The Spectator Bird Read Free

stood with his cane planted and both hands stacked on it and looked down on me from his stooped six feet five.
    â€œI wanted to ask but didn’t quite dare,” I said. “How’s Tom?”
    â€œHe’s a dead man. I’ve just been down at the clinic with Edith while she heard it from Arthur.”
    â€œOh, Christ I thought she was being pretty silent.”
    â€œShe’s all right You know what she wants to see Ruth about?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œTo tell her she can’t play the piano for the shut-ins for a while. Wants to arrange for someone else.”
    I thought about how much my mind would be on those shut-ins if I’d just got Edith’s news. “That’s touching,” I said. “Does Tom know?”
    â€œHe’s known for a week. I talked with him.” The gray corkscrews of hair stood up on his head. The breath he breathed down on me was loud and sour. “We both thought it was better she should hear it from his doctor. Tom couldn’t quite tell her. That’s a very close marriage.”
    â€œI guess,” I said. “They’re always so composed about everything you get to thinking of them as unflappable.”
    A little gust of wind came up the valley, the roadside darkened under a swift cloud shadow. I rubbed my goose-pimpled arms. “Well, damn everything,” I said. “Damn the clouds. Damn the dawdling mailman. Damn the collective carcinogens. How do doctors stand being always cheek by jowl with the grim reaper?”
    â€œDeath?” Ben said, surprised. “Death isn’t that much of a problem. It’s as natural as living, and just as easy, once you’ve accepted it. I’ve been dead twice myself. Both times when they hooked up my pacemaker I died on them, and they revived me.”
    â€œWell, at least your book on old age has a logical ending.”
    I must have sounded bitter, because he fixed his old medical eyes on me again. “I haven’t seen you around much lately. What’ve you been doing?”
    â€œTending my garden.”
    â€œYou ought to wear a sweater in this kind of weather. Been having any more pain?”
    â€œWho told you I’d been having any pain?”
    â€œYour doctor,” Ben said. “To whom I referred you. I looked at your last tests. Jim thought he might have depressed you with that diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis. Did he?”
    â€œDepressed me? No. I didn’t exactly cheer, but I wouldn’t say I’m depressed.”
    â€œWhat’s he giving you?”
    â€œAllopurinol for the uric acid, indocin for the pain, synthroid for general metabolic reasons, oronase for the blood sugar, something else for the cholesterol, I forget its name. I just take the handful of pills Ruth hands me.”
    â€œI forget, have you got a heart history?”
    â€œMyocarditis once, years ago. Or pericarditis, endocarditis, nobody ever quite labeled it. I got these chest pains, and the electrocardiograph went crazy, and I dropped about twenty pounds. They kept me in bed and it went away after a while.”
    It was just like his office. He made me feel defensive, standing there planted on his cane and scowling at me. He grunted and wheezed, and again I smelled his sour breath. It annoyed me to have this giant ruin acting as if he was immune and immortal, and probing around in my insides, when he was ten years closer to the edge than I was. Sure enough, he undertook to reassure me.
    â€œThat’s one thing that suggests rheumatoid to Jim, that myocarditis,” he said. “It’s associated with rheumatoid the way rheumatic fever’s related to coronary disease. But I don’t necessarily believe he’s right. Lemme see your hands.” He examined the knuckles of the hand I held out, then ordered up and examined the other. He did not say what the inspection told him. “Even if he should be right,” he said, “you’re not