Finally Henry was alone with the Mills. They rode in a taxi to the Four Seasons, Marcel sitting up front with the driver. Henry was on the back seat pressed between Paula and Denise. All the Mills’ in look and spirit were positively blooming.
Accepting your diploma, you were just beautiful, Denise said. And so mature.
Marcel reached back through the partition to take Paula’s hand.
My girl, he said, with these fingers, so special. We love you so much.
And I love you both so much.
Henry watched their family’s heart collectively lift. But in his head, he was singing:
A thousand curious aches,
In the course of a lifetime.
Why get unsettled,
Mentally?
For the belly rails,
The brain ails,
The heart, it wails.
And you keep going.
Isn’t that just utter crap, he said, to himself.
Out of the taxi and walking towards Lexington on 52nd and Park, through a fog of thin gray smoke billowing from a kebab stand with its sizzling lamb and chicken skewers, Henry was in a daze. In the bones of his fingers was some unknown pain. Could it be related to his cancer? How so? he asked himself, undoing the top button of his shirt. He needed air, his chest was tight. Lifting his arms, he tried to loosen the muscles there. He wouldn’t pass out. And if he did, he had Paula’s father right beside him. He would help me, thought Henry, assuming he noticed the fall. Marcel was so absorbed in the moment of his daughter’s big day. A bulky man, his check suit was short at the sleeves, tight in the shoulders. It didn’t affect his manner in the least. He seemed full of reward for his fatherly service. He’d done everything for Paula: the summers of violin instruction, all those tickets to the Philharmonic, and his love. He loved her so much, and she loved him, too.
Sweetheart, come, Marcel said to his daughter.
Paula went to him. Cradling her in his arms, Marcel smiled. He said, Paula, you’re all grown, and the world is at your fingertips. You’ve done everything you’ve set out to do. The truth is, we’re in awe of you.
Denise said, Go on, Marcel, give it to her.
Paula’s father reached inside the breast pocket of his jacket. A cloud passed in front of the sun, playing its games of shadow and light. Marcel, large and pulsating with excitement, placed an envelope in his daughter’s palm. For all your hard work, he said.
Paula, to no one in particular, went, A gift? then began carefully peeling back the seal of the envelope. She looked up at her parents, smiling. She was so delicate with the envelope.
Marcel finally shouted, Come on, baby, just tear it open.
Paula laughed at herself, then ripped through the dented white envelope. Her fingers began walking through the important papers inside. Suddenly, her head shot up, and she cried out:
Oh…my…god.
Walking in through the Four Seasons, where important people lunched—those persons who made the city rich or poor or rich again—Henry’s face felt cold, his stomach sick. Following the maître d’ towards the dining room with its famous pools his mind struggled for calm. The Mills had given their greatest achievement a check for $25,000 and told her she should travel throughout Europe this summer. They said it was important that she take the time, for once her professional life started up it would be very difficult for her to get away from her responsibilities and nearly impossible to do so without the feeling that something was pulling her back. Paula, wrapping smooth pink arms of appreciation, first around her father’s neck, then her stepmother’s, had given Henry a look which asked him to share in the euphoria of the moment. He’d tried, but couldn’t. In the full dining room with the currents of power flowing all around him, he was silent. His mind was unthinking, a blank. Under the table, Paula took Henry’s hand, squeezing it, and said, Maybe we’ll meet in Europe.
Maybe, he said.
They were the only words he uttered during the meal. He hardly touched his lobster. Paula, surrounded by Henry, her father and stepmother, on the day of her graduation, with twenty-five grand in her pocket, was bursting with confidence.
Raising her glass in the air, she said, To learning nothing at college. Here here.
To learning nothing? said Denise, aghast.
I was born for the real world, Paula told her. At ten I should have jumped in. Dad, why didn’t you push me?
Push you out of the house? Never, he replied with a shake of the head.
Paula said, I’d have been ready, and she took a bottle of champagne from an ice bucket. A waiter rushed to assist her, but she waved him off. Setting a full glass on the table, her blue eyes emitted glee. She wore a strapless black dress that stopped at the thighs. Her solid legs were crossed. She sat up tall, her grin full of self-belief. Addressing her father, she said, I could have used my time better, that’s all I’m saying. Life is short.
Marcel, his robust shoulders becoming even fuller now, said, You’re a very smart woman. You’ll understand why I did what I did one day.
Did you fear the professional world would have made me unrecognizable to you? It could still happen.
Marcel flashed her a look of horror. Paula saw this. She kissed his cheek.
I’m just saying I’ve got a lot to do.
And you’ll do it all.
Henry was perfectly still in his chair. Only his eyes moved, back and forth, from one speaker to the next. But even this was exhausting.
What I want is hard to get, said Paula. Her arms were crossed, her chin up high. Some atrociousness will be necessary.
Like what? demanded Denise.
Yes, like what? said her father.
Henry took his glass of champagne and shot it back. His throat burned from the carbonation, tears filling his eyes.
I’ll have to be even more hard on myself.
Your mother taught you discipline. Every morning she woke you at four a.m. to do your scales.
Daddy, I’m grateful she did. I wouldn’t be here if she had let me sleep.
She’s missed so much in these last thirteen years. But she saw you at Carnegie Hall.
You’ll always bring that up, said Paula to her father, adoringly.
Marcel smiled, the memory coming back to him. Paula was in the Five Under Ten Masters-to-Be concert series. She played Schubert. She brought down the house. Your mother was so proud of you that day.
She made me go home and practice after the show, said Paula, unemotionally. Mistakes had been made during the performance.
She was hard on you, her father admitted.
I could take it, said Paula, clicking her tongue.
She removed you from school for two years shortly after.
And my playing shot up.
Her father agreed, with a solid nod of his head. But for you those were hard times.
That’s not how I remember them.
A lot of tears.
We all need a motivator. I had the best.
You did, Paula.
She told me I would be one of the great violinists of my time.
She told you that, seconded Marcel.
I’m sorry she’s not here today.
But she saw you at Carnegie Hall.
You’re right, Daddy, she did.
When lunch concluded they strolled uptown along sunny Madison, window-shopping. Henry was impatient to go home. Still, he gawked with Paula, her father and stepmother, at dresses and diamond jewelry in windows. Then his phone began to ring. It was Dahl. Henry went cold. Without saying anything, he fell back behind the Mills’ and answered. Dahl asked him if it were a good time to talk. Henry said it was as good a time as any. To which Dahl assured him that these first days would be especially hard, he should go easy on himself.
We have some important things to discuss. So, if you’d just give me your attention
for a moment. I want to schedule the orchiectomy for this Monday. What do you say?
This Monday? said Henry. That’s three days from now.
If we could do it today, we would.
This is all coming so fast.
I understand.
You’re sure it has to be Monday?
I’m sure, Henry.
Then I’ll do it Monday, he said, in a whisper.
What did you decide about the prosthetic?
I’m going to take one.
Dahl said, I think that’s the right decision.
The doctor started to explain the operation. He told Henry he’d be put to sleep with an anesthetic. They’d go through the lining of the stomach into the scrotum and remove the testicle. At most only one night would be spent in the hospital, but in all likelihood he could leave the same day.
Will there be someone to take you home from the hospital?
My girlfriend, Paula.
Dahl told him it was hospital policy that he be released into someone’s care, but also there’d be some physical discomfort and he’d need help getting around at first. In the case of a surgery like this, some responded better than others. The doctor at the hospital would suggest Henry have his CT-scans administered when he awoke from the operation, and if he were feeling well enough, he should do it then so they could have all of the critical information about the spread of the cancer as soon as possible. In addition to this, however, there was the matter of his sperm.
Henry’s lips turned out and his bloodshot eyes averted to the sky.
We’ll need to have a sample put away tomorrow.
Tomorrow?
Henry, you never know what’ll happen during an operation like this. So, we need to get some sperm in a bank.
And that happens tomorrow?
Or, if you like, you can overnight your semen to their offices.
Overnight it? Really?
So you’ll do it at the bank?
I guess I will.
By the time Henry was off with Dahl, the party had arrived outside the Carlyle Hotel. The Mills’ suggested a round of drinks at Bemelman’s. Henry agreed. But as soon as he walked in the door he regretted it, for there was Andy Powell seated at the piano at the center of the room, dressed in a black tuxedo, playing After You’ve Gone. He had a vibrant look, a real glow. Henry knew him from around the clubs. But he couldn’t stand Powell, or his playing. He thought it lacked feel, heart, love, knowledge, instinct. He struck notes which didn’t balance order with disorder or reconcile past with present and future. His meanings, they were too straight, missed the curves, the bumps, hadn’t the sense of failure about them or the propinquity to the abyss, the void, which was necessary for not only true greatness, but even moderate goodness. And he looks like an asshole, too. That grin, shit-eating. Henry would like to wipe it off his face. So the Carlyle gig was better than Henry’s at the Beekman. So what. Henry didn’t care. He was a songwriter. That’s what he did. The Beekman was a way of earning money, he wouldn’t do it forever. As it were, though, he should call his boss, Edgar Diaz and tell him he’d have to take some time off from work.
They sat down in a booth. A round of martinis were ordered. The darkened room was almost at capacity, the lights, soft bursts of gold along the walls. Paula and Marcel sunk into private conversation. Powell was onto Ain’t Misbehavin’. Denise, swaying side to side, told Henry she loved this song, it reminded her of dancing with her father as a child. Henry, who played it most nights at the Beekman—and did a much better rendition than Powell ever could—said, Well that’s great, Denise. Please, excuse me a moment.
Henry went to stand out on Madison. The sun was still strong in the sky. He stared long at his phone. That he felt anxious about making this call struck him as odd. What was the feeling about, anyway? He hadn’t done anything wrong. He was sick. Perhaps dying. Anyway, he and Edgar Diaz got on well together. (If he wasn’t his boss, he might even call him a friend.) It was one and a half years ago that Henry had tried out for the job and Edgar had hired Henry on the spot. He’d even called him the one. (Nobody had ever called Henry that.) For eighteen months Henry had showed up on time. Never once had he called out sick. There’d been the incident with John Grover, but Edgar couldn’t still hold that against him, could he? Besides Grover was a nasty old drunk, and he’d been the one to accost Henry and not the other way around.
It had been his second month on the job. Grover, a rapporteur for the U.N. on sex crimes against children in sub-Saharan Africa, had come in from a full day of addressing the General Assembly. That frail but hostile curmudgeon Grover with his blue metallic eyes and the long white hairs growing out his nose and his habit of throwing around his weight and telling you what to do and then criticizing you for it afterwards:
Kid, play some Tatum. Ahhh, you’ll stink it up. You can’t do speed and style. So do some Fats. No, never mind. You’re no good.
Edgar had warned Henry about Grover. Ignore his bad manners, he’d said.
Grover was a troubled man, broken by visions of deprivation and bloodshed and mass graves during five decades of service in Africa. He could not take this world of New York City and the Beekman Hotel seriously, said Edgar. But nevertheless he came in to get drunk, and when he drank he was hostile, at times plain violent.
Just let him be. You think you can do that? Edgar had asked him.
Won’t be a problem, sir.
Don’t engage.
I won’t.
Perhaps Grover had put back six or seven old-fashioneds that fateful evening. It was late, almost eleven-thirty. Grover, seated in the lounge over four hours, from nowhere approached the piano. Henry didn’t see him coming, his attention was on playing. He’d never have anticipated Grover dumping a mixture of bourbon and muddled fruit into his lap. But he did. Henry jumped to his feet. He was horrified, incensed. Somehow he recalled Edgar’s instructions and quickly gathered his emotions, sweeping them back into his heart, and did nothing but ask Grover to leave.
Leave? You leave, the old man had shouted.
I work here.
Ahh, screw you. Grover stood with his forefinger aimed at Henry. In a gray double-breasted suit, he was so frail. He told Henry he wasn’t a man, that he knew it just by looking at him. I could eat you alive.
Henry had no idea what Grover had against him. He gave other employees at the Beekman a hard time, but with him he was especially cruel.
Just go home, said Henry.
In response, Grover shouted, Let’s go. Outside. Me and you.
He’d been looking for a fight, to roll up his sleeves and go toe to toe with the piano player. Henry could kill him with a single punch. And he was not going to hurt an old man. Even after Grover came at his throat all Henry did was to hold him back. Grover would not acquiesce, he was vicious. At some point in restraining him, however, Henry used too much force and accidentally pushed Grover to the floor. Crowds gathered around them. Edgar wasn’t happy that Grover, having thrown out his back, had to be wheeled from the lounge on a gurney. There’d been a small piece about it in the Post the next morning. The headline read:
Beekman Piano Player
K.O.’s Member of U.N.
Henry was sure he’d get fired. There’d been witnesses to the scene, though, those who saw Grover go after him. So they cut him a break. All the same, Henry knew the hotel management had their eye on him. Even one year later the incident had left Henry second-guessing his job security.
But that’s just in your head, Henry told himself. Dial Edgar. Do it.
On his phone he pressed talk. In three rings Edgar answered. The sound of him pulling on a cigarette was a soft pop in Henry’s ear. He said, What’s happening, Hank? You’ve got problems?
Edgar was the only person who called Henry Hank. Henry didn’t mind. In fact, he enjoyed it. It partly soothed the strained feeling in his ches
t now. He said, I’m sick, Edgar. I’ve got something bad.
What is it? Edgar’s tone was severe. He was concerned.
Henry thought he’d tell him the truth. However, he became anxious and said, It’s mono, Edgar.
Mono? Hmm, that can be tough, Hank. You must be laid up in bed?
I am.
You sound like you’re on the street.
Actually, I’m heading back from the doctor’s, said Henry, his voice unsteady. I’ve been in bed for days.
Sorry to hear that. I take it you’ll be out a couple weeks. You’ll want to get a lot of rest. Don’t push yourself.
That’s what the doctor told me.
He’s right, Hank.
Edgar began speaking of his own experience with mononucleosis. His case had lasted over four months. Unable to work, he’d run into financial trouble. His wife had had to take a second job. He could hardly remember seeing her during that time. Edgar talked about the fatigue, the problems eating, but Henry wasn’t listening. A man on the opposite side of the street, tall, about sixty-years-of-age, with short gray hair, had caught his attention. In blue jeans and a navy dress jacket the stranger’s attire seemed distinctly of the West Coast. His gait was all sun and palm trees, ocean air. The man proceeded up 76th Street towards Fifth Avenue, Central Park.
Henry, his heart rate increased, said, I’m sorry, Edgar. I’ll call you back.
He hung up. Crossing the street, the light already changing, Henry ran fast, sliding in his dress shoes. A taxi screamed towards him, but he gained the curb with an inch to spare. Past a roasted nut dealer he hurried. Was it really his father just up ahead? Art Schiller? Would Art come to New York and not tell him? Rushing up the sidewalk, his testicle was in pain. But what did that matter? Ten feet ahead of him was a man, his father. It did look like him. And Henry would never forgive him for this.
Sonovabitch. How could he. To come to New York and not tell me.
Balls Page 6