Percival Everett by Virgil Russell by Percival Everett Read Free Book Online Page A

soluble paracetamol.)
    Antibiotic (penicillin and not)
    Antihistamine
    Aspirin (still)
    Salbutamol inhaler
    A butterfly for kids
    A Venflon for adults
    Glucose Diazemuls
    Bumetanide
    Adrenalin
    Glucagon
    Antiemetic injection
    Chlorpromazine
    Pethidine
    Diamorphine
    Morphone
    Cyclimorph
    Water and saline
    Hydrocortisone
    Atropine
    A pint of whisky
    So the door opens and there is this young woman. She is a walking cliché and it pains me to write it. She is beautiful, with dark hair and all the other descriptive details that go along with the cliché. She is pretty enough to be boring. Beautiful enough to lust after and then feel sullied by the thought. She may or may not be flirtatious, and I add this because even if she isn’t I will imagine it and if she is you will doubt it. Nonetheless, when she opens her mouth and speaks, I lose all interest because she is obviously stupid or drug riddled or both.
    She speaks slowly, her voice raspy, not a bad voice, but not one you’d choose, Donald’s in here.
    I walk through the trashed, but still somehow neat, front room, giant-screen television blocking the fireplace, sofa with a garish western covered-wagon pattern in the middle of the room, layered with a veneer of celebrity and movie magazines, and into a bedroom where I discover that she is correct. Here is Donald, all twiceas-much-as his-brother-weighs Donald, and I realize I have never seen him before and that is why I could never tell Douglas from Donald; I had only ever seen Douglas. So, what’s the problem? I ask.
    Having trouble breathing.
    Well, let’s take a listen. He is already bare chested. He is lying in bed, covered to the waist by a sheet and a light-blue blanket. I am repulsed by his size, his rolls of meat, his flabby pectorals, and I am ashamed to feel it and yet somehow impressed by my own honesty about my feeling and more, yet I am dismayed by my appreciation of my honesty and decide that I am not honest at all, but vain, and decide I can live with that. I take a listen. You’re alive. We say nothing as I place the cuff of the sphygmomanometer around his arm.
    Will it fit?
    It fits, I tell him. His pressure is high and I tell him so. I look at his throat and in his ears. I ask him questions. Any chest tightness? Blood in your stool? How are you sleeping? How much do you weigh?
    About four fifty, but that’s a guess.
    I would imagine.
    You should get yourself a blood pressure reader from the drugstore and keep track of your pressure. If it stays high, you’ll need to be on medication. I’m pretty sure you’re going to need medication.
    Am I all right?
    No. Why would you even ask that?
    What’s wrong with him? The woman is standing in the doorway. I notice her flip-flops.
    Where’s your gun? I ask him.
    I don’t have a gun.
    What’s wrong with him?
    I look at Donald. You’re fat, I say to him. There’s probably a lot wrong with you and if I were you I’d go get a real physical examination and cut down to maybe ten meals a day.
    Hey, from the woman.
    You asked.
    I want you to be my doctor. I like you because you don’t bullshit around. Hey, I know I’m fat. I work at it.
    I do not respond. My eye has caught the table across the room. It is covered with cameras and lenses. I step over to the table and study a late 1950s or early ’60s Leica M3 camera in a plastic bag.
    I said I want you to be my doctor.
    This is a nice camera.
    Take it out of the bag. Look at it.
    I take out the rangefinder 35 mm camera and feel the weight of it in my hand. I know that it is the first Leica with a bayonet interchangeable lens mount. There is a 50 mm lens attached and on the table are 90 and 135 mm lenses. The top of the camera is black, not chrome, and it has not been painted. On the table are also earlier Leica cameras and Mamiyas and Hasselblads and Rodenstocks, Schneiders, fieldand monorail-view cameras and lenses, all piled up. This is all so beautiful.
    You can take that one. Made in ’sixty-three.
    At this