In the Province of the Gods by Kenny Fries

Author:Kenny Fries
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780299314286
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press

Did Boston or Cincinnati win?” I ask.

Nobody answers.

“Did Boston or Cincinnati win?” I ask again, a bit louder.

“What’s going on?” Ian asks.

“I was watching the World Series and I don’t remember who won.”

“What?”

“The Red Sox or the Reds?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Where am I?”

The next thing I know, there is light again. It takes me a few minutes to realize the sun is shining through the crack in the curtain. I see Ian, still sleeping on the other side of the bed. I remember that we’re in a motel. In Cooperstown. I move a bit and my body feels flat, disconnected, as it does the morning after taking a sleeping pill, something I rarely do, only when it’s impossible for me to sleep. I don’t like being on drugs.

The pill bottle on the nightstand reminds me that I must have taken a Vicodin last night even though I have no memory of taking it.

“Are you okay?” Ian is awake.

“I don’t know.”

“You were very strange during the night.”

“What did I do?”

“You thought you had been watching the 1975 World Series.”

“The Red Sox versus the Reds?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What happened?”

“The Reds won.”

I begin to laugh, and the pain in my side returns.

I’m still woozy from the Vicodin. Tylenol gets me through a museum, lunch at a lakefront restaurant, and then Death in Venice.

When we return to the city in early evening, Ian drops me off at my apartment. “Call me and let me know how you’re doing,” he says before continuing on to Washington, DC; he has to go to work tomorrow.

Back in my apartment, I take my temperature. It’s over 102°.

In the morning I call Dr. Shay to tell him about the fever. He says I should go to the emergency room. At least I could get the CT scan there and not wait until Wednesday. Remembering the over six-hour emergency room wait I had a year and a half ago when I had fever and was dehydrated, I wait in my apartment hoping the fever will lessen.

By late afternoon my fever reaches 104°. I call Dr. Shay to tell him I am going to the hospital. I take a taxi to the nearby emergency room.

Almost six hours later, I’m finally called from the waiting room, given IV fluid, and Torodol for the pain. I’m sent off for a CT scan.

Close to midnight I am told the CT scan showed nothing wrong with my kidneys. Because my fever remains very high, Dr. Shay wants me admitted to the hospital for observation.

Thankfully, Torodol relieves the pain. Another five hours later, I am wheeled up to what will be my hospital bed.

The hospital corridors are quiet and dimly lit by fluorescent lights. In my room I am helped into my bed. I try to be as quiet as possible. I do not want to wake the man who will be my hospital roommate, sound asleep on the other side of the curtain divider.

A woman appears. She drops a hospital gown on the bed and attempts to show me how to use the television remote.

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