Unrealized possibilities

An editor of my college anthology of American literature says, of John Updike, that he is the great chronicler of “middleness” in American life, and explains: “[f]alling in love in high school, meeting a college roommate, going to the eye-doctor or dentist, eating supper on Sunday night, visiting your mother with your wife and son--these activities are made to yield up their possibilities. . . .”

For some reason these words, read years ago, emerged from some recess of my mind the other day when, finding myself alone in a room in a medical building with written instructions concerning how I was to masturbate into a sterilized container, I determinedly set about my business. I have sometimes excused myself of stupidities by telling my wife that I know about life only from having read about it but here, it occurred to me, I had at hand (so to speak) an experience of “middleness” that has gone untreated in the works of Updike.

The room was ten by twelve feet and painted a pastel color. There was on one wall a picture, main exhibit a sailboat, that must have been influenced by the impressionists. The four corners of the room were for the door, a table built into the wall, a washstand, and a reclining easy chair. On the wall opposite the door was a window with vertical slats for blinds. A small boom box sat on the table and there were two compact discs laying to the side: the one on top was “greatest hits of the 70s.” A male nurse, having drawn some blood, summarized the written instructions and prepared a label for the container, which on the side had markings, like a measuring cup, to indicate volume. With a small gesture he called my attention to a covered magazine rack sitting beside the easy chair where, he said, I would find “reading material.” After he left I realized that the purpose of the boom box must have been to cover the sounds of medical employees who in the hall outside could be heard relating their weekend activities.

I was more curious about the “reading material” than the title of the other compact disc. The magazine rack contained a thick file folder, such as a law firm might use to store the documents relating to a particular case, that was secured by a string that stretched around a clasp. The folder had the words SEXUALLY EXPLICIT MATERIAL, which turned out to be four of the most recent issues of Penthouse and a Playboy from 2004. The thought occurred to me that this might indicate the clinic had changed vendors. Was there possibly a suggestion box? Feeling ridiculous, as well as a twinge of performance anxiety, I turned the pages and wondered about the previous “readers” who had worn some pages more than others. In time my thoughts turned to other subjects and my anxiety subsided sufficiently for me to complete the task in the prescribed manner. I placed my container in the incubator, which rested on a small stand to the side of the boom box, and walked out the door, down a short corridor into the waiting room where my name had been called perhaps twenty minutes ago, and then out the waiting room door to a stairwell leading to the outdoor world of a weekday morning.

Such, such are the possibilities unrealized in the fiction of John Updike.