Too Many Cooks

Welcome to Boomtown — Chapter 4

Previously

Earl was alone in the examination room longer than he would have liked. Dr. Gall had left him with a bemused look and one raised eyebrow. Earl felt he could hear the doctor’s judgment cascading from his brain down to his frown. “They’re just lumps, lad,” Earl assured him. “I never have had the prettiest of melons.” Dr. Gall merely turned and left.

No matter where on earth you are, if you’re in a medical building, they all have the same feel. Walls that were once white but have since dirtied with age. Tiled floors in discount patterns, stainless steel fixtures. All of it designed to be easily cleaned of the body’s inner workings, to be wiped clear for the next poor animal being wheeled in for a peek under the hood. Earl ran one hand over the cold counter top beside him, another through the thinning hair hiding his lumps from the world, and he sighed.

There was a poster hung on the wall opposite extolling the virtues of hand washing. Another one closer to the door telling anyone who’d listen about the ins and outs of flu season and our individual duties as citizens in the fight against epidemic. Earl pointed at the poster and said, “Flu you, buddy.” His laugh turned quickly into those familiar coughs, the coughs to a wheeze. He was surprised no one came into the room to check on him after the racket he’d made.

Left alone too long with his memories, the sheen of a sterile environment, and the health propaganda, Earl began to take stock of himself. It was something he had started long ago as a means of passing the time without resorting to a nap. It’d came in handy so often on the line at Best-O’s, in the quiet of a third shift break-room when the kids hadn’t let him get his day’s sleep in. He examined his boots first and worked his way up. The sole was going on the right heel. It never failed to wear down more quickly. Mary used to say it was because he always put his right foot first. Seemed she never ran out of those sunny nonsense sayings, even at the end.

The wool on his pants was scuffed shiny and thin at the knees, in back at the bottom of his calves, on the inside of his thighs. He’d only buttoned his right shirt cuff. A thread was dangling dangerously from both buttons of his coat. It hit him that he was going about the world looking the way his cough sounded. He’d let himself unravel since Mary went. The fresh lad who’d sat across from her glowing face in that Scottish pub so long ago had gotten dusty and gray.

“Ah,” he moaned. “Oh.”

Earl ran his hands through his hair again. The lumps seemed warm under palms. He made little circles around their base with his fingertips and closed his eyes. The room smelled like cleaning products and something private. He could hear footsteps in the hallway, the faint hum of far-away conversations. His let his breathing be shallow, little puffs of air that wouldn’t go looking for coughs.

He may have fallen asleep, but he couldn’t be sure. His legs were numb and he had the fuzzy sensation of having lost time when finally he opened his eyes. A noise had suddenly overtaken him. His head was filled with it. A low buzzing, it seemed, from somewhere outside the room. It was constant and oppressive, so that he could feel it against his skin. Earl imagined some horrible emergency surgery, amputations or worse. He didn’t let himself picture what might be worse. “They’d get it cleaned up easy enough,” he thought with a smile. The noise came at him harder and his smile dropped away. He got up and moved to the door, grabbing at the counter the first few steps to steady himself on his useless legs.

The door opened and the floor of his exam room spread out into the hallway, in all directions an unbroken field of linoleum. A room across from him was busy with movement, doctors and nurses and others in civilian clothes moving quickly around a bed. The curtain hadn’t been pulled closed on the observation window to the left of the door. A child was in the bed. Earl couldn’t figure out if it was a boy or girl in the brief glimpses he’d catch between arms and bodies passing across his view. The child’s eyes were closed. The poor thing looked dead already. Earl could just stand there watching, thinking ruefully of advertisements for prime time television programs he’d never watched.

The noise in his head continued to grow steadily louder, the feel of it on his skin more acute. He held his breath and grabbed hold of the door frame. He swallowed hard and concentrated on returning to normal, the way you might fight off nausea. Only seconds later, it seemed, though it could have been minutes—he had for some reason lost his grasp on time since entering the hospital—Earl was on his knees screaming against the noise in his head. The last image he saw before falling forward onto the tile floor was eight white sneakers running toward him from the child’s bed across the hall.

Welcome to Boomtown - Chapter 3

Previously

The bumps had always been there, even when he was an infant. His pa told him it was a sign of special things to come. Thankfully, his hair came in thick as he grew into toddlerhood, so the lumps weren’t obvious unless someone put her hands on his head. That didn’t happen often enough for him to worry about.

Pa told Earl the bumps were like antennae. Each one was tuned into something different; animals, people’s thoughts, the vibe of the universe, etc. Earl thought it was bullshit. He had never been any luckier than anyone without a lumpy head, so what good was it even if he was “tuned in?” None. None at all.

The only experience Earl could remember that remotely resembled luck or clairvoyance or awareness in the slightest occurred when they visited Scotland. He was a teen and the family was walking the fields to nowhere in particular. The fog was just lifting a bit when they saw another little group wandering in the grass.

It looked like a father, a teenage girl, and a boy. They were talking and laughing and Earl was wondering what it would be like to be easy with people like that, even his family. To just walk in a pasture talking and laughing in the morning mist, not a care in the world. It must be amazing.

Then Earl started to feel a rumbling. He heard and felt this low rumble, and turned to look at his pa. Pa and the rest of the family were not reacting at all. It was like they didn’t even feel or hear the rumble that was building until it was nearly deafening. He screamed and the other family looked up, suddenly aware of his presence. They began to run over to Earl because of his screams, and that’s when it happened.

A herd of Highland cattle stampeded by. They came out of nowhere, out of the fog, and thundered over the ground where the girl and her family had been strolling. If not for Earl’s screams, they’d have been trampled. The herd continued into a small village nearby, knocking carts to the ground. Some of the cattle were wounded and subsequently destroyed.

Testing showed the herd suffered from bovine spongiform enchephalopathy. Had the cattle not stampeded, they might have gotten into the food chain as well as killing the little family. Earl put it down to acute hearing, but he became the “boy who stopped the mad cows.” It was a moniker he could have done without.

Mary, her father and brother came to the pub that evening to buy dinner for Earl and his family as a thank you for saving their lives. Earl couldn’t help blushing every time he and Mary made eye contact. They slyly eyed one another with peripheral vision, neither of them forward enough to out and out stare, tempting as it was. The air was crackling. They had no idea their families were even at the table. It was heavenly.

When the dinner was over. Earl and Mary shook hands formally, as did everyone else. They also traded addresses. “I promise I’ll write you!” “Let’s stay in touch!” They said all the things teens have said since time began, whether they met on the beach or at summer camp. But Mary really did write Earl, and that was enough for him. He started saving his coins for a trip to America to visit her.

Mary couldn’t forget the slight Irish lad who saved her life. She had never seen anyone like him. He was so still, even when the rest of the world was spinning with activity. His eyes twinkled so that she swore to herself her Earl must be half leprechaun. Was that possible? She brought a book home from the library on fairies and leprechauns and elves. Ireland was such a magical place. She wished they had been able to see where Earl lived. She wondered if he burned peat in a fireplace in his living room.

Earl told the doctor that the lumps had always been on his head, and they had never caused him any discomfort. Life had far worse trials for him than those stupid lumps. He didn’t tell the doctor about his mad cow sensing skills. He’d made that mistake before. It wasn’t worth changing hospitals again just to avoid a psychiatric evaluation.

Welcome to Boomtown - Chapter 2

Previously

Just as scarecrows were a dying breed as family farms gave way to strip malls and factories loomed vacant as haunting remnants of an era fading into history, Earl sometimes felt himself drifting into oblivion. He too was of a different time and the pallor of his skin was making him look increasingly like a character from an old black & white movie. Jimmy Stewart might have portrayed him, a classic man of honor whose personal code prohibited him from going back on his word.

He checked his watch one more time, hoping to find that the hands had magically reversed course. Hoping didn’t make things so he thought as he pulled the tattered photograph from a pocket of his wallet. As he exhaled a long labored breath, the name Mary sighed from deep within his chest. Deep within his being. He tucked the picture back into its compartment and removed a few bills which he tucked neatly beneath the edge of his coffee cup. 

Taking the final swig as his rose from the stool he called out to Luann, “You take care of yourself, beautiful.”

Luann paused from restacking some water glasses behind the counter to give him an over-the-shoulder smile and a wave. “You too sug’.”

Heading outside he flipped the collar on his jacket up to try to stave off the chill that seemed to stalk him. This ever-present ghost would have caused the hairs on the back of his neck to stand up had any been allowed to take hold there.

The hospital would have been a short walk for him a few years ago but now he opted for the short bus ride, comforting himself in the knowledge that no one walked in Boomtown. It was a city of motion, constantly turning, churning, sometimes crushing the unprepared beneath its wheels. The oppressive dryness of the environment created its own type of brake dust.

He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the Emergency Room doors before the electronic eye granted him admission. He still recognized the man who returned his gaze, his physical form altered yet familiar. A cold gust rushed out as the doors slid open. Why did they have to make these places so cold? “You trying to freeze me to death,” he jokingly blurted out to the universe or the keeper of the hospital thermostat. Actually he remembered hearing that freezing wasn’t a bad way to go.

Following the yellow line that mapped out the pathway along the tiled floor, he zigzagged around a couple of corners and arrived in the waiting area of the ER. Kavitha looked up from her work at the nurse’s station as her internal radar signaled a distressed soul coming within range.

“You came, as you said you would,” she stated as she picked up a clipboard and started toward Earl, motioning for him to take a seat in one of the hard plastic seats that lined the walls. “Fill this out for me and I’ll be back in a minute. I want to see if Dr. Gall can see you.”

Earl removed his cap and gave a nod in lieu of tipping the hat, before accepting the paperwork from his angel of mercy. She smiled, a bit more on one side of her face than the other, which could have been body language for “You old charmer” or “You poor sick bastard.” Based on their earlier interaction it was safe to assume it was the former.

He sat down, balanced the hat on one knee, and ran his hand over his smoothed waves of silver hair as a comforting gesture before turning to the paperwork. He hated hospitals but he had promised Kavitha he would come. Truth be told, her long black hair tied back in a low-hanging bun reminded him of his daughter-in-law for whom he had always had a fondness. But she and the boy had split up years ago and he had no idea what had become of her.

After returning the clipboard and going through the routine maneuvers of sticking out his tongue, coughing, breathing deeply, and remaining still during the x-ray, for a stream of nurses and residents and technicians, he was left alone in the exam room for a time. He laid back on the table and tried to imagine his beloved Mary standing at his side, holding his hand in a reversal of the reality that had played out between the two of them at a hospital that smelled just like this one.

“I should have gone first, baby,” he said, as the exam door was opening again.

“Let us have a look at zese, shall ve?” The doctor who Earl presumed to be Dr. Gall, was pulling x-rays out of a giant folder as he entered and seemed to be speaking to himself more than Earl. “So vhat is going on here?”

Unsure if his input was required but equally unwilling to be a bystander to his own virtual, preliminary autopsy, Earl chimed in with an uneasy joviality, “My lungs seem to be having a bit of disagreement with me. I think they should breath and they think I should cough.”

“Smoker. Ah, factory. Ya, I see.” The doctor still hadn’t looked directly at Earl but continued to look at the chart and the back-lit images that formed a macabre art installation along the wall. “Zat could cause some impediments.”

Earl let out a few muffled coughs as he tried to steady his breathing for the diagnosis he expected to come next.

“Ya, ze smoking is bad but now let us talk about zose bumps on your head.”

Welcome to Boomtown - chapter 1

Earl fits the cap to his head, the soft worn flannel molding itself to each of the 27 phrenological constants in his life. He spins on the balls of his feet and gives the brim a quick tug as he sizes up the view in the hall mirror. Twinkling eyes. One crooked picket in his sly white smile. One straight, fresh Newport tucked behind his left ear. All floating above long, loose limbs and a lean body. He’s a dapper scarecrow who could be 35 or could be 70 (he’s closer to 70).

“Sure looking fine today, Mr. Earl. Any special plans?”

Earl gazes at the mirror expectantly, eyebrows cocked and ears pricked. When it doesn’t respond Earl provides his own answer, “A walk, I ‘spect. Then a nice quiet breakfast.” He chuckles to himself as he does every morning and heads out the door.

The sky is tinged red like a desert sunset and Earl’s feet leave dusty tracks in the patina of dust on the sidewalk. He turns his eye to the distant foothills where heavy machinery rumbles and groans and khaki tendrils snake against the verdant cover, fresh-cut roads like kudzu in Boomtown’s ever-expanding frontier. Wisps of smoke curl off the smoldering tip of the cigarette dangling from his lip.

He stamps out his smoke in front of Millie’s Diner, adding another sooty chapter to the journal he’s been keeping on the sidewalk these past few months. Settling at the counter, he pops a mint and doffs his hat as Luann splashes coffee into his cup. She puts the hot pot on the scarred Formica and gets pad and pencil ready. “What’ll it be, Earl? The usual?”

Earl winks; his whole face crinkles with the effort. “I think I’ll have me a bowl of grits and some bacon and a whole mess of scrambled eggs. I might just go hikin’ later.” Luann smiles despite herself and writes down Earl’s usual order of plain rye toast.

He coughs, soft as a whisper at first; soon booming coughs are rattling his whole body. Kavitha looks up from her paper and oatmeal and sees a gaunt old man clutching the counter as he’s wracked with a fit. She sees it all too often in the ER: too much dust and detritus in the air in Boomtown; not enough rain to clear the air and wash the streets. She folds her paper and takes a last sip of her tea before walking over to check on Earl.

“Would you be alright, sir? Could I be of assistance?” Crisp, polite, impeccable bedside manner nurtured over two decades and three continents. Kavitha places one comforting hand on Earl’s back and brushes the back of his hand with the other. The gentle touch acts as a balm, releasing the iron fist clutching his chest. He turns to look at his savior and sees two Brazil nuts swimming behind thick, chunky glasses. She asks again if he’s alright and Earl nods slowly.

“Sometimes it starts and I just can’t get a handle on it. Been that way a long time.”

Kavitha gently grips his wrist, giving comfort as she quietly checks his pulse. “I see.”

Earl should be excused the occasional paroxysm. In forty-three years at the Best-Os plant in Dearborn, working his way from floor sweep to shift manager, he inhaled more than his share of brake dust. Everyone did. But that plant gave him everything: he met his wife on the line; they paid for their home together and vacations on the lake and school for the kids with their comfortable salaries; and of course, there was the generous pension plan that made it possible to retire to Boomtown. If only.

It was quick, anyway. The mesothelioma that took Mary was diagnosed in April and she was gone by October. The kids blamed Earl, and couldn’t forgive him selling the house and rushing off to Boomtown. They hadn’t spoken to him since the funeral.

Having exhausted the clinical possibilities of lunch counter diagnostics, Kavitha asks Earl to come to the hospital where she can examine him properly. He is reluctant but agrees to meet her later.

“Very well. I would see you in an hour, sir.” Her English, precise but alien, is filled with vows of an uncertain future. To Earl, mindful of the nowness of this place, they sound both hopeful and hopeless. He tries to put her at ease with a promise, “I will see you in an hour.”