Sleep

SLEEP

RECENTLY PAUL CHEVROLET had been having difficulty sleeping. He'd toss and turn all night long, role from side to side, get up for a drink of water, return to bed, look at the clock, role over, think he'd gone to sleep, look at the clock again, and see that only three minutes had passed. He'd try and try to get to sleep, but the more he tried, the less successful he became. Even those strategies that had always worked so well in the past--reading, writing, eating, watching TV, using the telephone--produced the same results: a long, slow night of wakefulness. Morning would come at last; the sun would rise in the sky; and Paul Chevrolet would get up, exhausted from the agonizing night, and head for the breakfast room. It was as if somehow he had forgotten how to sleep.
Fortunately, the evening's ordeal had little effect on the rest of his life. Paul could set himself on automatic pilot, so to speak, and get through the routine he'd been living for the past several years: commute, work, telephone, food, greetings, meetings, commute, TV, more food, the newspaper, et cetera--indeed, all of his affairs. The only thing missing in Paul's life was the sleep. And he could make up for that, he thought, in other ways.
One morning, rising as usual--exhausted--and after dressing, he looked out the window. Daylight streamed across the sky; the sun was rising again. Paul sat on the edge of the bed and took a deep breath and began putting on his socks. Done, he slipped his feet into his shoes and bent down to tie them. Couldn't. Try as he might, his fingers became all thumbs, and the lace kept falling across the top of his shoes and over the eyelets. He simply could not remember how to cross the strings, let alone how to hold the bow while trying to loop the other lace around and around. After awhile, he gave it up and put on some loafers.
Another morning, at breakfast, he stared blankly at the front page of the newspaper spread out before him: the headlines and the photographs and the columns of print. For fifteen minutes he sat at the counter, and for fifteen minutes his Kellogg's 100% Bran Flakes kept soaking up more and more of the milk, turning to a rich, mushy paste. He knew full well that the contents of the bowl were not meant to remain there forever; he knew this. Yet somehow he could not remember how to transport the cereal in the bowl onto the spoon that he held in his hand and bring it all up to his mouth. And eat. As a result, Paul sat at the counter for a long while looking back and forth between the newspaper and his breakfast before finally getting up and popping some bread into the toaster.
Each day, it seemed, Paul kept forgetting more and more of the basics of life: brushing his teeth, combing his hair, washing his hands, shaving his face, cleaning his nose. Indeed, watching the sun rise and move across the sky. One day he stood in the shower stall alone and dry for ten minutes because he could not remember how to turn on the faucet; another time he lost his way to work; once he even forgot how to sit down in a chair; another time, how to spell his name; later, how to pronounce it; then, who he was; where he came from; what he was doing here; where he was going.
One morning, rising as usual, fatigued as always, Paul staggered into the bathroom and stood in front of the toilet--and waited. He felt the swelling urge in his bladder--the increasing pressure--but nothing happened; no release followed. He stared at the blank wall of the bathroom, a thought beginning to form in his brain, a look of suppressed concern moving across his face. How can one forget how to urinate? he said to himself. I've been doing this for years; what's the problem?
Paul Chevrolet's concern now turned to worry; by comparison, all of his other problems suddenly paled. He held his penis between his fingers and shook it; then he began stroking the underside, hoping that might encourage the flow; he tightened his abdominal muscles, his buttocks. Again and again. Nothing. Nothing. The worry spread into a panic: I am going to need to urinate sometime during the day, he knew, and when I do--when I really need to--and I can't--I'm going to be in some very serious trouble.
Later, in the kitchen, he rigged up a crude catheter, using Juicy Juice straws and some old plastic tubing he'd found in the messy drawer. He hooked it up with a sandwich bag and a twister. Which worked well enough--which is to say, adequately. Which is to say, inadequately. Which is to say, the real became the Real.
(Some facts about Paul's life: In his twenties he held thirteen different jobs; in his thirties, four; and for the past dozen years, just one. For amusement he follows the Bulls, the 49ers, and the World Series. Every day he eats two almonds (he'd read somewhere--or maybe he'd just heard it--that almonds help postpone cancer). He hunts, bowls, and plays golf. Paul has never owned a pair of sandals. His magazine subscriptions, among others, include National Geographic. He shops at the mall; his skin does not tan; he went to Viet-Nam, but otherwise has never left the country. There were two children, three marriages, two wives, three divorces, and two other "serious" involvements. For obvious reasons, he no longer dreams.)
One day Paul discovered something he had not noticed until midday: his eyes had begun drying up; they no longer blinked. (It was like one more part of his body that had shut down.) And it took every ounce of concentration--every piece of his will--just to open and close them at all. He could not remember how it was done. For once opened, his eyes remained open; once closed, they remained closed.
Paul's life was now quite literally coming apart. Each day became more and more of a struggle just to survive. Much of his time was spent on the essentials of living: getting food into his mouth, chewing, swallowing, digesting; emptying his baggies; taking one step in front of the other; looking out the window, following the sun across the sky; opening and closing his eyes; trying to sleep; scratching the itches that occur during the course of a day; and the countless other particulars one faces as the aging process does its work.
One day, as he had feared and known would eventually result, Paul forgot how to breathe. A neighbor found him sprawled out on the floor of his living room when she came by to drop off some mail that had been mistakenly delivered to her home. She knocked on the door and when no one answered, she peeked in through the front window and saw the body lying on the floor with its head twisted at a peculiar angle. She called 911.
Miraculously, he was revived by the paramedics and taken to the intensive care unit at the hospital. But two days later, his memory failed him again: he had forgotten how to keep his heart beating. Fortunately, the neurologist and staff were alert and caught the problem immediately, and after unsuccessfully talking him through the exercises that would help him remember how to keep his heart pumping, he was placed indefinitely on a heart and lung machine.
Things looked bleak. Yet, in spite of his deteriorating condition, Paul's spirits, in those isolated moments when he was conscious and alert, remained high, especially after his supervisor from the plant was allowed to bring his papers and telephone over to the hospital so that he could continue working from his new office.
In fact, he even showed occasional signs of improvement: after that first critical month in the ICU, where he was monitored constantly and carefully, he seemed to stabilize. Indeed, in the months and years that followed, sometimes for as many as three days at a time, he'd be strong enough to be taken off the artificial life-support. And when that happened, he managed to get along quite well--relatively speaking, of course. The staff was extremely kind and considerate and capable in their care of him, and every time he slipped back to having to rely on the machines, they were always there to assist him and to save his life. It was not an altogether bad existence.
In fact, Paul outlived many of his attendants, most of whom he had formed close and meaningful relationships with. But in the end, 32 years later, and as everyone knew it would, death took its toll, and Paul died--as he had lived--of natural causes.