Free The Living End by Stanley Elkin

only reason they want to pull the plugs is to get at his fortune and power. All those millions!”
    “Don’t let them,” Ladlehaus screamed.
    “Don’t let them get at my fortune and power. Oh I know you can’t hear me, but look, look at the machine.
    I’ll squeeze out my best brain waves for you. Don’t let them. Those millions are mine. I earned them.”
    “It’s a shame,” the nurse said, “after all the good he’s done.”
    “All the good, yes,” Ladlehaus said, “all the millions, all the good I’ve done.”
    “Look at these, Doctor, would you? They’re slightly different from the others. What do you make of them?”
    “Flyspecks, I should think, scratchings of coma dream. But let me have them. Perhaps the judge will grant a stay.”
    Ladlehaus hoped.
    “Uncle Jay, you high table, five star, Hall of Fame prickl You mashed potato! You spinach leaf! Do you recognize my voice, you bloodless fake? It’s your nephew Jack-Rita’s husband. And I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, you cabbage! I’m going to tamper your charts and splash in your brain waves. But I’ll give you a fighting chance. If you’re not dead scream ‘no,” or forever hold your peace.”
    “No! No!”
    “So. Silence. Ashes to ashes, you salad. just a slight adjustment of the tone arm on your electroencephalogram and- Why, Nurse, you startled me. I was just looking at my uncle’s charts here.”
    “Sir, no one is permitted in the Intensive Care Unit unless accompanied by the patient’s physician.”
    “I’m his nephew. I thought, seeing he’s dying and all, I’d look in on him and say goodbye in private.”
    “No one is permitted in the Intensive Care Unit, no one. If you were Mrs. Ladlehaus herself I’d have to tell you the same thing.”
    “Mrs. LaThe blonde bombshell? Me? That twat?”
    “You’ll have to leave.”
    “Just going, just going. So long, Unc, see you around the victory garden.”
    “That will be all, sir. Do I have to call an orderly?”
    “Call a garbage truck.”
    “Orderly!” “I’m going, I’m going.”
    “Thank you, Nurse.”

    Ladlehaus was hopeful.
    “Well?”
    “It’s bad. Here.”
    “This is a court order.”
    “It’s the court order.” I In sorry.
    “Step in, please, Deputy. This is Deputy Evers, Nurse.”
    “Ma’am.”
    “He’s here to see that we comply with the order.”
    “Wait!”
    “Wait a moment, Doctor.”
    “Nurse?”
    “It’s just that I know your convictions about such things. Deputy Evers, this man has taken the Hippocratic oath. Pulling the plug on Mr. Ladlehaus’s life support systems would be a violation of everything the doctor believes. It would go against nature and inclination, and do an injustice not only to his conscience but to his training. I can’t let him do that.”
    “I’m sorry, ma’ am but the court or-” “I read the court order, Deputy. I know what it says. What I say is that I can’t let him do it.”
    “Look, lady-‘ “I’ll do it myself.”
    “Nurse!”
    “Please, Doctor. I’m only grateful it was me on duty when the order came down. Deputy, you won’t say a word about this. Not if you’re a Christian.”
    “I don’t know. The order says- Sure. Go ahead.”
    “Do it now, Nurse. Pull them. The man’s all but dead anyway. He has only his coma dream. You pull that, too, the moment you remove those plugs.”
    “I hadn’t thought of that.”
    “It’s why I fought so hard to keep him on the L.S.S. But go ahead. The law’s the law.”
    “Someone better do it,” the deputy said.
    “I’ll do it now, said the goodhearted nurse.
    “When I’m geting better?” Ladlehaus cried.
    “When I can hear everything you say? When I can practically taste the iodoform in here? When I no longer dream I was ever in Hell? When I have my millions and my power? When I have my blonde bombshell?”

    “Pop,” the nurse said.
    And poor, dead, puzzled, grounded LadIehaus heard their mean duet laughter and died again, and once