by John Irving
"This ... friend who has a recurrent desire to cut off his left hand," Dr. Reilly slowly said. "Is it you, Danny, or is this a character you're writing about?"
"Neither. It's an old friend," Danny told her. "I would tell you the story, Erin, but it's too long, even for you."
Danny remembered what he and Erin had to eat that night. They'd ordered the prawns with coconut milk and green curry broth; they'd both had the Malpeque oysters, with Silvestro's Champagne-shallot mignonette, to start.
"Tell me everything, Erin," he'd told her. "Spare me no detail." (The writer was always saying this to her.) Erin smiled and took a tiny sip of her wine. She was in the habit of ordering an expensive bottle of white wine; she never drank more than a glass or two, donating the remainder of the bottle to Patrice, who then sold it by the glass. For his part, Patrice every so often paid for Erin's wine. Patrice Arnaud was Dr. Reilly's patient, too.
"Well, Danny, here goes," Erin had begun that night in November 2001. "Your friend probably would not bleed to death--not if he cut his hand off at the wrist, with a clean swipe and a sharp blade." Danny didn't doubt that whatever instrument Ketchum might use would be sharp--be it the Browning knife, an ax, or even the old logger's chainsaw. "But your friend would bleed a lot--a real spurting mess out of the radial and ulnar arteries, which are the two main vessels he would have severed. Yet this unfortunate friend of yours would have a few problems--that is, if he wanted to die." Here Erin paused; at first, Danny didn't know why. "Does your friend want to die, or does he just want to be rid of the hand?" the doctor asked him.
"I don't know," Danny answered her. "I always thought it was just about the hand."
"Well, then, he may get what he wants," Erin said. "You see, the arteries are very elastic. After they were cut, they would retract back into the arm, where the surrounding tissues would compress them, at least to a degree. The muscles in the arterial walls would immediately contract, narrowing the diameter of the arteries and slowing the blood loss. Our bodies are resourceful at trying to stay alive; your friend would have many mechanisms coming into play, all making an effort to save him from bleeding to death." Here Erin paused again. "What's wrong?" she asked Danny.
Daniel Baciagalupo was still thinking about whether or not Ketchum wanted to kill himself; over all those years with the incessant talk about the left hand, it hadn't occurred to the writer that Ketchum might have been harboring more serious intentions.
"Are you feeling sick, or something?" Dr. Reilly asked Danny.
"No, it's not that," Danny said. "So he wouldn't bleed to death--that's what you're saying?"
"The platelets would save him," Erin answered. "Platelets are tiny blood particles, which aren't even large enough to be real cells; they're actually flakes that fall off a cell and then circulate in the bloodstream. Under normal circumstances, platelets are tiny, smooth-walled, non-adherent flecks. But when your friend cuts off his hand, he exposes the endothelium, or inner arterial wall, which would cause a spill of a protein called collagen--the same stuff plastic surgeons use. When the platelets encounter the exposed collagen, they undergo a drastic transformation--a metamorphosis. The platelets become sticky, spiculated particles. They aggregate and adhere to one another--they form a plug."
"Like a clot?" Danny asked; his voice sounded funny. He couldn't eat because he couldn't swallow. He was somehow certain that Ketchum intended to kill himself; cutting off his left hand was just the logger's way of doing it, and of course Ketchum held his left hand responsible for letting Rosie slip away. But Rosie had been gone for years. Danny realized that Ketchum must have been holding himself accountable for not killing Carl. For his friend Dominic's death, Ketchum faulted himself--meaning all of himself. Ketchum's left hand couldn't be blamed for the cowboy killing the cook.
"Too much detail while you're eating?" Erin asked. "I'll stop. The clotting comes a little later; there are a couple of other proteins involved. Suffice it to say, there is an artery-plugging clot; this would stem the tide of your friend's bleeding, and save his life. Cutting off your hand won't kill you."
But Danny felt that he was drowning; he was sinking fast. ("Well, writers should know it's sometimes hard work to die, Danny," the old logger had told him.)
"Okay, Erin," Danny said, but his voice wasn't his own; neither he nor Erin recognized it. "Let's say that my friend wanted to die. Let's assume that he wants to cut off his left hand in the process, but what he really wants is to die. What then?"
The doctor was eating ravenously; she had to chew and swallow for a few seconds while Danny waited. "Easy," Erin said, after another small sip of wine. "Does your friend know what aspirin is? He just takes some aspirin."
"Aspirin," Danny repeated numbly. He could see the contents of the glove compartment in Ketchum's truck, as if the door were still open and Danny had never reached out and closed it--the small handgun and the big bottle of aspirin.
"Painkillers, both of them," Ketchum had called them, casually. "I wouldn't be caught dead without aspirin and some kind of weapon," he'd said.
"Aspirin blocks certain parts of the process that activates the platelets," Dr. Reilly was saying. "If you wanted to get technical, you could say that aspirin prevents blood from clotting--only two aspirin tablets in your friend's system, and very possibly the clotting wouldn't kick in quickly enough to save him. And if he really wanted to die, he could wash the aspirin down with some booze; through a completely different mechanism, alcohol also prevents platelet activation and aggregation. There would be a real synergy between the alcohol and the aspirin, rendering the platelets impotent--they wouldn't stick to one another. No clot, in other words. Your hand-deprived friend would die."
Erin finally stopped talking when she saw that Danny was staring at his food, not eating. It's also worth noting that Daniel Baciaglupo had hardly touched his beer. "Danny?" his doctor said. "I didn't know he was a real friend. I thought that he was probably a character in a novel, and you were using the friend word loosely. I'm sorry."
DANNY HAD RUN HOME from Kiss of the Wolf that November night. He'd wanted to call Ketchum right away, but privately. It was a cold night in Toronto. That late in the fall, it would have already snowed a bunch of times in Coos County, New Hampshire.
Ketchum didn't fax much anymore. He didn't call Danny very frequently, either--not nearly as often as Danny called him. That night, the phone had rung and rung; there'd been no answer. Danny would have called Six-Pack, but he didn't have her phone number and he'd never known her last name--no more than he knew Ketchum's first name, if the old logger had ever had one.
He decided to fax Ketchum some evidently transparent bullshit--to the effect that Danny thought he should have Six-Pack's phone number, in case there was ever an emergency and Danny couldn't reach Ketchum.
I DON'T NEED ANYBODY CHECKING UP ON ME!
Ketchum had faxed back, before Danny was awake and downstairs in the morning. But, after a few more faxes and an awkward phone conversation, Ketchum provided Danny with Pam's number.
It was December of that same year, 2001, before Danny got up the nerve to call Six-Pack, and she wasn't much of a communicator on the phone. Yes, she and Ketchum had gone a couple of times that fall to Moose-Watch Pond and seen the moose dancing--or "millin' around," as Six-Pack said. Yes, she'd gone "campin'" with Ketchum, too--but only once, in a snowstorm, and if her hip hadn't kept her awake the whole night, Ketchum's snoring would have.
Nor did Danny have any luck in persuading Ketchum to come to Toronto for Christmas that year. "I may show up, I more likely won't," was how Ketchum had left it--as independent as ever.
All too soon, it was that time of year Daniel Baciagalupo had learned to dread--just a few days before Christmas 2001, coming up on what would be the first anniversary of his dad's murder--and the writer was eating dinner alone at Kiss of the Wolf. His thoughts were unfocused, wandering, when Patrice--that ever-suave and graceful presence--approached Danny's table. "Someone has come to see you, Da
niel," Patrice said with unusual solemnity. "But, strangely, at the kitchen door."
"To see me? In the kitchen?" Danny asked.
"A tall, strong-looking person," Patrice intoned, with an air of foreboding. "Doesn't look like a big reader--might not be what you call a fan."
"But why the kitchen door?" Danny asked.
"She said she didn't think she was well-enough dressed to come in the front door," Patrice told the writer.
"She?" Danny said. How he hoped it was Lady Sky!
"I had to look twice to be sure," Patrice said, with a shrug. "But she's definitely a she."
In that Crown's Lane alleyway behind the restaurant, one-eyed Pedro had spotted the tall woman; he'd graciously shown her to the service entrance to the kitchen. The former Ramsay Farnham had said to Six-Pack Pam: "Even if it's not on the menu, they often have cassoulet at this time of year--I recommend it."
"I ain't lookin' for a handout," Six-Pack told him. "I'm lookin' for a fella, name of Danny--a famous writer."
"Danny doesn't work in the kitchen--his dad did," one-eyed Pedro told her.
"I know that--I'm just a back-door kinda person," Pam said. "It's a fuckin' fancy-lookin' place."
The former Ramsay Farnham appeared momentarily disdainful; he must have suffered a flashback to his previous life. "It's not that fancy," he said. In addition to whatever snobbishness was in his genes, Ramsay still resented his favorite restaurant's change of name; though no one had ever seen it, Kiss of the Wolf would always be a porn film to one-eyed Pedro.
There were other homeless people in the alleyway; Six-Pack could see them, but they kept their distance from her. It was perhaps fair to say that one-eyed Pedro was only a half-homeless person. The others in the alley were wary of Pam. Six-Pack's rough north-woods attire notwithstanding, she didn't look like a homeless person.
Even one-eyed Pedro could see the difference. He knocked at the service entrance to Kiss of the Wolf, and Joyce--one of the female sous chefs--opened the door. Before Joyce could greet him, Pedro pushed Six-Pack ahead of him into the kitchen.
"She's looking for Danny," one-eyed Pedro said. "Don't worry--she's not one of us."
"I know Danny, and he knows me," Six-Pack quickly said to Joyce. "I ain't some kinda groupie, or anythin' like that." (At the time, Pam was eighty-four. It's not likely that Joyce mistook her for a groupie--not even a writer's groupie.)
Kristine ran to get Patrice, while Joyce and Silvestro welcomed Six-Pack inside. By the time Patrice brought Danny back to the kitchen, Silvestro had already persuaded Pam to try the duo of foie gras and duck confit with a glass of Champagne. When Danny saw Six-Pack, his heart sank; Six-Pack Pam was no Lady Sky, and Danny guessed that something had to be wrong.
"Is Ketchum with you?" the writer asked her, but Danny already knew that Ketchum would have come in the front door--no matter how the old woodsman was dressed.
"Don't get me started, Danny--not here, and not till I've had somethin' to eat and drink," Six-Pack said. "Shit, I was drivin' all day with that fartin' dog--we only stopped to pee and gas up the truck. Ketchum said I should have the lamb chops."
That's what Six-Pack had. They ate together at Danny's usual table by the window. Pam ate the lamb chops, holding them in her fingers, with her napkin tucked into the open neck of one of Ketchum's flannel shirts; when she was done eating, she wiped her hands on her jeans. Six-Pack drank a couple of Steam Whistles on tap, and a bottle of red wine; she ordered the cheese plate in lieu of dessert.
Ketchum had given her very detailed directions to Danny's house, warning her that if she arrived near dinnertime, she would probably find Danny at Kiss of the Wolf. The logger had also provided Six-Pack with directions to the restaurant. But when she looked inside Kiss of the Wolf--Six-Pack was tall enough to peer over the frosted-glass part of the large window facing Yonge Street--some of those overdressed types among the restaurant's Rosedale clientele must have discouraged her from just walking in. She'd gone searching for a rear entrance instead. (That Rosedale crowd can be snooty-looking.)
"I put Hero's dog bed in the kitchen--he's used to sleepin' in kitchens," Pam said. "Ketchum told me to let myself in, 'cause you never lock the place. Nice house. I put my stuff in the bedroom farthest away from yours--the one with all them pictures of that pretty lady. That way, if I have one of my nightmares, I might not wake you up."
"Hero's here?" Danny asked her.
"Ketchum said you should have a dog, but I ain't givin' you one of mine," Six-Pack said. "Hero ain't the friendliest critter to other dogs--my dogs sure as shit won't miss him."
"You drove all this way to bring me Hero?" Danny asked. (Of course the writer understood that there was probably more purpose to Six-Pack's visit than bringing him the bear hound.)
"Ketchum said I was to see you in person. No phone call, not a letter or a fax--none of that chickenshit stuff," Six-Pack told him. "Ketchum musta meant it seriously, 'cause he put everythin' in writin'. Besides, there's other crap he wanted you to have--it was all in his truck."
"You brought Ketchum's truck?" Danny asked her.
"The truck ain't for you--I'm drivin' it back," Pam said. "You wouldn't want it for city drivin', Danny--you wouldn't want it anyway, 'cause it still smells like a bear took a shit in it."
"Where's Ketchum? What happened?" the writer asked her.
"We should go walk the dog, or somethin'," Six-Pack suggested.
"Someplace more private, you mean?" Danny asked.
"Christ, Danny, there's people here with their noses born outta joint!" Six-Pack said.
Kiss of the Wolf was crowded that night; since the name change, and Patrice's back-to-bistro renovation, the restaurant was packed most nights. Some nights, Danny thought the tables were too close together. As the writer and Six-Pack Pam were leaving, Pam appeared to be favoring her bad hip, but Danny soon realized that she'd meant to lean on the adjacent table, where a couple had been staring at them throughout their dinner. Because he was famous, Danny was used to--almost oblivious to--people staring at him, but Pam (apparently) hadn't taken kindly to it. She upset the wineglasses and water on the couple's table; suddenly seeming to catch her balance, Six-Pack struck the seated gentleman in his face with her forearm. To the surprised woman at the wrecked table, Six-Pack said: "That's 'cause he was gawkin' at me--as if my tits were showin', or somethin'."
Both a waiter and a busboy rushed to the ruined table to make amends, while Patrice smoothly glided up to Danny, embracing the writer at the door. "Another memorable evening--most memorable, Daniel!" Patrice whispered in Danny's ear.
"I'm just a back-door kinda person," Six-Pack said humbly to Kiss of the Wolf's owner and maitre d'.
Once they were out on Yonge Street, and while they were waiting for the crossing light to change, Danny said to Six-Pack: "Just tell me, for Christ's sake! Tell me everything. Spare me no detail."
"Let's see how Hero's doin', Danny," Six-Pack said. "I'm still rehearsin' what I gotta say. As you might imagine, Ketchum left me with a shitload of instructions." As it had turned out, Ketchum put several pages of "instructions" in an envelope in the glove compartment of his truck. The door to the glove compartment had been left open purposely, so that Pam couldn't miss seeing the envelope, which was pinned under Ketchum's handgun. ("A better paperweight bein' unavailable at that time," as Six-Pack said.)
Now Danny saw that Ketchum's truck was parked in the driveway of the Cluny Drive house, as if the former riverman had changed his mind about coming for Christmas. Appearing to guard his dog bed, Hero growled at them--a surly greeting. Pam had already put the sheath for Ketchum's foot-long Browning knife in the bear hound's bed; maybe it served as a pacifier, the writer considered. He'd spotted the long Browning knife on the kitchen countertop, and had quickly looked away from the big blade. The dog's farting had filled the kitchen--possibly, the entire downstairs of the house. "God, what's wrong with Hero's eye?" Danny asked Pam.
"No eyelid. I'll tell ya later. Just try no
t to make him feel self-conscious about it," Six-Pack said.
Danny saw that she'd put Ketchum's favorite chainsaw in the gym. "What am I going to do with a chainsaw?" the writer asked her.
"Ketchum said you should have it," Six-Pack told him. Perhaps to change the subject, she said: "If I had to guess, Hero has to take a crap."
They walked Hero in the park. Christmas lights twinkled in the neighborhood surrounding them. They brought the dog back to the kitchen, where Danny and Six-Pack sat at the kitchen table; the bear hound sat at what seemed a purposeful distance, just watching them. Pam had poured herself some whiskey in a shot glass.
"I know you know what I'm gonna tell ya, Danny--you just don't know the how of it," she began. "I see the story startin' with your mother--all because Ketchum was fuckin' your mom instead of learn-in' ta read, ain't that right?" Six-Pack said. "So, anyway--here's the endin'."
LATER, WHEN THEY UNLOADED THE TRUCK TOGETHER, Danny was grateful that Six-Pack had postponed telling him the story. She'd given him time to prepare himself for it, and while he'd been waiting to hear what had happened to Ketchum, Danny had already imagined a few of the details--the way writers do.
Danny knew that Ketchum would have wanted to see the moose dancing one last time, and that this time the old woodsman wouldn't have invited Six-Pack to come with him. As it had snowed that day, and the snow had stopped--quite a cold night, well below freezing, was expected--Ketchum had said to Six-Pack that he knew her hip wasn't up to camping out at the cookhouse site, but that maybe she would like to join him there for an outdoor breakfast the next morning.
