Rather than get out, the driver sits by himself in the ambulance, staring out the window at nothing in particular, listening to the thick static on the CB and the low twang of a country singer on the conventional radio. After a few minutes he remembers and grabs a flashlight. Fifteen minutes later, one of the ambulance attendants finds him far down the drive at the base of the hospital’s gutted south wing, shining the flashlight into the cavelike windows.
“What was it—some kinda animal?”
“I guess.”
“Next time, hit it.”
“How’s the girl?”
“Just died. Come on. There’s busted glass all over the place.”
They walk back toward the red EMERGENCY sign, but every now and then the driver looks back over his shoulder at the dark windows along the third and fourth floors. He’s not certain that what darted in front of him was an animal, but it must’ve been.
6
Randall Younger stared out the second-floor classroom window at the dark, weatherbeaten statue of Nathan Littler, the town father, on the sloping lawn in front of Nathan Littler Junior High. Already several members of the gang of boys who called themselves the Cobras were beginning to congregate at Nathan’s feet, even though last period had over fifteen minutes to go. For Randall, last period was math, and he was bored. The material his teacher was trying to cover should’ve been clear to anybody who’d read the book, but most of Randall’s classmates didn’t read books of any description and would never have allowed themselves to be pressured into reading a math text. The private school that Randall had attended in the city had been much more demanding, and in the two years since he and his mother had moved back to Mohawk, Randall had occupied his time waiting for his classmates to catch up. It was exhausting work. The Mohawk kids had pretty high opinions of themselves, but most of them lacked natural ability and desire, at least when it came to schoolwork. As a result, Randall was fast coming to the conclusion that the only way he’d ever be accepted was if he regressed. To that end he had recently adopted a few simple measures. By purposely flubbing questions on exams, he was able to avoid the chorus of groans that had for more than a year greeted his announced test scores. Perfection rankled just about everyone, including the teachers, whereas mediocrity made people feel comfortable. The Jewish kids could get away with excellence because it was just the way they were brought up, but Randall was not Jewish. His father was just a mechanic at the Pontiac dealership, so better things were expected of him. Therefore, instead of scoring a perfect hundred on a recent science test, Randall had allowed himself a mere eighty-eight, and the prettiest girl in the class had smiled at him approvingly. Indeed, if she hadn’t been going with the best wrestler in school, Randall might’ve asked her out to a movie some Saturday afternoon. He wasn’t exactly afraid of the wrestler, just aware that he had a way to go before his own credentials were rock solid.
When the bell rang, Randall tossed his things in his locker and drifted along with the crowd toward the double doors, ducking into the gym at the last moment so he could slip out the door that opened on the alley behind the Mohawk Grill. Randall didn’t believe in tempting fate. The day before, he was waylaid by Cobras who insisted he join. For a dollar a week, they’d make sure nobody bothered him. That wouldn’t have been such a bad deal except that the Cobras themselves were the only ones who ever bothered him. Only the biggest and most athletic boys escaped paying dues. Randall himself had avoided the issue for over a year because no one knew exactly who he was and because he had a way of blending in. But now Boyer Burnhoffer, the Cobra leader, who had already spent two years in reform school, had him figured, and Randall knew he’d have to join pretty soon if he expected to escape a thrashing. The Cobras bragged that they had once killed a boy who refused to join. Randall didn’t believe it, but it was vaguely unsettling to know that it was murder they aspired to. They had stopped Randall at the foot of Nathan Littler’s statue, and Boyer Burnhoffer—his shirt unbuttoned to the waist in the late October chill, his breath reeking of onions—had wondered out loud, his nose only an inch or two from Randall’s, what the boy could have against becoming an honorary Cobra. Randall had known they wouldn’t dare to beat him up there on Main Street in front of the school, so he stalled and made an excuse about his grandfather waiting in the hospital. That wasn’t true, of course. Mather Grouse had been released earlier in the week, but the ploy for sympathy worked and Randall got away after promising he’d join by the end of the week.
The situation was far from critical. All he had to do was make sure he always had a dollar in his pocket and exercise normal vigilance to avoid parting with it until he had to. It wasn’t forking over the dollar that bothered him, but giving people money not to beat him up seemed a bad precedent. By leaving through the gym, he was able to flank the Cobras, who were quite attached to Nathan Littler, in whose august presence they swore and smoked and said mildly obscene things to passing girls. It would probably take them a month or two to figure out how it was they missed him every day, which left only the men’s room to steer clear of. And when they finally discovered his flanking maneuver, he could still join the chess club, which met after school in the library.
When Randall emerged into the alley behind the Mohawk Grill, he came face to face with Wild Bill, who appeared headed in the wrong direction. The alley ran along the junior high until it dead-ended at a tall chainlink fence at the base of Hospital Hill. The man had apparently been absorbed in his own thoughts, because when the gym door opened, he started visibly. His longish black hair covered his ears completely, though patches of leprous white scalp showed through where hair inexplicably refused to grow. Randall had seen Wild Bill on the street many times but had never before come face to face with him. But if he was rattled, Wild Bill was more so. He stared at Randall as if he recognized in him someone who had once played a dirty trick on him. Then Wild Bill’s expression changed and, as usual, he looked just goofy. “Oughta,” he said cheerfully.
“How are you?” said Randall, trying not to appear nervous. His grandfather had told him that the best way to deal with dogs was to show no fear. According to Mather Grouse, dogs could smell fear in people, and Wild Bill, who had a distinctly canine appearance, might have the same ability, it seemed to Randall. There were many legends concerning Wild Bill, stories that Randall had never credited when he saw the other man slouching harmlessly along Main Street, but that, now alone with him in the alley, Randall remembered. According to some eighth graders, Wild Bill was an ax-murderer escaped from Utica. Others said he had once been a perfectly normal teenager until he encountered Myrtle Littler’s ghost one night in Myrtle Park, at which point he’d gone crazy. One girl claimed to have watched Wild Bill urinate on the street and, whenever she had listeners, she described the event horrifically. Randall would’ve almost preferred that his path be blocked by eight or ten angry Cobras than one benevolently beaming Wild Bill, who seemed unable to do anything but nod and grin. When the awkward face-off became unbearable, Randall croaked “I have to go now,” whereupon Wild Bill, as if he had been waiting for precisely this intelligence, danced nimbly out of the boy’s way like some some shaggy doorman who’d nodded off waiting for instructions.
Before Randall could complete his escape, Wild Bill had stuck one hand into his own dusty black trousers and drawn out a small package, which he then thrust into Randall’s hand. Much to Randall’s relief, the back door to the Mohawk Grill opened and Harry Saunders, its cook and proprietor, appeared with a bagful of trash for the dumpster. When he saw Randall and Wild Bill, he stopped and surveyed them critically. “You get on home, Bill,” he advised.
That must have seemed like good advice to Wild Bill, who resumed his course up the blind alley the wrong way. Once he was out of earshot, Harry turned to Randall angrily, “Just what’s wrong with you boys, would you tell me that? None of you got nothing better to do than torment that poor man. Cheating him out of what little money he’s got, getting him to trade dimes for nick
els, then giving him a bloody nose when you’re tired of his company. And all because you can’t figure how else to amuse yourself—”
“I never—” Randall began, but Harry wasn’t in a mood to listen.
“What ever become of decency? That’s what I’d like to know.” He still held the sackful of garbage but seemed to have forgotten it. “What ever become of decency?”
“I don’t know,” Randall admitted.
Harry then remembered the bag and tossed it into the dumpster, wiping his hands on his grimy apron. “Garbage!”
On Main Street Randall turned right to head home, then stopped to see if Wild Bill would retrace his steps when he discovered there was no outlet to the alley. When he did not, Randall went all the way back to the gym door, from which point he could see the entire alley in both directions. Wild Bill had vanished. On the other side of the chainlink fence was the sheer hillface, heavily wooded all the way up the slope to the old hospital. The only place Wild Bill might conceivably have gone was in through the rear door of one of the other shops that fronted on Main, something Randall was certain he had not done. Then he remembered the small package still in his pocket, and when he took it out, Randall did not immediately know what it was. “Ribbed and lubricated for maximum pleasure,” the little package promised. He quickly shoved it back in his pocket, just as he heard someone call his name. Randall half expected to see Boyer Burnhoffer, but when he turned, he recognized his father coming out of the Mohawk Grill. His shirt said Steve above the pocket.
“What’s up?” Dallas said, falling in step beside his son.
“Nothing.”
“Something must be up.”
Randall insisted there wasn’t anything up that he knew of, the end of the line for that conversation. He saw his father very seldom, and when chance threw them together, it was always a struggle to discover something to talk about. Most subjects just naturally fizzled after two or three exchanges.
When they passed the sloping lawn of the junior high, Randall heard his name again. The Cobras were still congregated at Nathan Littler’s feet, and they all waved. “See you tomorrow,” Boyer Burnhoffer called.
“Those boys friends of yours,” Dallas asked.
“Sort of.”
Dallas nodded thoughtfully, and they walked a ways in silence. “Anybody ever teach you to defend yourself?”
Randall frowned. “You mean fight?”
“You should know how.”
Randall shrugged, seeing no advantage to it. If you knew how, you’d only be tempted. “Gramp says fighting is for people who can’t think.”
“Sounds like your grandfather. I can’t recall him ever fighting over anything.”
To Randall, the very idea of his grandfather raising his fists in anger was preposterous. Not that he thought Mather Grouse a coward. Rather, his grandfather simply would have nothing to do with people he considered unreasonable.
“Somebody said he was in the hospital,” Dallas remarked.
“He’s home now,” Randall said, though he offered no free information. While his grandfather had never spoken ill of Dallas, the boy knew they didn’t get along. Perhaps Mather Grouse considered Dallas unreasonable. Dallas once had borrowed a substantial sum and never paid it back, and Randall knew that his grandfather wouldn’t want his private business, even his health, discussed with anyone so untrustworthy. This was the problem, of course. There were very few subjects his father ever introduced that Randall ever felt comfortable discussing.
“Your mother doing okay,” Dallas asked.
Randall said she was fine.
“She ever see anybody?”
“See?” Randall played dumb.
“Go out—date?”
“I don’t know—” he started, then felt his father’s eyes. “I don’t think so.”
This seemed to cheer Dallas considerably, and the fact that the question had been asked cheered the boy, for it meant that their visit was nearly over. Randall’s talks with his father always followed the same basic pattern. You just had to be patient, let things run their natural course and eventually Dallas would go away.
When they reached the firehouse intersection, they had traveled about five blocks together and Randall guessed they’d part company, Dallas heading back to the garage, Randall up Seventh toward home. If the traffic light had cooperated, their goodbyes would’ve been smooth enough, but as luck had it the WALK light flickered out just as they arrived at the crosswalk, forcing them to share a few more awkward moments in each other’s company, each aware that their normal conversation had run its limited course and that anything further would represent a wilderness adventure. Had either been alone, he simply would’ve crossed against the light, for there was no traffic coming, but that wasn’t possible now. Both felt duty-bound by the other’s presence to wait for the signal.
Just as the WALK sign flashed again, Dallas thought of something to say. “You got any money?”
Randall hesitated, misunderstanding for a moment. Dallas must’ve guessed, because he looked hurt. “If you ever need any, you can just drop by the garage. I’m not always flush, but.…”
When his father didn’t appear to know how to finish, Randall said he would remember, though it was difficult to imagine asking his father for money. He never doubted Dallas would give it to him, but there were just some people you didn’t ask, even if they happened to be your father.
“Maybe I’ll stop by the house sometime,” Dallas concluded, a familiar promise that nothing would come of. Randall wished more than anything that his father wouldn’t make it, and there were times when he thought that things might be all right between them if Dallas could somehow refrain from saying he’d stop by the house.
In the nearly two years since Randall and his mother had moved back to Mohawk, Dallas had “stopped by” only twice. He’d intended to many other times, probably even shaved and showered, but then would stop downstreet for a paper or something and would run into a guy who’d just heard something about a poker game, and he’d stop in for a hand or two since he was early anyway, and next thing he knew the sky was gray in the east and his recently clean-shaven face was rough, his eyes bloodshot, his hands unsteady. And what he would feel more than disappointment in himself was a sense of relief—that he’d very nearly done something foolish.
As Randall and Dallas parted, the WALK sign flicked off again, and when Randall looked back, he saw his father in the middle of Main Street, cars whizzing by him on both sides. He remembered, then, something he’d overheard his grandfather observe to his mother—that for Dallas life was a series of near misses. To Randall, his father now looked kind, of sad, standing out there in the traffic, waiting for an opening so he could scoot the rest of the way. And it occurred to him that it might have been a kindness to his father if he had lied, told him his mother was serious about somebody, instead of getting his hopes up. When he was little, there had been a time when Randall had prayed his father and mother would get back together. Now he looked at things differently. To pick out all the things that were wrong with his father wasn’t hard. His shirts never even said the right name and, though he hated to admit it, Randall was ashamed of him. Dallas needlessly complicated their lives, and his son couldn’t help thinking how much simpler everything would be if his father weren’t around.
Behind him tires screeched, seemingly in answer to the boy’s innermost thought, but when he whirled around his father was disappearing into the Mohawk News, where he would get a number down before returning to work.
7
Mather Grouse was home from the hospital only a week before being readmitted on the advice of Dr. Walters, the family physician. Had it been up to Mather Grouse himself, he would’ve cheerfully ignored his old friend in this matter, just as he had in all the others over the past thirty years. But it was not up to Mather Grouse. His wife had insisted. Mrs. Grouse had great faith in physicians in general—Dr. Walters in particular—and she often argued their omniscience with blasphe
mers like her daughter Anne, who refused to accord them the reverence they deserved. Mrs. Grouse believed that physicians spoke concentrated wisdom, like Jesus in the parables, and one’s duty was to be alive to possible levels of meaning. So, when Dr. Walters intimated that a series of tests might be beneficial, Mrs. Grouse saw to it.
She was convinced, for one thing, that Dr. Walters was concealing the real reason for the tests. He claimed that Mather’s blood pressure had been high during his recent stay in the hospital, explaining that people with pulmonary disorders were especially susceptible to heart attacks. The effort they expended in breathing was greater than the human heart was designed to accommodate. Mrs. Grouse nodded politely when all this was explained to her, though, of course, she knew better. What Dr. Walters was really concerned about, she knew, was the damage to her husband’s lungs resulting from her daughter’s negligent use of the inhaler. It said, right there on the label, that frequent use damaged the inner lung. Dr. Walters was too kind to make an issue of Anne’s carelessness. Mrs. Grouse had suggested a mild dressing down, but the doctor had just smiled like an old imbecile and said he didn’t think the damage was permanent. But Mrs. Grouse took as a vindication of her own view his decision to admit Mather Grouse for further tests.
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