life! See them? Look at them all over the walls if you don't know what I mean!
That's resolution for you, isn't it?
Well, that's my second wife, okay?
They're framed all over the place.
People come in here and then they look at them and then they smack their heads.
My God, they say, such pictures!
I say, original issue, a maker knows his game.
FEAR: FOUR EXAMPLES
MY DAUGHTER CALLED from college. She is a good student, excellent grades, is gifted in any number of ways.
"What time is it?" she said.
I said, "It is two o'clock."
"All right," she said. "It's two now. Expect me at four—four by the clock that said it's two."
"It was my watch," I said.
"Good," she said.
It is ninety miles, an easy drive.
At a quarter to four, I went down to the street. I had these things in mind—look for her car, hold a parking place, be there waving when she turned into the block.
At a quarter to five, I came back up.
I changed my shirt. I wiped off my shoes. I looked into the mirror to see if I looked like someone's father.
SHE PRESENTED HERSELF shortly after six o'clock.
"Traffic?" I said.
"No," she said, and that was the end of that.
After dinner, she complained of insufferable pains, and doubled over on the dining-room floor.
"My belly," she said.
"What?" I said.
She said, "My belly. It's agony. Get me a doctor."
There is a large and famous hospital mere blocks from my apartment. Celebrities go there, statesmen, people who must know what they are doing.
With the help of a doorman and an elevator man, I got my child to the hospital. Within minutes, two physicians and a corps of nurses took the matter in hand.
I stood by watching.
It was hours before they had her undoubled and were willing to announce their findings.
A bellyache, a rogue cramp, a certain stubborn but un-specifiable seizure of the intestine—vagrant, unamusing, but not worth the bother of further concern.
WE LEFT THE HOSPITAL unassisted, using a chain of tunnels in order to shorten the distance home. The exposed distance, that is—since it would be four in the morning on the city streets, and though the blocks would be few, each one of them would be a challenge to a person of gentle bearing. So we made our way along the system of underground passages that link the units of the hospital, this until we were forced to surface and exit into the jeopardy of experience. We came out onto a street with not a person on it—until I saw him, a man who was going from car to car. He carried something under his arm. It looked to be a furled umbrella—but it could not have been what it looked to be. No, no, it had to have been a tool of entry disguised as something innocent.
He turned to us as we stepped along, and then he turned back to his work—loitering at the automobiles, trying the doors, sometimes using the thing to dig at the windows.
"Don't look," I said.
My daughter said, "What?"
I said, "There's someone across the street. He's trying to jimmy open cars. Just please keep behaving as if you do not see him."
My daughter said, "Where? I don't see him."
I PUT MY DAUGHTER to bed and the hospital charges on my desk, and then I let my head down on the pillow and listened.
There was nothing to hear.
Before I surrendered myself to sleep, there was only this in my mind—the boy in the treatment room across the corridor from my daughter's, how I had wanted to cry out each time the boy had cried out as a stitch was sutured into his hand.
"Take it out! Take it out!"
This is what the boy was shrieking as the surgeon labored to close the wound.
I thought about the feeling in me when I had heard that awful wailing. The boy wanted the needle out. I suppose the needle hurt worse than the wound the needle would repair. Then I considered the statement for emergency services, translating the amount first into theater tickets, then into shirts ironed and returned to you on hangers instead of inside those awful bags.
FOR JEROMÉ–WITH LOVE AND
That's resolution for you, isn't it?
Well, that's my second wife, okay?
They're framed all over the place.
People come in here and then they look at them and then they smack their heads.
My God, they say, such pictures!
I say, original issue, a maker knows his game.
FEAR: FOUR EXAMPLES
MY DAUGHTER CALLED from college. She is a good student, excellent grades, is gifted in any number of ways.
"What time is it?" she said.
I said, "It is two o'clock."
"All right," she said. "It's two now. Expect me at four—four by the clock that said it's two."
"It was my watch," I said.
"Good," she said.
It is ninety miles, an easy drive.
At a quarter to four, I went down to the street. I had these things in mind—look for her car, hold a parking place, be there waving when she turned into the block.
At a quarter to five, I came back up.
I changed my shirt. I wiped off my shoes. I looked into the mirror to see if I looked like someone's father.
SHE PRESENTED HERSELF shortly after six o'clock.
"Traffic?" I said.
"No," she said, and that was the end of that.
After dinner, she complained of insufferable pains, and doubled over on the dining-room floor.
"My belly," she said.
"What?" I said.
She said, "My belly. It's agony. Get me a doctor."
There is a large and famous hospital mere blocks from my apartment. Celebrities go there, statesmen, people who must know what they are doing.
With the help of a doorman and an elevator man, I got my child to the hospital. Within minutes, two physicians and a corps of nurses took the matter in hand.
I stood by watching.
It was hours before they had her undoubled and were willing to announce their findings.
A bellyache, a rogue cramp, a certain stubborn but un-specifiable seizure of the intestine—vagrant, unamusing, but not worth the bother of further concern.
WE LEFT THE HOSPITAL unassisted, using a chain of tunnels in order to shorten the distance home. The exposed distance, that is—since it would be four in the morning on the city streets, and though the blocks would be few, each one of them would be a challenge to a person of gentle bearing. So we made our way along the system of underground passages that link the units of the hospital, this until we were forced to surface and exit into the jeopardy of experience. We came out onto a street with not a person on it—until I saw him, a man who was going from car to car. He carried something under his arm. It looked to be a furled umbrella—but it could not have been what it looked to be. No, no, it had to have been a tool of entry disguised as something innocent.
He turned to us as we stepped along, and then he turned back to his work—loitering at the automobiles, trying the doors, sometimes using the thing to dig at the windows.
"Don't look," I said.
My daughter said, "What?"
I said, "There's someone across the street. He's trying to jimmy open cars. Just please keep behaving as if you do not see him."
My daughter said, "Where? I don't see him."
I PUT MY DAUGHTER to bed and the hospital charges on my desk, and then I let my head down on the pillow and listened.
There was nothing to hear.
Before I surrendered myself to sleep, there was only this in my mind—the boy in the treatment room across the corridor from my daughter's, how I had wanted to cry out each time the boy had cried out as a stitch was sutured into his hand.
"Take it out! Take it out!"
This is what the boy was shrieking as the surgeon labored to close the wound.
I thought about the feeling in me when I had heard that awful wailing. The boy wanted the needle out. I suppose the needle hurt worse than the wound the needle would repair. Then I considered the statement for emergency services, translating the amount first into theater tickets, then into shirts ironed and returned to you on hangers instead of inside those awful bags.
FOR JEROMÉ–WITH LOVE AND
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