Read Online The Death of Che Guevara by Jay Cantor - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jay Cantor
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momentary sense of comfort, a reassurance that the world would not be washed away. But then I grew sweaty again, and again a hand was pressing down on me, crushing me into the bed. I gasped for air, my lungs fluttered painfully. The room shook with my effort to breathe; the painted nursery-rhyme figures on the wall, the bureau, vibrated, went fuzzy. The sheet I held against my cheek for reassurance thickened, till I felt all the fibers crawling like hard tiny worms against my skin. Convulsively I threw the bedclothes down around my waist. They bunched there like the folds of a statue’s drapery, pressing into my waist with dull heavy edges.
My father stayed by me throughout the night, to tend me as best he could. A muscular short man of great energy and strength, he sat quietly in a child’s wooden chair by the head of the bed, unable to act, to use his strength. My father’s eyes were set deep in his face, under bushy brows; he had a large straight nose, a large face, and a brown beard; he was, if he wished, a fierce-looking man. Now, his empty hands resting on his thighs, he watched me tenderly, until, I think, his consciousness was only an adumbration of his son’s shaking body, his son’s difficult breathing, until his own lungs strained within him. My pain took away my father’s moralism, his deepest habit (where wasthe fault here? where was the lesson?). He was a doctor, but he could do nothing for his son; there was no action to take, no use for his fortitude, his fierceness, his love. He could do nothing but make gestures: hold my arm, wipe my forehead with a washcloth. There were no injections yet for asthma, only a black powder that was burnt in a cup by my bedside. It made a thick foul smoke that did little to help. But it was burnt anyway, another gesture, a rite more than a medicine.
As the night went on the air began to stink to me, not only heavy but dank, bad smelling, like rotting meat. The attack clawed at my chest constantly, my body moved in spasms. My father held my body against his own (for once I’d told him that that made the pain less) and rocked me back and forth.
I was dazed. My father’s large neatly manicured fingers, his thick veins that showed clearly beneath the skin on the back of his hand, looked monstrous to me then, they pulsed and changed in shape, as if I were seeing, grotesquely enlarged, the life of the cells in his hand. With my own hand I grabbed at the tight scratchy curls of his beard, squeezed them weakly to tell him—though it accomplished nothing—when the pain was worst. Then he spoke to me soothingly—if only he could take the pain into himself! He told me of all the things we would do when I was better. But I was gagging, without will or thought, my throat and lungs moving in insistent, agonizing, frantic spasms, trying to bring up, to spit out, the thick black and yellow knots of sputum that had suddenly flowered inside my chest, that were choking the life out of me. My body arched upwards from the bed; the strain ran through me like a current. I was behind walls of pain: I heard distorted fragments of sound, saw my father’s lips move (they were too large now, rubbery, clownish) but I couldn’t understand what the man was saying to me.
And then, a little later, when I was six, shots were discovered that were effective for asthma, an injection of epinephrine that, if administered at the beginning of an attack, would, after a time, become a hand smoothing out the inside of my chest. But I barely connected the injections with the relief that came later. I hated the shots, hated them more than I hated the attacks.
Perhaps I was attached to the concern, the love, that my pain made for me in my parents. During the hard days my mother sat on the end of my bed and drew pictures with me on a big pad. And in the late afternoon my father left his paying patients to come sit with us in the small wooden chair. He put a book across his lap, so I could see the pictures,
My father stayed by me throughout the night, to tend me as best he could. A muscular short man of great energy and strength, he sat quietly in a child’s wooden chair by the head of the bed, unable to act, to use his strength. My father’s eyes were set deep in his face, under bushy brows; he had a large straight nose, a large face, and a brown beard; he was, if he wished, a fierce-looking man. Now, his empty hands resting on his thighs, he watched me tenderly, until, I think, his consciousness was only an adumbration of his son’s shaking body, his son’s difficult breathing, until his own lungs strained within him. My pain took away my father’s moralism, his deepest habit (where wasthe fault here? where was the lesson?). He was a doctor, but he could do nothing for his son; there was no action to take, no use for his fortitude, his fierceness, his love. He could do nothing but make gestures: hold my arm, wipe my forehead with a washcloth. There were no injections yet for asthma, only a black powder that was burnt in a cup by my bedside. It made a thick foul smoke that did little to help. But it was burnt anyway, another gesture, a rite more than a medicine.
As the night went on the air began to stink to me, not only heavy but dank, bad smelling, like rotting meat. The attack clawed at my chest constantly, my body moved in spasms. My father held my body against his own (for once I’d told him that that made the pain less) and rocked me back and forth.
I was dazed. My father’s large neatly manicured fingers, his thick veins that showed clearly beneath the skin on the back of his hand, looked monstrous to me then, they pulsed and changed in shape, as if I were seeing, grotesquely enlarged, the life of the cells in his hand. With my own hand I grabbed at the tight scratchy curls of his beard, squeezed them weakly to tell him—though it accomplished nothing—when the pain was worst. Then he spoke to me soothingly—if only he could take the pain into himself! He told me of all the things we would do when I was better. But I was gagging, without will or thought, my throat and lungs moving in insistent, agonizing, frantic spasms, trying to bring up, to spit out, the thick black and yellow knots of sputum that had suddenly flowered inside my chest, that were choking the life out of me. My body arched upwards from the bed; the strain ran through me like a current. I was behind walls of pain: I heard distorted fragments of sound, saw my father’s lips move (they were too large now, rubbery, clownish) but I couldn’t understand what the man was saying to me.
And then, a little later, when I was six, shots were discovered that were effective for asthma, an injection of epinephrine that, if administered at the beginning of an attack, would, after a time, become a hand smoothing out the inside of my chest. But I barely connected the injections with the relief that came later. I hated the shots, hated them more than I hated the attacks.
Perhaps I was attached to the concern, the love, that my pain made for me in my parents. During the hard days my mother sat on the end of my bed and drew pictures with me on a big pad. And in the late afternoon my father left his paying patients to come sit with us in the small wooden chair. He put a book across his lap, so I could see the pictures,
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