Джозеф Хеллер - Something Happened

"Stay in your room," I would command him sternly.

"You have to go back to your room," I would try to coax him gently in the darkness of our bedroom when some unexpected new reserve of kindness and pity would flow within me (pleading with him, really, to please let us alone). "You can leave the lights on if you want to. There's nothing to be afraid of."

"I'm not afraid."

"One of us will stay with you."

"Then you'll go."

"I can't stay in your room all night."

"Then why should I?"

"It's your room."

"I want to be in your room. I want to stay with you and Mommy."

"A doctor said you shouldn't. He said it would be bad for you."

"What doctor?"

"A doctor we saw."

"I don't believe him."

"Do you want to go see him?"

He was afraid of doctors then and has been afraid of doctors, nurses, and dentists ever since. (He doesn't ever want to have to have teeth drilled or pulled.) I don't think he will ever recover from that operation of his fully either. I fear he and my daughter too may never forgive me for permitting their tonsils to become so severely infected that it was necessary for them to be taken to a hospital to have them pulled out (or cut, if that's what they do. And his adenoids too. He isn't mad at me about his adenoids because he doesn't know what they are yet, and neither does anyone else, although those were taken away from him, too. They seem to be highly specialized organs growing inside a person's pharynx whose only natural function is to be taken out), and he keeps associating men he doesn't trust (not me, although he doesn't always trust me) with the anesthetist there, whose appearance he recalls only hazily.

"He gave me an enema," he alleges with abiding resentment and embarrassment during one of our disorganized discussions about everything that might be on his mind.

"No, he didn't," I correct him again. "That was an anesthetic. We gave you an enema at home the night before."

"He looked like Forgione."

"He was a Jap. You didn't even know Forgione then."

"Forgione is an Italian," he concedes abstractedly. "Forgione doesn't like me."

"Yes he does."

"No he doesn't."

"Yes he does. He does now."

"I don't like him."

"You don't have to. Just pretend."

"Miss Owens doesn't like me."

"Yes she does. She gives you good grades."

"She always hollers at me."

"She never does."

"I'm afraid she will if I don't do my work."

"Do your work."

"He says I can't climb ropes."

"Can you?"

"I hate Forgione."

"You don't have to."

"How come?"

"He likes you."

"Did you go see him again?"

"Did you want me to?"

"I'm afraid of Forgione."

"You don't have to be."

"How do you know?"

"He says you've got a good build and can run like a weasel. You don't try to learn! You're supposed to use your feet too when you climb ropes. Not your legs, your feet."

"What's a weasel?"

"A four-legged animal that runs like you."

"Will I have wisdom teeth?"

"Sure. When you grow up."

"Will they have to be pulled?"

"Are you going to start worrying about that?"

"Do you think I can help it?"

"If they're bad."

"You don't like me."

"Yes I do."

"You go away."

"Where?"

"To Puerto Rico."

"I have to."

"To Puerto Rico?"

"When?"

"Last year. You went away to Puerto Rico."

"I had to."

"Are you going again?"

"I have to."

"Soon?"

"In June."

"To Puerto Rico?"

"I'm on the committee. I help pick the place."

"Is that your new job?"

"I don't have it yet."

"To make a speech?"

"I hope so."

"They stole my bike when you were away."

"I bought you another one."

"I thought they were going to beat me up."

"They would have stolen it anyway, even if I was here. I would have been at the office."

"Don't go."

"I have to."

"Whenever you go away I'm afraid you won't come back."

"I know."

"How do you know?"

"You told me."

"Sometimes I cry."

"I'll come back."

"I don't want to be alone."

"You wouldn't be alone. You'd have Mommy."

"Mommy doesn't like me."

"Yes she does."

"She yells at me."

"I yell at you."

"You don't like me."

"You're full of bull. I'm always sorry afterward. You don't have to worry. I'll come back. I'm never going to leave you."

"When you die?"

His question catches me by surprise. "What made you think of that?"

"I don't want you to," he answers solemnly. "Maybe that's what made me think of it."

"Ever?"

"No."

"I'll try not to, then," I laugh. (My laugh sounds forced, hollow.) "For your sake. I don't want to, either."

"You have to," he speculates. "Won't you?"

"Someday, I guess. By that time, though, you might not care."

He looks up sharply. "How come?"

"You'll be all grown up by then, if you're lucky, and won't need me anymore. You'll be able to take care of yourself and won't want me around. You might even be glad. I'll finally stop yelling at you."

"Hey, slut, come here," he calls out excitedly to my daughter with a grin of incredulous wonderment. His eyes gleam. "Do you know what Daddy just said?" His eyes gleam. "He said that when he dies we might not even care because all of us will be all grown up and able to take care of ourselves. We might even be glad."

My daughter's mood is dour and unresponsive (and I feel already that she will soon be deep in deadening drugs, if she isn't using them already).

"What about Derek?" she demands with inspired malice, and her eyes grow bright and cold. I frown. (She is proud of this thrust.)

"I wasn't thinking about him."

"You forgot about Derek."

I forgot about Derek. I wish I could forget about him more often. It's hard to forget about him for long (while he's still here in the house with us, although I always try. When he's out of sight, he's usually out of my mind. We should send him away someplace and have him out of our house and minds for good. What a relief that will be. It would be upsetting. My daughter wants me to. My boy doesn't. It's no use seeing doctors anymore). Like my boy, I am afraid of doctors, nurses, and dentists (although I pretend not to be), and I guess I always have been. I'm afraid they might be right. (In the army, I would look directly at the needle when I got my immunization shots because I wanted so strongly to turn my head away. I am no longer a blood donor: I no longer give blood to my company blood bank when the Personnel and Medical Departments set up facilities annually to take blood from hardier employees than myself who volunteer and get thinned orange juice back in exchange. I do not set a good example for the people who work for me.) I am empathizing already with my boy's wisdom teeth. He has never mentioned them before (or I would have been empathizing with them sooner. I hope they're not impacted. How will I ever be able to get him to a dentist if he knows they are going to be pulled? Maybe he'll be different by then. And maybe he won't. I am not looking forward to having my own teeth pulled. I rarely get new cavities now, but old fillings fall away and teeth do have to be cleaned, and I don't like having my soft gums pricked by those hard, sharp dental instruments until they're sore from back to front and awash with blood. I don't like having my palate tickled when the backs of the uppers are polished. I am afraid to visit my dentist twice a year. I need periodontal work and have to go once a week). I am afraid of Forgione too (and would not want to have to climb ropes for him. He sneaks into my dreams occasionally too, along with niggers and other menacing strangers, steals through shadows in the background and slips away before I can find out what he is doing in them), although I do not associate him with the anesthetist at the tonsillectomy (who did not threaten me at all, although he did, quite cheerfully, give my boy a liquid anesthetic through a pink rubber tube as we watched. Is that an enema? Maybe he's right). No, I know I will never forget that tonsillectomy of his, or my own, or my daughter's, or the sequence of repetitious medical messages in hushed tones from doctors who told me to my face that my mother had probably suffered another small brain spasm or stroke and was degenerating simultaneously from progressive arthritis, so it was sometimes hard to be sure (for all of these were morbid and revolting experiences and I am unable to repress the memory of them), and I know I will also remember and dislike that last prospering young doctor with the pinstripe suit and exaggerated good posture (he was younger than I was and makes more money) as he stepped out onto the patio (I will never forget him) after examining Derek that pearly spring day (I will never forgive him), the screen door banging closed behind him, to tell us, with something of an unconscious quirk of a smile on his otherwise smug and emotionless face (I think I will always remember his smile):