The Goat

  Green Hills Books – Nashville, TN

  © 2019 by Roger L. Simon

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by Any means, electronic , mechanical, photocopying, recording, Or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  First American edition published by Green Hills Books.

  FIRST AMERICAN EDITON

  ISBN: 978-0-578-51397-3

  Contents

  BY ROGER L. SIMON

  BOOKS

  SCREENPLAYS

  I

  TURMERIC

  II

  WESTERN MEDICINE

  III

  TENNIS, ANYONE?

  IV

  OPPORTUNITY

  V

  THE DREAMS OF KEW

  VI

  FUTURES

  VII

  THE TESTING

  VIII

  FAME

  IX

  Tentazione

  X

  THE LOCKER ROOM

  XI

  THERAPY

  XII

  SOME YEARS LATER

  XIII

  PLAYING FOR TIME

  XIV

  GENEVA

  XV

  ON THE ROAD

  XVI

  SIBERIA

  XVII

  THE GULAG

  XVIII

  NOT YET

  XIX

  WHEN WE DEAD AWAKEN

  XX

  TENNIS, ANYONE - THE SEQUEL

  ABOUT THE WRITER

  BY ROGER L. SIMON

  BOOKS

  Heir

  The Mama Tass Manifesto

  The Big Fix

  Wild Turkey

  Peking Duck

  California Roll

  The Straight Man

  Raising the Dead

  The Lost Coast

  Director’s Cut

  Turning Right at Hollywood & Vine

  I Know Best

  The Goat

  SCREENPLAYS

  The Big Fix

  Bustin’ Loose (story by Richard Pryor)

  My Man Adam

  Enemies, A Love Story (with Paul Mazursky)

  Scenes from a Mall (with Paul Mazursky)

  Prague Duet (with Sheryl Longin)

  A Better Life (story)

  For all the tennis players and instructors at the Los Angeles Tennis Club and the Richland Country Club, Nashville

  I

  TURMERIC

  The nurse stared down at him. “Hold still,” she said.

  “You think I can move?”

  She didn’t smile as she thrust the IV into his arm. One, two, three - when would he feel the blessed opioid relief? He knew it was in disrepute these days, but boy did he need it.

  All this for a game of tennis?

  If only he had taken the turmeric, Dan Gelber thought. It was supposed to have all those anti-inflammatory properties. Not that he knew it would have helped. He would have needed a clone for that, another Dan to observe the twice a day regimen recommended on the bottle, swallowing those horse-sized pills he never bothered to break in half, as he should have. He suspected it was New Age nonsense anyway. Okay ancient New Age nonsense at this point. Still, it might have been something. Something to avoid the ignominy.

  An hour or two earlier - who counted in these circumstances - he was standing on court one at the Hancock Tennis Club. He was in the finals in the age seventy and over tournament, his first time in the final round of anything that he could remember. But better late than never, no?

  He was only in the third game of the first set. The score was 1-1, his serve, 30-15 in his favor, not bad so far, even though the 15 was an embarrassing tanked overhead anyone should have made, especially in the finals, when he reached for a ball and it happened—instant agony, electro-shock treatment without the plug. He collapsed to the ground, a hard acrylic over concrete, a coursing pain running down his spine, into his left thigh, down the leg all the way to his big toe. There was a burning sensation he had never felt before. Well, not completely. Some of it he had experienced before—in a bout with sciatica a couple of years back. But this was different, 8.9 to 4.5 on the Richter Scale, if that was an apt comparison. And since this was Southern California, no doubt it was.

  This time he was virtually immobile. He wondered for a moment if he would ever move again. Could he even have broken his back? But he had fallen directly on the left glute and then to the ground supine. A break wasn’t likely but it didn’t stop him from worrying. Breathe, breathe, he told himself, but his lungs weren’t responding. Would he ever walk again? Or was it really a coronary this time?

  The other players had gathered around him. They were all solicitous—some had been through this themselves—although Dan Gelber had no right to ask such gracious behavior of them given his own habits of mind. Like many his age, or so he assumed, he had watched with mixed emotions as his contemporaries had succumbed to various physical maladies, distended knees, elbow issues, shoulder dislocations, persistent nerve pain that overwhelmed their lives. Usually he was sympathetic, or tried to be, but on other occasions he found himself engaging in a disturbing schadenfreude. There but for the grace of God, he would think, as others hobbled off the tennis court, forever beaten, never to return, one less opponent to deal with in the great game of life of which tennis was only one minor component, yet significant as a symbol of survival of the ever-degenerating fittest. He didn’t like himself for those thoughts, even, on occasion, was disgusted by them, but there they were. Worse, on other occasions and hating himself for it, he had felt relieved when his contemporaries had actually expired. Somehow his number had not been called. Might his luck continue.

  But now, as the event, or insult, as it was called medically, was happening to him, it was difficult to follow what the other players were saying or even to focus on their faces, let alone thinking. One of them was Ben, his partner with whom he had lost in several tournaments before, but this was to be their big chance after they had won the semis with surprising ease. He couldn’t for the moment remember the names of the other guys, his opponents. Oh, yes, Herbert and Manfred. Manfred was from Brazil but had a German name. Good forehand but erratic. An over hitter, he and Ben had agreed. They would favor him, not that it mattered now.

  Behind Manfred, some people, club members watching the final, had stood up from the viewing stand and were approaching, a couple talking animatedly into cellphones. Someone reached over to take his pulse.

  And then he passed out.

  The next thing he knew he was in one of those fire department ambulances, the shiny red ones in that deliberately retro boxy style that seemed designed to carry you over to the other side—the River Styx Special. He had been in one before when he thought he had a heart attack, but it turned out to have been indigestion. He realized the mistake that time halfway to the hospital and tried to get them to turn back, but the medics wouldn’t allow it. Against regulations. They made sure he took his aspirin and continued on. So he spent the night in a now defunct hospital in Century City, receiving a bill on checkout that would have paid for a week at the Georges V with a first class flight to Paris, maybe even a private jet, thrown in. His insurance paid a tenth of it and the rest got mysteriously erased.

  On this occasion indeed it was different. When he woke up several hours later, it was dark out. Another nurse was staring at him.

  “The orthopedist will see you soon.”

  Soon evidently meant fifteen hours. Th
e orthopedist arrived just before lunch the next day. His name was Dr. Chung and he seemed to be Korean, but did not speak with an accent. Behind him, an elderly cleaning lady who looked Indian or Pakistani was swabbing the floor with a mop.

  Amanda was already there. She had come in around ten a.m. with a croissant and a grande-sized almond latte. She knew Dan liked almond milk because they had spent one night together at a hotel in Newport Beach and ordered room service breakfast. But that was a couple of months ago and the relationship had gone nowhere. Dan didn’t like admitting it to himself, but when she had taken her clothes off for the first time that weekend, revealing her sixty something skin, well-tended as it was, all Dan could think of was how old he must have looked. Still, it was nice of her to come to the hospital, if a tad embarrassing. His actual family was not in evidence, not that there were many of them. He had been divorced for twenty-three years and his only son lived across the country with his wife and two children. It had seemed pointless to call him and it had never been Dan Gelber’s natural way to reach out. He wasn’t passive-aggressive exactly so much as self-involved. Amanda’s manner appeared to be the opposite. She was the kind of woman who was born bearing responsibility for anyone with the slightest discomfort—and Gelber’s was, at this particular moment, more extreme than he could remember it ever having been.

  She spread some preserve on the croissant and handed it to him.

  “It’s blueberry. They were out of the blackberry,” she said, again knowing his favorite.

  “Are you the spouse?” the doctor asked her.

  “Just a friend.”

  The doctor nodded and bent over to examine Dan, palpating his gluteus and lower back. There was a sharp pain and Dan winced. “How’d this happen?”

  “Tennis. Stooping for a ball. Didn’t bend at the knees, I guess.”

  “Not sure that would’ve helped. Your MRI shows a severely herniated disc between the fourth and fifth.”

  “It’s been that way for a while. I had a year of PT because of it.”

  “I’ve already seen your history. Sorry to say but you’ll probably need an operation at this point. You look like a candidate for a laminectomy. No one wants one, but sometimes we have to face reality. That will give you a chance for an active life. You’re lucky to have been walking around, let alone playing tennis.”

  “So I guess I should have taken the turmeric.”

  “Turmeric?” The young doctor chuckled. “You like Indian food?”

  The cleaning lady stopped and looked up.

  “Not my favorite. But it’s supposed to be a good anti-inflammatory, isn’t it?”

  “It’s the curcumin,” Amanda chimed in. “You’re supposed to take it with a bit of pepper.” One of those women who did yoga three times a week and a liquid cleanse every month, she kept up on those things.

  The doctor smiled politely. “It won’t hurt you but there’s absolutely no evidence turmeric… or the curcumin contained in it… does any of the things they claim it does.” He started to input some information in an iPad. “Anyway, buck up. A condition like yours responds well to surgery. Sometimes even an incision of less than an inch or two will do it and you’re up again in no time. Though I’m not sure tennis will be on the calendar, at least for the time being. Hard courts are murder on the spine. You’ll find other ways to exercise. Do you swim?”

  “I’m not even sure I can walk.”

  “You’ll walk just fine. You already can. I see you’ve been to the bathroom twice. Sorry we can’t let you stay another night. The nurse will give you some Vicodin.” He put his card on the end table. “Call my office tomorrow and we’ll schedule an appointment for the operation.”

  “It’ll be something to write about,” Amanda added helpfully.

  “You’re a writer?” the doctor asked. “Anything I should know about?”

  “A few books. Some movies. Too long ago for you to have seen them.”

  “Maybe I watched them on Netflix. My wife loves eighties flicks. ‘The Breakfast Club’ … ‘Sixteen Candles.’ You didn’t write those, did you?”

  Dan shook his head.

  “Well, you can tell me when you come in. See you soon I hope. We’ll get you fixed up.”

  The doctor smiled again and headed for the door.

  The old Indian woman started to hiss as it closed behind him, as if sending out a curse.

  “Don’t do operation,” she said, turning toward Dan. “Operation terrible. Only get worse. Man here came in with broken toe, had operation, never walked again. Later he die of gangrene. In hospital. Age fifty-two. Left two daughters twelve and fourteen.” She resumed mopping, then stopped again, staring back at Dan once more. She seemed to be evaluating him as if to see if he were fit for saving. “Go see Uncle Nawang,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “Nawang Gombo. My cousin. In Reseda. He fix everything - knee, shoulder, hair loss, bad skin, prostate problem, even back. Very good with back. You start dancing soon.” She did a little jig by way of illustration.

  “Maybe you should,” said Amanda. “Operations should always be a last resort.” She turned toward the old woman. “Where in Reseda?”

  “23393 Erwin Street. In mini mall, next to nail salon.”

  “Uncle Nawang in a mini mall?” Dan said. “Why not?” He figured he would die first.

  II

  WESTERN MEDICINE

  The operation was a failure. The doctors - there were two beside Dr. Chung - told him not to panic, to give it a few months, but Dan Gelber knew before three weeks had gone by, or thought he did. In fact, he sensed it on his way into the recovery room, not that he could really remember coming out of anesthesia. It was all a blur to him. Yet he could see it in the expressions of the nurses and orderlies - failure, failure, failure. They were trying to be compassionate, but it was compassion that seemed laid on with a putty knife, the kind brought out immediately for emergency use when the procedure had gone disastrously. There was no question that it had this time. He could overhear them muttering about a second operation while he was still half asleep. It had been that way from the start—from the moment the anesthesiologist told him to count back from ten. The guy sounded bizarrely anxious, as if he knew something would go wrong in advance. “Should we be doing this now?” Dan heard him say, gesturing to a television where a news announcer was droning on about the tragedy of the day. Someone was shouting “Get out! Get out!” Before Dan knew what it was or even if it was—maybe the anesthesia, he was assured it was the latest kind, a veritable medical marvel, was already taking effect and he was hallucinating—he was down and out.

  Whatever indeed had or did happen, the pain was back the moment he awoke - full force. It only got more severe as the days went on. Normal life turned out to be insufferable. Getting up in the morning was an ordeal taking him what felt like the better part of an hour just to position his feet at the side of the bed so he wouldn’t send shock waves up his spine from standing. Brushing his teeth was done slowly, slowly, with a strained meticulousness that might have pleased his dentist at age ten, but now made it feel like half the morning was gone before he even got his coffee. Even pressing the tiny button on the Nespresso machine sent an instant reverberation up his now fused discs.

  And then driving - the lifeline of the Angeleno. The first time he sat down at the wheel of his car he did it gingerly, as if he were sliding carefully between the sharp points of some medieval torture device, but the pulsations were excruciating nevertheless - this despite the fancy super-adjustable seats with the extra lumbar support for which he had paid extra, just in case. Well, the case had come and it had failed. The lumbar support felt like an ice pick running up his spine, the deluxe leather seat like a stone stool in a graveyard. Turning the steering wheel was a disaster. His arm strength was gone. Forget about tennis, he could barely open a peanut butter jar. Pulling out of his garage was an ordeal. He had to steer with his left hand because his right had ceased to function altogether. If thy righ
t hand lose its cunning, came the Biblical imprecation. His had. And cunning was the least of it. He had trouble turning on the lights. Walking around, on those rare occasions he could muster up the energy, he looked like a human pretzel, or perhaps the Hunchback of Notre Dame as portrayed by Lon Chaney in the original silent version - a veritable homunculus from the previous century. Who could live a life like that?

  Who could indeed because the impetus for that first excruciating drive was the mandatory quarterly visit to his urologist to check his prostate. Dan was on a protocol because three years before he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, Gleason stage 6. It sounded ominous but he convinced himself it wasn’t. The Gleason scale – where did they come up with that name? It reminded him of an episode of The Honeymooners when he was a kid, Jackie Gleason and Art Carney. Away we go, Jackie would say. But this was cancer, not a sitcom. And didn’t everyone have it? Didn’t all men, well most anyway, show evidence of prostate cancer cells after they were autopsied, almost always having died of something else? Besides he never felt anything. Thus far it didn’t affect his life at all. After the first few weeks, he mostly forgot he had it. More importantly, Gleason six wasn’t Gleason nine. Nine was trouble. He had been six again the second time they did a biopsy, a process he likened to having a staple gun shot up your ass.

  And this time - he found out two days later- he didn’t get a nine either.

  He got a ten. Ten!

  Ten only two and a half weeks after an absolutely botched back operation turned him into The Hunchback. The gods were using him as a plaything, tossing him around like a rag doll.

  So what, he naturally had to wonder at this point, would happen if actually he did die? Dan Gelber had been one of those people who deliberately avoided thinking about his own death. He would pretend issues of mortality were “above his job description” and lived in a kind of self-imposed oblivion, better to repress thoughts of what everyone knew was inevitable. What could he do about it anyway? But now it was different. Now things didn’t quite work. Rigor mortis had reared its ugly head. What if it really was near, not somewhere off at the far end of an actuarial table or something to consider only when reading a tragedy by Shakespeare or Sophocles, something he hadn’t done in years anyway? For the first time in his life, Dan Gelber was having trouble suppressing morbid thoughts. What if he did expire, by nature or even by his own hand? Who would arrange for the funeral, make the speeches, call the caterer, try to get at least some kind of obit in the LATimes, some recognition that he had actually been here? Amanda? He scarcely deserved her attention, but she would undoubtedly do something. She had brought him sushi twice in the last week, plus – she said he was excused under the circumstances - a cholesterol-laden sandwich from Langer’s Deli. They had never been there together but he recalled having mentioned how much he liked their pastrami, a guilty pleasure. Should he put her in his will? That might be excessive, deliver the wrong message. They weren’t even really a couple. But come to think of it, where was that will? He didn’t even remember what it said, hadn’t looked at it in decades, since it was changed after the divorce. And even though he had a son with two young grandchildren, one of them with a medical issue of his own, Dan had never bothered to get life insurance. Now he wouldn’t qualify. The truth was, although Dan Gelber barely realized it himself, he rarely thought about any of those things until it was too late to do anything about them.