I Was a Dancer - Jacques D'Amboise [103]
Carrie and I stood, numb and hopeless. Jim disappeared for a few moments, made arrangements, then returned and said, “I’m driving you home.” Carrie and I squeezed into the front seat of Jim’s car, holding hands, and a voice in my mind repeated, “Don’t let yourself think about George, he’s gone. Worry about your wife.” When Jim stopped the car in front of our apartment building, we sat, silent. It was pouring rain. Then from Carrie, “How much time?” Jim sighed, “Within the year.” “What do we do?” whispered Carrie. “Well, I want to see him every week.” Jim looked away. “But if I were you, I would plan to take him soon to some beautiful beach, go to the Caribbean, swim and play with him, while you can.” We stepped out of the car into the rain, to find ourselves sloshing in ankle-deep water. The drain on the street corner was blocked and the gutter had flooded.
The next day, we went to the children’s ward to pick up George. The room was dimly lit, but we found him in one corner. He stood, holding on to the edge of his crib, shaking it and howling, with his little halo of blond hair and a nose full of packing, dripping blood. There were other children in the ward, but I saw only his little face and tiny hands, shaking the bars of the crib.
Carrie rushed over, and in her soft voice started soothing him. I couldn’t stand to stay in the room. I fled into the next ward. Eight or ten cribs lined the walls, occupied by other children with serious illnesses. “Want to see me jump over a chair?” I announced enthusiastically. “But I better land lightly and right on this spot, because I’m a cat!” I leaped, landed, and my tiny audience was intrigued. “Want to see how a cat moves?” I performed a cat dance. “Here comes a chicken!” I squawked and scuttled in and out among the cribs—anything to entertain them and distract myself; I couldn’t face my own son. I didn’t have the courage. That’s why, every time I look at Carrie, I think how strong she is, how strong mothers have to be. I think it may have been the first time I used dance to engage children. The beginning of what would later become National Dance Institute.
The news about George spread. Everyone knew and loved him. I got a call to go to SAB to talk to Eugenie Ouroussow, the school’s director, and her number one assistant, Natalie Molostwoff (we called her “Black Natasha” because of her swarthy skin, coal-black hair, throaty voice, and serious demeanor). They eagerly advised me that there was hope for George. “There’s a doctor in Chicago who has developed a cancer cure—it’s a serum derived from animals who had survived cancers.” Both swore they knew of friends who, due to the shots, had their cancers go into remission. Natasha dramatically recounted, “They opened Sasha up and he was riddled with cancer”—those are the words she used, “riddled with cancer.” But he’d gone to Chicago, taken the shots, and, “in six months, was completely cured.”
I jotted down the doctor’s name, collected information about him, and presented it to Jim Gould. “What do you think?” Jim was glum. “I’ve heard of this doctor and his serum. I have my doubts. But let me investigate, and I’ll get back to you.” Within a few days, Jim called. “This doctor has been claiming these cures for years, and the American Medical Association has asked him for documented proof and his files, but he has refused to show anything to the Oversight Board.” Jim went on, “I don’t know what to tell you, because our doctors offer you nothing. But I believe you would be investing your energies, money, and hope in a pipe dream.” We were ready to sell everything we owned, move to Chicago, and take a chance on this doctor’s serum injections. They were expensive—once a day for six months at around a hundred dollars a shot (1959 dollars). “I can’t tell a parent who is going to lose a child not to grab at every