here.”
Jock hits me extra hard on my knee with his rubber hammer, making me flinch.
“That must have been your funny bone,” he says sarcastical y. He steps back. “Right, you know the routine.”
I close my eyes and bring my hands together— index finger to index finger, middle finger to middle finger, and so on. I almost manage to pul it off, but my ring fingers slide past each other. I try again and this time my middle fingers don’t meet in the middle.
Jock plants his elbow on the desk and invites me to arm wrestle.
“I’m amazed at how high-tech you guys are,” I say, squaring up to him. His fist crushes my fingers. “I’m sure you only do this for personal satisfaction. It probably has nothing to do with examining me.”
“How did you guess,” says Jock, as I push against his arm. I can feel my face going red. He’s toying with me. Just once I’d like to pin the bastard.
Conceding defeat, I slump back and flex my fingers. There’s no sign of triumph on Jock’s face. Without having to be told I stand and start walking around the room, trying to swing my arms as though marching. My left arm seems to hang there.
Jock takes the cel ophane wrapper from a cigar and snips off the end. He rol s his tongue around the tip and licks his lips before lighting up. Then he closes his eyes and lets the smoke leak through his smile.
“God, I look forward to my first one of the day,” he says, rol ing the cigar between his forefinger and thumb. He watches the smoke curl toward the ceiling, letting it fil the silence as it fil s the empty space.
“So what’s the story?” I ask, getting agitated.
“You have Parkinson’s disease.”
“I already know that.”
“So what else do you want me to say?”
“Tel me something I don’t know.”
He chomps the cigar between his teeth. “You’ve done the reading. I’l bet you can tel me the entire history of Parkinson’s— every theory, research program and celebrity sufferer. Come on, you tel me. What drugs should I be prescribing? What diet?”
I hate the fact that he’s right. In the past month I have spent hours searching the Internet and reading medical journals. I know al about Dr. James Parkinson, the English physician who in 1817 described a condition he cal ed “shaking palsy.” I also know it’s more common in people over sixty but one in seven patients show symptoms before they turn forty. Lucky me!
Jock ashes his cigar and leans forward. He looks more like a CEO every time I see him.
“How’s Bobby Moran doing?”
“Not so good. He seems to have relapsed, but he’s not talking to me. I can’t find out what’s happened.”
Jock thinks I should have stuck to “real medicine” when I had the chance instead of having a social conscience more expensive than my mortgage. Ironical y, he used to be just like me at university. When I remind him of the fact he claims to have been a summer-of-love socialist because al the best-looking girls were left wing.
Nobody ever dies of Parkinson’s disease. You die with it. That’s one of Jock’s trite aphorisms. I can just see it on a bumper sticker because it’s only half as ridiculous as “Guns don’t kil people, people do.”
I spend a week convincing myself that I don’t have this disease and then Jock clouts me around the head and tel s me to wake up and smel the flowers.
My reaction normal y comes under the heading “Why me?,” but after meeting Malcolm on the roof of the Marsden I feel rather chastened. His disease is bigger than mine.
I began to realize something was wrong about fifteen months ago. The main thing was the tiredness. Some days it was like walking through mud. I stil played tennis twice a week and coached Charlie’s soccer team. But then I started to find that the bal didn’t go where I’d intended it to anymore and if I took off suddenly, I tripped over my own feet. Charlie thought I was clowning around. Julianne thought I was getting lazy. I blamed turning
Jock hits me extra hard on my knee with his rubber hammer, making me flinch.
“That must have been your funny bone,” he says sarcastical y. He steps back. “Right, you know the routine.”
I close my eyes and bring my hands together— index finger to index finger, middle finger to middle finger, and so on. I almost manage to pul it off, but my ring fingers slide past each other. I try again and this time my middle fingers don’t meet in the middle.
Jock plants his elbow on the desk and invites me to arm wrestle.
“I’m amazed at how high-tech you guys are,” I say, squaring up to him. His fist crushes my fingers. “I’m sure you only do this for personal satisfaction. It probably has nothing to do with examining me.”
“How did you guess,” says Jock, as I push against his arm. I can feel my face going red. He’s toying with me. Just once I’d like to pin the bastard.
Conceding defeat, I slump back and flex my fingers. There’s no sign of triumph on Jock’s face. Without having to be told I stand and start walking around the room, trying to swing my arms as though marching. My left arm seems to hang there.
Jock takes the cel ophane wrapper from a cigar and snips off the end. He rol s his tongue around the tip and licks his lips before lighting up. Then he closes his eyes and lets the smoke leak through his smile.
“God, I look forward to my first one of the day,” he says, rol ing the cigar between his forefinger and thumb. He watches the smoke curl toward the ceiling, letting it fil the silence as it fil s the empty space.
“So what’s the story?” I ask, getting agitated.
“You have Parkinson’s disease.”
“I already know that.”
“So what else do you want me to say?”
“Tel me something I don’t know.”
He chomps the cigar between his teeth. “You’ve done the reading. I’l bet you can tel me the entire history of Parkinson’s— every theory, research program and celebrity sufferer. Come on, you tel me. What drugs should I be prescribing? What diet?”
I hate the fact that he’s right. In the past month I have spent hours searching the Internet and reading medical journals. I know al about Dr. James Parkinson, the English physician who in 1817 described a condition he cal ed “shaking palsy.” I also know it’s more common in people over sixty but one in seven patients show symptoms before they turn forty. Lucky me!
Jock ashes his cigar and leans forward. He looks more like a CEO every time I see him.
“How’s Bobby Moran doing?”
“Not so good. He seems to have relapsed, but he’s not talking to me. I can’t find out what’s happened.”
Jock thinks I should have stuck to “real medicine” when I had the chance instead of having a social conscience more expensive than my mortgage. Ironical y, he used to be just like me at university. When I remind him of the fact he claims to have been a summer-of-love socialist because al the best-looking girls were left wing.
Nobody ever dies of Parkinson’s disease. You die with it. That’s one of Jock’s trite aphorisms. I can just see it on a bumper sticker because it’s only half as ridiculous as “Guns don’t kil people, people do.”
I spend a week convincing myself that I don’t have this disease and then Jock clouts me around the head and tel s me to wake up and smel the flowers.
My reaction normal y comes under the heading “Why me?,” but after meeting Malcolm on the roof of the Marsden I feel rather chastened. His disease is bigger than mine.
I began to realize something was wrong about fifteen months ago. The main thing was the tiredness. Some days it was like walking through mud. I stil played tennis twice a week and coached Charlie’s soccer team. But then I started to find that the bal didn’t go where I’d intended it to anymore and if I took off suddenly, I tripped over my own feet. Charlie thought I was clowning around. Julianne thought I was getting lazy. I blamed turning
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