Paul Theroux - My Secret History

I walked east, across Park Avenue, and kept walking, thinking that I might find a neighborhood bar. But there were no bars. There were hot August streets and big department stores and apartment buildings. I saw signs — B. M. LEFKOWITZ MD AND J.R. STONE OBSTETRICS AND GYNECOLOGY; and I thought of going in and asking. But I didn’t know how to phrase the question — I couldn’t even begin. The thing was to have a doctor’s name. You paid him a visit. He knew why you’d come. He simply named his price and made an appointment. I guessed that an abortion would cost about two hundred dollars, and I had fifty on me for a down payment.

This part of New York was impenetrable. I walked south and then had the idea that Brooklyn was where I should go. Brooklyn had a reputation for illicit activities. It was easy to imagine gambling and prostitution and murder in Brooklyn, and abortion was somehow related to those crimes.

I had no doubt that it was a crime. But what else could I do? I had promised Lucy that I would help her. I was responsible for the fix she was in, and she had become hopeful when I told her I was going to New York to find a doctor. We had not even spoken of marriage the thought was so frightening, and in fact as soon as she mentioned missing her period my love for her was consumed in worry.

I kept walking. I imagined it this way: I was standing in a bar, having a drink. I got friendly with the bartender or maybe the man drinking next to me. What’s up, kid? Oh, you’re new around here. Then I asked whether there was a doctor nearby who knew how to get a girl out of trouble. The way I imagined it, someone always knew.

“Can you tell me the way to Brooklyn?”

The man selling hot bagels from a pushcart didn’t look at me, but he said out of the side of his mouth, “Cross over, downtown to Fourteenth, change to the BMT”—and some more that I didn’t catch.

I had not even noticed the subway entrances — small signs over stairways that led underground. I went down the dirty stairs, bought a token and boarded a train. It was rackety and it went so fast, missing stations, that I got off after a few stops because I was afraid it would take me too far. I asked the way to Brooklyn — about twelve times, just to be sure, and finally discovered that every subway car had a map in it. When I worked out where I was I saw that Brooklyn was huge. I chose Borough Hall, imagining a square with a stately building lined with pillars aboveground. It was a glary shopping district filled with traffic stink and bus horns, and so I walked.

I was encouraged by the brownstones here, and none of the buildings were as intimidatingly tall as the ones in Manhattan.

NICK’S BAR AND GRILL on the corner fitted my image of the bar I had envisioned. I went in and ordered a beer. I had been so impatient I hadn’t realized the time — only nine-thirty in the morning. The bar was empty except for an old woman at a table who looked like an alcoholic.

“Quiet today,” I said to the bartender.

“Yeah.”

“I suppose it really gets lively here later on.”

“You kidding me?” he said and walked away.

A man came through the door, sort of pushing it with his stomach in a comic way. He wore a Hawaiian shirt and a straw hat and two-tone shoes. He said hello to me and climbed onto a stool. Without being asked the bartender brought him a shot of whiskey. He downed the whiskey like medicine, making a face, then took a swig of beer and looked around.

“Going to be a hot one,” he said.

“I don’t mind.”

“You’d mind if you were carting around two hundred and sixty pounds of blubber.”

I laughed, but inside I was asking myself how I could turn the conversation from the weather to abortions.

He asked me where I was from — something about my accent — and when I told him, he said that Kennedy was from Boston, too, and we talked about the election. He said he was for Kennedy and I told him so was I, because I wanted to ingratiate myself. He said he had been a Democrat his whole life.

“I fought in the Pacific with Jack Kennedy,” he said.

I wanted to tell him that the Pacific Ocean was a big place and that he was kidding himself.

“And I think it’s about time we had a Catholic in the White House. It’ll straighten this country out.”

This gave me a very dreary feeling, because I knew this fat man was a Catholic and I also knew that he wasn’t going to give me any help.

“Kennedy would never legalize abortions,” I said.

“Why should he? It’s murder,” the man said.

I found an excuse to leave soon after that.

I was a little unsteady from the beer in my empty stomach, but after a few blocks I went into a crowded place, The Broad Street Bar. I sat next to a man in shirtsleeves who didn’t reply to anything I said. I tried another man and couldn’t shut him up. At last I saw a very sinister-looking man in a torn jacket and said, “Do you live around here?”

“Who wants to know?” he said in a nasty voice.

“I was just wondering, because I’m looking for a doctor,” and I dropped my voice. “There’s this guy I know who knocked up his girlfriend and he told me to come down here as a favor to see if the doctor’s still in business. He lives in this area, apparently.”

“The only one I know is Shimkus.”

“That might be him.”

“I think he’s over on J Street.”

I thanked him and dashed out of the bar and looked for a telephone. There were two doctors called Shimkus and one called Simkiss in the book. None of them answered the phone. Why did I think that these doctors would be in their offices on a hot Saturday in August?

I tried a few more bars, started conversations with strangers, but got nowhere — didn’t even ask the question that was the sole reason for my search.

By midafternoon I was drunkish and hot and had a headache. Walking towards the subway I saw a doctor’s shingle and went straight in. The doctor himself was with the receptionist when I entered, and he looked at me in an unwelcoming way over his glasses.

“Can I see you a minute, doctor?”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No. I just have one short question.”

His face was very severe, but he sighed and it softened. Perhaps because his office was empty — or perhaps he was headed home — he said okay unwillingly. I had never met a doctor who was polite, because their politeness was just another way of being rude.

I was so desperate I blurted out the question as soon as he shut the door to his consulting room: My friend’s girlfriend needed an abortion—

He placed his fingertips together, making a basket of his hands, and he smiled at me.

“Doctor John can help you. He’s right across the street.”

“Really? Oh, that’s great!” I said, not caring that I was revealing my anxiety and that my secret was probably out.

But as I turned to go, he said, “On second thought, no. Doctor John’s in jail.” He eyed me, looking triumphant, and added, “That’s what I always tell people who ask that question. You’re asking me to break the law.”

“Fuck it,” I said.

That night I saw West Side Story with Mrs. Mamalujian. She had seen it before, and had the record, and she knew all the songs. She sang them in her chain-smoker’s voice and even when a man behind us complained out loud she kept it up.

Back at the hotel, she took another shower — the usual one, with the bathroom door open, for an hour. I read Ezra Pound in the sitting room and thanked God there was a sitting room. But I was still very worried. Pull down thy vanity , I read. After Mrs. Mamalujian got into her bed I yawned and walked around and took my shoes off. Then I lay down on my bed with all my clothes on.