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Oct. 5, 1969
Thinking of you, Colm - my only child. And you too, Biggie - those hospital smocks don't become you.
The way you arise at six: your fine, firm, muscular lunge for the alarm; your warm collapse back against me.
'Another day, Big,' I mumble.
'Oh, Bogus,' you say. 'Remember how we used to wake up in Kaprun?'
'All the snow piled against the window,' I mumble, by rote. 'Some of it blown under the sash, a little puff of it on the sill ...'
'And the breakfast smells!' you cry. 'And all the skis and boots in the downstairs hall ...'
'Talk softer, Big,' I say. 'You'll wake up Colm ...' who just then begins his cooing down the hall from our room.
'Don't shout at him when I'm gone,' you say, Big - and you're out of bed, tucking me back in. Prancing over the cold floor, your large, upstanding boobs peek at the dawn; they point across the hall to the kitchen window (what symbol intended by that direction, I cannot guess).
Then your bra, Big, seizes you like the bit shocks the horse. That damn hospital smock crinkles coldly down over you, and my Biggie is gone, anesthetized, sanitized; you're garbed as shapeless as a dextrose jug, which you'll see later this morning, upended, and dripping down its sugary strength to the elderly.
You grab a bite at the hospital cafeteria, chatting with the other nurses; helpers. They talk about what time their men came home last night, and I know you tell them, 'My Bogus is in bed with our Colm. And last night he slept with me.'
But last night, Big, you said, 'Your father's a prick.'
And I've never once heard you use the word quite like that. I agreed with you, of course, and you said, 'What is it he wants you to prove to him?'
I sai
d, 'That I'm capable of falling flat on my face.'
'Well, that's where you are,' you said, Big. 'What more does he want?'
'He must be waiting,' I said, 'for me to tell him he was right all along. He wants me to crawl across the floor and kiss his powdered doctor's shoes. Then I am to say, "Father, I want to be a professional man."'
'It's not funny, Bogus,' you said. And I'd thought I could always count on a laugh from you, Biggie.
'It's the last year, Big,' I told you. 'We'll go back to Europe. You can ski again.'
But all you said was, 'Fuck'. I've never once heard you use the word quite like that.
Then you just flounced in bed alongside me, leafing backward through a ski magazine, though I must have told you a hundred times that it's a poor way to read.
When you read, Big, you set your chin on your high chest; your thick, honey, shoulder-cut hair juts forward, covering your cheeks, and all I can see is the tip of your sharp nose peeking out of your hair.
But it's always a ski magazine, isn't it, Biggie? Nothing mean intended, perhaps, but just a reminder to me of what I've robbed you of, isn't it? When you find the inevitable Alpine scene, you say, 'Oh, look. Bogus. Weren't we there? Wasn't that near Zell, or - no! Maria Zell, isn't it? Just look at them piling out of that train. God, look at the mountains, Bogus ...'
'Well, we're in Iowa now, Big,' I remind you. 'We'll take a drive tomorrow out in the corn. We'll look for a slight hill. We might more easily find a hog with a sloped back. We could coat him with mud, I could prop up his snout and you could ski between his ears, down to his tail. Not much of a run, but ...'
'I didn't mean anything, Bogus,' you say. 'I just wanted you to look at the picture.'
But why can't I leave you alone?
I keep at you: 'I could tow you behind the car, Big. You should slalom through the cornstalks, routing pheasants! Tomorrow I'll simply install four-wheel-drive in the Corvair.'
'Come on,' you say; you sound tired. Our bedside lamp blinks, crackles, goes out, and in the dark you whisper, 'Did you pay the electric bill, Bogus?'
'It's just a fuse,' I tell you, and leaving the warm groove you put in our bed, I pad down to the basement. It's just as well I'm here, because I've not been down in the basement today to spring the mousetrap that you insist on setting for the mouse I don't want to catch. So I spare the mouse once more and replace the fuse - the same one that always blows, for no reason.
Upstairs, Biggie, you shout down to me, 'That's it! It's on again! You got it!' As if some marvel has been performed. And when I come back up to you, you've got your strong, blond arms folded and you're kicking your feet under the sheets. 'No more reading now,' you say, a fierce twinkle about your eyes, and those heavy feet swishing.
