Book of O'Kells: Mother Nature: The Journals of Eleanor O'Kell

by Michael Conniff

  February 23, 1991

  Dr. Gloria Mayer’s letter of resignation is on my desk.

  March 3, 1991

  Two of our Tomgirls go into labor tonight. It’s too late to escape my fate.

  April 1, 1991

  They’re boys, almost every damn one of them, as if the Cushing genes will settle for nothing less. I can almost hear Thomas Cushing & Sons laughing, as though the whole thing has been nothing but their cosmic joke. “I’m so sorry, Big Mother,” one of the Tomgirls tells me. “I don’t know what went wrong. Nobody does.” Abigail Rickover says statistically we did everything right. “This is an impossibility,” she says. “An act of God.”

  April 9, 1991

  It’s like someone kicked me in the gut, like I have been led down this road on purpose for the purpose of my own humiliation. I don’t know what to do with the Cushing boys, these Cushing sons. I won’t touch them. I can’t even look at them. The Tommies can’t carry any more children to term. The Tomgirls produce mainly boys. The Good Egg is out of eggs. My best-laid plans could not have come out worse. All I want to do right now is to lick my wounds.

  May 1, 1991

  “Go figure, Miss O’K,” Sliv says. “Who the hell knows what Mother Nature’s thinking these days?”

  May 19, 1991

  “Miss O’K?” Sliv says. “There’s some TV people been snooping round the canal. They been asking questions about some special thing they’re doing on The Tommies.” I tell Sliv to tell everyone to keep their mouth shut. When it comes to The Tommies, no news is good news.

  May 20, 1991

  “The TV people been having problems with their tires,” Sliv says, “so they can’t get around town so good to make their pictures. And they been told to leave the Queen Mother, so they won’t have a place to stay in town.” Now you’re talking, I say.

  June 4, 1991

  The cameraman and TV reporter are waiting for me everywhere, shouting questions that I ignore. I tell Sliv to leave them to Chief Dan. It’s only a matter of time before they get arrested. Or bored to death.

  July 17, 1991

  Aside from Heather, the chemotherapy is working. I tell everyone to grow back their hair in solidarity. I suppose it all could have been much worse. Or so I keep telling myself.

  August 5, 1991

  I get a call from a television reporter asking me if I had an investigation of my own once, called “The Inquisition.” I tell the bitch to go to hell.

  August 30, 1991

  “I’m not drinking any more,” Diana says. “I’m just praying.” What’s next? I say. The Convent? “That’s not as crazy as it sounds,” she says.

  September 16, 1991

  I feel like my life’s hit a dead end, as if I wouldn’t know what to do with Abigail Rickover’s immortality even if I had it. Everywhere I look I see nothing but bouncing baby boys, a fate worse than death.

  September 18, 1991

  With Will at least I knew his death was only a matter of time, but this time the baby boys came out of nowhere for no reason. I don’t know what to think, what to feel. I don’t even feel numb.

  October 13, 1991

  Over the phone I ask Vincent D’Angelo what Allyson wants. “All of the above,” he says.

  November 27, 1991

  “Tom is dead.” Diana is crying into the phone. “They found him naked on the beach by The Big House. He drowned.” He killed himself, I say. I’m so glad. “How can you say that?” Diana says. “If he killed himself he’s going straight to Hell. You know that.” Music to my ears, I say.

  December 11, 1991

  “I know how you think,” Vincent D’Angelo says over the phone. “I’m making a career out of knowing how you think. And now I’ve got you by the short hairs.” I have no idea what he’s talking about.

  December 25, 1991

  Diana and I come together for Christmas, the first time in a long time we have been together for the holidays. G, not so little any more, is home from boarding school, looking bored with the world. “Dear Lord,” Diana says before we cut into the turkey, “let us give thanks for all the good things we have in our life, and let us be thankful that our Will and our Rebecca and our Luigi are with you now. Amen.” Diana makes the sign of the Cross precisely, touching her forehead, and each shoulder once, and her lips with the tips of her fingers. She makes no mention of Tom because he has gone to Hell.

  January 2, 1992

  “They’re back,” Sliv says. “TV. They say they want to give you one last chance to have your say.” I tell Sliv they can go to hell.

  January 29, 1992

  “We’re going to go after you for what happened to Eugene Koksher,” Vincent D’Angelo says. I tell him he can’t prove a thing. “I don’t have to prove anything,” he says. “It’s all up to the DA now. I get to watch. And I can’t wait.”

  March 4, 1992

  “Did you see it?” Sliv says. I have no idea what he’s talking about. “TV I mean,” Sliv says. “About the Tommies. It was bad, Miss O’K. Real bad. It didn’t make you look so good.” I’ll have to wait for the re-run, I say.

  March 5, 1992

  “Have you seen it?” Betsy Bokamper says. No, I say. “Don’t you want to?” No, I say. “I’ll send you a tape,” she says. I won’t look at it, I say. “I think you need to,” she says. I say I don’t think so.

  March 14, 1992

  I bite into another donut at the Briody & Daughter Bake Shop and watch the powdered sugar float down onto my plate like snow. Betsy Bokamper won’t even look at her muffin. “The United States Attorney’s office in Boston is going to indict you for the attempted murder of Eugene Koksher,” she says. “They’re going to announce it sometime this week. Maybe you should tell me what the hell happened.” It’s not true, I say. “They have the nurse and Dr. Gloria Mayer and the video,” she says.

  March 20, 1992

  I am ready when they come for me in the early morning, when it’s still dark in the last town along the canal. We drive for hours without saying a word. Betsy Bokamper is ready at the courthouse in Boston with my $10 million bail.

  March 22, 1992

  There are camera crews everywhere now in the last town along the canal. I can’t even walk down the street without their microphones picking at my scabs.

  April 1, 1992

  “You’re in my prayers,” Diana says. That and a dime, I say.

  April 15, 1992

  “I just ran a DNA test on little Eugene Koksher,” Vincent D’Angelo says. “So now I know that I’m the proud poppa of this little son of a bitch that I didn’t even know I had.” How nice for you, I say. “Making me the father? You’re much sicker than I thought, O’Kell. Or slicker.” You’re smart, I say, you’re aggressive, and you’re not afraid. You’re everything I could want in a father, if there has to be one. “And you are a fucking sicko dike.” From your lips to God’s ears, I tell him.

  May 1, 1992

  “You don’t look well, Eleanor,” Betsy Bokamper says. “I want you to have a complete physical. Any kind of ailment or condition could help us with the jury.” I tell her there’s nothing wrong with me that Not Guilty won’t cure.

  June 14, 1992

  I go to the Lying-In for every test they can think of. They take every bodily fluid they can find. But I refuse to put on the hospital gown.

  June 19, 1992

  We go to court for jury selection in front of my old friend Judge Benning. He knows me on sight. “Good morning, Miss O’Kell,” he says. “It’s either been too long or not long enough.”

  June 20, 1992

  Betsy Bokamper wants women on the jury, nothing but young women of my persuasion if she can help it. Sheilah Corsetti will take a woman or two as long as they are black and old and preferably poor. The first six on the jury are all women, two of them black, none of them poor, until Judge Benning gets peeved. “A jury of her peers,” he says. “Not of her sex.”

  June 27, 1992

  “We need to run a few more test
s, Miss O’Kell.” A doctor calls me from the Lying-In. “So we can be sure.”

  July 18, 1992

  Dr. Heyer is young enough, pretty enough to be my daughter. She has straight black hair parted to one side and held off by a single barrette. She looks away while she feels my breasts. “I want to do a biopsy,” she says.

  July 20, 1992

  “I am going to admit you,” Dr. Heyer says. “Right away. There is really no choice.” I say there are always choices in life.

  July 22, 1992

  “It’s not good,” Dr. Heyer says. “See these little shadows on the X-ray?” She touches her own breasts here and there. They’re small, I say. “That’s right,” she says. “They are still relatively small. But they are not benign. We have to begin chemotherapy, aggressive chemotherapy immediately.” And if that doesn’t work? “We will have to consider more radical procedures,” she says.

  August 4, 1992

  “I am so sorry,” Diana says on the phone from the Convent. “You’re in my prayers.”

  August 9, 1992

  “Now everybody knows your name,” Vincent D’Angelo says. “They know what kind of person you are. Me and the Assistant DA are becoming best buddies. We’re going to have a field day when we go to a civil trial for damages.” I say it will never get that far.

  August 29, 1992

  I am going to see every specialist in the Western world before I let them cut on me. I am going to take every drug in the medicine cabinet.

  September 3, 1992

  “G is fine with this,” Diana says from the Convent. “G has everything he will ever need. My faith can only help him. And you.” May God have mercy on your soul, I say.

  September 9, 1992

  “I’ve gotten us a delay,” Betsy Bokamper says. “Because of your cancer. Judge Benning was very disappointed. So was the DA. They were both chomping at the bit.” They’ll just have to wait their turn, I say.

  September 29, 1992

  We have hardly started the chemo and I feel like I’m a thousand years old. Sliv takes me everywhere now, helping me in and out of my car, half-carrying me when he has to. I still have my own hair but I won’t for very long. I’d just as soon die as go into surgery.

  October 17, 1992

  “We’re making some progress,” Dr. Heyer says. “I’m more optimistic than before.” She is wearing glasses today of the thinnest black wire and she keeps her hair back off her face in a braid. Beneath the white hospital coat she is dressed all in black, in a short skirt that would work at a cocktail party. Her skin is as clear and fine as crystal, and her lipstick is bright red, as if she is now ready to be kissed. What’s your name, Dr. Heyer? I ask. What do your friends call you? “Helen,” she says.

  November 1, 1992

  “You are in my prayers,” Diana says. I tell her that’s not where I want to be.

  November 2, 1992

  I go in and out of the hospital with Sliv for my latest blast. I try to be a good patient, a soldier, to puke only when nobody is looking. Only Sliv, bless him, knows how bad things can get.

  November 9, 1992

  “We are almost finished with the first round,” Dr. Heyer says, “and we’re still on track.” That’s good news, I say. She is wearing cashmere this morning under her white coat, a cream sweater vest the color of her creamy skin. I can see the tight perfection of her arms as she pushes up her sleeves to touch me in all the wrong places.

  November 21, 1992

  I sit in a chair at The Queen Mother all day long, looking out over the canal as the leaves stumble-bum down into the water. I think of Dr. Helen Heyer all the time. I am too old and too sick to think about anything else.

  December 5, 1992

  I transfer the funds to fund her research. I give Helen so much money there is no chance she will ever leave the Lying-In.

  January 12, 1993

  “Sometimes,” Diana says, “I feel like it’s my fate to be the last one standing. I wish I knew why.” Be careful what you wish for, I tell her. “I wouldn’t wish this on anyone,” she says. “Immortality is a one-way ticket.”

  February 9, 1993

  I love you, I say to Dr. Heyer. “I know you do,” she says. “And it’s perfectly normal.” Not like that, I say. Not like some patient. I love you the way a woman can love another woman the moment she sees her. I love the way you make time stand still. The way you push your sleeves up above your elbows. “I wouldn’t know about that,” she says. I can teach you, I say.

  February 19, 1993

  Who would do the operation? I ask. “I’m a surgeon,” Dr. Heyer says. “Breast cancer is what I do.” Anyone but you, I say.

  February 25, 1993

  “I am going to file a motion for dismissal,” Betsy Bokamper says. “Judge Benning is going to grant it because of your condition.”

  March 3, 1993

  I’m not ready to be cut on, not yet.

  March 30, 1993

  “You have a choice,” Helen says. “If we don’t operate I would guess you have less than a year to live. Maybe much less. The alternative is to put your faith in a lot of pills and potions that might or might not work. The alternative is to go to Mexico, or to Europe, or to Timbuktu. To go fishing for a miracle.” What would you do if you were me? “If it were me,” she says, “I would get everything in order and go in to have the surgery the next morning. If it were me it would be worth it so that I could go on living.”

  April 1, 1993

  She is a reason for living, a good reason even though I know a cut-up old sicko dike like me can never have her. I know that. But there are other ways to possess a person.

  April 11, 1993

  “I’m in love,” Dr. Heyer says. I tell her I am, too. “You don’t understand, Miss O’Kell. I’m in love with a man, a good man, an anesthesiologist from Albuquerque. He loves the Southwest and so do I.” What about your research? I say. “Being with him, having a family some day, those are the things that matter to me now. When you’re a surgeon, you don’t get to have much of a life. I need more than my work to keep going.” What about me? “I’ve done everything I can for you,” she says. “Someone else will have to perform the surgery, Miss O’Kell.” Call me Eleanor, I say. Helen doesn’t think that’s such a great idea.

  May 6, 1993

  I haven’t been able to get out of bed since she left for New Mexico. When I close my eyes I see the way her thighs move against those tight skirts that are nearly as short as I want them to be. When I open my eyes I am sure she will be there with her hair in a braid, her eyes glowing behind her glasses. Sliv forces me to eat and to bathe, but he can’t force me to feel.

  May 29, 1993

  Betsy Bokamper makes me come to court to hear the arguments for and against dismissal. That’s how bad I look. I’m as hairless as a chick, my skin the color of eggshell. Judge Benning takes one look at me and orders Betsy Bokamper and Sheilah Corsetti into chambers.

  May 30, 1993

  Case dismissed. I’m too sick to celebrate. Or to write another word.

  June 17, 1993

  “I’m sorry you’re sick,” Vincent D’Angelo says over the phone. “No, I really am. I wanted you to be healthy, to live a long life in a federal penitentiary.” Sorry to disappoint you, I say. “Don’t worry about it,” he says. “I’ve got a better idea.”

  July 2, 1993

  They will take the first breast first, leaving me to live as an Amazon. In time, if I let them, they will take the other. They say I have no choice.

  July 14, 1993

  I tell Sliv to burn every file and all the records. “It’s too late for that, Miss O’K, Sliv says. “The Feds, they beat us to the punch. They took every last paper clip.”

  August 4, 1993

  “I’m sorry you’re still sick,” Vincent D’Angelo says. “But we’re still going to file the mother of all class actions suits against you. Don’t you see? All they have to do is look at you, and they’ll know we’re right.” I ask him what the hell he’s ta
lking about. “You’re Exhibit A, for God’s sake. Thanks to Eleanor O’Kell, all those little girls you manufactured in the lab have the Cushing gene for breast cancer. The geneticists I talk to have never seen anything like it. You’ve created a race of walking time bombs. You’ve brought out the worst in yourself in all of them. How can you put a price tag on that?”