The Volcano: November 2014

Saturday, November 29, 2014

From THREESOME

If the doctor’s manner put me at ease, his looks jarred me. He was simply one of those good-looking men who didn’t know it, didn’t have to know it, because the world knew it on his behalf. His hair was the color of rust, his eyes made of emeralds. He had that Paddy O’Shea sort of Irish look about him, so much so that I might expect him to turn to me with a Guinness in his hand. But he was also tall and robust, the All-American type, a high-school football player perhaps, a college basketball star. He had that kind of body that knew instinctively how to handle some type of ball or another, where to throw it, how to coax it into a hoop. His mouth appeared quick to smile; his cheeks were ruddy with what I figured was good health. He’d probably smoked a cigarette once or twice in his life, maybe a joint, even a little bit of blow, but quickly renounced it. He wore a simple and squarish wedding ring, a gold band that held itself easily around his finger. I imagined his wife might possess the same sort of ease in the world, the kind you’re either born with or not, an inheritance of sorts, a trust fund, a gift. You could never manufacture or purchase it. It was either a given or a mystery.