Kate Braverman - Lithium for Medea

“Go now while you’ve got momentum,” Francine said. “Go out and box smart, slug hard. Go out and do it better than I did. Do it cleaner. Do it without lies. Do it strong.” Francine opened the front door.

“You surprise me,” I began.

“You surprise easy, kid.”

I started walking to my car. I knew I had to walk quickly, right then, or the waves would rise inside again, the sudden black riptide, the impossible current, the whirling and spinning in black concentric circles, useless, useless.

“Wait,” Francine yelled behind me.

I turned around. Francine hopped into the street. She still had the big white gauze around her foot. She was carrying something. “For your trip,” she said. She handed me a brown shopping bag. She leaned close to me. “You will come back?”

“Yes.”

“Do you promise?”

I started driving. At the first traffic light I looked into the brown shopping bag. One small can of tuna fish, an onion, a box of crackers, a flashlight, a large can of lima beans, a butter knife, a fifty-dollar bill, some paper napkins and a gold American Express credit card. Jesus, Francine, what a crazy picnic. And then I started laughing.

I could still feel the laughter inside me as I walked down the hospital corridor, walked through the dim folds of shadow curled across tiles the color of enamel mud. My father was sitting up in his bed. He was watching the morning news. When he saw me he turned off the television. His movements were abrupt, sharp. His eyes commanded attention. Something had happened.

GOOD NEWS. SAW DR. ATE.

“You ate already?”

VANILLA CUSTARD.

“And it worked? You swallowed it?”

My father nodded his head. There was something different about him. The color of his skin, perhaps?

BOURBON?

“Maybe tomorrow.” My father’s blinds were wide open. Outside, the sky was a pale and dreamy blue. The sun seemed uniform, creamy and warm and possible, possible.

My father stood up by himself. He reached for his bathrobe. I helped him drape it across his shoulders. He motioned for me to go with him. We walked into the corridor. My father produced a pad and a pen from his bathrobe pocket.

1 STEP AT TIME. DO WHOLE LENGTH TODAY. AM OLD WAR HORSE. GOOD CAMPAIGNER. WILL COME BACK.

We walked the length of three hospital rooms. He motioned for me to stop. He leaned against the corridor wall. He took a deep breath. A nurse appeared. She asked if my father needed anything. My father took out his pad and pen.

DOES SHE HAVE A BOYFRIEND?

We started walking again. We reached the midpoint of the corridor, halfway to the elevators. My father stopped dead in his tracks. I thought he was going to collapse. He extended his arms. He rolled his hands into fists. What was happening? Should I get a wheelchair, a doctor? Then he started punching at the air. His feet were moving in a very slow shuffle and he was jabbing and dodging, finding combinations, turning his bandaged neck and hooking, swinging. And behind us in the nurses’ station they all stopped what they were doing. They let the phones ring, let their clipboards lie in their hands and watched my father shadowbox. Then they clapped. I helped my father back to his bed.

After a while I said I was going.

U JUST GOT HERE.

“I mean out of the city. Away. I’ve got to try for it.” My father looked down at the floor. One tear formed in the center of his eye. He blinked his eyes and the tear disappeared.

LIFES GONE SO BAD.

“I know. I know.” I was pacing. The hills outside were fine and firm, young bodies. I could almost smell them. I looked at my father. “It’s not the world you planned on, right?”

My father nodded his head.

“I understand, Daddy. The changes, the disruptions, the disintegration of the nuclear family, the failure of marriage and religious institutions. The loss of human values. The collapse of tradition.” I took a deep breath. I noticed that my father was studying me carefully. His expression seemed intense and puzzled.

“I can understand. I can imagine. Once the gray-haired man was sage. A dispenser of wisdom, revered. Once the cities were different. They were holy places, enclaves of knowledge. That was before the mutations and the long process of severing man from the ground and his animal heritage. That was before industrialization, decay, rot, drugs, free sex.”

I WAS BORN 30 YRS TOO SOON. I WOULD HAVE BEEN A HIPPIE.

I stared at my father. He stared back at me. Then he pointed to his wrist. I went into the corridor and looked for a clock. “It’s eleven-thirty.”

My father put on his eyeglasses. He opened the TV Guide .

GOLF AT 1:00.

I was still on my feet, pacing and looking at the mountains through the wide-open Venetian blinds. It occurred to me that the mountains were a kind of spine. I sat down on my father’s bed. I held his hand.

“I know how it must seem. You feel deserted, abandoned, cast off. The world churns. You’re sixty-five. You remember another kind of world, another kind of summer. You knew the Bronx as farmland, forests with trees and streams. And here you are, one of the last of your kind. It’s like being the last of a tribe. All the skills have become scrambled, decayed. How to build canoes and trap fish.”

TRAP FISH??

“Not fish. Forget the fish. I just mean the old days. You can remember when any six-footer could play basketball. You watched baseball evolve. You saw them all. The entire Hall of Fame. The Yankee dynasty of the twenties. The house that Ruth built. The immortal infield. Gehrig at first. Lazzeri at second. Mark Koenig at short. You saw the first All-Star game. You knew the world before instant replay. It’s like you’re one of the last of a vanishing species.”

My father was staring at me. He shook his head slowly from side to side.

“I know you envisioned a different sort of future for me. For us. Me married with children. Grandchildren for you to take to games. To teach them how to be shortstops. To initiate them into the culturally determined forms of manhood.”

KIDS BIG NUISANCE AT GAMES.

“Look, Daddy. I failed you in a lot of ways. Things happen. Think about Native Diver struck down without warning at seven. Things just happen. The world must seem so alien to you. The role reversals. The emergence of women. The fall of America. The rising of the Third World. You even hated expansion baseball.”

PROVED GOOD 4 THE GAME.

“Daddy, I’m not talking about baseball,” I said.

My father shook his head from side to side. Suddenly I realized what was different about my father. The red plastic feeding tube was gone from his nose. My father was staring at me. He picked up his pad and pen.

U R NUTS.

I laughed. The feeding tube was gone. I felt pure. I felt clear, blessed. A nurse brought my father a dish of green Jell-O. He ate it slowly. He stared at me between spoonfuls. His face was registering some form of disbelief.

NUTS.

“Then you forgive me for failing you? I’m going to do better. You’ll be surprised.”

U R A LUNATIC. WE R SQUARE. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

WHERE IS THE OTHER NUT? 46 YR OLD TENNIS STAR?

“She hurt her foot. She’ll be here later, Daddy.” I looked at my father. “Will you take care of Francine?”

HAVE PUT UP W/HER ABOMINABLE SHIT SINCE SHE WAS

16.

“You’re a good man, Daddy.”

U KNOW WHAT HAPPENS 2 GOOD MEN?

“Durocher was wrong. You’re finishing up like a champ.”

WISH I COULD B SENT 2 STUD DUTY.

“I can’t help you with that. Can I get you something? There’s a gift shop downstairs.”

My father seemed to consider his possibilities. He nodded his head.

GO DOWN & BRING UP A NEW FAMILY.