The Heat is On
I was sliding in and out of consciousness, dozing fitfully, lulled by the comforting sounds surrounding me in the Critical Care Unit: the soft susurrus of nurses uniforms swishing past; the occasional blip and beep certifying I was still alive; a phone bleating here, the whirring of some office machinery there; and the muted effluvia from an adjoining cubicle of a live television set, reaching my ears in waves of gentle murmurs, tinny laughter, and uneven rhythms.
This was two weeks ago. I had been admitted to the hospital the day before, after experiencing a seizure at work while in the throes of a fever topping off at 106°. I overheard one of the EMTs radioing in to the hospital that they were transporting a "possible case of meningitis." Talk about The Fear of God. Fortunately for me, it was instead a case of influenza gone berserk. Having responded well to the fluids and medications given to me, my temp in control at a cooler 101°, I had been out of danger for several hours, but remained in CCU until the arrival of a doctor who could sanctify the pronouncement. Even though I felt exhausted and miserable, I couldn't quite achieve full-blooded sleep; I drifted into an aphotic peace only to be sucked outwards in a rushing whirlwind into reality again without warning. For me it was exactly like trying to sleep on an airplane.
Suddenly I was aware of a song emerging from a radio tuned to 80s pop rock, a song that catapulted me backwards in time, so swiftly and so completely that it was an instant gestalt - I was engulfed in the same sights, sounds and smells as surely as if I had been transported via a time machine.
It was a mild September day in 1987. David and I were unpacking, in this, our first day in the new house we had purchased. It was a 215 year old charmer, all gables and dormers and window seats and inviting nooks, with four bedrooms and two and a half baths, exposed beams in the dining room and living room ceilings, and replete with a root cellar and intriguing remnants of Underground Railroad hideaways in the basement. The new house was our dream, and although we felt somewhat sad to leave behind the apartment that had served us so well, we had irresistible visions of winter evenings in front of the immense fireplace which encompassed nearly an entire wall, followed by summer days lounging on the wrap-around porch, sipping iced lemonade and breathing in the lilac-scented air, living season after season cozily ensconced in our new habitat.
On this beginning day, however, we quietly went about the weary chores of setting up the house. We were exhausted but had agreed to try and push ourselves through without napping, vowing that before nightfall we would have accomplished three very important tasks: the bed would be set-up; at least some of our books would be on the shelves; and, most importantly, the stereo and CD system would be assembled and ready.
I was sleepily putting books on shelves in a rather haphazard manner while David tackled the more complex job of piecing together the music system. The house was hushed. We had windows open to let in some fresh air, and the quiet breeze mingled intermittently with David's subdued monosyllabic profanities, consisting mostly of "shit" and "fuck."
All at once I became aware of a noise, an odd, inarticulate rattling behind the clang of a small gong or bell. Stopping what I was doing I began listening intently, when suddenly the air erupted into a heaving drum beat underneath a raucous saxophone solo, and Glenn Frey's "The Heat is On" filled every impossible crevice of the house. David came into view framed in the dining room archway a la Tom Cruise, his white socks gliding effortlessly over the wood floor (but otherwise fully clothed). He grabbed me by the hand and pulled me into a wild dance - I was instantly energized and joined him in bouncing around the room, badly lip synching and playing air guitar amidst vigorous head shakes and febrile gyrations.
"Ooh uh-oh! Ooh uh-oh!
Caught up in the action I've been looking out for you!
Ooh uh-oh! Ooh uh-oh!
Tell me can you feel it, tell me can you feel it, tell me can you feel it…
The heat is on! The heat is uh-on!"
David had prerecorded a tape to play at this very moment in our lives, this moment when our hard-won plans began finally taking shape, when we stood amazingly on the brink of our dreams realized. We pranced and jumped and whirled like madmen, hands clasped, performing a primordial Dance of Joy, as "the new house" magically transfigured itself into Our New Home.
"The Heat is On" is the song that unexpectedly came to me while I was lying in my hospital bed, and it's carefully-stored moment became suddenly immediate and alive for me. Without realizing it I was grinning widely. A nurse came into the room, and, noting my expression, exclaimed, "Well, well, you must be feeling better!"
I responded by stealing a line from a movie, this one was from Places in the Heart.
"I was just remembering a dream."
*
David had chosen "The Heat is On" for no other reason than its "feel good" energy (and because he had been an ardent fan of The Eagles, and thereby Glenn Frey in extension). Hearing that song again in the hospital filled me with incredible joy, bright and tumescent, a brilliant moment of starshine permanently etched. After arriving home, however, and listening to the song again, I was shocked into a near relapse when I observed a few of the seemingly portentous lyrics:
"The shadows are on the darker side
Behind those doors, it's a wilder ride
You can make or break, you can win or lose
That's a chance you take, when the heat's on you…"
On that special day, while we danced with carefree abandon around our home, while David's incredible pheromones encircled us within the structure in which he would eventually breathe his last, the tumor that would take David from me and bring our dreams crashing down around us was the size of a walnut, or possibly even larger, lurking in lethal silence inside of his head. Listening to the song, I can still remember the joy, but the divinity of that memory is now tarnished with hindsight.
At the end of her solo in Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods, Little Red Ridinghood makes an important, and heartbreaking, discovery, the day when innocence is forever lost:
"Isn't it nice to know a lot?
And a little bit not."
*
That first night in the new house, in the midst of a very romantic evening orchestrated by David, he had handed me an envelope, telling me sweetly, lovingly, that he had discovered a photo that put him into mind what we two would be like forty years hence, as we grew old together in that very abode.
