NOW AVAILABLE — Marty’s new short story collection, When Paris Beckons

 

From “Reservoir Moon”

It’s funny, the things people think about when they’re driving, alone, in the middle of the night.  

From the corners of his mind, he summoned a series of sepia vignettes, as his old Saab bucked headwinds driving north from New York City.   The Arctic air created a high-pitched whistle, and a sense of pushing against the currents that reminded him of the salmon he used to fish for in Talkeetna.

He fiddled with the Blaupunkt tuner and was tickled when the signal for his favorite FM station, broadcast from a local college, came in -- so much clearer just north of the city, he thought.  He turned up the volume as the late night DJ played the Brad Paisley/Dolly Parton duet, When I Get Where I’m Going.  He sang along as the chorus swelled. 

The old Saab’s heater was a marvel.  With the bun warmers set only to “3” he felt cozy and nestled, like a hibernating bear.  He drove wearing his Cabela’s quilted flannel shirt; his worn, goose down parka was sprawled across the empty back seat.

When I get where I’m going, he thought.  Like a homing pigeon, he knew exactly where he was headed, after the week he’d had.  It’s amazing how fast one’s life careens from one direction to another.  

He laughed to himself, remembering the old Daffy Duck cartoon where the characters drunkenly sang the barbershop quartet staple, Moonlight Bay.  

We were sailing along, all right, he thought, remembering how just over a week ago he walked into the doctor’s office.

Just a routine check-up, a little blood work,  a quick exam, and then the lecture from my doc.  You have to watch your cholesterol.  You have to go for a colonoscopy.  You have to exercise regularly.  You really ought to this.  You really ought to that.  

“Call me in two days.  I should have your blood work by then,” the doctor said.  This was on a Friday afternoon, a prequel to another Friday night out raising hell.  And why not, he thought.  After a long week, a pint or ten at Smitty’s would be just what the doctor ordered.  Maybe not this particular doctor, but surely some doc, somewhere.

Then, Monday afternoon, in the midst of a minor riot at work, a phone call.  “Please hold for Dr. Lazar.”

Here comes the rest of the lecture, he thought.  No more fried foods.  No more Guinness.  No more cigars.  No more – 

The reverie was broken by the doctor’s voice: “Hello?”  

“Dr. Lazar?” he asked, plowing forward immediately.  “So, what did you find?  Am I HIV positive or something?”  He chuckled stupidly, weakly, a verbal crucifix proffered to ward off his own fears.

“No, no,” Dr. Lazar said, a response that prompted a whoosh of relief from his patient.

“Nothing like that,” the doctor added, all business.  “But, I do want you to come in to talk.”

One day later, he sat, in irritation, in the waiting room, packed with snotty cold sufferers and whiney children playing with those colored bead contraptions on the floor.  He glanced at his watch every two minutes.  What is taking so long?, he thought.  He was there promptly at 6 p.m., and waited. At 7:00 p.m., the nurses turned off the classical music station, and put on their own tunes.

Finally, at 7:20 p.m., Nurse Martinez motioned to him with a lacquered, bejeweled finger nail, contoured like a tiny jai-lai basket.  While lip-synching a Daddy Yankee reggaeton, she waddled ahead to the pale fluorescent light of Exam Room B.  There, her multi-tasking continued: chewing her Juicy Fruit, she checked his chart, took his blood pressure, deftly flicked the little sliders on the office scale as she weighed him, jotted this vital information on his chart, slipped the chart into the Plexiglass holder attached to the outside of the door, waved “bye-bye”, snapped her gum with a loud crack, and turned on her white Reebok-clad heel.

If they kept me waiting that long, how bad could it be, he reasoned.