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horrible turn for the worse into historyoff a narrow dike bridge on Martha’s Vineyard. The caption directs readers to an inside story, the luck of the tragic Irish: Ted Kennedy’s “Chappaquiddick incident,” the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, buried on page six.
    On the walls are news reports and magazine stories the man wrote years ago for publications—stories on Tip O’Neill, Jimmy Carter, the Kennedy family, Bill Clinton, the federal court system, political corruption, and investigative stories on the mafia. On a wicker chair nearby is a profile of a former Phoenix Superior Court judge, who in the late ’70s mentored him at The Arizona Republic in the art of court reporting—Sandra Day O’Connor. Years later, President Ronald Reagan appointed the Stanford Law School graduate who grew up on an Arizona cattle ranch as the nation’s first woman Supreme Court Justice. Judge O’Connor had urged her student repeatedly before leaving for Washington to keep asking questions.
    â€œKeep at it until you get the answers!” she counseled.
    And he does today.
    Everything in this room tells a story, purposefully arranged in almost chronological order, as if to remind, almost reassure, its occupant of a timeline, a collective long-term memory, the hard drive of one’s life, the answers—from historic events, to family photos, to memorabilia. In a curious contradiction, there’s a hint of eclectic New York and Boston family roots, which clash over sports: framed headlines of the New England Patriots, Red Sox, Boston Celtics, and Boston Bruins, alongside classic black and white photos of a young Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Joe DiMaggio, and Lou Gehrig. On a shelf below, a 1917 photograph of a sullen Babe Ruth in a Boston Red Sox uniform stares out blankly. There is a quote of Ruth’s below it: “Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.”
    Curiously enough, tacked to an adjacent wall is a tale, author unknown, of an Irishman’s dying wish with two strikes against him.
    His Irish friends relate:
    An elderly gentleman lay dying in bed. While suffering the agonies of a pending death, he suddenly smelled the aroma of his favorite chocolate chip cookies, wafting up the stairs. He gathered his remaining strength and lifted himself in the bed. Leaning against the wall, he slowly made his way out of the bedroom and with even greater effort, gripping the railing with both hands, he crawled downstairs. With labored breath, he leaned against the door-frame and gazed into the kitchen. Were it not for death’s agony, he would have thought himself already in Heaven for there spread out on wax paper on the kitchen table were literally hundreds of his favorite chocolate chip cookies.
    Was the elderly Irishman in Heaven or was it one final act of heroic love from his Irish wife of 60 years, seeing to it that he left this world a happy man?
    Mustering one great final effort, he threw himself towards the table, landing on his knees in a rumpled posture. His parched lips parted; the wondrous taste of the cookie was already in his mouth, seemingly bringing him back to life.
    The aging and withered hand trembled on its way to a cookie on the edge of the table when he was suddenly smacked with a spatula by his wife …
    Fuck off, they’re for the funeral!
    There will be no funeral today, only an epiphany of what’s to come, and with the luck of the Irish, maybe a few steaming hot chocolate chip cookies, as denial gradually gives way, over time, to reality. Stephen Stills had it right: “Love the one you’re with.”
    I do.
    For I must.
    For this man is me.

2
    M R. P OTATO H EAD
    A SEA OF SPRING DANDELIONS OUTSIDE THE BARN IS LEANING toward the bay in a stiff wind, a wave of yellow. They capture my attention. I am drawn to the cluster. The dandelion—a French derivative for “ dent de lion ,” the tooth of a lion, with its sharp yellow leaves