“You laymen give me a laugh,” he said. “Of course it only takes one to make a life. It only takes one.”
“Then it’s all right.”
“Well, it’s a tricky problem,” he said. “We don’t understand it. Somehow the more a man has going for him the better his chances are. You hear seven million and you think you could be the father of your country, but that’s not the way it works. The average man has about sixty million per square inch, did you know that?”
I shook my head.
“The goddamn sperm are incompetent. They don’t know what the hell they’re doing. They’ll swim backwards, get lost, drown, anything to keep from getting the job done.” He frowned. “Oh, it’s a tragic thing when a couple wants children and can’t have them.”
“But you said I wasn’t sterile.”
“Well, technically you’re not. You’re not. But it’s going to be harder for you. Listen. There’s a terrific emotional thing here too that goes on. Don’t leave that out. Your count is low to begin with and you get anxious about conception and that doesn’t help anything. When you make love you got to put all that out of your mind. It’s like what they say about rape. You’ve just got to lie back and enjoy it.”
“Crap,” I said.
“Look, you want some advice? Listen to me. The thing for you is to adopt a kid. Once you do that the edge’ll be off. You’d be surprised how often one of my couples conceives after they’ve adopted. People who’ve been childless twenty years.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” I said. “The fact is that when I was fifteen years old, on my first try, on my first try, I made a girl pregnant.”
Dr. Green looked dubious.
“I did,” I said.
“Who?”
“What does it matter? A girl.”
“Your girlfriend? A virgin?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.”
“There, you see?” the doctor said.
“Do I see what?”
“Well, sonny, you may have been taken for a ride, that’s all. Did you marry the girl?”
“No.”
“Good for you. Good for you. Sure, that’s what it was, you were taken for a ride. Oh, sure, the sperm count could go down over the years, but it’s an unlikely thing. The first time out? Seven million? Such a high proportion of short-tails and long-tails? It’s hardly likely, and that’s my professional opinion.”
“What do I owe you?”
“Hey, are you sore?”
“What do I owe you?”
“Come on, don’t get sore.”
“What do I owe you?”
“You are sore.”
“He lives with me,” I said.
“Oh,” the doctor said.
“He’s my son.”
“Well, he probably is. It could happen. Sure he is. Certainly.” -
“He’s my son!”
“I’m certain of it,” the doctor said. “The father would know a thing like that.”
“What do I owe you?”
“Fifty dollars,” Dr. Green said.
I put the money on the desk and got up to go. When I walked out of his office Dr. Green followed me. “Listen,” he said, “the next time you make love to your wife, relax.” I pressed the button for the elevator. “Your sperm are a little sluggish. Copulate only once a week. Have her use a pillow under her ass — it makes for a better angle. Make sure the room is warm but not overheated. Cut out fatty foods. Meat is very important.”
I started to walk down the stairs. The doctor stood at the top and called after me. “Try wheat germ. Get in shape. Don’t be anxious.”
“He’s my son,” I repeated to myself. “My son.”
I didn’t want to go home; I didn’t want to see David until I had figured it all out. I went to a bar, and as I drank I thought about Dr. Green. I was a little surprised that I wasn’t really angry. He’s my son, I thought. I began to giggle. Seven million, I thought. Father of my country. I laughed. Short-tails, I thought. Long-tails. I told the barman to leave the bottle. Only one will get through, men, but I’m asking for seven million volunteers. Who swims? Not you, short-tail. Not you, long-tail. I went into the men’s room to pee. You worthless prick, I thought. I went back to my stool at the bar. We’re dead a long time, I thought. How rare a thing it is to be alive, I thought. I told the barman about it. He shrugged. “You laymen give me a laugh,” I said. But really, I thought, how rare a thing it is to be alive, how really rare. It was almost clever of us to manage it. Everything was against it: a hostile solar system, booby sperm, short-tails, long-tails, fatty foods, the wrong angle, cold rooms, overheated rooms. Finally, ultimately, death itself was against it. I felt liberated, almost gay. It wasn’t unlike that sensation one has of self-congratualation at the death of a friend. What did it matter not to have sons? “All the better to hoard one’s life, my dear.”
I went home improved, buoyed by an unfamiliar illusion of well-being. Margaret assumed I had been given a clean bill of health by the doctor, and I didn’t tell her otherwise. But it didn’t last, of course; these visions never do. Moments of truth are only moments of truth.
A week later I made love to Margaret as in a dream. We were alone in the house and I practically seduced her. I played the phonograph and used strategic lighting; I offered her cocktails; I rubbed her neck and read poetry. I felt myself softened, like one who has just stepped out of a warm bath. I was incredibly gentle. We might have been nymphs, shepherd and shepherdess. I spoke to her in promises, in the language of vows. In bed, I fitted a pillow tenderly beneath her, preparing her as slaves prepare a bath the caliph will enter. Then at the last minute I shouted to the escaping sperm, “Now, conceive. Damn you, conceive!”
III
For a time at least I was like anybody else. I had become someone to whom several things could happen at once. It was a shock to realize that the willingness to live complexly — doubly, trebly — to throw open one’s windows to all weathers, was the ordinary experience of most men.
Yielding to one human ritual is yielding to all. It is like being a sharecropper come North. We fanatics are simple men, unused to toilets, traffic. I had slums in me. Behind my life now, in its nooks and crannies and unseen corners, was a texture of domesticity, thick as atmosphere, as complexly there as government — its highways, national parks, armies — implicit in a postage stamp.
One night — we had made the book club selections for August; had decided not to take a phonograph recording that month; had chosen an alternate musical for Show-of-the-Month — I suddenly noticed that Margaret spoke with an accent. It was odd that I had never heard it before, and then I realized, Why of course, it’s new—as if in marrying me she had disfigured herself, had actually canted her tongue or ruined her mouth so that the sounds came out off-center, muffled, and with some eccentric emphasis. It suddenly struck me that Margaret was lonely — not lonely as we were both lonely together, playing our meaningless house by choosing books, recordings, restaurants and plays as others might figure a budget or decide what model car to buy, but lonely in a way that had nothing to do with me. It was frightening to be suddenly confronted with the tight, closed system of another human being; it was like watching someone asleep, mysterious, seductive as a frontier.
I began to wonder why Margaret had married me. Obliged, once I recognized her condition, to respond to it, I responded with anger.
“You don’t enjoy this,” I said, accusing her. I meant our marriage, being alive together, the peculiar primacy of her own unhappiness, but she thought I was speaking about our absurd household game. I needed time; I didn’t correct her.