St. Patrick's Bed (Ashland, 3) (16 page)

"I can hear the dinner bell ringin'."

We snapped the cues into the wall rack, stood back.

"Will I see you again?"

"I doubt it. Heading back tomorrow." I didn't know what to say, so I asked a question. "Besides the chicken noodle soup, what's good to eat around here? Where's a good spot for dinner?"

"You like Italian?"

"I like nearly every kind of food."

"Try Mamma DiSalvo's. Go down to Stroop, just south of here, make a right. Few blocks along. Near Marshall, on the north side. Tell her Bobby Swiss sent you."

"I just might do that."

He clucked his tongue. "And stop in Cleveland. Have a look at the Hall of Fame. Eighth fuckin' wonder of the world. Think of the music that's in there."

"I just might do that too." We shook hands. I was touching him. Again. It didn't hurt a bit. It was okay.

"It's in the music," he said. He smiled. "You'll hear old Roy cryin', if you listen hard."

"Take care." I squeezed his hand, touched his arm, and left.

Outside, I stared at the Olds. JESUSROX.

You can hear everybody crying, I thought, if you listen hard.

At Mamma DiSalvo's, I told her Bobby Swiss had sent me. She gave me a nice table in the back and I ordered the ravioli and a half liter of red. It was terrific.

When I phoned home that night, Jeanne told me that she was cleaning the house.

"Must be spick and span by now," I said.

"My heart beats a little faster every time I find a new little dust pile. You've no idea."

"You're right. I have no idea."

"The dishes are stackin' up for you."

"Leave 'em. I'm coming home. Leaving in the morning."

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

"Right after the continental breakfast."

I'm not sure, I could be wrong, but I thought I could hear her crying too. When I asked her, she said no, but I think she was.

III

My father liked big band music, had played banjo, guitar, trombone. He thought Bernstein's score for
West Side Story
was terrific. He was a lifetime Member of the Musicians' Union, Local 149, A.F. of M.

My mother liked humming "When It's Springtime in the Rockies" while she ironed in the kitchen.

Maybe Bobby Swiss was right. Maybe it was all in the music, if you just listened.

That night, I slept rather peacefully. Around 4 a.m., though, I did hear the bathroom door—the only door in the room—open and close once, by itself. It could have been the air-conditioning coming on and going off, creating a vacuum, changing air pressure in the room. I don't know.

The next morning, the stone that I was sure I had left in my pocket was sitting on top of the TV. I picked it up, held it, felt its smooth, round surface.

PART THREE

The Salmon and the Eel

Every time you pray . . .

you will understand

that prayer is an education
.

—Fyodor Dostoevsky
 

The Brothers Karamazov

FIFTEEN

I

After yogurt, muffin, orange juice, and coffee the next morning, I left the Hampton Inn, got onto 70, and headed east out of Dayton, away from the city where Orville and Wilbur gave birth to the idea for flight, took it to Kitty Hawk, changed everything. The place where they went home to be buried. I left Delco, the Legacy Lounge, the bungalow on Galewood, doors that opened and closed in the night.

The sun was in my eyes. I pulled the visor down. I wasn't going back the way I came.

At Route 42, I went north, bypassing Columbus. When I hit Delaware, I saw the signs for Ohio Wesleyan University, turned east on 36, got onto I-71. I had one more stop to make, up on Lake Erie. Even if it wasn't open yet, I wanted to see it.

Place names recurred, in sets, in groups: Dixie, Bowling Green, the Ottawa River, St. Clair. More Main Streets than there had been swizzle sticks in the liquor cabinet on Maxwell Avenue. Past Mansfield, I saw another sign, another example. Like Bowling Green, like Dixie, Ashland had namesakes. Ohio had an Ashland too. It was late afternoon, I needed to eat, rest, so I went west the few miles along 96, out of curiosity.

I had a chicken salad sandwich and coffee in the Food Court of the John C. Myers Convocation Center, at Ashland University—another deeply rooted sapling in the forest of higher learning spread so generously across Ohio.

They gave me honey for the coffee instead of sugar.

I read
The Collegian
, the newspaper published weekly by the journalism department, pretended I was a writer, like I had told Bobby Swiss. Surrounded by a hundred landscaped acres, young people opening doors on their futures, I dreamed Adam was the student editor. I saw everyone in my family living different lives, in different places. Anything was possible.

I broke open the packet of honey, squeezed it into my coffee, stirred it in.

Things have a momentum, an inevitability. When Fran and I broke up, back in 1972, I think I was in shock. I still don't know exactly how it happened. It was a snowball rolling downhill, gathering bulk, unmanageable.

Afterward, the wound closed over, scarred, hardened. But when the weather is damp, when I turn my neck a certain way, I can feel that memory, the past, like shrapnel, shift, sit heavily, throb, then mercifully, fade away once more.

I haven't seen Fran in twenty-three years. I heard she moved to Los Angeles, was working in real estate. I don't know. That's what I heard.

Aidan, my stillborn son, is buried in an unmarked grave, in an area known as Child Common Ground beneath a giant oak in Mount Pleasant Cemetery. He is in plot 391, section 42. You can see the spot when you're driving along Moore. It's just opposite Lumley Avenue.

I remember a friend telling me at the time that there was a certain cushion of mercy in the fact that I never got to know him. What that person didn't understand was that I did get to know him. You live in your imagination. I knew him. I knew him well.

When Jeanne still hadn't gotten pregnant, after all our adventures, after temperature taking and charts, we were more than a little puzzled. After all, we had both proven fertile in the past: Adam. Aidan.

We took it to the next level. We agreed to visit Siliaris, our family doctor, see what he had to say.

Jeanne volunteered to go first. Bloodwork suggested that she was ovulating. A month or two later, back to the lab, more tests. This time it was a series of intravaginal ultrasounds. Again, everything seemed okay.

Then it was my turn. Where Jeanne had agreed to the usual feminine probing, I had to agree, in male fashion, to be rather more active. I was given a small, sealed container, plastic, instructed to go home and supply a semen sample at my leisure, then deliver it within the hour to the medical laboratory at Danforth and Coxwell.

Into the plastic jar. It was a first. Definitely a first.

What the hell. Jeanne and I turned it into a kind of game. With the exception of the small embarrassment of handing it over to the receptionist while she asked for the appropriate information, it turned out not to be so bad after all.

"It says here that your sperm count is low. Around fourteen million. Motility's a little low too." Siliaris was Greek, about my age. He had a remarkable, flowing, dark mustache, glasses. He nudged the specs up his nose a little as he read the printout.

I didn't know what to say. Fourteen million sounded like a hell of a lot to me.

"I'm going to refer you to a urologist. He's also a fertility expert. Samuelson. Out in the west end. I'll have Donna set it up for you."

"Okay." A pause. I was confused. Then: "I've told you about the baby in the past. What was that—some kind of a fluke?"

"Not at all. That was a long time ago." He paused. "You're older now. Things have changed." He was still studying the paper in his hands. "I'm not real good at reading these charts. Not my speciality. But something here suggests to me that there might be a specific cause. Nothing serious. That's why I'd like you to see Samuelson. This is his area. He does it all day long. Find out what he has to say." He looked at me. "He'll know."

I sat quiet, humbled a bit. I'd never suspected. Something was amiss. Finally: "Okay," I said. "Let's do it."

Driving home, staring into the traffic, I heard the words again. The past few years, Jeanne and I, all our attempts, began, slowly, to slide into place.
You're older now. Things have changed.

Samuelson was in his sixties, a jovial fellow who understood the personal nature of his business and took pains to put people at ease. He had indeed been doing it all day long, for years.

He looked up from the chart, over his wire-rimmed eyeglasses, stared at me, smiled. "You've got an infection."

I just stared back at him, silent.

"Here," he said, placing the paper on the desk between us, turning it so I could read. "This number." He pointed with his finger. "The white blood cell count is too high. It's indicative of an infection."

I looked at it, sat back.

"I want to check for myself, though."

"How?"

"In here."

We went into another room.

"I'm going to check your prostate."

I groaned.

He chuckled. "I know."

It was nothing new. I was moving into that area where it was an annual event for men my age. But it wasn't exactly my favorite.

"I'll be quick."

And he was. Without telling me he was going to, he pressed suddenly on my prostate gland, exerting momentary pressure—discomfort rather than pain—then held a small glass slide at the end of my penis. I was shocked to find myself exuding a bit of liquid onto the slide.

"Jesus," I said, stunned. "What the hell happened there?"

"Prostatic fluid," he said. "I can find out what I want to know in a minute." He left me, went over to the microscope in the corner, placed the slide beneath the lens, peered down the scope, adjusting for clarity. Without looking up, he said, "You can get dressed."

I slid off the table, tucked my shirt in, buckled up.

"You'll be a bit uncomfortable for a few hours. It'll fade."

"Good."

His chuckle was comforting. "Can you imagine how many times a day I do that?"

I shook my head. "I have to admit, I can't."

"You've got prostatitis, Mr. Nolan."

I was seated on the opposite side of his desk, back in the first room. It didn't sound good. "I don't know what that is."

"Inflammation of the prostate. Infection. Probably chronic bacterial prostatitis."

I looked at him. "You have my full attention."

"You probably got it from a bladder infection. The bacteria can get into the prostate from backward flow. It's not transmittable from one person to another. Your partner didn't give it to you, and you can't give it to her, so there's no reason for concern there. It's self-contained."

"How serious is it? What should I do?"

"I'm going to put you on antibiotics. Six weeks to start. I'll see you again in six weeks, and you can bring your own semen sample next time." He smiled. "Easier that way." He pulled over his prescription pad, began scribbling. "The infection, you see, causes the white blood cells to increase, and the sperm can't get out properly. It's like they're being blocked, and they bounce around inside you. That's why your count is low. The antibiotics should lower the white cell count, if not get rid of all of them. That way, things should pick up." He finished writing, looked at me. "You came in here with what you thought was a fertility problem, and it is. But what you've got is a larger, general health problem. It's a good thing you're here." The smile again, a kind one.

"How common is this?"

"Much more common than you'd think. It's not easily diagnosed, as you've just found out. You know," he said, thoughtfully, candidly, "you've been sick for a long time."

I just stared at him.

"I'm surprised you haven't noticed any symptoms, any discomfort, something that would have brought you to a doctor some time ago."

"I don't know what I should have noticed."

"Frequent urination at night, lower back pain."

"I thought I was just getting older. I thought everybody had those things."