Interstate

by Stephen Dixon

  You call your wife. You first asked the doctor if he knew a good place to. “You want privacy, naturally,” and you said “That, a door I can close, place that doesn’t look out on anything and have people coming through and no one can look in.” He said his office, “cubicle’s more like it, where I do my more complicated paperwork and phoning and can catnap sitting up,” and that he’d leave you alone in it. Margo wanted to speak to her mommy but you said “After, another time, when I call next and I’ll be calling a lot, I promise. But you see, I’ll be talking to her for the first time since New York,” and she said “So?” and you said “So, I have to be more unmistakable?” and she said “I don’t know what you mean. It’s just I have to speak to her.” You said “After I tell her some things I’ll see if she wants to talk to you. She might not. Or she probably will want to but not be able to, so don’t be offended if she says no. But I will ask her for you, if I’m able to, since by that time I’ll probably be in terrible shape too, but she may be too broken up—let’s say she will—to talk to anyone after that including me.” The doctor unlocks the cubicle door, says “I can’t give you the key, it’s my only one and I have to go through all sorts of bureaucratic rigmarole to get another one, and the door locks automatically when you close it and there’s no way to keep it unlocked if you leave the room. That is, if the door’s firmly shut. Please don’t, if you leave the room and want to return, keep the door ajar with a chair or shoe or anything. There’s been thievery in the hospital, some we think by staff, and I have important papers and possessions in the room, though they even take thermoses and telephones.” “A shoe?” and he said “Why would I have one in there? It’s one of two. I keep a pair handy for jogging—running shoes. If you get locked out, ask the nurses’ station to summon me over the public address system and I’ll come fast as I can to unlock it.” Margo was taken to a room with a TV. The doctor suggested it. “We have several spare private patient rooms. We can move in a TV if one isn’t there, get her soda and snacks, she can sit in the chair or even on the bed—it’s okay, we’ll remake it, plenty of linen here—and she can watch her favorite shows with a remote control. Of course, all this depending on how long you’ll be.” “I’ll need some time to prepare, to think; you know, and then to get over it after I call. And Margo doesn’t know how to use one of those control things, that I know of. And I don’t think she has any favorite shows or watches any TV except for some popular two-hour one on Friday nights and maybe a nature film and occasionally, it doesn’t count though, a video movie with us or for them if it’s gentle and clean.” “Strict about it, that it? Feel it’ll hurt their intellectual and moral development?” and you said “In a way. But she doesn’t especially like TV and I think even those two Friday-night hours and nature film are for our benefit, to show she’s so-called normal, one of the kids. And because she didn’t, the other didn’t, or at least that’s the way it worked.” “Oh, she likes it all right but I bet is only trying to please you, your obviously being book-and high-minded people, to think she doesn’t. But she’ll change soon, or would have if this thing didn’t happen today—now for a while everything will be out of whack—and go at it avidly, I was going to say,” and you said “Maybe. But I hate TV for them; hated, hate. All that violence and emphasis on money and beauty and body and the commercials one-two-three and in all of it kittenish to what I now hear, even in the ads, is semiexplicit sex. Suppose she sees a show now with violence in it, what’ll I do? The sex and stupid stuff I don’t mind for her at this moment, but the violence? Suppose it’s about one or two deranged men who kill a person cavalierly, or even a kid or even a kid in a car and even from a car this kid’s killed? But a random smiling crime on the run, even if the killers get it at the end or repent. She’ll fall apart. I will too at hearing she saw it. Maybe someone can watch the TV with her. To clear the programs and just to be there to talk to if she suddenly wants to. Or maybe you have some family-movie videos, movies from thirty-forty years ago when there wasn’t as much blown-out brains and blood in them,” and he said “We don’t have VCRs here. She’ll be all right, really. It’ll be a good distraction. Look, I have kids too. And I know, for they’re around the same age as yours and a third who’s a bit older and also because of the patients I see and talk with, that what happened to her today and what she sees on TV and the movies are two distinct things. One’s fantasy and entertainment, the other’s real and repulsive, but for some reason, even if they haven’t seen a lot of it on TV, they’re able to separate the two more easily than me or you.” “You’ve kids my age—my kids’ age? And two—three? You seem so young to—too young to. Maybe I started too late. Anyway, I’ll try to get her away from the TV soon as I can. I won’t try to get through with the phone call to my wife soon as I can, but over it after, and maybe sooner to it.” You shut the door. Just before you did you said “What happens now to my younger girl? More slicing up? I should ask my wife first if she wants Julie to go through with more of that, but I wouldn’t know how to go about it. With both of us so uncollected, there can’t be a way,” and the doctor said “I’m afraid you haven’t a choice, sir. Someone’s been killed. We only did an exploratory on her, to see what could be salvaged if you’d agree, though nothing could. But first a few holes for tubes and other medical procedures to try to resuscitate her, even if everything was predetermined the minute we saw her. The county medical examiner will perform a thorough examination of her because foul play’s been suspected,” and you said “Foul play? She was murdered in front of me, or by two guys in front of me, she was right behind me or to the side in back. Now I forget where she was sitting but she had to be because Margo was right behind. I mean—” and he said “The term’s a technicality. He’ll also trace and then locate the bullet if it didn’t exit. Our preliminary exam indicated it didn’t, but it’s easy to miss the exit hole. Or even a second bullet, since the entry and exit holes for it may be in some more unyielding areas of her body or they closed. Then his office will contact you to arrange for a funeral home to pick up your daughter. If he can’t reach you—before you leave here you’ll want to give me all the phone numbers where you think you might be. In fact, let me have them now, I might miss you later,” and you gave your home phone number—“I think that’s right, I’m so confused now, but up till last year I think I was the only Nathaniel Frey in the phone book”—but couldn’t remember at all the numbers of your in-laws and your wife’s sister. “This is her folks’ names and address: they’re listed in the Manhattan book as a couple, his name first, and here’s my brother-in-law’s name in New Haven. I might just drive north—not drive, take the train or hire a cab or something—to be with my wife, and she might go to her sister’s or stay at her folks’ or even fly home to be with me and Margo. I’ll have to make sure to coordinate it, so we don’t get, you know, that’d be terrible, wouldn’t it? But I guess it’ll all depend where Julie’s taken to. And where would we? I don’t know of any home where we are, but that shouldn’t be tough to find. Several are nearby, not next door but within blocks, and by then friends or my wife’s family will help if I want to bring them in. But if he can’t reach me?” and he said “The coroner? Then he’ll get instructions from one of those close relatives or place her in a home here and tell you when he does contact you. He has a small office and no facilities for storing the subjects he’s worked on, excuse me for putting it like that. He should be done tomorrow afternoon, since he’s probably picking her up right now.” “Maybe I should go to him, help him put her in his truck or van if he didn’t come with anyone and you’re short-staffed, and go with him to provide information he might want. And to stay with her, but in another room while he’s working on her, till she has to go to a home, and maybe even there’s where my wife can meet me—the coroner’s—but I have to make that call to her first and what would Margo do all that time?” and he said “It’s also not necessary; he has all the data he needs from us and the police.” “But there are little specific health details he mig
ht want to know about her that only her pediatrician and parents know, and my wife ten times better than I, and he doesn’t have her records, does he? Did you call her pediatrician for them? I don’t remember giving anyone her name and phone number. That one I could never remember—it didn’t have to take something like today—and would always ask my wife for, who’d produce it on the spot. Among other things she has a head of a thousand phone numbers and all our Social Security numbers, but I can give you the doctor’s name or the group practice’s,” and he said “He won’t need any of that for what he’ll be doing,” and you said “So, that means I’m done here. I can go whenever I want with Margo after I make my call. It’s hard to believe. There must be something I haven’t done, attended to, that sort of thing—answered,” and he said “Outside of the call to your wife, if you’re still up to it, and what you want the police to do with your car after, I can’t think of anything. You will want to contact them before you go if they’re through with the car and you’re planning to leave it behind, as I don’t know how long they’ll want to take care of it before they park it in a private lot. Perhaps you’d like me to deal with them, you shouldn’t be bothered,” and you said “I can call them from where I end up or in a few days, send them the title and registration and tell them to sell it or give it away if they want. Maybe for the hospital; you’ve all been very kind. But it’s almost an old car, lots of miles and stains and banging up and now even worse. It might get a couple of thousand if the buyer isn’t repelled by what happened or think there’s a curse attached. Though even if it were new and worth umpteen thousands it wouldn’t stop me from never wanting to have anything to do with it again or anything we left inside it or even file an insurance claim, other than for going what I probably have to go through, like signing the ownership papers with my wife’s and my name, to get rid of it,” and he said “It’s a generous offer, one you or your wife might have a change of mind about later, but I’d think it’d be too complicated for the hospital to get involved in something like an auction or sale, though thank you.” It’s a little room, a cubicle as the doctor said. As they were walking to it he said “It’s something, isn’t it, those floods down South. With only a slightly stronger wind or high pressure—something blown in from the ocean or up from the Gulf—and then a similar weather pattern that stopped the clouds over the South for so long, we would have got a huge dose of it ourselves,” and you said “What, because of the rains? I wish we had. I wouldn’t have driven back today, or yesterday if I had heard it was on the way, or tomorrow if it happened today, if we started to get what they did or anything near. That is what you mean, right?” and he said “There’s never been anything like it in the weather annals there. We’ve had periodic heavy wettings recently, nothing for several days. But they’ve had, Virginia on down, twenty-six straight days of rain and five to seven inches of rain in some places for six consecutive days. You can understand why the rivers wouldn’t hold—the levees. A few billion acres of land covered over, I read. Entire towns and one capital city under water, or to the first or second story, and one of our oldest universities totally flooded. What a catastrophe. Six states have already been declared federal emergency disaster areas and a seventh is on the way. Municipal water systems knocked out for weeks, the pestilence that can occur if people so much as brush their teeth with tap water in thousands of homes. Billions in property damage, not acreage loss. Maybe a few million acres covered or totally saturated. And to top it off, it’s continuing to rain in biblical proportions with no end in sight. What was it, eighty days, forty days, forty-eight? You can almost begin believing that it happened because of something horrific the region’s done, for why was every other region spared? Just think what’s going to happen to fruit and citrus prices the next year and traveling this summer if some of those major bridges go and highways are ruined,” and you said “I’ve been listening to it on the radio now and then and seeing it in the papers the last few days but for some reason I haven’t paid much attention. Could be it’s just too big a calamity to imagine or care about as a whole or there hasn’t been enough reporting of individual tragedies about it except for things like ‘My family farm’s gone,’ ‘The homestead where my ancestors grew up is finished,’ I can’t get to work and I need the money, now even more so to pay off this damage,’ ‘My car and camper both destroyed along with the carport they were in,’ ‘Our only family tree’s on my mother’s computer that floated away,’” and he said “Picture I get is different, sir. Seventy-one deaths so far overall and thousands of livestock, if you care about animals the way I do. An entire Boy Scout troop lost while spelunking, quarter-million people living in shelters now, but all that neighbor-aiding-neighbor attitude down there, with some people driving hundreds of miles to help and even coming from other states when the call went out for sandbaggers to work twenty hours straight. One man who sandbagged for a storeowner he hated like hell, he said, but in times of crisis like this, he added, what else can you do but pitch in?” and you said “Then I must be wrong, didn’t read enough or not the right newspapers and wasn’t listening to the radio at the right times. I didn’t mean to sound heartless about it.” Little room, little cubicle, normal-size cubicle, how big do you suppose? Big as three old telephone booths, some height. Big as your second-floor shower-bath at home plus connecting linen closet, same height. Big as two cars of your model and make, one on the other. Your car. What things of hers you leave behind in it? Dollies, clothes, games, toothbrush, you’ve said all this, her own special toothpaste gel with an unusually large flat cap so the tube can stand on it, books from your local library, let it all go. To the library you’ll say, well, you’ll say nothing. You’ll just pay by check sometime after the bill comes for all your overdue books and never if you can help it go near that library again. No windows, so, windowless, diplomas on the walls, bookcase full of medical books, papers neatly stacked on the narrow desk underneath, pencils, long yellow writing tablets, couple of coat hooks on the door with medical jackets on them, hanger with street clothes on a wall hook, tie on another, running outfit and athletic shorts on a third, running shoes and hightop sneakers so maybe he also plays basketball, towel on another wall hook, under it a long black rubber tubing he probably exercises with. You pull out the drawers looking for what? Phone book because you forget your area code and don’t want to dial Information and speak to anyone for it. It’s a new one, changed the past year when the state divided into two codes, and all you can think of is the old. Shaving gear, bottle of aspirins, pint bottle of rye or whatever the smallest size is that isn’t the souvenir kind, half pint. A glass. You shouldn’t, it’s not yours, there’s barely a quarter-bottle left, which means around two shots. He may be saving it for a bracer, after this difficult shift with your dead daughter, for instance, or right after you go. But he wouldn’t mind, he’d understand, not mind that much, you might even tell him if you see him again and a few months from now send him a fifth or liter of one of the best Irish whiskeys, if you remember his name, and pour a finger of it, two fingers, practically emptying it, and shoot it down and put the bottle back in the drawer. Glass was clean when you picked it up, no sink in here so unless you wash it he’ll know you drank from it. But again, you’re almost sure he won’t mind. He’s a nice guy, you can tell by what he said and the way he smiled and all the time he gave you. What doctor do you know would do that? Maybe all of them, in this situation, if they weren’t called to another emergency, and anyway by the time he finds the glass, which could be today if he takes that bracer, you’ll be gone from here though you don’t know where yet, and you look for your hanky, no hanky, you must have used it on her in the car and left it there or thrown it away, and dry the glass with your bloody, dirty shirt—even worse than stealing his liquor, as the hanky would have been, but here he won’t know and he’ll probably, since he’ll also probably smell the whiskey on it and notice the bottle almost empty, wash the glass before using it. Framed photo on the desk of him and his wife and two so
ns, or you assume they are, and who else could they be? Framed photo on a bookshelf of him and this same woman and now three children, so you know they’re his. But he said two were around the same age as yours and one a bit older, which isn’t so here. Was he saying that to show something, do something? What’s the difference what it means if he was only trying to help? All facing the camera, posed in a way you never would with your family, and by a professional it seems—cloudy blue backdrop that doesn’t exist in real life except as a photographer’s prop or maybe it’s just worked into the print, but to you it looks like life after death, to them maybe it’s heaven on earth. Anyway, something else you’d never do, pay a pro to photograph you, doctor and his wife sitting on a red Victorian loveseat, three-or four-year-old girl squeezed between them with a hand on each of their closest knees, same two boys behind them and looking about three years apart but several years older than in the desk photo, so that one probably taken before the girl was born, doctor serious, wife looking giddy to almost delirious, both seemingly unaged since the earlier photo and doctor looking even younger in this one, must be the more youthful haircut and the jogging and exercise or the photographer touched them up. Do you have family photos where you’re all in them? Maybe only one, or two or three, but one you remember and is inside a plastic sheath tucked away in your billfold and which used to be pinned above your desk at home but you haven’t looked at since you stuck it in there: first time Julie was taken outside, when she was a couple of weeks old. Your mother-in-law had come down to help out and took it. On the grass in front of your apartment building then, Margo seated between your wife’s spread legs and waving a lolly, you kneeling beside them holding Julie who’s crying hysterically while everyone else is smiling. Diaper pin or rash, soiled diaper, stomach bubble or hunger, any one of those could be it, your wife used to say, but here it might only have been her first airing. So: outside air on her face and street sounds—cars, trucks, maybe birds, a dog barking, passerby shouting, motorcycle passing—and all your excited chatter at having her out. Even a plane overhead. They often flew by and sometimes it seemed pretty low. Think what the first one of those must have sounded like. Impossible. The phone, and you sit at the desk. Got to get it over with. No, that’s not the attitude. The attitude should be what? You don’t know. The attitude, my friend, the attitude! Sorry. How do you call out from here? Same as from your office: dial nine, then one, area code and phone number? The area code, you were looking for a phone book, and you go through the drawers again and look on the bookshelves but don’t find one. Some people in tight quarters keep them in corners on the floor and you look at all four of them, none’s there. Someone’s playing loud music with this thumping beat, probably in a nearby cubicle. Area code you suddenly remember and write it down along with your phone number. But you’re not dialing home, you’re calling your wife at your in-laws’, and you jot down the New York City area code. Their phone number, even after years of calling them now and then, you were never able to remember. You don’t know why. You like them and they’re easy to speak to so it isn’t that you wanted to forget the number and by forgetting it you forgot them or your difficulty in talking to them, et cetera. You even tried to find some memory device to remember it but it was such an odd assortment of numbers, the lower ones all mixed up with the higher ones and none seeming to join another, that you couldn’t come up with one. It’ll be hard calling your wife—speaking to her with what you have to say—with that music—and then dealing with everything else after it—going on. “Stop, please stop that racket,” you say, “if there’s a God in heaven, stop it now.” But you don’t want to try and find the room it’s coming from and ask that person to turn it down or off, if anyone’s there. You might lock yourself out of this room and you also don’t want to confront anyone. You want to get it over with, that’s all, done, done, and don’t want any more interferences and distractions, and then get on to the next thing and the next thing and so on till ten years from now it’s somewhat out of your mind or not in it all the time. Something like that. Just speak, when you do speak, with a finger in your free ear. Which kid did that recently? Not one but with two: Julie, in the car; no, Margo, here. Both—all kids likely—did it with both ears plugged: don’t want to hear what you’re saying when you’re remonstrating, that sort of stuff. You get up and put your ear to the walls till you find the one it’s coming from and yell “Stop it, will ya, shut the fucking music up,” banging the wall. You listen for about half a minute and no one says anything, music stays; they had to have heard you so probably nobody’s there. There’s no other way, you’ll have to get New York City Information, and it isn’t as if you’re talking to your wife yet, and you dial nine, one and the Information number there. Man says “Mr. Lewis, what city please?” and you say “Yes, thank you. Listen, this is very tough for me, Mr. Lewis, speaking. I do want a number but there’s been—please stick with me through this quick spiel—a death in my family—” and he says “I’m sorry, sir, what can I do for you, what city?” and you say “Manhattan. It was just before, a few hours, and I’m still a little crazy—a car accident—all upset about it and I have to call my wife and need her parents’ number there,” and he says “The name and address?” and you say “That I have,” and give them and he says “Hold on for your number please,” and a recorded voice gives it. The music, another piece, almost the same screeching and beat but faster, is that supposed to be relaxation, diversion, rest, something to think with or listen to on your dinner break, maybe just good for sex, but not here, though could be, on the floor, put a jacket underneath, or both on a chair, perfect place with only one key, but if not what is it then, what’s it serve? It’s so goddamn ignorant, why do people who like serious music keep it low and those who like this kind turn it up so? That true? You don’t care what the answers are, but in a hospital, in this part, where people are dying or recently dead, or maybe that’s not in this part, you walked a long way, but still, and instead of a bracer, this? What am I missing? Oh that’s a lark. Oh shit, forget it, don’t let it get to you, it’s not going to go away by your praying and raving against it, so are you ready? As I’ll ever be. What are you going to say? I’ll just see what I’ll say. Not good enough, this is the most emotionable of human instances which calls for the rarest most fastidious kind of sensitivity, equableness and self-control. Stop it, stop the words and bullshit, speak to me in plain language, I can’t stand any fanciness like that and for sure not now. Okay, so just how will you? How will I? How will you and what, yes, how? I’ll say, I’ll say, I’ll say I’m at a hospital, here, this one, I’ll give the name and state, Margo’s with me, Margo’s all right, nothing’s wrong with her, don’t worry about that, but there’s been an accident, a terrible one, so terrible, couldn’t be worse, listen, hold tight, it’s a shooting, Julie’s been shot, Julie’s shot, Julie’s dead, I’m at the hospital, Margo’s with me, she’s okay, unhurt, is anyone there with you, if anyone is, please get that person to the phone or just someone to help you. You’d break the news to her like that? So fast, right off the bat? You wouldn’t first ask if anyone’s there with her before you tell her, so that person can sort of be there to help her when you tell her or tell her himself? And also, for this is such shocking news, get into it slower and easier with this person before you say what happened? Yes, I’d do that. I’d say to my wife “Hi, dear, how are you, is anyone there with you, your folks, they around? May I speak to one of them, it’s something about something, a secret, nothing wrong, don’t worry, and one I’m sure they’ll give away the moment I get off the phone,” as if it were something like a surprise party I was planning for her, and then I’d speak to her mom or dad the way you said. I’d do it quietly, wouldn’t break the news quickly, even start off with a bit of small talk. If she said “Which one?” I’d say “Oh, I guess your dad,” since I think, though it’d be the worst thing he’s ever heard or had to deal with, he’d handle it better. Or I’d just ask for him straight off, “Let me speak to your
dad, please, if he’s there,” and if he wasn’t then I’d ask for her mom. But suppose neither parent is there? Or suppose she then says, after I made that pitch, “Sure, I’m at their apartment, why wouldn’t they be here? But something’s wrong, you’re holding it back, don’t try to act like you’re not, so what is it, tell me, the kids, one of the kids, both?” She might have picked up by my voice, not what I said, that something’s wrong, very wrong, couldn’t be worse. I might only have to say one word for her to notice. Or one word before I start crying. I might start crying second I finish dialing her folks’ or be crying while I dial. Be sobbing, be bawling. I might have to hang up while I’m dialing, try to collect myself and then dial again when I feel composed enough to speak to her and then might start sobbing the moment she lifts the receiver and says hello. Or I might never get that control. I might try very hard, clench my teeth, bite the insides of my cheeks, do some mental preparation—“Now don’t cry, don’t cry, too much is riding on your staying composed”—think I have it, heart’s not beating wild, throat’s not tight, and so forth, and dial again and start crying while I’m dialing or the moment my wife picks up the phone. Or when some other person, it doesn’t have to be she, lifts the receiver. Though most times I’ve called her at her folks’ place she’s been the one to pick up the phone, maybe because she’s faster, more energetic or it’s just a habit of racing to the phone there from the time she was a kid and they don’t even bother trying to answer it while she’s there. But if her mother does answer the phone, what then? Do I ask for her husband? If she says “What’s it about, Nate, anything I can do?” which she usually does when I ask for him, what do I say? Something like “Something to do with our income tax forms last year, he told me to call him about it if I got the letter from IRS I had anticipated would be waiting for me at home, and we’re home, by the way, good trip, everybody’s safe, kids say hello, and of course after I speak to him I’ll want to speak to Lee.” But if I do get her dad, or only her mom if her dad’s not home, what then? I don’t know. No, you have to know, it’s absolutely essential. You’re priming them for your wife, right? and the call’s to be made momentarily, so you have to think now what you’ll say. I’ll say something like, I’ll say something like, I’ll say “Hi, it’s Nate, Nat, Nate, but you know that, you know my voice, but there’s something you don’t know, some very important thing to tell you, some very bad news to tell Lee too but first I have to prepare her through you, prepare you to prepare her for the absolute worst though I wish there was some way to prepare you for it too.” I might then say “It isn’t Margo, it’s Julie.” I might put it this way: “Margo’s not hurt, Julie is.” I might then add “Julie’s very hurt, in fact. Extremely. There’s been an accident. Not an accident. Listen, I’m going to go nuts with crying if I don’t tell you right away and if I do start crying I’ll never stop and you’ll never find out what it is I have to tell you and you have to, you see, for I have to tell Lee. It’s this: Julie’s dead,” I might say, “Margo isn’t. Julie’s been wiped out clean, Margo isn’t even scratched.” No, not like that, not any of it, I have to go back. Why? You’re on to it, you are, and almost over it with her folks, so go on, what else? I’ll say, or might, “Listen, Julie’s been killed, killed, by a freaking mad gun shooter from a car.” No, some other way. If I tell them that way I’m sure they’ll break down and be unable to prepare my wife for what I have to tell her, what do you say? What do I say? I say you’re right but that whatever way you tell whichever parent you tell it to, they’ll break down, how can they not? They might be strong, father stronger than the mother as you said, but no one can be that strong if they’re not the same type as the guys who killed your child. But even those guys would probably break down the same way if let’s say they heard one of their kids was just killed, even if they’d done it to someone else’s kid the same way and not long before, but we won’t go into that. Or both you and one of your wife’s parents might break down the same moment after you say it about Julie and then the other parent might get on the phone after the first one broke down or ask his or her spouse what’s wrong. And you might then have to repeat it because the one you told it to would be in no shape to repeat to the other one what you just said. So? So I’m saying you’ll now probably have two of them broken down, if you were able to tell the second what you told the first, and you still haven’t really begun to get the news to your wife. So? So stop saying “so?” for you don’t see that as a problem? I see it, my wife. Where would she be all this time? If she’s not home, that’s one thing, and it might even be easier that way, for her parents would have calmed down enough to tell her or prepare her by the time she got back. But if she’s home and in the room with them, one of her parents breaking down during the call would in a way be a way of telling her something’s very wrong. In other words, that might be all the preparation I need, through the crying and probably the hysteria of her parent or both of them, if I was able to tell the second, but not the way I want to begin telling her. What way do you want? That could be the key to how you go about telling her. I’m not sure. I don’t know. No, I’m just not sure. I’d love for her to just hear it from me in whatever way I tell it, soberly, hysterically, something in between, either of the three or some other way but no matter what way for her to then say something like “This”—soberly, unhysterically, no in-between—“is the worst news of my life, dear, the worst thing that has ever happened or could ever happen, but we have to begin dealing with it the best way we know how. And I know how it is for you now, Nat, and how hard it was to tell me, just as I know you know how it is for me and how hard it was to hear. But we can’t let it overwhelm us where we can’t function for each other and Margo, especially for Margo, so that’s what we have to do.” “What do we have to do?” I can then say if it’s not really clear to me and she can say in the same way what she means till I understand. Do I want her to say something like that in the way I had her say it? I do, for if she doesn’t there’ll be nothing but sorrow and we’ll just sink in it and Margo will go down with us too. One of us at least should stay in some kind of control like that, either Lee or me, and I should because she might not and also because I’ve known of it longer than she and probably because of some other reasons, and maybe that’s the approach or attitude or tactic I should take now, to take care of them both in their sorrow or despair, but how do I do it, how do I even start? First step is to try to composedly tell one of her parents, second is to try to tell Lee the same way, and so on and so on, and maybe only at the funeral I can crack up for the length of it and then recover till we get to the cemetery, if the entire service isn’t at the cemetery, and then crack up for most of the burial ceremony and recover for the ride home with Margo and Lee. And maybe later I can crack up in moments when I’m alone but where I know I can come out of it just about when I want, and then months from now—a month, weeks, even—when Lee will be a little better adjusted to Julie’s death perhaps, I can crack up with her when Margo’s asleep or out of the house or can’t hear, or just on my own when Margo isn’t around or can’t hear and Lee for those minutes can take care of me. In time in front of Margo but when I can quickly recover again, and maybe even with Margo if it comes to that, and much later on, whenever it happens and in front of whomever happens to be there. Anyway, better to take that approach than total breakdown or any but a momentary breakdown on the phone with Lee now. Certainly if she’s in the room when I tell one of her folks about Julie she’ll see from their face that something’s very wrong—did I say all this before? That something catastrophic and possibly tragic has happened but she wouldn’t automatically know it was one of us her parent was screaming and sobbing over. It could be about one of her relatives—an uncle, a cousin—or a good friend of her folks: sudden stroke, someone keeled over and died, news that the husband of the woman on the phone has terminal cancer and only a month to live, that sort of thing. For if my name isn’t mentioned—for instance, if my father-in-law doesn’t say right away “Nate, ho
w are you, how was the trip?” or Julie’s name isn’t mentioned—“No, not Julie, oh my God!”—she probably wouldn’t know who her parent is crying over or that I was on the phone. She might think it’s a call from her sister or brother-in-law about her brother-in-law or sister or one of their kids. Lee’s parents would break down if anything tragic happened to one of them too—not to the brother-in-law as much as their other daughter and three grandchildren from them. Lee might say “What is it, what happened?” and if her father or mother continued to sob and scream or acted any way like that, take the receiver away, if she thinks it’s about her sister or one of her nieces or her nephew or even her brother-in-law and say “Hello, this is Lee, who’s this, what happened, why’s my mother (or father) crying so?” and I might be crying. She might recognize my cries. Of course she would. I’ve cried and sobbed before over the news of people’s deaths or the memories of some who were dead. She might say “Nat, what’s wrong, tell me, one of the kids? It’s one of the kids,” and I might be able to say yes or I might not be able to say anything I’d be crying so hard. She might then say—she’d probably then say—“Come on, what is it, one of the girls like I think? Which one, and what, what—a car accident—on the highway—something at home? Is she alive, is she dead? Both, one? Which, which?” Her parents would still be crying—one would probably have told the other by now if both were home—and she might then say to them or just to the one who’s home, since I might not be able to speak—I probably wouldn’t—“What is it, what did he tell you?” and they might, one might, blurt out “Julie.” “Oh no, Julie what? It’s the worst, I know, I can tell by your face and that he can’t speak. What? Oh no,” and they might not be able to say anything and she might get back on the phone and say “What’s wrong with Julie?” or if they told her what, “Dad (or Mom) said Julie’s dead—he (she) has to be wrong, she can’t be, she isn’t,” and I still might not be able to speak, and then what? She might turn to her folks again, or one of them—whatever—and say “I’m wrong that you said that, right? She’s not dead, isn’t that so? Nat didn’t tell you that, true? It’s something bad, I know, but nothing as bad as that, right, right? So what did he say, what exactly did Nat tell you?” and one of them might nod that yes, she’s dead, or mouth “Yes, dear, she’s dead,” or say it, whisper it, or just in a normal voice “Yes, dearest, Julie’s dead,” both of them could say it, he could be saying it on the phone while they’re saying it or just calling out for her, “Lee…Lee…,” but whatever way she’s told she would then scream, there’s no question she’d scream and become hysterical and cry hysterically and yell and tear at her hair and scratch her face probably and stick her fingers in her mouth maybe and bite down on her fingers and pull the corners of her mouth apart till they hurt and even after, maybe till they bleed, but things like that and I’d be on the other end listening but not knowing what to do and she wouldn’t get back on, by this time she wouldn’t be able to, though I’d stay on, it might take minutes but then one of her parents might be able to get on and say “Nathan, you still there?…tell me what happened, Lee’s hysterical as you can hear, we all are, but if you can, just some more information, tell me and I’ll do my best in conveying it to her, or withholding it from her, whichever I think best, but please, don’t keep us in the dark.” That might be a phrase her mother would use, her father would just say something like “What is it, Nate, before we lose our senses again and I can’t hear what you have to say? Where you calling from? Home, a hospital, a police station, the morgue?” “Hospital,” I might manage and he could say “Did you say it was a car accident?” “Shooting,” I might be able to say. I would then probably say I can’t speak any longer, for I probably couldn’t, but that I want to, to be as cooperative as I can—helpful—to do anything I can to help Lee and them now, but I’m unable to, I’m crazy with grief because of the whole thing, out of my gourd, my head, but in control enough to take care of Margo through all this, who as they can imagine is as distraught as anyone but sort of okay, holding it in, I don’t know when it’s going to come out in a kid’s way and if it does if I’ll be able to handle it, but so far she and I are okay, and maybe I can get the doctor closest to this to talk to him (or her) if he’s still around, but before I get off to get him I’d want to give the doctor’s name and name and phone number of the hospital so they don’t lose contact with me, for if I do lose contact with them—I could, I’m holding it in too but am underlyingly that overcome—they won’t be able to reach me since they won’t know where I am. I could be at any hospital from there to where I live, right? “Oh, if we were only home, all three of us, girls and me, dinner done, dishes washed and traveling things put away, place tidied the way I like it, neat piles, rug under the dinner table swept, getting ready for bed, maybe in bed—the kids; if I were that tired from the trip and cleaning up and things, me—for I don’t know what time it is, maybe long past their normal bedtime when tomorrow’s a school day,” I’d probably say if I’d said all the rest of what came before it. So I’d say “Hold on, the doctor’s and hospital’s name have to be here someplace,” and I’d look on the desk for personal stationery or an envelope addressed to the doctor—you do that now, look, nothing there with the doctor’s or hospital’s name on it, open the top drawer—wait a minute, the diplomas on the walls would have his name on them—but in it there’s a manila envelope with the doctor’s name and hospital address—and I’d give this information to whichever parent I was speaking to and say the phone number they can get by calling Information in this state, for it’s not on the phone—and then I’d say “Okay, stay on”—say it if I was able to—“I’m going to look for the doctor, he might be outside the door here or down the hall but in hearing distance—I’m in his cubicle in the hospital, his private room, office, calling from it, I wanted privacy for this call, and if you’re not on when I get back, don’t worry, I’ll call back soon as I can, so if you do get off, keep the line clear, or if you want to get me, ask for this doctor’s private number when you call the hospital, say ‘His cubicle,’ they’ll know…so I’m going,” though I’d probably say before I go—I’d definitely say if Lee was home and they told her or I somehow had before but she wasn’t the one I was speaking to now, “How is Lee now, what’s she doing, what are you doing to help her, how much help does she need? Maybe you should call your own doctor right after this to see what he can do for her and for you too, for advice, who can give you a psychiatrist to call and possibly come now if you don’t know of one, she might need medicine, something for sleep, I don’t see how she couldn’t, someone professional there like that with those things to help you with her and also to help the two of you,” and then after they told me I’d say “So I’m going, I’ll try to be quick,” and put the receiver down and look outside the door and if the doctor was there or down the hall I’d ask him to speak to my mother-or father-in-law and tell them what he thinks they should know about Julie and answer any questions they may have, or by now even Lee if she was there, maybe she’d want to talk to him, and if he wasn’t there and he probably wouldn’t be and there was no one from the hospital around I could ask to get him, for I now have his name down, I’d race back to the phone—before I left the room I’d have done something to make sure the door wouldn’t close and lock—and if one of my in-laws was still on the line—I don’t know what I’d say if I said hello on the phone, “anybody there?” and Lee was the one now on, though maybe by now I could say something clear and sound and also maybe she’d by now be somewhat calm—“The doctor’s not around, what more can I say, or maybe I should look for him more, how’s Lee now?” and if it was Lee there, “Lee…Lee…what more can I do for you from here, what can either of us do? We’re devastated, but we got to control ourselves somehow, for our sakes for Margo’s sake, meaning that we don’t want to destroy her by destroying ourselves, there’s no point in cracking up—not that, it isn’t a question of a point or not, but if one does, you do, I’ll take care of Margo and you, crack up if
you have to and nothing can stop it, I’ll be there forever for you, I swear, though try if it’s possible to wait till I get there or you’re here or we’re together somewhere soon, please.” Anyway, that’s some of what I’d do on the phone. Not the best, no great plan, but the aim’s good. It probably is the best you can muster under the circumstances and considering your limitations and if you’re alone on the phone doing it. What’s that mean—the last? It means maybe you should, after all, have the doctor beside you while you call or have him be the one calling Lee and her parents about it with you beside him, and you think about this and you think and think and think and you think no, best it comes only from you when you’re alone. You can’t say why. You could if you really thought about it perhaps. The doctor might inhibit you somewhat to a lot. It just wouldn’t seem right in a way, saying the deepest most grievous thing possible to the person closest to you and who’d be most affected by it, with a medical professional you didn’t know till an hour ago standing next to you and in so small a room, or having someone like that say it for you to her or one of the two persons closest to her and who’d almost be as affected by it. And such a small room, barely a cubicle. Or rightly named one: desk, chair, but narrower than usual desk and chair, even the bookshelves seem narrower than usual or is that some sort of illusion because the room’s so small, and so many things hanging from hooks and pegs on the walls and door, probably because there’s so little space in the room. There was a comedian, when you were a boy, who used to say either on TV when you still watched or the Paramount Theater stage, so you would have been high school age, “Our apartment’s so small the furniture’s painted on the—” no, zero in on the phone. You ready? Yes, and you lift the receiver. “To get around we had to walk sideways once past the door.” You start to dial. Stomach nervous pains like when dialing girls thirty years ago, forty, or with your hand on the receiver ready to pick it up to dial. Girls you wanted to date but didn’t think they’d be interested even a first time. Or girls you’d dated once and wanted to again but didn’t think they would. What would you say to them on the phone? You’re stalling again and you know it but what would you say? And what digit were you on when you stopped dialing? and you put the receiver down. “Hi, my name’s Nathan Frey, you wouldn’t remember me,” this for the first date but they’ll find out you’re not that smart or sharp or with it in a way they like or you don’t come from a family with dough or go to a private high school or one of the elite public ones, or something else or they already found that out the first time you met or that you’re just not their type. You’d thought a lot about what approach to take and what might be the best weekday time to call: around nine, after they might have their homework and house chores done, maybe had a shower or bath, were feeling clean and relieved and relaxed, sort of the start of the quiet time of night and when your mind seemed a bit sharper and line cleverer and voice lower, so you felt more confident, but not much later than nine for they could use the excuse that their parents thought it a little late for someone to call them, even a good friend, especially when the conversations tended to go on for a while, and not earlier because their folks might want to use the phone or were expecting a call. Nine-fifteen to -thirty and if you could swing it, for you didn’t want anyone interrupting you and stopping your concentration, when no one was home or wanted to use the phone. For a second date: “Hi, it’s Nathan Frey, or Nat, okay, but never Nathaniel, how you doing, what’s been happening, have a good week?” Or the first time: “We met at the Dalton dance last week…at the Jew ish Center party…coming out of RKO last Saturday, you were with a friend, I was with a pal who knew her…curly brown hair kind of unkempt, about five feet eight without shoes,” later “five feet nine…ten…almost six feet…let’s say six feet flat though not with flat feet but with shoes that were recently heeled…slim,” always slim but actually skinny, “in a blue V-neck sweater…blue windbreaker…blue button-down-collar Oxford-cloth shirt,” and if it was a dance, “three-button brown tweed jacket” for about four years, sleeves let out till the lining showed, “dark” or “light gray flannel pants,” for a while “scuffed white bucks…you mentioned Frankie Laine…Johnnie Ray…some English singer Vera Lynn and this moving wartime song she sung that’s now a big hit…Menotti’s new opera on Broadway we both said we wanted to go to, about Little Italy, lovers’ quarrel that ends with the girl getting stabbed or shot to death but sung in a language you can understand and where there are words in it like, you know, ‘bitch’ and ‘shit,’ we both heard about it and agreed better at a regular theater than the Met, well, if you still want to see it…” Sweating now as you used to do then before and during the call. Hands, face. Stomach, as if you’re going to have the runs. Dizzy too but little did you know. What a jump. One kind of call to an entirely different kind but some of the same physical feelings or symptoms or manifestations you think or whatever the word for it is and push-button now or whatever they call it instead of rotary dial then or whatever it’s called. Stop. Dial. Doctor might be knocking on the door soon and you want to get it over with before. Not “get it over with” but—Then to use as an incentive then. Not that either. But ready? Never, of course. There is no right—Just stop all that crap and dial. You dial.