The Touch

Sylvia

"You didn't have to come along," Alan said as he got into the car and sat beside her.

"I wanted to," Sylvia said and forced a smile. He looked so haggard and tired; his eyes had a haunted look.

As Ba put the car in gear and began to drive, Alan said, "I'm glad you did, though. That was why I asked if I could borrow Ba instead of hiring a cab. I need a friend along, and you're it."

His words warmed her. She was glad he considered her someone he could turn to in time of need. "But what about… ?" She didn't finish the question.

"Ginny?" He sighed. "We're barely speaking. She wants me to see a psychiatrist. Even Tony wants me to see one."

"Is that who you're seeing at Downstate? A psychiatrist?" She wanted to tell him that he was the sanest man she knew, but thought better of it. Her opinion was purely personal.

"No. No psychiatrist—at least not yet. There's something I've got to rule out first."

"Going to tell me about it?" she asked after a lengthy pause during which he seemed to go into a trance. But when he spoke, the words froze her blood.

"Got to rule out a brain tumor."

"Oh, God! You can't—"

"I can't bury my head in the sand any longer, Sylvia. My memory has gone to hell. Why do you think I'm not driving myself? Because I could get lost! Or forget where I'm going! Hell, I got lost on the way back from the hospital the other day!"

"Couldn't that just be stress?" she asked, praying for a simple answer.

"It could, but that's a wastebasket diagnosis. It could be directly related to the Dat-tay-vao, for all I know. But I have to face the possibility that a tumor could be behind it all. I had a patient a few years back with exactly the same symptoms, but he was older so I laid it off to an organic brain syndrome—Alzheimer's or the like. But the progression of his symptoms was too rapid for my comfort—as rapid as mine—so I ordered a brain scan. Guess what? He had a big midline frontal meningioma. Benign. They shelled it out and his memory was back to normal in a couple of months. So before I do anything else"—he tapped his forehead with a finger—"I've got to make sure I haven't got something growing in here."

The thought of Alan with a brain tumor made her almost physically ill. "I can see why you wouldn't want it done in Monroe Community."

"Right. Too close to home. Too many nosy trustees."

"Those trustees!" she said. "I can't believe the rotten way they've treated you! Suspending your privileges and then releasing the news immediately to the Express!

"Yeah," he said softly. She sensed his hurt and humiliation. "I didn't expect the public execution before a hearing. Anyway, I went to school with one of the radiologists at Down-state. He fitted me in for a CT scan this morning."

"Have you seen another doctor about any of this?"

Alan smiled. " 'The physician who treats himself has a fool for a patient.' Is that what you mean? I'm not treating myself, just doing a little diagnostic work."

"But if you had to see someone, who would you choose?"

"Oh, there's any number of men I'd trust. A bunch of us in the area have this unofficial network of cross-referrals and cross-coverage. After a while you learn to sense which consultants give a damn about patients as people and which don't. Considering that competence is pretty much equal, those are the ones who get my referrals. Vic O'Leary would probably be my first choice for a consultation. I trust him to cover my practice when I'm away, and I'd trust him with my own health. But at the moment I don't want to put him in the hot seat."

Sylvia sat in silence, stewing in the fear that Alan might have something seriously wrong with him, until she realized that if she was terrified, how must he feel?

She found his hand and squeezed it.

"Scared?"

"A little," he said with a shrug. Then he looked at her and smiled. "Okay—a lot."

"Then I'm glad I'm along. No one should have to face this alone."

Her hand rested in his for the rest of the trip.

As she waited on the top floor of the multilevel garage near University Hospital, Sylvia tried to read the newspaper, tried the Times crossword puzzle, tried a novel—nothing seemed to get her mind off Alan. Except thinking about Jeffy's continued regression. That was hardly a relief.

Please, God. You can't let there be anything wrong with Alan. He's one of the good guys. Let one of the bad guys have a brain tumor. Not Alan.

She leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes, as much to shut out the world as to rest them. Why? Why did death and disease and misfortune swallow up everyone she cared for? First Greg's senseless death, then Jeffy's regression, and now Alan. Was there some sort of black cloud hanging over her? Maybe everyone would be better off if she just threw an iron gate across the driveway entrance and never left Toad Hall.

Ninety minutes crawled by. Sylvia was getting a headache from the tension, and muscle aches in every part of her body from sitting in the back seat for so long. She was about to suggest to Ba that they get out and stretch their legs when it started to drizzle. Then she saw Alan threading his way through the park6d cars in their direction. He opened the door on the other side and hopped in.

"Well?" she said, holding her breath.

"I've got one."

She gasped. "A tumor?"

"No. A brain—a perfect one. No problem."

Without thinking, she threw her arms around him and clutched him.

"Oh! I'm so glad!"

Alan returned the hug. "You're glad! Let's celebrate!" He pulled a cassette from a pocket and handed it forward to Ba. The interior of the car was soon filled with falsetto "Oooohs" and basso "Bowms."

"Good lord!" Sylvia laughed. "What is that?"

" 'I Laughed' by the Jesters. Great, huh?"

"It's awful! I can't believe you listen to Doo-wop!"

His face fell. "You don't like oldies? They're not all Doo-wop, you know." He leaned forward. "I'll tell Ba to turn it off."

"No," she said, laying a hand on his shoulder. She had such an urge to touch him. "I like some of the old stuff, but listening to it all the time seems like such a dead end."

"You could say the same about opera… or Vivaldi."

"Touche."

"Wait'll you hear the next one!" he said. He was like a teenager.

"That's 'Maybellene' by What's-His-Name!" she said, recognizing it almost immediately.

"Chucker! The Berry!"

"Chuck Berry! Right. I didn't think anybody listened to him anymore."

"He's the best. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys—they all borrowed from him. And he's the man who got me into rock 'n' roll."

He leaned his head back as he settled into the seat.

"Let's see… it was back in the summer of fifty-five and I had two passions in the world: rocket ships and the Brooklyn Dodgers. On summer nights I liked to listen to the Bums in bed, but the noise of the radio would keep my younger brother awake. So my father bought me a little Japanese radio— shaped like a rocket, of course—that had a tiny earplug instead of a speaker; you tuned by pulling up or down on the aerial in the nose cone.

"And so it was on a hot, muggy August night as I was trying to tune in the Brooklyn Bums that I came upon this strange music with twanging bass and some guy singing about chasing a Cadillac and a girl named Maybellene. I'd heard of Elvis but had never actually heard his music. In those days a kid listened to what his parents listened to. And my folks listened to stations that played stuff like 'Mr. Sandman,' 'How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?', 'The Tennessee Waltz', 'Shrimp Boats Is a-Comin', and so forth. Get the picture? Those songs did nothing for me. But this! This went directly from the radio to my central nervous system. And then that manic guitar solo in the middle came on—here it is. Listen!"

Sylvia listened. Yes, it was certainly manic. So was Alan. She could almost see the tension pouring out of him.

"Anyway, I sat up in the dark, electrified by what was shooting out of that little earplug. It was my rock 'n' roll epiphany. And to top it off, the DJ—I later learned his name was Alan Freed—said something like, 'So nice, we'll play it twice,' and he did! He played the same damn song twice in a row!

"That was it—I was converted. Still liked the Dodgers, but I kept the radio tuned to WINS all night except during the commercials, when I checked out the score of the game. While my folks blithely assumed I was up in bed listening to the national sport, I was really listening to what some people called nigger music."

And I was worried about his memory! Sylvia thought with a mental shake of her head.

"You're really into this stuff, aren't you?" she said.

Alan shrugged. "It makes me feel good. And I need some good feelings these days. What else can I say?"

"Nothing more. That's what matters."

"Here comes 'Florence' by the Paragons," he said. He grinned at her as he sang along with the falsetto opening.

She winced at his sour notes. She felt so close to him at that moment, and realized with a bittersweet pang that she was very much in love with a man she could never have.