John Irving - Avenue of Mysteries

But how long ago was that? Was it before or after Dorothy left? And had he taken only one Lopressor, as he’d been prescribed, or the two he’d imagined that he should have taken? Actually, of course, he should not have taken two. A double dose of beta-blockers wasn’t recommended as a remedy for missing a dose.

There was already a gray light outside, not to mention the blazing light in his hotel room; Juan Diego knew he had an early-morning flight. He’d not unpacked much, so he didn’t have a lot to do. He was, however, meticulous about how he packed the articles in his toilet kit; this time, he would put the Lopressor prescription (and the Viagra) in his carry-on.

He flushed the second condom down the toilet but was disconcerted that he couldn’t find the first. And when had he peed? At any moment, he imagined, Miriam would be calling him or knocking on his door, telling him it was time to go; hence he pulled back the top sheet and looked under the pillows, hoping to find the first condom. The damn thing was not in any of the wastebaskets — neither were the foil wrappers.

Juan Diego was standing under the shower when he saw the missing condom circling the drain at the bottom of the bathtub. It had unrolled itself and resembled a drowned slug; the only explanation had to be that the first condom he’d used with Dorothy had been stuck to his back, or his ass, or the back of one leg.

How embarrassing! He hoped Dorothy hadn’t seen it. If he’d skipped taking a shower, he might have boarded his flight to Manila with the used condom attached to him.

Unfortunately, he was still in the shower when the telephone rang. To men his age, Juan Diego knew — and surely the odds were worse for crippled men his age — bad accidents happened in bathtubs. Juan Diego turned off the shower and almost daintily stepped out of the tub. He was dripping wet and aware of how slippery the tiles on the bathroom floor could be, but when he grabbed a towel, the towel rod was reluctant to release it; Juan Diego tugged at the towel harder than he should have. The aluminum towel rod pulled free of the bathroom wall, bringing the porcelain mounting with it. The porcelain shattered on the floor, scattering the wet tiles with translucent ceramic chips; the aluminum rod hit Juan Diego in the face, cutting his forehead above one eyebrow. He limped, dripping, into the bedroom, holding the towel to his bleeding head.

“Hello!” he cried into the phone.

“Well, you’re awake — that’s a start,” Miriam told him. “Don’t let Dorothy go back to sleep.”

“Dorothy isn’t here,” Juan Diego said.

“She’s not answering her phone — she must be in the shower or something,” her mother said. “Are you ready to leave?”

“How about ten minutes?” Juan Diego asked.

“Make it eight, but shoot for five — I’ll come get you,” Miriam told him. “We’ll get Dorothy last — girls her age are the last to be ready,” her mother explained.

“I’ll be ready,” Juan Diego told her.

“Are you all right?” Miriam asked him.

“Yes, of course,” he replied.

“You sound different,” she told him, then hung up.

Different? Juan Diego wondered. He saw he’d bled on the exposed bedsheets; the water had dripped from his hair and diluted the blood from the cut on his forehead. The water had turned the blood a pinker color, and there was more blood than there should have been; it was a small cut, but it kept bleeding.

Yes, facial cuts bleed a lot — and he’d just stepped out of a hot shower. Juan Diego tried to wipe the blood off the bed with his towel, but the towel was bloodier than the bedsheets; he managed to make more of a mess. The side of the bed nearest the night table looked like the site of a ritualistic-sex slaying.

Juan Diego went back in the bathroom, where there was more blood and water — and the scattered ceramic chips from the shattered porcelain mounting. He put cold water on his face — on his forehead, especially, to try to stop the stupid cut from bleeding. Naturally, he had a virtual lifetime supply of Viagra, and his despised beta-blockers — and don’t forget the fussy pill-cutting device — but no Band-Aids. He stuck a wad of toilet paper on the profusely bleeding but tiny cut, temporarily stanching the flow of blood.

When Miriam knocked on his door, and he let her in, he was ready to go — except for putting the custom-made shoe on his crippled foot. That was always a little tricky; it could also be time-consuming.

“Here,” Miriam said, pushing him to the bed, “let me help you.” He sat at the foot of the bed while she put the special shoe on him; to his surprise, she seemed to know how to do it. In fact, she did it so expertly, and in such an offhand manner, that she was able to take a long look at the bloodstained bed while she secured the shoe on Juan Diego’s bad foot.

“Not a case of lost virginity, or a murder,” Miriam said, with a nod to all the blood and water on the horrifying bedsheets. “I guess it doesn’t matter what the maids will think.”

“I cut myself,” Juan Diego said. No doubt Miriam had noticed the blood-soaked toilet paper stuck to Juan Diego’s forehead, above his eyebrow.

“In all likelihood, not a shaving injury,” she said. He watched her walk from the bed to the closet, peering inside; then she opened and closed the drawers where there might have been forgotten clothes. “I always sweep a hotel room before I go —every hotel room,” she told him.

He couldn’t stop her from having a look in the bathroom, too. Juan Diego knew he’d not left any of his toilet articles there — certainly not his Viagra, or the Lopressor pills, which he’d transferred to his carry-on. As for the first condom, he remembered only now that he’d left it in the bathtub, where it would have been lying forlornly against the drain — as if signifying an act of pitiful lewdness.

“Hello, little condom,” he heard Miriam say, from the bathroom; Juan Diego was still sitting at the foot of the bloodstained bed. “I guess it doesn’t matter what the maids will think,” Miriam repeated, when she returned to the bedroom, “but don’t most people flush those things down the toilet?”

“Sí,” was all Juan Diego could say. Not much inclined to male fantasies, Juan Diego certainly wouldn’t have had this one.

I must have taken two Lopressor pills, he thought; he was feeling more diminished than usual. Maybe I can sleep on the plane, he thought; he knew it was too soon to speculate what might happen to his dreams. Juan Diego was so tired that he hoped his dream life might be momentarily curtailed by the beta-blockers.

“DID MY MOTHER HIT you?” Dorothy asked him when Juan Diego and Miriam got to the younger woman’s hotel room.

“I did not, Dorothy,” her mother said. Miriam had already begun her sweep of her daughter’s room. Dorothy was half dressed — a skirt, but only a bra, no blouse or sweater. Her open suitcase was on her bed. (The bag was big enough to hold a large dog.)

“A bathroom accident,” was all Juan Diego said, pointing to the toilet paper stuck to his forehead.

“I think it’s stopped bleeding,” Dorothy told him. She stood in her bra in front of him, picking at the toilet paper; when Dorothy plucked the paper off his forehead, the little cut began to bleed again — but not so much that she couldn’t stop the bleeding by wetting one index finger and pressing it above his eyebrow. “Just hold still,” the young woman said, while Juan Diego tried not to look at her fetching bra.

“For Christ’s sake, Dorothy — just get dressed,” her mother told her.

“And where are we going — I mean all of us?” the young woman asked her mom, not so innocently.