheism a religious concept. If this creature was one of God's troopers, though, he thought he might have to turn over a new leaf. He only feared God; this priest, on the other hand, scared him.

"Can I do something to ease your spirit, my son?" He said it pleasantly enough, Jeremy felt. Even still, behind the kind smile and benign words, something about this man of the cloth made him uneasy.

"No, father, thank you. I was just going back to sit with my father. If you'll excuse--"

"Won't you at least have a cup of coffee?"

"No, really. I think I should get back to my father. And besides, the machine doesn't work." He turned to walk on, but he couldn't seem to get around the man in black.

"Let's just let me give it a try, eh? I've got a lot of experience handling uncooperative dispensing machines."

Jeremy wanted to scream at the priest, but he couldn't quite figure out how to tell a priest to bugger off. Instead of creating a mini-scene, he only sighed, "Very kind of you. . ."

"Not at all. Glad to help." The priest put in a quarter and soon drew forth a cup of hot coffee. That's just great, Jeremy's mind sobbed; maybe Christianity does have a few fringe benefits.

Against all of his wishes and against a gnawing feeling somewhere deep in his stomach that assailed him for leaving his father alone for so long, he spent a few minutes talking to the priest, whose name was Father Andrew. He never thought about the subtle way in which the cleric managed to get him seated in a chair facing away from his father's room up the hall.

Finally, he forced himself away from the priest. As he turned to start back up the hall, he saw the doctor emerging from the room where his father lay. He ran slowly to the man, already knowing what had happened. He didn't even ask him if it was true, if it had really happened. I failed him--again. This thought reverberated throughout his mind, momentarily shutting off all other sensations and feelings. Numbness is quite demanding, leaving no room for remorse or loneliness. But regret--ah, that was numbness' only friend. Why did I leave him alone? He knew this simple little thought would haunt him for the rest of his life.

The doctor led him back into his office, placing him in the cushiony chair. Dr. Reeves crossed his arms and sat on the corner of his tidy desk.

"These things are never easy. You never get used to this job, you know."

Jeremy was only hearing part of the words. His mind was still in a black fog. From behind him, he thought he heard the door shut softly, but he couldn't be sure. Probably just a nurse closing it, the small part of his conscious mind that still functioned surmised. He could only stare at the doctor's inscrutable face.

Doctor Reeves continued. "Time is of the essence in this profession, as you probably well know. Time is a cruel slave driver, but its needs must always be satisfied. There is a judgment, Mr. Cross."

Now the doctor leaned over into Jeremy's face. Jeremy could smell the hospital on his clothes. It was more than that, though. He could smell Death on his very words, the acrid smell of nonexistence billowing forth from the volcano of the man's soul.

"You see, Mr. Cross, your father should have died twenty years ago, when that mule kicked him in the stomach, but he wouldn't come to the hospital."

Jeremy started to ask him how in hell he knew about his father's farm accident, an accident that took place before this ghastly-pale doctor had even started interning, when he felt a pair of hands grip his arm.

Something pricked the skin of his upper arm. Immediately, the numbness let go its cold grip on his brain, and panic was sucked into its stead. It was matched by the only thing worse than hysterical panic--knowing.

As the yawning pit came up to engulf him, the last words he heard were:

"Give and take, Mr. Cross. Come what may, the balance must be maintained."