The day was hot and sunny. A perfect Fourth of July, as if he’d ordered it, and perhaps he had. It was, after all, his day; he thought for a moment that perhaps even God might recognize this, might owe him just one day. But no. God owes nobody anything. He knew that. Had always known it. Had lived by it since when? The war, perhaps; could any soldier believe otherwise? Was it then that he first fancied himself a “cheerful fatalist”? Had first made his constant companion the knowledge that any moment, this moment, might be his last? Life is short and hard, pass the beer nuts, please. But hadn’t people always known this? When had it changed? When had people begun to believe that they have a right to happiness? In Rousseau’s day? In the land of the free and the home of the brave? Maybe in his own lifetime. Maybe since the advent of penicillin or x-rays or social security or health insurance or malpractice suits or emotional distress. Tom had always known that one day Roger Daugherty would not say, “Fit as a fiddle” or “You’re in perfect health.” Roger, about whom Tom had been skeptical when he’d taken over the old man’s practice. Too young. Wet behind the ears. He’d decided to try him out on something easy: a physical exam, and Roger in that tiny examination room listening through the stethoscope, saying, “Do you smoke?”
“Yes.”
“Hmmm.”
And Tom later, putting his shirt back on, saying, “Tell me, Doctor, did you know that I smoke from something you heard in my chest or because you saw my cigarettes in my shirt pocket?”
Roger had hesitated. “Well, I saw the cigarettes.”
“I know I should quit, but it’s hard.”
“Tell me about it.”
“You smoke, too?”
“Trying to quit.”
Now Tom hesitated. “Want one?”
Roger thought. “Sure.” He got up to open the windows and turn on the fan. Tom shook out two smokes, and they sat there together, knees practically touching, using the wastebasket as an ashtray. He must have been about forty then, Roger thirty and fresh out of residency, but that had sealed it. Roger had been his doctor ever since. Now they were both old men.
“Mr. Johnson?” someone was saying. “Bryce Heinz. You probably don’t remember me. …”
“Well, of course I do, Bryce.”
“Please don’t get up.” And then he was meeting his former student’s wife and two teenaged children and the student was telling a funny story about something Tom had said in class one day.
“I just wanted to stop by and say hello.”
“Well, I’m so very glad you did, Bryce.”
Now the lawn was filling up with people, Christine or someone had put on a CD—was it Creedence Clearwater? He could never tell (he probably would have chosen the 1812 Overture or the Brandenburg Concertos, but he’d lost the privilege of playing music at all because two of his neighbors had complained that he played it too loud especially in the early morning although a third liked to awaken to Tom’s music especially Debussy because it allowed her to feel that in a world of calamity and distress, there was also some grace).
In the lake young guys with their girlfriends on their shoulders were engaged in chicken fights, and Tom was thinking about diphtheria. He had read in the paper way back on New Year’s Day that it had been the leading cause of death in the United States one hundred years ago, and Tom did not know what diphtheria was. He had intended to look it up half-a-dozen times and never had. This was probably what Christine and Brooks meant by lapses in memory. But Tom had always been absent-minded. No, it was his getting lost in the woods that really concerned them. Of course he hadn’t really been lost in the woods; he’d been lost in thought. He’d been working on his plan, but he couldn’t tell them that. Besides, he’d often gotten lost. It had been Tony’s old dog, Al Jones, who’d always known the way home. He’d followed Al Jones for years. And if he hadn’t stepped in the creek and finally been coming out of the woods all wet and muddy just when Christine had stopped by after dinner, she would never have known.
Diphtheria. If he could get out of his damn chair, he’d go look it up right now. Or if he had the energy; was this what Roger Daugherty had meant by “losing strength”? What if he really couldn’t get up, and no one came by or looked out a window and a storm blew in and lightning crackled all around? Would he raise his face to the pelting rain? Would he be willing to die this way? Tom was testing himself again, and as was always the case, he knew he wouldn’t know the answer until the moment. And then there was what he was going to do the next day. He knew he would regret it sometimes. He knew there was a chance that he’d regret it altogether, that it would be a mistake. He had tried to be objective. He thought his odds were good. If he could just weather the bad days. If he could just keep his eye on the ball. If he could remember the alternative. Of course it was a wild hare, but wasn’t that exactly the point? In truth, he wasn’t quite sure; it all seemed so big.
What he was entirely sure about was that despite all the people who covered his lawn this day, despite the letters and phone calls and marriages and promises and prayers and all the many and constant attempts not to be alone, he was. First and foremost, before anything else and after everything else, he was alone. It was a fact. It was his fact. It was what he knew and always had known. He’d known it as a child at his brother’s funeral amidst the flowers, robes, music, scented air, and stained glass, all of which were elaborate lies carefully designed to deny the thing that was so viscerally apparent, so blatantly obvious to him even then. And all his life he had wondered if it was a fact he would abandon, knowledge he would compromise when he was old and sick and death was near. He wondered if he would find himself in a church pew searching for some solace in the ancient words and smells and rituals. He hadn’t yet.
His brother had died of a burst appendix at the age of twelve. What year was that? 1930 or ’31? Tom had been eight. Diphtheria, influenza, diarrhea. Simpler ailments for a simpler time. With so many childhood dangers lurking, he wondered if parents then could afford to love their children as much as parents did now that babies came with warranties: three years or thirty-six thousand miles. Don’t worry about measles or small pox or polio or tuberculosis or diphtheria, whatever that is; we’ve got those covered. Did his parents love him a little more or a little less after Paul’s death? Love was riskier then. A little riskier. Did they love him at all? They didn’t kiss him much. Didn’t hug him. Didn’t really touch him after a certain age. Perhaps they were afraid. Perhaps they weren’t. Perhaps they simply knew what people had always known until very recently. Pass the party mix, please. And had it been easier when you’d had more children and loved them each a little less? Perhaps he had loved Brooks not too little but too much. (The thought momentarily relieved the guilt he seemed to always carry with him.) Had he doted and smothered and coddled until the boy thought he deserved it all: happiness, success, prosperity, even luxury, seventy-six point eight years, a full head of blond hair, and erections on demand?
Someone sat down heavily in Tony’s chair. It was Brooks, and Tom’s heart sank a little because he was wearing the Brooks smile, the one he always wore when, even though you’d said “no way,” “absolutely not,” said “no” a thousand times in a thousand ways,