Three Lives

They say you have to gamble three times with your life before you can say you’ve really lived.

I’ve only ever had one other patient that was this polite. We called him Three Lives. 

He sat in the desk chair across from me. An older gentleman, bald and thin with an average face and an average build. Anonymous. As I spoke to him about his discharge papers he kept his faded, light brown eyes focused on the tips of his dirty sneakers. His hands were shoved firmly in the pockets of an old denim jacket that looked like it had belonged to more than one owner. I asked who was coming to pick him up and he replied in a small, absent voice that there was no one. Wanting to reach out to him I asked what he did for a living. 

Been a janitor his whole life, never gotten into trouble, always lived prudently and well. One day he’s diagnosed with liver cancer out of the blue. Stage four. Terminal. 

Three Lives looked at me with these big, sad puppy eyes that seemed huge in his round, innocent face and explained to me that a man has to gamble with his life three times before he can say he’s really lived to the fullest. He’d always thought there would be more time. Everyone always thinks there will be more time, until there isn’t. 

Three Lives slapped his knees, stood up, and gave me the widest grin I have ever seen on a living person. Seriously, I have never before or since seen an expression like this. Imagine the classic halloween pumpkin and you let a small child, maybe six or seven, loose on it with the carving knife. They know what a jack-o-lantern is supposed to look like: triangle eyes, triangle nose, and a big smile with a few gapped, square teeth. But they’re a kid, the skills just aren’t there. So the triangle eyes are uneven and one is bigger than the other. The nose is askew, not much just enough to make you uncomfortable. The smile is lopsided, but not in anyway that matches the rest of the face and the gap between the teeth is something you could drive a train through. 

He smiled like that. I’m not sure how he managed it, his face seemed perfectly normal at other times. 

“Be seein’ ya,” he said and walked out the door whistling. 

***

The next time I saw Three Lives he was flat on his back. His lips were blue, his skin that ashen gray that is horribly familiar to hospital workers and priests. No mourners for Three Lives, no wife or children. Not even a close friend. I didn’t know why, whether he didn’t have them or if they were too far away. Instead he had asked me to sit with him. A stranger he’d only met that once and then seen in passing in the halls. 

I wanted to cry, but I didn’t. 

Three Lives patted my hand, softly. His touch felt like a butterfly landing. His skin was thin and delicate, except where he still had the calluses he had earned from working hard his entire life. I looked at him expectantly. He couldn’t say much, the oxygen mask covered half his face, but I could make out the hint of his odd smile before he closed his eyes and melted softly into the bed.

I wondered, as he lay shrunken and pale, his hand still gently covering mine, if he had ever made his three gambles. 

There was a soft whine from the machines as the nurse turned them off. I looked at her curiously, his heart monitor still showed movement. They shouldn’t be removing anything yet.

She shrugged at me with a semi-apologetic smile, you know the professional one that doesn’t mean anything except ‘don’t take this out on me’. “He asked us to unplug everything,” she said. “He told us to tell you number one. He said you would know what it means.”

I looked down in shock. Which is probably the only reason I saw his eyes open as the mask came off. He gasped, every breath an effort for the first few seconds. His heart monitor, which had been a dull, regular beep in the background began having hysterics. 

Doctors rushed in, their hands already on stethoscopes and other small tools of the trade. After some frantic, purposeful fluttering from the medical professionals they fell away.

Three Lives already looked better. His cheeks were stained with high color, not healthy, but not the corpse pale they had been before either. His eyes, still sunken with his illness twinkled with victory. Very, very slowly his face twisted up into his offputting smile and he winked at me.

“Won that one,” he wheezed.

***

Three Lives crept into the cancer ward like a mouse scuttling across open ground. I opened my mouth to ask, but he held one finger to his lips and winked at me. I shut my mouth and waited to see what would happen next. It felt like waiting to see if the car rushing across the tracks in front of the train would pull it off or become a horrific ball of fiery doom.

Three Lives scanned the room numbers quickly and when he spotted the one he wanted he grinned his terrifying grin and darted inside.

I waited for the screams. Or at least the call light. Even just the sound of voices. But the ward was as silent as it had been before he arrived. I was the only one on call at the moment, the other nurses having gone for dinner, so there wasn’t even the desultory gossip between co-workers to break the silence of the hallways.

Until the elevator dinged and a man the size of Babe the Blue Ox came thundering up to the nurse’s desk. This man was massive, at least twice my size and broad across the shoulders. His medium length black hair had been coaxed into a slicked back wave which hadn’t been popular since the fifties and his large, outward angled ears all added to the angry bull effect. His eyes were thinned into narrow slits that conveyed both intense rage and suspicion. The expression didn’t complement his flat nose or wide mouth, but it did fit in with the harsh, raspy breathing of someone who had reached the boiling point and might explode at any minute. A deep, evil part of me wanted to wave a red rag, just to see what he would do.

At that moment he seemed to notice me for the first time and I pasted my “Hello, how can I help you?” smile on.

He tugged at his jacket and straightened. That was when I first realized that despite having the build of a professional wrestler and a face a mother bulldog would find trouble complimenting he was wearing a perfectly tailored sport suit that probably would have reduced his physical intimidation factor and increased his financial and professional intimidation factor by a large percentage. If he hadn’t come charging in here prepared to commit at least seven type of homicide.

He strolled casually over to my desk and gave me what he most likely thought of as a winning smile. It probably was when he had his credit card in his hand.

“Pardon my rude entrance,” he said in a voice that metaphorically screamed of vocal lessons. “I was looking for a friend of mine. Small man, smile like Jack the Ripper had been practicing on a pumpkin.”

I had to grin, that was exactly what he looked like. 

“I’m sorry sir,” I lied, “I haven’t seen anyone like that recently. We did have a patient like that once, but patient confidentiality, you know?”

He scowled. It was not more attractive this time around. I let my hand drift over to the emergency button, just in case. If it helps, I felt bad about judging him, just less bad than I would if his fist ended up around my throat. I also felt bad about the cliche. It was a complicated moment in my life.

“Is there someone else I can help you find?” I asked politely. Please, please, please go somewhere else, I silently begged.

“Since I’m here I should probably visit my mother,” he replied, his beautifully cultured voice half grumbling, half sheepish. “Have a nice day.”

To my absolute, hidden horror he walked into the same room that Three Lives had entered two minutes and one near death experience ago. I held my breath.

There was the scream I had been waiting for. I was already starting to hit the security button when the words pierced my terror addled brain. 

“FINALLY! FINALLY AFTER THREE MONTHS OF ME BEING LOCKED IN THIS DINGY WARD YOU FINALLY COME TO VISIT ME!!!”

It was as if a harpy, a grinding wheel, and the shrieking sound of twisted metal had an unholy baby. Her voice made the hairs on every part of my body stand on end and my earwax melt. I was sure every patient in the entire ward was cowering under their beds for their very lives.

I couldn’t hear the big man’s reply through the door, but it didn’t mollify her in the least. She continued her rant for another seven minutes, I timed it, without taking a breath. At this point I felt that his absence may have been justified in the circumstances.

For a number of reasons ranging from satisfying my own curiosity to pity for the poor lummox, I grabbed a vase of flowers that had been delivered to the nurse’s station that afternoon. Removing the “Congratulations on your baby!” card from the holder and shoving it deep into my pocket I said a silent apology to my coworker and carried the flowers into the loudest room I have ever entered.

“The flowers you ordered were just delivered,” I said, smiling at the deflated, husk of a man perched uncomfortably on a chair that was meant for a person half his size. 

He looked up at me, this man who could have taken a Mac truck in a fight, with the most pathetically grateful look I have ever seen from another human being. His eyes, a rich shade of chocolate brown I could now make out since they were widened in a combination of terror and gratitude, were actually quite nice now that they were filled with something other than savage rage.  

“Where would you like me to put them?” I asked, turning to face the woman on the bed. 

It was immediately apparent where the man got his looks from. Her face was a female version of his, just add in a few warts and slightly wider cheek bones. Her eyes however were the bluest blue I had ever seen and so bright and filled with life I was shocked to see her in a hospital bed. She looked as if she should be fighting demons on some front line holy war armed with nothing but a broom and her temper. At least I knew where he got it from.

“Put them anywhere,” she creaked, her normal voice only a slight modification of her earlier wailing. 

“Sure,” I said cheerfully, and began looking around for a suitable place for the stolen flowers. And also my run away patient. 

Despite my best efforts I could spot neither hide nor hair of Three Lives and eventually had to admit defeat or go deaf from listening to the slightly more amiable conversation between mother and son.

As I closed the door quietly behind me I spotted Three Lives leaning casually against the nurse’s desk. His frail frame looked as if it could be snapped by a passing breeze, but the look of satisfaction on his face was unmistakeable.

“Thanks for the distraction,” he said, his voice filled with laughter. “I thought I was going to be trapped in that linen closet forever. Or at least until the big lug found me and made me see the error of my ways. There’s a briefcase behind your desk, give it to him on his way out. Oh, and if he asks about what’s missing, tell him to ask his mother.”

He winked at me, the corners of his mouth twitching as he worked hard to suppress a smile, and sauntered out of the ward. 

I leaned on the wall in shock. This was the shy, hesitant elder that had been given the news of his impending doom only a few weeks ago? He seemed like a completely different person. Eventually I remembered his words and looked behind the desk. 

There in my usual place was an anonymous black briefcase. My fingers itched and I twined them together in front of me to keep from reaching for it. It was not my property. I had no right to look inside it. But Three Lives hadn’t said I couldn’t’t look inside it. No, that wasn’t right, it wasn’t his either.

I probably would have continued dithering for an indeterminate amount of time if the huge man in his impeccable suit hadn’t come lumbering back into the room. Relieved and disappointed I handed him the briefcase and relayed Three Lives’s message.

“If he thinks I’m going back in there that man is more insane than I thought he was.”

***

I got the call at 6:17 on a Thursday night. It was one of those late spring evenings when the clouds are so thick and heavy with rain that it looks like the sky might fall on you with the grace of a cinder block and the air is so thick you can chew it. Everyone was waiting for the rain, but it just wouldn’t come. Instead my phone rang.

“Three Lives passed away this afternoon,” said a firm, yet respectful voice on the other end of the line. As if the voice were expecting hysterics and was hoping to cut them off before they could start. 

“Oh,” I responded. I didn’t really know what else to say. Outside heat lightening danced in the clouds. I watched it for a while.

“Are you still there?” The voice asked. 

I thought I was. “Yeah,” I responded. Not very professional of me, but my brain suddenly felt like the weather outside had flooded in. My thoughts were thick and heavy, but nothing coherent wanted to form.

“Three Lives has requested in his will that you handle the service for him. We’ll notify his contact list, but he’d like you to arrange for the location and the service.”

My thoughts churned like almost creamed butter. “What? I mean… I don’t even know what religion he was or what he would want.”

“According to his will, and I quote, ‘Whatever is fine.’”

That sounded like Three Lives. “Alright,” I said, “There’s a chapel here at the hospital…”

“That will be fine, we’ll have the body sent there. Just contact us with the date and time.” 

The voice rambled off a name and some numbers which I scribbled on a piece of paper. I stuck it in my pocket and found another piece of card already in there. I pulled it out. “Congratulations on your baby!”

I started to cry just as the first fat drops of rain slammed against the window.

***

Three days later I stood in the little chapel attached to the hospice ward. The room was filled with the soft, acrid scent of the lilies that overflowed in ornate vases that had been placed at the head and foot of the coffin. 

Three Lives was in there. The mortician had tried to make him look presentable, but he hadn’t managed to get the train wreck of a smile right. I was fairly certain that no one who hadn’t met Three Lives in person would have been able to. So he lay there, looking like a stranger at his own funeral. I think I would have cried if I hadn’t already run out of tears.

Honestly I expected to be the only one there, after all he had told me when I first met him that there wasn’t a single person he could call when he knew he was dying. So I was surprised when the first of the teenagers began to file in. 

There were five of them, all looking very similar in black sweaters and jeans. The only one that stood out was a short boy who wore a blue cable knit hat pulled low over his ears. While they weren’t as obvious as they could be I recognized the soft, almost translucent skin and the dark circles under the eyes, after all I did work in a cancer ward.

They passed by the casket respectfully and I heard one of them mutter, “They got the smile all wrong.”

I couldn’t help but let out chuckle, these kids had definitely known Three Lives. The boy in the hat looked up at me. “You’re right about the smile,” I said to him. “Anyone who met him would know it’s all wrong. Not nearly enough deranged pumpkin in it.”

The boy gave me a watery smile. The yawning chasm of the awkward pause loomed in front of me and I shoveled words in, trying to fill it up before I got trapped in that nowhere land between conversations.

“You must have known him well. I mean, I only met him a few times, but he definitely left an impression. Was he a friend of your family?”

“He saved my life,” the boy replied, the watery smile beginning to leak at the edges. There was a tinge of desperation in his voice, as if something inside him would break if he didn’t spill his entire story to this stranger. “He gave me his cancer meds when my dad got fired and lost his insurance. They told me he died because he gave them to me, but a couple days later he showed up to school, same as always. When he came back he had the money for my treatment too. I didn’t even get to say thank you… I was in the hospital when…” he broke off. He was clearly trying to be stoic about the entire situation, but the choked off sobs gave him away.

“Hey, it’s alright,” one of the others said, placing a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “You’re allowed to cry at the death of a great man.”

The rest of his friends gathered around and the pack of them moved off. It was awkward and gruff. Teens trying to be men, but not really sure what that meant yet. One of the boys looked back over his shoulder at me and mouthed the word ‘sorry’. I wasn’t sure what for, so I just nodded and went back to my vigil.

A haggard man in what might have been a nice suit at one point passed by. He bowed his head over Three Lives and whispered for a while, but whatever he said was kept between him and the dead man since he walked away without even acknowledging my presence.

The man with the perfect voice and the face of a drunk gargoyle came next along with his mother. To my surprise they were accompanied by two other young women, one with a baby on her hip. The entire family was squabbling so loudly I thought Three Lives might sit up and shush them. 

The elderly woman, enthroned in a wheelchair draped with blankets and long medically important wires, wielded a walking stick like a cattle driver determined to make it the last mile before dark. She swung the cane this way and that, swatting at her son and haranguing her daughters. The younger females were holding their own however, squawking their own indignation as the entire procession inched its way towards the casket in fits and starts. 

When they finally reached me the man ducked out of the raging squall and said quietly, “My sisters wanted to thank the man who finally reunited me and my mother. I’m thinking of running away again.”

I nodded sagely. “Not a bad choice,” I said.

He gave me a lopsided grin which reminded me a little of Three Lives’s monstrosity of a smile and I felt tears well up at the corners of my eyes.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” he said awkwardly, guiding me to a bench. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

I shook my head, “It’s not that,” I replied, but didn’t elaborate. I doubted he would appreciate his smile being compared to that of Three Lives. Changing the subject seemed like the best move. “Did you ever ask your mother where the missing money went?”

His face softened and his smile returned, a gentle and reassuringly symmetrical expression this time that in no way resembled Three Lives’s mangled version. 

“He used it to buy a kid’s cancer treatment,” he said. “If I’d known maybe I would have just given him the cash, I mean the casinos are doing really well at the moment...”

I looked at him skeptically. The tips of his jug ears turned bright red.

“I said maybe,” he mumbled.

I touched his hand, “Your money went to a good cause,” I said. “I met the young man, he was here just before you. He seemed like a really decent person.”

His expression lifted. It amazed me how mobile a face that looked as if it had been sculpted out of concrete with nothing but a hammer could be. I wondered how he had gotten anywhere at all in the business world with a face that was easier to read than a Fun with Dick and Jane story.

“Really? I wonder if I could catch him before he made it out of the hospital. I’d love to meet the kid that man risked his life to save.”

I shrugged, “It’s only been a few minutes.”

He stood up and loped off without another word. His mother on the other hand had plenty and she screamed them at his retreating back as if they were spears she could use to take down her prey. His sisters, still arguing amongst themselves, manhandled their mother’s wheelchair in pursuit of their fleeing brother. I heaved a sigh of relief as they trundled out of the hall.

Other people came and went after that, but none were quite as memorable. Teacher and students from the school where he had worked, a few acquaintances, and a single distant cousin who had inherited whatever physical possessions Three Lives had acquired during his time on earth. 

I didn’t pay much attention to them, pasting my professional look of concerned interest on my face as I shook hands and listened to rambling stories and half forgotten memories of a man I barely knew. The hall eventually stood empty and it was just me and what was left of Three Lives. I stood, ready to be done with this morbid business, when a woman entered the hall.

She was thin and small. No, I corrected myself, she wasn’t small, but she carried herself in a way that seemed to beg the universe not to notice her. Head down, shoulders rounded, arms clutched in front of her, she looked like she would curl up like a pill bug if anyone even looked at her funny. 

As she got closer I noticed the bruises not quite hidden by makeup, the oversized sun glasses. Easy to recognize signs. My heart stopped and then began to thud leadenly in my chest. I suddenly knew far too much about what that woman’s life was like. I touched my ribs, subconsciously reassuring myself that it wasn’t me this time.  

She crept apologetically to the casket. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “He’s sorry too, he didn’t mean it.”

I stepped closer to the casket and she jerked, as if caught off guard by my presence even though I had been in plain sight the entire time. 

“Are you ok?” I asked. I knew she wasn’t.

“It’s my fault,” she said, tears running silently down her face. “This is all my fault.”

I sat her down on the bench, wrapping an arm around her silently shaking shoulders. She cried until abruptly there were no more tears left. I handed her a pack of tissues and she cleaned her face. No hiding the marks on her now, the tears had washed all pretense away.

“Can you talk about it?” I asked gently, trying not to push.

She didn’t look at me, but began speaking to the wadded up tissues on her lap. “My son. He went to that school. He… they… he’s not very good in his classes and he’s so shy. I guess he was an easy target. 

They bullied him every day. All the time. Three Lives. He was the only one that noticed, that tried to help, but they bullied my son for that too. Called him trash. The janitor takes care of the trash, so you must be trash too.” 

She started crying again. 

Poor kid, I thought, no relief at school no relief at home. With the state his mom was in there was no good ending to this story.

“I don’t know where he got the gun, I really don’t. He wouldn’t say. I don’t know what he was planning to do that day. Three Lives saw him though. Three Lives knew something was wrong even when I didn’t. It’s my fault for not noticing.

Three Lives got him alone, he called for help. But when help came my son got scared. It was an accident, I’m sure it was an accident. But Three Lives…”

I held the woman for a long time.

“It’s not your fault,” I told her. “This was his third gamble and if your son got the help he needed I think Three Lives would consider it a win.”

She looked up at me, her already swollen eyes puffier from the tears.

“Don’t let his choice be in vain. Get out. Make a new life for you and your son. Start over.” The words fell out of my mouth before I could stop them. I didn’t know if she would hear me or if the words were just a pipe dream for her. 

Her eyes seemed to focus on my face at last. “You did it,” she said finally. “You got out.”

I nodded. I don’t like to talk about that part of my life. I don’t like to think about that part of my life. No matter how much time passes or how much therapy I’ve had those wounds are still bleeding.

“How?”

“I was someone’s last gamble too.”

She nodded, her shoulders straightening just a touch. I gave her one last hug and watched her leave the chapel. 

“Three Lives,” I said to the corpse. “I think you can say you really lived.”