Chapter Six, Bad Novel

Dear Joan,

Thanks for writing, and please keep hold of your sanity up there. I’ve been doing a little research on van Hoof, and she sounds seriously weird.

Well, we could start with the fact that she was never all that much of a Catholic, to begin with. Actually, from what I’ve read, she moved from the Sand County area with her husband Fred, after their marriage. Reason: to get away from “all that damn Catholic stuff.”

Well, that went wrong, as it did for a lot of people, so the two of them returned to Wisconsin, where they lived like poor white trash. So much so that the house, and the kids, were filthy; of course, not having water probably didn’t help. So everything was going along pretty terribly, when van Hoof got the first message.

Warning—there’s a long history of complete nuttiness in the family. First of all—the mother comes from Transylvania, and got somehow to Kenosha, Wisconsin, where she became vice president of the local spiritual group. And by the way, Mother is always there when the Virgin Mary comes dropping by.

From what I’ve read, the apparitions started either in 1949 or 1950. First sign: van Hoof was lying in bed, sick, and then she noticed that there was a stranger at the doorway to her bedroom. Naturally, she was afraid, but he told her not to worry, because soon the Virgin would appear.

Look, she was 41 years old—her youth was behind her, she was sick, she was poor, and whatever she thought could happen in her life…well, it wasn’t going to. The farm was poor—they don’t call them the Sand Counties for nothing. And her husband? Well, he either died or drifted off—anyway, she was now or would be later “married” to another guy. Quotes because she actually never got a marriage license for either of the two “marriages.” Presumably the Virgin doesn’t mind.

Anyway, all the usual hocus-pocus stuff happened: the crucifix on the wall turned golden, although not sufficiently golden, or perhaps so permanently so, that van Hoof could run it down to the pawn shop when needed. And then, the Virgin Mary’s visit was announced, and so she ran outside and there the virgin was, in a group of three or four ash trees.

Well, I’ve been looking it up, and it seems that the Virgin has a thing for trees. Was it at Fátima, or in that other place in Spain where the Virgin popped up? You remember, the one where those pesky children demanded proof, and so what did the Virgin do to show she was the real deal? Got the pear tree to bloom and bear fruit completely out of season.

Stuff like that is where it gets spooky for me—as it would if my crucifix turned real gold. Anyway, van Hoof’s virgin was considerably less convincing: all the Virgin asked her to do was to run by the local Catholic church, and get everybody to say a few more rosaries, or Hail Mary’s, or to keep First Saturdays, whatever they might be. So van Hoof did, and the local priest? He was not so into it.

I asked a priest about all this, and he told me a little secret: after the first few years in the priesthood, the average Padre has dealt with about ten menopausal or verge-of-menopausal women who have seen the Virgin, and have been given special messages to convey to the world! OK—some of them are kids, but curiously, no guy sitting at the bar gazing into his beer ever sees the Virgin. It’s a girl thing.

The really odd thing about van Hoof is how quickly the whole thing spread. The first apparition appeared sometime in 1949; by 1950 (though late in the year) she had 100,000 people dropping by the farm, just to see the Virgin.

Predictably, those who believed saw strange stuff. The sun seemed to turn, or give off flares of light, or go dim and then blaze again. Guys? Looking straight at the sun at noon in August is seriously not a great idea!

Equally predictably, the scoffers (and why do I think they were 99% husbands dragged to the event by their wives?) didn’t see. But that should surprise no one, since there are none so blind…..

OK—here’s the thing about the Virgin. Apparently, she can say stuff like, “the world must turn to prayer, and reverence to Jesus the son, father and holy ghost, that he might  deliver us from the snares of the dark one, who…” You know, the stuff that virtually writes itself. I mean, is the Virgin going to say, “feel free to spend Sunday morning on the golf course, because it’s what you do the rest of the week…” Not a good guarantee for getting the church roof fixed!

So the Virgin had to say something, and guess what? Her world view was quite remarkably similar to the world view of a basically uneducated, poor, not very sophisticated farm wife of Necedah, Wisconsin!

Yes, the Virgin has been around keeping her eye on the ship for some time now. And you should know, if you’ve been able to walk around the grounds. Cause there’s that telling and moving monument of the Virgin Mary standing on the globe, ith her right foot firmly planted in Necedah, Wisconsin. Nice touch, don’t you think? Anyway, there she is, with her pals George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Because she’s been with us along, a sort of den mother to the country of the free and the brave. Yes, she has been there through every one of the five great tribulations that this country has faced!

First, you see, there was the Revolutionary War. Then came the Civil War. The next two tribulations were World War I and (have you guessed it yet?) World War II. Now we are all set for the next great and horrible tribulation, the most fearsome of all, the one that will shake the country to its very foundations!

The Virgin doesn’t appear, it seems, to say, “hey, things are good! Ike is White House, economy is picking up, everybody has a car and full tank of gas!” No, no—she sees what we do not, and never is it very good.

And guess what? It’s the Yids, or the Yiddish, as van Hoof calls them. But it doesn’t much matter what she calls them—it could be kikes or Hebrews or any other expletive. Anti-Semitism tends to stifle originality in most minds.

Although van Hoof does carry it a little off the beaten track. She got it into her head that one of the centers for the new world order—that would be the secret and fabulously wealthy / powerful Satanic agents who would control the world—was in Syria. And the other? It’s just a state away: the Baha’i temple in Wilmette, Illinois! (By the way, she writes it—or her amanuensis, Henry Swan—as Willamette….)

The fifth tribulation, you see, is this fight for the new world order / old world order, and who is fanning the flames in all of this? Yes, the “colored” races, who are stirring up trouble with the whites. (Oh, did I mention to you that the Virgin is so white, she could star in “The Bells of St. Mary’s?)

Well, there’s a problem, as of course there would have to be, since otherwise the Virgin could spend her time doing what virgins do (or perhaps don’t do)—anyway, she wouldn’t have to be appearing in ash trees in Necedah, Wisconsin. And the problem is?

Really, do I have to tell you? Because if America had not strayed from the path, had remained true to its Christian tradition, and flooded the celestial plains with all the Hail Mary’s and Our Father’s and recitations of the rosary, well, then Jesus would be right up there. He’d be on board, and the Virgin would not have to spend every waking moment of her virginity staying his fearsome hand. Yes, it is the Virgin who pleads, who begs for mercy, who keeps the vengeance of Jesus from striking us down!

But can she do it alone! Nay, nay—which is why she appears to a simple farm wife in Necedah, Wisconsin. Narrow minds and evil tongues might wonder if the virgin couldn’t command a slightly more prestigious venue—opening night at the Met, for example—but do you need to be told? The Lord, and his Virgin, work in mysterious ways.

Well, well—the Virgin kept van Hoof at fever pitch. Never an Advent or Lent went by when van Hoof didn’t suffer the passion. Of course, the church was interested in that claim, so they sent van Hoof over to a nearby hospital, where the staff—some of whom were probably Yids—took away anything pointed. Of course, in these godless and scoffing circumstances, the physical symptoms of suffering of our Lord failed to appear! Anyone can see that! Oh, and though she was said to be taking only fluids, her blood work didn’t show that. Until, of course, they really put her on fluids!

So the church, it was obvious, was infiltrated: the Commies or the Yids (if there’s any difference between them) had slithered their way into the Holy Roman Church and the proof of that? Could anything be clearer?

Vatican II!

Joan, I could go on and on, but isn’t it clear? You’ve landed in a bed of nutcases—I mean, who else but a lunatic would call the orphanage, The Seven Sorrows of Our Sorrowful Mother? The real question is: are they treating you OK? And can you last the five months until your baby is born?

Oh, and one last question—what kind of weirdo family are they going to find to adopt your child?

Love, and worriedly,

Marc

            

Chapter 5.1, Bad Novel

Chapter 5

Hi Marc,

Back again—I would have skipped dinner, and just finished the letter, but they’re real strict up here. The first morning, I decided to sleep in and forget breakfast, but the “Blessed Mother,” as they call the lunatic who runs the shots around here, came down on me like a truckload of bricks. Stormed into my room, pulled me up by the nape of the neck, and had me marching into the dining hall before I could open my eyes, virtually. So meals—they explained to me—are a gift from God, because there are some (starving Armenians, maybe, or have they died off a long time ago?) who have nothing. So skipping breakfast is like flipping the bird at God.

In fact, pretty much everything I do is an affront to God. I wanted to smoke a cigarette, and would have too, if the Blessed Mother hadn’t caught wind—or smoke—of it. And then it was holy hell. Not because I was pregnant, but because it wasn’t seemly in the face of God. Yes—her words, not mine.

She’s stuck in the 1950’s, and not the best part of it, if indeed any part of it was good. Can you believe it—she still makes us practice atomic bomb drills. Even hauled out—did I tell you she was stuck in the ‘50’s?—some creepy old educational film prepared by the Civil Defense Authority called “Duck and Cover.” It starts with Ernie, or Bertie, or somebody or other. Anyway, he’s a turtle, and—so says the 1950’s voice—he knows just what to do! Because when danger approaches, he ducks and covers!

Well, it goes on for about ten minutes, this ridiculous film. First we learn that there are two types of nuclear attacks, and you can be sure it’s true because Miss Davies, third grade teacher, has written them in her neat cursive on the blackboard. And there they are: With Warning and (the only logical thing in the film) Without Warning.

With Warning is easy, since presumably there will be time to act immediately to save your life and the lives of others. The alarm will ring, and that’s when any child should look around for an adult, who will of course know just what to do, and protect us! And lo and behold, there is a kindly adult, his pipe in hand, and he guides the little girl into a fallout shelter! Of course, there is something a little creepy about the way his arm is draped over the girl’s shoulder. My own father would have belted the guy, but it was a different age.

Of course, the attack may occur when you’re in school, and then the solution is simple: DUCK AND COVER! In this case, six little kids are sitting around a fairly small table, so they only showed one child crouched under the table. And there he was, with his chin against his chest, and his arm covering the back of his neck. So I couldn’t help myself, I had to ask: what were the other children supposed to do? Where were they to DUCK AND COVER? That’s when the Blessed Mother piled on me like the bomb itself.

“Oh, it’s all a joke for you, isn’t it, little Missy! Well, let me tell you, the Reds are everywhere! And at any moment, they can drop the H-bomb, and then what’ll you do? Do you know, they got submarines capable of going up the St. Lawrence Seaway? They do indeed, and any one of them could carry five or ten warheads each. Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Milwaukee, all the major cities could be visited with the satanic flames of fire! Yes, Satan himself guides the hand of those godless commies! And who shall be spared but those whose lives have been sanctified by constant prayer, and unceasing devotion to the Virgin!”

Everybody in the group looked at me—five girls, five fetuses, and two nuns. And they were sending eye telegrams: “did you have to set her off?” Because then we were hearing about the three little kids in Fátima, and the message the Virgin had given them about Russia. And it seems that the Blessed Mother is hung up on Russia, too, because we were all urged to pray, each night, for the conversion of Russia. The Commies, you see, had perverted the religion out of those devout people, and now the world hung in the balance, and only incessant prayer to the Virgin Mary could save us. So those bombs, skulking evilly towards us on the bottom of the St. Lawrence Seaway? Well, we were just as much to blame, since the Virgin will always protect those who turn to her!

And so it went for ten more minutes, because when the Blessed Mother gets going—generally before she puts her foot out of bed in the morning—well, there’s no stopping her! But finally we get back to DUCK AND COVER, and that’s when we learn that there may be no warning! Then what we’ll see is a blinding flash—more blinding than the sun! So that’s no problem, either, since little Billy, riding his bike, knows just what to do! And that is DAC, but this time, that clever little Billy happens to spy a newspaper! Wonderful, since even a newspaper can provide excellent cover for Billy’s little neck! So there we see Billy, pressed against a wall, the newspaper shielding him from irradiation or atomic burns or fallout or whatever it is. Now then—what is Billy to do?

Easy—wait until a responsible adult advises him that it’s safe to move! And behold, there the responsible adult is, having been advised by the civil authorities that Billy and all the other crouching children can go home! Mother is in the kitchen, dreaming up new ways to incorporate Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup into casseroles!

Whew! Such a relief, since I’d always been told: just one little A-bomb can ruin your entire day! But no, by being ready and remembering your basic DUCK AND COVER, you can be safely at home in your green suburb, even though the city center has been completely aerosolized, and great clouds of radioactivity have mushroomed into the air, where they will circle around the earth for all time! See? So now it’s time to bring back that loveable old turtle, Bert or Ernie, and sing that charming little tune:

DUCK!

(ding, ding)

AND COVER!

(ding!)

DUCK!

(ding, ding!)

AND COVER!  

Well, it turns out that the Blessed Mother has a beehive in her bonnet about the commies, and how we can all outwit them, since one of the girls told me that last week, it had been about how to construct a fallout shelter! And guess what? The point was to build the shelter with at least one right-angled turn. Why? Because the fallout falls straight down, and cannot turn corners!

“What if there’s a wind,” I said. “Anyway, my house has more right-angled turns than any bomb shelter ever built, and the maid still has to dust every surface every week. So why is fallout going to be any different?”

Well, they didn’t know, but at least they had the answer to the question that had always bugged me: how would we know if there was any fallout at all? Easy—we were to take a clean, white dinner plate and put it outside, if we suspected fallout. And then, every fifteen minutes, we were to open the door to examine the plate for grey residue. Oh, and then shut the door.

Quickly!

Well, I can hardly wait for that one, but I will note the Blessed Mother was singularly lacking, since there we all were, sitting ducks for the evil Commies who were even now pointing their nuclear warheads at Necedah, Wisconsin! So wasn’t that just the time to get us all down under the table, with our arms sheltering our neck? Shouldn’t we be prepared, as well?

Then I realized—half of us were so far gone with child that we’d never get up again!     

Chapter Five, Bad Novel

Hey, Marc—dinner is now done, and we’ve done the hour of “recreation” that is mandatory after dinner. Mandatory, yes, but is it recreation? Well, if hearing the “Blessed Mother” recite the goriest passages of the Old Testament is your idea of fun, then it’s a laugh riot.

Today we got the story of Lot and his wife, and I swear, the old bitch was fairly drooling when the wife turned to salt. Well, I had gone around about this story with Father Peter, back in those days when I only went to church because of him. And we used to debate about scripture a lot, since most of what I read in the Bible turned my stomach. As did the Blessed Mother’s version, since guess what? It’s the narrowest view of what happened possible.

And so, God turned Lot’s wife to a pillar of salt for disobedience. She had been warned! She knew that it was a sin to look back! She understood that the Lord was destroying Sodom for the sins that they had practiced—I swear, the Blessed Mother looked right at me as she was saying it. So the angels led Lot and his wife and his daughters away—damn nice of them, in the Blessed Mother’s view—but was that enough? No, Lot wants to hang out at another village, so the angels say yes to that, but is even that enough? Of course not, since stupid Mrs. Lot—she never even gets a name—decides to look back. And had she been told? Didn’t she know what was in store for her? Of course, but she’s a complete ninny, so she looks back, and is it the angels fault? No—it couldn’t be clearer. And hadn’t they warned her? Of course!

Well, I’d been around and around about that with Father Peter—so I raised my hand, and asked what about the Jewish legend that states that Lot’s wife was merely concerned with the husbands of her daughters: were they to be destroyed as well?

“Of course, our little Missy has some fancy explanation for something as clear as the nose on your face! No—the wife had been given a second chance (probably more than she deserved), and she flubbed it. She had only to obey the angels, to do as God directed her, and she was too weak, too proud, too foolish to do the simple thing. For God commands us to look always forward, to point our gaze to heaven and the heavenly delights. Never to look sideways, to question, to look back in regret. As you should do: you too have been given second chances. Your children, begotten in lust and sin in unholy beds, your children will be given the grace of a Christian home. They’ll be raised in the arms of the holy mother church, and never know that their mothers and fathers rutted and groped in the back seat of the Ford. Yes—little though you deserve it—you two have been led out of Sodom to a new life in the mountains. May you have more sense than Lot’s wife! May none of you look back!”

Well, Father Peter and I had talked a lot (no pun intended) about Sodom and Gomorrah, and it was Father’s view that it had nothing to do with homosexuality. Instead, he said it was about the failure to give hospitality to strangers which, in a desert society, was more than just a sin, it was a potential life sentence. So I asked the Blessed Mother about that.

“Heresy,” she spat at me. “The meaning couldn’t be clearer. Men were lying with men, as they did with women! Unnatural acts! Filth! Crimes against nature! And you have the gall, young lady, to put some fancy interpretation on a story that couldn’t be clearer! Oh, the devil himself must be laughing in every chamber of hell, just hearing you spout such ignorant nonsense! And don’t tell me that a priest put such notions in your head! Well do I know what sort of priest that was! A priest who doesn’t even know the Tridentine mass, a priest who gives the host into the hand of the supplicant, instead of placing it on the tongue! A priest who faces the congregation during mass, instead of leading the congregation with himself facing the cross! Oh yes, every one of those ‘reforms’ of Vatican II were nothing more than the devil’s work! The Virgin weeps when she appears, for her holy church, and for the pollution that has crept into it! The priests who have gone astray, gone over to the Reds, given themselves not to Jesus and the Virgin but to Stalin and the commies! Yes, their infiltration is nearly complete—the holy church itself is toppling on the brink! Only the Virgin has stayed the wrathful hand of Jesus himself, so great is his anger, so deep his pain. She begs him, she stays his hand, but one day he will smite us, his wrath will pour down each and every one of us! Fire, brimstone, await each of us, save those who have obeyed his sacred commands, as dictated by the Blessed Virgin! She alone can save us! She alone promises eternal salvation, it we direct ourselves to her, if we pray the Rosary, if we keep the First Saturdays, if we honor the commandments, and pray for the preservation of the Holy Roman Church.

Yes, few of us will survive his wrath! Look at you—just look at you!”

Spittle had formed on the sides of her lips; I swear, if she had opened her mouth, we would see that she had been frothing. Worse, she began pacing as she spoke, and making wild movements of her arms, as if she were fighting the devil and all his demons. But just when I though nothing worse could happen, she turned to me, approached me, and bore through me with her eyes. I swear, they turned red the angrier she got.

“You!” she shrieked, “YOU DARE TO COME HERE, to lecture a woman like me about the Bible! I, who have suffered each Advent and each Holy Week the passion of the cross, just as Jesus did! Yes, they have seen me, as the nails pierce my hands, as they are driven through my feet. I writhe, I scream, but still the virgin sends this pain, this suffering, so that I never stop insisting on the truth! The truth that the church itself denies! Oh, how they have scorned me! They tell me the Virgin never appeared. They tell me it was a figment of my imagination! Hah! 100,000 people saw it for themselves, that August day in 1950! One hundred thousand people, come here to this simple farmhouse in Necedah, Wisconsin—and what did they see? The sun—it turned in the sky, it shot off flares, it dimmed and then shone brightly! The crucifixes? They turned gold, right in the plain sight of everybody. The birds fell silent in the air, and the presence of the Virgin Mary was felt by everyone! Yes, SHE had graced us with her presence, and what did the ‘church’ say? That the divine words coming out of my mouth were nothing but a simple country woman’s words! That the sun, the crucifixes, the sign that everybody felt were imaginations, hallucinations, mass hysteria. That only the priests can give us the word of God!”

She got even closer.

“Well, I can tell you where YOU are headed, little Missy! Yes, you, who rutted through the dirt like a barnyard animal—who grunted and groaned as a man you barely knew, and who would never dream of uniting with you in Holy Matrimony, you pathetic slut, you took his seed and you wallowed in the filth, and you cursed the Virgin and Jesus and all the saints in heaven, who wept for you as you flung your dirt in their faces!”

She was panting—I could hear her gasp for breath, and I could almost feel her heart racing. Her eyes had narrowed, and she spoke faster and faster. As she spoke, her voice got louder, and rose in pitch as well. At the end, she was a shrieking banshee. And then, suddenly, after feeling the terror rising in my, there was nothing. I knew what I had to do.

“You’re a fucking lunatic,” I told her. Then I slapped her, and then I went to my room.   

      

   

Chapter 4, Bad Novel

Dear Marc,

I don’t blame you—I would have done the same as you. After all, there was nothing pleasant about either the journey or the task last Saturday.

I still don’t know why Mom didn’t just drive me up here herself. I mean, why stick you with the task? I know, we’re best friends and all, but it’s not like you’re the father of my child. And don’t tell me that Mom couldn’t face the shame of facing a couple nuns with her pregnant daughter. After all, it took her about five minutes to make the plan, to call you up, to haul you in, and to send me up—a day later—to what has to be the ugliest part of Wisconsin.

If anything, I was the one who was strung out about it all. Remember when I told you, about three weeks ago, that I might be pregnant? Well, that took me days to get up the courage, and you’re my best friend. And if I still worried about how you would take it, can you imagine what it was like for me to tell my mother?

She says she cares, but don’t let it fool you. She’s a phony, just like all the rest. Oh, she’ll come to all the band concerts at school, and she’ll lie about how Dad couldn’t make, due to his work. Work—that’s a good one! Like draining a bottle of whisky every night is work!

And she goes to all the parent / teacher nights, and talks to all the teachers, and they all tell me, the next day, how wonderful my mother is—she never misses an event!—and how lucky I am to have such a devoted parent. A father who works so hard to provide a good life for his family! Second in his class at Dartmouth Medical School, fellow of the American College of Neurosurgeons, head of Neurology at the University of Wisconsin! And there his wife is, taking care of their children, go to parent / teacher conferences, volunteering for the PTA! What a wonderful family!

On the outside, sure. But maybe somebody should talk to the garbage man, who can tell you that the bag of bottles makes a quite distinct, quite unmistakable clang every Wednesday morning. Do the neighbors hear? Do they know what life is like?

The trick, if I can manage it, is to get in as soon after school, grab something to eat, say hello to mother, is she’s around, and then go to my room. Why? Because I don’t want to be around when he’s downstairs, drinking.

Have you ever lived with a drunk? The thing is, 99% of the time, they’re fine. You play by their rules, you make yourself scarce, you have homework in your room, or are reading a book in bed, or you’re doing something—anything—to be where he won’t be. Because he will have stopped by the liquor store on the drive home, and the first thing you’ll hear, when he gets home, is him going to the kitchen and getting a glass. No, he doesn’t take off his coat, doesn’t change out of his work clothes, doesn’t go to the bathroom and wash his hands.

He also doesn’t open the refrigerator door to get anything to eat, because he stopped eating a long time ago. Did you know that? He’s getting all his calories from alcohol, which is also the reason his belly hangs over his belt. That’s not fat, that’s liver.

He’s made it through the morning by having a glass of vodka, which he keeps in the freezer. Why vodka? Because it’s not supposed to leave any scent on the breath—but let me tell you, any alcohol leaves its mark on the breath. So then he drives the half mile to his office, and spends the morning shuffling papers.

He isn’t, thank God, seeing patients, though he did for years, and God knows how many of them knew, or cared, how drunk he was. Because he had two things going for him: breath mints, and a very gruff bedside manner.

Oh—and a third thing: the patients were both in awe of him, and terrified for their own lives. You don’t go to a neurosurgeon for a tetanus shot: you go because your regular doctor has decided he can do nothing for you. Then, you get into the car, drive two or three hours from your small town into Madison, Wisconsin. Have you ever been there? Probably not, and even if you have, that was thirty years ago, for state basketball tournament. You were with friends then, it was late, you had had your first beers….

Maybe you remember that—that first exhilarating time out with friends in one of their cars. The big city—or so you imagined it. No cares, no worries. Life opening up, and this night was the very first taste of it. You imagined your life unfolding as beautifully as the lotus flower, and there would never be blight on the blossom, or a petal that would not unfold.

But it’s thirty years later, now, and you’ve done pretty well with your father-in-law’s car dealership in Antigo, or Colby, or Necedah. Never had time to get to Madison, and you wouldn’t be here, either, if the double vision hadn’t started. Or your speech became slurred. Or suddenly, your left foot seemed heavier, and then people began to notice it, and your wife told you—time to go to the doctor. You do, and you see his face, as he taps you left ankle repeatedly. You have perfect reflexes on the right foot—nothing on the left.

How do I know all this? Because my father used to take me into his clinic, when he worked Saturday mornings. Then, my mother would be sleeping, and my father would load me into the car, and we’d drive down to the hospital.

We must have made a pretty picture: the young, good-looking neurosurgeon, fresh from the Ivy League, with his little daughter in tow. OK—I admit, I idolized him. He knew things without anyone telling him.

“How long has it been since your wife left you?” he’d ask some farmer.

“Have you switched crops on your fields?”

“Why did you think a new pair of shoes would help?”

They would always be astonished. Later, he told me his tricks. Many were just guesses, but he got a surprising number right. A farmer comes in with smooth hands—well, what farmer has those? Unless, of course, he’s been washing dishes, since his wife up and left him.

So yes, he got away with it, in those early years when he was still seeing patients. There was the god-like status, there was the fear, there were the distractions of breath mints and little girls.

He was a God to me, then—if I saw him drink, I never saw him drunk. All right—I remember late at night, hearing him talk angrily to my mother. But why was she so cold to him? Why, when everybody else was in awe of him, why did she nag him, scold him? He had the admiration of the entire world, but there was no love for him at home, at least from her.

Or so I thought. I went on loving him, admiring him, for years, until one day I came home late from a concert, and found him asleep in his chair in from of the television. The bottle was empty, the glass was half empty.

And he had wet his pants.

I know what I should have done: tiptoed out of the room, let him sleep in his filth until morning. Then, he would have gotten up, realized his predicament, and crept to the shower and cleaned himself up. But I was horrified. Was he sick? What had caused him to wet himself? Had he blacked out?

I knelt next to him, I shook him, I called his name. For the longest time, he didn’t respond, and then he did. And even I, who had never seen a drunk before, knew that he was wasted.

Wasted and embarrassed. So he tried to cover himself, and when that didn’t work, he tried to get up. But he had wrapped a throw around his lap: it was January, and the night was cold. As he stop up, the wrap fell, and he tripped on it, falling to his left against the side of a glass coffee table.

“How dare you,” he shouted at me. “Can’t you see I was sleeping? You should have woken me up gently, and not forced me to get to my feet at once!”

The words were a slap. No, not the words, but the anger in his voice, the defiance, and the unjust accusation. I had done no such thing, and I stood there with my mouth agape. And that only made him angrier.

“Know where you’ve been,” he said. “Out with boys, likely. You give ‘em what they want? You putting it out good? Hah—how many boys did you let feel you up tonight, hunh? Five? Ten? Put out for the football team?”

I could only gape in horror, turn, and race up the stairs.

Sorry—dinner now. More when I can.

Love,

Joan