breath when I mention the cystoscopic; this is something she knows. She’s had trouble with her bladder since I was born. It’s something she’s never let me forget; ‘I ruined her insides.’ I remember as a kid feeling guilty, wishing I hadn’t done it. I’ve heard a hundred times about my ‘big head’. I’d look at myself in the mirror and was sure I had a head half again bigger than normal people. I do wear a size 7½ hat but I’m not exactly macrocephalic.
As a result, Mother’s bladder dropped and had to be sewn up. It’s always been small and she’s constantly having it stretched, a painful process.
My birth was such a trauma she came home and told my father she wouldn’t have any more children. One’s enough and she’s had it. He’s to leave her strictly alone. They’re rigid Catholics, so contraceptives are out of the question.
At first Dad goes along; she’s scared the daylights out of him; they stay immaculate for six months or so. They’re sharing a single-row house with my Uncle Ed and Aunt Mary. I was born in early November and all through the winter, Mother’s hanging out diapers and having them freeze on the line, fighting diaper rash, and I have colic for the first three months.
But Dad’s a normal guy with more than normal sex drive. This is something I’ve only recently realized. After six months, he comes home from work and hands something wrapped in a piece of paper to Mother. Inside, there’s a beautifully carved wooden clothespin, not the spring-clip type but the old squeeze kind. Dad’s good with a knife and he’s carved a small man from this clothespin. It has arms, hands, fingers, everything. Written on a slip of paper is ‘This is the kind of man you need. I’m not it.’
Mom got the message. She’s carried that clothespin all her life and the note is in her cedar chest of valuable things, along with baby books, birth certificates, baby bonds, war bonds, defense bonds, savings bonds.
But she’s still scared, so she worms a contraceptive remedy out of a Mrs Hunt down the street. Why this is going to be all right with the church and Dad wearing a rubber isn’t, I don’t know. But she’s only eighteen years old. She’s still nursing me, so she’s probably not going to get pregnant anyway.
The remedy is to drink a teaspoonful of bleach every morning. After a few days of this, I start turning green and sickly; I don’t know how Mom feels. She rushes me to the doctor when I go into a convulsion. The doctor can’t figure the trouble. He asks what she’s been feeding me. She says she’s only been nursing and giving me a little baby food. He decides to check her milk. He asks what she’s been eating, if she’s been drinking heavily. She admits she’s been slugging down bleach. I’ll bet that doctor flipped.
As soon as she stopped the bleach, I improved. I don’t know what they did after that. They didn’t get pregnant for three years, so they must have been doing something. If Dad put on a rubber before he went to bed, Mother could just pretend it wasn’t there.
You read this kind of stuff in all the Irish-American novels but it keeps going on, over and over. Nobody seems to learn; humans must want to torture themselves in as many ways possible.
But to go back. Mother does know a lot about cystoscopic examinations and isn’t nearly as panicked as I thought she’d be. But Dad is scared deep inside.
That day I drive Dad to the hospital for tests and pre-op things, Mother gets weepy and Joan comes out to stay with her. At the hospital, I take Dad to his room and help store his clothes in the closet. I show him where the john is and assist him with getting dressed in the hospital gown. I speak to some of the nurses and try telling them how scared he is, but they’re mostly only professional. They listen but have their routines and are too busy to do much in the way of personal care.
Dad’s embarrassed by the hospital gown and wants to wear his pajamas but they won’t let him. The gown is a long shirt with a neck-to-bottom opening in the back and no buttons.
‘Do I walk around in this, Johnny; with the back open and all these nurses here?’
I want to reassure him but can’t; I don’t know why hospital gowns are made that way. It’s basically degrading. There must be another solution. They spend billions of dollars on hospital buildings and doctors. They charge hundreds of dollars a day, but they still use the same gown they used during the Civil War.
I settle Dad in bed and show him how to work the TV. He finds a program he likes, and it all doesn’t seem so strange. I leave and tell him I’ll be back as soon as possible.
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