28 Barbary Lane by Armistead Maupin

Author:Armistead Maupin [Maupin, Armistead]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, GLBT, gay, Family Life
ISBN: 9780062683007
Google: I_B0jwEACAAJ
Amazon: B01M5IE6EZ
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-12-06T00:00:00+00:00

The Emergency Room

When Mary Ann and Burke returned to 28 Barbary Lane, Jon heard their footsteps on the stairway and motioned them into Michael’s apartment.

“Michael’s sick,” he explained tersely, leading them into the bedroom, where an illuminated plastic goose cast a yellow glow on the motionless figure in bed. Then the doctor knelt down next to his patient.

“Mary Ann and Burke are here.”

“They’re . . . you woke them up?”

Mary Ann took a step forward from the doorway. “We’ve been out at the . . . Mouse, what’s the matter?”

Michael hiked himself up on his elbows. “We’re working on that. My leg’s . . . gone to sleep.”

Jon tapped on his leg with a hemostat—the hemostat that Michael used as a roach clip. “Feel that?”

“Nope,” said Michael, as the clamp moved up his calf. “Nope . . . nope . . .” Finally, when it reached midthigh, he said, “There.”

“Good.”

“Good, my ass! What’s the matter with me?”

“I think it’s only temporary, Michael. I’m gonna take you to the hospital.”

“I’m in labor, right? C’mon, you can tell me.”

Jon smiled. “Don’t talk, babe. We’ll have you out of here soon.”

“Will you stop playing Chad Everett and tell me what the fuck—”

“I don’t know, Michael. I don’t know what it is.”

Jon arranged for an ambulance, which arrived fifteen minutes later. He and Burke and Mary Ann rode in the back with Michael, making small talk most of the way to St. Sebastian’s Hospital. It was anything but natural, and Mary Ann felt painfully inadequate in the crisis.

“Mouse,” she said softly as they passed Lafayette Park, “if you give me your parents’ number, I’ll call them when we get to the hospital.”

He hesitated before replying. “No . . . I’d rather you didn’t.”

“Mouse, don’t you think they should . . . ?”

“No, I don’t.”

Jon leaned over and stroked Michael’s hair. “Michael, I think your family deserves to—”

“This is my family,” said Michael.

Mary Ann and Burke sat mute in the waiting room while Jon accompanied Michael into the emergency room. Twenty minutes later, he reported back to them.

“They’re going to do a spinal,” he said.

Mary Ann fidgeted with the McCall’s in her lap. “Jon . . . I don’t know what that means.”

“A lumbar puncture. They check for elevaton of the protein level and . . . diminishment of the white cells in the . . .” The doctor was barely looking at his friends. “They think it’s Guillain-Barré.”

This time Burke stepped in. “Jon . . . a translation?”

“Sorry. Remember those people who were paralyzed by the swine flu shots?”

Burke shook his head.

“I do,” said Mary Ann.

“Well, that was the Guillain-Barré syndrome. I mean, the syndrome caused the paralysis.”

Mary Ann frowned. “But . . . I don’t think Michael ever had a swine flu shot.”

“That’s just one cause. They don’t know what causes it, really.”

“But . . . what does it do?”

“It’s an ascending paralysis. It starts in the feet and legs usually, and it . . . well, it climbs.” He looked down at his hands, tapping his fingertips gently against each other.

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