The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell(90)

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The following fall, just before the start of my freshman year at Stanford, I drove to the Palo Alto Eye Clinic to see Dr. Pridemore. “What can I do for you?” he asked. My annual visit was not for several more months.

I had given God so many chances to show me his way. I felt betrayed, and never as much as when he failed to answer my prayers that he spare my father the debilitating effects of his stroke. If he would not do that, I knew he would not change the color of my eyes, as I had so fervently prayed when I was just a young boy. I knew now that only science could do that.

“God’s will is not our way,” my mother used to say. And I agreed. I had decided it was not my way. “I’m ready,” I said. “I’d like to try those brown contact lenses.”





PART SIX

HELLO DARKNESS, MY OLD FRIEND





1





1989


Burlingame, California

With more and more damage caused by the earthquake being revealed by newscasters on Ernie’s television, I finally got through to my mother’s telephone. She was relieved to hear my voice and to know I was okay.

“I’m fine,” she said. “The house is fine. Some of Grandma O’Malley’s Spode china tumbled off the display shelf and broke. Nothing that can’t be replaced.”

I rattled off a series of questions. “Do you smell any gas? Did you check the pilot light on the water heater? Do you have bottled water?”

“I’m fine, Sam,” she reassured me. “Stop worrying.”

“Have you reached the rehabilitation facility?” I asked. “How’s Dad?”

My father never recovered from his stroke, which the doctors said had also triggered the early onset of dementia. He became confused easily, especially if there was a break in his daily routine. “He’s fine,” she said. “The facility didn’t suffer any damage.”

“Do you want me to come by and help you clean up?” I asked.

“Don’t think about it. It isn’t much. Besides, I’m heading up to see your father. I want to be with him.” My father couldn’t do much in a wheelchair, but my mother had told me before that she didn’t care. They sat together holding hands. Sometimes she would place a rosary in his fingers and help him move from bead to bead while she prayed aloud. “There’s no place else I’d rather be,” she’d say.

“I’ll call you later. Probably tomorrow,” I said.

I hung up, thinking of that night when I’d learned of my father’s stroke, and the recollection made me realize again how precious life is, and how fragile. One minute you’re celebrating graduation, and the next your father is near death. One minute you’re getting ready to experience a World Series, the next you could be dead under a pile of concrete. Too short. Life was too short to settle for anything less than the love I had witnessed when Ernie pulled into his driveway, the love I had witnessed my entire life, the love Mickie said I deserved.

Damn her. She was always right.

Life was too short to settle for Eva. A part of me had always known that I’d stayed in the relationship longer than I should have because I lacked the confidence to believe I’d find someone else who would accept me and my condition. I was also smart enough to know that would never happen until I fully accepted me. When I started to wear contact lenses, I put up a bland, brown veil of normalcy not only to the rest of the world but to the person on the other side of the mirror. I no longer had to concern myself with the lingering stares or questions. I no longer had to deal with my condition. I no longer had to come to terms with who I was, as my mother had said would be so important when I was just a boy heading off to grade school. I hadn’t dealt with the issue. I’d simply covered it up, literally and figuratively. Mickie’s wanting me to tell Eva that I deserved to be treated better, that she was not good enough for me, had nothing to do with Eva. It had to do with me. Mickie recognized it as an opportunity for me to begin not just the process of accepting who I was, but liking that person.

As I sat with the Cantwells watching the television, the news became more and more sobering with each passing minute. Initial reports indicated cars had plummeted from the bridge into the San Francisco Bay. Others hung over the abyss. Reports from the East Bay were just as disturbing. The 880 Interchange, a double-decker concrete freeway, had collapsed. It could not have come at a worse time, filled with afternoon commuters. Dozens were said to be trapped beneath the rubble. People had died. The Embarcadero Freeway along the San Francisco waterfront had also suffered major structural damage. People had pitched tents on the lawn in the Marina District, afraid to go back to their homes and apartments because of a series of aftershocks.

Michelle made pasta and a salad, but none of us ate much. I called home. Eva did not answer. Her flight had been scheduled to land at the Oakland airport just after 4:00 p.m., which would have put her right in the heart of all the traffic. I would likely go home and find a message on the answering machine telling me she’d decided to stay in a hotel in the East Bay to avoid the mess. Terrific. She and Mr. Sleepy could hold each other through the trauma.

At nine o’clock I made another call and again got my answering machine. I hung up and told Ernie, “I’m going to head home.”