Flannery in the waiting room.

"They had so many different styles at that place?way more than the other?and so many colors to choose from, too. Teal, raspberry, celery?you know, a green like that?"

"Celery's nice."

They were the only other people in the tiny waiting room. At first I thought it was an elderly couple?the man sounding like legendary character actor William Hickey, the woman sounding like every stereotypical Jewish mother you've ever encountered. The more I listened, however (there was nothing else to do while I waited), the more it became clear that the man was the old woman's son.

A few minutes later, I had also reached the conclusion that he was a professional party planner, in the process of furnishing his new office. The two of them sat side by side, beneath a colorful poster that seemed to list every known human disease.

"They had black, too, with the, you know, the chrome? I need to go for a modern look, but I'm just not sure the black will go with the carpet. I like this place, though?the things at the other place just looked so?cheap, you know? It's hard to tell which color would be best, though. I don't want white, I don't want beige and I don't want black."

"The celery sounds nice," his mother said again.

It had been over a year, I'm guessing, since I'd been to a doctor. Some nagging and peculiar physical ailments made it necessary again. Nothing traumatic?a few minor things I just figured I should ask someone about.

The color question still on the table, the mother moved on to her own ailments, as well as the ailments of everyone she knew.

"It only gets worse," she told her son. "Yesterday I couldn't move at all. I couldn't go out. Every time I tried to move, it came on stronger."

"That's why we're here."

"And Donald? He says he can't remember anything anymore. His mind is going. The Alzheimer's. Can't remember if he ate, or took a bath or anything. It's very bad. And Eileen keeps putting on weight. She keeps eating, and she keeps getting fatter and fatter and fatter."

That's depression, is what that is," her son explained. "She's depressed, so she eats. Then she gains weight, gets more depressed about that, and eats some more."

"But that's what makes him so upset. She's just ballooned over this past year. She's gotten so fat?and she keeps getting fatter and fatter. He bugs her about it, but every time he does, she just gets bigger."

"It's depression. I'm telling you."

"If you ask me, she's big enough?well, you know what I mean, I mean old enough?to make that decision for herself to stop and lose weight. He can't tell her to. She's got to do it herself."

"People like to eat," the son said. "And people need to eat." I thought he was making some further comment about that tub of lard Eileen, but I was wrong.

"What do people do?" he continued. "They go out to eat. 'Let's go out to eat,' they say. What else are they going to do, go for a walk? Walk around somewhere? I guess they can go to the theater, but that's how often? Once or twice a week at the most. What do they do the rest of the time? They go out to eat. It's a social thing."

"I'm so miserable," his mother said. "I just feel terrible... I'm not getting better?I'm getting worse."

"Caterers are so important?and it's important for them to do a good job. Especially if they want to be at the top of a corporate client's list, next time a caterer's needed. That's why Jody needs to get a new oven. A real commercial kitchen, with at least six burners. That way, you can cook all of your chicken cutlets at once, instead of one at a time."

"?don't know what it is, but I feel so awful?"

I didn't know if the son was ignoring her, or trying to distract her, keep her mind off her troubles, or what the hell. The two of them were starting to drive me a little batty. It was like being trapped inside a Flannery O'Connor short story, except that none of the characters was complaining about "the nigger problem." Not yet, at least. Still, I was tempted to reach into my bag for a book I could hurl at one of their heads. Maybe two books.

"You know what that little monkey told me?" the son was saying now. "I told him I was going to bring him a present. So the next day when I went over there, I gave it to him?but I didn't have time to wrap it before I went. He looks at it and he says, 'This isn't a present.' Because he couldn't unwrap it, it wasn't a present, see? Can you believe that? He's such a little monkey. I had to call Cheryl and tell her to make sure and wrap her present before she went over next time."

"I think it's a virus, maybe, but it's getting worse. I'm dizzy all the time. I can't stand up or raise my head?"

The son looked at his fingers. "I was going to see Ricardo tomorrow," he said. "But now I don't know. My nails aren't that long yet. Maybe I can wait to the end of the week." He inspected them more closely. "Well maybe the thumbs are getting kind of long. The thumbs and the pinkies." He held his fingers in front of his mother's face. "Look at these?what do you think? Just the thumbs and the pinkies?you know, the little fingers. Too long?"

"I don't know," she groaned. "I can't see straight."

I was both relieved and disappointed when the doctor appeared to lead them both into the examination room. They were annoying, yes, but in an amazing way that stretched far beyond mere "entertainment."

"I hope this won't take too long," the mother told the doctor as her son helped her down the hall, "he has an appointment this afternoon."

"A tennis date," the son clarified.

Five minutes later, the door to the examining room opened again, and the doctor emerged.

"Call the hospital," he told the receptionist. "See if they can take her right now." As the receptionist picked up the phone, he retrieved the son and the mother and walked them back out.

"Which building will we be going to?" the son asked. "The old one?or the one with the tennis court?"

"I don't know," the doctor said. "The new one, I think."

"They have a tennis court there."

His mother leaned against the receptionist's desk and let out a groan of despair, and the doctor motioned for me to follow him into the examination room.

He ran all the usual tests as I explained my most recent ailments to him. Much to my surprise, he concluded that they were likely brain-related. Either the result of that scar tissue on my left temporal lobe expanding or contracting or something?or something completely new altogether. He wasn't absolutely sure about any of that, he admitted, but suggested that I go see a neurologist again. I wasn't exactly expecting that, either. I returned to the waiting room and took my seat until the receptionist could get the referral papers together.

In the seat next to me was an old man who hadn't been there ten minutes ago. His heavy snores gave me the impression that he was dozing, so I lowered myself into the chair as quietly as possible.

As I listened to his deep, ragged snores, I considered the news I'd just received. Well, not "news" exactly. More like a "speculation with a shrug attached." It was okay. Besides, I was looking forward to seeing the neurologist. Neurologist's waiting rooms are the best of all. You never know what sort of craziness you'll run into there.

"'S'like deja vu," the old man next to me murmured between snores. I turned to glance at him, but the room was too dim for me to see anything. After a few more breaths he added, "'S'like deja vu?all over again?"

I suppose he's right, I thought. Now I wasn't sure if he was talking in his sleep, or merely had some sort of miserable sinus condition.

"?the months?" he murmured. "Months?mons-ster?monster?monster?"

 

Jim Knipfel's latest book?and first novel?The Buzzing (Vintage, $12) has just been released. Here's what Thomas Pynchon had to say about it: "The Balzac of the bin is at it again. With this paranoid Valentine to New York?and to a certain saurian colossus with his own ambivalent feelings about large cities?Mr. Knipfel now brings to fiction the welcome gifts which distinguished his previous books?the authenticity, the narrative exuberance, the integrity of his cheerfully undeluded American voice."