In 1995, I was living in a tent in the southern Appalachians trying to stay sober. I was twenty-eight years old, working at a camp for the summer, keeping notes of it all.
The train runs once per day in each direction. It carries mail, packages, cargo, and passengers, who have the option of sleeper class, sleeper class with air conditioning, and— cheapest of all—economy class, which was what I took in 1973…
I run a school in the desert. The United Arab Emirates hired me, an English-speaking, pseudo-Catholic from a foreign country, and put me in charge of their children.
In those days, he was always grousing about something. Misplaced glasses, cold coffee, empty sugar bowl. Then after a ten-second spiel, his annoyance would trail off like smoke
“In a healthy heart…” My cardiologist’s words linger in my mind. I listen carefully as she sketches an image of a heart on the back of her notepad. It looks something like a big beetle from where I lay on the hospital bed…