was rare for me or anyone in the family to even visit a doctor. It only happened when someone was very sick. Mama had told us boys that when she and Papa were children, neither of their families had geld for doctors or medicine. Babies were born at home, delivered by midwives. Often, children got very sick and even died without ever seeing a doctor or going to a hospital.
“Dr. Epstein will have an answer for us,” my father said, directing his comment at my mother. A forced smile came to her lips. She slowly looked away and out of the third-story exam room window in the Blumenthal Building onto the plaza below. I tried to see her face. I noticed that she opened her purse, took out a linen hankie, and dabbed at her eyes.
“Mama, what’s going on? I don’t feel sick. Why are we here?” I asked. “When we came last week, why did the nurse take my blood?”
Just then, Dr. Epstein entered the examination room. That middle-aged physician had prematurely gray hair. He walked with the stooped shoulders of a man who often bore the heavy burden of bad news. Epstein wore a stethoscope around his neck and carried a manila file in his right hand. He placed the file down on the exam table next to me and carefully opened it as if it were a prayer book. Then he put his right hand on my knee and looked over at my parents. He made no small talk but immediately spoke in a grave tone. If his words had a color they would have been gray like the stones in the cemetery.
“I have never had a patient like this.” My eyes darted back and forth from the doctor to my mother and then my father. “If Jake was my boy, I’d take him to Los Angeles, maybe Chicago…to a specialist,” said Dr. Epstein, shaking his head.
Los Angeles or Chicago; I’ll miss school, I thought. I liked school. The thought of leaving home, El Paso, and Doogan—our new police-dog puppy—made me queasy.
“Was ist a specialist?” Mama asked.
“In my training I did study about this type of syndrome: monstrous growth, consistent with that of giants,” Epstein said, ignoring Mama’s question.
Two words, monster and giant, pierced my ears like bullets. This would be the first of many callous doctors I would come to dislike; doctors who would want to poke, prod, and measure me like some kind of prized specimen; doctors whose callous words would almost destroy the only man I ever met who was taller than me.
I was dizzy. My heart began to pound. I felt my throat closing.
“If he keeps growing like this, by his eighth birthday he’ll be close to six feet. I don’t know what’s going to become of him. We’re not looking at the development of a normal child here.”
I remember he talked as though I wasn’t even there.
“What’s going to happen with his schooling?” asked Mama.
“Mrs. Erlich, this is serious,” Epstein rebuked her. “School should be the least of your concerns at this point. I’m worried about him.”
I started to feel strange, almost like I was eavesdropping on a conversation about someone else.
I thought my father looked pale. “Dr. Epstein, is there nothing you . . . ?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Erlich. There’s nothing more I can do.”
My ears buzzed. I got up off the examination table, unable to contain myself, and moved away from Epstein and my parents. My thoughts raced. I’m not like the normal kids. Something must be wrong with me. I moved toward the window, as if to fly right out of it.
“Jake, sit still! You’re distracting me. Mind your manners,” Papa commanded.
I forced myself to sit down on the exam table. My thoughts ran in no particular direction other than away, like the lizards that Doogan chased in the yard. My parents and Epstein continued their conversation. I tried to listen but all I could hear was my heart thumping. I can’t breathe, I thought. The room grew dark, almost black. That was my first panic attack.
I had to escape. I jumped to my feet and ran to the door. Before anybody could grab me, I bolted. I almost knocked down the nurse standing in the hallway as I charged by her. Then I sprinted through the waiting room that was full of patients and dashed down the stairs and out onto Oregon Street.
I ran. I ran past the benches in the plaza and the tiled fountain with the two sleeping, olive-green alligators. I ran across the train tracks and by the St. Regis Saloon, where the old cowboys drank.
I was going at full steam when I flew off the curb at Stanton and Mills. I saw a huge mass of white out of the corner of my eye. Instantly I glanced up from the pavement and froze. The old white horse that pulled Kapilowitz’s dairy wagon was rearing backward to avoid trampling me. I only hesitated for an instant. I didn’t stop as I normally would to apologize for much more minor offenses than that one. I just looked back over my shoulder and heard my father’s friend yell “paskunyak” and some other Polish cuss words that my parents used when they were furious.
After another few minutes I finally did stop. I was dog-tired. My shirt was soaked with sweat. When I began walking up the incline on Mesa Street towards Sunset Heights and our home, I plotted how I would pack a bag, some food, and run away. I could sleep in the plaza at night and go to school on my own. There was no way I would leave my brothers and Doogan to see some strange doctor in Chicago or Los Angeles or wherever.
Looking back on my life, that was the first time I tried to run away from the inevitable. Running away would become a constant theme in my life. I often wonder how a seven year old could possibly comprehend the cyclone of feelings that came with the abrupt doctor’s terrible decree; feelings that were punctuated by words like “giant,” “abnormal,” and “monster”—words I would hear all too often in my life. Kids have trouble with emotions. Hell, so do adults.
It was dark by the time my parents got home. When I heard them approach, I looked up from my place on the wrought-iron bench on the front porch. I was sobbing, bewildered. Doogan was curled at my feet. I wanted my mother and father to make it all better. They sat down on either side of me, as they had in Dr. Epstein’s examination room. My mother hugged me and drew me close. “Sha, sha mein kind.”
“Jakey, I swear to you we’ll do whatever it takes to get to the bottom of this,” my father said.
If only Mama’s hug and Papa’s promise could have stopped the nightmare. My parents took me to many specialists in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, any and everywhere they heard there was someone who might help me. But all of those doctors were unable to fulfill that most ancient of healing rituals. No physician could even name my condition, let alone explain or stop it.
CHAPTER 3
The River with Two Names
It was the kind of scene I might have easily missed looking out from the open vestibule on Car 96 of Ringling Bros fast-moving train. But as I’ve come to understand, in dreamtime everything is slowed down, so I could see the weathered wooden horse in detail. The faded shades of red, black, and orange made it look like a circus relic, abandoned long ago. This strange sight made me sad at its neglect, and curious as to how and why he was left there. It appeared awkward, discarded in dry, yellow grass on a high cliff overlooking the ocean.
That refugee from a midway merry-go-round was lifeless. I was surprised when the inert object stirred. First I saw the vitality in the deep-blue eyes that flashed, then in the thick, black mane, which wafted in the morning breeze.
I was awestruck at his resurrection from dead wood to breathing steed. The cedar stallion took two steps toward the cliff. Not hesitating, he stepped into the abyss. I was frightened for him.
I wanted to scream, “Stop!” but the word was frozen in my throat. Before gravity grabbed and hurled him downward to the pounding surf and jagged boulders, he unfolded powerful, feathery wings. Transformed into Pegasus, he flew across the cobalt sea and white caps far below. Overwhelmed, tears welled up