Today I'm sharing chapter twenty of "Thawing A.C. Nielsen". I hope you'll read it. I'm trying to share a chapter a day, although at some point I will have to take them all down as the book starts to go to press.
Very excited! My new novel, Thawing A.C. Nielsen, is now up and available for "pre-sale" (just $2.99 for Kindle or other ebook format, then price goes up before the holidays) on Kindle here:
http://amzn.to/2bULRD1
Newly posted there-- a 5-star review from one of the top reviewing companies! Until it goes "live for sale" there won't be any customer reviews or samples-- that happens Oct. 18th. There will also be a paperback version up soon. Check it out and please spread the word. I need all the publicity help I can get since I am not giving away my book to a mainstream publishing house!
I am wondering if any of you would consider reviewing the book. It will be released on Amazon/Kindle on October 18th. I need reviews from regular folks posted to amazon on the release day, if possible. You get a FREE pdf, word.doc or .mobi (Kindle ebook file) copy and plenty of time between now and mid-October to read it. Let me know, friends!
Chapter 20 is the continuation of the flashback to the little trip Gloria and Ray take. What happens next is taken up much later in the book.
I had a fun time writing the Dr. Sands character. The name is a variation on the actor Julian Sands, who I loved in the cult movie Warlock. He is also based upon my quite unique grandfather RB- the bolo tie and all, PLUS the little old man who fixes Woody up in Toy Story Two! The Medieval Reader is a real book that I love, and the fellow named Onslow is a tip of the hat to the goofy character Onslow in "Keeping up Appearances", the British comedy!
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| Daisy and Onslow! |
All the stuff about the Valsalva Maneuver, King George the Second, and Don Ellis's cause of death are true!
CHAPTER TWENTY
Thursday morning Ray slept in. He wasn’t up until past noon. When he tried to walk to the hotel bathroom he weaved left and right, feeling like he was hungover, but he only had two drinks the night before. He sat on the toilet forever, dizzy and miserable. Instead of getting in the shower and looking for resurrection through hot, steaming water, he stumbled back to the bed. “Shit, I’m sick,” he whispered out loud to no one, since Gloria didn’t seem to be there. He fell back asleep immediately.
“Ray, where are you?” Gloria called out later as she entered the room followed by an eager-to-please bellboy. The young lad plopped down six boxes of swanky new shoes Gloria had purchased and held out his hand for his reward. Gloria handed him a ten-dollar bill, gave him a peck on the cheek, and shooed him out the door, his face blushing crimson.
“In here, in the bedroom,” Ray croaked.
“Why are you still in bed?”
Ray rolled over toward where her voice was coming from and squinted. He was still groggy and disoriented from a strange dream he had.
“I’m sick. Terrible. Dizzy—I can’t stand up or the room spins. Ugh.”
“But you’ve got a gig in a few hours. You have to play tonight. That band’s nothing without you.”
“No, I can’t. I really can’t.”
“You have to. You’ve got no choice. Sit up, let me see you.” Ray complied with the taskmaster. He hated when she bossed him around like he was some slack-jawed assistant to the assistant director on one of her sets.
“Yeah, you look bad. How much did you drink last night?”
“Nothing. Almost nothing. Two drinks.”
“Be honest. Don’t lie to me. What were you boys doing in back between sets?”
“I wasn’t doing nothin’, Gloria. Geez, listen to me,” Ray protested.
“But they were. They were, right?”
“Who cares? You’re not their mommy, and you’re not mine,” Ray pushed back.
“Don’t you talk to me like that! It’s bad enough you gave up being a legit musician, but now you hang out with these addicts? I don’t mind slumming a bit for fun now and then, but you turn into an addict and the press finds out? I can see it in Variety—‘America’s sweetheart married to lowlife needle-marked devil.’”
“Oh, so this is about you now?” Ray said, getting testy. “I’m sick. I got a bug. But you’ve got a bug up your ass.”
“Fuck you, Ray!” she said and slapped him hard on the face. She backed away from the bed and glared at him.
“Don’t fucking hit me. I’m sick. Dammit, keep your hands off me!” Ray yelled, rubbing his face. “Jesus, Gloria, go to hell!”
“No, you got to hell, you loser,” she countered.
“Okay, I will go—playing jazz. You try to stop me. That’s me up there on the stand, the real me. When I’m there I’m not just any old schmuck reading the notes someone else threw onto a page. I just got a record offer from a big label. You don’t know ’cause you don’t even care about what’s going on with me. I like classical, but I love jazz. Do you even get the difference?”
“Ray, if you weren’t so stupid and artsy you could be leading pop concerts at the Hollywood Bowl. You got the dark Spanish looks and the talent. You could be bigger than Carmen Dragon, making a ton of dough, but you think it’s beneath you.”
“Who cares about looks, shallow shit like that? Lame Hollywood stuff. Is that really all you care about?” Ray could feel his heart pounding, his temples throbbing. Why can’t she leave me alone, let me sleep?
Gloria just stood there, glaring at him, her arms crossed over her chest. The almighty Gloria, all five foot three and one hundred and five pounds, ready to do mortal battle with a sick man. A minute of silence ensued—it seemed like forever.
Ray finally spoke. “So, Gloria, which are you choosing?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re not married to me, you’re married to your career—to Hollywood.”
“I’m sure as hell not going to be married to a drug addict, dammit!”
“Why are you talking like this? I’ve never done any drugs. You’re acting crazy!”
“You’re doing drugs with your band.”
“Hell no, I am not!” Ray yelled incredulously, stumbling to his feet to walk toward her.
“Yeah, get up, walk over here, show me your arms. You got tracks I bet, just like goddamn Calvin and Jojo.”
“Okay, you are totally crazy. You must be off your meds. Don’t you realize you sleep with me every night? Any damn day or night you can see my arms. You’d know if I have needle marks on my arms. Have you seen any?”
“Then you’re snorting something, liar.”
“Let it go. Seriously.”
“Look in the mirror. You look like an addict.”
“I’m sick, I got the flu. If you loved me you’d be taking care of me now, not yelling at me like a madwoman. Enough with the crazy shit!”
“Crazy shit? Yeah, okay, come here and I’ll show you crazy shit. You wanna see it?” Ray couldn’t figure out why she was going so totally ballistic and paranoid. Had to be from not taking her pills. She was certifiable right now.
“Come here, Ray, I’ll show you crazy shit,” she taunted, gesturing for him to come closer.
Maybe I can get my arms around her and try to calm her down. Slowly come up to her and see if I can get a grip on her, a bear hug, he thought. He moved closer and just as he was about to reach out to her, she grabbed a small metal sculpture with a marble base off the breakfront by the couch. She raised it quickly and slammed it as hard as she could on the side of Ray’s head. Pow. His head jerked sideways, and he tripped over the edge of an Oriental rug and toppled over hard, like a decrepit old building being razed by dynamite.
Gloria stood victorious, peering down at him—her face like a devil. “There’s crazy shit, Ray,” she yelled. “You wanted it, you got it. You don’t ever backtalk me again, mister. Don’t ever mess with me again, Ray. No way, no how. You try, and I’ll destroy you.”
He was out. Luckily for Gloria he wasn’t dead. Not that she really cared much in her present mental state.
Ray regained consciousness about twenty minutes later. He pulled himself up off the floor and staggered back to the bed. Jesus, the whole day in bed. First sick, now a bashed-in head. A great Hallelujah day. He lay there trying to get his mind to work, to figure out what had happened with Gloria. Jesus, she could have killed me. He looked around, trying to focus. No sign of her and no sign of her stuff. She’s cleared out—she’s gone. Left me to die on the floor. That’s the end of that. Damn, it’s gonna be ugly, though.
There was a knock on the door. Rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat. It made his head hurt more. Rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat.
“Go away,” Ray groaned.
“Ray, what’s going on? Why aren’t you at the club? Let me in.” It was Dorothy Love, Jojo’s wife. She was a sweetheart, the daughter of a respected Baton Rouge Baptist minister.
“I’m sick, Dorothy.”
“Ray, come on. The gig starts in ten minutes. Hurry up and we can still get there during the first set. Calvin sent me to get you.”
“I can’t play tonight.”
“Ray, what’s wrong? You never miss a night as long as I’ve known you. Where’s Gloria? Is she in there? Gloria?” Dorothy yelled.
“She left.”
“To get medicine?”
Ray wondered what to say next. He couldn’t decide. What the fuck did it matter?
“Ray? Ray? Dammit, let me in. What’s going on? You’re getting me worried. You sound like shit.”
“Just a minute,” he said, grabbing for a robe as he stood up. Still dizzy, he reached out and braced himself against a desk and then a leather chair as he wobbled over to unlock the door.
Dorothy entered and took a long look at his haggard face, the blood matted in his hair. She let out a whistle. “Whoa, what happened to you?”
“I’ve got the flu or something, really dizzy. Gloria came in and we got into a fight. She thought I was lazy, or on drugs, or something. She got totally paranoid. I think she stopped taking her pills. She got crazier and crazier and then she hit me with that thing over there on the floor, whatever it is. By the time I saw her swinging it at me I couldn’t get my hands up fast enough.”
“We got to get you to a doctor. You look bad, Ray.”
“No. What’s he gonna do, anyway? Give me aspirin? It’s not bleeding anymore. I just need to lay down.”
“Well, you need ice on that head. I’ll call for some. Go lay back down. Maybe we can get a doctor come over here.”
“Okay,” Ray sighed, once again traipsing back to the bed.
“Room service? Yes, can you send up some ice right away—like quickly? Okay, thanks. And then can you send up some aspirin, a pot of strong coffee, and a BLT? Okay, thanks!”
“I don’t want a sandwich, Dorothy. Cancel the BLT.”
“Fool, the coffee is for both of us, the BLT is for me. I’m starving!”
Ray smiled weakly. Dorothy was a good woman. The ice arrived before long and Dorothy wrapped some in a hand towel and placed it on Ray’s aching head. She used a wet towel to clean up the blood encrusted in his hair.
“You got nice hair, Ray. Soft and pretty.”
“Thanks, I guess,” said Ray.
“Man, she got you real good. I’m sorry, Ray. I’m real sorry. She’s pretty and she’s a movie star or whatever, but there’s somethin’ wrong with her.”
“Tell me about it.” Ray moaned.
“Ray, you said somethin’ about pills, right? We were in the ladies’ room at the club Tuesday night. She took a whole bottle of pills and flushed ’em down the toilet. Laughed and said they were pills from men who wanted to control her. She went on and on complaining about every man in her life, even you.”
“That sounds about right. The pills are to keep her steady. Not too manic, not too depressed. Like in between. She’s got problems. And I guess I’m one of them.”
“It’s not your fault. I think she just don’t like men!”
“You think?” he said with a weak smile, pointing to his head. Dorothy smiled back. She got a fresh towel, moistened it, and kept cleaning Ray’s wound. This is what a good woman does, he thought. Jojo’s got a good woman.
“Well, she’s gone now, right, Ray? Maybe you don’t go chase after her—that’s my advice.”
“I think you’re right, Dorothy. Hey, at least she didn’t hit me in the lips. I can still play my horn!”
There was a knock at the door—room service again. Dorothy took the aspirin bottle and tapped out three pills into Ray’s hand. He gulped them down with some water while Dorothy took a bite of her BLT.
“You want some?”
“No, I’d probably throw it back up. I’m still dizzy. But I’ll take a cup of coffee. Give it to me black.”
“Oh, black’s the best. You know it.”
“Don’t make jokes. My head hurts too much if I laugh, Dorothy!”
“Okay, sorry! Hey, I’m gonna call the club. I’ll tell Calvin you really can’t make it.”
“He’ll get lots of solos tonight. Tell him I ain’t dead. No little hotel statue gonna kill me off, goddammit!”
“Well look at you, gettin’ your sense of humor back. See, everything gon’ be all right.” Dorothy dialed the club, taking bites of her BLT as the phone rang and rang. Someone finally answered and she got her message through to Calvin. “He’s real upset, Ray. He says he’ll get a doctor over here. He’ll get him here soon.”
“Okay,” Ray said. “Hey, at least it’s not Friday or Saturday and the big crowds. Maybe I am hungry now. I haven’t eaten all day.”
“Okay, I’ll get you somethin’. What do you want?”
“Soup and crackers, something like that.”
“Okay. Say, why don’t you close your eyes and try to relax.”
Ray took the advice, but with his eyes closed he felt like he was spinning, spinning fast. He opened his eyes and the spinning stopped. Dorothy ordered for Ray and then hummed a little tune while they waited for the soup and the doctor to arrive. After a while, there was another knock on the door. It was the doctor. Dorothy ushered him in.
“Hello, folks, I’m Dr. Julius Sands. You’re Mr. Machado, I presume?”
“Yes, thanks for coming,” Ray said. Dr. Sands wore a fine wool suit and crisply starched Van Heusen shirt with a beautiful silver and turquoise bolo tie to set himself apart from the crowd. He was a small man, but somehow had a great booming voice, the kind of deep voice that might scare a child, but command respect from adults in his care.
“So what seems to be the problem, Mr. Machado?”
“Well, I suppose the biggest problem is that my wife tried to kill me by bashing my head in. That’s for starters.”
“And this is our wife here?” Dr. Sands eyed Dorothy.
“No, a friend. I’m sorry. This is Dorothy Love, a good friend and a pretty good nurse.”
“Oh, I see. So there’s the ‘for starters,’ as you put it. A wife with a flair for the dramatic. There’s more?”
“Yes, I think I have the flu. I’ve been dizzy and feeling bad all day. The cracked skull was the icing on top of the cake.”
“Ray, do you realize you’re on the thirteenth floor of this hotel?” Dorothy interrupted.
“What? No, I’m on the fourteenth floor. I’m in 1403, Dorothy. Besides, who cares?” Ray said, giving her a disapproving look. “The doc is here. He’s trying to talk to me.”
“There’s no thirteenth floor here, Ray. Well what I mean is they don’t say there is one, so the fourteenth floor is really the thirteenth floor. You shoulda stayed on the seventh floor like me and Jojo. I plan these things.”
Dr. Sands fiddled with his bag, pulling out a stethoscope and the like, and sat patiently while this odd conversation ran its course.
“No Louisiana juju or mojo talk, Dorothy, please. I’ve heard it all before. Not tonight, okay?”
“All right, Mr. Machado,” Dr. Sands said, “let’s see that noggin.” He moved Ray’s head around at different angles, got a good look, and let out a whistle. “Well, it’s a doozy, that’s for sure, but you’ll survive it. The bleeding is superficial. Did you lose consciousness when it happened?”
“Yes, Doc, I did. But you think it’ll be okay?”
“Yes, I do. Ice it, aspirin, the usual stuff. Looks like you’ve already been doing that, right? Rest, too. I still need to look you over in general. Let’s take your temperature, blood pressure, and so on—the usual drill.” He stuck a thermometer into Ray’s mouth and then pulled it out after a while. “98.8—no fever. Pulse next.” He reached out for Ray’s arm, then eyed his watch. “One sixteen, a bit high, but you’ve been under stress, eh? Now let’s get this cuff on your arm. Hold still.” The doctor pumped up the cuff, then released the pressure, watching the little gauge. A look of concern crossed his face.
“What is it, Doc?” said Ray.
“I’m not done yet. Let’s listen to the ticker.” He placed the stethoscope on Ray’s chest, moving it here and there. Ray sat there trying to remember the last time he’d been to a doctor. He hadn’t been sick in ages. Sands checked Ray’s eyes with the light from an ophthalmoscope, making a little tsk sound now and then as he peered in.
“Mr. Machado, do you smoke?”
“No, I’m a trumpet player—professional. I can’t afford that vice.”
“Drink?”
“Not that much, I try to be a good Boy Scout. Stay healthy.”
“Very good. And this trumpet playing, do you enjoy it?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Good to hear. A man should enjoy his profession. This trumpet playing, tell me about it. Do you have to blow hard—like really hard?”
“Not so much. I’m classically trained. I know how to play without doing anything crazy.”
“Like what would be crazy?”
“I’ve seen big band guys get dizzy or even pass out from blowing high notes.”
“Interesting,” Dr. Sands said, rubbing his chin.
“But I’ve never played much first trumpet, and now I mostly play bebop. You won’t hear me playing too many high Cs.”
“You say you were dizzy earlier, heart pounding and so on?” Dr. Sands asked.
“Yes,” Ray answered.
“Mr. Machado, your blood pressure is dangerously high—160 over 115. Has anyone told you that you may have serious high blood pressure problems?”
“No. Well, I’ve hardly been to a doctor. I’ve been healthy,” Ray said.
“I don’t think that’s true anymore. This trumpet playing is dangerous. You need to have a full battery of tests as soon as possible. Your resting pulse is very high—the blood pressure, the dizziness. You may even have heart damage. You may have to quit playing your instrument, Mr. Machado. Any vision problems lately?”
“Yeah, maybe.” Ray started to become truly perturbed by this know-it-all.
“Like what?”
“Sometimes I see like stars or flashes. I thought it was in my head.”
“Well, it is in your head. Your eyes are in your head and all this blowing pressure is causing eye problems. I believe you have a retinal tear in your left eye. We’d need to look at it with better instruments than what I have with me. Listen, I’m most concerned about the blood pressure and your heart. You need to see a cardiologist as soon as possible, hopefully tomorrow.”
“We still have three more days at the Black Hawk, Doc. I have to play those or we lose a lot of money. It’s a serious gig.”
“Mr. Machado, have you been listening to me?” Dr. Sands insisted, staring intently at Ray and then swiveling for a few seconds toward Dorothy, hoping to enlist her support. “You look like you are healthy; you’re a handsome, successful man and all that, but you’re a ticking time bomb, to be blunt about it. If I were in charge of your welfare, I would forbid the trumpet for now. Take it away, lock it up. There’s a name for what you’ve been doing to yourself, it’s called the Valsalva maneuver. An Italian fellow in the 1600s named Antonio Valsalva discovered it.”
“Yeah, so what is it?” Ray asked defiantly. “What’s it got to do with playing the trumpet?”
“Oh, it doesn’t have to be trumpet playing. It could be, pardon me, about straining one’s body to try to force a bowel movement. You know, holding your breath and forcing down. That’s the potty version of Valsalva. Your version is eminently more artistic. You professional trumpet players probably stoke up on air, hold it, then blast away. Am I right?”
“No, I don’t do that!” Ray protested.
“You don’t realize, even a split second of doing so strains the heart. The pressure from the left to the right chamber becomes dangerously unequal. Some people’s hearts can take it, some can’t. Do you know who King George the Second was?”
“I’m not sure, Doc,” Ray answered.
“Well, George the Third was the King of Britain when we fought for our independence. George the Second was crazy George the Third’s pappy, of course. I’m a history buff, medical and otherwise.”
The phone rang, and Dorothy went to answer it. While the band was on break, Calvin was calling to find out how Ray was doing.
“By the time George the Second was sixty he was blind in one eye, hard of hearing, severely constipated, as well as gout-stricken due to his awful English diet,” Sands continued. “One day he popped into the loo to do a poo. Well look, I made a rhyme!” He chuckled. “Anyway, he sat down on the porcelain throne, not his golden one, held his breath, grunted, pushed really hard, probably over and over, doing his royal version of the Valsalva maneuver, and right then and there burst his heart—aortic aneurysm. Totally blew it out. A quick death on the potty. Very dignified for a king, wouldn’t you agree? Sorry, I am often in the habit of speaking in facetious tones. Interesting, eh?”
“I guess. So I should try not to poop, Doc?” Ray asked sarcastically. “Is that what I should do?”
“Well, just don’t strain, lad, don’t strain at it!” The doctor smiled.
“Duly noted. I’m sorry, I guess I was raised by savages.”
“That’s okay, I give all my patients little lessons like this. Ray, you’ve got symptoms like what killed George the Second. What are you going to do about it?”
“Okay, Doc, I get it. I’ll get some tests. I promise.”
“And you have to put the trumpet down. Now. Get the tests and then maybe pick it back up if the specialists clear you.”
“I don’t know… this is my life. Music is my life.”
“It won’t be your life if it winds up killing you. You may think you are indestructible, but I can assure you that you’re not,” Dr. Sands warned. “Ray, there’s a book I love called The Medieval Reader. Big book, maybe five hundred pages with tiny type. It’s all contemporary accounts about a smorgasbord of old stuff from the Dark Ages. A recipe for stuffed eels, how to burn a witch or draw and quarter a man, some folk remedies, firsthand accounts of famous battles—you get the idea. One chapter contains obituary notices from newspapers in merry old London. They’re sad to read, especially the ones about children, but some are also funny in an Edmund Gorey sort of way. You know Gorey?”
“Yeah, sure. Spooky funny guy. He’s in the papers, I think,” Ray said.
“Yes, he’s a master of what’s called black humor. So here’s one from the book. I’ve memorized a few to use as small talk at parties.
“‘Julia Dovesmore, age thirteen, dared by her drunken Uncle Onslow to balance upon the top of a wall with her eyes closed, said wall being part of an enclosure within which were several recently captured wild boars, did lose her balance, fell into the filthy enclosure, and was devoured by the warty animals. Requiescat in Pacem, June 18th, 1599.’
“There’s an interesting side note,” Dr. Sands continued with a chuckle. “‘The bishop of Warwickshire ordered the boars destroyed since placing their meat on the dining table would constitute what was then considered by the church to be a secondary level of cannibalism. The mischievous drunkard uncle was ordered to compensate the owner of the boars ten gold pieces!’”
“Okay, I get it. You got a knack for telling a story, but what’s that got to do with me? Besides, it’s getting late.”
“Wait, there’s one more—a short one, more modern, humbly composed just now by myself, based on Dickens.
“‘A Tale of Two Trumpeters by Doctor Julius Sands. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. Joshua fit the battle of Jericho. He blew his trumpet and the walls came a-tumblin’ down. Ray Machado blew his trumpet. The people cheered at his art, but the high notes burst his poor heart. Requiescat in Pacem, 1961.’ Get the drift?”
“Yeah, it wasn’t so subtle. So go home now, you’re up way too late. I’ll get those tests when I get back to LA. That’s where I live. I’m married to a movie star. It’s a charmed life for me, Doc.” Ray glanced over at Dorothy, whose expression indicated that she had been taking the doctor’s words far more seriously than Ray had been.
Dr. Sands stood up, reached over and placed his right hand on Ray’s shoulder for a moment, then touched and patted Ray’s cheek as if he were blessing a small child. “Be safe, Mr. Machado. Be well and be safe.” He then turned for the door.
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