Tales of the City 02 - More Tales of the City

“Let’s go closer.”
    Next to the table, half a dozen retailers were surveying the selection of roses. Mary Ann tried to concentrate on the people, suddenly realizing that Burke’s discomfort had brought her to the brink of sympathetic nausea.
    The customer closest to them was a hawk-faced man in his early forties. He was wearing a pale blue leisure suit, and the flesh above his brow was covered with neat little rows of tufted scabs. Mary Ann flinched and turned away.
    Burke, she suddenly realized, was white as chalk.
    “C’mon,” she said forcefully. “This isn’t fair to you.”
    “No … wait …”
    “We can’t, Burke!”
    “But …”
    “C’mon!”
    Out in the parking lot, he threw up behind a coral-colored van that said ROSE-O-RAMA . Mary Ann stood by silently in the shadows, racked with guilt.
    When Burke returned, he managed a smile. “Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
    “It was a crummy idea. And we should have left earlier.”
    “I would have, but … Did you see that guy next to us?”
    “With the hair transplant?”
    He nodded. “Maybe I’m wrong, but I could have sworn he recognized me.”
    “Burke, are you sure?”
    “No, but … it was like I startled him, like he knew me from somewhere. I thought if I waited around long enough, he might—”
    “Wait here!”
    Her heart pounding, Mary Ann ignored the puzzled gazes of the flower sellers and raced back into the building, back to the table with the roses.
    But the man with the transplant was gone.
    It was 3:35 when they left the market. At that moment, back at Barbary Lane, Jon stirred in his sleep, then woke to the sound of Michael’s voice.
    “Jon … help me … something’s wrong.”
    “You’re dreaming, sport. It’s O.K.”
    “No … it’s not. I can’t move, Jon.”
    The doctor propped himself up on his elbow and looked into Michael’s face. His eyes were open, blinking. “Sure you can,” said Jon. “You just reached for me.”
    “No … it’s my legs. I can’t move my goddamn legs!”

The Emergency Room
    W HEN MARY ANN AND BURKE RETURNED TO 28 Barbary Lane, Jon heard their footsteps on the stairway and motioned them into Michael’s apartment.
    “Michael’s sick,” he explained tersely, leading them into the bedroom, where an illuminated plastic goose cast a yellow glow on the motionless figure in bed. Then the doctor knelt down next to his patient.
    “Mary Ann and Burke are here.”
    “They’re … you woke them up?”
    Mary Ann took a step forward from the doorway. “We’ve been out at the … Mouse, what’s the matter?”
    Michael hiked himself up on his elbows. “We’re working on that. My leg’s … gone to sleep.”
    Jon tapped on his leg with a hemostat—the hemostat that Michael used as a roach clip. “Feel that?”
    “Nope,” said Michael, as the clamp moved up his calf. “Nope … nope …” Finally, when it reached midthigh, he said, “There.”
    “Good.”
    “Good, my ass! What’s the matter with me?”
    “I think it’s only temporary, Michael. I’m gonna take you to the hospital.”
    “I’m in labor, right? C’mon, you can tell me.”
    Jon smiled. “Don’t talk, babe. We’ll have you out of here soon.”
    “Will you stop playing Chad Everett and tell me what the fuck—”
    “I don’t know, Michael. I don’t know what it is.”
    Jon arranged for an ambulance, which arrived fifteen minutes later. He and Burke and Mary Ann rode in the back with Michael, making small talk most of the way to St. Sebastian’s Hospital. It was anything but natural, and Mary Ann felt painfully inadequate in the crisis.
    “Mouse,” she said softly as they passed Lafayette Park, “if you give me your parents’ number, I’ll call them when we get to the hospital.”
    He hesitated before replying. “No … I’d rather you didn’t.”
    “Mouse, don’t you think they should …?”
    “No, I don’t.”
    Jon leaned over and stroked Michael’s hair. “Michael, I think your family deserves to—”
    “This is my family,” said Michael.
    Mary Ann and Burke sat mute in the waiting room while Jon accompanied Michael into the emergency room. Twenty minutes later, he reported back to them.
    “They’re going to do a spinal,” he said.
    Mary Ann fidgeted with the McCall’s in her lap. “Jon … I don’t know what that means.”
    “A lumbar picture. They check for elevation of the protein level and … diminishment of the white cells in the …” The doctor was