Elizabeth McCracken - The Giant's House - A Romance

“I’ll go for the shoe people,” he said. “More dignity to it. The circus just wants me to sell more tickets.”

“The shoe people want you to sell shoes. The circus has more money,” I argued. “They’ll send you in style.”

“No, Peggy,” he said. “I’d rather go cheap and quiet than posh and loud.”

Dr. Calloway, the giantist, arrived the next March, 1958. He had a thin chinless face, wide at the top and narrow at the bottom. His cheeks were sharp and scratched up with wrinkles; his ears looked permanently folded up by a too-small hat. Altogether, his head looked like one of those miraculous precarious rock formations featured in Ripley’s Believe It Or Not — you couldn’t imagine how such a thing kept balanced on its spindly neck. You expected one of his cheekbones to break loose and avalanche down to his collar, followed by his nose, then the other cheekbone, and finally by the total dusty collapse of his entire head.

But perhaps this is wishful thinking.

His eyebrows were the fiercest thing about him, awnings that nearly obscured his dark round eyes. He arrived on a rainy day without a hat or umbrella, and water collected on those brows and fell to his tan raincoat without impediment.

“Ernest Calloway, M.D.,” he said to Caroline. James wasn’t home yet; he was watching an afternoon basketball game at the high school. I’d told him to call me to pick him up when it was over.

“Hello,” Caroline said, Alice weighing down her arm. “Come in. I’m Caroline Strickland, James’s aunt. He’s not here yet — you’re a little early.”

The doctor nodded, as if this were a compliment. He took off his raincoat and handed it to Caroline. “Who’s this?” he asked, pointing at Alice. Though she was two, she still rode around in Caroline’s arms almost all the time.

“Alice,” said Alice, pointing at herself.

He asked Caroline, “How is she related to our giant? Not a sister?”

“First cousin,” said Caroline. “Let me get you a towel.”

Dr. Calloway looked at me. “And you are—”

“Peggy Cort.”

He regarded me, waiting for more information.

“Family friend,” I said.

“Ah yes,” he said. “Well. I’d prefer only family be present for this visit.”

“Peggy is family,” said Caroline, coming back with the towel draped over one arm, Alice draped over the other. “She’s closer to James than anyone.”

“This will not be a delicate conversation,” the doctor said. He rubbed his hair with the towel. “Family medical histories, et cetera.” He pronounced et cetera as if it were a sentence of great wisdom.

“As far as we’re concerned, Peggy can hear everything. If she hasn’t heard it all already. May I get you a cup of coffee, Dr. Calloway?”

“I do not take coffee,” he said. He sat down on the sofa next to me. “Nor tea.”

Caroline was a devoted coffee drinker, and for a guest in her house to decline was like a Catholic saying to a priest in church, no, I don’t think so, no communion for me today. Days I spent with Caroline I drank so much coffee I went home vibrating and nervous and ate straight from the refrigerator until I realized hunger was not the problem, I’d misdiagnosed that hollow feeling.

“Well then,” said Caroline. “Water?”

“Nothing, thank you,” said Dr. Calloway. Then he turned to me. “So, where is the celebrated young man?”

“He’s due any minute. Actually, he’s supposed to call, and then I’ll go pick him up. You’re early.”

“Are you hired?” he asked.

“Sorry?”

“A nurse, a companion?”

“Family friend,” I said again.

Then James came through the door. His umbrella hadn’t done much good. Even beneath the raincoat, his shirt was soaked through. The ceilings at the Stricklands’ were eight feet tall, so James slouched, then bent his knees and leaned against the wall.

I stood up to help him off with his coat. “You were supposed to call,” I told him.

“I didn’t want to bother you.”

“Aha!” Dr. Calloway said behind me.

James looked up, then took off his glasses to wipe them. There wasn’t a dry spot anywhere on him, so I took them and cleaned them on my shirt and handed them back.

Dr. Calloway walked over to meet James, who had to hunch over a little in this house. The doctor looked up.

“Good God,” he said. “You are …”

We waited for him to finish the sentence but he didn’t. I could see him stand up straighter, as if to challenge James with his own height, but of course there was no contest. “I’m Dr. Calloway,” he said. “You must be James.” He laughed.

“I’m sorry,” said James. “I didn’t realize it was so late.”

“Why don’t you change,” I told him. “Then you and Dr. Calloway can talk.”

“I don’t have to change,” said James to the doctor. “I don’t want to keep you waiting.”

“He’s early,” I said. “You can’t sit around in wet clothing.”

“Actually,” the doctor said, “I am in a bit of a hurry. I’m driving to Boston tonight, to talk to some of your doctors there. Get history and so forth. But I’ll want to examine you at any rate, so you might as well just put on dry clothes after that.”

“Well, at least go around back, so you’ll be comfortable,” I said to James. “No point in squeezing in here.”

“Shall we?” the doctor said to James.

James nodded and put his wet raincoat back on.

“You take the umbrella,” he said to Dr. Calloway. “I’m beyond help.”

The two of them started out the front door to walk around the back. Dr. Calloway said, “I shall interview and examine James in private. Then may I come back and ask a few questions of you ladies?”

Caroline was sitting on the sofa, rubbing Alice’s back; Alice was almost asleep. “Of course,” Caroline said quietly.

The doctor was gone half an hour before he came back. “Almost finished,” he said. “But I seem to have left my tape measure behind. Do you have one, Mrs. Strickland?”

Caroline pulled a floppy measure from her sewing basket, and Dr. Calloway took it and left. I imagined him gauging James with those three feet of cloth, the way you try to figure distance on a road map with your thumb. James would hold the end of the tape at his head while the doctor unfolded it to mid-chest, marking that spot with his thumb so he could determine where the next three feet led to, finally ending at his destination, James’s feet.

Fifteen minutes later the doctor returned. He’d carefully folded the tape measure and held it at its center, as if it were a rare butterfly with peculiar markings that he wanted to study but preserve.

“He is, I must say, gargantuan. I heard he was tall, people sent me clippings, but all the reports differed as to his exact height. I’d assumed all the lowest estimates must be closer to the truth, and even then I’d assumed they’d been exaggerated.”

“He’s tall,” Caroline said. “Why would he lie about it?”

“I didn’t think he would. But journalists always want the best story, and someone who’s eight foot four is a better story than someone who’s seven foot four. Eight foot four,” he said. “I wouldn’t have believed it.”

“That tall,” said Caroline. “What do you know.”

“Tallest in the world, no doubt,” said the doctor. “Maybe the tallest ever. Still growing. Well. Now I have a few questions for you. Where’s the child?”

“Asleep,” said Caroline. “It’s her naptime.”

“Ah. Thought I might have a look at her, too.” He said this the way a collector will casually offer to buy something off your very walls. We went to the living room to sit down. “No matter. She’s about average, correct?”