St. Patrick's Bed (Ashland, 3)

by Terence M. Green

  "You need to do something. You need to be of use."

  I'd heard my father say this many times.

  "Sometimes," he'd said, "just sitting in this room, I get thinking too much. I get to brooding. You have to do something, or you brood."

  He did small jobs around the house, and we encouraged them. The basement was his personal domain. He painted the oil tank a fluorescent silver, wrapped every visible water pipe with insulation, poly-filled cracks with gusto. These were jobs that his bad eyes could handle—as long as they occurred in the basement where hardly anyone saw the results. In the kitchen, it was a little trickier. Every night when I came home, I'd rewash the day's dishes. He just couldn't see enough detail to get them completely clean. And he liked to help by mopping and washing the kitchen floor. Mostly he just pushed the dirt around, and we'd find it in massed, wet piles in corners. Again, it was no big deal. It was easy enough to finish the job when he wasn't around.

  One morning—I can't remember why—I came into his room when I didn't know he was there. He was propped on his bed doing sit-ups. The man was in his late eighties. I was impressed. I don't even do sit-ups.

  "I don't want to die," he said to me one time.

  I couldn't think of anything to offer in return.

  "I don't want to miss anything. I want to know what happens to you, to Adam. I want to know what happens to everybody."

  I went back to see Samuelson six weeks later. He was such a veteran he could give you an estimate merely by looking through the microscope.

  "You're up around twenty million." He lifted his head from the lens. "Very good. Excellent, actually. You're responding well."

  "What does this mean?"

  "We're going to attack it more aggressively. I'm going to prescribe a heavier duty antibiotic. Really go after it."

  I followed him to his desk in the other room, sat down.

  He handed me the new prescription. "Six more weeks," he said. "Any problems before then, let me know."

  I saw Samuelson every six weeks for a year. For the final few months, he returned to the original, milder antibiotic—less expensive, fewer side effects.

  My last visit, though, was memorable.

  "You're a miracle," he said to me.

  "Am I?"

  "You're at fifty million. Tremendous progress. That's a normal sperm count. Motility's good. You've responded wonderfully."

  It was everything I wanted to hear. Over the intervening months I'd heard, twenty-eight million, thirty-five, forty. "I'm cured?"

  He smiled kindly. "It's never really cured. It's managed. You'll always have some white blood cells. You still get the occasional days of stomach pains, night sweats, right?"

  "Yes."

  "And you will. I'll give you two prescriptions for antibiotics, ten days worth each, for when it recurs. If it becomes too uncomfortable, fill one of the prescriptions. Take the sulfa pills—with plenty of water. Don't let it go untreated. But we're going to take you off this daily regimen. You can't stay on antibiotics forever. And I can't see any reason why you can't go home and make a baby."

  I wanted to phone Jeanne right then and there.

  He smiled, rose from his chair. "C'mere," he said. "I'll let you see something."

  I followed him back into the other room.

  "Over here." He was standing by the microscope. The glass slide was still beneath the lens. "Have a look."

  I stared at him, at the microscope.

  "Go ahead." He stood back.

  So I looked. I bent forward, focused. Slowly, inadvertently, my mouth opened.

  I could hear Samuelson chuckle.

  "Jesus," I said. I could see sperm swimming wildly in every direction, brimming with energy, tails wriggling furiously. In this one drop of semen, life was teeming.

  I couldn't take my eyes away. It was a door into another universe. Inside me, every minute of the day, with my every breath, life was percolating, boiling, fifty million of these were searching for an egg to penetrate, to fulfill a blind destiny, salmon leaping at a waterfall.

  Finally, I straightened, wet my lips, looked at Samuelson.

  "What do you think?"

  "Incredible," I said. "Unbelievable."

  He nodded, smiling. "I've been doing this every day for years," he said. "I never get used to it."

  I watched him take off his eyeglasses, wipe the lenses with a tissue.

  "And you're right," he said. He shrugged. "It's incredible."

  III

  I stayed on I-71 all the way into Cleveland, watching for a place to stay for the night. Before I knew it, though, I was caught in the flow of traffic, swept along into the urban center, missing the less-expensive motor hotels and inns on the city's outskirts. Then I got lost, ended up traveling west along the lake's edge. It was dark when I pulled over on a side street and unfolded my map, holding it close to the windshield to catch the light from a streetlamp.

  I turned around, went east, back the way I had come, followed the bright lights, the tall buildings, ended up on Lakeside Avenue, turned capriciously when I saw a familiar name, Ontario Street, crossed another street whose name was duplicated from city to city—St. Clair Avenue— and saw the Marriott. I stopped.

  It wasn't what I had in mind. But I was tired, disoriented, and ready to stop driving.

  You can rationalize anything.

  I told myself that I deserved a little luxury, a nice hotel, a treat, after a Best Western, a Hampton Inn. When I finally got into my ninth-floor room, though, which turned out to be half the size of the former two, at twice the price, I gave up my rationalizing. I had to admit it. It was actually a step down. Another big city had taken a bite out of me before I'd mustered any defense.

  In Jake's, the bar downstairs, I ordered a Bud, opened a couple of the city maps available at the Information desk, tried to figure out where I was. I had to eat dinner.

  The Flats, a developing area on both sides of the Cuyahoga River that twisted through Cleveland, was nearby. It seemed promising. It said that Cahagaga was Mohawk for "crooked river." I liked it. Sounded touristy.

  What the hell. The hotel hadn't quite worked out. Maybe dinner would. Back in my room, I made a reservation at a restaurant called Watermark, profiled in "The Critics' Choice of Cleveland's Best Restaurants," showered, changed my clothes. I got the Honda out of its underground parking, made my way onto Old River Road in the Flats, let myself be seated at a table by the window overlooking the brown Cuyahoga River.

  It wasn't Pizza Hut. It wasn't Chi-Chi's. I had a nice salad with Romaine, mesclun, iceberg lettuce, and croutons, tossed with carrot, scallion, and Romano cheese; the dressing was a honey rosemary vinaigrette. For an entree, I ordered Lake Erie walleye—coated in a blend of mustard and cracker crumbs, served golden brown, with Ohio grown broccoflower and carrots. Just to make sure I hadn't forgotten my roots, though, I ordered a Guinness, always a complement to seafood.

  Over coffee, I watched the late July sun set over the river. Nice. Very nice.

  Jeanne, I thought. Adam.

  I missed my family.

  Back at the hotel, I rode the elevator up to my compressed Marriott cubicle. Sitting on the bed, I phoned home, told her I'd be home tomorrow evening. Told her to expect me.

  Stillwater, Mad River, Crooked River.

  I dreamed I got separated from companions at a bazaar, surrounded by tables with mounds of exotic foods. Wandering among brightly colored canvas, along dirt footpaths, I examined bowls of spices, desserts of nuts and syrup cut into small squares, until I was confronted by a Gothic building—elaborate stonework, ivy—set against a river. I went inside, looked into vaulted rooms with leaded windows, great fireplaces, high ceilings, finally descending worn stone steps out the back way, opened a domed wooden door, and walked down to the water. It was twilight. The evening crackled softly, perfectly: streaks of dark clouds in a pewter sky. The river was still, a wide ribbon, a sinuous mirror. I watched sleek birds plummet from above, tucking their wings f
lush to their bodies, projectiles, diving beneath the surface, emerging with fish, lifting off once more into the air, circling, high.

  A woman approached, dressed in a long gown, asked me to take her picture against the slate and purple sky.

  At the water's edge, bending down, I picked up a small, round, smooth stone, closed my hand on it. I looked about me, at the dream, knew it was real. Knew everything was real. I squeezed it tightly.

  In the morning, I awoke feeling rich, lucky, comforted. Beside the bed, on the night table, was the stone. The new one.

  SIXTEEN

  I

  Music needs a shape. Sydney has the Opera House, a concrete jester's cap with vaulted roofs angling away like the blossoming of a Fourth of July explosion, dominating the city's harbour. Cleveland has the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, hundreds of glass windows tapering up, slanting back, pyramiding to a point, among towering white concrete disks, points, jags, a sentinel on Lake Erie.

  The sun reflected hotly off the cement of the expansive circle that skirted the entrance where I stood. It looked like, I thought suddenly, the landing target for a spaceship that might descend from above.

  It was 10 a.m., Saturday, July 29, 1995. The information in the pamphlet in my hand told me that groundbreaking had occurred on June 7, 1993. Billy Joel, Pete Townshend, Sam Phillips, Sam Moore, Dave Pinter, along with the inimitable Chuck Berry, had witnessed the event. It would open to the public on Saturday, September 2. I was five weeks too early.

  I looked at it, the angles, the lines, the curves, and I could see the music. When I closed my eyes, I could hear it. I could hear the crying. I had learned something from Bobby Swiss.

  Back on Monday the twenty-fourth, when I'd left home, I'd told Jeanne I'd be gone three days, maybe four. It had been six days now. I took one last look, listened one last time, got into the car, rested my arm out the window, saw the broad, imposing hood of my long-gone 1960 Chev through the windshield, got onto I-90, and headed for Toronto.

  There'd been one other trip—a big one. After my year of antibiotics, with renewed hope, Jeanne and I planned another vacation getaway. In July, two years ago, a month after Chuck Berry had watched the earth being turned out where I had just stood, we went to Ireland for a week. I'd never been. I'd listened to hand-me-down stories all my life. And I had to admit—the idea of a trip back to some roots held great romantic appeal. After 150 years, I'd be the first in my family to return.

  We flew first class, paid the extra bucks for it—champagne, cheeses, smoked salmon, and hot, moist towels handed to us with silver tongs to wipe our hands and faces. Almost embarrassing. Almost. The other thing I remember about the flight over is the little girl in the seat ahead of us being afraid, watching her father comfort her, envying him.

  In Dublin, we stayed at the Gresham on O'Connell Street, a four-star hotel picked from a guidebook acquired from the Irish Tourist Board back in Toronto. It was nice, but overpriced—in the same way as the Marriott in Cleveland.

  After the obligatory catch-up day due to flight exhaustion and time difference, the next day of sightseeing and fish and chips and pubs and a fine Indian dinner at Saagar on Harcourt Road, we got into the swing of it. We had an Irish breakfast of eggs, sausages, bacon, black pudding, and beans, bought a handwoven-in-Sligo woolen blanket on Grafton Street, checked out of the hotel, rented a standard-shift Nissan Micra, and, literally, headed for the hills. We'd come across the ocean for romance, to make love. To make a baby. It wasn't going to happen in the Gresham. We didn't want it to happen in the Gresham. It was out there somewhere, under wild Irish skies, in the soft green mountains.

  We were crazy. It was fun. It was exciting. In Rathmines, on the way south out of Dublin, we stopped at Quinnsworth Supermarket and bought fresh bread, salmon, cheese. Flying first class had made an impression. At the Off-Licence beside it, we bought beer and wine.

  Glendalough, in the Wicklow Mountains, sounded promising. St. Kevin, in the sixth century, had chosen it as a place to become a hermit. Eventually, he founded a monastery there, and what remains today is an ancient monastic village: a series of churches, a stone tower, all in ruins, except for a small structure known as St. Kevin's Kitchen, dating from the eleventh and twelfth centuries. We'd seen pictures of a beautiful and desolate place, a glen with two lakes, the valley's sides rolling with woodland.

  What we got was hundreds of tourists. Buses emptied on a regular basis, parking was nonexistent. We left our beer and wine in the car, wandered about, finally sat on a bench and ate our bread and cheese and salmon, drank mineral water that cost a pound a bottle.

  A groundskeeper saw us sitting there, out of place, and spoke with us. He nodded in the direction of a group of young people. "Foreign exchange students," he said.

  We looked at them, at the cameras slung over their necks.

  "Like kindergarten students," he said. "That's the way they behave." Using tongs, he picked up a soiled condom from the grass at the edge of the path, shook his head, deposited it in his garbage bag, muttered something under his breath, left us there.

  I knew there was someplace you could still go to be alone, to be a hermit if you wished. But it wasn't here. Not anymore. Not a Sunday afternoon in the summer at any rate. You could feel a bit of the magic, still there, just under the surface, but you couldn't get to it. St. Kevin, I thought, must be praying feverishly as he looked down.

  We stayed in the mountains, drove west, saw a waterfall tumbling over a green hill. Near Carlow, we stopped to see a dolmen—the Brownshill Portal Tomb—dating from between 4000 and 3000 B.C. It was fenced off, with an explanatory "Office of Public Works" sign, otherwise untouched. The entrance to the burial chamber of a portal tomb is marked by two tall stones, covered with a single massive capstone that rests on them, sloping downward and to the rear. The sign said that this one weighed 150 tons and was probably the heaviest of its kind in Europe.

  Unexcavated, it said. We stood amid the giant rocks, atop hidden pottery shards, stone beads, flint arrowheads, ornaments that had once been important to their bearers, atop the bones of farmers, warriors, druids—we didn't know—and gazed across the now-civilized fields, hay bundles stacked neatly.

  In Castlecomer, north of Kilkenny, we pulled in at the Avalon Inn, ivy-covered, white wrought-iron fence, roses, rented a room. We had dinner at the Lion's Den in town. I had the pork chop, Jeanne the curry chicken. Both came with chips. Afterward, back at the Inn, tucked into a snuggery in the pub, we ordered a Jameson's and a Guinness each, finally relaxed, went upstairs. We made love in the shower.

  We discovered that it wasn't easy to get lunch once you got into the countryside. Finally, in Newtown, a crossroads south of Tipperary, we stopped at a neat, whitewashed building with the name O'Brien and a Guinness sign on its exterior.

  "How didjas end up here?" The gentleman setting the ham sandwiches and pints in front of us had gray hair, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

  "Our Michelin Motoring Map," I said. "Scenic routes are marked with this heavy green line." I took it from my pocket, set it on the counter, showed him.

  He looked at it, studied it, nodded. "They know a thing or two," he said. "Prettiest view in Ireland is only a couple miles from here." He pointed at a spot on 664, just north of where we were. "Have a look. You can see the whole of the Glen of Aherlow. The Gaity Mountains in the background. See for miles. Take your breath away."

  "You're O'Brien," I said.

  "I am," he said. "Do the lady and yourself a favor." He smiled, knowingly.

  We went, we parked. Green and brown fields as far as the eye could see. The clouds touched the gray-purple mountains in the distance. We tried to guess how far away they were. Ten, twenty miles? We couldn't tell. It took our breath away.

  Just as things began to creep into our heads, a car drove by, slowed, pulled over. We looked at one another, shrugged. Jeanne touched my arm, said softly, "Let's go."

  A couple of hours later, south of Clogheen, in the Knock-mealdown M
ountains, at a place called The Gap on our map, we parked again, got out, looked around. It sounds a little corny to say it, but it was stunning—so beautiful, it hurt our eyes. The slopes about us were green, brown, purple, fern- and heather-covered. In the distance was a stand of pines, a blue lake, isolated, nothing on it. In another direction, fields, fresh, flat, the horizon touching the sky. If O'Brien could see this, I thought, he might have to reassess his vistas.

  I felt Jeanne beside me, close. "Whatta you think?" she asked.

  I listened, looked around, eyes adjusting to the depths and distances. Silence. Solitude. It was sunny, sixtyish, white clouds dotting above.

  I nodded. "I think so."

  She smiled, white teeth glistening. A finger tucked a strand of hair behind an ear. For a moment, looking at her, I felt dizzy.

  I slung the bag with the beer, wine, bread and cheese, the hand-woven blanket we'd purchased in Dublin, over my shoulder, and we headed up the slopes, toward the sky, away from the world. And we did what we came for.

  Like the outdoor lovemaking at the cottage back on Paudash Lake in Ontario, everything was so right, so good, so perfect, the landscape became both erotic and sacred. St. Kevin had been right. Getting away from people could be a balm. He would have liked it here, I thought. Very much. I think he would have liked it even more if he'd had a woman with him.

  In the late afternoon, the sun soft, we fell asleep, half- dressed, hidden among the ferns.

  II

  "Now this is a storm." I had to slow down. The Micra's windshield wipers could barely keep up with the rain, and the narrow road we were traversing—not to mention driving on the left-hand side—made me doubly cautious.

  It was 3 P.M., two days later. We were on 344, in Connemara, County Galway, the brooding, wind- and rainswept Maumturk Mountains on our right, the Twelve Bens rising on our left.