Yesterday’s Indianapolis 500 was certainly one for the ages.

It was the 100^th anniversary of the speedway—not to be confused with the anniversary of the race, which was halted several years during the war years, both the first and second World Wars. The 100^th running of the event will be marked later this decade. Coincidentally, I attended my first 500 in 1966 as a nine-year-old boy. It was the 50^th running of the race, and a tradition of my own was born that year. In the seventies and eighties I strung together more than twenty consecutive races—I have the tickets to prove it. I witnessed Foyt become the first man to win four 500s. I’ve seen some of the greatest drivers—A.J. Foyt, Jimmy Clark, Graham Hill, the Unsers and the Andrettis, Emerson Fittipaldi and many others. I witnessed history as Janet Guthrie became the first woman to ever start the Indy 500.

Sadly, in the 1970’s, the sport began to change. It became more about technology. Where once a great driver could put a car into Victory Lane, it’s now about investing the most money in equipment. Today a winning team is composed of maybe 40% driver. In the 1990’s I stopped going to the race.

Three and a half years ago my now ex-girlfriend, knowing of my past love for this event, asked me when I was going to take her to a 500. She’d long complained that I didn’t take her out enough and so I ordered two tickets—not the best seats in the house; I ordered them late and few good seats were available. We went and she complained about the seats, the noise and the heat and I was reminded why it was I rarely took her anyplace. Did I mention she’s now my ex-girlfriend?

Last fall I suggested to a boyhood pal, who had never been to the Greatest Spectacle in Racing, that attending this special anniversary celebration might be the one to make his first. Mark told me, “Sure, let me get back to you,” leaving me to wonder if he really would. True to his word, he contacted me a few days later to tell me that two of his buddies from church wanted to come along and so I ordered four tickets.

Four grown men, we guys of a certain age, driving all night to attend the Indy 500—truly a recipe for a grand time. Or maybe disaster.

I told Mark we should leave at 2:30 Sunday morning, which would allow us enough time to enjoy breakfast at the International House of Pancakes on Meridian at 16^th Street. There was nothing special about the IHOP other than its rich history: Dad had taken me there in 1966 and I’d gone there every year I ever attended a race. I took a previous girlfriend there—it was the year Foyt won his fourth—as well as my wife and, three years ago, my old girlfriend. The IHOP was long part of my tradition. From there we’d head downtown and grab a shuttle to the track where we’d roam the infield to check out the sights before the race.

Well, David was late arriving to Northridge Church, where we’d all agreed to meet. By the time we got his stuff loaded into Mark’s Expedition we were thirty minutes behind schedule. But Mark got us back on schedule by pushing the upper limits of the posted speeds.

We talked all night, the stuff guys talk about. Mark talked about his three sons, of whom he is rightly proud. I’ve met them all and they are fine young men.

“Daniel,” he said, “had to do a paper for school on the merits of video games.”

Daniel is Mark’s youngest, at age nineteen. He’s intelligent and, as Mark claims, not nearly as quiet in private as he is in public. Best of all, he’s respectful of others—including our generation, when it’s earned.

“There are merits to playing video games?” David asked from the backseat. “As opposed to, say, reading a book?”

“That was the challenge of the assignment,” Mark said. “He put forth a good argument.”

“He convinced you?” I asked.

“No.”

We all laughed.

“Daniel told me he caught up with you on some website where you were carrying on a debate about some aspect of baseball,” Mark told me.

“No kidding?”

“I forget what the discussion was about but he told me he thought you sure were passionate about baseball.”

“That was a surprise to you?”

Mark laughed. “No.”

From there we talked of baseball, the beauty of the game, instant replay, steroids, the petty squabbles between billionaire owners and millionaire players.

“You’re against instant replay,” Mark said to me, “even though last summer it would’ve guaranteed Galarraga’s perfect game?”

“He still twirled a perfect game,” I countered. “Everyone knows that. Jim Joyce admitted it later, that he blew the call. In my mind I attended the only perfect game in major league history that will never appear in any record book. There’s something field of dreamish about that.”

“It’s not a perfect game if it took twenty-eight outs,” Mark said.

“It is if the umpire admits he blew the call.”

“Tell that to Galarraga.”

“He knows,” I said. “In his heart he knows. He doesn’t need no steenkin’ record book to tell him.”

We both agreed that Galarraga showed incredible class in the aftermath of what might have been.

We talked of politics and bin Laden and what constitutes torture.

“I’m not above torture,” Mark said. “I’d employ water-boarding to obtain the information that might save my family.”

We talked of David’s recent separation from his wife and his impending divorce.

Starlin talked about his motorcycle accident.

“I looked down for a minute,” he explained, “and when I looked up again a Volvo was stopped right in front of me. I went over the handlebars.”

Mark quipped that a minute was a long time to have one’s eyes not on the road.

We spoke of a variety of topics, including the race and who our favorites were.

“My favorite is anyone not driving for Penske or whose name is not Danica Patrick,” I said.

“I think she’s hot,” Star said.

“What’ve you got against Danica?” David asked.

“When she first broke in,” I said, “she did an interview during which she said she wanted to be taken seriously as a racecar driver, not a woman trying to play in the sandbox with the boys. Then she proceeded to take off her clothes for the swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated.”

“You have a problem with that?”

“I like pretty girls as much as the next guy,” I said. “But if she wants to be taken seriously as a racecar driver, that’s not the way to go about it.”

“Carl Edwards in NASCAR did a spread for a magazine. That guy is ripped.”

“So what’s good for the gander is good for the goose.”

“Right.”

“Two wrongs make a right.”

“What’s wrong about it?”

“In a society that purports to be anti-objectification of women, a lot.”

And so it went. We passed the miles and the hours debating, in a healthy fashion, a host of topics, each of us respectful of the other’s opinions.

Four hours later we rolled into Indianapolis, gassed up the Expedition, and made our way into town.

We turned left onto Meridian and as we approached 16^th Street I told Mark the IHOP would be on the left; but when we got there we saw that the IHOP had been replaced by a CVS and I found I was more than a little disappointed that a part of my past had been unceremoniously eradicated.

We drove downtown to get our shuttle tickets—$24 for a roundtrip fare. I recalled my dad telling me when he first started coming to Indy, in 1951, the train fare was but fifty cents.

We found another diner for breakfast where the food was far better than the IHOP had ever been; but it did little to assuage my disappointment.

It was nearly ten o’clock by the time we arrived at the track, and we spent an hour roaming the infield before making our way to our seats in turn one.

The atmosphere was electric, as it always is during the prerace festivities.

I was gratified that some things never change—God Bless America and America the Beautiful were sung. The invocation was given, Military Taps played, the Star Spangled Banner sung (a stealth bomber flew overhead looking sleek and ominous and took with it our breath). When Jim Nabors sang Back Home in Indiana it was again, for a moment, 1966 for me. I thought of my dad, shared the moment with him, and was glad the guys couldn’t see the tears in my eyes behind my sunglasses.

When the command was given to the drivers to start their engines I was only dimly aware of the addition of “ladies.” When the engines fired the four of us exchanged high fives and remained standing through the parade laps and the pace lap.

When the green flag dropped and the cars came by at speed, Mark turned to me and said something I couldn’t hear for the sake of the blessed noise of the screaming engines, but I didn’t care.

We then settled into our seats to watch the race unfold.

It was a race for the ages, a throwback to the golden age of motor sports. The rabbits, one by one fell by the wayside. Castroneves fell a lap behind; the pole sitter, Tagliani, crashed. The race was fast, with few caution periods.

When Danica Patrick took the lead late in the race, Mark elbowed me; but I told him she’d have to stop for fuel and would finish no better than 10^th, which is pretty much where she’d been running all day.

The finish, like the race, was fast but eventful.

Kanaan and Franchitti looked to be contenders for the Borg Warner, but they, too, had to stop for a splash of fuel with a handful of laps to go.

J.R. Hildebrand inherited the lead and the race was his to lose, which he did when he hit the fourth turn wall on the last lap, leaving Dan Wheldon to take the checkered flag in one of the wildest finishes I can remember. Hildebrand's wrecked car stopped in front of us and he climbed from the cockpit looking as demolished as his once sleek car looked.

On our shuttle, as we inched along, I spotted a woman in a day-glo pink swimsuit top and short denim cutoffs. Although buxom, she wasn’t very pretty and was too old to be dressed as she was; but who was I to judge?

I called out to David, seated across the aisle from me, if he thought her top was indeed day-glo pink.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m terrible with colors.”

A woman’s voice from behind me concurred with my assessment. I turned in my seat thinking I was about to incur her wrath. But she was an attractive woman of our age, seated next to her husband, and she was good-natured about it.

“Did you notice her sunglasses were white?” she asked with a dazzling grin as her husband laughed.

I looked back at the woman in question and then back at the woman behind me.

“No, I missed that,” I said. “To be honest I was trying to make out the tattoo on her navel.”

When the bus inched past her, I added, “Dere dey glo.”

We had a bird’s eye view of the bus in front of us, where an advertisement stared back at us: a photo of a mansion and the words, See the House that Jefferson built.

“Bus driver,” I called out from my seat three rows behind him.

“Yessir?”

“What’s your name?”

“Howard.”

“Howard,” I said. “Are you going to show us the house that Jefferson built after you drive your bus through it?”

Howard joined us with a laugh and assured us that wouldn't happen.

Our drive home was pleasant and we passed the miles by talking about the day’s events and the lives to which we were returning. I mentioned some small piece of 500 trivia, adding that I was a wealth of worthless knowledge where Indy was concerned, and David said, “That’s something you wouldn’t learn by playing video games.”

Mark said he could see taking his grandchildren to a 500 one day when they got old enough and I took pleasure in passing a new tradition to someone.

We arrived at Northridge Church just after nine and I exchanged handshakes with Star and David, a hug with my childhood buddy, Mark.

On my drive home I lost myself in thoughts of the day, the race, what it meant to me, its traditions, Dad, and my own traditions. I thought of A.J. Foyt, a boyhood idol, who drove the pace car earlier in the day. It was the fiftieth anniversary of his first 500 win, and I wondered where the years had gone.

I fought back tears as I realized, yet again, you really can’t go home again.

I’d learned that lesson fifteen years ago when, after Dad passed away, my sister and I sold the house in which we grew up.

Alone in that house for the last time, I made my way through it, checking all the cupboards to make sure we hadn’t missed anything, and I caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror. The image that stared back at me was fifteen years old. Behind me stood Dad, teaching me how to tie a Windsor knot in the tie I wore to my high school homecoming dance.

A few weeks later I drove by that house on my way to visit friends who lived around the corner. It was dusk and I noted the new owners had replaced the drapes of the living room window with vertical blinds. The blinds were open and I could see the wallpaper in the living room had been torn down and the walls painted: the home my parents had made for me and my sister was now someone else’s home.

They, whoever they are, say that change is good. But that’s a blanket statement. Not all change is good, even if it is inevitable. Today’s Indy 500 is faster and safer than it was during the golden age of racing. It’s common for women to compete in what once was a male sport; when I first started attending the Great Race women weren't allowed in the pits. This year’s field boasted four women. Eventually the Borg Warner trophy will bear the likeness of a woman, and that, along with all the rest, is a good thing.

But this morning that does little to assuage my grief over a past forever etched only in memories.

“How come I never see you have any visitors?”

Kelly was the young nurse aide who came from the hospice in the evenings to take my vitals. Young. It’s a relative term: when you reach sixty, everybody seems young. Maybe it’s partly to do with the fact you’ve for­gotten what’s it like to be young. Then there’s the lyric in Billy Joel’s An Innocent Man: “Some people see through the eyes of the old before they ever get a look at the young.” But then, I’m hardly an innocent man. Anyway, I recall a comedy routine I’d seen years ago, maybe when I’d been in my early thirties. It might’ve been a George Carlin routine but I can’t be certain—hell, I’m not certain of a lot things since I started get­ting sicker. The routine: You become twenty-one, turn thirty; you push forty and reach fifty. After that it’s all downhill: you make it to sixty, building up speed until, if you’re fortunate, you hit seventy. Well, I’d made it to sixty but I’d never hit seventy. The routine finished with each day in your eighties being a complete cycle unto itself—hitting lunch, turning 4:30, and, finally, reaching bedtime. It was funny then; not so much now.

In her late twenties, tallish and slender, I deemed Kelly, by my younger standards, to be rather plain, wearing no makeup and typically pulling her hair back. I guessed, with her hair back, it made her job easier. Still, she had a pleasant face, and when she smiled, she smiled with her eyes. She was kind to me, attentive, and genuinely seemed to care, making small talk that didn’t seem small. Unlike Lynn, her counter­part, who came each morning. Perhaps, because of Lynn’s age—I guessed her to be in her early fifties—she’d seen it all and was therefore suffering burnout. Not that she didn’t do her job; it was just in the way by which she went about it. Lynn was clinical, asking only the questions she needed to ask regarding my condi­tion and how I was feeling. I once asked her to have a cup of coffee and sit with me while I had breakfast—I’d never cared much for eating alone, a dislike that had manifested itself greatly since I’d become house-ridden—but she told me she had to keep to her sche­dule; I couldn’t fault her for that.

 “Because,” I said, “this is our time together, Kelly.”

She laughed in that tuneful way of all women whose origins come from Ireland. A woman from my past, I can’t recall who but it may have been someone I’d hurt, would claim Kelly’s laugh was forced, that she was laughing only from obligation or was laughing at me, and that inside she was probably thinking, asshole. I didn’t think it was forced for either of those reasons, or out of pity for a dying old man. Nor did I think she thought me an asshole.

“You know, your morning counterpart, Nurse Ratched, seems in a hurry to be on her way and won’t even have a cup of coffee with me.”

“Nurse Ratched?”

“Jack Nicholson’s tormentor in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” I said. “A movie from the seventies. Won like, five Academy Awards. But I guess that was just a little before your time. Lynn,” I thought to add.

 “Well,” Kelly said, “don’t be too hard on her. She has her whole day ahead of her and really must try to stay on schedule. I’m fortunate that you’re my last patient.”

I’m fortunate, her words echoed. Not you’re fortu­nate.

“That must be it.”

“Seriously,” she said. “Don’t you have family—children or a brother or a sister—friends who come to visit?”

“I have no family, no love interest, no life-long partner I can trust to not abandon me as she waits for me to abandon her. I may once have had a sister, but my memory sometimes plays tricks on me these days. If I did we were never close. I’ve an old friend who comes to visit every day, after you’re gone.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Whatever for? It’s by choice and by way of the life I chose to live.”

“Everyone should have someone,” she said, and I recalled a time in my life when I’d felt the same way. Maybe I still felt that way—everyone should. But some of us manage to make it out of this life without some­one.

On a whim I asked if she could stay while I ate my dinner. Meals on Wheels was now bringing me my three squares and I didn’t really have anything to share but bottled water out of my refrigerator or a cup of tea.

Kelly looked uncertain; perhaps it went against hospice regulations. But something else mingled in her mien, which I would later, when I was alone, identify as pity. After a moment, to my surprise, relief and pleasure, she agreed to a cup of tea.

“Thanks,” I said.

As I filled the kettle with water, Kelly told me she liked the ring that I wore.

“It was a gift,” I said, “from a former girlfriend who was of Latvian descent.” I wondered why my memory managed to hold onto this particular recollec­tion—Judy had been the gifter of the ring. In which side of the brain did regret reside? Apparently the can­cer had not yet assailed that side. “Legend has it that a ruler of Latvia—king, or regent or whatever they called them several hundred years ago—was deposed by some invading country. Riga is an important port city on the Baltic Sea. He wore a ring just like this one. He fled and to prevent his capture, all the men in Latvia took to wearing a ring just like it, to make his capture more difficult—sort of a Spartacus thing.”

“A cool legend,” Kelly said, and I wondered if she knew who Spartacus had been, if she’d seen the movie.

“And they call Poles dumb,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“Wouldn’t have been easier if he’d just taken his off?”

Kelly laughed.

While we waited for the water to boil, I asked: “Are you happy, Kelly?”

If my question surprised her, she didn’t show it.

“I think so. Why do you ask?”

“Just an observation. You seem a very pleasant sort and very happy in your work.”

“I am. I’ve wanted to do this since I was a little girl.”

“You’re very lucky in that you heard your calling early. Some people never really hear it and go through life in a reactive fashion.”

“That’s sad,” she said, as if this were a revelation.

“Yes, it is.” Then, “Are you married, Kelly?” She looked away, seemingly embarrassed, and so I added, “I’m not asking for myself you understand. I mean, surely you know there’s no future with me?”

Kelly met my eyes, smiled and told me she wasn’t married.

I poured the hot water into a ceramic teacup with a colorful floral pattern on its sides. The cup had a sort of colander sleeve that fit inside with holes in the bottom and sides for use with loose tea; I had but Twinings peppermint tea bags. The peppermint was soothing to my irritable bowel. Irritable was an understatement. These days it was downright outraged, despite eating what my doctor had prescribed as a “bland” diet. I ate only a bite or two of any meal and as a result my weight had dropped to under one-hundred-seventy pounds, a weight I hadn’t seen since I’d turned twenty. I dipped the teabag into the cup a half dozen times and then put the lid on the cup. It, too, had a floral pattern.

“That’s a beautiful cup,” Kelly said.

“It belonged to my mother.” I glanced at my watch. “Give it three or four minutes to steep. Longer if you like it stronger. Honey?”

“A large dollop of cream, if you have any.”

“Just skim milk.”

“That’s fine.”

I retrieved the milk from the refrigerator and sat down across the kitchen table from Kelly.

“Anyone special in your life?” I asked and Kelly again looked away, so I ventured, “From the way you said that I’d venture you’ve recently had your heart bruised.”

Kelly’s eyes teared up and I apologized. “I didn’t mean to bring up any pain.” I pushed a box of Kleenex across the table to her. I had boxes all over the house—kitchen, bedroom, living room—since my sinuses seemed to run constantly, like the bathroom faucet I figured to let go on dripping for the new owner to fix.

“That’s okay,” she said, dabbing at her eyes. “I met someone a few months ago, a nice guy, but recently he’s been kind of distant. I think he may be getting ready to break up with me.”

“Then he’s a fool.”

“Thank you. You’re a nice man.”

“You’ll get over him,” I said, thinking, If you only knew, Kelly. “And I expect you’ll find a terrific young man because you’re a terrific young woman.”

“Thanks,” she said, managing a smile that sud­denly made her look, well, terrific. At some point, I couldn’t recall when, she’d let loose her hair, making her look downright pretty.

“You’re welcome. Look, you want my dinner? My appetite isn’t so good tonight.”

“No, thank you, but you should have a couple of bites at least. You’ve lost a lot of weight, even in the last week.”

“Yeah, the twenty pounds I couldn’t lose the last ten years, and now it’s dropping like the hygrometer in my humidor when I forget to fill it with solution.”

Kelly laughed musically and I wondered if she even knew what a hygrometer might be. I forced my­self to take a bite of the side dish, unadorned rice, while she removed the lid from her teacup, placed it on a saucer and added some skim milk, all before I realized I’d forgotten to check my watch.

“That book in the other room,” she asked, “When Legend Becomes Myth? Is that your name I saw on the cover?”

“Guilty. It’s a proof copy.”

“What’s it about?”

I told her.

“It sounds intriguing.”

I laughed. “That sounds real politically correct. Very non-committal.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way, really.” Then she said, “A proof copy? That means it’s not available for e-readers?”

“Correct.”

“I’d love to read it. When will it be available?”

“Early May.”

Kelly looked crestfallen; but her disappointment seemed for me.

“I’m sorry,” she said. She knew I wouldn’t live to see that day.

“I can let you have that proof copy, if you’d like.

“Really?”

“I approved it several weeks ago, after having poured over it a half-dozen times and finding no errors. Besides, there comes a time when, where revi­sions are concerned, a writer must let his work go.”

“But—”

“Trust me. I have no use for it.”

“Would you inscribe it for me?”

I nodded and grinned. “Already, I have a fan.”

Kelly smiled and told me she needed to get going. She’d finished her tea and I hadn’t even been aware she’d been drinking it.

“Listen,” I said as I got up and reached for her empty teacup. “I want you to take this, too.”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t.”

“I won’t take no for an answer. My mother would want you to have it and we both know you’ll take good care of it.”

As I rinsed the cup the doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it,” Kelly said.

A few moments later I brought the teacup into the living room to find Kelly introducing herself to Patrick. He’d been good about visiting me, at times bringing along Shelly, since I’d lost my driving privileges the result of the hallucinations I started having a couple weeks ago. Shortly thereafter my doctor informed me the cancer had likely spread to my brain and so I’d given up driving. The last thing I wanted was to jeopardize other motorists. The news brought to mind a fairly recent Mose Allison blues tune, My Brain. In­itially, his brain, a “cool little cluster,” is “steady working long as you keep that coffee perking;” but by the end of the tune, the result of “losing twelve hun­dred neurons every hour,” he’s soon to become “dumbfounded.” Dumbfounded: that’s where I was heading; soon after I could expect to become as func­tion­al as a stalk of celery, and about as interesting looking. Funny, the things that came to mind as my memory fell apart; easily, with no effort, they just popped up.

 “Hi, Patrick,” I said, handing Kelly the cup, and then I stepped over to the coffee table where When Legend Becomes Myth sat. I picked it up along with the pen that sat on the morning Free Press crossword puz­zle. That’s right, I work crosswords in ink, arrogant bastard that I am. Sadly, the crossword was unfinished. More and more, the clues were becoming meaningless to me. “Do me a favor, Patrick. Call the Freep in the morning and cancel my subscription, otherwise I’ll forget to do it.”

“Sure,” he said.

I scribbled a few words on the title page of Legend, signed it and handed it to Kelly. She of course opened it to where I’d written my inscription. A moment later she hugged me and left, obviously overcome with emotion.

“What was that all about,” Patrick asked when she’d gone.

“Sweet kid. Going through a tough time.”

Patrick forced himself to chuckle, a sound I hadn’t heard from him since I told him the news several months ago.

“I say something funny?”

“You’re dying and she’s going through a tough time?”

“Dying is not so tough. You’ll understand that when it comes your time, which hopefully won’t be for a long time. Sit down,” I added as I dropped to the sofa.

“How are you doing?” Patrick asked.

“Great. I finally dropped the weight I’ve been meaning to lose. Another ten pounds and I’ll be able to fit into the sport coat I wore to homecoming.”

“I should be so lucky,” he said. “You look great.”

He was lying but I didn’t tell him that. I knew I looked like death chilled over: gaunt, ashen. As bad days went, this had been a particularly good one; that Kelly had agreed to share a cup of tea with me had been the highlight. I had no idea what tomorrow might bring other than a few hours closer to the inevitable.

“Call me tomorrow, will you?” I asked. “I want to call my lawyer and make a change to my will. I want to leave my royalties to the hospice. They’re nonprofit. I know my insurance is paying most of the bill, but I want to give a little something extra back to them for the trouble I’ve put them through. I’ll need you to drive me over to his office, too, to sign the new papers. Oh, and I’ll likely need you to remind me that I want to do that.”

“Sure.” Patrick then went silent, which he’d been prone to do the sicker I became, as if he didn’t know what to say to a dying man. I resented him for that, not a lot, but a little. It’s okay, I think, for someone to re­sent a friend once in a while. Yet a dying man wants a sense of normalcy to the time he has left, some dis­trac­tion; but I said nothing to him. I can’t say I’d act any differently were our roles reversed.

“There’s something else I wanted to tell you,” I said, rummaging through the grab bag my once cool little cluster brain had become. “Oh, yeah. Take my humidor with you when you leave tonight. I know you’ve had your eye on it since you saw it. It’s got nearly fifty sticks in it. Far more than I’ll ever be able to smoke in what’s left of my lifetime.”

“Okay,” was all Patrick managed.

We then watched the hockey game for a while. The Wings were playing the Blackhawks at Joe Louis Arena and the Hawks were ahead when Patrick finally called it a night shortly after nine, taking with him my humi­dor, which he needed to remind me I’d given him. Un­fortunately for Patrick, he missed a Wings comeback—a goal scored in overtime.

I turned off the TV and went to my den to sketch. I’d taken it up a year or so ago, out of boredom. I’d done some sketching when I was a lad—nothing I ever kept, save for a Mother’s Day card I’d made for my mother that I came across while I’d been going through her belongings after she’d passed on. It was a drawing of a log cabin in the woods. I couldn’t remember how old I’d been, but the perspective was slightly off, so I must’ve been fairly young.

When I took it up again I sketched exclusively landscapes; I’d never been very good at portraits, but tonight I made an exception. For some reason Kelly’s image, as she’d taken my blood pressure, had stayed with me: her youthful innocence, prior to my learning of her bruised heart, and compassion had imprinted itself on some part of my brain left untouched by my cancer, perhaps the creative part—was that the left side or the right? It didn’t matter.

An hour later I sat looking at the result—the pers­pective was good and I’d captured her expression as well as I’d recalled it and I saw in my work what I’d seen in Kelly during the week I’d known her.

By the time I went to bed I’d forgotten that Patrick had come to visit, that we’d watched the hockey game, that the Wings had won in OT, that I’d given Patrick my humidor, that I’d ever owned one.

The next morning Patrick called to remind me to call my lawyer and why. He told me he had the day off and could take me to sign the papers if they could be prepared today. I called my lawyer immediately, be­fore I finished my cup of coffee, so I wouldn’t forget.

“What about the rest of your estate?” Frank asked me through the phone.

I waited a moment, became frantic; then I con­sented: “I’m sorry, Frank, my memory is spotty. Who gets it now?”

“Defenders of Wildlife. To protect the wolves in Wyoming and Alaska.”

“That’s right,” I said. I’d originally had my entire estate going to Defenders of Wildlife because I thought it horrendous what they were doing to wolves, aerial shootings, leaving poisoned meat for them to ingest, killing pregnant females and shooting pups in their dens—all because they were doing what they do: sur­viving on instinct, taking down a few head of cattle. All about the almighty dollar. That I was a canine kind of guy was secondary; I’d given up on man as a species to which I wanted to leave anything. Kelly had left me hope that there were some good people left in the world, so I wanted to give something back to the hos­pice for whom she worked. I thought a moment about leaving the remainder of my estate to the hospice, but in the end decided to leave it to the wolves: they needed protection.

Then I called Patrick and asked him if he could take me to the lawyer’s office after lunch to sign the papers.

After we hung up I noticed a dark rectangle on my liquor cabinet and wondered what was missing.

Patrick brought me home and stayed with me until the aide from hospice came. She told me her name and in­formed me that Kelly had been delayed by another patient and couldn’t come tonight; I stayed myself from asking who Kelly was.

The aide (already I’d forgotten her name) left and Patrick also left a short time later. Sadly, Patrick had little to contribute to conversation; but I forgave him. I found I, too, had little I wanted to discuss. I was so tired.

In my den I came across the sketch I’d forgotten I’d done the previous night and spent several minutes walking from room to room, sketchbook in hand, as if I might discover her name in one of them.

There was a woman, long ago—she had been my first lover although I couldn’t recall her name. We were together only three times. I felt no disappointment when she broke it off with me so I know I didn’t love her, or she me.

Something in the sketch reminded me of that woman from so many years ago, but it wasn’t her.

I struck my forehead with the flat of my hand, as if I could jar some memory from out of the void my brain had become.

Why is she haunting me, tormenting me now?

I looked more closely at the sketch. The paper was off white, but it didn’t show signs of aging, no yel­lowing.

No, the sketch isn’t of that woman.

Whoever she was, she was beautiful.

The next morning a stranger let herself into my house, telling me she was from hospice and that her name was Lynn. She startled me, as I’d been asleep. She assured me she was no burglar and had let herself into my house using the key I’d given her.

She took my vitals and asked a few questions, and then asked me to get up. I couldn’t get out of bed. She made a phone call, but I never knew to whom or why; by then I’d slipped into a coma, from which I never re­gained consciousness.

Second Decade, Age 11

“Your son has a hernia,” the doctor told my mother.

I’d noticed a bulge in my abdomen, just above the root of my penis a few weeks ago. It was accompanied by bloating and painful gas buildup that went away after I pushed the bulge back and lay horizontal for a while.

“What?” my mother said. “But how?”

The doctor shrugged and said, “It might be congenital.”

“What’s congenital?” I asked. It sounded pretty serious.

“You might’ve been born with a weakness,” he explained. “Or it might’ve been the result of trauma. Have you sustained an injury to your groin?”

I recalled Francine’s kicks to my balls but said nothing.

My mother scheduled surgery for me the following Monday.

My room was in Art Centre Hospital on Woodward Avenue in Detroit.

The race riots were in full bloom in 1967 and from my first floor room I watched armed National Guard troops drive past my window in jeeps.

Mom left (Dad had stayed home) just before Ed Sullivan came on, telling me, “Good night, honey. Don’t worry. Everything will be all right.” She sounded somewhat worried herself, although I wasn’t. This was my first night away from home; it was an adventure.

A short time later a male intern came in with a chrome bowl and a straight razor and told me it was time for my shave.

“I’m eleven,” I said. “I don’t shave.”

He grinned and told me to raise my hospital gown.

With that he proceeded to lather up my genitals with soap and shave my balls.

I was on edge as I heard the rasp of the blade against my testicles. Rodney Dangerfield was doing a standup act on the TV. He told a joke about being held up by a mugger with a knife. “I could tell it wasn’t a professional job,” he said. “There was butter on it.” I heard the intern chuckle, which left me feeling even testier over my predicament.

The intern left and a few minutes later another intern came in, a plump black woman.

“Time for your enema,” she said.

“What’s an enema?”

“I put this,” she told me, holding up a plastic nozzle attached to a hose that was in turn attached to a bag of what appeared to be soapy water, “into your backside and release the contents of this bag into your colon.”

My eyes got the size of silver dollars, prompting the intern to laugh. I watched her immense breasts shake from the ferocity of her laugh, its pitch that of a baritone.

“Don’t worry. It’s not as bad as it sounds. It’s to clean out your colon before surgery. Now roll over onto your side.

I did as I was told and a moment later, feeling violated, felt the nozzle inserted into my rectum, the flood of the water felt warm as my colon expanded to accommodate it.

“Almost there,” the intern said; I felt as if my colon were about to explode.

A moment later she withdrew the nozzle and told me to head to the bathroom to release the water. Like I needed to be told.

I raced to the bathroom and sat just in the nick of time, releasing the water, and everything that accompanied it, into the cold porcelain.

I sat there for about fifteen minutes as my bowels emptied in sequential movements—like the orchestra to which my parents had taken me and Francine over the summer: long classical pieces played in “movements.” Every time I thought they were done playing they launched into another movement. Each time I felt I was done, I’d lean forward to wipe my backside only to feel yet another movement.

I finally made it back to my bed wondering what new dread might await me next in this little shop of horrors.

My surgery was scheduled for Monday morning, and a nurse came in first thing to give me a shot of something, which left me feeling groggy.

A short time later my bed was wheeled out of my room and toward the operating room. My mother walked alongside me with her hand on top of mine.

At the door to the operating room my mother again reassured me that everything was going to be all right. I was eleven and had no clue as to the dangers of surgery. I was about to be cut open and couldn’t wait to tell my buddies of the ordeal, sans the shave and the enema parts. Like a soldier wounded in a war I intended to bear my scar proudly.

I was wheeled under the brightest lights I’d ever seen and a mask was put over my face; a voice told me to count backward from one hundred. I got to ninety-seven and …

… the next thing I heard was the sound of a child wailing. It wasn’t me. My lower abdomen, on the right side, felt as if it were on fire. It seared.

A mask covered my face and my tongue was as dry and as rough as a Brillo pad right out of the box, before it’s been soaked in water. I tried to roll over onto my left side but found myself restrained.

The screaming child, somewhere to my right, continued to exercise its pipes. Shut-up, I thought, and then tried to work my mouth around the words, to give voice to my annoyance; it resisted my best efforts and what came out sounded as if it were mired in oatmeal.

I breathed deep from the mask several times, which must’ve been oxygen, and my head began to clear.

The scream came again and I told it to shut-up again; the scream ignored me and I heard a voice, although I could make out no words, try to placate the screaming voice.

I waited for what could’ve been minutes, months or a millennium.

Finally hands removed the mask from my face and a moment later I felt the bed on which I lay pushed into motion.

I was brought back to my room, the gurney on which I lay aligned with my bed and I tried to roll over onto my bed. Two hands pushed me back and two interns lifted me, by the sheet under me, and slid me over onto my bed.

A voice told me I was to remain on my back. I asked for a drink of water and was denied.

My mother was at my side; she applied a wet washrag wrapped around some ice chips to my lips—it felt blessedly cool. I sucked on the rag to moisten my tongue and drifted off into unconsciousness.

Some time later, it might have been minutes, months or a millennium, I awoke and tried to roll over; my abdomen was a flaming sword of agony. Hands stopped me yet again. The hands may have belonged to my mother. I heard her voice tell me I had to remain on my back or I would become ill, the effects of the anesthetic.

“But I want to roll over on my side,” I managed to say, although I couldn’t be certain if anyone understood me. I had no idea why I wanted to roll over. The body wants what the body wants.

I heard voices but the words meant little to me. A moment later I felt a pillow pushed under my right hip; it was enough to give me the illusion of being off my back and I settled back into slumber.

By late afternoon the worst of the anesthetic wore off and I was able to sit up. An intern brought me some cottage cheese in a small cereal bowl. I ate three or four spoonfuls and promptly threw it up; for my effort the stitches holding my abdomen together pulled and the resulting pain was excruciating. For the remainder of the day I sipped grape juice and water.

Mom stayed until visiting hours ended. We talked little as I drifted in and out of restless sleep.

I awoke in a darkened room; my mother had left for the night. Outside my room I heard footsteps, but they passed my door.

Outside my window, on Woodward Avenue, a jeep with armed troops drove by and I imagined myself in a hospital in Europe during the war. I’d been wounded and had had field surgery to remove a bullet and had been brought to some small town in France to recover. I was proud that I’d made it through without once crying.

It occurred to me that my dad hadn’t come to visit and I was disappointed that he couldn’t witness how tough I was.

Breakfast was brought in about eight the next morning: oatmeal and toast. My abdomen still hurt but I was ready to go home.

My mother showed up shortly after nine. A short time later a nurse came in to take my vitals. After she finished she asked if I’d had a bowel movement.

“No,” I said.

“You have to have one before we can release you,” she told me with raised eyebrows.

“But why?”

“Hospital policy.”

She left and I looked at my mother.

“I haven’t had anything to eat since Sunday night, other than breakfast this morning. They gave me an enema Sunday night to clean me out. I can’t go.”

“Well, try, honey.”

I hobbled to the bathroom and sat. I felt no urge because I had nothing in me. I strained but was only rewarded with pain as my stitches strained to hold me together.

After about twenty minutes I got up and returned to my bed and shook my head.

The nurse returned to ask if I’d had any success.

“No.”

“If you don’t go we’ll have to give you another enema.”

I felt my rectum clinch. Like threats were going to help.

Lunch was brought in around noon: more cottage cheese. Afterward, I sat on the throne again but no reward was forthcoming.

Nurse: “Have you…?”

Me: “No.”

“Here,” she said, handing me a soft capsule that was bullet-shaped.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“A suppository. It’ll help you go.”

When I started to put the suppository into my mouth she stopped me.

“No, it goes into your backside.”

I looked at the capsule in the palm of my hand.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Would you …?”

She had me roll onto my side and a moment later I felt her finger push the suppository into my rectum.

It didn’t take long for it to work its magic; within ten minutes I hit the bathroom and had a full and satisfying bowel movement.

I felt a little woozy on the drive home; apparently the anesthetic hadn’t yet fully worn off.

“It was strange,” I told my mother.

“What was?” she asked.

“I remember being wheeled into the operating room, under these bright lights. Then they put a mask on me and told me to count backward from a hundred. I didn’t get very far. The next thing I remember was waking up. It wasn’t like sleep though. Even while asleep there’s a sense of time passing. This … this was like being robbed of an hour of my life. It’s like it never happened.”

“It was the anesthetic,” she said. “I’m proud of you. You took this like a trooper.”

After a moment I asked why Dad hadn’t come to visit me.

“Your father has been working a lot of hours,” she said. “He’s been tired.”

I was too young to understand she was making excuses for him.