Devotion by Howard Norman Read Free Book Online Page A

“Now this is a
cursed
example!”
    â€œWhat are the symptoms again?” Dr. Steenhagen said.
    â€œStomach clenches up. Headaches, sometimes. Can’t sleep the night before, like I said.”
    â€œHave you discussed this with his teacher?”
    â€œI don’t wish to embarrass my son.”
    Dr. Steenhagen turned to David in the examination room. “Son,” he said, “there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. You can’t be good at everything. You’re very good with a camera, your mother tells me. Look at
my
handwriting.” He showed David a scribbled notation on a prescription pad.
“See, I’ve done all right in life, and my handwriting’s like barbed wire.”
    Humiliated as he was, this made David laugh. He looked out the window at the family car in the parking lot. He wanted to take a nap in it. Dr. Steenhagen followed David’s gaze. “Isn’t that your Buick, Mrs. Kozol?” he said.
    â€œYes, it is.”
    â€œBeautiful automobile. Smooth ride, I bet. It’s what, about ten years old? Let’s go out and have a look, shall we?”
    Puzzled, they followed him through the waiting room and out to the lot. He had his stethoscope around his neck. When they got to the car, he opened the passenger-side door and leaned in. He whistled appreciatively at the plush interior, then took note of the word “Dynaflow,” which moved in elegant silver-metal cursive across the dashboard. “Just as I thought,” he said, as if making a diagnosis. “David, do me a favor. Sit in the front seat here.” David looked to his mother for permission; Ardith smiled and nodded yes. David slid into the front seat. “Now, David, close your eyes,” Dr. Steenhagen said. “That’s good. Now, I’m going to lift your hand to the dashboard. Okay, feel the metal writing? That’s Dynaflow”—he elongated the word like a TV sales pitch. “You must’ve read it a million times, right?” He let go of David’s hand. “You run your pointer-finger over it a few more times. Then open your eyes.”
    When David opened his eyes, he stared at the word, really
seeing it for the first time. “Since your son’s nemesis seems to be his cursive example,” Dr. Steenhagen said, “well, practice makes perfect.” David got out of the car. Dr. Steenhagen put his hands on David’s shoulders, looked him straight in the eye. “Here’s some advice from your family doctor, young man. When you get home, sit in the front seat of this car and take out a pencil and paper and copy out the word ‘Dynaflow,’ oh, let’s say one hundred times. You saw how perfectly it’s written on the dashboard. I guarantee, if you do this every day for a week, you’ll get a tenfold improvement in your cursive example, maybe twentyfold.”
    It did not strike Ardith as plausible advice, but it was doctor’s advice, and David took it to heart. This appointment was on a Friday. As it happened, between Friday evening and the following Wednesday evening David wrote “Dynaflow,” by his own count (using //// to represent 5), 1,015 times. The middle finger of his right hand formed a callus, actually bruised up a little. He experienced only the mildest hint of nervous stomach Wednesday night, took some Pepto Bismol and slept for six hours, until Ardith woke him for breakfast.
    The problem was, “Dynaflow” was rooted so deeply in his mind that when that week’s cursive example took place, David unconsciously inserted it midsentence in a dictated paragraph from the Book of Genesis. Reviewing the collective examples while the students did arithmetic problems,
Mrs. Dhomhnaill was duly impressed to see how much David’s handwriting had improved. On the other hand, she was perplexed by his inclusion of “Dynaflow” (whose common usage was unknown to her). She decided not