July 17
From Room 357...
Holiday Inn, Navarre Beach, Florida…
He needed a drink yet felt the wince of guilt with her pregnant.
It was close, a tepid night at the beach, and he sat on the porch, feet up on the aluminum railing.
He had sun that afternoon.
It had been just short of five hours’ drive down from Birmingham and she had been well all the way. On July 15th, she was 10 weeks, 2 days and the child grew even then. She grumbled at the feckless American basketball team in the televised Good Will Games from Moscow.
As for him, for a moment or two, he’d found peace: Mozart Concerto 25 through earphones.
The meeting presentations had been uneventful.
He needed a drink.
Clouds passed an optically blurred moon. Even though his eyeglasses were clear, there was that haziness, an eerie glow around the moon that he couldn’t focus on that night.
The good sea breeze smelled fresh and beyond earphones, the rush and tumble of the waves calmed him. She was not well enough to walk the beach (prowl).
Peace.
He wallowed in it, relaxed. They had had a pleasant dinner with two meeting registrants from Knoxville, Karla Matteson and Carmen Lozzio.
There was a red star to the east of the moon, more perhaps.
How frustrating to have the inclinations of a composer but not the talent, he mused absent mindedly.
However, here was something pure about research and discoveries. Like a great masterwork of music or graphic art. Something assertive that says, yes, this was who he was.
Skip put forth great efforts on insulin receptor: a huge group, an entire department at Emory. Heard about Axel’s upcoming PNAS paper about RFLPs. Might this have pre-B cell ALL implications in it?
Now, more.
She slept.
He had no clock but the moon overhead. She and her child-to-be slept and he too, was at peace that evening. The waves came rolling in, one’s consciousness drifted out to meet their rhythms.
He was philosopher, and so should continue, being degreed and certified. He’d done his time and now could speak his mind freely.
How had he felt that Thursday night in July of his 35th year on the Gulf?
He sat in the white tubular steel chair with plastic tape seats, just feeling and writing of peace which until then, had eluded him.
His head ached slightly from the salt water and sun. He had gone swimming in the Gulf about 5 o’clock.
His neck was stiff from the five hours driving from Birmingham, just a little too long.
He wore jeans, no shirt, socks or shoes with his feet up on the railing of Room 357.
His eyes were tired and he had a slight thirst. Maybe at 150 pounds or slightly more. He felt pale white, slightly overweight and full.
He was troubled and needed a drink.
Maybe later.