“Cause of death may be a heart attack,” Peter says. A light hand brushes down my naked back to the crack of my ass. I pray it will remove the thermometer, but it doesn’t. “Spine appears to be intact, no attractable phenomena.”
Attractable phenomena? Attractable phenomena? What the fuck do they think I am, a buglight?
He lifts my head, the pads of his fingers on my cheekbones, and I hum desperately-Nnnnnnnnn-knowing that he can’t
possibly hear me over Keith Richards’ screaming guitar but hoping he may feel the sound vibrating in my nasal passages.
He doesn’t. Instead he turns my head from side to side.
“No neck injury apparent, no rigor,” he says, and I hope he will just let my head go, let my face smack down onto the table-that’ll make my nose bleed, unless I really am dead-but he lowers it gently, considerately, mashing the tip again and once
more making suffocation seem a distinct possibility.
“No wounds visible on the back or buttocks,” he says, “although there’s an old scar on the upper right thigh that looks like some sort of wound, shrapnel perhaps. It’s an ugly one.”
It was ugly, and it was shrapnel. The end of my war. A mortar shell lobbed into a supply area, two men killed, one man-me-
lucky. It’s a lot uglier around front, and in a more sensitive spot, but all the equipment works … or did, up until today. A quarter of an inch to the left and they could have fixed me up with a hand pump and a CO, cartridge for those intimate
moments.
He finally plucks the thermometer out-oh dear God, the relief-and on the wall I can see his shadow holding it up.
“Ninety-four point two,” he says. “Gee, that ain’t too shabby. This guy could almost be alive, Katie … Dr. Arlen.”
“Remember where they found him,” she says from across the room. The record they are listening to is between selections, and for a moment I can hear her lecturely tones clearly. “Golf course? Summer afternoon? If you’d gotten a reading of ninety-
.eight point six, I would not be surprised.”
“Right, right,” he says, sounding chastened. Then: “Is all this going to sound funny on the tape?” Translation: Will I sound stupid on the tape?
“It’ll sound like a teaching situation,” she says, “which is what it is”.
“Okay, good. Great.”
His rubber-tipped fingers spread my buttocks, then let them go and trail down the backs of my thighs. I would tense now, if I
AUTOPSY ROOM FOUR
Page 11 of 15
were capable of tensing.
Left leg, I send to him. Left leg, Petie-boy, left calf see it? He must see it, he must, because I can feel it, throbbing like a bee sting or maybe a shot given by a clumsy nurse, one who infuses the injection into a muscle instead of hitting the vein.
“Subject is a really good example of what a really bad is idea it is to play golf in shorts,” he says, and I find myself wishing he had been born blind. Hell, maybe he was born blind, he’s sure acting it. “I’m seeing all kinds of bug bites, chigger bites, scratches . . .”
“Mike said they found him in the rough,” Arlen calls over. She’s making one hell of a clatter; it sounds like she’s doing dishes in a cafeteria kitchen instead of filing stuff. “At a guess, he had a heart attack while he was looking for his ball.”
“Uh-huh . .
“Keep going, Peter, you’re doing fine.”
I find that an extremely debatable proposition.
“Okay.”
More pokes and proddings. Gentle. Too gentle, maybe.
“There are mosquito bites on the left calf that look infected,” he says, and although his touch remains gentle, this time the pain is an enormous throb that would make me scream if I were capable of making any sound above the low-pitched hum. It
occurs to me suddenly that my life may hang upon the length of the Rolling Stones tape they’re listening to … always
assuming it is a tape and not a CD that plays straight through. If it finishes before they cut into me … if I can hum loudly enough for them to hear before one of them turns it over to the other side …