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Last Call

Bill Tope

I crept down the spotless corridor of the
County Hospice Facility, reluctantly en
route to visit my brother for the final time.
My running shoes squeaked over the brown
vinyl tiles and I kept my head down self-
consciously, searching for Larry's room.

He had been found on the streets of the
city, lying unmoving in threadbare, soiled
clothes, no more than a week before.
According to his irate social services
caseworker, the cops on the beat had
passed him by several times, leaving him
to sleep off what they mistakenly
assumed was another bender.

What they didn’t realize was that he hadn't
touched a drop in days; according to his
friends on the street he just lay there, inert,
still high from the alcohol his liver could no
longer process and which constantly
recirculated through his bloodstream. He was
finally rescued by a Skid-Row Mission
outreach worker.

He had end-stage alcohol-related hepatic
disease, I was told by the attending physician.
When I stared blankly at him, he translated
for me: cirrhosis of the liver. Now, that I had
heard of. Moreover, said his doctor, he
suffered from Korsakoff's syndrome, which
was loss of short-term memory and the
ability to learn new things.

He was conscious the day he arrived, the
doctor told me, suffering from dehydration and
exposure, but had effectively been in a coma
ever since. They had learned of my identity
during Larry's brief period of consciousness.

I leaned in to look at my brother and observed
rapid eye movements. Does that mean he's
dreaming? I asked. No, he said, that was a
constant since his arrival and was indicative
of his advanced condition. It was called
nystagmus, I learned, and owed to a
Vitamin B deficiency caused by chronic
malnutrition.

Was there anything they could do for him, I
wanted to know next. The doctor shook his
head no. After assessing Larry's condition,
he said, they'd moved him from the charity
ward to hospice; nothing at this point could
be done. He would expire within the next
48 hours.

With some misgivings I recalled Larry's
youthful enthusiasm for alcohol. I had had the
same fascination in my own time. We were of
a drinking family. But where I had always
selected beer as my beverage of choice, my
brother had preferred hard alcohol, whiskies
and mixed drinks. Seems the sooner he could
get hammered, the better he liked it. It had
also provided a launching pad for progression
to other drugs, including intravenous
substances. Heaving a sigh, I looked down at
Larry one last time.

Larry hadn't aged well, I decided: his skin
was ashen and papery; his legs were big
around as a normal person's arms and he
hadn't a tooth in his skull. To my dismay I
saw death written all over his once handsome
face. Larry was ten years younger than me,
and I had only just celebrated my fortieth
birthday.

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