Literary Supplement

It’s often difficult, amidst the duties and routines of daily life, to find the time to indulge in the more subtle pleasures of literature. Life just happens; events intervene; the days run away like wild horses over the hills, as Bukowski wrote. In between driving the kids to karate, making dinner, watching TV, entertaining visiting relatives—books go unread, forming small mountain ranges on the nightstand, as magazines stare up from the coffee table unopened, silently questioning why you bothered subscribing to them in the first place.
At Chronogram, it’s sort of like that too. We know there are many wonderful short story writers and poets in our region, yet we’re often so involved in covering the pressing issues of the day—the Hudson River PCB remediation, the election, local cultural coverage—that we only have room for one poetry page in our magazine, and no room for fiction. Our Literary Supplement seeks to address that deficiency. Herein, you’ll find two short stories and five poems, one of them a longer piece, “Hiking Giant Ledge,” by Chris Ketcham, that we don’t normally have the space to run, plus a few book reviews of works by local authors. We hope you like what you see—it was exciting to watch it come together from an amorphous idea into a physical being, our Literary Supplement. And we hereby give notice to all poetistas and fictionistas in our region—send us your stories, your poems, your huddled masterpieces yearning to breathe free. Chronogram is committed to its community, and its community of writers—this is your magazine, and my thanks to all who contributed to this fine section. A special note of thanks as well to our poetry editor, Lee Anne Albritton, who was kind enough to allow us to fold Poetica into the Literary Supplement this month and who worked very closely with me in making this a reality. —Brian K. Mahoney

THE DOCK
by Michael Compain

I’m walking along the pier as late afternoon is becoming dusk and the energy of the day is waning. The conversations of the boat owners are quieter and slower with occasional bursts of laughter. Even the seagulls are gliding more easily and rarely call. And I look through the forest of masts out to sea where the water is calm and endless, preparing for sunset. There’s no anticipation on the pier just the relaxed acceptance of things rolling along the way the sea rolls out to the horizon.
I stand and watch the sea, feeling wonderfully sad and letting the sadness lap against the dock, the hulls, and I want to call to the seagulls because at this moment I feel I know something.

Someone is entering the room. I have a neutral sense of the person. It’s probably one of the “per diem” nurses who will be my lover for a day. The presence is close and untroubled, now touching one of my umbilica. This must be a respiratory tech checking the tubing. There’s no need for suctioning; I’m breathing easy. How to convey comfort when I can’t move? He’s taking too long and is obviously determined to be conscientious. There’s the brief moment of freedom when I’m off the bellows and then the terrible intrusion, snaking around inside, looking for something. Apparently this is when I show off my “involuntary grimacing” which is a “good sign.” My mechanical master, my savior is attached again breathing life into me, and the ebb and flow brings me back to the sea.

“Are you presenting at Morning Report?”
“I hope not. I don’t have all the numbers on my admissions, and Sanders will have my ass in front of the entire housestaff.”
They are both leaning on the bedrail and looking out the window at the early morning and the parking lot. The clerical staff and other “civilians” are arriving, carrying lunches and newspapers, talking in small, cheerful groups. Two more residents come in followed by the senior resident who is explaining something to the medical students.
“...and the magnesium needs to be checked as well. Okay, let’s get started. What’s going here with Sims?”
Stella reaches into her pocket and pulls out a handful of index cards. She thumbs through the stack, finds Sims’ card and scans it before looking up.
“We had to adjust his TPN a little because his K and his sugars were off. The diarrhea is better and he’s had no fever for two days.”
“Anything going on neurologically?”
Stella looks at Carl Sims briefly and shakes her head. “I have a call in to the family. They’re very ambivalent about the various options.” She looks down at Sims again.
The chief resident starts quizzing the students on respirator settings and they are doing poorly, especially the one who always stares at Stella. She’s sure he will ask her out, and then she’ll be stuck rounding with him for a month after saying no.
“Stella. Have you been checking for bedsores?”
“I hardly get to bed at all,” Stella jokes.
“Next,” announces the senior resident, and the team files out.

Stella.
I’d love to take you down to the sea to show you that it doesn’t matter.
There’s no mistaking Stella’s presence. Sometimes she’s really here, but usually she’s in that other world which they all think is real. I lay here surrounded by young life and feel nothing. They play with the mechanics, measure my fluids, but ask no questions. Hovering over me, they press on me and turn me. They listen very carefully, listening for signs of life.
So am I.

An older fisherman is working on his tackle. He seems oblivious to my presence, but not distant, and I’m sure he would smile if I called him.
The gentle swaying of the boat seems to steady him, makes everything easier. It’s midday, and the sun is browning us. I watch his hands working the lines and it feels like he’s holding me, keeping me standing and steady under the light and heat of the day.
There are two gulls standing on top of the boat’s cabin. One looks noble, the other stupid. The noble one looks at me and then at the fisherman and I close my eyes.
Two nurses are in the room, laughing and gossiping. My seas are uneasy as the bedrails go down, and one pulls me over on my side while the other one cleans me.
“I don’t think she’s seeing him anymore.”
“Well, I’m afraid to ask her. She gets so fucking paranoid, and I don’t need any more problems with her.”
There’s a slight breeze which ruffles the sails on some of the larger boats, and the forest rocks and wavers more than usual. The fisherman and one gull are gone. The idiot remains.
“She’s never willing to cover. I had to work a double last week, and God knows I need the money, but it just pisses me off. Can you hold his leg up for a second?”
It’s becoming windy and choppy, and the boats are rocking crazily, a demented dance. The sky is still blue but high clouds are starting to curl in. There’s no one else on the dock or in the boats, and the gulls are all out to sea, sometimes fighting the wind but usually riding it.
Darker, gray clouds are rising from the west but the sun is still bright and the breeze is warm. The sea is playful, rocking the boats and slapping them gently. The cadence of the water and the wind are steady and reassuring. There’s nothing to wish for and my spirit floats with the seagulls. Stella walks up beside me.
She lowers the bedrail and starts to examine him. Pupils are unchanged. She presses on his sternum and gets the same mild grimace he always makes.
Stella takes out her stethoscope and listens, waiting for the respirator to breath. She’s thinking about her car, how bad it sounded this morning and whether she could afford to let it go.
Her hands press on Carl’s abdomen: no response. If she brings the car back to Charlie he’ll check it out, but there’s always that sense of obligation. He won’t say anything, she’ll just feel it.
“Hi Stella. You cured Carl yet?” Susan is one of the few nurses who doesn’t seem threatened by Stella.
“Poor Carl,” Stella says and looks down at him. “He seems to always be on the verge of waking up, but he just stays the same.”
“His wife thinks he’s lighter this week. She says he’s more ‘perceptive’.”
“Well, I don’t know,” says Stella, still looking down at Sims. “Sometimes when I’m in here I feel totally alone, and other times I find myself talking to him. You know, the way a mother talks to an infant. And I have a very clear sense of his personality. It’s so weird. Then I’m afraid he’s going to wake up and I’ll find out he’s a real son of a bitch.
“Uh, Stella. I think you’ve been on this case too long. It’s time to rejoin the living. You want to go over his TPN?”

Stella looks out to sea in the same unfocused way she always does. I look at her briefly but she doesn’t turn. The wind is blowing her hair back and she’s squinting slightly, focusing on nothing.
The wind is brisk, but a sense of calm comes over us. We know that the dark clouds and the coming storm can not affect us, and we can drift around it and through it with the gulls. I try to show Stella that she can stay here through the storm and beyond, but the other Stella is probing me without feeling, talking to someone, and I’m alone again on the dock. The clouds are coming fast now and the water starts rocking and jumping, breaking against the bulkhead. The wind is audible and it carries a dark, troubled presence which I know...
“Is the doctor around?”
“Not at the moment, Mrs. Sims. But I can page her if you feel it’s important.”
Connie looks at the nurse and again knows why she hates the hospital and the staff.
“My husband’s in a coma and I’d like to know how he’s doing. Is that important enough?”
The nurse knows about Connie Sims and isn’t surprised. She looks back blankly, answers patiently, “I’ll page her.”
Connie walks back into her husband’s room, sits and waits.
Her life is a nightmare.
Things had been very bad before Carl’s accident. She had wished him dead (or at least gone) so many times over the past few years. The relationship had been impossible and was getting worse. She had decided it was better to stay in limbo and let him find his own way. It had reached the point where she just wanted him to leave her alone. Then this happened, and now she was tortured by irrational guilt. ‘This is not my fault” had become her mantra, but the guilt was there to greet her each morning and proceeded to consume each day.
She couldn’t do this anymore. Her feelings were so confused that she walked through her days in chaos. Chaos and guilt. ‘This is not my fault.’
“Hi, Mrs. Sims.” Stella always felt intensely uncomfortable around her. There was an unnatural feeling in the room and she couldn’t place it.
“Good afternoon, doctor. I wonder if you could tell me how my husband is doing.”
Connie Sims carried pain with her like a backpack, Stella thought. But it didn’t feel like grief, just heavy tension and anxiety. Talking to her was no easier for her lack of grief. Stella didn’t really know what she wanted.
“Well, things are about the same. There’s been no change neurologically. Otherwise, he’s holding his own.”
Connie again wondered what she was doing here. Carl’s situation never changed, and no one ever had anything meaningful to say, including herself. The doctor was looking at her with something like sympathy which agitated her even more.
“Well. What happens if he doesn’t wake up?”
Stella felt her own double take. “Mrs. Sims. We discussed this over the phone the other day. I was hoping you’d had some thoughts about the various options we went over.”
They were standing near the door and Stella suddenly realized what felt so unnatural. She had never seen Connie Sims look at her husband.
The rain is cascading over me and the dock, speckling the sea. Sharp bursts of wind fly over the water and I can hear Connie’s voice over the wind and penetrating the calm of the storm.
“I don’t feel you give me enough information to make an intelligent decision. Doesn’t it just boil down to whether or not we give up on him?”
Even with the rain coming down there are cracks in the clouds with shafts of sunlight scanning the sea like search beams. I’m looking and listening for the gulls but they’ve all gone. Stella seems far away and her voice is muffled by the wind which is picking up. These clouds will pass the way they always do, and the rain will drift back up again, but the voices carry on with urgency and need. If Connie were here on the dock she would at least stop worrying. But Stella has been here and she knows the sea. She should let me stay.
“I’m sorry we can’t give you more to go on. We just don’t know. It’s unfortunate that you never had the chance to discuss these things with your husband.”
“So this is my fault? I should have expected this?” She paused and stood there, wringing her hands. “This conversation is pointless and I have to leave.”
Flashes of lightening bounce off the horizon and the sea boils. Yet somewhere below the surface there are dolphins gliding in silence, and sometimes I want to go beneath the surface with them. I’ve been invited more than once. Then I will close my eyes and try to imagine that soundless, dark blanket. But I prefer the dock and my daydreams.
The sun has found me through the clouds and the storm is now a sun shower, glistening and shimmering. Stella comes up to me and puts her hand on my shoulder and the seagulls start to return.

The hospital seems empty now. There’s no movement in the hall and no noise from the paging system. The light is fading outside and the room is cast with shadows and dark corners. The only sound is the sigh of the respirator which seems to come so infrequently.
Stella is leaning on the chair by the window, looking blankly across the room. She focuses on the bed and walks over, resting on the railing and feeling worn out.
The stillness of Carl Sims seems so wonderful to her that she feels a pang of sadness and is almost brought to tears. “You’re not making this easy, Carl.” She’s frightened by how intimate it sounds. Stella feels unable to move and only wants to lay down someplace safe. The respirator whispers to her reassuringly and she begins to cry quietly.

They must be drawing blood because my arm feels troubled. It feels cold out there and every day I’ve felt more removed. The voices have been getting fainter above the sounds of wind and sea and I’ve been able to spend more time on the dock.
Today the gulls are everywhere. They’re thick in the sky and stand all around me and on top of many of the boats. Bathed in brilliant sunlight, the old fisherman is sitting quietly on the side of his boat working on his lines. Out on the horizon, a school of dolphins are jumping where the seas sparkles from the sun. There are no clouds and no wind. The seagulls have come out of the sky and are now quietly floating on the water or standing around me on the dock.
There is absolutely no sound now except the sea. No wind, no voices, no respirator. No Stella.
Suddenly the fisherman looks up and smiles at me—the most beautiful, wonderful and mysterious smile. He’s ready to cast off and there’s plenty of room on board. I look out to sea and it feels like the sun is filling the sky. As I step forward all the seagulls rise up as one and head out to sea. We all leave the dock empty and waiting.

Michael Compain is a physician practicing nutritional medicine at the Rhinebeck Health Center. He and his family are members of the co-housing community in Saugerties. This is his first published short story.