The week before I moved back to New York, after having finished chemotherapy, I went back to the ward to thank the nurses for saving my life. To aid me in expressing my gratitude, I took them some chocolates. Good ones. Hard centers. No chart on the inside lid. I showed them the surgery scar from the final extraction of a burned-out lymph node from my abdomen. I thanked them, we all cried.
As a prophylactic against nausea, I had always gone to chemotherapy having taken an Ativan, a divine tranquilizer (I wish I had some right now) that does little to combat the vomiting but does induce retroactive amnesia. As I wept with those women who saw me through the most physically intense ordeal of my life, I had the chilling realization I did not know a single one of their names.
They say that times of crisis are the true test of one's character. I really wouldn't know, since my character took a powder that year, leaving in its stead a jewel-bright hardness. I was at my very funniest that year. This was not the Humor of Cure; it had nothing to do with the healing power of laughter. It was more of an airless, relentless kind of quippiness-the orchestra on the Titanic playing an upbeat number as they take on water. Every time a complex human emotion threatened to break the surface of my consciousness, out would come some terrible cleverness. Come on, Give Us a Smile!
I was Thanatos' rodeo clown. I still am. And Eros' as well, as it turns out. Years later, in a tender embrace in bed with my first real boyfriend, he said my name. "Oh, David." I stopped, sat up, and responded in my best Ed Wynn, "Yeeeesssssss??????" This kind of behavior more or less killed things between us.
There was a period during the illness when I was at my very sickest, at 115 pounds hovering in and out of consciousness. This month and a half was the one period in my life when I was perhaps not faking it; where I was not deflecting every emotion with repartee. That it would take millions of cancer cells, lining up for their big Esther Williams finale in my lymphatic system, for me to finally shut up is sobering. Or would be were I to think about it.
What remains of your past if you didn't allow yourself to feel it when it happened? If you don't have your experiences in the moment, if you gloss them over with jokes or zoom past them, you end up with curiously dispassionate memories. Procedural and depopulated. It's as if a neutron bomb went off and all you're left with are hospital corridors, where you're scanning the walls for familiar photographs.
Sometimes in the absence of emotion, your only recourse is to surround yourself with objects; assemble the relics about you. Wagner was wrong when he said, "Joy is not in things, it is in us." One can find joy in things, but it is a particular kind of joy-the joy of corroboration. This is why I am once again flying north to try to commune with my little Eskimo Pie children. For the moment, this physical evidence will have to serve as proof that all that has happened was real, because even now I only half believe what I am telling you.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.
I am grateful to many people, most notably those responsible for many of the pieces in this book: at This American Life, Ira Glass, for his extraordinary editorial sensibility, guidance, and friendship; Julie Snyder has been my travel companion, unflagging pal, and Icelandic dance partner; and many thanks as well go to Alix Spiegel, Nancy Updike, Alex Blumberg, Blue Chevigny, Susan Burton, Todd Bachman, and honorable mention to Sarah Vowell, for numberless pep talks and perplexingly unstinting support. At GQ, it has been my privilege to work for Jim Nelson, that rarest of creatures, a wonderful writer who is also a gifted and selfless editor. My boys at Outside-Mike Grudowski, Adam Horowitz, John Tayman, and Jay Stowe-gave me greater opportunities than I deserved. Alison Humes at Conde Nast Traveler showed me enormous patience. At Doubleday, many have made my publishing experience an inordinately happy one: Many thanks to Bill Thomas, who made the first call, and gratitude for the kindness and enthusiasm of Bette Alexander, Ben Bruton, Adrienne Carr, Christopher Litman, Alison Rich, and Linda Steinman. And most especially numberless thanks for the gimlet eye and calming assurance of my editor, Amy Scheibe.
Many friends helped and endured in many ways. Alphabetical thanks and apologies to: Jonathan Adler, Abigail Asher, Laura Barnett, Tracy Behar, Carin Berger, Peter Borland, Janet Byrne, James Carr, Cliff Chase, Chuck Coggins, Randy Cohen, Erin Cramer, Jane Darroch, Emma Davie, Marco DeMartino, Deirdre Dolan, Eamon Dolan, Simon Doonan, Kim Drain, Anne Edelstein, Dave Eggers, John Flansburgh, Susan Friedland, Sheila Gillooly, Robin Goldwasser, Scott Gutterman, Hugh Hamrick, Dan Heymann, Jackie Hoffman, Lutz Holzinger, Jeff Hoover, Rebecca Johnson, Alexa Junge, Ariel Kaminer, Gillian Katz, Jamie Kay, Trena Keating, Tom Keenan, Chip Kidd, Geoff Kloske, Laura Kurgan, Alisa Lebow, Susan Lehman, Jodi Lennon, Betsy Lerner, Maggie Levine, Hugo Lindgren, Joel Lovell, Cynthia Madansky, Kyoko Makino, Patty Marx, Danielle Mattoon, Jim Millward, Max Moerman, Roy Moskowitz, Mark O'Donnell, Doug Petrie, Stephen Pevner, Greg Pflugfelder, Kate Porterfield, Andy Richter, Scott Riley, Matt Roberts, Phillippe Sands, Chris Santos, Natalia Schiffrin, David Schofield, Deb Schwartz, Mark Scott, Amy Sedaris, Vivian Selbo, Stephen Sherrill, Madhulika Sikka, Corinna Snyder, Ivan Solotaroff, Stoley, David Sternbach, Risaku Suzuki, Jess Taylor, Sarah Thyre, Paul Tough, Bruce Upbin, Rob Weisbach, and Jaime Wolf.
And to my family: Vivian Rakoff, Gina Shochat-Rakoff, Ruth, Tom, Micah, Amit, & Asaf Rakoff-Bellman, Simon Rakoff, Suzy Zucker, and Zoe Zucker Rakoff.
Truthfully, none of this would have ever happened without my agent Irene Skolnick, who waited some twelve years while I got my act together. And to David Sedaris, the man who repeatedly let me know by word and deed that I was still allowed, at the very least, to try.
FRAUD. Copyright 2001 by David Rakoff. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information, address Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc., 1540 Broadway, New York, NY 10036.
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The following pieces began their lives elsewhere in variously different forms: "In New England Everyone Calls You Dave," "Arise, Ye Wretched of the Earth," "Before & After Science," "Hidden People," "Christmas Freud," "We Call It Australia," and "I Used to Bank Here, but That Was Long, Long Ago" on Public Radio International's This American Life; "Including One Called Hell" and "The Best Medicine" in GQ; "Extraordinary Alien" in The New York Times Magazine; "Back to the Garden" in Outside; and "Tokyo Story" in Conde Nast Traveler.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:.
Rakoff, David.
Fraud / David Rakoff.-1st ed.
p. cm.