What may appear to be the flu could be gangrene. : The Fish Always Dart Left

I’ve had the flu.

In a world wracked with pain and disease, that is hardly news, if one is certain beyond reasonable doubt that it is indeed the flu.

But you never know.

My mother used to tell about a friend in Santa Fe who thought she had the flu and it turned out to be gangrene.

“Gangrene has nothing to do with the flu,” I would argue, because I was in college at the time and absolutely certain of everything.

“You don’t know,” she’d say, “you’ve never even been in Santa Fe.”

The logic somehow made sense, and I have since accepted that what may appear to be the flu could be gangrene, especially if you’re in Santa Fe.

“If you begin to smell like something dead,” my mother would say, “you’re in trouble.”

She had a way with words.

I did not instantly assume I might have gangrene when I began feeling poorly, but since I have inherited some of Mom’s tendency toward dire misgivings, I did consider the possibility that it could be something other than the simple flu.

“You smell fine,” my wife said. “Lie on the couch and watch cartoons.”

“There’s nothing on but ‘Sesame Street.’ ”

“Too intellectual, huh?”

“You know how I feel about Big Bird.”

“Hang tough. Bugs Bunny is coming up. You like Bugs.”

Women don’t suffer as much as men. It must have something to do with their ability to bear live young.

When my wife has the flu, she still gets up at 5 a.m., cleans the kitchen, pays the bills, tends the garden and then goes to work for eight hours.

After work she meets me for cocktails and dinner at Trovare and wonders why the night must end so soon.

I, on the other hand, crawl to my favorite couch and whine because I have to be alone all day.

“Relax,” she said, preparing for work on the first day of my illness. “Spend the time resting and cursing Ollie North.”

“I’d rather watch Fawn Hall.”

“Too bad, poor dear, she’s off the air.”

As it turned out, no Ollie North either. Reagan’s True American Hero was still crouched in the bunker.

So I spent the day pacing and moaning and telephoning my wife so many times her job was in jeopardy. Once in a while, I studied the goldfish.

“You ever notice,” I said in one of a dozen calls, “how goldfish will be heading in one direction and then turn abruptly? There’s a lesson there for all humanity.”

“It’s nothing,” I could hear her say to her boss. “Just an obscene call.”

Click.

Zulema amused me for a while. That is not a Venezuelan hooker, but the hefty middle-aged lady who comes in once a week to clean our house. I enjoy pushing her around.

I may seem egalitarian, but I’m not. I believe God created Americans to Be in Charge of Things, a doctrine which, I might add, enjoys favor in the very highest offices of government.

Zulema doesn’t speak English too well, which makes her even easier to boss. It is more difficult to abuse someone who can articulate perfectly their objections to your attitudes and policies.

Sweep the porch. Dust the horse statue. Straighten the doily. Fix my modem. Fight Communism.

She disappeared for an hour, during which the phone rang. It was my wife.

“What’ve you been doing to Zulema?”

“She’s gone,” I said. “I think she fled to the Sandinistas.”

“She’s on the other phone threatening to quit unless I get you out of the house. Be sweet, for God’s sake. Or at least be quiet.”

“I am sweet,” I said, watching the goldfish dart abruptly to the left.

Why always to the left?

“She fixed lunch and you wouldn’t eat it.”

“I hate tuna casserole.”

“It wasn’t tuna casserole, it was a salmon something. Zulema is a gourmet cook.”

“I say it was tuna casserole and I say to hell with it.”

Click.

Zulema returned and was able to communicate that I should go to my den and close the door. She did so by the simple expediency of pointing and shaking her fist.

“It’s interesting,” I said to my wife later that evening, “how primitive peoples are able to communicate their desires.”

“What’s that smell?” she replied.

I sniffed the air. “I don’t smell anything.”

“It’s kind of a . . . well . . . rotting odor.”

“What’re you saying?”

“That if you’re lucky you have gangrene and must be hospitalized, wherein you will be safe from the threat of random violence perpetrated by a wife who has had it up to here!”

“The joke’s on you,” I said. “Gangrene only resembles the flu if you’re in Santa Fe.”

However, I did decide to spend the rest of my illness in a quiet corner of the house watching the goldfish dart suddenly to the left.

Funny how quickly my smell improved.