license, became an instructor, hauled canceled checks all over the Eastern seaboard, usually in the middle of the night and often in bad weather, and after a couple of years of that he was as horrified as ever at the prospect of leaving terra firma. Then he got his air transport 'ticket,' as he called it, and went to work for United Airlines. Now, five years later, after a brief conversation with prot, he had finally come to me for help.
We were a long time down in the family room, playing Ping-Pong and throwing darts and shooting pool as we talked. Nine years a pilot and he still had nightmares about plunging to Earth from awesome heights, taking forever to fall through empty space, falling and falling and never reaching the ground.
I have had many patients, over a quarter century of practice, who were afraid of flying. For that matter, it is quite common among the general population, and for a very simple reason: Our ancestors were tree-dwellers. As such, a fear of falling was of considerable evolutionary valuethose who did not fall survived to reproduce. Most people are able to overcome this fear, at least functionally. On the other hand there are some who never go anywhere they can't get to by car or train or bus, no matter how inconvenient.
I explained all this to Fred and suggested that he very likely fell into a similar category.
He wanted to know what he should do.
I suggested he try some other line of work.
'That's exactly what prot said!' he cried, and for the first time in two decades, he hugged me. 'But he thought I should talk to you about it first.' I had never seen him so happy.
My sigh of relief turned out to be premature. Right after Freddy had gone, Jennifer came in, pink from a shower. She grabbed his cue stick, took a shot, missed. We talked a while about medical school, shooting all the while, until I noticed that she hadn't pocketed a single ball, which was unusual for her.
I said, 'Is there something you wanted to talk to me about?'
'Yes, Daddy, there is.' I knew it was something I didn't want to hear. She hadn't called me 'Daddy' in years. And she had also been talking to prot.
But it sometimes takes Jenny a while to get to the point. 'I saw you hugging Freddy,' she said. 'That was nice. I never saw you do that before.'
'I wanted to lots of times.'
'Why didn't you?'
'I don't know.'
'Abby thinks you weren't much interested in our problems. She figured it was because you listened to other people's troubles all day long and didn't want to hear any more at home.'
'I know. She told me tonight before she left. But it's not true. I care about all of you. I just didn't want you to think I was trying to interfere with your lives.'
'Why not? Every other parent I know does.'
'It's a long story.'
She missed another easy shot. 'Try me.'
'Well, it's because of my father, mostly. Your grandfather.'
'What did he do to you?'
'He wanted me to become a doctor.'
'What's wrong with that?'
'I didn't want to be a doctor.'
'Dad, how could he have made you go to med school? He died when you were eleven or twelve, didn't he?' Her voice cracked charmingly on 'eleven' and 'twelve.'
'Yes, but he planted the seed and it kept growing. I couldn't seem to stop it. I felt guilty. I guess I wanted to finish the rest of his life for him. And I did it for my mother-your grandmother-too. '
'I don't think you can live someone else's life for them, Dad. But if it's any consolation, I think you're a very good doctor.'
'Thank you.' I missed my next shot. 'By the way, you didn't go to medical school because of me, did you?'
'Partly. But not because you wanted me to. If anything, I thought you didn't. You never took me to see your office or the rest of the hospital. Maybe that's why I became interested-it seemed so mysterious.'
'I just didn't want to do to you what my father did to me. If I haven't told you before, I'm very happy you decided to become a doctor.'
'Thank you, Dad.' She studied the table for a long minute, then missed the next ball entirely, sinking the cue ball instead. 'What else would you have done? If you hadn't gone into medicine, I mean?'
'I always wanted to be an opera singer.'
At that she smiled the warm smile she inherited from her mother-the one that says: 'How sweet.'
That annoyed me a trifle. 'What's the matter?' I said. 'Don't you think I could have been a singer?'
'I think anyone should be anything he or she wants to be,' she replied, not smiling anymore. 'That's what I wanted to talk to you about.' With that she missed the twelveball by a mile.
'Shoot,' I said.
'It's your turn.'
'I mean, what's the problem?'
She threw herself into my arms and sobbed, 'Oh, Daddy, I'm a lesbian!'
That was about midnight. I remember because Chip came in right afterward. He was acting strangely, too, and I braced myself for another revelation. Chip, however, had not spoken with prot.
Even my grandsons behaved differently after that momentous Fourth of July. They stopped fighting and throwing things and began to bathe and to comb their hair without arguing about it-an almost miraculous change.
But back to the cookout. Prot wouldn't eat any of the chicken, but he consumed a huge Waldorf salad and a couple of gallons of various fruit juices, shouting something about 'going for the gusto.' He seemed quite relaxed, and played Frisbee and badminton with Rain and Star and Shasta all afternoon.
Then something happened. When Karen turned on the sprinkler so that the kids could cool off, prot, who appeared to be enjoying himself, suddenly became extremely agitated. He didn't turn violent, thank God, just stared for a moment in utter horror as Jennifer and the two boys splashed into and out of the spray. Suddenly he started screaming and running around the yard. I was thinking, 'What the hell have I done?' when he stopped, dropped to his knees, and buried his face in his hands. Shasta was by his side in a second. Betty's husband and our trainee looked at me for instructions, but the only one I had was, 'Turn off the goddamn sprinkler!'
I approached him cautiously, but before I could put a hand on his shoulder he raised his head, became as cheerful as ever, and started to frolic with Shasta again.
There were no further incidents that afternoon.
Karen and I had a lot to talk about that night and it was nearly dawn when we finally got to sleep. She wanted to know what Freddy would do after he left the airline, and she cried a little about Jenny-not because of her choice, but because she knew it was going to be difficult for her. Her last words before drifting off, however, were: 'I hate opera.'
GisELLE was waiting for me the next morning, jumping up and down, nearly beside herself. 'He's from the Northwest!' she exclaimed. 'Probably western Montana, northern Idaho, or eastern Washington!'
'That what your man said?'
'She's not a man, but that's what she said!'
'Wouldn't the police know if someone, especially a scientist, had disappeared from that part of the country five years ago?'
'They should. I know someone down at the Sixth Precinct. Want me to check for you?'
For the first time in several days I had to laugh. It appeared she knew someone in any line of work one could name. I threw up my arms. 'Sure, why not, go ahead.' She was out the door like a shot.
That same morning, Betty, wearing an enormous pair of copper earrings in. another desperate attempt to get pregnant, I presumed, brought in a stray kitten. She had found it in the subway station, and I assumed she was going to take it home with her that evening. But instead she suggested that we let the patients take care of it.
The presence of small animals in nursing and retirement homes has proven to be of great benefit to the residents, providing badly needed affection and companionship and generally bolstering their spirits to such a degree that life spans are actually increased significantly. The same may be true for the population at large. To my
