it's already two weeks i've been sleeping under th bare concrete beam helping support th roof over my cluttered pie-slice of a storage room... we moved here th summer after i turned 17. i had given up meat & insisted i wasn't going back to san ignacio- th jesuit prep school- for my senior year so i was preparing for a test on european history to complete
th requirements for a GED diploma from th puerto rico departement of education...i had expressed a preference towards
a spherical dome for my mom's family dream house, & this was taken into consideration w/ th outcome being an oversized round concrete bohio- call it a modern native puertorican bungalow?
th contractor had been somewhat negligent, cutting corners here & there (my dad wanted to have this house built for an unrealistic $30thou, back in '70 or so, & it took a sometime trumpet player from cuba to say he'd bring it in for just 5thou above. th realistic bids were between 55-65 thou...) so- we were painting, dyeing doors & closet shelves, helping dad put up bookshelf units w/ writing desks in each of our pie-slice rooms for a fair part of that summer of '71...there may have been bigger unfinished jobs i forget- for example, my dad has been working on sealing th leaky cracks in a careleessly set concrete roof ever since then...i remember living on yogurt w/ raisins, wheat germ & honey; & pizza w/ all th veggie trimmings from shirley's, our local parlor.
by september 7 i was on a flight to spain under th care of my dad's cousin diego, who was a medical student in santiago de compostela. a little distance from th bad influences & i would be back on th straight & narrow path in no time...
but that is, if not a whole other story, at least a very different part of th tale.
fever is gone by now. it subsided slowly over that first week, climbing up to th neighboorhood of 38-39C/100-102F
every night at first. being in dr.dad's care, i remembered how i had learned to self-medicate at an early age: if i felt under
th weather & tried to exaggerate my symptoms in order to stay home, my temperature was taken. if i was not running a fever, i was given a decongestant spray, maybe some children's aspirin & written instructions as a reminder on dosage. der guter doktor's protestations to th contrary, attitude & method have changed minimally in 30-40 years...
i brought all th wrong things from vega baja. there was nobody else here to make a salad, & since th vegetable crisper & fruit drawers in th fridge are chock full of dr.dad's mangoes, th chicory was dead of frostbite by th time i had energy to think of using it. dr.dad's food offerings consist mostly of a couple of frozen stews microwaved w/ parts from some fresh-killed lamb he got as a gift some months ago. i had some chicken soup of jeanette's during th first couple of
days. maybe some yogurt. at some point i gathered my strength & mixed th last of th chicken soup w/ some leftover chick peas & lamb & put them to boil w/ a fresh onion i had javier fetch from titi elba's (so when was this? when
did javier drive over?? a week ago last thursday- july 12?) plus one of th wilting carrots i'd managed to gather...
that's been my dinner for most of th last ten days- i've kept a bottomless pot of lentil soup going since then- freezing it overnight, thawing it out & adding whatever fresh veggie it could use a new helping of.
oh, my lymph nodes! i can stand & walk for about ten minutes at a time by now. what was a well-defined golf ball not quite half-buried in my thigh is now a squashed, old tennis ball- irregular edges, hardening where i imagine th lymph nodes are, softer & tender where there is pus or other liquid debris from what seems a still active infection: skin is bright red, & th area is hot w/ localized fever. th only other doctor to come by & see me was dr.dad's closest friend, th pathologist mica.
dr.dad is adamant that any puncturing to take a sample for analysis, any attempt at drainage, will result in an oozing sore that may take two to seven months to heal. so i'm supposed to be patient & wait until th node (or nodes, may be more than one involved) necrotizes: dies inside me & is reabsorbed. i tell you, like a survivor of th bubonic plague.
stay tuned!