Geriatria

Marci slouched before a table of disheveled place settings-- spoons submerged in pools of vinaigrette, sweet rolls flattened and left half chewed to become stale, flutes mostly empty of flat bubbly. The brass cacophony of a swing band crashed into her ears. Two tables away geriatric bodies gyrated on the dance floor. She wanted to dance. But Marci slouched, remembering that she was sixty. A fierce ache emanated from the lower part of her back.

With two hands on the edge of the table she pushed her delicate frame into standing position. Behind her, people milled around a spread of wine and cheese, talking over the music. Marci tipped the last of her wine down her throat, turned and moved stiffly towards the crowd.

The first man she encountered wore his hair in thin strands over the gleaming dome of his scalp. He was looking around for someone to talk to. When Marci stood in front of him, he looked up at her and the salt-and-pepper bushes above his eyes lifted.

“I'm Marci,” she said.

“I'm Theodore,” he said, drunkenly and eagerly. She didn't hear him. Standing brought the pain to an unbearable pitch.

“Do you have an ibuprofen?” she asked. A man with white hair standing behind Theodore turned when she said it. With palpable interest he inserted himself into the conversation circle. He was wearing a smoke gray suit and a hearing aide.

“An ibuprofen?” Theodore said, a laugh in his voice. “Of course not. Who needs that? You might as well drink a cup of tea. But I've got a Percoset.” He reached into the lapel pocket of his suit coat and produced a cylinder of white pills. Marci saw a twinkle of mischief in his eyes.

“That's a little strong,” she said.

“I've got Vicoden,” said the second man, suddenly turning to place his wine flute on the cheese table, and running his hands across his pockets searchingly.

“Excuse me,” Marci said, touching her chest. “I'm Marci.”

“Hansford Berkenshire,” the man said, “pleased to meet you.” They shook hands. Mr. Berkenshire turned again, pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket, and blew his nose.

“Thank you both,” Marci said. Mr. Berkenshire looked at her through the tops of his eye sockets while he cleaned the last vestiges of snot from around his nose. “I'm looking for something less potent. Otherwise I'll be absolutely incapacitated.”

“Exactly the point!” Theodore said garrulously, slapping Mr. Berkenshire on the back, who glanced sharply at his rival. “Either you can be crippled from pain, or crippled from drugs.”

Marci smiled and backed away from Theodore and Mr. Berkenshire with as much grace as she could conjure. She bumped into a soft surface. A mountain of a man with a handlebar mustache and three chins turned around and lay his gaze across her. The lower part of his huge face broke into a smile. It was too late.

“Upton,” he said abruptly, thrusting a meaty hand towards Marci. His white, frizzy hair, which projected from around each ear, wiggled when he moved. Gingerly Marci slipped her hand into his and his crushed around hers suffocatingly. They shook.

“And what do you do for yourself, Upton?” she said, blushing. A red-hot dagger slid lengthwise through her kidney, and she failed to suppress a grimace.

“I've been forty years in the civil service,” he boomed in a trombone tenor. “Did I hear you say you were looking for an ibuprofen? What's the matter?”

“My back,” she said. “I'm in terrible pain.”

“Well, I've got a soma,” he said. “It's a muscle relaxant. I'd imagine that it's just what you need. Back pain is really just muscle pain, you know.” He rattled two pills out of an amber tube as he spoke.

“I'd rather not,” Marci said. “I just want an ibuprofen.”

“This man is a doctor!” Mr. Berkenshire exclaimed suddenly, pushing his way back into Marci's attention. He was leading a squat man in a crème sash by the shoulder. The man looked around confusedly through a thick pair of spectacles, bunching up his nose.

“Where's the patient,” he said nasally.

“I'm Marci,” Marci said, “what's your name?”

“This is doctor Bertrand Cordova of the Mayo Institute,” Mr. Berkenshire said. Dr. Cordova looked up at him objectionably. “He's won several awards.”

“I'm quite capable of introducing myself,” the doctor said. He pushed his glasses up his nose and rolled his shoulders back.

“Nice to meet you, Doctor,” Marci said. “My lower back has been killing me for two days.”

Upton pushed his way in again. “I just remembered that I've got these other yellow pills,” he said. “Last time I had one, it knocked me out for hours.”

“Oh,” Marci said, and she felt her knees weaken. She rubbed the spot where the ache was the deepest and most entrenched, like a Nazi bunker above Normandy Beach.

“Are you an imbecile?” Mr. Berkenshire said. “How could you offer the lady a mysterious pill? You'll kill her!”

“He's a rapist!” exclaimed Theodore, who was back, his face the color of a ripe tomato.

“Defamy!” Upton said. “I'll sue you.” He began to roll up his sport-coat sleeves.

“Gentlemen, get a hold of yourselves!” Mr. Berkenshire said, coming to the center of the circle and waving his arms in the air. “The lady is crippled. We must save her.”

The Doctor turned to Upton. “Give me three of those pills,” he said.

“What are they?” Marci asked.

“Pure codeine,” the Doctor said. “These are antiques. You can't get them anywhere anymore. You should consider yourself lucky.”

“Oh?” Marci said.

“Nonsense,” Theodore said, “Percoset is stronger. What are you doing?”

“I'm the doctor!” the Doctor said, shrinking away from Theodore and growling.

Marci sunk to her knees, sighing, and sat on the parquet tiles. “She's falling down!” Theodore exclaimed.

“Alright, gentlemen,” Marci said, “give me everything you've got.”

An frenzied eruption engulfed the bachelors as they each reached to deliver their pills. Theodore pushed towards her with a handful of Percoset. Mr. Berkenshire rattled out five Vicodens. Upton poured a full glass of wine and handed it to her with his entire bottle of soma.

Marci ate the pills as quickly as she could and drank the wine. The bachelors swayed around her, whispering to one another. She tried to get up, and then collapsed.

“Oh, my God!” Theodore said. He grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her up. She slouched into a white, padded chair.

The music was all mixed together with the talking and shuffling people around her. The pills burnt the pain out of her back like a blowtorch. In its place came a sense of floating. The world turned white. Marci sunk into the chair, into oblivion. She closed her eyes.

“She's better!” Theodore said. “She's better!”