Disclaimer: Okay, so these diclaimers are compltetly redundant, but I hate leaving it all blank at the top
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The doctors did their examination as doctors will. The diagnosis (or whatever they called it when you're already dead; Roger didn't know) was a disease called meningitis. Roger listened as the examiner explained it. It was some sort of swelling or something in the spinal cord that's passed through saliva. Really deadly if not caught and treated within a few days. Roger was hardly listening. He wondered instead about the man telling him about it. The examiner at the morgue. Roger could not see how someone could make a living out of looking at dead bodies.
And it was awkward too, because Roger could not grasp the fact that Mark was just a dead body now. That this man had been examining Mark, but it hadn't been Mark, it had just been another body, because Mark was dead.
Mark was dead.
Was it possible to use those words in a sentence that way?
They made no sense arranged in that way. It was like using horrible grammar. It was wrong, Roger half-expected some old English teacher to pop out of nowhere and correct him were he to say those words like that.
On top of it all, Joanne insisted that Roger go see a doctor.
He was in too much pain because of Mark's death to argue.
They took tests and stuck an IV in him for a few hours and gave him antibiotics to take, just in case he had contracted it. It all went by in sort of a blur, and he was out of the hospital before nightfall.
"Roger?"
He was at Joanne and Maureen's apartment. He couldn't bring himself to go back to the loft. He just sat on the couch with his knees drawn up to his chest, staring at the pattern in the rug. Joanne had obviously chosen it. It was too proper-looking for Maureen. All wine-red with swirls and diamonds and deep blue. Mark's mom would have liked it. Mark would have liked it too, but said he hated it because it was something his mom would like.
He felt Joanne come up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. Roger flinched at the contact. "Roger, honey?"
"Don't touch me, please," he said tonelessly. She removed her hand and looked at him sadly. He kept his eyes firmly on a forest green swirl.
"Are you just gonna sleep on the couch tonight?"
Roger did not feel a need to answer her.
"Do you… want some blankets?"
"No."
Joanne sighed heavily and sat down beside him. "I was talking to his father…."
"You can say his name."
She seemed taken aback. "I was talking to… Mark's… father. They want the funeral to be held in Scarsdale. Their making arrangements tomorrow, and he was wondering if you wanted to have a part in planning—"
"Funerals are stupid."
"Roger, what—?"
He didn't take his eyes from the carpet. "Some senile old priest says how wonderful a person was when he didn't even know them, saying things that don't matter, then he sticks them in the ground and does it again tomorrow for another person he doesn't know."
"His parents were fighting, evidently," Joanne continued, sounding more like she was talking to herself than to Roger. But he listened because what other choice did he have? "Because his mother's Jewish and his father's Christian…."
"Mark's Jewish like his mom, not many people know that because he never talked about it."
"Oh…. I'll… tell them that."
Roger lapsed into silence. He didn't want to talk about any of this. In fact, he would not be disappointed if he never had to talk again.
Joanne gasped as if she just remembered something important, disappeared into the kitchen, and reappeared a moment later.
"Roger, you need to take your medication."
He finally looked up, just raising his eyes, seeing her through his bangs. She held two medicine bottles in one hand and a glass of water in the other. She set them down on the coffee table (carefully putting a coaster under the water) and looked at him expectantly. He just stared at her.
"Take them."
"What's the point?"
She paused a moment, gauging whether or not he was kidding. When he made no move for the antibiotics and AZT, her features hardened. "Don't do this, Roger."
"I don't wanna take it. I won't."
"Roger!"
"There's no point! I'm not taking it!" he shouted, standing up quickly.
"You are acting like a child!" Joanne yelled back, taking the pills out of the containers and holding them out to him. "So I will act like your mother. You will take these pills, Roger Davis. Right now."
Angrily, Roger snatched the pills from her hand and shoved them in his mouth. He arranged them so that they were hidden under his tongue and then took a sip of water, not swallowing even one of them. Joanne glared from behind her glasses.
"Open your mouth," she said threateningly. Roger did. "Lift up your tongue."
Roger closed his mouth and looked daggers at her.
"Nice try." She handed him the glass of water. Grudgingly, he swallowed the pills.
Then he smashed the glass down onto the table with all the force he could, shards of it flying everywhere, water splashing the carpet and table and Joanne.
The two of them stared each other down. The only sound was muffled wailing from the other room, where Maureen was crying.
Then, without a word, Joanne went to get a cloth and a vacuum and began silently cleaning up the mess.
Roger threw himself onto the couch, putting a pillow over his head and tensing all his muscles. For a moment he thought he would start crying. He wished he would start crying. He screwed up his face and squinted his eyes and tried to summon tears to comfort him, but they would not come.
He listened to the sounds of Joanne cleaning, thinking about how vacuum cleaners were just too loud. When she shut it off and closed it back in the closet he was grateful.
Until his ears zeroed in on Maureen's loud sobbing.
It was so obnoxious, Roger wanted to go and hit her. But he didn't because that would just be too mean, even for him. Even for him when his best friend was dead.
Was he really? Was Mark really gone? For some reason it didn't seem possible. It seemed like this was a tough time, a hard time, that would eventually pass and Mark would be there again. Gone for a while, not forever.
How the hell was he supposed to deal with the death of his best friend without his best friend?