The Exchange: After The Firm

He was fast asleep and had no idea of the time when he awoke in the darkness and grabbed the sheets because the bed was spinning. The sheets were soaked with water or sweat or something, he couldn’t tell in the first few awful seconds when he tried to sit up and breathe. His heart was pounding and ready to explode. His stomach was churning and flipping and before he could find a light switch, the dinner of light seafood stew and the pinot grigio was burning its way up. He gritted his teeth, tried hard to swallow, but couldn’t hold the surge and began vomiting off the side of the bed. He gagged and spat and coughed, and when the first batch was out he stared at the mess in the semi-dark and tried to think. It was impossible. It was all spinning — bed, ceiling, walls, furniture. His skin was oozing perspiration as his heart and lungs thundered away. He gagged and retched and puked some more. He had to get to the toilet but he was far too dizzy to stand up. He rolled out of the bed, fell into the vomit, and began crawling across the carpet to the bathroom where he turned on a light and unloaded again into the toilet. When his stomach was empty he leaned against the tub and washed his face with a hand towel and cold water. Hot sharp pains shot through his head and made him gasp. His labored breathing would not slow. His pulse felt like a jackhammer. He thought about another attempt at standing and moved slowly to all fours, then blacked out and fell to his side. He was sure he was dying.

His stomach exploded again and he retched into the toilet. When the wave passed he leaned on the tub and turned the knobs. He could smell himself and had to clean up. Lying on his back, he pulled down his boxers and pajama pants, then wrestled off his shirt. They were wet with sweat and reeked of rancid fish stew. He tossed them into the shower and would deal with them later. He managed to roll himself into the tub without breaking bones. The water was too cold so he turned a knob. It ran over his head and down his neck, and when the tub was half full he turned it off and soaked for a long time with his eyes closed. The spinning was relentless. He noticed a clock on the counter. 1:58. He had slept less than three hours. He closed his eyes again, massaged his temples, and waited for the dizziness to go away.

If it was food poisoning, then Giovanna would be just as sick. They ate the same stew, drank the same wine, started with the same martini. He should call her — she was only four doors away. What if she, too, was in the same shape? What if she was dying?

The problem was he couldn’t walk. Hell, he was having trouble lying still in the lukewarm bathwater as his head spun like a top. He saw a thick white bathrobe hanging on the door and was determined to get it and cover himself. He slithered and wiggled his way out of the tub, found a towel and dried himself, then yanked the bathrobe off the hook and put it on. Nausea hit again and he stretched out on the cold tile floor and waited for it to pass. He would have vomited violently but his stomach was empty.

He crawled to a credenza, gently lifted the hotel phone, and punched the button for the front desk. There was no answer. He cursed, tried it again. No one. He cursed some more and thought about Samir, his one pal in town who could find a doctor, maybe a hospital. The thought of being put into an ambulance in Tripoli and rushed to a Third World hospital was terrifying, but then so was the idea of being found dead in a hotel so far from home.

He needed water but didn’t see a bottle. Five minutes passed, then ten, and he vowed to make it to thirty because by then he would still be alive and getting better, right? His guts were suddenly on fire again and cramping. He leaned to one side and tried not to retch, but he couldn’t hold back. The vomit was not last night’s dinner; that was already on the floor. Now he was regurgitating blood and water. He called the front desk but no one answered.

He punched the number for Giovanna’s room. After four rings she finally said, “Hello, who is this?”

“It’s me, Mitch. Are you okay?” She sounded fine, maybe a bit sleepy. With his enflamed throat and dry mouth he sounded like a dying man.

“Well, yes, what’s the matter?”

“You’re not sick?”

“No.”

“I’m in trouble, Giovanna. I think I have food poisoning and I need a doctor. The front desk doesn’t answer.”

“Okay, I’ll be right there.” She hung up before he could say anything else. Now, if he could only get to the door to unlock it.

For the next half hour, he lay on the bare mattress in his bathrobe and tried not to move or speak as Giovanna put cold towels on his neck and forehead. She had stripped off the sheets, blanket, and pillowcases, and piled them on the floor, covering some of the mess he’d made. Samir said he was twenty minutes away.

The nausea was gone, but his stomach and intestines still cramped and contracted. Mitch was in agony one moment, then drifting away to neverland the next.