I couldn’t understand how the other relatives and friends could be so animated and talkative and interested. It was as though they were standing around in a theater lobby just before the start of a world premiere. They were enjoying themselves.
On the other hand, why shouldn’t they be interested? They were friends and relatives of people who needed to feel they weren’t being neglected. Their interest was healthy. My desire to get out of there was awful—the exact opposite of enlightened.
The man with his fingers in his mouth did a deep knee bend.
If everyone felt the way I did, these poor people would be locked in attics and basements. I felt guilty just noticing the symptoms. No one else noticed. The other friends and relatives knew how to deal with this. I was an outsider, a superstitious fool from the Middle Ages.
Shaver and I took seats in the last row, like schoolkids afraid of being called on by the teacher. Judging by what he’d said, Shaver’s feelings weren’t too different from mine. He might have half preferred being locked in a basement room somewhere. We had to figure out a way to enjoy this thing.
What saved me from my own meditations was Dr. Glass walking in. There was a little gasp of joy from the friends and relatives, who immediately surrounded him, oohing and aahing. The patients stayed where they were.
Dr. Glass made his way through the crowd, as they say of candidates at political conventions, and went bounding up the stairs to the bandstand. People began filling the rows of seats.
A pigeon flew down from a roost somewhere in the ceiling and landed on the floor at the rear of the ballroom. There were sirens in the distance.
Dr. Glass wore a sober business suit and looked pretty anonymous, if you forget the blond streak. He nodded to this or that person in the crowd, and gave little waves to show people he recognized them. He spotted Shaver and winked.
The place quieted down.
“It’s a nice turnout,” Dr. Glass said. “This is gratifying. Last year at the Holiday Inn, we had a bomb threat to contend with and a lot of people never returned after the police cleared the hotel and cordoned off the area. But here we are and I’d like to extend a warm welcome both to jumpers and to their families and well-wishers, and at the same time to express the thanks of all of us to Señor Guzman, whose generosity and concern are a source of joy.”
Dr. Glass peered into the audience, looking for Mr. Guzman.
“He does not come,” a voice said. It was Guzman’s daughter. “He is going up to Miami, Florida, to buy some unpainted cars.”
“Miami is down, Maria, not up,” Dr. Glass said. He looked amused.
“Up, down, a car is a car. My mother is here. She want to stand up.”
A woman next to the girl stood up. Nobody knew why she was standing up. Finally Dr. Glass clapped his hands lightly, there was a smattering of applause from the crowd, and the woman sat down.
“Thank you,” Dr. Glass said to her. “Our felicitations to the señor.”
Someone was still applauding.
“My opening remarks will be brief,” Dr. Glass said.
I realized he was palming an index card in his left hand. He shot a quick look at it.
“In a fifteenth-century Malay manuscript, we first come across mention of a condition whose symptoms are not unlike those which characterize Jumping Frenchmen.”
The person still applauding was a woman about forty-five, expensively dressed and kind of stocky. The sound she made, of slowly clapping small hands, was poignant and lost and haunting in the vast ballroom.
A man sitting in front of us started clapping. No one paid attention. Dr. Glass went on with his opening remarks, never even glancing at the people applauding.
He finished the historical background and looked at his index card.
“What about the clinical picture?” he said. “Well, as I said on the Carson show last week, I said, ‘Johnny, we don’t know what the clinical picture is.’”
We heard a police siren right outside. Dr. Glass paused until the sound faded away.
“I said, ‘John, we have fright neurosis, we have startle response, we have the whole kit and caboodle of hysterical features, psychic contagion, and so on. But the fact remains there is no good reason on God’s green earth why people should have this disease, or any disease for that matter.’”
The doctor paused. His eyes swept the audience.
“I know from your comments earlier that a lot of you stayed up to watch the show. You heard me say, ‘John, disease is abnormal. Nobody knows why people get sick. This is one of the great, great mysteries.’”
The pigeon flew back up onto a ledge.
“Next Tuesday,” Dr. Glass said, “I’m taping a segment for Armed Forces Radio.”
We were down to one person applauding, the original stocky woman. Dr. Glass looked at his index card. The hall streamed with winter light.
“What I like to tell interviewers is that untold thousands suffer from Jumping Frenchmen. People in all walks of life. Every social station. Every income bracket. Many won’t admit there’s something odd about the way they behave. Many don’t know they’re jumpers. How many times have you seen someone in a public place bend over for no apparent reason, or raise an arm in the air, or walk at a rapid pace. Normal gestures? Or symptoms of Jumping Frenchmen? It is not always easy to tell.”
Maria Guzman stood up and started running in place. Her mother kept her eyes on the bandstand.
“Aren’t we all jumpers in a sense? Don’t we all lose our sense of motor control, for a split second, now and then, during our waking day? I think we have to recognize that the clinical jumper is different in degree, but not in kind, from the rest of us. In line with this, and to foster a sense of togetherness, I’d like all of you to turn to the person on your right and say, ‘I am a jumper, I am a jumper, I am a jumper.’ All of us, friends and relatives as well as clinical jumpers. Come on. ‘I am a jumper, I am a jumper, I am a jumper.’”
We all turned to the right and saw the same thing. The back of someone’s head. The only exceptions were people at the far right end of each row—they saw nothing but a dusty mural. On the bandstand, Dr. Glass was swaying rhythmically and repeating, ‘I am a jumper.’ Finally he realized what was wrong and he had some of us turn to the right and some of us turn to the left, so that most of the people were face to face with someone.
Everyone was chanting, “I am a jumper, I am a jumper,” and clasping hands, and embracing sitting down.
“Let’s get out of here,” Shaver said.
“I am a jumper,” I told him.
“He did the same thing last year. We all turned to the right.”
“I think we ought to give it a try.”
“I hate these people and I hate myself,” Shaver said.
“They’re just trying to express solidarity. It’s a little like hockey. You stick up for your mates. When Jeep goes over the plastic, we all follow.”
“That’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever said, Cleo. ‘It’s a little like hockey.’ I wish Dr. Glass would go over the plastic.”
“I am a jumper,” I said.
“I’d really like to leave. If the streets around here were a little safer, I’d go find a phone booth and call in a bomb threat.”
Everyone was chanting joyously, “I am a jumper, I am a jumper.” It was very emotional, with a lot of embracing, and tears of joy, and release of pent-up feelings. Against my better judgment, I felt myself getting a little swept up in it all.
“I am a jumper,” I said again.
“Will you please shut up?” Shaver said. “If you don’t shut up, I’ll walk out and leave you here.”
“I’m just giving it a try,” I whispered.
“Well, it’s stupid, so stop it.”
“I know it’s stupid, but you have to do something.”
“You have to stop acting stupid, that’s what you have to do. You’re not a jumper. All those relatives aren’t jumpers
, either.”
Dr. Glass dipped his knees and swayed. He used his right hand to sort of orchestrate the chanting.
“I am a jumper, I am a jumper.”
Finally the thing began to peter out. Two pigeons flew around just below the ceiling. People stopped embracing, and gradually the hall grew quiet.
Maria Guzman ran in place. She’d been running in place all through the chanting episode. No one had tried to embrace her. The relatives knew how to deal with this thing.
“That was gratifying,” Dr. Glass said. “Next time I do the Carson show, I’d like to try it with the studio audience. The Los Angeles area is rich in jumpers. It’s just a question of getting the producers to let me sprinkle the audience with local jumpers and then to do the whole thing just as we did it here.”
He flashed a look at the index card.
“Now, some big news. You’ve all heard me talk about new techniques in the freezing of brain cells. Well, today, we have the great good fortune of having with us, in just a short, short while, as he makes his way up from the Plaza where he always stays when he’s in New York, and I can tell from the shiver of anticipation running through the audience that some of you have already guessed who I’m talking about—that’s right, from Johns Hopkins University and the Today’ show, we’ll hear in minutes from Dr. Raymond Posey, the world’s leading authority on cell-freezing.”
There were oohs and aahs from the audience.
We heard fire engines nearby. There was another police siren and the sound of screeching tires. The winter sun streamed through the large, dirty windows. You could see tons of dust swimming in the weak beams of light.
The clapping woman was still at it.
“What we hope to hear from Dr. Posey is an analysis of ways to use cell-freezing in the fight against Jumping Frenchmen. It should be a fascinating presentation.”
A man stood up, one of the relatives.
“Specifically, doctor, how are brain cells frozen?”
“Specifically, we don’t know. No one knows. We don’t understand the mechanism well enough. The brain is a marvel of engineering, but of course we didn’t engineer it, so a lot of mysteries remain. We know that we can freeze cells in the brain, but we’re not sure how we do it, specifically. There are some general rules of thumb, however, and I’m sure Dr. Posey will be happy to go over these with us. Ray Posey’s your man on that.”
A woman sat with her pinkies in her mouth and her cheeks puffed up. Maria Guzman sat down. The man behind her touched her arm and she jumped in fright. The man himself then jumped in fright. No one paid attention.
Dr. Glass looked at his watch.
“While we’re waiting for Dr. Posey, it might be a good idea to take a short break and just do a little visiting. I know the relatives and well-wishers like to mingle and compare notes, and of course I try to make myself available whenever we have these get-togethers for any and all questions. So why don’t we do that?”
The stocky woman still clapped hands.
Dr. Glass came down off the bandstand and was immediately engulfed by relatives with comments and questions. Other people got together in small groups all over the ballroom. Shaver and I just stood by our seats, stretching and yawning. Five feet away, a tall man lifted one leg back behind him and studied the bottom of his shoe.
“Seen and heard enough?” Shaver said.
Maria Guzman took two steps backward, then four steps forward in order to join a small group of well-wishers. No one noticed her means of arrival.
I was finishing a series of yawns and stretches that were practically acrobatic when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. It was a roach, and it was crawling right up the boot on my left foot. I shook my leg, but it kept right on climbing. I used the other foot to kick it off, and then I stomped it to death.
“Well?” Shaver said. “Seen enough? Want to go?”
The tall man nearby started shaking his left leg.
“I think we ought to hear what Dr. Posey has to say,” I told Shaver. “Not that I think it applies to your situation.”
The man kicked himself in the leg, then started stomping on the floor.
“Why doesn’t it apply to my situation?”
“Your situation is mild. Dr. Glass said so at his apartment. Nobody’s going to want to freeze your brain cells.”
Four jumpers in various parts of the hall were shaking their left legs. Several others had already done this and were now kicking themselves. The tall man nearby was ending his second cycle, stomping again.
Pigeons flew through the dying light.
“I have root symptoms,” Shaver said. “This means I’m not subject to other people’s sudden motions. It doesn’t mean they won’t want to freeze my brain.”
I counted eleven people kicking themselves in the leg. None of the relatives paid the slightest attention. We heard more fire engines.
I had the impression that most of the relatives were pretty excited about these cell-freezing techniques. I took Shaver on a little reconnoiter around the room. No doubt about it. The relatives were thrilled by the idea that their sons, mothers, sisters etc. might soon be undergoing this terrific freezing of brain cells.
I know it’s wrong to say they were thrilled, but that’s what it seemed like to me. They were more than interested, they were more than excited. They were thrilled. They wanted it.
We were down to nine kickers and stompers. Only one dead roach as far as I could tell.
Well, why shouldn’t they want it? It might be the cure everyone’s been waiting for. By saying they were thrilled, maybe I’m just trying to make up for my own unenlightened attitude.
But why did the relatives seem to thrive on this disease?
I tried to see it from their viewpoint. All they were doing was getting excited about a possible cure. But wasn’t it possible to get too excited? Wasn’t it possible to be too enlightened?
The jumpers just stood around—those who weren’t still kicking themselves in the leg. It was only the relatives who were involved. Were they too involved?
Shaver veered off to talk to a young couple he apparently knew.
One thing was sure. The relatives had learned to pay no attention to the jumpers. They’d learned well. The jumpers could have been in Miami with Cristobal Guzman, buying unpainted cars.
Were the relatives using the jumpers? What were they using them for?
Was it possible that the sicker a jumper got, the healthier the relatives got? Is this why they seemed to thrive? Is this why cell-freezing was such a thrill?
I must have been crazy to think such things. They were just relatives. They were well-wishers. They wished to see the jumpers get well.
But what if Dr. Glass had said that Dr. Posey had come up with a possible cure based on vitamin C? Would the relatives be this thrilled, this excited?
They wanted frozen brain cells.
It was wilder, it was more dramatic, it was sexier. It gave them something to get really involved in. It gave them something to talk about. It brought them to life. It made them live and breathe.
The lone clapper applauded in the semidark.
I looked around for Shaver. He and the other couple had drifted over near the bandstand. I went over there. Shaver introduced them as Nan and Thad. He introduced me as Cleo Bird well.
I realized, in thinking back over the afternoon, that whenever I heard a jumper address another jumper, it was always by first name only.
A kind of shame? A kind of cult?
It seemed to fit in with the chanting episode that Dr. Glass had put into motion earlier. When you get involved in something like that, it’s easier if you know only first names. First names give you a little freedom to let loose, to chant and embrace. Last names pin you to the earth. Once somebody knows your last name, and you know his or hers, it takes a lot of extra effort to look the person in the face and say, “I am a jumper.”
It turned out that Sha
ver knew Nan and Thad from group therapy—something he’d abandoned in recent weeks.
“I hate hockey, but I know who Cleo Birdwell is,” Nan said. “It’s really great to meet you. When Shaver told us who he was living with, I just about had kittens.”
Nan was a friendly-looking, raw-boned woman with a long jaw and big hands, kind of a homesteader type.
“I hate hockey, too,” Thad said.
“Hey, we’d like you guys to have dinner with us,” Nan said. “You have to come along, okay? Shaver’s so real. I don’t know what we’d do if we hadn’t met him.”
“We met him in group,” Thad said. He was a clear-eyed, lanky fellow with a deep, earnest voice. “That’s where Nan and I met. Dr. Glass says as far as he knows, we’re the only two jumpers having a relationship.”
We heard ambulance sirens.
“You ought to see the people in group,” Nan said. “None of them are real. All they do is sit around passively. Dr. Glass acts like it’s a talk show.”
“He sits there and chats,” Thad said.
“What this disease needs is a national chairperson,” Nan said. “We have rotten PR.”
“He goes on TV and chats,” Thad said. “We need somebody hard-nosed who’ll go out into the marketplace and compete with the leading diseases.”
His voice was so deep and earnest that no matter what he said, it came out sounding adolescent. I pictured him singing in a prep school glee club and having long, grown-up discussions about business ethics with his oil-billionaire dad.
“No kidding, you guys have to come along to dinner,” Nan said.
Shaver and I looked at each other. It was one of those situations in which each of us was willing to do what the other person wanted to do, but neither of us knew what the other person wanted to do.
Great moments in living together.
Anyway, we mumbled and stumbled and finally said okay. Just when I was feeling so warm and favorable toward the jumpers, as opposed to the relatives and friends, I was afraid this friendly-looking but slightly aggressive and hard-nosed young couple might begin to erode my sympathies.
Amazons: An Intimate Memoir by the First Woman Ever to Play in the National Hockey League Page 12