“Vital Signs” was originally published in the Mechanics Institute Review, Vol 2, 2005.

This is what it has come to: I stand at four-way intersections thinking about what it would take to win myself a long-term stay in the hospital. I evaluate cars on the basis of weight and acceleration and find relief in an image of myself in a bodycast, with one leg elevated to help with circulation, the skin below my left eye sewn together with black thread, my head, throbbing, and me not giving a damn because people I love are close and Lars is far, far away.
Last night I stood at the intersection of 18th and Columbia for forty-five minutes at least. Over and over again, I watched the traffic light change from red to green, and in that time I noticed a few things. I noticed that some drivers are quick off the line and some are slow. That it is difficult to predict who will do what. That busses aren’t that much louder than pickup trucks. That a motorcycle could do a fair bit of damage.
I studied the people passing by me on foot. People walking home from work with their heads down, their shoulders hunched, their eyes seeing only the pavement before them and the insides of their apartments warm and inviting, dinner in front of the television or maybe a nice, long bath. I studied them, looking for signs of alertness. Of kindness. Wondering: will you be the one to go through my wallet in search of my name? Will you hold my hand until the ambulance comes?
Now I am lying on the floor of my living room and the phone is ringing. It rings and rings until the answering machine picks up. I hear my roommate’s voice apologizing for our absence and then I hear a beep and then I hear Lars. He is after those chapters I’ve been working on. He’s eager to see them. And by the way, he’s had an idea… On and on he goes, but I am not listening any more, as I’ve turned down the volume and returned to the floor. My opposite cheek is on the carpet now and I am feeling empathetic toward the dust bunnies huddling together underneath the sofa.

When the phone rings again I am in the kitchen. It rings just twice this time and after the machine beeps I know someone is leaving a message because the dial tone is not calling out for attention. Still, I focus on the flame dancing under the kettle and consider what it would feel like to tell Lars once and for all to leave me alone. With this thought in mind, I take a stone ground wheat cracker to the table and chew on it. It is October, and outside, leaves are gathering in a red wagon behind the neighbor’s house.

Before leaving, I stop at the answering machine and press play. The message after Lars’ is from my sister Lucy. She was calling from home, sipping coffee, procrastinating. She just took the dog out for a walk and “Come on, Karen! I know you’re there. Pick up you lazy bum. You can’t fool me. Come onnnnnn.”
She tries, as always, to persuade me to come for a visit. Speaking in a sing-songy voice she says, “I heard Dad took you out for din-ner. If you come visit me I’ll take you out someplace ni-cer.”
She says she loves me. She asks me to call. I press delete and wipe warm tears from my cheeks.

How has it come to this? I used to leave the house at half past eight so excited about this project we were working on I could hardly stand it. Lars, Arlen, Danny, Walter, Karen and Gus—we were going to write a history of the Cold War that the average Joe would want to read. We were going to help America understand itself—learn from the past to build a better future and all that.
And now? Now it is almost noon and I am on a bus, too scared to face four-way intersections and oncoming traffic alone. I am hugging my backpack to my chest and wondering if Lars is right—am I being followed? Is there really someone who will do anything to make sure this book doesn’t see the light of day?
I am thinking about that elderly woman sitting so gracefully up there near the driver. Her legs crossed at the ankles and her hands folded in her lap. She looks like a visitor from another time—how old is she? Where did she grow up? I want to ask her but I have never been outgoing like that. I prefer to study the ones who have already left us. Read their letters and their diaries. Learn from them—
I wanted to study people like this woman, so how did I end up studying men obsessed with men obsessed? Men who live for battles and secrets and power. I mean come on. What are we doing here? And Lars thinks I work as hard as I do because I want to prove that our guys don’t abuse their power as badly as the other guys do? How do I tell him that I think they all abuse their power and by the way so does he and by the way I don’t actually care anymore?
Just yesterday, my dad was in town. His official story was that he came for a client meeting, but I am pretty sure he was sent by Mom to check up on me. They are worried, and why shouldn’t they be. The only problem is, I was so excited to see him, I was my old bubbly self. I gave him a tour of the office, showed off our collection of declassified documents, made him sit on the comfy sofa. I said: “Isn’t this cool?”
“Isn’t this amazing?”
I said, “I have the perfect place for us to go to dinner!” and I took him to Jeff’s Bar & Grill down the street from work. The waitress brought a cheeseburger for him and a cheeseburger for me and after dad raised a toast to me he, he said how good it was to see me and he said I looked great. I had a hard time believing that of course, but I didn’t contradict him and when he asked me about my job I did what I always do: I wowed him with stories about Lars. Why? Because Lars is the sort of person who makes for good conversation. He’s a moderately famous historian. A man despised and admired in equal amounts. The most driven person I have ever known and probably the most ambitious. He knew both Kennedys and he calls me often in the middle of the night to tell me about an idea he’s had, because his ideas are not to be taken lightly. He has a wife I’ve met, an ex-wife I’ve not met, and a hint of another somewhere in the dimly lit closet of his past; two kids; strategies for living on three hours sleep; a mind for avoiding being poisoned and a remarkable ability to find employees who will work themselves into the ground, question themselves before questioning him, ask little in the way of money, pay him the respect he thinks he deserves, and deceive themselves with the hope that someday their little boats will ride high in his mighty wake.
Dad said, “Wow, Karen. The guy sounds like he needs some serious help if you ask me, but at least you’re getting good experience.”
I said, “That’s certainly one way to look at it.” And I stretched a smile across my face.
When dad hugged me goodbye outside the restaurant, I could tell that he had concluded I was fine so I did my best not to disappoint. Inside I was brimming with grief and uncertainty, but outside I was smiling, smiling, smiling. And though I hugged him more tightly than I usually would, I kept myself in check so that when we released I was easy with my, “Thanks for coming.” There was no, I miss you terribly; no, Please stay and take care of me. No, I stand at four-way intersections thinking about the sound my head will make when it hits the pavement. Just, “Give Mom a hug for me and tell her that she better come with you next time or there’ll be no signed copy of the book for her.” And a wink for good measure.

Arriving at the office doesn’t make me feel better in any way. There is no one there as usual, yet the place is a mess. I drop my backpack by my desk but since I can’t face the blinking message light on my phone, I climb over the back of the blue sofa and sit there taking things in. Danny’s desk is in view and I see that his computer is on. There is a big pile of books on the floor beside his chair and a few more mixed in with a dozen manila file folders on his desk. Lars has him pursuing some arcane detail of international law and I suddenly I am shaking my head thinking, what has happened to us? I am thinking, our world has closed in and we spend too much time among ghosts. We dream about things that were, write about things that might have been, and argue about what we can and cannot say. We keep records on those who kept no records and tell ourselves they are lying to us: of course they kept records, we just have to look harder. For God sakes. Here is Danny, as smart as anyone I’ve ever met and Lars has him so nervous he checks and double checks and triple checks his work and still he makes stupid mistakes. The other day at our team meeting Lars lit into him so badly I had to leave the room.
Look at us. I may be the only one standing shivering on street corners, but we all have been infected. Gus is all but gone. Danny walks train tracks at night and loses things all day long. Walter mixes Vicodin with vodka and has taken to coming in only every couple of days, and Lars barely leaves his house anymore. He calls us in when he needs us. As for Arlen, he hovers too close when I’m standing at the copier. He says he wants to talk but he’s not doing anything other than pulling at the ends of his receding hair and arranging paperclips on the table. And then, ‘I haven’t written anything for weeks, Karen. Have you?’

The phone rings. I pick it up without saying hello. It is Lars and he sounds upset. Automatically I apologize about the chapters, but he says that is not why he is calling. “It’s about Gus,” he says. “I’ve been thinking…”
At the sound of Gus’ name I snap to. “You’ve been thinking about Gus? What about Gus?”
He says, “Now Karen, I know you don’t like to get involved in these things but there’s no one else. You are the only one I can trust.”
My head feels like it is going to explode. I say nothing.
He says, “Karen, listen. I know you and Gus are close. I know you are hoping he will get well and come back. We all are hoping that. But from what I hear that is looking less and less likely and you know as well as I do that we can’t afford to take any chances at this point. Don’t get me wrong. Gus is a great guy. He’s a wonderful guy. But he’s sick and we can’t take the chance that all our work goes down the drain because Gus loses his mind and decides his computer is possessed or worse, which is why I want you to not just copy all his files onto discs, but remove the papers as well. He could start a fire for all we know. There’s no telling what a person who hears voices might do.”
“Gus doesn’t hear voices.”
“You know what I mean.”
For the first time since Gus checked himself into the hospital, I allow myself to look directly at the closed door of his office and I realize just how much I miss him. “Don’t you think you’re overreacting a little bit, Lars?”
“I’m afraid not, Karen. I think there’s a real risk here.”
“Look, if there is a risk, it is pretty low. After all, Gus is not really the type—”
“Dammit Karen!” Lars is shouting now. He has never spoken this way to me. To Danny, yes, but not to me, and my shock must be palpable because he apologizes before going on. Then he says something about me having to stop thinking of this as being about Gus. He says, “What you have to understand is that this has nothing to do with Gus. It is about the book, Karen. And about taking necessary precautions to avoid permanent losses.” He goes on but I stop listening.
At some point I tell him I will do it and I hang up.

When I come out of Gus’ office I am sick of myself and everyone nearby. Danny is there and of course he looks at me suspiciously, but I don’t care. I say, “You know, Danny? We used to be friends. What happened?” He looks shocked by this so I change the subject by asking him if he’s seen the Rodriguez files. He says he hasn’t. I say ok. This is what it has come to.
At my desk I put the floppy disks on my desk then change my mind. I put them in my backpack and tell Danny that I am leaving. Then I do.
I leave. I walk into the hallway with my backpack thrown over my shoulder and I am all set to walk, but then I remember I’d left my bike behind the night before so I get it and take it down with me in the elevator. It is not much past two o’clock in the afternoon, but the sky is dark, threatening rain.
As I pedal up the hill I realize I am hardly breathing. My chest is tight and my jaw, tighter. Cars are beside me and in front of me and as I approach the intersection of 18th and Columbia, it occurs to me how perfect it would be if a car hit me right then and the floppy disks with Gus’ work spilled out onto the street where anyone could take them. The October air feels a bit like glass in my throat and somehow that seems right. Then the old image of me in a bodycast returns and as I clear the intersection I am seeing my mom sitting in a chair next to my hospital bed while my dad tries to find an unconscious me something good to watch. Then I realize that the unconscious me just might stay that way and suddenly I feel very tired and I know I do not want to ride in front of a car just to escape Lars Croenfeld.
Warm tears come again and the last few blocks of my ride are a blur. At home, I let myself in and thank God that no one else is there. With my heart pounding in my ears, I go to the phone and take it with me to the floor. I press feeling into my fingertips one button at a time and when Lucy answers on the third ring the sound of her voice chokes me up.
“Karen? Karen is that you?” Lucy says.
When I finally speak I find myself apologizing. Lucy tells me to stop that and she tells me to breathe. I do. I hear her turning down the music in the background and I am comforted by the fact that I can imagine precisely where she is in her house.
“What did that asshole do now?” she asks, but I tell her I don’t want to talk about Lars. I tell her I am thinking about leaving the job, and it is only when I get the words out that I realize I have already made the decision.
“Bravo, little sis!” she says. Then, “Can I be the one to break then news the asshole? Honestly, I can think of few things that would give me more pleasure.”
I tell her I think I can handle it then ask if she would mind having a housemate for a few weeks. “There’s a room with your name on it,” she says, and with my head resting on the sofa’s arm and my mind on the drive through the mountains to Lucy’s house, I hear myself laugh for the first time in months.