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94 ESQUIRE
D
Y ou
Photograph by
Nitin Vadukul
Haven’t
Lived
You were in your prime. Married.
Two small kids. A heart full to bursting. Literally.
To save your life, the surgeons had to kill you.
Until
You’ve
Died
By
Ramsey
Flynn
WHAT IF YOU PULLED OVER RIGHT NOW, RIGHT HERE IN THE year ago (albeit without flashing lights and siren); they’ll tell you to
Beltway’s emergency lane, and just keeled over for good? Relax avoid stress and caffeine while sending you home, their eyes secret-
relax relax. Is there a piece of paper and something to write with? ly rolling skyward as you sheepishly gather your things.
What to say to Betty and the boys? How much time do you have? Your blood pressure was 210 over 90 in the ambulance; now
Easy. Relax. Breathe deeply. What will people think when they it’s down to 170 over 105. Your numbers might be dangerous if
hear police found you here stiff, in such an unpoetic circum- there weren’t the presence of mortal fear to explain it away. When
stance, jerked over on this colorless roadside at some random the fear fades, so will the hypertension. Your heart’s beating sev-
junction of latitude and longitude? Let’s see now, how best to po- enty-five times a minute, headed toward its normal sixty-some-
sition the body? Might there be a way to concoct some ironic thing. With the nurse’s permission, you temporarily unhook the
wink from beyond the grave to amuse your colleagues? And why monitors so you can walk to the ER bathroom. You turn to
do they really matter at a time like this, anyhow? Shouldn’t you the right to check out a flurry of activity and spot your brother-
be getting ready to meet the Big Cheese? Relax easy relax. in-law, the district-court judge, accompanying a gurney as it’s
Breathe deeply and slowly. wheeled past the nurses’ station.
Why is the steering wheel slippery? Sweat! “Uh-oh.” You “That’s your brother,” says Darrell to the rumpled shape be-
punch off the “calming” Wynton Marsalis CD and fumble for the neath the sheet.
window levers. The air rushes in, and you tense up as it whips “Who?” says the rumpled shape, now unraveling a small pile
your work papers around. The afternoon’s thunderstorms have of red hair to reveal the face of one of your five sisters.
left little shreds of trailer clouds on the dark horizon, and a cool “Kick!” you say cheerfully to Kathleen. “What are you doing
August mist fuzzes the interstate’s hostile sodium-vapor lamps. here?”
The odd taste of iron floods your mouth. Blood? You twist the “What are you doing here?” she demands.
rearview mirror to reflect your face, which is more puke-white In moments, your gurneys are placed next to each other, and
than usual. Someone leans into you’re trading black-humor
Eve of surgery, October 16, 1996, 8:00 P.M.:
his horn while passing, because Betty, William, and Ramsey Flynn. quips. The basic theme is that
you’re slowing and angling and you’ve long had a pseudo com-
looking for an exit. petition over which of you was
Okay okay—easy—maybe the family’s smartest, and now
we’ll get a break here. So your you would compete to see who
chest ache has radiated into your could be first to the grave. The
left shoulder and upper arm, and ER workers find the whole scene
there’s tingling and numbing in a hoot, if a tad bizarre.
your face and hands. There’s also Kathleen is also suffering a
a weird flushing in your head. But mysterious heart problem, which
your blood pressure has always you’re inclined to dismiss because
been untrustworthy, your mi- she’s a premenopausal woman.
graines have been behaving ever Which is curious, because she’s
more strangely, and you’ve suc- dismissing your problem because
cessfully been disciplining your- she knows you’ve previously
self to breathe deeply and slow- been checked out from head to
ly . . . yes . . . deeply . . . from the diaphragm . . . slowly. . . . toe and pronounced healthy as a horse. You’re thirty-nine; she’s
Relax! forty. Both of you were born in the same calendar year, which
At the gas station, you smile at the fine young man behind the means you’re Irish twins. And, strictly by appearances, you’re both
counter. It’s dark outside, and the hellish mating whirs of a billion too young to die from heart problems. But she’s in midsentence
insects fill the world beyond the glass entryway. when, suddenly, she slips into one of the fainting episodes that have
“May I help you?” he asks. alarmed her throughout the day. It looks like a slow-motion
“I hope so,” you say as undramatically as possible. “I think windup for a sneeze, except her face slackens as her head tilts. You
I’m having a heart attack. May I borrow your phone?” You smile alert the nurse, who races to Kick’s side just as her consciousness re-
again, trying to impersonate a man in full possession of his facul- turns. To aid in the cause of reassuring calm, you smile again, think
ties. But deep down, you feel like a child who hasn’t properly pre- of quipping, bite your tongue, and fall silent as the nurse verifies
pared for a Very Big Test. that your dear sister’s heart just stopped for seven seconds. Sudden-
While waiting for the ambulance, you call Betty. You tell her ly black humor feels very unfunny. What if her heart won’t restart
you think you’re out of danger but will get checked out anyhow. the next time? Does she know how much you love her?
You’ve both long suspected you’re a walking anxiety factory, and Later, in the dimly lit echo lab, you watch your own murky
you sometimes get full-blown panic episodes. You promise to call heart movements on the video screen. The rhythmic sound of
her if anything develops. blood squirting through valves fills the room, as if the room it-
So now you’ve done it, and now your whole family’s gonna self were being stalked by some hyperventilating sea creature
find out, and, if you live, you’re going to feel embarrassed: There with a throat obstruction—tshe-uw! tshe-uw! tshe-uw! The
he goes again, the excitable boy. soft-spoken tech acknowledges that the red streaks on the
At the same ER you recall from all the bloodiest episodes of screen indicate valve leakage. As she applies more lubricating
DAV I D C O LW E L L
your accident-prone childhood, you get all hooked up in the usual jelly to your chest and moves the microphone device away from
fashion. You study the nurse’s expression intently for evidence that your breastbone, the red streaks grow larger.
your tracings portend badness. Nothing. So you’re already prepar- “I suppose I don’t have much frame of reference for these
ing yourself to feel foolish for when they’ll inevitably tell you you’re things,” you say, “but isn’t that a pretty big leak?”
perfectly healthy, just as they did when you visited another ER a Bingo!
according to orders. Its sensations propel you across the medical gist Lester “Lex” Schultheis, and circulating nurse Brenda Pittman
threshold. It’s the color of rust, smells generically astringent, and will suffer the added burden of having met the man beneath the
has the approximate viscosity of gasoline. Toweling off, you re- bat wing, as well as his family, and therefore must attach actual
gard your sternum closely in the mirror, knowing you’re seeing it faces and feelings to the consequences of today’s actions.
whole and young looking for the last time. You run your fingers Dr. Baumgartner tends to other duties during the preliminar-
scalpel between thumb and forefinger, aims it at the monster’s her- your carotids and head straight for the one organ in your body
niated belly, and makes a gentle thrust. Bright red blood flows into where they are least welcome.
the surgical well created by the pinned pericardium tissue. He in- One scrambles up through your posterior cerebral artery,
serts scissors into the nicked hole and cuts up toward the clamp, oc- bouncing about chaotically until one of the smaller branching ar-
casionally feeling a subtle crunching from the calcified spots. teries allows entry, up to a point. A small sector of your occipital