"We're moving right along, aren't we?"

"Some people like to drag it out," he said. 'They get interested in their own condition. It becomes almost like a hobby."

"Who needs nicotine? Not only that, I rarely drink coffee and certainly never with caffeine. Can't understand what people see in all this artificial stimulation. I get high just walking in the woods."

"No caffeine always helps."

Yes, I thought. Reward my virture. Give me life.

"Then there's milk," I said. "People aren't happy with the caffeine and the sugar. They want the milk too. All those fatty acids. Haven't touched milk since I was a kid. Haven't touched heavy cream. Eat bland foods. Rarely touch hard liquor. Never knew what the fuss was all about. Water. That's my beverage. A man can trust a gla.s.s of water."

I waited for him to tell me I was adding years to my life.

"Speaking of water," he said, "have you ever been exposed to industrial contaminants?"

"What?"

"Toxic material in the air or water."

"Is this what you usually ask after the cigarettes?"

"It's not a scheduled question."

"You mean do I work with a substance like asbestos? Absolutely not. I'm a teacher. Teaching is my life. I've spent my life on a college campus. Where does asbestos fit into this?"

"Have you ever heard of Nyodene Derivative?"

"Should I have, based on the printout?"

"There are traces in your bloodstream."

"How can that be if I've never heard of it?"

"The magnetic scanner says it's there. I'm looking at bracketed numbers with little stars."

"Are you saying the printout shows the first ambiguous signs of a barely perceptible condition deriving from minimal acceptable spillage exposure?"

Why was I speaking in this stilted fashion?

"The magnetic scanner is pretty clear," he said.

What had happened to our tacit agreement to advance smartly through the program without time-consuming and controversial delving?

"What happens when someone has traces of this material in his or her blood?"

"They get a nebulous ma.s.s," he said.

"But I thought no one knew for sure what Nyodene D. did to humans. Rats, yes."

"You just told me you'd never heard of it. How do you know what it does or doesn't do?"

He had me there. I felt I'd been tricked, carried along, taken for a fool.

"Knowledge changes every day," he said. "We have some conflicting data that says exposure to this substance can definitely lead to a ma.s.s."

His confidence was soaring.

"Good. Let's get on to the next topic. I'm in something of a hurry."

"This is where I hand over the sealed envelope."

"Is exercise next? The answer is none. Hate it, refuse to do it."

"Good. I am handing over the envelope."

"What is a nebulous ma.s.s, just out of idle curiosity?"

"A possible growth in the body."

"And it's called nebulous because you can't get a clear picture of it."

"We get very clear pictures. The imaging block takes the clearest pictures humanly possible. It's called a nebulous ma.s.s because it has no definite shape, form or limits."

"What can it do in terms of worst-case scenario contingencies?"

"Cause a person to die."

"Speak English, for G.o.d's sake. I despise this modern jargon."

He took insults well. The angrier I got, the better he liked it. He radiated energy and health.

"Now is where I tell you to pay in the outer office."

"What about pota.s.sium? I came here in the first place because my pota.s.sium was way above normal limits."

"We don't do pota.s.sium."

"Good."

"Good. The last thing I'm supposed to tell you is take the envelope to your doctor. Your doctor knows the symbols."

"So that's it then. Good."

"Good," he said.

I found myself shaking his hand warmly. Minutes later I was out on the street. A boy walked splay-footed across a public lawn, nudging a soccer ball before him. A second kid sat on the gra.s.s, taking off his socks by grabbing the heels and yanking. How literary, I thought peevishly. Streets thick with the details of impulsive life as the hero ponders the latest phase in his dying. It was a partially cloudy day with winds diminishing toward sunset.

That night I walked the streets of Blacksmith. The glow of blue-eyed TVs. The voices on the touch-tone phones. Far away the grandparents huddle in a chair, eagerly sharing the receiver as carrier waves modulate into audible signals. It is the voice of their grandson, the growing boy whose face appears in the snapshots set around the phone. Joy rushes to their eyes but it is misted over, infused with a sad and complex knowing. What is the young- * ster saying to them? His wretched complexion makes him unhappy? He wants to leave school and work full-time at Foodland, bagging groceries? He tells them he likes likes to bag groceries. It is the one thing in life he finds satisfying. Put the gallon jugs in first, square off the six-packs, double-bag the heavy merch. He does it well, he has the knack, he to bag groceries. It is the one thing in life he finds satisfying. Put the gallon jugs in first, square off the six-packs, double-bag the heavy merch. He does it well, he has the knack, he sees sees the items arranged in the bag before he touches a thing. It's like Zen, gramma. I snap out two bags, fit one inside the other. Don't bruise the fruit, watch the eggs, put the ice cream in a freezer bag. A thousand people pa.s.s me every day but no one ever sees me. I like it, gramma, it's totally un-threatening, it's how I want to spend my life. And so they listen sadly, loving him all the more, their faces pressed against the sleek Trimline, the white Princess in the bedroom, the plain brown Rotary in granddad's paneled bas.e.m.e.nt hideaway. The old gentleman runs a hand through his thatch of white hair, the woman holds her folded specs against her face. Clouds race across the westering moon, the seasons change in somber montage, going deeper into winter stillness, a landscape of silence and ice. Your doctor knows the symbols. the items arranged in the bag before he touches a thing. It's like Zen, gramma. I snap out two bags, fit one inside the other. Don't bruise the fruit, watch the eggs, put the ice cream in a freezer bag. A thousand people pa.s.s me every day but no one ever sees me. I like it, gramma, it's totally un-threatening, it's how I want to spend my life. And so they listen sadly, loving him all the more, their faces pressed against the sleek Trimline, the white Princess in the bedroom, the plain brown Rotary in granddad's paneled bas.e.m.e.nt hideaway. The old gentleman runs a hand through his thatch of white hair, the woman holds her folded specs against her face. Clouds race across the westering moon, the seasons change in somber montage, going deeper into winter stillness, a landscape of silence and ice. Your doctor knows the symbols.

37.

The long walk started at noon. I didn't know it would turn into a long walk. I thought it would be a miscellaneous meditation, Murray and Jack, half an hour's campus meander. But it became a major afternoon, a serious looping Socratic walk, with practical consequences.

I met Murray after his car crash seminar and we wandered along the fringes of the campus, past the cedar-shingled condominiums set in the trees in their familiar defensive posture-a cl.u.s.ter of dwellings blending so well with the environment that birds kept flying into the plate-gla.s.s windows.

"You're smoking a pipe," I said.

Murray smiled sneakily.

"It looks good. I like it. It works."

He lowered his eyes, smiling. The pipe had a long narrow stem and cubical bowl. It was pale brown and resembled a highly disciplined household implement, perhaps an Amish or Shaker antique. I wondered if he'd chosen it to match his somewhat severe chin whiskers. A tradition of stern virtue seemed to hover about his gestures and expressions.

"Why can't we be intelligent about death?" I said.

"It's obvious."

"It is?"

"Ivan Ilyich screamed for three days. That's about as intelligent as we get. Tolstoy himself struggled to understand. He feared it terribly."

"It's almost as though our fear is what brings it on. If we could learn not to be afraid, we could live forever."

"We talk ourselves into it. Is that what you mean?"

"I don't know what I mean. I only know I'm just going through the motions of living. I'm technically dead. My body is growing a nebulous ma.s.s. They track these things like satellites. All this as a result of a byproduct of insecticide. There's something artificial about my death. It's shallow, unfulfilling. I don't belong to the earth or sky. They ought to carve an aerosol can on my tombstone."

"Well said."

What did he mean, well said? I vanted him to argue with me, raise my dying to a higher level, make me feel better.

"Do you think it's unfair?" he said.

"Of course I do. Or is that a trite answer?"

He seemed to shrug.

"Look how I've lived. Has my life been a mad dash for pleasure? Have I been h.e.l.lbent on self-destruction, using illegal drugs, driving fast cars, drinking to excess? A little dry sherry at faculty parties. I eat bland foods."

"No, you don't."

He puffed seriously on his pipe, his cheeks going hollow. We walked in silence for a while.

"Do you think your death is premature?" he said.

"Every death is premature. There's no scientific reason why we can't live a hundred and fifty years. Some people actually do it, according to a headline I saw at the supermarket."

"Do you think it's a sense of incompleteness that causes you the deepest regret? There are things you still hope to accomplish. Work to be done, intellectual challenges to be faced."

"The deepest regret is death. The only thing to face is death. This is all I think about. There's only one issue here. I want to live."

"From the Robert Wise film of the same name, with Susan Hayward as Barbara Graham, a convicted murderess. Aggressive jazz score by Johnny Mandel."

I looked at him.

"So you're saying, Jack, that death would be just as threatening even if you'd accomplished all you'd ever hoped to accomplish in your life and work."

"Are you crazy? Of course. That's an elitist idea. Would you ask a man who bags groceries if he fears death not because it is death but because there are still some interesting groceries he would like to bag?"

"Well said."

"This is death. I don't want it to tarry awhile so I can write a monograph. I want it to go away for seventy or eighty years."

"Your status as a doomed man lends your words a certain prestige and authority. I like that. As the time nears, I think you'll find that people will be eager to hear what you have to say. They will seek you out."

"Are you saying this is a wonderful opportunity for me to win friends?"

"I'm saying you can't let down the living by slipping into self-pity and despair. People will depend on you to be brave. What people look for in a dying friend is a stubborn kind of gravel-voiced n.o.bility, a refusal to give in, with moments of indomitable humor. You're growing in prestige even as we speak. You're creating a hazy light about your own body. I have to like it."

We walked down the middle of a steep and winding street. There was no one around. The houses here were old and looming, set above narrow stone stairways in partial disrepair.

"Do you believe love is stronger than death?"

"Not in a million years."

"Good," he said. "Nothing is stronger than death. Do you believe the only people who fear death are those who are afraid of life?"

"That's crazy. Completely stupid."

"Right. We all fear death to some extent. Those who claim otherwise are lying to themselves. Shallow people."

"People with their nicknames on their license plates."

"Excellent, Jack. Do you believe life without death is somehow incomplete?"

"How could it be incomplete? Death is what makes it incomplete."

"Doesn't our knowledge of death make life more precious?"

"What good is a preciousness based on fear and anxiety? It's an anxious quivering thing."

'True. The most deeply precious things are those we feel secure about. A wife, a child. Does the specter of death make a child more precious?"