A Friend’s Gift
Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash
Maybe his mother sent him.
I never knew.
But my friend Ralph showed up one day,
simply showed up,
despite the long bike ride
between his house and mine.
He carried his latest copy of Boy’s Life.
He had come to read to me.
Why?
Because I had an acute case—
acute being the only kind possible for me—
of poison ivy.
I’m not talking itchy bumps.
I’m not even talking patches of weeping sores.
I’m talking the poison entering my bloodstream,
emerging everywhere I perspired.
I’m talking my body weeping,
my face swelling like a balloon,
a red, suppurating balloon.
My eyes swollen nearly shut,
my nose barely open for air,
my mouth so stiff that I could open it
only the smallest crack
for a sip of water
or a bite of food.
I’m talking whimpering,
writhing,
nothing to relieve the pain.
No point in sending me to the hospital.
The hospital could not help.
The poisoning so bad that my father,
who usually discounted illness,
announced,
“If she ever gets poison ivy again,
she’ll die.”
(I discounted his words
the way I discounted—
while still being imprinted by—
most of his opinions,
though, in this case, he may have been right.)
Still …
Ralph turned up,
carrying his precious copy of Boy’s Life,
prepared to read
to the scabbed, suppurating patient
stretched on the daybed
in the dining room.
Ralph and I had grown up together,
me, reveling in the cheerful chaos
of his large family;
he, appreciating the occasional dinner at a table
where you could ask to have something passed
and not have it disappear
before it reached you.
But that day, he simply arrived,
pulled up a chair next to my bed,
and without a glance at my festering skin,
began to read.
Sinking into the otherworld of the story
brought something close to relief.
For a time, at least.
Ralph read and read.
I listened and listened.
But as the story wore on,
the listening grew harder.
I needed to twist and moan.
To leap up,
to scream,
to run around the house,
tearing at my oozing skin.
I couldn’t, of course.
Such histrionics weren’t possible in my family.
And besides, there was the story,
dropping from my friend’s lips,
one
precious
word
at a time.
I had to know how it ended.
So, I stifled my agony
and waited,
waited,
waited.
Then,
just when I knew
I could wait no more,
just when the story had built
to a fever pitch,
my good friend came to the final words:
“TO BE CONTINUED.”
A breathless pause.
Ralph closed the magazine,
tucked it beneath his arm
and stood.
I no longer remember what I said.
I’m certain, though,
I was not
the least
bit
nice.
What is there but story to assuage our pain?
What, but friends to bring us hope
in the darkness?
