Mendocino and Other Stories Read Online Free PDF

She held a two-pronged fork to his neck. “We'll start with the worst so you'll know there's nothing to worry about.”
    The current slammed into his neck, and then it was over. “That wasn't so bad,” Charlie said, laughing a little. “That was nothing.”
    She made a note, then continued down his arm, shocking him here, then there. The worst of it was how she pulled the hairs on his arm when she lifted the tape off.
    “What a guy,” she said. “Next time I give a demonstration can I call you?”
    She set the wires and the fork on the table behind her. She held up a thin cord, on the end of which was a sliver of a needle, an inch and a half long. “Some people think this is worse,” she said, “but it shouldn't give you any trouble. Ready?”
    She slid the needle into a muscle in his forearm, and Charlie felt tears pricking at his eyes. “Ah,” he said, and then, because it had sounded embarrassingly sexual, “Ow.”
    “OK,” she said, “now make a fist.”
    Such a small, thin needle for such a great, big pain. Charlie's entire arm hurt, not just where the needle jutted out, but in his hand and wrist, too. She moved the needle around and he thought he might actually cry. He was aware of a strange crackling sound, like a staticky TV, and he realized it was coming from the monitor.
    “There,” Dr. Price said, “that wasn't so bad, was it?” She pulled the needle out of his arm, leaving him feeling bruised and exhausted. “Just a few more of these.”
    Half an hour later, the test over, they sat in her office. Charlie rubbed his hand up and down his arm. He was giddy with relief, eager to be terribly funny or audacious.
    He looked at Dr. Price—Lee, Leonora, not such a bad name, really—and he willed himself into a crush on her. That red hair,those green eyes, the fetching white coat: he wanted her, or perhaps he only wanted to want her. Did the fact that it was only eleven o'clock in the morning mean he couldn't suggest they go for a drink? He longed to say “Let's ditch this hot dog stand”—it was a Linda line, but he felt he could use it with aplomb, without the least pang of sentimentality. They could have a drink and then a quick wedding, two or three red-haired kids, and a ranch-style house in the suburbs to which he would repair each evening, loosening the knot in his tie, eager for the martini she would have waiting for him. He only had joke ties now—a tie that looked like fish scales, a vintage tie a full five inches wide, even a tie made of wood—but he could buy one with little white dots, and he would, he would.
    “… very useful,” she was saying. “At least we've ruled out any denervation.”
    “What?” Charlie said.
    “You passed the test, Mr. Goldman.”
    “I did?”
    “Don't look so morose. Go, take pictures with your middle finger, be happy.”
    “But my arm,” Charlie said. “My arm hurts.”
    “Take the Dolobid,” she said, standing up. “You said you'd worn a cervical collar for a while—do you still have it?” He nodded. “Wear it for a month or two. Sleep in it.” She smiled. “You can call me if the pain gets worse.”
    BACK IN HIS own neighborhood Charlie wandered toward the frame shop, his arm twinging occasionally in memory of the assault it had suffered, and he decided to ask for the afternoon off. He passed in front of a men's clothing store, and after a moment backtracked and stood looking in its window. Men at Work, thestore was called—the other kind of work. It was a store Linda liked; when they'd first arrived in San Francisco they'd gone out walking almost every evening, and she'd steered them into this shop several times: she'd held up combinations of shirts and ties for his appraisal, saying he'd look great in this blue or that brown. Charlie was a jeans man, but he hadn't minded—he'd even tried on the odd suit to please her. He understood: he liked watching her try on clothes, too. It was a way of interpolating his love for her: Linda in