Free Pages from a Cold Island by Frederick Exley

(cereals and other foods that linger in the intestinal tract) and was invariably told the same thing: an operation was necessary. Still in his mid-twenties, and a gifted athlete on the local semipro level, he could not abide the thought of having his lower intestine removed, having a surgical sphincter created in his side, and a lifetime of draining his stool into what he called “ a fucking perfumed fucking feces bag. ” When he ’ d lost fifty pounds, when in their prognoses the specialists had graduated from cautious phrases like “ it looks suspicious ” and “ it ’ s possibly precancerous ” to the flat-out fact that he was toying with his life, and when at last during a city league basketball game he evacuated in his gym pants, he got the message and scheduled himself for surgery.
    One Sunday noon his wife called me and said that the following morning he was checking into Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester for the operation, that at the moment he was out somewhere having a final drunk, and that as I understood would I find him and stick with him. I found him at Canale ’ s in the Sand Flats, the first bar I went to. He was on his second beer.
    I said, “ Okay, pal, I ’ m your man. We ’ re gonna hit every bar in Watertown, get drunker than a coot, then I ’ m gonna buy you the biggest dish of spaghetti and meatballs in Canale ’ s—garlic bread, the works. But the first thing you ’ re gonna do is switch to whiskey. Giving you beer is like feeding Epsom salts to an infant. ”
    “ Deal. ”
    In my car we ’ d come up out of The Flats, turned right on Massey and swung into Holcomb Street, had just turned left at the country club at West Flower Avenue, and were traveling east through what in our naïveté we used to call “ The 400 Section. ” It was a brilliant sunny day in late spring. We were going to begin at the Cold Creek Inn southeast of the city, hit all the places on the outskirts and in gradually contracting circles work our way back to the heart of town and Canale ’ s for pasta. To keep up his courage my friend was regaling me with what a bunch of preposter ous quacks the specialists were, reminding me of all the dough he ’ d spent just to be told to eat “ cream of fucking wheat, ” and because I knew he needed his raving I didn ’ t bother to remind him that every one of those specialists had told him that surgery would sooner or later be necessary.
    “ You know what finally convinced me? ” he demanded. “ It wasn ’ t taking a big dump right in my pants during a basketball game. Not by a fucking long shot. It was this. The last joker I went to told me Loretta Young had had the same operation. Jesus, Ex, I laughed right in the bug ger ’ s face. Loretta Young? I mean, that ’ s pulling out all the stops. What? Not Joe DiMaggio, mind you, not Wilt Chamberlain— Loretta Fucking Young! I mean, if that sappy bastard is gonna throw poor Loretta at me he ’ s des perate—I mean, desperate —and I gotta be scared. Right? I mean, butter wouldn ’ t melt in that broad ’ s armpit. Now every time I see her bouncin ’ downstage to the front of the boob tube in one of those chiffon gowns of hers I start yakkin ’ at her. ‘ Who you kiddin ’ , Loretta? ’ I say. ‘ I know all about you. ’ The last time I was yakkin ’ like that my bride started bawlin ’ and threw a full fuckin ’ bowl of popcorn at me! ”
    We were both roaring with laughter when suddenly, and this was a cry I ’ d heard a dozen times before, he bellowed, “ Oh, shit! Potty time! ”
    With desperate u rgency I jammed the brakes, mum bling as I did so, “ That fucking beer. ”
    Outside the car, he could not go to his right as there was nothing but the open expanse of Ives Hill fairways jammed now with golfers, so he went hurriedly round the back of the car, quickly crossed the street to the front lawn of a large white-shuttered brick house, and next to a high hedge separating that house from its