“The Cough” by Gary Duehr

The Cough

I have a cough. Not an everyday, intermittent hack. A harsh rumble that starts deep in my abdomen, a gargling, retching eruption that shakes my whole being for minutes at a time, wave after wave bending me in half. I'm as horrified as anyone who happens to land in my vicinity, squeezed onto the subway or slumped in queue at the grocery store. Until the paroxysms subside, I do my best to bury my mouth in the sleeve of my coat, leaving a snail's trail of saliva.
Never mind my wife, who shoves a pillow in my face in bed or punches up the volume on our TV. "Muffle it or you'll get a bucket of cold water!" she warns. She's convinced I'm throwing a fit for attention, that it's a question of willpower. It's not. I've had the cough for weeks now, long after the cold with its aching muscles and hot forehead evaporated. The wheezing has set up residence.
Our four-year-old shows no mercy either. Every time I have an attack, she mocks me with a hanh-hanh-hanh into her elbow, followed by a sing-songy "Excuse me!" She thinks it's another one of our games.
I've tried everything: lozenges, cough syrup, suppressants and decongestants. Nothing works. Every morning I drain my sinuses into the sink, on the couch I fasten a gas mask-like mist inhaler to my face and suck in deeply, my glasses fogging. Nothing dents the violence of its interruptions.
A while ago I saw my PCP, Dr. Blech, who has a raspy Slavic accent and black, beetle-like eyebrows. He buzzed a chest x-ray, syringed up a vial of blood for lab tests, then sat me down in a beige cubicle ringed by a curtain like a photo booth. Everything came back normal.
"Some people just haff a cough," he said.
"What do you mean?"
"You haff to learn to live with it, try not to vorry so much."
"There's nothing I can do, no antibiotic, no treatment?"
"Not really. If you had a physical anomaly in your nasal cavity zere are surgeries, but I don't recommend zem. Not for a mere cough."
"But it's ruining my life!"
All he could do was schedule a follow-up appointment. On my way down in the elevator, I doubled over, heaving.
An old guy with a crutch backed into the corner. "You gonna make it, pal?"
I begin to wonder if there's something stuck inside that's tickling my throat. I imagine it has hair and teeth like a balled-up cyst.
Or I speculate it's psychosomatic, a past sin that needs to be disgorged. In the middle of the night, a heating pad tucked around my throat, I slow my breathing and flick through a lifetime of errors: indiscretions, vanities, omissions. No big mortal sins, just venial screwups. If anything, I've been too indifferent to things that should have held my attention.
I tick through my list. Breaking the chalk in third grade and hiding the pieces instead of confessing. Not going to the hospital to visit my best friend Bobby when he hurt his leg playing football. Feeling envious of a graduate student's first exhibition in New York. Forgetting the color of my wife's eyes once and guessing wrong.
But how can I atone, lift the curse? Write a letter of apology to everyone I've wronged like a step in AA? I'm not sure I could locate everyone and that they'd remember me. I'm at a dead end. Should I take Dr. Blech's advice and adopt the cough as a trait, as personal style? I don't really want to be that coughing guy. Maybe I could try spitting up paint onto canvas in abstract splatters and make that my trademark. Ha!
One night I have a pricey ticket to a touring musical downtown. My wife can't make it, she has book group with some other moms. I decide to try going. I stuff my shirt pocket with cough drops. Even though it's 53 out, I bring a long wool scarf to stifle any coughs. My seat is in row G on the aisle, so I figure I can crouch over when needed.
Adapted from a movie I like, The Way Back When focuses on a fountain that immerses people in their past, mainly two young lovers who start out as estranged older folks. I settle in beside a row of teenage girls with their moms.
The red curtain parts to reveal a glittery, Vegas-style fountain to a blast of top 40s hits. Showgirls prance in corsets and stockings. I'm aghast. Every song bleeds into the next, booming along to a thumping bass drum. Bursts of lasers highlight spurting jets of water. Even when the lovers first meet, to a strummed acoustic guitar, moments later the pit band crashes in, pumped up to jet-plane decibels.
My eyes and ears hurt. But somehow I'm cleansed. It's as if I've been bathed in the sonic flow that has rejiggered my insides. I'm so stunned I forget to cough. At intermission I pop a Vicks into my mouth out of habit, but the scratching in my throat has ceased. I'm free. I elbow through the crowd, up the carpeted stairs to the lobby, and I feel like I'm one of them again. I've rejoined the anonymous human swarm.

Gary Duehr

Gary Duehr has taught creative writing for institutions including Boston University, Lesley University, and Tufts University. His MFA is from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. In 2001, he received an NEA Fellowship, and he has also received grants and fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the LEF Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Journals in which his writing has appeared include Agni, American Literary Review, Chiron Review, Cottonwood, Hawaii Review, Hotel Amerika, Iowa Review, North American Review, and Southern Poetry Review. His books include Point Blank (In Case of Emergency); Winter Light (Four Way Books); and Where Everyone Is Going To (St. Andrews College Press).

Headshot: Gary Duehr

Photo Credit: Staff