“THE STORY BEGINS on a cold winter’s night in Charlestown — part of Boston — where I was running along a dark street, breathing hard. I had been in a fight, which isn’t like me — Peter can certainly tell you — and I wouldn’t have thought that getting into a fight, a fight between adults, two grown men, was anything at all like me, but I think that I had actually tried to kill a cab driver. I hadn’t tried too hard, but there was a moment when I — ” He shook his head, apparently disgusted by the memory. “Anyway — there I was running, and running, and I kept on running until I reached the Charlestown Bridge — the bridge to the North End of Boston — where I stopped, thinking that I’d catch my breath, and I kept — pulling at the air, trying to suck it into my lungs, but it didn’t seem to penetrate me, didn’t seem to do me any good.
“I was leaning against the bridge, gasping, trying to get my breath, and I started — berating myself. There I was, wheezing, hardly able to breathe, and at the same time I was talking to myself, telling myself, ‘You’re out of shape. You shouldn’t have let this happen to you, you jerk.’ Actually, I said ‘you asshole.’ I put my hands on my knees and tried to breathe. I felt nauseated, and I heard myself talking to myself, as if there were two of me, and one of me had been passing by and saw the other one, bent over, with his hands on his knees, and started saying, ‘Catch your breath. Catch your breath. And then you’ve got to get out of here.’ But I was the person saying this.
“I stood up straight and waited until I was sure I wouldn’t fall down, and then I tried to run again, but I hadn’t gone far before I felt a numbness in my left armpit, and in my left elbow, and down my forearm, and in my little finger, and I heard myself saying, out loud, ‘Heart attack. This is a heart attack. I’m having a heart attack.’
“Then I answered myself — the other me did. Out loud. Out loud, I said, ‘It’s just a pinched nerve.’
“‘A pinched nerve?’ I said — out loud, mind you. ‘You think that’s all it is?’ Fortunately — I mean fortunately for my reputation — all of this was happening on a winter night and the streets were quiet, virtually deserted. It was late, and Boston is not a late-night town.
“‘A pinched nerve,’ the other me said. ‘I wouldn’t give it another thought.’
“‘That is fucking stupid,’ I told him. ‘In a few minutes I could be lying on the sidewalk, dead.’
“I turned toward Causeway Street. He asked, ‘Where are we going?’
“‘Charlesbank Hospital,’ I said. I was really getting annoyed with this guy — and he was me.
“‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he said. ‘You’re going to embarrass yourself. You’re going to get everyone excited about a heart attack, when all you’ve got is a case of bad nachos and too many margaritas.’
“‘Shut up,’ I said, and I began walking, slowly, toward Charlesbank Hospital. I began contemplating my mortality.
“‘What are you doing now,’ he asked me, very sarcastically — contemptuously, I would say — ‘contemplating your mortality?’
“‘Maybe,’ I said, ‘maybe.’
“‘And well you might,’ he said, ‘walking along these streets this late at night.’ I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of laughing, even though I thought that was pretty funny. ‘That was a joke,’ he said. ‘Where’s your sense of humor?’
“‘This is no laughing matter,’ I said. ‘I’m confronting death, and I feel — I feel — ’
“And he said, ‘Cheated.’ I could have killed him. ‘Am I right?’ he asked. He was taunting me. ‘I am,’ he said. ‘I know I am. You didn’t get what you wanted out of life.’
“I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of answering that, but the truth is that he was exactly right, and what I felt cheated out of was Effie.”
He looked at her, she nodded, and he said, parenthetically, “We were not together at that time, and if you had asked me I would have said that it was an impossibility for us ever to be together, but that’s another story,” and he went back to the story of his death.
“The two of us walked along in silence — and that’s exactly the way it felt, that the two of us were walking along — and we finally came to a narrow street that I knew led to the emergency entrance at Charlesbank. It was a short street, but I was so tired that it seemed long, longer than I could manage. A taxi came my way, leaving the hospital, turning out of the circle at the emergency entrance, and I thought maybe I could just flag it down and go home to bed.
“The other me said, ‘Let’s get that cab.’
“‘No,’ I said, and I began walking toward the entrance. Each step seemed harder than the last. I had never felt so tired in my life. When I reached the edge of the building I saw some steps that led to a side door, and I thought of stopping and sitting there, but I thought that if I did stop there I would not get up. I would die there, on those steps, so I made myself keep on going, even though I was just barely shuffling along, mechanically, with my head down, and I felt so cold and heavy, as if I were covered with wet snow.
“‘I’m going to get that cab,’ he said, and his voice was coming from behind me now, and I thought he didn’t stay with me — he’s going home.
“I found myself at the doors, a pair of doors, flat glass doors, closed, with no handles or doorknobs, and I was confused. I couldn’t figure out how I could get through them, and I thought maybe he’ll help me, and I turned around to call out to him, but when I turned around I felt dizzy and I knew I was going to pass out, and as I fell, backward toward the doors, I saw him get into the cab — I saw myself get into the cab — and then I fell backward toward the doors, and I expected to fall against them, but they slid open, sideways, and I thought, electric eye, and now the insane part begins — unless you think it’s all been insane — because I am convinced that I am still falling toward those doors, that these are my last thoughts, and that this,” he said, looking around at all of us and smiling wickedly, “is the story of my death.”
[to be continued]
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