we both get some fresh sludge?”
He thought for a moment. “Sure, why not?”
The cafeteria was closed, so we went down the hall, past the Residents’
Lounge, where a row of vending machines stood next to the locker
room.
A thin young woman in surgical scrubs was walking away with two
handfuls of candy bars. Chip and I each bought black coffee and he
purchased a plastic-wrapped packet containing two chocolate chip
cookies.
Farther down the corridor was a sitting area: orange plastic chairs
arranged in an L, a low white table bearing food wrappers and
out-of-date magazines. The Path lab was a stone’s throw away. I
thought of his little boy and wondered if he’d make the association.
But he ambled over and sat down, yawning.
Unwrapping the cookies, he dunked one in the coffee, said, “Health
food,” and ate the soggy part.
I sat perpendicular to him and sipped. The coffee was terrible but
oddly comforting-like a favorite uncle’s stale breath.
“So,” he said, dunking again, “let me tell you about my daughter.
Terrific disposition, good eater, good sleeper-she slept through at
five weeks. For anyone else, good news, right? After what happened to
Chad, it scared the shit out of us. We wanted her awake-used to take
turns going in there, waking her up, poor thing. But what amazes me is
how resilient she is-the way she just keeps bouncing back. You
wouldn’t think anything that small could beso tough.
“I feel kind of ridiculous, even discussing her with a psychologist.
She’s a baby, for God’s sake-what kind of neuroses could she have?
Though I guess with all this she could end up with plenty,’ couldn’t
she? All the stress. Are we talking major psychotherapy for the rest
of her life?”
“No.”
“Has anyone ever studied it?”
“There’s been quite a bit of research,” I said. “Chronically ill
children tend to do better than experts predict-people do, in
general.”
“Tend to?”
“Most do.”
He smiled. “I know. It’s not physics. Okay, I’ll allow myself some
momentary optimism.”
He tensed, then relaxed-deliberately, as if schooled in meditation.
Letting his arms drop and dangle and stretching his legs.
Dropping his head back and massaging his temples.
“Doesn’t it get to you?” he said. “Listening to people all day?
Having to nod and be sympathetic and tell them they’re okay.”
“Sometimes,” I said. “But usually you get to know people, start to see
their humanity.”
“Well, this is sure the place to remind you of that-A rarer spirit
never did steer humanity; but you, gods, will give us some faults to
make us men. Words, Willy Shakespeare; italics, mine. I know it
sounds pretentious, but I find the old hard reassures me-something for
every situation. Wonder if he spent any time in hospitals.”
“He may have. He lived during the height of the black plague, didn’t
he?”
“True. Well”-he sat up and unwrapped the second cookie-“all credit to
you, I couldn’t do it. Give me something neat and clean and
theoretical, anytime.”
“I never thought of sociology as hard science.
“Most of it isn’t. But Formal Org has all sorts of nifty models and
measurable hypotheses. The illusion of precision. I delude myself
regularly.”
“What kinds of things do you deal with? Industrial management?
Systems analysis?”
He shook his head. “No, that’s the applied side. I’m
theoretical-setting up models of how groups and institutions function
on a structural level, how components mesh, phenomenologically. Ivory
tower stuff, but I find it great fun. I was schooled in the ivory
tower.”
“Where’s that?”
“Yale, øundergrad; University of Connecticut, grad. Never finished my
dissertation after I found out teaching turns me on a lot more than
research.”
He stared down the empty basement corridor, watching the occasional
passage of wraithlike white-coated figures in the distance.
“Scary,” he said.
“What is?”
“This place.” He yawned, glanced at his watch. “Think I’ll go up and
check on the ladies. Thanks for your time.”
We both stood.
“If you ever need to talk to me,” he said, “here’s my office number.”
He put his cup down, reached into a hip pocket, and pulled out an
Indian silver money clasp inlaid with an irregular turquoise.
Twenty-dollar bill on the outside, credit cards and assorted papers
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