The older unwell Jerry dead-reckons on a spot four feet below the camera. You know what's been my salvation? These kids. These brave kids, they've saved my life. They've shown me more than fame. These kids. All the kids I've known who are buried could probably fill the Hollywood Bowl for three nights. Though each gesture seems rehearsed, each line scripted, each pause milked, there's something in those uncorked eyes, as if Joseph Levitch is impersonating Jerry Lewis, as if little Joey Levitch, the son of show people, has slipped backstage, lonely and hungry for attention, and peeked onto Mom and Dad onstage. Jerry lowers his head, raises his hand, his index finger, and the band begins to play.
Abe scoots into a more comfortable position. "Carousel," he says rather cryptically, like a minor god's annunciation.
"What?" Billy asks.
"This song, it's from Carousel. Rodgers and Hammerstein. 'You'll Never Walk Alone,' it's called."
"Oh, right."
"A wonderful musical. But sad."
Jerry's thin voice cracks—When you walk through a storm—trembles—Hold your head up high—carries the notes like water in his palms—And don't be afraid of the dark. As he sings, the screen dissolves into headshots of boys, a montage of them, with names and dates that end in 1998 or 99: Charlie Sedgwick, 1979-1999, Fred Hanrahan, 1981-1999, Miguel Pettera, 1983-1998. They're the between-telethon dead, tossed in the ditch of a year.
Billy signs his last signature. The document is done.
Abe sag-sag-sags, his head waiting for a soft landing and finding none, snapping back.
"I'm so tired," he says. "I don't think I've slept in weeks."
"Want some water?"
"Please."
With great effort and pain, Billy pours a glass from the pitcher on the tray table.
"Talk about energy," Abe says of Jerry who finds strength in the buildup of tempo. The born entertainer wraps himself around the music and phrases the lyrics with ligament-straining gusto—And the sweet silver song of the lark—Jerry—Walk on through the wind—practically keening through clenched caps—Walk on through the rain—while Abe downs his water. "Could you turn the volume up?"
Billy scoots the portable speaker nearer to his father.
Abe slips off his shoes, releasing an odor of mismatched socks.
Though your dreams be tossed and blown.
Larger feet seem to stamp on Billy's chest, up and down and around and around.
Walk on, walk on.
The intercom above the bed crackles with need.
With hope in your heart.
"Are you hungry?" Billy asks Abe.
"Famished."
Billy reaches for his lunch tray, a full course of easily digestible food. Its slight heft is killing, but Abe accepts it with enthusiasm and tears away the wrapping like a lion ripping through a clear layer of skin. He eats with just about as much delicacy, all the while keeping his attention on the TV.
Jerry is barely holding up—And you'll never walk alone—struggling toward the last lyric—You'll—girding his entire being—ne—for the final—ver—push—walk—over the top—ahh—deep emotional inhale—looooohhhhh—as the end note—oooohhhh—the final note is extended long past its due—ooohhh—Jerry palsied—oohh—Jerry melting—oh—Jerry near collapse—nnnnnn—pointing toward the rig of lights that represents the sky and the heavens above filled with his kids—naa—who have marched valiantly with him. Billy leans back onto pillows and tries relaxing his grip on pain. Medical machinery surrounds him, his heart expressed by way of a cuff on his index finger, the beats a mountainscape ever repeating, the nurses in their station conscious of its trace. There seems to be no cause for worry.
Balloons and confetti drift down on Jerry as he keels inside of Ed McMahon's embrace, like a clapper to a bell. The closing tally on the tote is $51,326,832.86. A new record. Jerry wipes his eye with a raised pinky, as if he weeps tea.
The sun through the window illuminates the dust floating in the air, like plankton, Billy thinks, liking the image. The IV drips without sound. The catheter siphons urine into the bag clipped low on the bed. This is me, Billy thinks.
He watches Abe watch Jerry sob. His father is not what this has been all about. No, this has had nothing to do with him. But here he is, a foot away.
Abe sneezes. Snot entangles his fingers.
"You need a tissue?" Billy asks.
"Please."
Billy rips a few tissues from the box on his bedside table.
"I've had a cold forever," Abe says.
Turning once more toward the TV, toward Jerry and his last gasp, Abe gives Billy his back. There are no great pronouncements in that back, only a split seam along the jacket's shoulder and a history of sweat marks under the arms and a cluster of SIGN HERE arrows as if ambushed by Apache lawyers. The posture is without incident. The once-tailored suit has become a size too big for these bones. The gray wool must be unbearable in this weather. Around the vicinity of the lungs the fabric seems lighter, as if clothes can wear down from the inside, breath fading like the sun, every fist-shaped heartbeat scraping its knuckles against a bit of surface. Abe moans a small yawn. He's here, Billy thinks, and I'm alive, and maybe that's more than nothing.
"Is the food any good?" Billy asks.
"I'm too hungry to know," Abe answers.
"I know what you mean," Billy says, absorbed with what's in front of him while Jerry blows kisses and shouts rather hopefully, See you next year.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Marisa Pagano, Maureen Klier, Ethan Dunn, Greg Villepique, and Sara Mercurio at Bloomsbury. Jessica Craig and Arlo Crawford at Burnes and Clegg. Colin Harrison and Nan Graham at Scribner. Harry Groome and the kind folks at SmithKline Beecham (pre-Glaxo); in particular, the helpful staff at their Philadelphia CPU. Dr. Ed Rabiner. Max and Eliza Gilbert. Parker and Gail Gilbert. Amor Towles. And finally the three people who sat in vigil around this novel these last six years, none of them ever doubting the coma would eventually break: Walter Donahue, Gillian Blake, and Bill Clegg. I survived on your patience and support, on your shouts of Don't go into the light. Thank you, especially Bill.
And, of course, Susie.
A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR
David Gilbert is the author of the short-story
collection Remote Feed. His stories have appeared in
the New Yorker, Harper's, GQ, and Bomb. He lives
in New York City with his wife and two children.
A NOTE ON THE TYPE
Linotype Garamond Three is based on seventeenth-
century copies of Claude Garamond's types cut by
Jean Jannon. This version was designed for American
Type Founders in 1917 by Morris Fuller Benton
and Thomas Maitland Cleland, and adapted for
mechanical composition by Linotype in 1936.
The Normals Page 38
