Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil by Rafael Yglesias Read Free Book Online Page A

house. Nothing was allowed to be soiled for more than an hour. Dishes were done immediately. Dirty clothing was washed by hand daily and hung on the line in the backyard—a space no more generous than the front. Her kitchen floors were swept after every meal or any invasion in force. They were mopped at least once a day and waxed once a week. The living room, which had a green carpet, was vacuumed every day although it was used only when company came over. And the company mostly stayed outside on the wraparound porch, furnished with many wicker chairs and rockers. (The porch was the true social room of the house, overflowing during the humid nights with friends, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews.) It would be difficult to overstate my grandmother’s obsession with cleanliness and order. For her to allow me to throw a ball at the front of her masterpiece, when a mistake might tear the screen door or break either her bedroom or living room windows, when relatively accurate throws might hit the front edge of the porch floorboards and smudge or chip its gray paint, was a remarkable act of generosity.
    I doubt I appreciated it at the time. But I enjoyed my game. Pitching the ball against the steps helped relieve the tedium of having to spend so much time without a playmate my own age. Although a cousin only a year older than I lived nearby, he attended a day camp or had other activities (Little League and Boy Scouts on the weekend, for example) and thus I had to amuse myself.
    The previous summer I had invented a solitary version of stoop ball, a city game. In New York, my friends and I stood beside the street curb and threw a rubber ball against its edge hoping the ricochet would send the ball beyond an opponent attempting to catch it. Landmarks were chosen to establish whether the thrower had hit a single, double, triple, or home run. Being alone I couldn’t play that game, but the three steps to my grandparents’ house suggested something else. I stood in the middle of the street and aimed at them. If I hit the flat of the steps, producing a dribbling grounder, I considered that a called strike. If I missed the steps altogether, I considered it a ball. If I hit the edge of the step, which resulted in hard grounders, line drives, or fly balls, I considered that the hitter had put the pitch in play. I would try to field these “hits.”
    That day I decided to turn this game into a full-fledged World Series. I got the idea as I emerged from the shadow of the porch and felt the insistent Florida sun on my face. I sneezed at the pinching scent of the flowering bushes Grandpa had planted around the edges of the house. The aftermath of the sneeze seemed to inspire the notion: I would enact the Yankees against the Dodgers in the World Series. I would assume the roles of both Whitey Ford and Sandy Koufax. Never mind that they were lefties and I threw right-handed. I was thrilled. I felt sure that whatever happened with my rubber ball and the steps would be an accurate prediction of the coming 1960 finale.
    In fact, the game I had invented was hard work. I had to throw hard to make the ball rebound with force. And since the steps were a small target, the combination of throwing hard with the need for accuracy made it a tough couple of innings for Whitey Ford and Sandy Koufax. Within minutes my shirt was soaked through, a sheet of water, flopping away from my skin as I ran for the ball, then sticking back onto me with a clammy slap that made me shiver. I got light-headed, probably from dehydration, and that made me stubborn. I didn’t want to give up. The score was Yankees 4, Dodgers 3, and it was in the third or fourth inning. I had a long way to go and already I was so tired I could hardly keep track of the hitters or the count.
    Whitey Ford was facing a bases-loaded situation. I revved up and threw with all my exhausted might. I heard the unmistakable—and satisfying—resonant sound of the rubber ball hitting the edge of the