John Irving - Until I Find You

“I’m surprised you haven’t called me,” he heard Dr. García’s voice say on his answering machine. “I trust you’ve changed your mind about the stopover in Boston, or that Michele has changed her mind about it. And I wouldn’t recommend any further contact with Lucy, Jack. We might want to reconsider how much time you spend in the waiting room. You might run into Lucy’s mother. ”

Jack wondered how the sleazy movie magazine had missed that little tidbit—namely, that Lucy’s mom was also Dr. García’s patient. (It made perfect sense that she would be somebody’s patient.)

Once, in the waiting room, one of the young mothers had explained to Jack that Dr. García was unique among all the psychiatrists she’d ever seen. You didn’t have to make an appointment. Apparently, this young mother tended to feel the need to see her psychiatrist on the spur of the moment. Many of the young mothers in Dr. García’s waiting room said that they found the presence of other young mothers comforting. It was such a loose arrangement, no therapist in New York or Vienna would have allowed it. (No psychiatrist’s patient in New York or Vienna would have accepted the situation, either.) But loose arrangements were what Jack appreciated about living in Santa Monica.

He gave his plane tickets to the concierge at The Prince George and asked her to do what she could to change his flights. “Just get me back to Los Angeles tomorrow—the most direct way you can,” he told her. “No stopover in Boston, please.”

Then Jack went off to the Press Gang, where he had made another dinner reservation; he hadn’t eaten all day and was hungry.

Jack sat alone at his small table and ordered one of the appetizers. Except for his table for one, the restaurant was crowded and noisy. Maybe the Press Gang seemed noisier than it was because Jack was alone and had a concussion. He sat facing a window, with his back to the other tables. He’d brought a book with him—something Charles had recommended—but when he tried to read, his headache came back and the noise in the restaurant was amplified. The table nearest him was the loudest, but Jack couldn’t see the people at that table; if they were looking at him, all they could see was his back.

One loudmouth in particular was the dominant storyteller. He was braying about an altercation in a hotel bar—according to him, it had been a fair fight. “Fucking wrestlers !” he shouted. “They can’t take a punch.” That certainly got Jack’s attention, concussion and all. “Jack Burns landed like a dead fish,” the man was telling his friends.

As someone engaged in telling the story of his life in chronological order, Jack had discovered that what many people lazily referred to as coincidences weren’t necessarily coincidental. One might think, for example, that it was coincidental for Jack to find himself in the same restaurant with Doug McSwiney—only one night after the fat, fur-faced author had coldcocked Jack with a sucker punch. But Halifax was not a big city, and the Press Gang was a popular place.

Jack tried to get a look at him, but McSwiney’s broad back was all there was to see. The way one of the writer’s friends suddenly recognized Jack, Jack could tell that none of them had known he was there—McSwiney hadn’t been telling his tale for Jack’s benefit. Jack got up from his table and walked over to McSwiney. The big man’s friends let McSwiney know that Jack was there, but the bastard didn’t stop his story. “The little lightweight just lay there,” McSwiney was saying.

Jack stood beside McSwiney but a little behind him. There were three couples at the table; Jack couldn’t tell which of the women was with McSwiney. The two men were smiling at Jack—they were almost smirking—but the women were expressionless as they observed the unfolding drama.

“I want to apologize,” Jack said to Doug McSwiney. “Those notes I wrote about your screenplay weren’t meant for you. I would never have expressed myself that frankly, that personally—not to you directly. It was only because Cornelia couldn’t read my handwriting that she showed those notes to you. She can’t read English if it’s in longhand. I hope you know it was an accident. I wouldn’t have said anything to intentionally hurt your feelings.”

Now McSwiney’s two male friends were definitely smirking, but the women were smarter; women had always known how to read Jack Burns.

Jack wasn’t really apologizing—he was just being nice twice, as Mrs. Wicksteed had taught him. (Back in the bar at The Prince George, when he’d offered to shake Doug McSwiney’s hand, that had been being nice the first time.) Of course Jack knew that McSwiney was too drunk and too belligerent to understand this. The author just went on with his story.

“That little Frenchwoman called the bellman and together they loaded Jack Burns on a luggage cart—they wheeled him off to his room like a baby in a stroller!” McSwiney was saying. The two men laughed but the women didn’t; the women were tense and watchful.

When Jack put his hand on the back of McSwiney’s neck and gently pushed the big, shaggy head in the direction of the fat man’s dinner plate, he already knew that McSwiney was the stronger of the two. Jack was prepared for the big man to place both hands on the table and push himself to his feet. Jack never expected to hold McSwiney down with one hand; Jack just wanted McSwiney to spread his arms and brace himself against the table, because that made it easier for Jack to slap the full nelson on him before McSwiney could stand up.

Jack overlapped one hand with the other on the back of McSwiney’s neck and drove the writer’s face into his paella, up to his ears; Jack could feel the warm food on his wrists. An errant shrimp, coated with saffron-colored rice, flew off the plate—also a sausage. McSwiney rooted around in the paella, trying to clear some space to breathe.

In wrestling, there’s more than one reason why a full nelson is illegal. Yes, you can break someone’s neck with the hold, but—from a wrestling point of view—that’s not the only thing wrong with it. It’s nearly impossible to pin someone with a full nelson—unless you break your opponent’s neck in the process. And the hold is very hard to get out of; in addition to a full nelson being dangerous, it’s also a stalling tactic.

McSwiney wasn’t going anywhere; he had no leverage, especially sitting in a chair. Jack kept pushing McSwiney into the paella. The fur-faced writer’s forehead was pressed against the bottom of the plate; from the sound of him, he must have gotten some rice up his nose. McSwiney’s two male friends weren’t smirking now; Jack never took his eyes off them. If one of them had stood up, Jack would have changed the full nelson to a chicken-wing, with which he would have driven McSwiney’s right elbow past his right ear—in all likelihood breaking the collarbone but almost certainly separating McSwiney’s right shoulder. Then Jack would have gone after one of the other two guys, starting with the tougher-looking one.

But Jack could see that there wasn’t going to be any trouble; the two men just sat there. McSwiney was bigger than both of them together, and they could observe for themselves that their friend wasn’t doing too well. The women were more fidgety than the men. They exchanged glances with one another, and they kept looking at Jack’s face—not at McSwiney’s head in the paella.

McSwiney sounded as if he were still eating, but there was something more nasal than eating involved. If the big man had started to choke, Jack would have tipped him out of his chair and put a gut-wrench on him until McSwiney threw up on the floor. But that wasn’t necessary; the writer was breathing okay, just noisily. A fat man doesn’t breathe too comfortably with his chin on his chest, even without the paella factor.