“Fwee-oo,” I whistled back twice in succession, each time drawing, with the tip of my finger, an invisible arc from Blank to the nest.
It didn’t hesitate to take my advice. It climbed the little ladder built into the side, and when it got to the top, said, “Anks,” which, as always, meant, “Please,” and which I took to mean, “Please open the lid so I can get inside.”
I opened the lid. Blank straddled the edge, climbed down the nest’s interior ladder. It explored for a minute, testing out the memory foam: bouncing up and down in the center of the pad, then in each of the corners, then falling to its knees, performing a somersault, then dragging and rubbing its knuckles and muzzle against all the walls (the walls were memory-foam-padded as well).
I switched off the nest’s light and Blank whistled, “Fweep,” and I signaled it should climb back up to the edge.
When it got there, I pointed to the switch—the switch was at the base of the exterior ladder—and flipped the light on and off. “Anks,” Blank said, and I flipped the light on again and left it that way.
“Anks,” it said again, and pointed at the lid, and climbed back down and waited by the thimble. I shut the lid and, through the one-way glass, I observed the cure perform an Allen-throat-clear, followed by a brow-wipe, a pratfall, and a second brow-wipe, which filled me with pride, or something like pride: although, to the cure—my cure—its ceiling was a mirror, it must have noticed earlier, when it was outside the nest and the lid was still closed, that one could, from the outside, see through the lid, i.e. it must have understood and immediately accepted the not-exactly-intuitive principle of two-way mirrors/one-way glass, which, to my recollection, was a kind of mirror/glass it hadn’t encountered before. “Well maybe not must have,” I thought, “but might have.” It might have also, I thought, had no idea I could see it through the lid; maybe it was only practicing its gags (i.e. not performing them for me), but maybe, after all, was the sound second thoughts made, and I preferred the first thought, the one that made me feel good.
Blank did another brow-wipe, another pratfall, another couple throat-clears.
I reopened the lid and leaned over the nest. “Kablankey,” I said, and I pointed at its thimble, and raised my glass of Scotch in a toast, and Blank pulled the thimble out of its slit, and raised it in mimicry.
“To the first thought,” I said.
Blank whistled, “Fweep-fwee-oo!”
I sipped from my glass, and Blank sipped from its thimble. The MacGuffin 18 was honey and leather, then butter and apricots, and then, at last—and this was the best part—deep Robitussin cherry: a flavor I hadn’t tasted or recalled since my first strep throats in the mid-1980s, which, for days at a time, accorded me the longest section of the couch, as well as authority over the TV. Throughout my elementary- and middle-school years, I caught strep frequently—a couple or three times a winter, at least—but my mother, after the first few streps, switched our cough syrup brand to Triaminic (I’m sure I asked why, but don’t remember the answer: it was probably more effective than Robitussin, or equally effective but less expensive), and the Triaminic grape (the banana was foul; I never had the cherry), although it didn’t taste, by any means, bad, lacked the rich kick and viscosity of Robitussin.
I drank the first Scotch slowly—the finish lasted forever—and lit a Quill off a Quill off a Quill off a Quill, remembering the sick days, the couch-as-sickbed. The piles of blankets and sheets and pillows. The self-mastering periods during my fevers when I was able to grasp, for entire minutes, exactly how to manipulate the linens that covered my legs in order to produce the thrillingly contradictory sensation(s) of being too hot and too cold at once. All the court shows I watched, re-en- or just acted. All the talk shows I watched, with their skinheads and Klansmen and former Black Panthers, their pimps and transvestites and cheaters and Wiccans, their abuse allegations and blood-test results. The last five minutes on The Price Is Right when the trumpets blasted and the curtains were pulled and the fantasy-abetting and semi-thematic grand-prize packages were finally unveiled: the Caribbean cruise and the sit-down Jet Ski, the ski trip to Vale and the redesigned living room with wood-burning fireplace and matching leather club chairs, the luxury box at the Indy 500 and the limited-edition convertible Corvette, the sky-diving lessons and the inground pool. And then the soaps would come on and I’d switch to a local network for reruns, cartoons, sometimes an old movie, falling in and out of naps, ensconced all the while by the roofless fortification I’d constructed by stacking or wedging or standing on end any number of the cushions on which I wasn’t lying. How my every meal and snack would arrive on a folding tray. The fresh-squeezed OJ. The double helping of bacon. Tomato soup and grilled cheese. Saltines and chicken soup. Tea and grapefruit and candy-like cough drops. I’d wear a quilt on my shoulders like a superhero cape anytime I got up to stretch or use the bathroom. And my mother always there, beside me on the couch, reading a book or watching TV with me or taking my temperature or feeding me medicine, unless she was making something in the kitchen. She’d stay home from work with me whenever I was sick—if that ever caused her problems, I was never told—and though she never complained, or seemed impatient, or, for that matter, seemed anything other than content to hang out with and wait on me, I knew she was doing more than she had to, more than being a mother demanded. I was fully aware that the feeling of luxury and total security, of exciting safety, that marked my sick days was enabled and encouraged by the efforts of my mother, the voluntary efforts, which efforts I did not—it occurred to me happily, there on my bed, so many years later, a man well past the age she’d been back then—which efforts I did not ever fail to appreciate. Was there anything better than having a fever while being her son? As a boy, I’d been nothing short of certain there wasn’t. As a man I was no less certain than that, which might sound depressing, but really it wasn’t. Hammy, perhaps—a little too sentimental—but not at all depressing. I felt lucky to have once been her fevered young son, and luckier, still, to have known of my luck back when I’d still been her fevered young son. I’d known what I’d had before it was gone.
What an excellent Scotch, that MacGuffin 18. I poured a second, bigger glass, which I drank a little faster, tasted burnt marshmallow, brand-new-cassette smell, steam of baking apple, black-peppered raisin. The Robitussin finish remained long and thick, but from one glass to another, it or I lost the power to open any more veins of sense-memory access to childhood sick days, or to anyhood anything. No worries, however. No worries at all. I felt good and warm, enjoyed the breath in my lungs, and was above-average charmed by the sight of Kablankey, which, sitting with its back to a wall of the nest, had been matching my drinking sip for sip with its water, and mimicking the sounds of the hissier drags I took from my Quills, occasionally nodding to itself and squinting, as if it, too, were considering the past.
I suppose I’d gotten a little bit drunk, a little more drunk than I might have intended. It was past 1 p.m. and I’d hardly eaten. A few almonds in advance of my morning coffee. There was leftover pizza in the fridge, and I wanted it. First the last gift, though: the handkerchiefs from Gus. Eggwhite white. I opened the plastic envelope they came in, unfolded the top one—it was old-T-shirt soft, but new-jeans sturdy. I thought I should try it. I looked out the window, directly at the sun, and provoked a pair of sneezes to catch, and caught them, and then blew my nose.