It took him a while to go back to the phone with a voice he could trust. Brad Karr's wife told him the Manhattan hospital where Brad was a psychiatric patient. He was able to dial Brad's room directly, remembering as he did the time they'd done that slice-of-life commercial for Maxwell House coffee, when they were kids in their twenties, just starting out together, teamed up as a copywriter and an art director, and they broke the bank on the day-after recall score. They got a 34, the highest score in the history of Maxwell House. It was the day of the group Christmas party, and Brad, knowing Clarence would be coming, had his sidekick make cardboard buttons saying "34," and everybody wore them, and Clarence stopped by just to congratulate Brad and him and even put on a button, and they were on their way.
"Hello, Brad? Your old buddy1 calling from the Jersey2 Shore."
"Hi. Hello there."
"What's up, kid? I called your house a few minutes ago. I just had a yen3 to talk to you after all this time, and Mary told me you were in the hospital. That's how I've reached you. How are you doing?"
"Well, I'm doing all right. As such things go."
"How are you feeling?"
"Well, there are better places to be."
"Is it awful?"
"It could be worse. I mean, this happens to be a pretty good one. It's okay. I don't recommend it for a holiday, but it's been all right."
"How long have you been there?"
"Oh, about a week." Mary Karr had just told him that it had been a month at this point, and that it was his second stay in a year, and that things hadn't been so great in between. Brad's speech was very slow and faltering5 — probably from the medication — and heavy with hopelessness. "I expect I'll be out soon," he said.
"What do you do all day?"
"Oh, you cut out paper dolls. Things like that. I wander up and down the hallways. Try to keep my sanity6."
"What else?"
"Take therapy. Take drugs. I feel like I'm a depository for every drug you can name."
"In addition to the antidepressant, there's other stuff?"
"Yeah. It's mostly a downer. It's not the tranquilizers, it's the antidepressants. They're working, I think."
"Are you able to sleep?"
"Oh yeah. At first there was a little problem, but now they've gotten that part straightened out."
"Do you talk to a doctor during the day?"
"Yeah." Brad laughed, and for the first time sounded something like himself. "He doesn't do any good. He's nice. He tells you to buck7 up and everything's going to be all right."
"Bradford, remember when you were pissed at Clarence about something and gave him two weeks' notice? I told you not to leave. You said, 'But I've resigned.' 'Rescind8 your resignation,' I said. And you did. Who else but Clarence and what other agency would have put up with that crap from a copywriter? You did it twice, as I remember. And stayed another ten years."
He'd gotten Brad to laugh again. "Yeah, I was always nuts," Brad said.
"We worked together for a lot of years. Endless silent hours together, hundreds and hundreds, maybe thousands and thousands of silent hours together in your office or mine trying to figure things out."
"That was something," Brad said.
"You bet it was. You were something. And don't forget it."
"Thanks, buddy."
"And so what about leaving?" he asked Brad. "When do you think that's going to happen?"
"Well, I don't really know. I imagine it's a matter of a couple of weeks. Since I've been here I've been far less depressed9 than when I was out. I feel almost composed. I think I'm going to recover."
"That's good news. I'll call you again. I hope to speak to you under better circumstances very shortly."
"Okay. Thanks for calling," Brad said. "Thanks a lot. I'm awfully10 glad you called."
After hanging up, he wondered: Did he know it was me? Did he truly remember what I remembered? From the voice alone I can't imagine he'll ever get out of there.
Then the third call. He couldn't stop himself from making it, though learning of Brad's hospitalization and Clarence's death and seeing the damage caused by Phoebe's stroke had given him enough to ponder for a while. As did Gwen's reminding him of his teaching Nancy to sing "Smile" like Nat "King" Cole. This call was to Ezra Pollock, who wasn't expected to live out the month but who, astonishingly, when he answered the phone, sounded like someone happy and fulfilled and no less cocky than usual.
"Ez," he said, "what's cookin'? You sound elated."
"I rise to conversation because conversation is my only recreation."
"And you're not depressed?"
"Not at all. I don't have time to be depressed. I'm all concentration." Laughing, Ezra said, "I see through everything now."
"Yourself included?"
"Yes, believe it or not. I've stripped away my bullshit and I'm getting down to brass11 tacks12 at last. I've begun my memoir13 of the advertising14 business. Before you go, you've got to face the facts, Ace4. If I live, I'll write some good stuff."
"Well, don't forget to include how you'd walk into my office and say, 'Okay, here's your panic deadline — first thing tomorrow I need that storyboard in my hand.'"
"It worked, didn't it?"
"You were diligent15, Ez. I asked you one time why that fucking detergent16 was so gentle to a lady's delicate hands. You gave me twenty pages on aloes. I got the art director's award for that campaign, and it was because of those pages. It should have been yours. When you get better we'll have lunch and I'll bring you the statue."
"That's a deal," Ez said.
"And how's the pain? Is there pain?"
"Yes, there is, I have it. But I've learned how to handle it. I've got special medicines and I've got five doctors. Five. An oncologist, a urologist, an internist, a hospice nurse, and a hypnotist to help me overcome the nausea17."
"The nausea from what, from therapy?"
"Yeah, and the cancer gives you nausea too. I throw up liberally."
"Is that the worst of it?"
"Sometimes my prostate feels like I'm trying to excrete it."
"Can't they take it out?"
"It wouldn't do any good. It's too late for that. And it's a big operation. My weight is down. My blood is down. It would make me so weak and I'd have to give up the treatment, too. It's a big lie that it moves slowly," Ezra said. "It moves like lightning. I didn't have anything in my prostate in the middle of June, but by the middle of August it had spread too far to cut it out. It really moves. So look to your prostate, my boy."
"I'm sorry to hear all this. But I'm glad to hear that you sound as you do. You're yourself, only more so."
"All I want is to write this memoir," Ez said. "I've talked about it long enough, now I have to write it. All that happened to me in that business. If I can write this memoir, I will have told people who I am. If I can write that, I'll die with a grin on my face. How about you, are you working happily? Are you painting? You always said you would. Are you?"
"Yes, I do it. I do it every day. It's fine," he lied.
"Well, I could never write this book, you know. Once I retired18 I immediately had blocks. But as soon as I got cancer most of my blocks fell away. I can do whatever I want now."
"That's a brutal19 therapy for writer's block."
"Yeah," Ez said, "I think it is. I don't advise it. You know, I may make it. Then we'll have that lunch and you'll give me the statue. If I make it, the doctors say I can have a normal life."
If he already had a hospice nurse, it seemed unlikely that the doctors would have said such a thing. Though maybe they had to lift his spirits, or maybe he'd imagined they had, or maybe it was just arrogance20 speaking, that wonderful, ineradicable arrogance of his. "Well, I'm rooting for you, Ez," he said. "If you should want to speak to me, here's my number." He gave it to him.
"Good," Ezra said.
"I'm here all the time. If you feel in the mood, do it, call me. Anytime. Will you?"
"Great. I will."
"All right. Very good. Bye."
"Bye. Bye for now," Ezra said. "Polish up the statue."
For hours after the three consecutive21 calls — and after the predictable banality22 and futility23 of the pep talk, after the attempt to revive the old esprit by reviving memories of his colleagues' lives, by trying to find things to say to buck up the hopeless and bring them back from the brink24 — what he wanted to do was not only to phone and speak to his daughter, whom he found in the hospital with Phoebe, but to revive his own esprit by phoning and talking to his mother and father. Yet what he'd learned was nothing when measured against the inevitable25 onslaught that is the end of life. Had he been aware of the mortal suffering of every man and woman he happened to have known during all his years of professional life, of each one's painful story of regret and loss and stoicism, of fear and panic and isolation26 and dread27, had he learned of every last thing they had parted with that had once been vitally theirs and of how, systematically28, they were being destroyed, he would have had to stay on the phone through the day and into the night, making another hundred calls at least. Old age isn't a battle; old age is a massacre29.
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buddy
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| n.（美口）密友，伙伴 | |
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jersey
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| n.运动衫 | |
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yen
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| n. 日元；热望 | |
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ace
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| n.A牌；发球得分；佼佼者；adj.杰出的 | |
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faltering
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| 犹豫的，支吾的，蹒跚的 | |
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sanity
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| n.心智健全，神智正常，判断正确 | |
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buck
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| n.雄鹿，雄兔；v.马离地跳跃 | |
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rescind
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| v.废除，取消 | |
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depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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tacks
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| 大头钉( tack的名词复数 )； 平头钉； 航向； 方法 | |
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13
memoir
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| n.[pl.]回忆录，自传；记事录 | |
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advertising
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| n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的 | |
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15
diligent
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| adj.勤勉的，勤奋的 | |
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detergent
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| n.洗涤剂；adj.有洗净力的 | |
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nausea
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| n.作呕，恶心；极端的憎恶(或厌恶) | |
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retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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19
brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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arrogance
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| n.傲慢，自大 | |
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consecutive
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| adj.连续的，联贯的，始终一贯的 | |
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banality
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| n.陈腐；平庸；陈词滥调 | |
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futility
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| n.无用 | |
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brink
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| n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘，边沿 | |
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25
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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26
isolation
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| n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离 | |
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27
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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systematically
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| adv.有系统地 | |
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massacre
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| n.残杀，大屠杀；v.残杀，集体屠杀 | |
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