Cheever_ A Life - Blake Bailey [376]
On October 30, ten weeks before the broadcast, Cheever had anxiously attended an advance screening for friends and family at the Henry Hudson Hotel on West Fifty-seventh. Mary and Ben mingled with the two hundred or so guests, but were elsewhere when Cheever took his seat in the front row and insisted that Tom Smallwood sit beside him. When the lights went down, he took Tom's hand and squeezed it slightly whenever he heard someone whispering, “It's really rather good, isn't it?” As he wrote in his journal, “I go to the city to see the TV show which is quite successful and which might contribute to my self esteem.”
NOT LONG AFTER his kidney was removed, Cheever recovered enough strength to take short bicycle rides, but by the end of October he began to weaken again. His three days in New York for the screening party and other publicity (including a photograph session with Richard Avedon for the cover of WNET's magazine, The Dial) had left him not only exhausted but limping badly. Unable to get a cab, Cheever and Max walked many long blocks to Grand Central, and by the time Max helped him onto the train, Cheever could barely stay on his feet. A young woman named Martha Frey recognized Cheever from a reading he'd given at Vassar a few years back, and offered to carry his bag when they arrived at the Croton station. He was in no condition to protest, though he did speak up when she noticed his limp: “I am not at all infirm,” he said. “Every day I bicycle around the block, up to twenty-five miles.”
No more. As the pain in his leg increased, Cheever consulted with Mutter, who referred him to a chiropractor (oddly enough, given what he knew about Cheever's condition). The chiropractor suggested a traction device, which provided little relief. By Thanksgiving, Cheever was so ill he could hardly eat, and a few days later he reported to Mutter that he'd discovered “a whole new concept of what pain was.” Little wonder: X-rays revealed that the cancer had now metastasized to his left ilium and femur, right ninth rib, and bladder. Schulman was able to burn away the bladder tumors, though he admitted in a postoperative report that they were likely to recur and that “the overall prognosis is, of course, poor.” The day before the operation, Mutter had called Ben and informed him that his father was suffering from “unusually vigorous” bone cancer and would live maybe six months longer. Ben had planned to take his mother to Nicholas Nickleby that night—his father had paid for the tickets—and decided they might as well go; before the play, however, he broke the news to Mary, who afterward spent the “worst night of her life” alone in Susan's apartment. Two days later, she was in Mutter's office when he told Cheever the truth. As Mutter recalled, “It was the only time John wasn't happy, jovial, changing the subject from his own ills. The contrast made it terrible.” Cheever embraced his wife and sat for a few moments “thunderstruck;” then he mentioned that Federico was getting married in California on Valentine's Day: “Will I at least be able to go to his wedding?” Mutter could promise nothing.
Max was waiting on Cedar Lane when the Cheevers came home, looking pale and lifeless. “The news is very bad,” said Cheever with a little smile. On a number of levels, it was bad for Max too. He'd felt broken in spirit after his long stay in Ossining the previous August, and Cheever, perhaps sensing as much, had given him two thousand dollars for the trip to Utah with his girlfriend. “[Max] does seem to enjoy a dimension of freedom after his trip to the west and I intend to encourage this,” Cheever subsequently observed. “We have