The house of God

Later that evening, at the high?school gym after playing some hoop, I ran into a Unit nurse, whose name I'd always forgotten and couldn't recall then. Wearing a tight black Danskin, she was working out with weights. I was surprised and delighted with her body and with her interest in her body. Dripping sweat, we chatted. I asked her out for a drink. In the bar we watched Nixon, who, even though Haig thought that Nixon "didn't sell on TV anymore," had gone ahead with a prime?time TV address from the Oval Office, something about "edited transcripts" of the tapes. The packaging was terrific! On a side table to which the camera intermittently pa

Nuzzling the nurse's sweaty neck, I said, "Damn good idea. It's about time. Get the goddamn thing straightened out, once and. for all." To me, the lockerroom aroma of this tough nurse was more enticing than perfume. I loved it.

After the drink, before the bedding, she went with me to an all?night sporting?goods store, where I bought myself my first ever fishing rod and reel.

22

Having done extremely well in the Unit, it was difficult for me to say good?bye. I felt sad. I wanted to stay on. How do astronauts say good?bye? As befit a pro, my good?byes were unemotional. Neal Armstrong saying good?bye to Frank Borman. John Ehrlichman saying good?bye to Robert "Bob" Haldeman. Good?bye to Pinkus, my hero, who had run two hours fifty seven minutes thirty?four seconds and who said, "Cardiology can be very rewarding in financial and personal terms, and with the implementation of hobbits, a very healthful life. Think about it, Roy, you're a young man with a bright future."

I left.

Later that afternoon. Berry and I, ROR, were driving out into the countryside to relax. I was reading a letter from my father.

. . Your experience undoubtedly is stimulaling and I am sure that you are totally absorbed. Soon it will be over and you will have to decide about your future life . . .

"You know," I said to Berry, "after all these years of disagreement with him, I finally think he's right.."

We sat on the edge of a park, the spring blushing chaotically all around us. The swath of green, lush with a fresh rain, swept across in front of us, from the pond reflecting the mansion on the left, past the hundred?year?old oak under which the WASPs held their weddings, to the old stone wall and in back of it, the symmetric and rooted old houses. A dog came up to play, dropping a twig closer and closer until I threw it and he chased it. After a while I got tired, and he sensed it, and left. My mind, like a missile, kept homing to the Unit.

On the drive back, I felt restless, and Berry noticed and asked, "What's the matter, Roy? You're done with the hardest part of the year."

"I know. I miss it. It's hard to relax. Even fishing would be easier than this. Did I tell you I bought a rod and reel? You know, I need your help. With your psychological expertise, maybe you could tell me how I can change."

"Change what?"

"My personality. I want to go from Type A to Type B."

Berry didn't comment. We separated, pla

I was restless. I missed something. I was not doing well. I didn't want Marcel Marceau, I wanted the Unit. It would be strange if I went back there tonight, my first night off. After I had finished. But wait: Jo had done it. My first day there, she'd spent the night with Mrs. Pedley. I would do it too. Under the guise of concern for the old lady in V Tach, I would go and spend the night on the Unit. It wasn't until the hermetic doors slushed shut behind me, and I heard the ethereal "A?round the wurrtd in aay?tee dayzz . . ." and I settled into a chair in Pedley's room, that I felt calm again. .

This calm was not to last. Berry appeared, dressed to kill, and said, "Roy, what the hell are you doing here? We're supposed to see Marcel Marceau. You bought the tickets, remember?"

"Here, feel this," I said, indicating my gastrocs.

"What about Marcel Marceau?"

"Inoperative."

"All right, Roy, it's either this or me: take y ow pick."

I heard myself say, "It's this:"

"That's what I thought you'd say," said Berry, "and I don't buy it, 'cause you're sick!' She made a motion out into the hallway, and in walked the two police men, Gilheeny and Quick. Following them were Chuck and the Runt.

"A good evening to you from the depth's of my nervous stomach," said the redhead, limping in. "We have not seen you since you became a red?hot intern in this weird Unit."

"We have missed you," said Quick. "Finton here, with his bolloxed leg, ca

"What the hell are you doing here?" I asked suspiciously.

"Your girlfriend said that you have been crazy and were refusing to leave this Unit and go to the show with her," said Gilheeny.

"I'm not going;" I said. "It's ROR with her and me. Face it. We're through."

"Hey, man." said Chuck, "you don't want to sit here with these pitiful patients. You're done with Unit this shit, get out, get on down."

"They're not pitiful. They're salvageable"

"Roy," said the Runt, "you're acting like a donkkey."

"Thanks a lot, my fairweather friends. I'm staying here. None of you can understand me anymore. Please leave me alone."

"Trespassing is an offense," said Gilheeny, "and, we shall remove you. Boys, let's begin."

With a good deal of furious struggling and on my part, under Gilheeny's direction Quick, Chuck, the Runt, and Berry hoisted me up and carried me out,ushered me down the stairs, and helped me into the police car, which, sirens blaring, raced through the downtown traffic and delivered Berry and me to the theater door. I sat there, bullshit. While I thought I'd escape when left alone with Berry, once again I had underestimated these policemen.

"You're coming in with us?" I asked, amazed.

"We are admirers of true genius," said Gilheeny, "and true is the genius of M. Marceau, a Jew of the French Catholic denomination, combining the better attributes of both."

"How the hell did you get tickets on such short notice?"

"Graft," said Quick simply.

With Berry and me sandwiched tightly between the bulky Gilheeny and the sinewy Quick, I realized I was trapped, and I resigned myself to sitting there until intermission. I watched as the lights dimmed and the mime began. At first I was indifferent, my mind on the Unit, and yet, as Marceau went on, with Berry pressing my hand and the policemen reacting with all the spontaneity of kids, I couldn't help getting interested. The first mime was the Balloon Seller, giving a free balloon to a child, who, clutching it in his hand, is floated up and up out of sight. Everyone around me laughed. On my left I heard a chortle, erupting into a roar, and I realized from the smell of fat and sweat from a uniform that it came from Gilheeny. A hefty elbow slammed into my ribs, and the redhead turned to me, flashed his huge hippo smile, and screamed, flooding me with onions and hash. I laughed. Next, a mime I'd seen Marceau do in England: in thirty seconds he walked through the successive stages of youth, maturity, old age, death. I sat, hushed, with the others, touched, enthralled, as we recognized our lives ebbing past us in a matter of seconds. Blasts of applause crackled through the theater. I looked at Quick. Tears were in his eyes.

All of a sudden I felt as if a hearing aid for all my senses had been turned on. I was flooded with feeling. I roared. And along with this burst of feeling came a plunging, a desperate clawing plunge down an acrid chasm toward despair. What the hell had happened to me? Something in me had died. Sadness welled up in my gut and burned out through the slits of my eyes. A handkerchief was placed in my hand. I blew my nose. I felt a hug.