When I was about six, I came down with a very, very bad case of Scarlet Fever. A couple of other kids in my class at school had it and that's apparently how I got it…but I got it really, really bad. It was so bad that for a day or two there, there was a very real worry that I might die from it. [POSSIBLE SPOILER: I didn't.]
I do not remember everything about that time but I recall my pediatrician, Dr. Grossman, making a house call to our home late one night. That scared me. Watching TV shows as I did, I had heard any number of jokes about how doctors did not make house calls anymore. And this is how my mind worked even then: I thought that if Dr. Grossman and his little black bag were at my bedside, I had to be nearing death's door.
That was one of the two things that got me worried. The other was that for the first time, I saw my father cry.
My father was a lovely, kindly man who never in his entire life hurt another human being intentionally or failed to help out one — even a total stranger — who was in need. But he was also a very nervous man who worried about everything…and especially about illness. In later years if I had some minor ailment, my mother and I conspired to hide it from him. It just got him too upset. He was upset that night when Dr. Grossman came. At that age, I figured that if my father was upset, I should be as well.
I was bright pink from the infection, absolutely covered in rashes. My throat felt like I'd tried to swallow a porcupine and I had a temperature so high, they wouldn't let me know what it was. I think my mother just told me I had an unlisted number. But I managed to get myself mostly unscared by remembering that Dr. Grossman was a great doctor. He would know how to fix me.
And of course, he did. First thing, he ruled out taking me to a hospital. I was not part of the conversation but later, my mother quoted him as saying, "Mark's too weak to be moved and if we take him to a hospital, he's liable to infect other children or pick up something else he doesn't need now. There's nothing they can do for him there that you can't do just as well here."
It was close to Midnight — and I think it may have been a Sunday evening — when he left our house, having written several prescriptions that had to be filled A.S.A.P. At the time, pharmacies that were open 'round the clock were not common even in Los Angeles. My mother worked her way through the Yellow Pages and found a few but none of them were well-enough stocked to have what we needed on their shelves.
Finally, she called a Horton and Converse out on Wilshire that was closed but the pharmacist was still there and had what was required. He agreed to wait around if someone could come right away for it.
My father was instantly dispatched in his car to fetch the drugs. One day years later, he told me the story of driving to the pharmacy but he turned pale as he did and his hands began shaking. He said that that night, they were shaking so badly he could hardly drive. After a near-collision, he pulled over to the side of the road and thought, "I can't do this."
Then he realized he had to do it. His only child's life was at stake…or seemed to be at stake, which in this case was the same thing. He finally drove to the drugstore and waited anxiously for the order to be filled. Then he raced home, trembling all the way and probably hearing the Lone Ranger theme song in his head.
If you'd known my father, you would understand that he did not tell me this story to impress me with any heroism on his part. Indeed, he did not think he had been heroic. He told it to me to admit a certain weakness on his part and to tell me that as I went through life, I had to try to not be like that. I have tried to not be like that.
Once he was home that night — or rather, that morning — my mother gave me the pills, which I suppose were antibiotics. They may even have been precursor drugs to what I'm taking now for the infection I had recently in my knee.
There was also an external drug which had to be administered — a purple liquid that was to be applied to my forehead and chest with compresses. Pure cotton cloths were needed and we had no rags around or cotton sheets that could be cut up — and of course by now it was around 2 AM. There was nowhere to buy any so my father's handkerchiefs were sacrificed.
He had about a dozen of them and my mother, wearing the gloves she used for dishwashing, used them all up over the next few days. Each was soaked in a bowl of the purple liquid, then used to softly wipe my brow and chest. This went on most of that first night and apparently it along with the pills helped to bring my fever down and out of the danger zone by 7 AM. That was when my mother staggered off to bed and my father got up to keep an eye on me. He'd been trying without much success to sleep.
He didn't get much the next few days. He stayed home from work and he and my mother slept or took care of me in shifts. One was always at or near my bedside and when I was awake, I was read stories…but not too many because I was supposed to sleep as much as possible. Dr. Grossman phoned often and about three days after his late visit, he came by during the daylight hours, inspected the patient and announced that I was well on my way to a full recovery.
I don't recall hearing him say that. I do remember how happy my parents were and that's how I figured it out before they informed me.
I had missed enough school because of the illness and was so weak that it was decided I should skip the rest of that semester and build back my strength. I had previously skipped two semesters (one year) of elementary school so I eventually graduated one semester ahead instead of two. During my recovery, I had one interesting visitor whose visit I managed to sleep through. I wrote about that here. And if you'd like to read more about Dr. Grossman, I wrote about him here and here. The piece at the first of those links guest stars Jerry Lewis.
When I was awake, I read comic books. I read "real" books too. A very inspirational one was Ventriloquism for Fun and Profit by Paul Winchell but I also read tons of comic books. My father almost never came home from work without a few, mostly Dell Comics featuring characters I also watched on television. I had read comics before getting sick but it was as the Scarlet Fever was departing that my interest in them became obsessive. Some would say I traded one illness for another…but at least I managed to turn the new one into a profession.
Finally, I was well enough to accompany my mother to the Von's Market where I could buy my own comic books, at which point my father was asked politely to cease bringing any home for me. I liked it better when I could pick them out myself. I got less Casper the Friendly Ghost and more Bugs Bunny that way. Also, though my father made notes of what he was buying for me, he did occasionally bring home duplicates.
The first time he brought me one I already had, I told him so and he got terribly embarrassed. He wanted to rush back out to the store and see if they'd let him exchange it for one I didn't have. Thereafter, I learned not to tell him. When he handed me a duplicate, I'd feign delight and if he asked, I'd lie and say I'd never seen that one before. Then I'd put it in a little pile I maintained of comics to be traded to friends at some future date.
Instead of giving me comics, he gave me money to buy my own…but I didn't spend every cent of it on issues of Looney Tunes and Yogi Bear. With my mother's help, I went to a J.J. Newberry's — a "dime store" next door to the Von's — and I bought my father a present. It consisted of two six-packs of fine cotton handkerchiefs embroidered with an "E" for "Evanier." These were to replace the dozen of his that had to be thrown away after they became permanently stained with the purple liquid. It was the second time I saw my father cry but it was a good cry.