Ten stories provide jolting excursions through a world of desperation and fleeting transcendence, with protagonists ranging from a hard-luck fighter, to a drunken doctor in a remote African aid-station, to a strung-out advertising writer. Reprint. NYT.

Cold Snap

StoriesBy Thom Jones

Back Bay Books

Copyright © 1996 Thom Jones
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780316472579

Chapter One

Cold Snap

    SON OF A BITCH, there's a cold snap and I dothis number where I leave all the faucets runningbecause my house, and most houses out here onthe West Coast, aren't "real"--they don't havewindows that go up and down, or basements (which protectthe pipes in a way that a crawl space can't), or sidewalksout in the front with a nice pair of towering oak trees or acouple of elms, which a real house will have, one of thosegood old Midwest houses. Out here the windows go side toside. You get no basement. No sidewalk and no real trees,just evergreens, and when it gets cold and snows, nobodyknows what to do. An inch of snow and they cancel schooland the community is paralyzed. "Help me, I'm helpless!"Well, it's cold for a change and I guess that's not so bad,because all the fleas and mosquitoes will freeze, and alsobecause any change is something, and maybe it will help snapme out of this bleak post-Africa depression--oh, baby, I'mso depressed--but I wake up at three in the morning andthink, Oh, no, a pipe is gonna bust, so I run the water andlet the faucets drip and I go outside and turn on the outdoorfaucets, which are the most vulnerable. Sure enough,they were caking up, and I got to them just in the nick oftime, which was good, since in my condition there was noway I could possibly cope with a broken water pipe. I justgot back from Africa, where I was playing doctor to thenatives, got hammered with a nasty case of malaria, and lostthirty pounds, but it was a manic episode I had that causedGlobal Aid to send me home. It was my worst attack todate, and on lithium I get such a bad case of psoriasis thatI look like alligator man. You can take Tegretol for maniabut it once wiped out my white count and almost killed me,so what I like to do when I get all revved up is skin-popsome morphine, which I had with me by the gallon overthere and which will keep you calm--and, unlike booze,it's something I can keep under control. Although I mustconfess I lost my medical license in the States for substanceabuse and ended up with Global Aid when the dust settledover that one. God's will, really. Fate. Karma. Whatever.Anyhow, hypomania is a good thing in Africa, a real motivator,and you can do anything you want over there as longas you keep your feet on the ground and don't parade nakedon the president's lawn in Nairobi and get expelled (whichI did and which will get you expelled; okay, I lied, you can'tdo anything--so sue me). On lithium, while you don'tcrash so bad, you never get high, either, and all you can dois sit around sucking on Primus beer bottles, bitching abouthow hot it is when there's so much work to do.

    While I'm outside checking my faucets, I look my Oldsmobileover and wonder was it last year I changed theantifreeze? Back in bed, it strikes me that it's been threeyears, so I go out and run the engine and sit in the car withmy teeth chattering--it's thirteen below, geez! And prettysoon the warm air is defrosting the car and I drive over tothe hardware section at Safeway and get one of those antifreezetesters with the little balls in it. At four in the morningI'm sitting in my kitchen trying to get it out of theplastic jacket, and it comes out in two parts, with the bulbupside down. No doubt some know-nothing Central Americanput it in upside down for twenty cents an hour in someslave factory. I know he's got problems--fact is, I've beenthere and could elucidate his problems--but how aboutme and my damn antifreeze? I mean, too bad about you,buddy, how about me? And I'm trying to jury-rig it when Irealize there is a high potential for breaking the glass andcutting my thumb, and just as that voice that is me, that isalways talking to me, my ego, I guess, tells me, "Be careful,Richard, so you don't cut your thumb"--at that instant, Islice my thumb down to the bone. So the next thing youknow I'm driving to the hospital with a towel on my thumbthinking, A minute ago everything was just fine, and nowI'm driving myself to the emergency room!

    Some other guy comes in with this awful burn becausea pressure cooker exploded in his face, and he's got thisreceding hairline, and you can see the way the skin is peeledback--poached-looking. The guy's going to need a hairpiecefor sure. A doctor comes out eating a sandwich, andI hear him tell the nurse to set up an I.V. line and startrunning some Dilaudid for the guy, which he deserves, considering.I would like some for my thumb, but all I get isNovocain, and my doctor says, "You aren't going to getwoozy on me, are you?" I tell him no, I'm not like that, butI have another problem, and he says, "What's that?" and Itell him I can't jack off left-handed. Everybody laughs, becauseit's the graveyard shift, when that kind of joke isappropriate--even in mixed company. Plus, it's true.

    After he stitches me up, I'm in no pain, although I say,"I'll bet this is going to hurt tomorrow," and he says no,he'll give me some pain medication, and I'm thinking, Whata great doctor. He's giving me pain medication. And whilehe's in a giving mood I hit him up for some prostate antibioticsbecause my left testicle feels very heavy.

    "Your left testicle feels heavy?" he says skeptically.

    Yeah, every guy gets it, shit; I tell him my left nut feelslike an anvil. I mean, I want to cradle it in my hand whenI'm out and about, or rest it on a little silk pillow when I'mstationary. It doesn't really hurt, but I'm very much consciousof having a left testicle, whereas I have teeth and abelly button and a right testicle and I don't even know. I tellhim I don't want a finger wave, because I've been throughthis a thousand times. My prostate is backing up into theseminal vesicles, and if you don't jerk off it builds up andgets worse, and the doctor agrees--that does happen, andhe doesn't really want to give me a finger wave, especiallywhen I tell him that a urologist checked it out a couple ofmonths back. He puts on a plastic glove and feels my testicle,pronounces it swollen, and writes a script for antibiotics,after which he tells me to quit drinking coffee. I wasgoing to tell him that I don't jerk off because I'm a sexfiend; I have low sex drive, and it's actually not that muchfun. I just do it to keep the prostate empty. Or should I tellhim I'm a doctor myself, albeit defrocked, that I just gotback from Africa and my nut could be infected with elephantiasis?Highly unlikely, but you never know. But hewon't know diddle about tropical medicine--that's mydepartment, and I decide I will just shut my mouth, whichis a first for me.

    The duty nurse is pretty good-looking, and she contradictsthe doctor's orders--gives me a cup of coffee anyhow,plus a roll, and we're sitting there quietly, listening tothe other doctor and a nurse fixing the guy with the burnedforehead. A little human interaction is taking place and mydepression is gone as I begin to feel sorry for the guy withthe burn, who is explaining that he was up late with insomniacooking sweet potatoes when the pressure cooker blew.He was going to candy them with brown sugar and eatthem at six in the morning and he's laughing, too, becauseof the Dilaudid drip. After Linda Ronstadt sings "Just OneLook" on the radio, the announcer comes on and says thatwe've set a record for cold--it's thirteen and a half belowat the airport--and I notice...