HUMAN WRECKAGE

Doctor, My Ears

Sunday afternoon I telephoned Stats Guy. I held the handset to my wrong ear with my awkward arm. He was watching the Padres-Phillies game, fighting couch fatigue. Sure, the Dodgers had been eliminated, but at least there was still baseball being played. I hate the Dodgers, mainly because of that “Blue Monday” playoff game in Montreal back in 1981. Stats Guy loves the Dodgers, but he grew up in greater Los Angeles and was born before the Angels; sports catechism is drilled in at an early age.

“We haven’t done a Tuesday night in three weeks,” I said. “Provided we can get a round or square table and I can sit to your right and provided there aren’t too many hard surfaces and too much background noise, I have the wherewithal to go out provided you have the patience.”

I went to silent running very early on October fifth, a couple of hours before I usually wake up to make a sandwich and peruse The Economist: I lay in bed forcing myself to breathe slowly and rhythmically through the severely restricted capacity of my one working nostril. Ann had migrated to the spare room where she practices her violin; there’s a single bed in there for nights like this. I was on a heady mix of standard drugstore stuff, spray, syrup and pills, praying to alleviate the congestion butterflied behind my face; we had a lunchtime flight to Montreal booked. Somehow Moses got up my nose and my nasal passages parted. A miracle! As I drew that first blessed clear breath I swear I felt every single pathogen in my head drop into my aural passages.

The inside of my head became a funhouse echo chamber. I heard a muted roar that sounded a lot like big band jazz, Duke Ellington and Count Basie. Outside sounds were filtered through a transistor radio on low battery at low volume, the red needle revving up and down the dial, always between stations. I yelled at Ann; she yelled at me: an inaccurate portrait of our relationship. I’ve avoided innocuous conversations about nothing with neighbours. I’ve not missed anything on television. Reading and writing have been easy breezes; the Crooked 9 is as silent as a library. I miss music. I can do without the Harlem swing in my cranium, but those chords that vibrate the air through a decent set of speakers are acutely absent.  

The trip home was supposed to be fun, a family visit combined with the beers and lies of my forty-fifth anniversary high school reunion. The jet’s descent to Montreal’s Trudeau International Airport was an angry portent and an excruciating reminder that flight cancellation insurance isn’t just another airline chisel to be skipped. I’ve been bruised, scraped, cut and punctured. I’ve ached in more places than Leonard Cohen ever imagined. I’ve been nauseous with broken bones. When I tell myself “I’ve never felt anything quite like this” I want the subjects to be love and happiness. If I was an infant and not just childish, I’d have wailed until the rivets in the fuselage popped. For the first time in my life I contemplated an air sickness bag without amused detachment. Upon the touchdown bump I was already dreading the return flight. I made plans to buy a pair of those silly walking poles the old ladies in my neighbourhood favour, and a pair of sensible shoes. Ann could stretch out across the empty companion seat. I’ll be home in three months.

Doctors and pharmacists and dentists and lawyers for that matter, are good people to know, but, ideally, you know, just socially. This precious soft machine is now exhibiting signs of wear and tear in its sixty-third year. Maybe I cheaped out on the lifetime warranty. I’ve seen my general practitioner twice already and he wants to see me again. I’ve seen a skull doc, ear, nose and throat, not psychiatric. My pharmacy is an independent shop, new to the area. Its proprietor is an earnest young man, caring and knowledgeable. I like him. I don’t want him to get to know me too well. I’ve no wish to become his steady customer. Alas, I’ve a hunch from hereon in, during this clockless final quarter of what has been to date a relatively carefree though absolutely absurd existence, there must now always be something, some physical complaint demanding expert attention.

My pub supper with Stats Guy went fairly well. Both of us were pleased the Yankees had been swept by the Astros. He was mildly perturbed by the LA’s fate, their runaway regular season, all those wins: POOF! Gone, baby, gone, it’s all over now Dodger blue. Unlike my high school reunion I didn’t just smile and nod my agreement to everything I couldn’t hear. The big test will come early next month when Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, Canada’s finest working roots band, perform downtown at Winspear Centre, Edmonton’s premier acoustical venue. Ann and I have seen them a couple of times; I believe we own all of their albums. Their latest is O Glory, not sure that it rates with South, but I’d only time to spin it once for us before my ears went AWOL. I hope to be able to hear the new songs live, digest them that way; we shall see.     

meGeoff has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of health and wellness since 2013. The novella Of Course You Did is my latest book. Visit www.megeoff.com for links to purchase it in your preferred format from various retailers.