Mark Leyner - Gone with the Mind

This actually isn’t so bad, it’s like bad cramps. And this sallow-looking young man appears and he says, “Hello.” I thought, That’s strange. “What are you doing here?” he asked, in his very thick Italian accent. I thought that was obvious. “I’m in labor! What are you doing here?” “I’m an anesthesiologist,” he replied. He was flirting with me! I thought that was the funniest thing. Imagine — making a pass at a pregnant woman in a maternity ward! I suppose men just think they can make use of their position whenever the whim strikes them, and women should think it’s wonderful that they think you’re sexy. “I love it, the green-eyed blondes,” he said to me in his accent. Several hours later, I was screaming at the top of my lungs, and I knew what real labor was, what real pain was. And at three o’clock in the morning, after twelve hours of labor, with no painkillers until the very end, this nice, little, perfectly round head emerged. I was ecstatic at the sight of him. I was thrilled and happy and delighted. I was as overjoyed as a human being can be. From the moment I looked at him, I knew how wonderful he was and would always be. There was just this atavistic thrill. It was physical and emotional. My mother came to see us that morning, and she held him. And then the next day, when I woke up, I brushed my hair and brushed my teeth. And I looked up. And there was that young man again — the Italian anesthesiologist. And he had a bouquet of flowers! And again, this struck me as very, very amusing. Mario. His name was Mario. He was from a titled family in Italy, and he’d only been in the U.S. for a short period of time. It was the beginning of a funny friendship. He met Mark’s father. He was a typical mad Italian driver. He had these Italian sports cars and got into frequent accidents. Mark’s father, who had recently graduated from law school and was clerking for a judge at the time, would help this Mario with the legal ramifications of all his numerous car accidents. It was clear that he liked the way I looked and liked the way I spoke…that he thought I was a cut above the typical people he saw…When I look back, these aren’t things I’m particularly fond of — that kind of class snobbery and being such a big flirt. Anyway, it was a week’s stay in the hospital in those days — that was just the protocol then. And there I was, this thin, fragile-looking girl, but I was strong. I’d walk around and stand in front of the nursery window. And I could always immediately tell which cart he was in — those skinny, naked, red legs. They’d bring the baby every four hours to be fed, bottle-fed — I didn’t nurse. His circumcision was scheduled for the last day that week — the bris with a mohel. And I was extremely anxious about that on every level. I’m very concerned about cleanliness. The idea of some old geezer with his own equipment filled me with foreboding. But I was reassured by Harry Gerner, the pediatrician, and by my parents and my in-laws. I had another issue, though. I have very serious problems with clotting. I have a genetic inability to clot properly and almost died getting my tonsils out when I was ten. I had massive hemorrhaging. So I demanded that before they even think of performing Mark’s circumcision, they get a clotting time done. I insisted on it. And they did. And it was normal. And they had the bris, in a special room. I don’t remember if I was wearing clothes or my robe. And all the grandparents were there. And it all went perfectly well. And the next day we went home. I can regale you with all the ensuing milestones — at ten days, he raised his head and rolled over; at six weeks, he giggled; at about five months he could crawl backwards, shake his head no, and play hide-and-seek; he stood up all alone and got his first teeth at six months; at six and a half months he stood up all alone holding on to the crib; he took his first steps holding on to his playpen at seven months; he said his first word, Da-da, at eight months, and walked all by himself at eleven months; his favorite toys were a set of colored disks on a chain and a stuffed fuzzy cocker spaniel that his uncle Richie gave him — because I dutifully recorded all of this critical information in a white satin — bound baby diary, in which I also inscribed the following account of his first birthday: “Mark had a birthday party on Sunday the 6th of January, and we took movies of him and all the family. Both Grandmas and Grandpas, Great-Grandmas and Great-Grandpas were there, and his aunts and uncles too. He received beautiful gifts, put both fists in the cake, cried at the company, and later in the evening ‘performed’ for them and for the camera.”

By the following year, 1958, we’d moved to an apartment complex, a middle-income co-op, called College Towers, in the Greenville section of Jersey City. Mark was a toddler, two years old. And one afternoon, we were, uh, sitting outside in a sort of semicircular area of plantings out in front of our building. It was a new building and there were benches there, and it had to have been springtime or early summer because, for some silly reason, I even remember what I was wearing. I was sitting there with him, and I was in shirtsleeves. I had on the style of the day, for sportswear — sort of man-tailored stuff, you know, very preppy — you wore Bermuda shorts, and they didn’t have a crease pressed in, they had a crease sort of stitched in, and khaki, and, um, loafers. I guess they were penny loafers. You put a dime in — I forget why. And a blue man-tailored shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a button-down, and that was sort of the style of the time for college girls and for, um, well-dressed young women. I was sitting there, long hair in a ponytail, feeling very happy and proud of him, my beautiful, wonderful, amazing boy, and happy with the weather and so on, and all of a sudden a little truck drove up, really small, and attached to the back of it was a slightly larger, uh, sort of little caboose thing, and on it was a small merry-go-round, a little gadget that just sort of went in a circle. And when I looked at it, the first thing I thought of was Boy, that’s an awfully small circle to be going around in. There were other mothers out there, and other kids playing with each other, and they all heard…the little truck played a tune, I think. There was some way for everyone to know what it was, and what it was for…And the older children ran for it, and then the little kids like Mark. And the moms walked toward it, and people were getting on and paying, and he said to me, very clearly to me, that he wanted to get on, and I said, “Oh, okay, sweetie, we’re going to do that right now.” And the guy from the truck — the guy who operated the merry-go-round — said hello to me, and, um, I said hi back, and I was much more interested in putting Mark in safely. There were a couple of kids already on it. I put you in the little seat, and I was trying to figure out how to hook the little belt on you, and I see the guy go to sit in the front of the car and start something, and I started to say — whatever I said to him: “Uh, hey mister, sir, wait just a minute, just a minute or two please, I’m just putting him in,” and he kept saying things like “That’s okay, honey, that’s okay, girlie, you can have a ride.” And I kept saying, “No, you don’t understand, no, I need to get off. This is my little boy. I’m just putting him on.” And he started it. The music was starting, and he was still saying that—“All right honey, all right girlie.” And all I could think of was that I was going to be dizzy and probably throw up. And one could say I talked myself into it, but the truth is I know my nature, and I knew I couldn’t do that, and the circle was so small I knew nothing good was going to come out of that for me. And he thought — I don’t know why I’m so sure of this, but I am — he thought that I was the babysitter. I was dressed like a teenager, and he thought I was a teenager, and what was I anyway — twenty-three years old, so…And I just kept saying to him, “Can you stop it now? And then you’ll start it again.” And he kept saying, “That’s okay honey, that’s all right girlie, you can, uh, it’s all right, it’s a free ride for you.” And when it ended, and I took Mark off there, the world was still going round and round for me, and I was

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