Teaching the Dog to Read Read online

  The first thing she saw in room 17 when the nurse opened the door was the can opener. An everyday can opener sat on the patient’s bedside table for some reason. More improbably Anthony Areal, who gave every physical indication he would die the last time the doctor saw him, was sitting up in that bed with a big smile on his face while holding hands with the woman who’d been in there earlier.

  “What’s happened here?”

  Lena said “He woke up a while ago and we’ve been sitting here talking since then.”

  Mukherjee glanced over at the nurse but the woman only shrugged and nodded agreement to what the fiancée had said. When the doctor looked away, the nurse made eye contact with Lena and gave her a big wink. She thought what had happened was miraculous and wonderful.

  In contrast, Dr. Mukherjee did not like miracles. She liked facts, logic, things that made sense and all things teleological. That was one of the main reasons why she had gone into medicine. These kinds of inexplicable anomalies in her practice disturbed her greatly because they ran counter to everything she believed and wanted to believe about life and her life’s work. When 2&2 didn’t equal 4 in her day, no matter what the reason, some part of her very adept brain stopped, then started to burn and melt like film in a broken projector.

  “Where is his chart?”

  The nurse handed it over and stood back. She’d seen that look on the doctor’s face before and knew it could well lead to bitchy or nasty. Tony and Lena ignored both women and looked tenderly at each other, or now and then at their talismanic can opener.

  The doctor reviewed all the numbers and notations on Anthony Areal’s chart but still disbelieving, did it again even more slowly. From all indications, this man should have been a goner.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Fine. Good. Like I woke up from a nap.”

  “A nap?” However professional she was normally, Mukherjee couldn’t keep the incredulity out of her voice.

  “Yeah, exactly like that—a nap.” He looked again at his fiancée who radiated happiness.

  “I need to speak with the original attending physician. I’ll be back.” The doctor turned on her heel and left the room, followed shortly by the nurse who couldn’t resist giving Lena another happy wink before she went away. Whether Tony’s lightning fast recovery was a miracle or not, the nurses on the emergency ward were always delighted when unexpected happy endings like this occurred in their otherwise sad outpost.

  Mukherjee needed a place to talk to Tony’s doctor in private and ask certain vital questions. She knew the nurses wanted to hear the conversation, so she decided to go all the way back to her office to make the call in private, away from snooping ears.

  “Who’s that?”

  “One of my doctors. I remember her voice. I didn’t see her but that Indian accent…”

  Although no one could see them, four men sat outside room 17 in the hospital hallway on chairs facing each other. Tony Day and Night on one side, Len Fischman and Gorbog on the other. Gorbog was naked except for a filthy tattered loincloth and a seriously hirsute body and head. When he stood he wasn’t tall but if you told people he was a yeti, many would believe you by the look of him. He spoke in a definite language but to the two Tonys it only sounded like a variety of different toned guttural grunts. Fischman had to translate everything he said, not that it was much.

  “What did she do? Why are we here? Will someone please tell me what happened to me? To us?” Tony Day looked at his other self, ashamed for not having included him.

  Gorbog made a stern face and punched Fischman on the arm, wanting to know what the hairless one had said. Gorbog knew who Tony Day was but didn’t like what he saw of his future self. He didn’t like Fischman either but at least that hairless one could speak his language. Len translated what Tony had said and the caveman grumpily grunted his agreement. All four men wanted to know what had happened half an hour before. Why was some alien, not quite right version of themselves sitting comfortably and in love with Lena Schabort in the other room while the real thems sat out here in the hall scratching their heads.

  No one said anything for a while. They all sat there looking glum and confused while they watched nurses and patients pass by. Of course none of the people could see these four. The two Tonys didn’t understand it either because unlike Gorbog and Len Fischman, they weren’t dead. Proof of that was a few feet away in room 17 where some new version of Anthony Areal was alive and being adored by a desirable woman. None of this made sense but that’s what happens when from one minute to the next you’re sort of not here anymore.

  The door at the end of the long hall opened and a big husky man with short reddish hair came moseying down towards them. He carried a large plastic bag in one hand. He wore a blue shirt with dave written on a patch over his breast. Tony Day thought he must be one of the hospital workers until the man came right over and sat next to Gorbog.

  “What’s up, fellas? Anyone here hungry? I am.”

  The four men, by now used to being invisible to the hospital’s passing parade, looked at each other. This guy sees us?

  Dave opened the bag and peered inside. “I’ve got two pastramis with coleslaw and Russian dressing for the Tonys, a Reuben for me, and a meatball sub for Len. That’s your favorite, right?” Turning to Gorbog, he spoke a few guttural grunts the yeti seemed to understand. “Okay then, let’s hit it.” Dave passed around the sandwiches and lastly took out a large hunk of what appeared to be scorched-black meat. Gorbog snatched it from him and buried his mouth in it. The other three men held the sandwiches in their hands and watched their ancestor noisily devour a lump of twenty thousand year old burnt something.

  While eating, all of them kept looking at Dave to see if he was going to say anything. But he seemed content to silently devour his jumbo Reuben sandwich and stare at his feet while chewing. Dave considered eating a form of meditation and if it had been up to him, he would have eaten all of his meals alone. But that’s not how it worked with this job.

  One Tony turned to the other and said in frustration under his breath, “This is fucked up.”

  “The sandwich?”

  “No—this situation!”

  That got Dave’s attention. He sighed, knowing he had to talk now. “When she was eighteen, Lena tried to kill herself. She should have died but Alice didn’t want that to happen so she saved her.”

  “Alice?” Tony Day interrupted. That name at this moment was like an electric shock to him.

  Dave nodded, then said be quiet and listen. “When Lena recovered, Alice asked why she did it? The girl said she was lonely and afraid she’d never find a man who really loved her and wanted to be with her forever. So Alice being Alice made the girl an offer: whenever Lena found the man she believed was the love of her life, she was to call a special telephone number Alice gave her. Only once in her life could she make the call, so she’d better be sure of her choice. Because if she chose wrong, she would be cursed with this man’s company for all of her lives to come. Lena chose you, Tony.”

  Tony Night sat up straighter in his chair, pleased and proud, while at the same time he got the feeling there was more to this story and from Dave’s tone of voice, it wasn’t all good.

  “When she finally made that call, Alice told her to draw a portrait of you from her heart and soul. If she did it right, that would seal you two together forever. If she thought you were perfect as you were, then she was to draw that Tony. But if there were things she wanted changed about you or your personality, little adjustments here and there, she was to include those too.

  “She had to draw as many pictures as was necessary to capture her essential vision of you, and Alice said it might take her a long time. But it didn’t, as you can see. Lena’s heart knew exactly the Anthony Areal she wanted and that’s the version of you alive in the other room now.”

  Almost as soon as Dave finished speaking, Gorbog disappeared.

  Dave glanced to where the man had been sitting but then went back to
eating. The others stared fearfully at Gorbog’s empty chair and at Big Dave enjoying his sandwich.

  “What the hell was that? Where did he go?” The last bit of meat Gorbog was eating had dropped to the floor when he evaporated. Len Fischman pointed to it with his foot.

  Dave said “He’s not part of the Anthony Areal Lena wants in her life so he’s no longer needed.

  “Sorry to say neither are you, Leonard; she doesn’t like sleazy guys. But without you Mr. Lady’s Man and your vast knowledge of women somewhere in his genes, Tony here would never have succeeded with Lena. That whole bit when he asked her to go dancing on their first date? Genius! All that was pure Leonard Fischman. So that’s your legacy and you should be proud of it. But I would suggest finishing your sandwich soon because I don’t know how long you’ve got.” Dave turned to the Tonys. “You two guys are safe because you’re obviously an integral part of the Anthony Areal she loves. But you’re her base model Tony—like when you buy a new car? The final Tony Areal she drew began with you two, but then she added all kinds of extras she wanted in her partner. It will be interesting to see how that works out.”

  Dave chuckled in admiration. “Alice and her experiments. For as long as I’ve worked for her I never cease to be amazed at both her imagination and willingness to try different things. She’s like a master chef in a great restaurant—always experimenting, always combining strange and even impossible things to see how they’ll work together. She’s indefatigable. She let you guys trade places like you did. That’s never been done before. She let a once-suicidal woman draw her perfect partner… You should see that final drawing Lena did—it’s as far from realism as you can imagine. I was shocked by it, but Alice wasn’t. And the wonderful thing is she has no idea how these experiments will work out. Alice never interferes once she’s set things in motion. You and Lena meeting and hooking up? Alice had nothing to do with that.”

  Len Fischman asked angrily, “Did she have anything to do with killing us? Did she crash that truck into us that day?”

  “No, that’s not how she works. The driver of that truck should have had the brakes inspected months before the accident but he was poor and couldn’t afford any kind of repair so he kept putting it off.”

  Tony Day couldn’t help asking, “Are we talking about the Alice from my dream?”

  A chilling thought came to Len Fischman, “Or my fiancée Alice?”

  “No boys, she’s neither. The Alice I work for has fun sometimes inserting little bits of herself into peoples’ lives and dreams to see how it will affect them. That’s one of the reasons why you both fell in love with your women. Even old Gorbog had an Alice.”

  Tony Night was furious. Angry as all hell he stood up, threw what was left of his sandwich on the floor, marched right over to Dave in his chair and pointed a quivering finger at him. “Then what does happen to us now, Dave? Sooner or later do we go up in smoke too like the caveman or him?”

  Dave stared at Tony’s discarded sandwich a few moments. “No. You two just now became part of their dreams. You’ll come and go in the stories they tell themselves in their sleep for as long as they both live. It’s a kind of immortality—in their dreams you’ll never age beyond today.”

  There was a pause when the two Tonys looked at each other to see their reactions to what had been said. Finally one said to the other, “I don’t think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship, Louie.”

  Back in room 17, Tony Areal had fallen asleep holding Lena’s hand. She was perfectly content to sit there and watch him, safe in the knowledge that soon enough he would wake and be back in her world again, in their world now, where all good things were possible and she would do everything in her power to be a worthy mate for him.

  His eyes began to twitch and she could see his eyeballs move around beneath the lids. Tony was dreaming. Lena remembered his dream about the can opener and how such a silly little object changed the course of both their lives. She smiled thinking maybe he’s having another can opener dream. Or maybe he’s dreaming about us together somewhere wonderful.

  THE END