Bloody River Blues

cigarette.
    “I know.” She inhaled three times and stubbed it out. “That’s all I smoke anyway. And just twice a day. Well, three times.”
    He nodded at the lie and looked her over. She was off duty today and had come in solely to meet with him. She wore tight, faded blue jeans and a leather jacket over a T-shirt imprinted with a slogan. He made her pull the jacket aside to reveal the words: “Once Ithought I was mistaken. But I was wrong.” He liked her earrings: A tiny gold fork hung from one lobe and a matching dinner knife from the other.
    What was so good about the meeting was that he was no longer a prisoner. Or rather, he was not the same degree of prisoner. He had been in maximum security and now he had been upgraded to minimum. It wasn’t yet straight time but that was okay. For the first time in almost two weeks he had a sense of motion—Buffett moved past things rather than being the stationary object. The breeze was stale and it smelled of antiseptic and steam-table food but it moved nonetheless and that was wonderful.
    His maiden voyage in the wheelchair. He had insisted on piloting himself and Weiser hadn’t objected though she said it was against the rules. He had a feeling that Weiser knew what the hospital could do with their rules and probably told them so frequently. Buffett shoved off hard from the doorway of his room. But his arms were stronger than expected and he had lost control, caroming off a water cooler and a candy striper’s backside before he got the feel of the chair.
    They had wheeled, and walked, down the corridor, Buffett considering whether to tell Weiser about the night with Nina Sassower. It was the sort of thing that she probably ought to know; it might help with his therapy. But he kept mum. He hardly wanted Nina to get into trouble. Anyway, if he didn’t blow the whistle there was always the chance she might come back again.
    He wondered if he could do it three times in one night.
    The lounge consisted of a dozen Formica tables, bright blue and chipped. Against one orange-painted wall were old, battered vending machines, for coffee and hot chocolate, for candy, for soda. Some bulbs in the soda machine were burned out. The front said, OCA OLA .
    She asked what he wanted.
    Buffett said he’d have an ’oke.
    Laughing hard, she said, “I’ll have an ’iet ’oke.”
    “How come? You got a great ’igure.”
    They laughed some more and she walked over to the snack machine. She bought a pack of peanut butter crackers. “Dinner,” she said. And he almost asked her out then—casually, thinking he would just wonder out loud if sometime she’d like to grab a bite with him. But the Terror nuzzled him viciously and the opportunity to ask the question suddenly closed. Then she was at the table, lighting, inhaling on, and stubbing out the cigarette.
    He was slightly disappointed when she took a manila folder out of her attaché case. This made the meeting more professional, less social. She set it in front of her but did not open the file.
    “Donnie, you’re out of spinal shock now. There has been good restoration of sensation and control to many of your functions. I think bladder and rectal control will be almost normal. And, as I told you, there’s no reason that I can see that sexual functioning won’t ultimately be fine . . .”
    Buffett was clamping down on the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. “Ultimately.”
    “It’s clear now that the most serious and permanent damage will be to your legs. There may be someimprovement but most likely it’ll be along the line of faint response to external stimuli. As far as walking again, on your own, well, it’s the way I told you before, Donnie.”
    She offered him a cracker. He shook his head. She ate it then sipped the soft drink.
    “There’s a lot of research going on now in this area; most of it’s trying to isolate substances—some are like hormones and some are structural proteins . . .”
    He smiled to himself as he felt himself sinking into the brilliant quagmire of her brain.
    “. . . that affect how the neurons reach and talk to their receptor cells—”
    Donnie nodded and appeared, he believed, to be interested.
    “. . . something called FNS.”
    “Feminine . . . ?” He wanted to make a joke, but his mind went blank.
    “Functional neuromuscular stimulation.” Her eyes sparkled as they always did when she spoke about science and she explained about some contraption that you