Then you become someone else.
You become what they call confused.
Like Cratylus, the Greek philosopher who could not be sure of the relationship of language to things, so just pointed at what he meant.
Like a camera.
Like a human Fuji.
Later, you try to nuzzle back into Andi in bed and discover she is gone.
You locate her in the loft, crying soundlessly, watching television.
She is surrounded by a landfill of Kleenex.
The only light in the house emanates from the hyperactive screen.
An advertisement on the Home Shopping Network hawking an authentic zirconium necklace whose atomic weight, the announcer declares with pride, is 91.22, and whose boiling point is an unimaginable 3,578 degrees centigrade.
In other words, he explains, it can survive a catastrophic event on an airliner and still be worn to a dinner party the very next evening.
What? you ask, taking a seat beside Andi, putting an arm around her.
She shrinks.
The left side of my face, she says.
You steal a quick look.
I thought the receptionist said the filling was a shoo-in till Tuesday.
The filling’s fine. At least I think the filling’s fine. It’s sitting there, at any rate, filling-like. But something feels as if each time my heart beats it’s pumping ice water into my left temple.
Three minutes and counting, says the announcer.
You didn’t wake me? you ask.
It’s the middle of the night.
You should have woke me. Awakened me. That’s simple spousal protocol.
It’s the weekend.
You cup your hand to your ear, listen, and make a buzzing noise.
I’m afraid the judges won’t accept that answer, you say.
This isn’t helping, she says.
It isn’t? you say, hurt.
No.
Andi closes her eyes and evaluates her body in silence.
No, she concludes. Nope.
You trot downstairs and return with the cordless which you use to call the emergency room at the Gritman Medical Center.
Why isn’t your wife making this call? the doctor on duty asks.
Her left frontal lobe is about to explode. She’s literally weeping and watching the Home Shopping Network.
Are you thinking of ordering the zirconium necklace?
You do not say anything.
The doctor’s voice sounds like he should be doing talk radio.
Every night, pretty much, is a slow night, he explains. Except for maybe once a week, when the shit really hits the fan, pardon my French. I notice there are two minutes and fifteen seconds left… two minutes and twelve. I understand there’s going to be a great deal on a genuine Eskimo parka coming up within the hour.
You do not say anything.
Okay, he says. Look. It sounds like an abscess. Under the filling. No biggie.
You do not say anything.
Which means there are three things your wife can do.
You do not say anything.
First, she can wait till tomorrow. There’s a number I can give you that you can call for the dentist on duty over in Pullman, but they only answer from eight to five.
You wait a moment and then say:
What’s number two?
Number two is you can drive into town and I’ll take a look at it.
What would you do? you ask.
I’d do number three. Which I’d do it myself.
Myself?
Yourself. Herself. You take a pointy object, okay, as in a pin or a needle or whatnot, hold it over a flame for thirty seconds to sterilize it, let it cool, don’t forget to let it cool, scrape out the filling and remove the medicated thread packed inside. It’s really pretty easy. It sounds hard but it’s really pretty easy. Then have your wife rinse with warm salty water.
Holy cow.
Which sounds a lot worse than it is, I suppose. Except the root should already be dead. Dead or almost dead. Listen. Have you seen Marathon Man?
You’re kidding.
It won’t hurt that much. That’s your barometer. If it looks like it’s hurting that much, you’re doing it wrong. In which case get in the car and come see me right away.
You do not say anything.
She should be able to make it through the weekend with Anacin or Tylenol.
You do not say anything.
Anacin’s fine, but more doctors prefer Tylenol. Apparently. You now have less than a minute to order. You sure you don’t want to go for it? Impulse buying is like an injection of epinephrine.
You wait a moment and then say:
I’m not ordering.
You’re not even curious?
Not even a little.
Me neither, to be perfectly frank. Well, anyway, let me know how things turn out, okay? I’m not going anywhere. I’ve got an anchovy pizza, a Coke, and my credit card right here at this table I’m sitting at here. We’re talking real-looking seal skin.
Real or real-looking?
Have a good night. And don’t forget the warm water, okay?
Salty, you say.
You stroll past the bathroom door nonchalantly, reach the end of the hall, count to twenty, turn, and stroll past the bathroom door.
You have been doing this for nearly half an hour.
Ever since you hung up and reported to Andi, who listened attentively and headed in search of a safety pin.
You strolling past, reaching the other end of the hall, counting to twenty.
Now she leans toward the mirror over the sink, gaping, glare from the makeup lights sparking off the silver glint between her thumb and her middle finger, white flaky particles collecting with drool along her lower lip, spittling down her chin.
Intermittently, she makes guttural sounds.
You cannot watch, naturally.
You cannot listen, either: the rasping of the pin makes you want to hurry down to the basement and stand in the dark.
Yet you know it is important to show your support.
For this gallant action.
You know it is important to provide encouragement.
Gallant not being too strong a word in this case.
So you take a breath, stroll past the door, reach the other end of the hall, count to twenty, and say:
Great job! That’s the spirit! Keep up the good work!
Then you turn and stroll past again.
~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~
THIS PHOTOGRAPH ARRIVES from the future.
It tells you what is about to happen to your wife.
What is not about to happen to her.
It tells you these things by telling you how photographs communicate distress by aestheticizing distress, placing a storm window between you and it, making distress finally a neutral proposition about layout and f-stops.
It tells you these things by telling you how photographs modify you into a tourist of reality and reality into a Mall of America where everything (including distress itself) can be appreciated from a comfortable distance, purchased, taken home, held, and used over and over again until it wears out, then slipped into a shoebox, a drawer, the attic, the garage, a photo album, only to be thrown away with old cotton balls and Q-tips in the end.
Where your ideas end and other people’s begin is impossible to say being another thing somebody besides you said, most likely.
This photograph also arrives from the past, telling you where your wife has come from.
Telling you who she has known and what she has decided and what she has done and what has been done to her. It speaks about the way what you see through the viewfinder is never what you encounter on the finished print. The tones cannot live up to your imagination, the angle, the atmospheric density, the resolution, the impressive sense of scale.