Oblivion

OBLIVION

Fortunately, Hope’s stepfather and myself had just completed the ‘front’ nine and were washing our balls in the Tenth tee’s device when the thunderstorm broke, and I was able to get him into the Club-house before the worst of the wind and the rain of the storm commenced, and to get the cart checked back in while my stepfather-in-law dried off, changed clothes and telephoned his wife about another adjustment in his morning schedule due to our having gotten ‘in’ only nine holes. The old fellow had originally wanted to tee off at almost dawn, and I had found myself unable to explain why this could represent a possibly untenable hardship without opening the whole ‘can of worms’ of the conflict in front of Hope, who was there at the prior evening’s restaurant’s table as we finalized arrangements; and now, in the Club-house vestibule, there was an air of, as it were, ‘triumphant’ grievance in the retired M.D.’s posture at the bank of phones when I found him there, freshly changed except for his visor and spikes, which he had also worn when driving us to the Raritan Club at 7:40 A.M., insisting on our taking his red Saab coupe pace the fact that it was my own vehicle which had the ‘Member’ parking sticker, resulting in administrative delays in parking which caused us to miss our scheduled ‘Tee time,’ adding to the incompleteness of our round.

Then we were seated together, Hope’s stepfather and myself, at a window-side table in the club’s 19th Hole Room, picking small salty things out of the table’s bowl as we waited for Jack Bogen’s youngest daughter to bring the draft lagers which ‘Father’ (which is what Hope, together with all of her ‘true’ and ‘step-’ siblings and their respective spouses, addressed him as, though I myself had my own Father in Wilkes Barre, and, in actual practice, made a point of attempting to avoid addressing Dr. Sipe directly whenever possible) had ordered. The old septuagenarian had again made a point of referring to a draft Feigenspan lager as ‘[a] P.O.N.,’ and I had therefore had to explain the slang term’s origins to Audrey Bogen while ‘Father’ examined his German wrist watch and held it to one ear, expressing concern over the rainstorm’s moisture damage and referring once more to the watch’s retail price. Heavy, torrential rain struck the 19th Hole Room’s large ‘bay window’ and ran down the leaded panes in lustrous sheets which overlapped complexly, and the sound on the glass and canvas awnings was much like a mechanized or ‘automated’ Car wash; and, with all of the fine, imported wood and dim light and scents of beverages and after shave and hair oil and fine, imported tobaccos and men’s damp sports wear, the 19th Hole felt both warm and cozy and ‘snug’ and yet also somewhat over-confined, not unlike the lap of a dominant adult. It was approximately then that a fresh wave of disorientation and, in a manner of speaking, distorted or ‘altered’ sensory perception from nearly seven months of severe sleep disturbance struck once more, as it had on the Fourth fairway with such embarrassing results, the symptoms and sensations of which were nearly impossible to describe, except perhaps to say that when these periods hit they were not unlike a cerebral earthquake or ‘tsunami,’ an, as it were, ‘neural protest’ or ‘-revolt’ against the conditions of emotional stress and chronic sleep deprivation which they had been forced to function under. At the present time, everything in the 19th Hole’s respective colors seemed suddenly to brighten uncontrollably and become over-saturant, the visual environment appeared to faintly pulse or throb, and individual objects appeared, paradoxically, both to recede and become far-away and at the same time to come into an unnatural visual focus and become very, very precisely configured and lined, not unlike scenes in a Victorian oil. (Hope and her younger stepsister, Meredith, had once co-managed a Gallery together in Colts Neck.) The Raritan Club’s distinctive escutcheon and motto, for instance, appeared both to recede and come into an almost excruciant focus on ‘the Hole’’s opposite wall, beneath a perceptually tiny stuffed tarpon whose every imbricate scale seemed outlined or limned in an almost ‘Photo realist’ detail. There was the more quotidian dizziness and nausea, also. I gripped the small maple table’s ‘burled’ or beveled sides in a show of distress as ‘Father’ pored over the contents of the snack bowl, touching the contents of the bowl with his finger as he stirred them about. It was then at which I tried to bring up in conversation to Dr. Sipe (Sipe being my wife’s original or ‘maiden’ name), in some kind of ‘male-’ or ‘familial’ confidence, the strange and absurdly frustrating marital conflict between Hope and myself over the issue of my so-called ‘snoring.’

Whereupon: ‘Do not even take up my time in mentioning this, as any man knows what an absurd and trivial issue it is compared to many other marital conflicts and problems. In other words, “de minimis non curat,” or, the whole matter is, ultimately, beneath my notice’—for such was the gist or ‘thrust’ of the dismissive hand gesture which Hope’s stepfather made in response to my broaching of this delicate subject, making the derisive gesture which all of my wife’s other siblings still associate with him from throughout their youths, and which her eldest stepbrother, Paul, a successful entrepreneur in automated, out-sourced Medical and Dental billing, can imitate so uncannily to this day when our families all get together over the Holiday season at Paul and his wife Theresa’s extraordinary vacation home in Sea Girt, where the Winter surf booms against the rocks of the light-house tower which the Coast Guard closed once G.P.S. or ‘satellite’ navigation rendered its functions redundant, and where all of the both ‘true’ and ‘step-’ siblings and their spouses and families will gather in Norwegian sweaters with insulated thermi of hot cider on the basalt outcroppings amid gulls’ pulsing cries to watch the booming surf and the distant lights of the Point Pleasant ferry moving north-ward up the Inter Coastal Waterway towards Staten Island, the vistas all iron greys and profound maroons and, privately to myself, desolate in the extreme. Consciously or otherwise, it is a hand gesture ideally designed to make its recipient feel like an otiose moron or bore, and ‘Father’’s feelings about myself and my place in the overall ‘family dynamic’ had never been what one would call well disguised. Audrey Bogen, whom our own Audrey had played closely with as small children before Jack Bogen’s affairs had unraveled and their lives took such dramatically different paths, and was now already an ‘unwed’ mother and a career beverage waitress at the Raritan Club’s 19th Hole (she was, to many of the nubile adolescents in our own Audrey’s peer circle, a kind of cautionary tale, one of her children being plainly inter-racial), now appeared with our Feigenspan lagers on a small, oaken blonde-wood tray, and Hope’s stepfather exercised a prerogative exclusive to men of advanced age with young women, which was to look frankly and speculatively at the young, voluptuous waitress’s face, uniform and physical body as she set down the frosted steins and stated her intentions to bring us more snack mix. ‘Father’’s advanced age and physical senescence, in other words, making the frankness of his gaze — which, in Wilkes Barre during my own youth, was termed ‘Look[ing] her over’—appear ingenuous, child-like and apparently almost ‘innocent’ or harmless to young women instead of salacious or lewd. This was a quality (or, as it were, lack of it) which I myself was, of course, all too conscious or aware of, since, as our own Audrey had entered the adolescence whose onset, in contemporary times’ girls, seems to become earlier all the time, and had physically ‘matured’ or (in my wife’s phrase) ‘fill[ed] out,’ so also, of course, had the other members of the peer group whom she ‘hung’ around with or brought to the house or along on seaside vacations and\or inland canoe trips in June, July or early August; and, in the case of some of the more prematurely ‘mature’ or voluptuous of these peers, the conflict between the natural urge or instinctual drive to look at them as would any adult, ‘red-blooded’ man, v. the obvious social restrictions erected by my role as their friend’s adoptive father, became, in some cases, so awkward or painful that I could scarcely bring myself to look at or scarcely even to acknowledge them at all, a phenomenon which our Audrey, not surprisingly, rarely even noticed, but which sometimes vexed Hope to the point that once or twice, during marital arguments, she would mock my pained confusion, and would aver that she’d prefer it — or the term she used might more aptly have been that she would ‘respect’ it more — if I would simply, openly ogle or leer rather than the stricken, affectedly casual avoidance which I feigned as if I expected it to fool anyone with eyes in their head as they watched my sad pantomime with pity and disgust. Because of the severe sleep disturbance, discord with Hope and trouble in my Dept. of the company for which I served as Assistant Systems Supervisor (which provided out-sourced data and document storage facilities and systems for a number of small- and mid-sized insurance providers in the Mid-Atlantic region), my chronic distress had reached the point at which sometimes I felt near tears, which, of course, in the 19th Hole with Hope’s stepfather, would be an unthinkable happen-stance. Sometimes, often while driving, I feared that I was going to have an infarction. Next, in a predictable yet far more disturbing stage of the wave of disorientation, came the appearance of a strange, static, hallucinatory tableau or mental ‘shot,’ ‘scene,’ Fata morgana or ‘vision’ of a public telephone in an airport or commuter rail terminal’s linear row or ‘bank’ of public phones, ringing. Travelers are hurrying laterally past the row of phones, some bearing or pulling ‘carry on’ luggage and other personal possessions, walking or hurrying past while the telephone, which remains at the center of the view of the scene or tableau, rings on and on, persistently, but is unanswered, with none of the ‘bank’ of phones’ other phones in use and none of the air travelers or commuters acknowledging or even so much as glancing at the ringing phone, about which there is suddenly something terribly ‘moving’ or poignant, forlorn, melancholic or even foreboding, an endlessly ringing and unanswered public phone, all of which appears or seems to occur both endlessly and in, as it were, ‘no-time,’ and is accompanied by an incongruous odor of saffron.

Hope’s stepfather, a career Medical executive for Prudential Insurance, Inc. — or, ‘The Rock,’ as it is often popularly known — as his own father before him evidently was, as well, as well as being a ‘Fourth Ward’ historical district native born and bred, knew Feigenspan lager by its original trademark, ‘Pride of Newark’ (or, ‘P.O.N.’), and made rather a point of referring to it in no other way, also affecting to brush across his upper lip with a knuckle after drinking, in the way of the city’s ‘working-’men, reaching then into a pocket of his vest and producing his cigar case and clip, as well as his slim, modernistic gold lighter, a gift from his wife (and accordingly inscribed), and commencing the ritual of preparing to smoke an expensive Cohiba cigar with his draft lager, gesturing peremptorily in the direction of the bar for an ash-tray, at which juncture I noted once more how exceedingly thin, sallow and, as it were, escharotic or flaky the flesh of his left wrist and hand in the air appeared. His ears, which had always been quite large or protrusive, were flushed from recent exertion. When asked if, upon reflection, he thought a cigar this early in the day was perhaps such a good idea, Dr. Sipe, who was due to turn age 76 this coming July 6th (his birth stone was known to be ‘the Ruby’), responded that the sole indicator of his desiring my input on his personal habits would consist in his explicitly coming to me and requesting it, at which I cleared my throat slightly and shrugged or smiled, avoiding Audrey Bogen’s dark (our own Audrey’s being grey-green or, in certain lights, ‘Hazel’) eyes as she placed on the table a small bowl of very shiny nuts and an ash-tray of clear glass on whose bottom was reproduced the Raritan Club’s escutcheon, which Dr. Sipe pulled closer and rotated slightly to satisfy some obscure criteria in his ritual for enjoying a cigar. Twice already, I had yawned so violently that a popping noise and sudden, as it were, ‘stabbing’ pain manifested just beneath my left ear. ‘Father,’ whose physical health’s minutiae were a topic of endless colloquy among his different children, had apparently suffered a number of tiny, highly localized strokes over the previous several years — or, in the language of Health Plan underwriting, ‘Transient ischemic accidents’—which Hope’s younger brother, ‘Chip’ (whose actual given name is Chester) had confirmed, in the bland, almost affectless or subdued way evidently characteristic of practicing Neurologists everywhere, were almost ‘Par’ for the ‘course’ for a septuagenarian male of Dr. Sipe’s history and condition, and were, evidently, individually of little account, producing little more in the way of symptomology than transient dizziness or perceptual distortion. Empirically, the evident result of this was that ‘Father’ was now one of the particular sort of well to do elderly (or, as some prefer, ‘Senior’) men who appear well preserved and even still somewhat distinguished from a certain distance away, but whose eyes, on closer proximity, reveal a subtle lack of focus, and whose facial expression or affect appears to be, in some subtle but unmistakable way, ‘off,’ resulting in a perpetual ‘queer look’ or mien which sometimes frightened his younger grandchildren. (This notwithstanding the fact that our own Audrey, now 19 and Dr. Sipe’s second oldest grandchild, had, on the other hand, never once reported being frightened of or by her ‘Greatfather [a childhood sobriquet which had stuck],’ who had, in turn, addressed Audrey as—sans any detectable trace of irony or awareness—‘My little Princess,’ and had, together with his wife, ‘spoiled’ Audrey with such lavish and excessive indulgence as to sometimes arouse tensions between Hope and this latest Mrs. Sipe, the two of whom were not [as Hope would have it] the ‘closest of friends’ to begin with. [By mutual and unspoken consensus, our Audrey customarily addressed Hope as ‘Mother’ or ‘Mom’ and myself as ‘Randall,’ ‘Randy,’ or, when angry or trying to make some ironic point in the perennial struggle for youthful control v. independence, as ‘Mr. Napier,’ ‘Mr. and Mrs. Napier’ or (with decided sarcasm) as ‘the Dynamic Duo.’]) Besides his forehead’s four distracting, pre-cancerous spots, or lesions or ‘keratonesis,’ it was only in recent years, too, that Hope’s stepfather’s mouth had developed the habit of continuing to move slightly after he had ceased speaking, either as if savoring the words’ taste or silently reprising them, and these movements sometimes reminded one of some type of small animal which has been struck or run over and continues to writhe wetly in the road-way, which was, to say the least, disconcerting. There is also the issue or matter of ‘Father’’s bowed upper back and consequent jutting head, which causes him to appear to be thrusting his face and mouth forward directly at one in an aggressive, almost predatory fashion, which is also disconcerting, which may be a matter of geriatric posture or disc compression or else the beginning of an actual ‘hunch-back’ or ‘hump,’ which he is evidently very vain and sensitive about and which no one in the ‘family’ is ever under any circumstances permitted to mention except his wife, who will suddenly touch or push at his jutting head impatiently and tell him, ‘For God’s sake, Edmund, straighten up,’ in a tone which makes everyone at the table uncomfortable. Then an extremely brief and almost ‘strobe’-like associative tableau in which Hope’s stepfather and herself, at some past or distantly prior point in time, are seated together in an unfamiliar coupe or sports car which is speeding along a rural or markedly under-maintained inland State route in the sultry light of August or late July, and an interior scene of a somewhat younger and unescharotic ‘Father,’ with his iron grey hair, small, cruel mustache and thin, calf-skin gauntlets or ‘driving’ gloves, driving the vehicle, as well as views of the exterior vistas and divided center or median line distending and rushing past at an unnatural rate of speed, as if the vehicle were traveling far too fast for extant road conditions, and of a younger and noticeably more lissome and voluptuous Hope applying facial products in the small, inset mirror of the sun shade or visor as ‘Father,’ posture erect and distinguished and gazing stolidly ahead at the road, assures her that it isn’t so much dislike or ‘disapproval’ of the fellow per se, while the powerful vehicle recedes up ahead in the radiant late Summer haze, the whole brief tableau or interior ‘vision’ or shot so rapid and incongruous that it can only be truly, as it were, ‘seen’ in retrospect.

According to my own pocket watch, no more than five or six minutes had passed since we had first entered the 19th Hole. The rain against the window’s convex and mullioned and glass window came in what now appeared to be vascular or peristaltic ‘pulses’ or ‘waves,’ and during the brief, rhythmic lulls or troughs of these, one could make out the Eighteenth fairway’s ‘dog leg’’s copse of trees being bent and wrung by the storm’s violent winds, as well as tiny and fore-shortened golfing foursomes running hard for their carts or the Pro-shop’s shelter, their shoes’ spikes producing the exaggeratedly high stride of men almost running in place. Those wearing hats held them down with one hand. The 19th Hole’s long, mahogany bar and tables began gradually to fill as more and more men chased in off various parts of the course by the storm came in to get warm and wait out the rain before going home to whatever was left of their families. ‘Father’’s hand trembled as he manipulated the clip, which supposedly required great precision. Much of the more recent entrants’ conversation appeared to concern lightning and inquiring whether anyone had seen or heard lightning on the course, as well as whom among the Raritan Club’s regular members might still be ‘out there.’ Many of the men’s faces appeared unusually smooth and pinkened, their color high from the adrenaline of sudden flight. Actuarially speaking, lightning kills an average of over 300 denizens of Western industrialized nations per annum, more than the average number of accidental deaths due either to recreational boating or insect stings combined, and a substantial number of these electrocutions occur on the nation’s golf courses.

Since our Audrey had graduated as Salutatorian of her class and left the ‘nest’ of home for her freshman collegiate year at out-of-State Bryn Mawr (although she calls home faithfully once or twice a week) the previous Autumn, my wife and myself’s marriage’s single major conflict has now been over the fact that she now suddenly claims that I ‘snore,’ and that this alleged ‘snoring’ was preventing or depriving her of much needed sleep. I will, for instance, be lying quietly supine upon my back with my forearms and hands arranged across my chest (which is the customary way I prepare to gradually relax and fall asleep), and our bedroom upstairs will be pleasantly dark and quiet, with refracted lights from the light traffic on the quiet or ‘tree muffled’ residential intersection below running slowly across the bedroom walls and elongating, distending or collapsing interestingly at the north and east walls’ angles, myself gradually relaxing and descending in peaceful increments towards a good night’s sleep, until Hope suddenly cries out angrily in the darkness, claiming that my ‘snoring’ is making it impossible for her to fall asleep, and insisting that I either turn on to my side or else leave and go sleep in the ‘Guest’ bedroom (which is what, by unspoken agreement, Audrey’s former childhood bedroom is now referred to by us as) and to ‘for God’s sake’ grant her some ‘peace.’ This now occurs almost nightly — more than once on certain nights — and is intensely frustrating and upsetting. In my relaxed state, the sudden vehemence of her crying out floods my nervous system with adrenaline, cortisol or other stress related hormones, and the violence with which she thrashes up to a seated position in her bed — as well as a note of deep vexation or even hostility in her voice, as if this were an issue which had been silently aggravating her for years and she had finally come to the end of her ‘rope’ or ‘last straw’ with it — produces in myself a set of natural, physiological ‘stress’ responses which, subsequently, make it nearly impossible for me to fall asleep, sometimes for hours or even more.

In the past, particularly during head colds, or in some calendar years’ Summer months when the ‘pollen count’ is high and my hay fever is active or severe (I suffer from hay fever, and as a boy, in Wilkes Barre, my sister [whose allergies were even more severe than my own, as well as suffering from congenital asthma] and myself had to be brought by our mother twice a week to the local pediatrician for allergy shots for several years), I have, admittedly, suffered occasional bouts of snoring which have disturbed or awakened Hope in the course of our marriage. But these past bouts or episodes had always been easily resolved by her gently suggesting that I roll on to my side, which I always, immediately and without objection, did, often resolving the problem without either of us even coming fully awake — the whole exchange was friendly, and so unexceptionable that Hope could often compel me to roll over without awakening me or getting either of us ‘worked up’ or aggravated.

Thus it was not, I had originally planned to aver either during the ‘back’ nine or in the 19th Hole, that I claimed, as do some husbands, never to ‘snore,’ nor that I am unwilling to roll to one side or the other or to take reasonable steps to accommodate Hope when something has caused me every once in a great while to rasp, cough, gurgle, wheeze or breathe in any way obstructedly in sleep. Rather, that the true, more vexing or ‘paradoxical’ source of the present marital conflict is that I, in reality, am not yet truly even asleep at the times my wife cries out suddenly now about my ‘snoring’ and disturbing her nearly every night since our Audrey’s departure from home. It is very nearly always within no more than roughly an hour of our retiring (after reading in our beds for approximately one half hour, which is something of a marital ‘ritual’ or custom), at which time I am still lying in bed on my back with my arms arranged and my eyes either closed or relaxedly watching the walls’ and ceiling’s angles and distending exterior lights through the blinds, continuing to be aware of every sound but slowly relaxing and ‘unwinding’ and descending gradually towards falling asleep, but not yet in fact asleep. When she now cries out.

The real issue, in other words, is that it is Hope (who is well known for falling asleep the moment she has closed her current ‘livre de chevet,’ replaced it on her night-stand and struck the light in the brushed steel sconce above her bed — as opposed to myself, who have been a difficult and somewhat, as it were, ‘fragile’ or ‘delicate’ sleeper from childhood onwards) who is, in point of fact, asleep at these junctures, and dreaming, said dreams evidently consisting, at least in part, of the somewhat paradoxical belief and perception that I myself am asleep and am ‘snoring’ loudly enough to — as she puts it—‘wake the dead.’

I do, of course, have my personal faults, as do all or most husbands; but ‘snoring’ during the year’s cold weather months (like most, my hay fever is seasonal or, more technically, an ‘Auto-immune system’ response to certain classes of pollen) is not one of them. Not, of course, that it would even necessarily constitute an actual ‘fault’ as such, as it would not be an action which I was performing ‘consciously’ or had any voluntary control over. But I do not. Nor am I in the habit of being incorrect or confused about whether I myself am asleep or not — and it is an established fact in our marriage that it takes me far longer to truly fall asleep than it does Hope or my erstwhile first wife (we had joked about it together many times), as well as longer to fully awaken. Hope, in particular, moves quickly and easily between states of consciousness which, for me, are — due, perhaps, to professional stress — somewhat of a struggle. One could point to, for instance, the fact that it is nearly always myself who drives when driving any appreciable distance as a couple, or that it is frequently I who must rouse or shake her gently awake at the shore, or in front of the Home entertainment room’s television, or often at the end of a long piece of music or theater.

Since the prior Autumn, however, there simply has been no reasoning with her on this point. She steadfastly avows, in other words, that my putative ‘snoring’ is a waking reality instead of her own dream. And in the dark of our bedroom, when she suddenly wakes and cries out in such a way that I am myself jolted up-right, with adrenaline coursing through my system (just as when the telephone rings at night, its signal or ‘ring’ now piercing in a way which daylight never makes it), there is in her ‘snoring’ complaint a note of near hysteria which makes it perfectly evident that she has been asleep, or else has been in the type of semi-waking, oneiric state in which some people ‘“talk” in their sleep,’ confabulating past and present and truth and dream, and ‘believing’ it all in such a way that there is simply no reasoning with someone in such a state.

And yet I have largely refused to patronize or placate her about something which simply was not true. There are, even in marriage, limits. After an initial period last Autumn in which I would attempt to argue or reason with Hope ‘in situ’ in the darkened bedroom, informing her that I was in reality not yet asleep and to simply go back to sleep and forget all about it, that she was only dreaming (a response which so irked and provoked her, however, that her voice would begin to rise sharply in such a ‘tone’ as to so upset me that any chance of real sleep would then be impossible for the next several hours), I then, subsequently, attempted or tried refusing to respond ‘in situ’ or to in any way acknowledge her complaints that I was keeping her awake, instead waiting for the morning of the next day to remonstrate that I had not yet even been asleep, and to mildly observe that her agitated dreams of my ‘snoring’ were becoming worse and more frequent, and to urge her to make some sort of appointment and perhaps inquire about a prescription. And yet Hope has been wholly obdurate and unyielding on this point, insisting that it was I who was ‘the one who’s asleep,’ and that if I could or would not acknowledge this, my refusal to ‘trust’ her indicated that I must be ‘angry at [her]’ over something, or perhaps unconsciously wished to ‘hurt’ her, and that if anyone around here needed to ‘make an appointment’ it was myself, which according to Hope I would not hesitate to do if my respect and concern for her even slightly outweighed my own selfish insistence on being ‘right.’ Worse, on certain mornings, was when she, as it were, ‘took a page’ from her ‘true’ or biological sibling, Vivian (a twice divorced ‘halogen’ blonde and devotee of numerous so-called ‘Support’ or ‘self help’ groups and movements, to whom Hope was extremely close before their ‘falling out’)’s lexicon and accused me of being ‘in denial,’ an accusation any denial of which was held, of course, to be evidence in its own favor, maddeningly. Once or twice, however, in the early Winter months, I admittedly yielded and did, with a frustrated groan or sigh, take my own bed’s bedding down the hall to the ‘Guest’ bedroom and attempt to ‘drop off’ or sleep there amidst all of the frilled pastels, saffron joss and boxed detritus of our Audrey’s recent adolescence, lying perfectly still and motionless and scarcely breathing, and straining to hear, down the hall, any sounds of Hope perhaps once again sitting up-right and accusing a now empty or unoccupied bed of ‘snoring’ and ‘keeping [her] awake’—which would be indisputable proof of just who was asleep and who merely the innocent subject of someone else’s dream of being kept awake. Lying there alone, I envisioned something like myself hearing the vexed cries and complaints and arising instantly to quickly traverse the hallway, bursting through our bedroom door with something resembling a triumphant ‘Aha!’—so filled with frustrated and aggrieved hormones, however, and devoting so much effort and close concentration to vigilantly listening for any sound or movement from our bedroom, that I got scarcely one iota or ‘wink’ of sleep the entire night in Audrey’s former bed, and yet had, nevertheless, to still arise and go forth to attempt to stagger through my professional responsibilities at work and both sides of the lengthy commute the following day with my entire body, mind and psyche on the edge of what felt to be nearly complete collapse. It was, I was, of course, aware, perhaps petty to be so fixated on vindication or ‘proof,’ but, by this point of the conflict, I was often nearly ‘not’ or ‘beside’ myself with frustration, choler or anger and fatigue. One must understand (as it was my original intention to attempt to explain to her stepfather) that though, as in any marriage, Hope and I had had our fair share of conflicts and difficult marital periods, the evident vehemence, anger and persecution with which she now dismissed my protests of being awake at the crucial junctures of alleged ‘snoring’ were unprecedented, and, for the first several weeks of the dreams and accusations, I was concerned primarily for Hope herself, and feared that she was having a more difficult time of it adjusting to our Audrey’s ‘leav[ing] the nest’ than it had at first appeared (pace that it had been Hope, even more than Audrey herself, who had insisted or ‘lobbied’ for an out-of-State college, the relatively nearby Bryn Mawr and Sarah Lawrence Colleges having been Audrey and myself’s tacitly agreed upon choices as a compromise or [in the language of insurance regulation] ‘Technical compliance’ with this priority), and that this difficulty or grief was manifesting itself as sleep disruptions and unconscious or misdirected anger or ‘blame’ at myself. (Audrey is Hope’s child by her first, short lived marriage, but was no more than a toddler when Naomi and myself’s own divorce was declared ‘Final, a mensa et thoro’ and Hope and myself were free to marry, which occurred sixteen years ago this coming August 9th. For all practical purposes, she is, essentially, ‘my’ daughter as well, and I too found her physical absence and the house’s strange new silence and schedules and the gamut of readjustments difficult, as well, as I tried to repeatedly reassure Hope.) After some further time had passed, however, and all attempts to discuss the conflict rationally or induce Hope to consider even the mere possibility that it was she, not myself, who was in reality asleep when the alleged ‘snoring’ problem manifested itself led only to a further entrenchment or ‘hardening’ in her own position — the essence of her position being that I myself was being irrationally ‘stubborn’ and ‘untrusting’ of what she could plainly hear with her own two ears — I essentially ceased, then, to say or do anything in the way of ‘in situ’ response or objection when she would suddenly sit violently up in bed across the room (her face often inhuman and spectral in the bedroom’s faint light because of the white emollient cream she wore to bed during the cold, dry months of the year, and distorted unpleasantly by vexation and choler) to accuse me of ‘snoring horribly’ and demanding that I roll over at once or be exiled again to Audrey’s former bed. Instead, I would now lie perfectly still, silent and motionless, my eyes closed, pantomiming a deeply sleeping man who could not hear or in any way acknowledge her, until eventually her pleas and vituperations trailed drowsily off and she would settle back with a deep and pointed sigh. Then I would continue to lie supine and motionless in my pale blue flannel or acetate sleep wear, still and silent as a ‘tomb,’ waiting silently for Hope’s breathing to change and for the slight, small chewing or grinding sounds she produced in sleep to indicate that she had once more fallen back to sleep. Even then, however, sometimes she now once again bolts awake only moments later, once again sitting up to accuse me of ‘snoring’ and angrily demanding that I do something to halt or impede it so that she might finally have some ‘peace’ and be able to sleep.

By this point in time, the Spring thunderstorm’s downpour had receded or ebbed to the point that individual droplets’ impacts’ sounds were individually countable against the striped canvas awnings of the 19th Hole’s large bay windows — meaning being discretely audible, but in sum arrhythmic and not what one would term pleasant or soothing; the larger drops sounded almost eerie or, as it were, almost ‘brutal’ in their impact’s force. Inside, Hope’s father was leaning back and slightly to the side in his heavy ‘captain’s’ chair, running the fine cigar over his upper lip in order to savor the aroma as he searched in a side pocket (this is what is making him lean; it is not a distortion) for his clip’s special monogrammed case. Without informing Hope (an omission which was, I confess, petty, and that I was in all likelihood unwilling, by that point in the conflict, to give her the ‘satisfaction’ of it), I, during my annual Physical exam, requested a referral from our P.P.O.’s Health Plan’s ‘Primary care’ physician to one of the Plan’s designated ‘Ear, Nose and Throat’ specialists, who then subsequently examined my nasal passages, sinus cavities, trachea, adenoids and ‘soft’ palate, and pronounced that he saw no evidence of anything unusual or out of the ordinary. I later, however, made the mistake of ‘throwing’ this clean bill of health ‘up’ in Hope’s ‘face’ during one of the increasingly heated and upsetting arguments (these often occurring over the following morning’s breakfast) respecting the so-called ‘snoring’ issue, whereupon Hope seized on my failure to have told her about the ‘E., N. & T.’ referral as evidence that I ‘. . kn[e]w the snoring [was] real,’ and was secretly concerned about it, and that I had been unwilling to tell her about the appointment in advance for fear that the specialist’s diagnosis would identify something amiss in my ‘soft’ palate or nasal passages and that I would have to admit openly to her that the ‘snoring [was] real’ and that all of my accusations that she was asleep and simply dreaming that I was snoring had been merely so much self serving ‘denial’ and ‘projection’ of the problem on to the ‘victim’ of it (referring to, of course, herself). These brief, bitter arguments — which came in waves or clusters throughout the Winter- and early Spring months, and most often tended to occur or ‘erupt’ at breakfast, fueled by a sleepless night and anxiety about facing the demands of the coming day on insufficient sleep, and were often so bitter and upsetting that I would then go through the subsequent commute and the first several hours of work in some type of emotional daze, mentally ‘re-playing’ the argument and conceiving of new ways to present or arrange evidence or catch Hope in a logical contradiction, sometimes going so far as to interrupt work in order to jot these ideas or cutting rejoinders down in the margins of my professional Day-planner for possible future use — were terrifying in their sudden heat and the speed with which they escalated in intensity and ‘spleen,’ as well as in the way Hope’s dry, dark, narrow, increasingly haggard face across the breakfast nook sometimes becomes nearly unrecognizable to me, twisted, distorted and even somewhat repellent in its anger and stony suspicion; and, for my part, I must confess that, at least once or twice, I had felt an actual urge to strike or shove her or up-end the nook’s breakfast hutch or table with rage, so ‘beside myself’ with irrational rage had I been ‘driven’ by the strange, stony, bitter and irrational obdurance with which she would flatly refuse to consider — to acknowledge even the bare possibility, despite all of the reasonable rebuttals, rejoinders, reasoned arguments, evidence, facts not in dispute and citations of precedent (there had, in the course of our marriage, been other conflicts in which Hope had been utterly convinced of the validity of her position, but had had to acquiesce in the face of subsequent proof that she had, in point of fact, been wrong, and had then had to apologize) which I advanced — that it was I who was awake and she who was—‘just possibly’—asleep, and that the ‘snoring’ issue was in point of fact in reality ‘[her] issue’ and was in fact capable of real resolution only by her ‘making [some kind of Medical, or even psychiatric] appointment.’ My hands sometimes literally trembled or shook with frustration and fatigue related disorientation as I started my vehicle, with a series of rapid, indistinct and unwelcome ‘images’ or hallucinatory distortions often also moving in rapid, arrhythmic succession across my ‘mind’s eye’ as I undertook my commute north up the Garden State Parkway. (In one of the most heated and upsetting of these arguments, I had only brought up the Ear, Nose and Throat examination as evidence that at least I, unlike Hope, was willing to entertain at least the possibility that I was somehow wrong and might in reality be somehow truly ‘snoring,’ and thus that any workable compromise or resolution was going to be impossible unless there was at least some slight mutuality about our willingness to concede, pace the information of our senses, at least the ‘theoretical possibility’ that we might be wrong about just who was asleep and dreaming and\or ‘snoring’ and who was not.)

Also, by this point in time, our routine (or, ‘ritual’) for preparing to retire and go to sleep in the bedroom had also often become almost indescribably tense and unpleasant. Hope often would not acknowledge or speak to me, and when, from my side of the room, I ‘caught her eye’ as she was emerging from her clothes closet or the washroom or applying emollient at her beige enamel ‘Vanity’ ensemble’s lighted mirrors, her expression was often that of someone regarding a distasteful stranger. (Hope’s stepfather and stepsisters, Meredith and Denise [or, more familiarily, ‘Donni’], are also accomplished at this expression, as I first noted upon my first or initial introduction to her family, which occurred at a dinner at Dr. Sipe and his wife’s large, Victorian style home in the historical ‘Fourth Ward’ district of West Newark, in the course of which, at two different points, ‘Father’ asked me some type of personal or biographical question and then, in the midst of my attempt to reply, interrupted in order to publicly indicate that he was becoming impatient or wished that I would ‘Cut to the chase’ in a blunter or apparently more time efficient way.) Often, by the time the bedroom’s lights are now extinguished, I will have become so over-wrought and tense that any likely prospect of falling asleep in the near future vanished altogether, despite the fact that I was often now so exhausted as to literally tremble and my vision, as mentioned, regularly went in and out of different states of exaggerated focus, depth and abstract flux or ‘retroussage’—for instance, the way Audrey Bogen’s once fresh, voluptuous and innocent face seemed to tremble or shudder on the edge of exploding into abstract shards when she brought Dr. Sipe’s ash-tray, which was formed of heavy, black glass and emblazoned with the Raritan Club’s heraldic crest and Latin motto—‘Resurgam!’—in virid red.

As well, of course, as the fact that the absurd ephemeracy, triviality and obvious displacement or projection of the whole ‘snoring’ conflict — of which, between Hope and myself, only I seemed truly aware or frustrated at the absurdity and irrelevance of the whole conflict — made it that much worse. I myself simply could not believe that Hope and myself’s relationship at this crucial, ‘Empty nest’ point in our marriage could founder on such a trivial issue, one which, even in far less happy or viable unions than our own, must, for the most part, be resolved or ‘worked through’ rather early on. Like conflicts concerning, for instance, partners’ differing communicative ‘styles,’ amounts of time spent together as opposed to physically apart, division of responsibilities for household tasks and so forth, mutual compatibility of sleeping ‘styles’ and arrangements is simply part of the domestic compromise of living with a spouse, as, of course, almost every man of any worldly experience knows. I could not, for several weeks or even months, even bring myself to raise the issue of the conflict with personal friends or family. It simply seemed too silly to credit. I even went so far as to try consulting or ‘seeing’ a professional Couple counselor — again, an action undertaken on my own and, as it were, ‘sub-rosa,’ as I knew quite well Hope’s, her stepfather’s, and the bulk of her true and adoptive family’s (with the exception of Vivian, whose allegedly ‘Recovered’ memories and hysterical public accusations at the extended family’s Holiday get-together at Paul and Theresa’s extraordinary vacation home off the Manasquan inlet had led to herself and Hope’s ‘falling out’ and to the entire extended family’s unspoken prohibition of any mention of the entire subject, besides which were Dr. Sipe’s own sentiments respecting the issue of ‘therapy’’s eligibility as a Medical expense for the purposes of Health Care plans and ‘Managed Care,’ which were well known and vociferous) feelings vis à vis the ‘therapy’ issue, and knew also, by that point, that Hope’s flat, tight-mouthed refusal, were I to broach the issue, even to consider ‘seeing’ the counselor with me as a ‘couple’ would frustrate and aggravate me all over again, and simply escalate or further the scope of the marital conflict — only, there-upon, to my considerable chagrin, to repeatedly have, suffer or endure a series of ‘therapeutic’ exchanges such as, in substance, the following:

‘But snoring is not really the issue, Randall, is it?’

‘But I never for one moment suggested that it was the real issue.’

‘After all, hay fever or no, lots of men snore.’

‘And were I one of them [meaning someone who ‘snored’ even during seasons when hay fever was not a factor], I would submit [meaning to Hope’s accusations] without hesitation.’

‘Why is it so important to you whether you snore or not?’

‘The whole point is that it is not important to me. That is my entire point. If I were, in point of actual fact, “snoring,” I’d have no trouble admitting it, assuming responsibility and taking any reasonable steps necessary in order to address the alleged problem.’

‘I’m afraid I still don’t understand. How can you even know for certain whether you snore or not? If you are snoring, then by definition you’re asleep.’

‘But [attempting to respond]. .’

‘I mean, who can know?’

‘But [becoming more and more frustrated by this point in time] that’s the whole point, which I have tried here to explain I don’t even know how many times already: it is precisely when I am not in fact yet even asleep that she accuses me.’

‘Why are you getting so upset? Do you have some special stake in the issue of whether you snore?’

‘If I am, as you put it, getting “upset,” it is perhaps because I am somewhat irked, impatient or frustrated with these types of exchanges. The whole point is that I emphatically do not have a stake in the so-called “snoring” issue. The point is that if I were in fact“ snoring,” I would admit it and simply roll over on to my side or even offer to go sleep in Audrey’s bed and not think twice about the issue beyond a certain natural regret that I had in any way disturbed or “compromised” Hope’s rest. But I do, however, know that one must be asleep to “snore,” and that I know when I am truly asleep and when I am not, and that what I do have a “stake” in is refusing to placate someone who is being not just irrational but blindly stubborn and obtuse in accusing me of something which I must be asleep in order to be guilty of when in fact I am not yet asleep, due largely to how tense and exhausted I am from the whole absurd conflict in the first place.’

The P.P.O.’s counselor, who appeared to be in, at most, his mid- or late 30s, and wore spectacles, had a large forehead which was domed in such a way as to suggest deep thoughtfulness, an appearance which was, it increasingly emerged, misleading.

‘And is there no chance — just for the sake, Randall, of argument — no chance or possibility, however remote, that you yourself might be being, as you put it, in any way stubborn or blind about this conflict in you and Mrs. Napier’s relationship?’

‘Now I must confess to becoming frustrated or even, if I might say so, somewhat annoyed or exasperated, as the whole point, the entire root of the unfairness and my frustration or even anger with Hope, is that I myself am willing to examine this possibility. That it is myself who am here, examining it, as you can plainly see. Do you see my wife here? Is she willing to come “lay [the problem] out” and look at it with a disinterested party?’

‘And can I ask why the thing with the fingers?’

‘But no, Ed [the P.P.O.’s counselor all but insisting on being addressed by his first name], if I may, the fact is that Hope is even now returning home from Exercise class or the cosmetician and is very probably in the tub stewing privately over the conflict and fortifying her position and preparing for another endless round of the conflict whenever she next dreams that I am keeping her awake and robbing her of her youth, vivacity and daughterly charms, while at the same moment I myself sit here in an unventilated office being asked whether I might be “blind.”’

‘So, if I am hearing you accurately, the real issue is fairness. Your wife is not being fair.’

‘The real issue is that it’s bizarre, surreal, an almost literal “waking nightmare.” My wife is now no one I know. She’s claiming to know better than I myself whether I’m even awake. It’s less unfair than seemingly almost totally insane. I know whether I’m sitting here having these exchanges. I know I am not dreaming this. To doubt this is insane. But this, to all appearances, is what she’s doing.’

‘Mrs. Napier might deny that you are really even here right now, you feel.’

‘That isn’t the point. The issue of my actually being here or not is merely an analogy intended to high-light the fact of my knowing whether or not I am asleep, just as you do. To doubt this would be the road to insanity, would it not? Might we agree on that much?’

‘Randall, here let me reassure you once again that I am not in any way disagreeing with you, but simply trying to make certain I understand this. When you are asleep, can you really actually know that you are asleep?’. . And so on and so forth. My hands often ached from gripping the vehicle’s steering wheel as I then resumed or continued the commute home along the Garden State Parkway from the Couple counselor’s office in a small collection (or, ‘complex’) of Medical and Dental buildings in suburban Red Bank. More generally, I began often to worry or fear that I would succumb to sleep deprivation or fatigue and might fall asleep at the wheel and drift across or ‘jump’ the median into on-coming traffic, as I had all too often seen the tragic aftermath of in my many years of commuting.

Then, while seated with Dr. Sipe at the table in what Raritan Club members often refer to as simply ‘19’ or ‘the Hole,’ another unwilled or involuntary interior tableau or, as it were, hallucinatory ‘shot’ or scene of myself standing, as a boy or small child, on a precarious or slanted surface at the foot of something resembling a ladder or rope ladder or rope, looking upward in child-like fear, the stairway, ladder or rope trailing down from some point in the gloom above, beyond or atop the great, stone icon or statue or ‘bust’ of someone too massively huge and ill lit for the face to be seen overhead (or, ‘made out’), I myself standing precariously on a rise in the statue’s great granite lap with one or both hands clutching or grasping the end of the rope, peering up, as well as with someone far larger behind me’s hand heavy upon my shoulder and back and a dominant or ‘booming’ voice from the darkness of the great stone head overhead repeatedly commanding ‘Up,’ and the hand pushing or shaking and saying ‘For God. .’ and\or ‘. . Hope’ several times. ‘Father’—whose area of professional expertise at The Prudential is (or, rather, was) something called ‘Demographic Medicine,’ which involved his evidently not ever once, during his entire career, physically touching a patient — had always regarded me as a bit of a bore and\or ninny, someone at once obtrusive and irrelevant, the human equivalent of a house fly or pinched nerve, and has made precious little effort to disguise this, although as a ‘Greatfather’ he has always been exceptionally doting and kind to our Audrey, which with Hope and myself goes a long way. When he concentrates on the clipped end to get it alight, he appears briefly strabismic or ‘cross eyed,’ and the hand holding the lighter shakes badly, and in that instant he appears every bit his age or more. The excised tip was nowhere in view. The whole room seemed somehow menacingly coiled. He and I both looked at the red end as he held the silver Ronson to it and drew and exhaled, trying to light it in a durable way. His wrists and hands were yellowish and somewhat freckled, not unlike a corn- or ‘tortilla’-chip, and the size of the flame and Cohiba made his very dry, narrow, furrowed, hunched and out-thrust face appear smaller and more distant than in reality it was; and this effect was not a visual distortion or hallucination but a common and simple ‘Illusion of perspective,’ not unlike a Renaissance horizon. The true flame was the one in the middle. Feigenspan’s slight tannic bitterness being also traditional. (The following, as well, being also typical of the exchanges with the second Couple counselor in his sterile, generic office in suburban Red Bank:

‘And it is not possible that some of these hallucinations you feel as though you are experiencing might be auditory? That you are sometimes rasping or snoring and do not realize it because you are, as you put it, hallucinating?’

‘But I know when I am hallucinating. The photograph of your wife and daughter or perhaps conceivably stepdaughter or niece here on your desk — the daughter’s face is beginning ever so slightly to whirl and distend. That is a hallucination. I mean “hallucination” in the very broadest sense. These are not hallucinations which mimic reality or can be confused with it. Sometimes, for instance, trying to shave in the mirror, my visage will appear to have an extra eye in the center of my forehead, whose pupil is sometimes rotated or “set” on its “side” like a cat or nocturnal predator’s, or occasionally our Audrey’s chest on Parents’ Weekend at Bryn Mawr’s two breasts will go up and down in her sweater like pistons and her head is surrounded by a halo or, as it were, “nimbus” of animated Disney characters. When these hallucinations occur, I am able to say to myself, “Randall, you are hallucinating slightly due to chronic sleep deprivation compounded by discord and chronic stress.”’

‘But they must still be frightening. I know they would certainly frighten me.’

‘The point is that I know when I’m hallucinating and when I’m not, just as I also quite obviously know when I’m asleep or not.’) At which juncture an additional momentary, hallucinatory ‘flash’ or vision of our Audrey supine in a beached canoe and myself straining piston-like above her, my face whirling and beginning to distend as the tableau or Fata morgana shifts almost immediately back to the present day’s 19th Hole or ‘the Hole,’ with our Audrey — now 19 and burgeoned into full woman-hood or the ‘Age of consent’—in her familiar saffron bustier, ‘Capri’ style pants and white, elbow length gloves now moving smoothly or languidly among the tables, stools and chairs, languidly serving high-balls to wet men. Nor should one omit to add that Jack Vivien was now there, as well, at the window-side table in the 19th Hole with myself and Dr. Sipe, also with a beverage and seated on ‘Father’’s right or ‘off’ side. Jack Vivien wore none of the customary golfer’s jacket or visor, as well as appearing dry, unhurried and, as always, collected or unflustered, although he nevertheless still wore his spikes or ‘Golf shoes’ (the traditional shoe’s sole’s 0.5 inch steel or iron spikes being the culprit or component which conducts electricity with such ‘hair raising’ efficacy. The public course’s resident ‘Pro’ in Wilkes Barre, in my boyhood, for instance, was once struck and killed instantly by lightning, and my own Father had been in the trio of other golfers who had bravely remained in the open with the stricken lightning victim until a physician could be summoned and arrive, the ‘Pro’ lying prone and blackened and still holding the Twelfth hole’s flag [whose pole, or ‘pin,’ like traditional golfers’ spikes, was, in that era, still comprised of conductive metal] in his smoking fist.), and here the logistics of his entrance or ‘logic’ of the ‘coincidence’ which brought him, dry and, as it were, ‘bright eyed’ (Jack Vivien having bright or ‘expressive’ eyes in a markedly large, broad, if somewhat flat or immobile or ‘expressionless’ [with the exception of the animated, ‘thoughtful’ eyes] face, as well as a sharp, dark ‘Van Dyke’ style beard which served to compensate or de-emphasize the somewhat unusual qualities of his mouth’s size and position), to our table in ‘the Hole’ at this precise point in time is somewhat unclear and, in retrospect, contrived or, as it were, ‘suspicious.’ It is, for example, unlikely that Jack Vivien and Hope’s stepfather knew one another, as not only was ‘Father’ not a member of the Raritan Club and had played as a ‘Guest’ only once or twice prior to this time, but in reality Jack (or, more formally, ‘Chester’) Vivien served as a high ranking Employee Assistance executive at my own company (whose physical plant, or, ‘Nerve center’ was located in Elizabeth), a company which ‘Father’ had made rather a point, numerous times, of implying or characterizing as so ephemeral or unimportant to the region’s insurance industry as to have caused him never once to have encountered or ‘heard one word about’ it throughout his entire tenure at ‘The Rock.’ Nor did Hope’s stepfather appear to speak to, look at or in any way to acknowledge the presence of Jack Vivien (whom, through his role in the recent ‘snoring’ issue’s attempted resolution, I had gotten acquainted with rather well) as he got the thing finally alight and leaned back at a slight smoker’s angle in his ‘captain’s’ chair, smoking slowly and joining Jack Vivien (whose circumoral balbo or ‘Van Dyke’ was, admittedly, frankly and incongruously ‘merkin-esque’ or pudendal in appearance, I myself being far from the only person in Systems to remark this) in looking appraisingly at me as I covered first one eye and then the other (a well known ‘home-remedy’ for common optical illusions). It was clearly evident that ‘Father’ did not ‘approve of’ or like what he currently saw: an, as it were, ‘second string’ son-in-law with a mediocre Handicap and background in addition to a trivial or undistinguished career, one whose personal affairs were in disarray and appeared potentially ‘on the rocks’ over a conflict this trivial and absurd with a wife who was, herself, clearly merely suffering from either the ‘Empty nest’ syndrome, early symptoms of the climacteric or mere incubi or bad dreams (more clinically known as ‘Night terrors’), and yet could not manage to be assertive, assuasive or ‘man’ enough to convince her that these natural and de minimis causes were at their so-called ‘impasse’’s core, and who now seemed all too obviously to be working up the courage or ‘nerve’ to ask ‘Father’ himself to use his paternal influence or authority over Hope (pace that he was, of course, when convenient, merely or ‘just’ her stepfather, and in his pale eyes was what sometimes looked or appeared to be the terrible stepfatherly knowledge of what our Audrey could have been to me, perhaps as Hope — as well as Vivian [as she had ‘hysterically’ claimed to have later been professionally helped to ‘Recover’ unconscious memories of] — had once served as or been to himself; and it was not at all difficult to conceive almost at will a low angle image or vision or nightmarish ‘shot’ of his prone face just above, engorged and straining, one well freckled right hand clamped tight over Hope or Vivian [the two of whom appear almost ‘interchangeably’ alike in childhood photos] beneath him’s open mouth, and his crushing weight thoroughly and terribly adult) to intercede in the conflict, though it was neither the old man’s ‘place’ nor remote intention to do so, as anyone with any discernment or ‘eyes with which to see’ should be capable of seeing.

More specifically, it had been Chester A. (or, ‘Jack’) Vivien — age: ‘Mid 50s,’ Handicap: ‘11,’ marital status: ‘Unknown,’ and the Director of Employee Assistance Programs for Advanced Data Capture (our company’s legal name)’s Elizabeth operations — to whose coveted, corner office I’d finally gone with my ‘hat in hand’ in order to confide the entire absurd, seemingly quotidian or banal, conjugal ‘snoring’ impasse, and its escalating impact on my marriage, health and ability to function productively in my Dept. within Systems. This had been the prior March. Though his résumé included an ‘advanced’ or Graduate degree in the field of industrial psychology from Cornell University (which is located in northern or ‘up-State’ New York), Jack Vivien was no mere counselor or ‘front line’ staff for Advanced Data Capture’s ‘E.A.P.’ (as it is often known) program, but rather had been deliberately hired away from Weyerhauser Paper, Inc.’s Brunswick operation several years prior in order to specifically manage and oversee the entire ‘E.A.P.’ program, and now served also as ‘Administrative liaison’ for the company’s P.P.O. Group Health Plan program, which evidently required considerable managerial and accounting expertise, as well. Jack Vivien and I had always gotten ‘on’ and enjoyed a mutual regard. We were frequently (when his chronic lower back condition permitted) in the same flight at company tournaments during warm weather months, and sometimes enjoyed light conversation together in the cart on Par 4s and\or 5s while waiting for other members of our foursome to locate an errant ball or ‘hole out’ on the hole’s green. More importantly, it was Jack Vivien who, in late March, had subsequently suggested or ‘Throw[n] out [the] idea [of]’ the reportedly highly respected Edmund R. and Meredith R. Darling Memorial Sleep Clinic, which, he said, was affiliated or ensconced within the teaching hospital affiliated with Rutgers University in ‘in-State’ Brunswick, as a possible option. It had also been Jack — as opposed to either of the supposedly ‘expert,’ professional Couple counselors I had gone to some lengths to consult or ‘see,’ in desperation, some months prior — who had made an almost immediate ‘impression’ by quickly ‘Cut[ting] to the chase’ and inquiring — somewhat ‘leadingly’ or ‘rhetorically,’ but without condescension or a sense of being patronized — whether I myself, on balance, would prefer to prevail or ‘win’ in the conflict and be vindicated as ‘innocent’ or ‘right,’ on one hand, or would rather instead have Hope and myself’s marriage back on track and to once more derive pleasure in one another’s company and affections and to resume its being possible to get enough uninterrupted sleep at night to be able to function effectively and feel more like ‘[my]self again.’

The specific proposal, respecting which Hope agreed to at least ‘hear [me] out’ on a morning of low skies and light mist which made the small, decorative, ‘bay window’’s light in our breakfast nook appear shadowless and unreal and appeared to exaggerate the haggardness of our exhausted faces, was as follows: that if Hope would consent to attend Rutgers’ Edmund R. and Meredith R. Darling Sleep Clinic with me and place ourselves in the trained and respected Clinic’s Sleep researchers’ experienced hands, then, if the results of the Sleep Clinic’s study of our sleep patterns served, in any substantive way, form or manner to confirm her perceptions and beliefs in the dispute over my ‘snoring,’ then I myself would move immediately back into our Audrey’s former agapemone or ‘Guest’ room down the hall and consent to follow the Medical staff’s recommendations about treating my then presumably bona fide ‘snoring.’ (It is true, as a child, that I myself had evidently sucked or ‘nursed at’ my own thumb while asleep for such an extended period of time during my childhood that our family’s pediatrician in Wilkes Barre had finally directed my parents to coat or paint the nail of my thumb with an aversive tasting prescription lacquer or, as it were, ‘nail’ polish each night before retiring — at least, such was my Father’s stated recollection of anything unusual or out of the ordinary in my childhood sleep habits. [The Darling Sleep Clinic staff had required Hope and myself to fill out exhaustive, preliminary or ‘Intake’ reports on our present and past sleep patterns, including data as far back as possible, including, if possible, childhood.])

On his own, ‘personal’ time, over the course of several appointments and interchanges in his comfortably appointed ‘E.A.P.’ program office, Jack Vivien, despite his own ponderous work load, had helped me to prepare carefully for the presentation of this ‘last ditch’ proposal, during which I made certain to keep my facial expression and vocal tone non-accusatory and neutral other than a certain level of undisguised exhaustion (the previous night had been a particularly difficult or ‘bad’ one, with numerous awakenings and accusations). The suggestion of last ditch exhaustion or ‘giving up’ in the way I presented it in the breakfast nook, which, no doubt (as Jack Vivien predicted), made the proposal more impactful, was, in most respects, sincere or ‘heart-felt,’ although not, obviously, in the way Hope (who, too, appeared to have aged several whole years over the preceding Winter along with myself [though I would never have given voice to this observation aloud — be ‘Father’’s opinions on our marriage as they may, I do know enough about the dynamics of a solid marriage to discern the difference between honesty and mere brutality, and that tact and circumspection play as large a part in an intimate relation as candor and ‘soul baring,’ if not more], and who often complained that chronic lack of sleep [although she often was asleep; what she was, in reality, actually feeling the effects and complaining of were traumatic dreams or ‘Night terrors,’ though I, of course, once again kept my own counsel on these matters] produced a distracting ‘sound’ [or, rather, a mild aural hallucination — I literally bit my tongue in restraint when she discussed this putative ‘sound’] which mimicked the tone of a ‘Tuning fork’ or well rung bell) appeared to believe, her face, over the table’s center-piece, grapefruit and dry toast, flirting at times with vortical abstraction and pulses of virid color but managing to retain or ‘hang on’ to its visual or optical integrity or cohesion in the drained grey morning light in a way which seemed almost stubborn. Small framed and sharp featured, with a swart or tanned complexion and high-lighted hair in a tall ‘Bouffante’ which stood aloof and unchanging above the shifting tides of coiffure fashion, Hope’s strong will and refusal to be anyone other than ‘who’ and ‘what’ she was had been one of the original attractions between her and myself; and at this point, even during my exhausted presentation of the ‘last resort’ of the Edmund R. and Meredith R. Darling Sleep Clinic, I can even now remember remembering that I had never forgotten this, or been unmoved by her ‘inner fire,’ or ceased to (in my ‘way’) ‘love’ and find her desirable despite the fact that, even prior to the enervating dissolution of the present conflict, the intervening recent years had not been, as the saying goes, ‘kind’ with respect to Hope’s gynecic or womanly charms or appeal, although, in her own case, the spoliations of time have not resulted in the swelling, puddling, thickening or bloated effects of the aging process in both her stepsisters and (to a somewhat lesser extent) myself. Once voluptuous to the point of being nearly ‘Ruben-esque,’ Hope’s own aging or anility’s type has established itself as being primarily one now consisting of ‘weazening’ or desiccation, her skin toughening and becoming in places leathery in appearance, her dark tan permanent and her teeth, neck’s tendons and extremities’ joints appearing protrusive in a way they once never did. In brief, her over-all mien has taken on a lupine or predatory aspect, and what was once her eyes’ well known ‘twinkle’ has become a mere avidity. (None of this is, of course, in any way surprising or ‘unnatural’—air and time have simply done to my wife what they also ‘do’ to bread and hung laundry. Indeed, we must all come to terms with our own actuarial plight, so to speak, of which the ‘Empty nest’ is such a vivid mile post along the way of.) The natural but nevertheless terrible reality — albeit unspoken of in any viable union, over time — is that, by this point in our marriage, Hope was already de facto or practically speaking unsexed, an, as the saying goes withered vine or bloom, and this somehow all the worse or ‘more so’ for all of her scrupulous devotion to self care and youthful desiderata, just as so many of her own other bloated or desiccant circle of friends and Book and Horticulture clubs’ middle aged wives and divorcées who habitually congregate together around the Raritan Club’s pool throughout the Summer season are obsessed by, as well: the Exercise classes and caloric regimes, emollients and toners, Yoga, supplements, tanning or (albeit rarely mentioned) Surgical ‘work’ or procedures — all the willful clinging to the same nubile or ‘virgo intacta’ vivacity which their own daughters unknowingly serve to mock as they latterly blossom. (In fact, pace her natural verve and ‘esprit fort,’ it was often all too easy a matter to remark the pain in Hope’s eyes and her mouth’s crimped or ‘pinched’ set when watching or within the purview of our Audrey’s later, increasingly mature and comely peer circle, an anile grief so easily then transferred or ‘projected’ as anger onto myself for merely owning eyes with which to see and be naturally affected by.) One is, in fact, hard pressed to regard it as coincidental that all of these blossoming girls and daughters were, almost without exception, all dispatched to ‘out-of-State’ colleges, as with each passing year the mere physical sight of them became for their mothers a living rebuke.

The actual ‘beds’ for the sleep patients and their cases’ accrued data at the Darling Sleep Clinic were directly side by side, but were also markedly narrow, and possessed of thin, extremely firmly reinforced mattresses, as well as only one sheet and ‘medium weight’ acrylic blanket despite the sterile chill of the Sleep chamber. The diagnostic regimen — which took no little time and negotiations with our P.P.O. to secure coverage or ‘authorization’ concerning which — consisted of Hope and myself’s making the slightly over 90 mile (with myself, as usual, at the wheel while Hope dozed with her Travel pillow against the passenger side door) drive, via ‘I’-195 and State routes 9 and 18, one Wednesday evening per week, to Rutgers-Brunswick Memorial Hospital, and there ‘checking in’ at the institution’s Fourth floor’s Neurology\Somnology Dept., which contained the Edmund R. and Meredith R. Darling Memorial Sleep Clinic, whose reputation in the industry truly was, according to both Jack Vivien and other sources, ‘top-flight.’ The Sleep specialist (or, ‘Somnologist’) in charge of our case, a large, mild mannered, burly, heavily set fellow with a lead colored crew cut and what appeared to be an extraordinary number of keys on a promotional ‘Parke Davis, Inc.’ key ring — his manner pleasant in the neutral, subdued and punctilious way of morticians and certain types of Horticulture lecturers — appeared also to have what Hope later remarked was little or no discernible neck or throat per se, his head appearing to sit or, as it were, ‘rest’ directly upon his shoulders, which I pointed out may have only been an illusion or effect caused by the high collar of the Somnologist’s white Medical or ‘lab’ coat, which most of the other Darling Memorial Sleep Clinic’s staff on duty wore, as well, with laminated and ‘photo-’ Identification cards clipped (or, in A.D.C.’s Systems Dept.’s more familiar argot or parlance, ‘gator clipped’) to the breast pocket. Select members of the Somnologist’s technical staff (or, ‘Sleep team’) conducted our formal ‘Intake interview,’ with the M.D. himself then acting as docent or guide in briefly showing Hope and myself around the Darling Sleep Clinic facility, which appeared to consist of four or more small, self contained ‘Sleep chambers’ which were surrounded on all sides by soundless, clear, thick or ‘Plexi-’glass walls, sophisticated audio- and video recording devices, and neurological monitoring equipment. Dr. Paphian’s office itself was adjoined to the Clinic’s centrally located ‘Nerve-’ or ‘Command center,’ in which professional Somnologists, Neurologists, aides, technicians and attendants could observe the occupants of the different Sleep chambers on a wide variety of ‘Infra-red’ monitors and ‘brain’ wave measurement and display equipment. Every staff and ‘Sleep team’ member also wore white, noiseless shoes with gum or rubber soles, and the insubstantial blankets on each chamber’s bed were also either spotlessly white or else pastel or ‘sky-’ (or, ‘electric-’) blue. Also, the Darling Sleep Clinic’s system of ‘halogen’ based, track- or cove style, overhead lighting was white and completely shadowless (which is to say, no one in the facility appeared to cast any shadow, which, together with the funereal quiet, Hope felt, she said, lent a somewhat ‘dreamy’ or dream-like aspect to the atmosphere of the place) and made everyone appear sallow or ill, as well as its being markedly chilly in the Sleep chamber. The Somnologist explained that relatively cool temperatures conduced to both human sleep and to the complex measurements of brain wave activity which the Clinic’s sophisticated equipment was designed to monitor, explaining that different types and levels of ‘E.E.G.’ (or, ‘brain’) waves corresponded to several unique and distinct different levels or ‘stages’ of wakefulness and sleep, including the popularly known ‘R.E.M.-’ or ‘Paradoxical stage’ in which the voluntary muscles were paralyzed and dreams occurred. Each of the majority of his many keys was encased around the ‘head’ with a rubber or plastic casement, which, I hypothesized, cut down on the overall noise factor of the huge ring of keys when the Somnologist walked or stood holding the keys in his slightly moving palm in a way suggesting heft or the gauging of weight while he spoke, which was evidently his primary ‘nervous’ or unconscious habit. (Later, at the outset of the initial drive back home [before beginning, as was her usual wont, to doze or ‘nod’ against her side’s door], Hope posited that there seemed to her to be something reassuring, trustworthy or [in Hope’s own term] ‘substantial’ about a fellow with this many keys [with myself, for my own part, keeping to myself the fact that my own associations anent the keys were somewhat more janitorial].)

By arrangement, Hope and myself were to attend the Sleep Clinic once per week, on Wednesdays, for a total duration of from four to six weeks, sleeping over-night in the Sleep chamber under close observation. Much of the Intake data collection process concerned Hope and myself’s nocturnal routines or ‘rituals’ surrounding retiring and preparing for sleep (these said ‘rituals’ being both common to and unique or distinctive of most married couples, the Sleep specialist explained), in order that these logistics and practices might be ‘re-created’—with the obvious exception of any physically intimate or sexual routines, the Somnologist inserted, clinically evincing no discernible embarrassment or ‘shyness’ as Hope avoided my glance — as closely as possible on these ‘over-nights,’ as we prepared to sleep under observation. In separate Dressing rooms, we first changed in to light green hospital gowns and disposable slippers, then proceeded in tandem to our assigned Sleep chamber, Hope using one hand to keep the long vertical ‘slit’ or incision or ‘cleft’ at the rear of her gown clenched shut over her bottom. Neither the gowns nor the high intensity lighting were what anyone would term ‘flattering’ or ‘modest’—and Hope, as a woman, later remonstrated to me that she had felt somewhat demeaned or ‘violated’ to be sleeping under thin coverlets with nameless persons observing her through a glass partition. (Frequent remarks or complaints like this were argumentative ‘bait’ to which I refused to respond or engage on the long, return rides home so early the following morning, where I would hurriedly shave, change clothes and prepare for the by now torturous, ‘peak hour’ commute up to Elizabeth for a full day of work. A frequent habit of Hope’s was sometimes to seemingly agree or acquiesce to a proposal and wait to give voice to her objections until the ‘agreed upon’ course of action was under way, at which time what would have been reasonable caveats and reservations now emerged as being merely pointless carping. I had, however, by this point in the conflict, learned to suppress frustration, indignation or even pointing out that the time for such complaints being productive had long passed, as pointing this out inevitably leads to the sort of conjugal argument or ‘clash of wills’ in which there can be no winner. One should also insert, as I had done to Chester [or (“For God’s sake”), ‘Jack’] Vivien, that our respective make-ups were such that conflict or argument was more difficult or ‘harder’ on myself than on either Hope, Naomi or Audrey, all of whom seemed to have a comparatively easy time of ‘shaking off’ the adrenaline and upset of a heated exchange.) We were instructed or encouraged to bring our personal hygiene or grooming products from home, and to use (first Hope doing so, then myself, just as at home) a private washroom and to undergo our personal hygiene ‘rituals’ in preparation for sleep (with, however, Hope eschewing her facial emollient, hair net, moisturizer and gloves due to the observers and panoply of ‘low light’ cameras, despite instructions to mimic, as closely as possible, our at home routines). Aides or attendants subsequently affixed white, circular ‘E.E.G.’ patches or ‘leads’—whose conductive gels were extremely chilly and ‘queer’ feeling, Hope observed — to our heads’ temples, foreheads, upper chests and arms, whereupon we then lay carefully or ‘gingerly’ down along the lengths of the Sleep chamber’s parallel beds, careful to avoid tangling the complex nests of wires which led from the leads to a grey chassised ‘relay’ or ‘induction’ monitor which hummed quietly in the Sleep chamber’s north-east corner. The ‘Sleep team’ technicians — some of whom, it emerged, were enrolled Medical students at nearby Rutgers University — wore the customary noiseless, white foot wear and ‘lab’ coats unbuttoned over casual or ‘mufti’ clothing. Somewhat surprisingly, three of our Sleep chamber’s apparently ‘glass’ walls were, upon being inside them, revealed to be, in reality, mirrored, such that we could not, from inside, see any of the technicians or recording equipment, while the fourth or final wall’s interior comprised a sophisticated, ‘Wall sized’ video screen or ‘projection’ of various commonly relaxing or soporific vistas, ‘scenes’ or tableaux: fields of nodding wheat, trickling streams, Winter spruces trimmed in fresh snow, small forest animals nibbling at deciduous ground fall, a sea-side sunset and so forth in this vein. The twin beds’ mattress and lone pillows were also revealed to be layered in a plastic compound which crinkled audibly under any movement, which I personally found distracting and somewhat unsanitary. The beds also contained metal railings along the sides which appeared rather higher and more substantial than the rails or sides one is accustomed to associating with a more typical ‘Hospital’ bed. Our case’s assigned Somnologist — Dr. Paphian, with his aforementioned subdued countenance and short, ‘salt and pepper’ hair-cut and sessile head — explained that some patients’ particular sleep dysfunctions involved somnambulism or certain frenetic or even potentially violent movements in the midst of sleep, and that the 24.5 inch brushed steel railings affixed to the chambers’ beds’ sides had been mandated by the Sleep Clinic’s insurance underwriter.

Also — as light reading for an average of 20 to 30 minutes before Hope customarily struck the elevated sconce’s light above her bed at home was a fairly firmly established part of our marriage’s routine for preparing to retire — Hope and myself spent, for three consecutive Wednesdays in a row, 20 or more minutes sitting awkwardly up in the narrow and ‘crib’-like (because of the high lateral railings) beds with only a crinkling institutional pillow for back support, ostensibly ‘reading’ in our respective beds in the Sleep chamber as we did at home, each holding our current ‘livre de chevets’ of choice, which Hope had brought in her Book club bag from home, but which were here, in this artificial setting, mere ‘props,’ and I did little more than absently turn the pages of Kurt Eichenwald’s Serpent on the Rock, as the idea of relaxing or ‘winding down’ while covered in E.E.G. leads and extrudent wires and fully reflected in three of the small room’s walls was somewhat farcical or absurd; but I was — in what remained close if sub-rosa ‘consultation’ with Jack Vivien — determined now to go through the experiment in full technical compliance, and not to complain, demur or give Hope any cause to suspect or think that I was not fully prepared to go through with my side of the ‘bargain.’ (Sometimes, nevertheless, admittedly, for instance when driving — particularly along the daily commute via the Garden State Parkway, or west-ward via 195, the ‘Jersey’ Turnpike, and ‘I’-276 around metropolitan Philadelphia’s northern border to the campus of out-of-State Bryn Mawr, to there-upon park the vehicle along Montgomery Avenue and upwardly observe the lights of our Audrey’s Freshman dormitory [or, more formally, ‘Ardmore House,’ in honor of a Nineteenth century college benefactor, and designed or ‘done up’ in the steep, grey, vertiginous, crenellated tower or ‘Martello’ style of a medieval era fortress] room on the tower or ‘keep’’s Fourth floor’s north-east corner come on or off as she moved about the room with her room-mate or prepared to retire or undress — I become so distraught, melancholic or consumed with over-whelming anguish or ‘dread’ for no apparent or discernible reason [the feeling, unrelated to the sleep deprivation whose symptoms I knew so well by that point in time, seems to come ‘out of nowhere’ and arise, as it were, out of some profound, unconscious, psychic void or ‘hole’] that I consider intentionally ‘jumping’ the median into on-coming traffic. This fear, on average, will last just a moment or two.)

Despite, however, my nervousness or excitement at the prospect of objective verification of my ‘side’ of the dispute, my life-long custom or habit of lying supine on my back with my elbows bent and hands atop one another upon my chest made relaxing as the Sleep chamber’s soothing vistas and harsh lights were extinguished from somewhere outside the chamber somewhat more straightforward for myself as opposed to Hope, whose habit (unlike our Audrey, who tends to curl somewhat ‘foetally’ on her right side, and often appears to awaken in precisely the same position in which she had originally lost consciousness) is to fall asleep procumbent or ‘prone,’ with her arms splayed and her head rotated or, as it were, almost ‘twisted’ violently to the side, as though some great, unwelcome weight were pressing her down from behind and above (a position which most adults would find noticeably uncomfortable), and she complained to the ‘Sleep team’ that it would be nearly impossible for her to fall truly asleep when supine and facing, as it were, ‘up’ as the E.E.G. leads and wires seemed to dictate. Nevertheless, she subsequently did (as usual) fall promptly asleep; and, on our second Wednesday ‘over-night’ in the Sleep chamber, neither she nor ‘Dr. Paphian’ (the Sleep specialist’s cognomen or sur-name) ever again referred to her vehement protests of the week prior.

As previously mentioned, our diagnostic protocol dictated our traveling to and ‘checking in’ to sleep together at the Darling Memorial Sleep Clinic once per week for a possible time frame of up to six weeks, with Hope and myself’s brains’ respective wave patterns monitored and any untoward movements, sounds or awakenings recorded on state of the art Infra-red or ‘low light’ videotape (Hope often made a point of verifying the audio’s quality, as well, while I gazed neutrally at the Fourth wall’s screen’s relaxing tableaux), which would be analyzed by our Somnologist and eventually form the basis for a medical diagnosis and recommended course of treatment. I myself, of course, as previously mentioned, was looking forward with some anticipation to the recordings’ empirical verification of the fact that, when Hope cried out in vexation to accuse me once again of ‘snoring,’ my E.E.G. waves would indicate that, not only was I myself not truly asleep, but that, on the contrary, Hope’s own brain ‘reading’ would prove conclusively that it was, in reality, she herself who at that time was actually asleep and had dreamt, hallucinated or otherwise ‘fantasized’ the unpleasant noises which she so steadfastly believed were ‘robbing’ her of her sleep, health, youth and ability to trust that she and myself were ‘on the same wave length’ enough anymore to make our marriage anything more than a sexless sham, especially now that Audrey was no longer at home to ‘preoccupy’ me or serve as the ‘focus of [my] affections’ (this among the charges which Hope had levied in the vindictive heat of the very worst morning arguments respecting the conflict and our whole viability as a marriage and putative ‘family’).

As it eventuated, however, it only took the P.P.O.’s authorized minimum (or, ‘Floor’) of three weeks for an administrative aide or factotum at the Darling Clinic to page me in my small Systems Dept. office at the work-place (he had apparently called our home phone number, as well, but Hope had been either [as was more and more frequently the case] ‘out’ or else asleep [she openly napped, despite the Clinic’s informational material at the outset’s clear instructions against diurnal napping for patients with any type of sleep related condition]) to inform me that the Darling Memorial Sleep Clinic’s administration, in conjunction with Dr. Paphian and the rest of the ‘Sleep team’ in charge of Hope and myself’s case, now felt that they had enough accrued data to offer a firm diagnosis and a recommended course of any ‘treatments or procedures [deemed] indicated.’ This official diagnosis was to be proffered the following week (on, for scheduling reasons, a Monday morning) in a small Conference room off the ‘main’ or central corridor or hallway of the hospital’s Fourth floor’s unusual, stelliform or ‘diamond’ shaped floor plan or ‘lay-out,’ a small, brightly lit room with one all too familiar ‘Goya’ among the more generic or commercial Impressionist prints on the wall, and a round, maple or wood grain table with matching ‘captain’s’ chairs whose seats’ and arm rests’ padding was a dark and somewhat over-saturant red in color. Like so much of the rest of the Darling Memorial Clinic, this room was also markedly chilly (the more so as we had driven down, amidst peak morning traffic, in a severe storm, with high winds and heavy precipitation, only then to find that Rutgers-Brunswick Hospital’s indoor parking garage’s vehicle entrance was emblazoned with a sign reading, ‘LOT FULL.’ Both our over-coats were, as a result, sodden, and dripped on the Conference room’s floor, as well as the fact that Hope — whose morbid, long-standing fear of ‘violent’ storms had prevented her from sleeping or napping throughout the stressful commute — was, as a result, in a particularly foul, obdurate temper), and was equipped or outfitted with an illuminated wall mount appliance or device for reading X-rays and ‘M.R.I.’ images, as well as a large video- and\or audio Monitor on a rolling ‘stand’ or cart of reinforced aluminum or iron, painted an institutional brown and with each leg terminating in a small ‘caster’ or wheel for mobility. Everyone in the Conference room appeared to have disposable, styrofoam cups of coffee or tea which sat on the table at our respective places, and steamed. Having, due to anticipation or ‘nerves,’ gotten little or no sleep the prior night, both my glasses and vest felt too tight once again, and all sounds appeared to amplify or ‘ramify’ somewhat, but with the room only moving slightly in and out of exaggerant visual focus and hue. Each time I yawned, however, produced a sharp bloom or flower of pain in my ear. My trouser cuffs and garters being wet, as well, and Hope’s tall coiffure being somewhat canted to the right, and her shadowless face resembling something De Kooning himself might have torn from the easel and discarded in medias res, as well. Also around the table, a small, dark, unfamiliar, ‘saucer’ eyed, Hispanic man with chloasmatic or pre-cancerous lesions on the backs of his hands, his ‘business attire’ or suit of fine, dark grey wool, the knot of his tie the size of a toddler’s head. The sound of a hand-held hammer. The sound of a Driving range. The sound of a nail gun and portable air compressor. Of one or more rotary or ‘power’ saws. The sound of a Saab with mild turbo lag. The sound of impacting rain and wipers on High. The sound of a blender making frozen drinks, of coins in a Prudential ‘Executive-’ or ‘Senior Management’ lounge’s vending machine. Of a lengthy putt being ‘made’ or ‘drained’ in the cup’s shallow hole. The sound of struggles and muffled breathing and a male- or ‘Father’ figure’s whispered grunts and shushing. Some type of construction, maintenance or related activity was under way some distance along the central corridor or hallway, in the evident direction of the actual Darling Clinic’s Sleep chambers and observational ‘Nerve’ center, and the emphatic sounds of a hammer started and stopped without discernible rhythm. I suffered or experienced a rapid and terrible flash or ‘strobe-’lit interior vision of a prone female figure wrapped in clear plastic industrial sheeting, which cleared almost instantly. Around the table with Hope and myself were seated or ‘arrayed’ the Somnologist with his ever present array of keys and white, ‘lab’ soutane or coat, two somewhat younger technicians or aides who were also members of our case’s ‘Sleep team,’ and a finely arrayed, male, Hispanic or, perhaps, ethnically Cuban, Medical administrative professional, who was explained to be present representing Rutgers-Brunswick Memorial Hospital’s periodic ‘Review’ or evaluation of the Darling Memorial Clinic’s diagnostic procedures and activities. The cart’s Monitor — attended by a young, female ‘Sleep team’ technician with no discernible wedding band and a severely pulled back brunette hair-style, who also carried a collection of various tapes and files associated with Hope and myself’s case, one of which she apparently activated via a hand-held or ‘remote’ device — now displayed my own name, date, and personal eight digit ‘P.P.O. Number’ (as well as a specially assigned ‘D.S.C.’ [for ‘Darling Sleep Clinic’] Number) beneath a template of four evenly spaced, horizontal lines, not unlike a musical score’s, between which moved a jagged or erratic line of white light which signified my own ‘brain’ waves, which had evidently been recorded through the conductive E.E.G. leads throughout our nights in the Sleep chamber. The waves’ white ‘line’ was discomfiting, being palsied, bumpy and arrhythmic rather than regular or consistent, as well as being trended with dramatic troughs and spikes or ‘nodes’ suggestive in appearance of an arrhythmic heart or financially troubled or erratic ‘Cash flow’ graph. Also, not unlike a series of Hewlett-Packard HP9400B mainframes arrayed in sequence for co-sequential (or, in A.D.C.’s nomenclature, ‘Sysplex’) data processing, a digital display in the monitor’s upper left corner displayed the elapsed time along several minutely calibrated temporal gradients.

As the entire ‘Sleep team’ knew from our Intake data, my wife’s own morbid fear of insomnia or sleep deprivation was long-standing. When, for instance, our Audrey was, as a child, ill or anxious respecting bad dreams or phantasms, it was often I who ‘sat’ up with her so that Hope could, as she would have it, ‘try to’ sleep.

Meanwhile, the initial ‘result’ or ‘diagnosis’ proffered by the Sleep specialist was, in a word, shocking and wholly unexpected. On each of the five or six occasions when special, ‘low light’ video equipment had recorded Hope sitting suddenly up-right and accusing me of ‘snoring,’ as well as on the evidently at least two of these recorded instances when I had audibly rejoined that I was not even yet asleep and thus could not logically be ‘guilty’ of the accusation, the Sleep specialist — aided in his presentation by the youthfully severe technician’s laser pointer and her ‘remote’ device’s ability to halt or ‘freeze’ the Monitor’s display in order to draw the table’s attention to a certain time specific interval in the E.E.G. — averred or affirmed ipse dixit that in fact I had, indeed, been, clinically speaking — despite my belief or perception of being fully conscious—‘technically asleep,’ predominantly in the Second or Third of the four well known levels or ‘stages’ of sleep, which the Somnologist once again outlined or glossed. As the rest of the table and ‘Sleep team’ looked on, the Somnologist (who, as usual, held and unconsciously ‘toyed with’ his ponderous, Parke-Davis key ring) delivered this verdict with all the clinical objectivity of modern science, and took pains to make it clear once again that he was empirically neutral in the marital discord and took neither one ‘side’ in the dispute nor the other. Nevertheless, I felt, upon the putative ‘diagnosis’’s initial delivery, a spasm or ‘wave’ of both anger and disbelief, which caused one of my first unconscious or ‘reflexive’ thoughts to be that Dr. Paphian et alia were in fact on Hope’s ‘side,’ and that she had somehow induced the Darling Clinic to alter the testing data to somehow indicate that I was asleep when I knew very well (meaning, every bit as well as I knew I was seated there in that Conference room, gripping the blood colored arms of the chair in disbelief) I was not. Meanwhile, my physical demeanor betrayed none of this admittedly irrational suspicion, but rather only shock and surprise — my jaw quite literally ‘dropped,’ and for a brief interval of time I was so non-plussed that I did not think or have the ‘presence of mind’ to ask about any parallel results indicated by the study and E.E.G.’s aural or audio portion — meaning, in other words, whether or not it was also confirmed that my being ‘technically asleep’ was or was not accompanied by audible ‘snoring.’ (Here I also, it should be inserted, had an erection or ‘Boner’ at this time [my first in several months], the origins and associations of which were, in my disoriented state, wholly unknown; the indirect cause may have been the sudden surge of adrenal- or stress-related hormones caused by the findings’ sudden shock.)

There were, following this alleged ‘diagnosis,’ approximately two to four seconds of collective silence, punctuated by the noise of construction activities, rain striking the Conference room’s west window, and a ringing telephone somewhere deeper within the administrative offices of the Darling Memorial Sleep Clinic. My quondam or former first wife, Naomi, never accepted the fact that I did not want children with her; I was afraid of ‘repeating the cycle.’ Also, my pager was vibrating. Hope’s own facial expression or mien, upon the Sleep specialist’s news, was the somewhat exaggeratedly ‘bland’ or ‘unreactive’ one which I knew so well from other marital embarrassments, an affect which signified that she was experiencing a sense of bitter vindication or triumph, but was disguising or effacing her pleasure in order to appear to be taking the ‘high-road’ in the conflict, as well as to avoid my possibly accusing her of vindictive triumph, as well as to show a lack of any surprise and to attempt to make clear that she had ‘never’ had or entertained the ‘slightest doubt’ that she was in the right in the dispute over the conflict, and that the Somnologist was now merely confirming what she had in reality ‘kn[own] all along.’ Only a certain slight gleam or avidity in Hope’s pale eyes betrayed her surprise and triumph at my stunned disbelief at the Sleep team’s apparent Medical diagnosis or ‘ruling.’ The sound of the ringing telephone, seemingly unanswered, continued on in this brief, silent interval prior to the young, forbiddingly nubile or ‘paphian’ technician’s there-upon ejecting, inserting and manually adjusting or ‘re-setting’ the Monitor’s display as the bland, phlegmatic Somnologist’s diagnosis now shifted its focus to my wife’s own E.E.G. measurement’s recorded ‘brain’ waves, which, on the Monitor, to Hope and myself’s inexpert or ‘lay’ eyes, appeared indistinguishable from my own display, except, of course, for the difference of its now being Hope’s own name and P.P.O. and Darling Clinic ‘Patient code’ numbers displayed beneath the template whose palsied, erratic line now signified Hope’s brain’s electrical activity during this calibrated time frame. These particular areas, Dr. Paphian averred between several sudden, conspicuous, screaming or ‘shrieking’ sounds from a ‘power’ saw or router somewhere down the corridor (there was also the ambient smell of freshly cut wood, as well as industrial plastic, in addition to the Hispanic’s pungent cologne and Hope’s customary brand of ‘JOY’), pointing out with the salacious technician’s hand-held pointer distinctive spikes or ‘nodes’ in the erratic line of Hope’s ‘brain’ waves, indicated — to (as it, so to speak, ‘goes,’ quite obviously, ‘without saying’) both of our further surprise — that not merely myself but Hope, as well, had herself evidently also been verifiably or empirically asleep during the recorded time periods when she allegedly ‘heard’ my ‘snoring’ (while, in addition or concurrently, due possibly either to extreme fatigue or adrenaline, I myself was also experiencing at the same time a radically compressed or seemingly accelerated sensuous mnemonic tableau [or, as it were, interior ‘clip’] of my memories of teaching Audrey to operate ‘her’ [although registered, for insurance purposes, in Dr. and Mrs. Sipe’s legal name] new Mazda coupe’s five speed ‘stick’ transmission in a Lower Squankum parking lot filled with myriad parallel angled lines, Audrey’s fulgent auburn hair untied or ‘down’ and chewing some type of bright blue gum, the compartment awash in sunlight and her yearly Christmas saffron bath gel’s scent, the noisome sound of her breathing and shapes of her leg as she worked the relevant pedals up and down, the sotto voce profanities when we lugged, bucked or stalled with soft squeals and bit lip and — [“Do stop”] — and thus, in the renewed, brief, ‘stunned’ silence after the M.D.’s second diagnosis, I myself forgot to feel triumph, ‘vindication’ or even any confusion at the apparent or paradoxical sleep ‘verdict’’s reversal. My heart had, as it were, ‘sunk’ several inches; I missed our Audrey terribly; I wanted now to go alone to help her pack and Withdraw and be borne back home [notwithstanding my foot’s by now being almost numb or ‘asleep,’ I could and would not uncross my legs], to drive at rates well in excess of the posted limit and to storm the out-of-State dormitory or ‘castle’ or ‘enceinte’ or machicolated banishment’s donjon’s fortifications and to pound, smite or ring its massive, oaken front door’s bell in the middle or wee hours of the night and loudly say, avow or cry aloud what may and must never even be remotely thought or ‘dreamt of ’ [unlike, it went without saying, ‘Father’]. I felt very nearly over-whelmingly fatigued, melancholy, worn down and desolate or ‘alone,’ and my wet bottom or prostate throbbed, as well, gripping the burled arms’ sides in order to sit up erect), with the more pronounced or ‘acute’ E.E.G. spiking, verifiably associated with each time interval just prior to her sitting bolt up-right and crying out, clearly indicating—‘almost textbook’ being the Sleep specialist’s term of professional admiration for Hope’s E.E.G.’s distinctive ‘Theta’ wave’s spikes or ‘nodes’—Hope’s being, at each crucial, accusatory juncture, in ‘stage Four,’ the well known ‘Paradoxical’ stage of sleep associated with muscular paralysis, rapid eye movement and oneiric dreaming. From the inner construction area, two distinct hammers’ rapid sounds of impact overlapped or ‘mated’ briefly for a moment, one then ceasing and the other seeming to grow more vehement in compensation. I then either imagined, hallucinated or witnessed Dr. ‘Desmondo-Ruiz’’s — the large eyed Latin administrator’s or compère’s — mouth mouth, very distinctly, the word ‘Su-i-cide,’ sans any emergent sound. Hope, meanwhile, leaning slightly and somewhat aggressively forward over tightly crossed legs in her chair, was asking the Sleep specialist, Dr. Paphian, in her familiarily brittle or affectedly composed and unreactive way, to please allow her to ‘get [her] facts straight here’: was the Sleep team saying that it was her husband Mr. Napier here who was, in point of fact, asleep and truly snoring, or that in reality it was ‘[Hope]’ who was asleep and dreaming (or, ‘fantasizing’ or, ‘making up’) the whole snoring issue ‘out,’ as it were, of ‘thin air’? I myself remaining seated erect (or, “. . up!”) with my legs tightly crossed and neutrally covering first one eye and then the other, meanwhile.

At this juncture, the Somnologist — knowing, as he did, only the bare outline or ‘skeleton’ of the unprecedented marital discord which the alleged ‘snoring’ issue which had brought us to his Memorial Clinic had precipitated between Hope and myself, and evidently misapprehending my somnolent or dolorous cast of countenance as ambivalence or an insouciant passivity or ‘apathy’ (Hope’s own mien, meanwhile, had gone ominously rigid or ‘hard’ in the face of this sudden apparent diagnostic ‘volte face’ or reversal and the M.D.’s evident vindication of my own long held claims that the specific episodes of ‘snoring’ which had so aggrieved her were, strictly speaking, in fact the ‘unreal’ products of either a dream or the ‘loosened associations’ of nocturnal or oneiric ‘Night terrors,’ precisely as I had claimed repetitively throughout the previous cold weather months’ traumatic and devitalizing conflict, the vessels and tendons in her neck flaring involuntarily and her narrow, somewhat lupine and leathery face’s every line, fissure, wrinkle, seam, pleat, lesion, pouch or ‘flaw’ standing out as if starkly high-lighted in the muscular rigidity of her expression; she looked, for a moment, literally decades above and beyond her true age, and I could well imagine the oblivious or unwilled affront which our Audrey’s own ‘dewy’ or epithelial complexion must have presented to Hope before her banishment out-of-State, Audrey comprising an, as it were, walking compendium of all the daughterly charms Hope so feared acknowledging were now ‘behind’ her. [See, for instance, the prior early Spring’s ‘Elective’ or ‘non-essential’ and hence uncovered out-patient procedure to have the Varicose veins removed or erased from the rear of her bottom and legs’ upper portion, her convalescence from which was plainly so rebarbative and, frankly, sad or pathetic in its impotent vanity and, as it were, ‘denial’ of what had, in fact, long ceased to make any substantive difference. (“not start this again my”)]), now felt absently or ‘unconsciously’ at his forehead’s keratoses, and — in yet still another apparent, confusing or ‘paradoxical’ diagnostic reversal (pace his phlegmatic or sanguine demeanor, the Somnologist’s ‘bed side manner’ left something to be desired, Hope and I had both agreed) — averred (meaning, the Sleep specialist now averred) that, yes, technically speaking, my wife’s accusations as to ‘snoring,’ while based on (in his terms) ‘interior, dreamed experience’ as opposed to ‘exterior sensory input,’ nonetheless were, in a Medical or scientific sense, ‘technically’ correct. With the large collection or ‘ring’ of insulated keys now in his left hand, and addressing some type of facial signal or ‘cue’ to the nubile technician, the neutrally objective Somnologist stated that the ‘low’ or Infra-red light videotape of two such ‘Fourth-’ or ‘Paradoxical’ sleep stage intervals immediately prior to Hope’s loud accusations of my ‘snoring’ would, he said, confirm that I myself had indeed, within these intervals, been engaged in the ‘occluded’ or, more formally, ‘nasopharyngeal’ respiration commonly referred to among the lay populace as ‘snoring,’ this being a transient or recurrent phenomenon or condition often common to males over 40 or more, Dr. Paphian explained — particularly in those whose nocturnal posture was, by habit (like myself ’s), supine as opposed to prone, lateral or ‘foetal’—and occurring predominantly in human sleep’s medial or ‘deep’ stages Two and Three of sleep. Apparently, however, the ‘Fourth-’ or ‘Paradoxical’ stage’s paralysis of certain key laryngeal muscle groups rendered actual ‘snoring’ as or while one actively dreamt during R.E.M.- or ‘dream’ sleep physiologically impossible. All the Sleep specialist’s information was concise and bore directly on the matter at hand. My wife, meanwhile, was massaging her temples in order to signify stress or impatience. The Conference room’s somewhat subordinate or ‘junior’ aide to the Somnologist’s Sleep team — a roughly college age young man (or, in today’s more popular nomenclature, ‘Dude’) who wore, beneath his unbuttoned and not altogether spotless or sterile ‘lab’ coat, a pink, faded, red or fuchsia cotton ‘tee’ shirt on whose front appeared the line drawing or caricature of a nameless but somehow ‘naggingly’ familiar or famous person’s stymied or confused looking face, below which, on the garment’s fabric, appeared the statement or caption, ‘MY WIFE SAYS I’M INDECISIVE, BUT I’M NOT SO SURE,’which was almost certainly not meant to be taken seriously or at ‘face’ value but was, rather, some form of droll or ironic sally — now returned from his brief hiatus from the Conference room with a small, boxed set of ordinary or ‘commercial’ VHS type videotapes, which were labeled in black, felt tip ink, ‘R.N.’ and ‘H.S.-N.,’ along with Hope and myself’s respective P.P.O. and D.M.C. ‘Patient codes’ and the dates of the relevant Wednesday nights during which the actual filmed sleep ‘experiments’ had been held or conducted; and this youth and the (“only hurt a tiny”) Somnologist conferred together over a brushed steel or aluminum Medical chart holder respecting precisely which tape to ‘load’ and\or ‘cue’ in order to empirically verify the Somnologist’s diagnosis of Hope’s accusations’ ultimately unreal, oneiric or ‘Paradoxical’ content. Hope, at this point, leaning once more slightly forward and furiously twitching or ‘joggling’ one high heeled shoe of her crossed legs, posited or inquired whether, from the sum total of the Clinic’s diagnostic data, it might be thus possible that ‘he’ (meaning, I myself) could somehow be deeply asleep and ‘snoring’ in the Sleep chamber’s bed and yet could simultaneously be dreaming the precise ‘sensation’ or ‘experience’ of being still somehow, as it were, still fully ‘awake’ in the narrow, firmly reinforced Clinic bed, a possibility which (Hope suggested) would account for my sincere or heartfelt ‘denials’ of having been asleep whenever she finally ‘[couldn’t] stand it’ and cried aloud in order to wake me — to which, interjecting somewhat irritatedly in response, I myself pointed out the obvious ‘hole’ or logical flaw in Hope’s theory’s scenario, and asked the Somnologist to stipulate once again, for, as it were, the ‘record,’ that, according to his explanations respecting the well known stages of human sleep, I physically could not be ‘snoring’ when (“dreaming”) dreaming, since, by basic logic, if I were, a., literally ‘dreaming’ that I was awake, I would, b., be, by definition, in the ‘Fourth-’ or ‘Paradoxical’ stage of sleep, and thus, c., due to the ‘Paradoxical’ stage’s well known laryngeal paralysis, I could, d., not be producing the rasping, gurgling or ‘nasopharyngeal’ snoring sounds which in fact Hope had herself in reality only dreamt that she’d heard me producing in situ. Both Hope’s shoes, gloves and expensive purse or hand bag matched perfectly in regards to color and constituent leather texture; she also always smelled quite fine. It was in or around this point that the lissome, mature, voluptuous but somewhat severe or ‘forbidding’ technician began to insert or ‘load’ a given, selected videotape in to a receptacle or ‘slot’ or ‘hole’ in the Monitor’s rear, and — utilizing a sheet of coded (“Please!”) Somnological data and the hand-held remote — to begin to ‘cue’ the ‘low’ light recording to the relevant stage Four or ‘Paradoxical’ interval just prior to (one would presume, based on the Sleep specialist’s ‘prolegomenon’ or gloss [physiologically, I myself still remained ‘At attention,’ one might say]) a sudden, aggrieved and high volume accusation of ‘snoring’ on my wife’s part.

Whether seemingly somewhat forebodingly or not, both all exterior or extraneous noise and my own neglected pager itself — as well as the swart, handsomely dressed Medical administrator’s audible imbibation or ‘slurping’ of his hot tea (a personal pet peeve of mine since childhood, followed as it was by the somewhat affected knuckle across the upper lip) — appeared at this point in time to cease, producing a sudden and somewhat dramatic or unsettling silence or distended ‘pause.’ Meanwhile, on the room’s Monitor, the video recording, which formed or comprised a diptych or ‘Split screen’ image, showed Hope and myself’s darkened Sleep chamber in a low amber light which was evidently distinctive of the appearance of low light film, the screen’s upper left and right corners displaying both the relevant date and ‘0204’ (or, 2:04 A.M. in scientific or ‘Zulu time’) along with each successive second and decimal increments of same, with the (from our perspective) dextral or right hand side of the video display being comprised of a sustained, Infra-red close up (or, ‘tight shot’) of myself in the bed, deeply asleep, supine on my back with my hands on my chest, and — far more unsettlingly — of my own face, asleep. I myself had, not, of course, surprisingly, never seen or observed my own ‘unconscious’ face prior to this time; and, in the Monitor’s diptych’s recto or, as it were, right or ‘starboard’ portion’s unblinking close up, it was now revealed as being not a face I in any way recognized or ‘knew,’ with its slack jaw and protrusive jowls, hands on my chest spiderishly twitching, lips fishily loose or agape; and, although there was (to the Sleep team’s consternation and whispered colloquy among the aides and technicians at the Monitor’s rear, with which there was evidently some technical ‘glitch’ or malfunction) no audible sound (Hope, gazing in rigid fascination or horror at the dextral display right along-side myself, herself was silently ‘frozen’ [or, ‘paralyzed’ (“or hurt you if”)] in mid gesture, her pupils quite large and liquidly black), the flaccid mien, gaping mouth, slack jaw and puddled and quivering jowls I’d never ‘envisioned’ lying down (for, as with most husbands, I had, of course, only seen my face when seated or standing erect at the mirror, as in shaving, removing unwanted nasal or auricular hairs, masturbating with a saffron scented under-garment, tightening the knot of my tie and so forth), as well as, despite the recording’s defective audio portion’s absence of sound, the variably changing shapes and contortions of my unconsciously open mouth in the close up sleeping shot or wee hour ‘scene,’ as Hope and myself watched in rigid fascination (as when passing the wreckage and prone, twisted figures of a vehicular accident or ‘Crime scene’), signifying or ‘meaning,’ in other words, that the distinctive, alternating shapes of my image’s mouth’s slack lips, as well as the small bubbles of saliva or spit which alternately formed and dissolved at my open mouth’s corners (there was labial ‘film’ or paste in those corners, as well, gummy and sepia colored, distending slightly as my mouth changed shape), signified undeniably that sounds and noises of which I had no conscious or ‘voluntary’ awareness were in fact escaping my throat and mouth — no one with eyes could deny it — and, as the video camera’s focus ‘tightened’ or closed further in on my wholly unfamiliar, inhuman, unconscious visage, I either saw, hallucinated, ‘imagined’ (Hope at this juncture still rigidly or foetally ‘frozen,’ open mouthed and saucer eyed, as both the forbidding technician and Latin executive began to peel their respective faces off in a ‘top down’ fashion or manner, beginning at each temple and pulling downwards with sharp, emphatic, peeling or ‘tugging’ motions, the Cuban’s foreign wrist watch and hands a mass of amber lesions) or actually watched or literally ‘witnessed’ one sleeping eyelid open just a crack, ever so slightly, allowing a minuscule sliver or ray or ‘blade’ of light — as in, for instance, under a dark bedroom’s closed door when the hallway light outside is illuminated or ‘turned on’ as a heavy, familiar nocturnal tread slowly ascends the Victorian staircase to the bedroom door — from the rapidly moving and unconscious eye below, seeing as well in the Split screen’s right- or ‘off’ side’s shot my own wet mouth and slack, soft and spreading cheeks now begin to distend in a ‘grinningly’ familiar and sensual or even predatory facial ex

“up. Wake up, for the love of.”

“God. My God I was having.”

“Wake up.”

“Having the worst dream.”

“I should certainly say you were.”

“It was awful. It just went on and on.”

“I shook you and shook you and.”

“Time is it.”

“It’s nearly — almost 2:04. I was afraid I might hurt you if I prodded or shook any harder. I couldn’t seem to rouse you.”

“Is that thunder? Did it rain?”

“I was beginning to really worry. Hope, this cannot go on. When are we going to make that appointment?”

“Wait — am I even married?”

“Please don’t start all this again.”

“And who’s this Audrey?”

“Just go on back to sleep now.”

“And what’s that — Daddy?”

“Just lie back down.”

“What’s wrong with your mouth?”

“You are my wife.”

“None of this is real.”

“It’s all all right.”