Act of God

“Mister Originality.”
    Maureen moved me headfirst into the iron lung. The first impression was being inside a coffin, and I pushed from my mind Grgo’s comment about “the earth that fed you.” Then I noticed the semicircular top and the indirect lighting and the metal buttresses. Suddenly, it was like a day when I got back from the service and a friend took me through the Callahan Tunnel in his convertible, my head lolling on the backrest, watching the roof of the tunnel as we went by underneath it. Now I had maybe eight inches of airspace between my face and the walls and roof of the machine. Above me, a white disk and then two red dots flashed, and I was aware of the whirring of a small fan somewhere. Then, over a muted public address system, I heard Maureen’s voice in my ear.
    “Are you all right in there, Mr. Cuddy?”
    “Fine.”
    “Please stay completely still. The first imaging lasts for just three minutes.”
    There was the sound of radiator pipes clanging, then an arrhythmic bongo sequence, then a constant chattering, somewhere between a sewing machine and a jackhammer. The chattering seemed to get louder as time went by, but that might just have been me.
    “Okay,” in my ear, “are you still all right in there?”
    “Still fine.”
    “Good. Relax and let me look at this image.”
    Relax.
    She said, “Okay. Good one. This next will take nine minutes. Please remain completely still.”
    “Right.”
    Radiator, bongo, chattering. Same sense of escalation as we went through it.
    “Okay, Mr. Cuddy. That was the worst of it. How are you?”
    “Still no problems.”
    “Good. The next one is the last. Just four minutes. Ready?”
    “Ready.”
    After the sequence, Maureen said, “Okay. I’ll be right in.” I hadn’t realized she’d been out.
    Maureen slid my table from the machine and unstrapped me. Returning my book and little key, she led me back to the locker room door and left me. On the bench inside, a small boy sat hunched over in a johnny suit that accentuated how thin he was. His face was too old for his body, a lopsided bandage wrapped around his head. The way Beth was for a while after they told us what was growing inside her skull. The boy didn’t look up at me.
    I said, “It’s not so bad. More like going for a ride through a tunnel.”
    This time he did look up, with the scorn of a veteran for a rookie. “I know.”
    I shut up, changed, and left him, hunched over on his bench.

    “John, good to see you.”
    “Same here, El.”
    “Shoulder and knee all cleared up?”
    “Guess not, I’m still wearing this thing.”
    He peered over the counter at my brace. “You supposed to work out already?”
    “Not exactly. I just need to blow off a little tension.” Elie frowned. “You been to the doctor?”
    “Yes.”
    “Physical therapy?”
    “No.”
    His face showed he’d heard the edge I tried to keep out of my voice. “Well, just use your own judgment, then.”
    I took myself down a notch. “Thanks, El. I will.”
    As I did the hip and back machine in front of a mirrored wall, I noticed Elie talking with one of the other members a real estate mogul named Norm. He was about my size and weight, but he could ride the stationary bike longer than the winner of the Tour de France. Norm lived in the high-rise catercorner to my brownstone on Beacon. He seemed to have a lot of free time during the day, because I’d run into him at the club often enough when most folks would have to be working.
    I skipped the leg extension machine because of my knee and moved to one of the two leg curls. Norm got on the sister machine next to it. The effect was that we were lying stomach down about a foot away from each other, like men on adjoining massage tables.
    “Elie tells me you screwed up your leg.”
    I did a curl. Count of two on the uplift, four on the down. “And shoulder.”
    “Bastards, both. When that happened to me, I had to lay off most of the machines and all the running.”
    I paused on the up, then let it down slowly. “What did you do instead?”
    “Got started on the bike. Boring, but it keeps your tone and wind close to where they’d be otherwise. StairMaster helps, too.”
    Two up, four down. “What about the upper body?”
    “The therapist my doc recommended showed me how to use this thick elastic band. I felt a little silly, but I could do the exercises on my own, and I came back from it.”
    Two, four. “From the injury, you mean?”
    “Right. Takes a while,