The Oscillations, and: Hank's Choice

The Oscillations

Forget the peaks. It was the valleystook me down. After the doc slippedfrom the room, we leaned againsteach other, the little rangeof spiking mountains beepingacross the monitor. I'd dropinto the lifetime between each tone,then rise, only to fall back into the next.Every time I'd descend I could hearsomething like an elaborating wind,as if air itself was attempting language.I'd never seen my brother blanch.You'd think the light had a plan,smearing our faces yellow like the deadNovember grass. And damnif the old questions didn't startclawing up. But I kept themto myself. My brother doesn't botherwith much doubt. He's got a rosaryin his pocket. I used to own onetoo. A devout friend says the beadsare a gift held to the lips so the lipsknow what to say. And this was our motherwe'd been keeping vigil for, the lastbreaths. There must be reams

of scripts plotting out my words—Moses, old catechisms, Peter Pan, then Tom Swift and that Wright Brothers bookfrom the Paramus library, Shanethe novel, then Shane the movie. Andall along, tales of last-second tds,walk-off homers. And the boy tomes,the heroic histories beneath the Christmas tree.My friend Harvey prefers books of numbers,says the stories write themselvesbecause we can predict everythingbut the future. That first nightmy mother insisted she was goingto beat this thing. We didn't call bullshit.All her life she'd ground any probleminto concession. Never let go. The docgave her maybe one year. It took four

weeks. She thought she'd failed forever,both me and herself. Damn your philosophyprofessor, she'd said too often. My friend Ralphsat next to me in class, all Jewish poise.She loved him despite herself. He'd nevercared if there's a god or not. The proftossed off the sentence so matter-of-factly,declared himself an atheist. Andthere it was. The fluorescent lightyellowing upon me like a web of nerves.There's no knowing. Then there is. Thenwe're in the whispering valley.Once I'd heard my mother worryto the family priest that just this sortof G-D thing would G-D happen, Jewsat a heathen school, etc. But, hell,she never knew the worst. Two years later

my mind split in a dark room, midseventies,All Along the Watchtowerwiring the air, nothing but stems and seeds

in the bowl, our cash in the wind. Black tee,jeans, boots, long hair shining blackwith road grease, stomach paunchedbehind a gun Ralph later guesseda Smith and Wesson Model 29. I couldn'tknow then the scene was preface.Could the brute dealerhave been a murderer and a cliché?At twenty I didn't expect the in-your-face needto accept my own death. The guy coughedfrom some hellish bellows, said the moneywe'd put up for the pound was stolen,they'd get the guy, was goodas dead. We waited out the lie.In his one florid hand an entire bookof matches blossomed sparksas he sucked from the hookah. Still,at that moment, even as I tastedsulfur and puke, the flare rained downthe mountain and I could decodeVonnegut's line in the smoke, howwe are who we pretend to be. Backin the hospital the high-frequency lightpainted us into speechlessnessas we stared at the end of breath.Strange what returns. The dudecould have killed me, but shit if he too

wasn't reading some script. Beforethe spikes flattened into the swaleof that final room, my brother and Itightened our arms around each other.Maybe there's a parallel world in whichthe two of us make the scene a radiant castle.Outside, maybe we grant the whole familyan exotic password, and, when eachhas practiced it...