by Ron McLarty
He lay back down, his bony head sinking almost out of sight into a blue feather pillow.
“I built,” he said, drifting.
“It smells wonderful,” I said stupidly.
I watched him until I knew he was sleeping. Then I turned on a small table lamp and switched off the glass fixture overhead. I went to the bathroom, peed, and checked my cuts. I walked into the kitchen and got a nice drink of water. I realized that probably I should have been hungry, but I suppose that the accident and flying through the air pretty well finished my hunger for the day. I just wanted to sleep. The phone rang, and I picked it up next to the refrigerator.
“Carl’s house,” I said.
A woman’s voice. Clipped. Impatient. “Where is he?”
“He’s sleeping.”
“Did he take his medicine?”
“He was in the bathroom a long time.”
“He has to take his medicine tomorrow, and I wasn’t kidding about the fluids and the protein.”
“I wasn’t kidding when I listened to you.”
I had done it again in my stupid way. I had taken words away from her. I never try to do that, but it happens.
“Look . . . uh . . . what’s the name?”
“Smithy Ide.”
“Look, let’s put it out there, okay? You’re some sort of derelict, right? I’m sorry if that sounds insensitive, but really, all in all, that’s tough fucking shit. I’m Carl’s physician, and I’m not about to let some scumbag cocksucker rob that dear man blind. You understand? Now, he’s had one treatment at the hospital, and I’m coming out tomorrow, and take this to the bank, Mr. Smith or whatever the fuck you call yourself: If he’s not comfortable, with plenty of fluids and protein in him, I’ll ream you a new asshole. Got it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. And she hung up.
32
So anyway, I peed into the swampy water. What was stupid was not the actual peeing, really, because who knew that all the critters in the swamp would go quiet and all the guns would start firing? You’d have to be a mind reader to know that in advance. No, what was incredibly stupid was that I didn’t take enough care. It happened in the tenth month, and you only had to stay for eleven months. When you get “short,” that means you don’t have long to stay, so the closer you’re getting to home, the more caring you’re supposed to be. If I didn’t explain it right, that’s my fault, but it’s completely true.
Like I said, that nice boy, Orlando Cepeda, who was standing behind me when I peed, got shot dead. One clean bullet. Just a little wound, too, which was odd. Clean. Clear. Now, I got hit a million times—big rips, dirty and all that—but I suppose I was lucky. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure only luck can explain it. And Bill Butler. But it’s lucky he was there, too. He looked at Orlando Cepeda and spit. Then he squeezed my morphine pack into my left arm, Orlando’s morphine pack into my right arm, and his own into my belly. I watched him do it. I watched myself. I saw Bethany above the swamp.
“Hook’s here,” I said, drooling.
“You gonna die?” Bill asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Okay.”
“Hook’s here.”
I don’t remember anything else, except Bethany’s floating up to tree level. She was dressed casual in one of her kilts, and she looked like every Sears ad in the world. Young and happy in a silent, arm-raised pose, floating above.
Then I was in Japan. I don’t remember anything else. I woke up in Japan seven weeks later. And it seemed I went from Bethany at tree level to the U.S. hospital outside of Tokyo in a minute. No dreams. I had a tube for breathing and one for peeing. I remembered peeing. I remembered Orlando Cepeda.
I was bad in the hospital. I was feeling very sorry for myself, and when I found out that everyone else felt sorry for me and wasn’t going to get mad at me no matter what, I started to say cruel things and do cruel things.
I said:
“I hate this fucking food.”
“I peed myself, and it was your fault.”
“You’re a fat slob for a doctor.”
“I hate this fucking hospital.”
I turned over my bedpan on purpose . . . twice. I gave the finger to the Catholic chaplain, a nice white-haired chaplain in uniform, who surely didn’t deserve it.
So I was bad, but it took my mind off of myself for a while. Norma says she wrote every day to me, but I don’t remember that. I got some letters from her, but I don’t remember them. Of course, now I wish I had them so I could read them over and over in the fields and places.
After another six weeks, they put me in a wheelchair and airlifted about two hundred of us to Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Denver. Before we left for the airport, I looked out the bus window at the Tokyo hospital and saw the chaplain. He wore camo fatigues and held his Bible. He looked exhausted. I guess it’s really an impossible job. He saw me, too. He gave me the finger.
33
In the morning I could hear rain pelting the red metal roof. I rolled onto my back, but the cut above my shoulder blades put me back onto my side. I had fallen asleep in one of the stuffed square chairs in the center of the big room and somehow made my way to the floor, where I spent the night. I looked over to the bookcase corner. Carl was still asleep—or at least amazingly still.
It was day outside, and some of that gray light spilled onto my head from a large bay window. As I became more awake—and it was hard, because I slept solid and didn’t even dream—I could sense an ache that pinched all over me like a lot of tiny pins. My hands and arms were black and blue. I looked at my chest and my stomach and the rest of me, curled, swollen, and discolored. Using the square chairs, I stood, feeling as if I were balanced on a ball. It was a high-wire shuffle to the bathroom, where I ran a hot-hot bath and soaked in it until at least the little pins disappeared. My shorts had a big hole in the thigh part and the heel of my Father Benny sneaks had been ripped clean off. I pulled on my clothes and my paper shirt. I took four more aspirin.
When I pushed open the bookshelves and walked out of the bathroom, Carl was sitting up in bed. He had brushed his damp hair back with a brush from his night table. Even in his illness, he looked young, almost like a child. I felt embarrassed in my green paper shirt.
“You’re all messed up,” he said quietly, pushing out the words in a kind of puff.
“I don’t know.”
“You are. God. Look at what I did.”
“No, no. I shouldn’t have been stopped there.”
“You were on the grass. You were twenty feet off the road.” Carl raised his arms and dropped them. His fingers were pink skeleton fingers. “I was out of it at the hospital.”
“That’s okay.”
“I’m out of it. Even my doctor says I’m out of it.”
I remembered something about the doctor but not much. Ponytail. Protein. Food.
“Food,” I said.
“Check the fridge. There’s food. I’d eat.”
I made things I could make. I could make scrambled eggs and toast and tea and pour apple juice.
“I can’t drink apple juice,” Carl said when I put the tray on his lap. “I drink it and actually piss it out as apple juice. Right away. I’m out of it.”
I pushed one of the square chairs over and ate, too. Eggs have a lot of protein, but for some reason I only ate a little.
“Good,” he said, chewing. He put some egg on the corner of his toast and said it again. “Good.”
We were quiet while he ate. My family was quiet while we ate, too. Some families have loud meals, and food is only a part of the loudness. My family was quiet with food. Respectful, really. Almost as if our meal was a ceremony we had just learned and were trying to get it right.
After a while Carl laid his utensils down and leaned his head back. He made a little gurgle sound and closed his eyes.
“Finished?” I asked.
He nodded slowly, and I took his tray back into the kitchen.
“It’s raining,”
I said, wanting to say something.
“Oh, it rains,” he puffed. “It rains and rains.”
I brought Carl a fresh glass of water and sat back down in the big square chair I had pushed over to the side of his bed. The aspirin and the eggs helped me. The aches were less.
Carl sipped the water and then laid his head back down again. He closed his eyes and was very still. He is the only person who ever reminded me of my sister’s poses. Nothing moved. When he spoke like this, his head back, his eyes fastened, the puffs of words barely moved his lips.
“I am the ‘capable dreamer,’ ” he said out into the room. “In high school, my yearbook—‘Carl Everett Greenleaf, swimming 2-3, cross-country 1-2-3, chorus 1-2-3’—it said, ‘Carl is our capable dreamer.’ That was in ’75. And it was true.”
The gray light had become a blaze of bright sun through the bay window and the small row of glass above the bookcase, but the rain oddly continued on the roof.
“I want to talk out loud. I want to say things, but it’s not fair. I almost killed you.”
“That’s okay.”
“You shouldn’t have to listen to my shit.”
“I’m a good listener. Maybe I’m better at listening than anything else.”
Carl might have smiled at that. He rolled his head a touch. “I don’t feel sorry for myself. That’s one thing. That’s because I was raised a farm boy, right down the road. The Greenleaf Dairy Farm. Farm boys don’t feel sorry for themselves, even the flitty ones, even the silly ones. There’s just no time. And I believe we are what God made us, and that’s that. My father is Carl Everett Greenleaf, too. Oh, he’s a big man. A respected man. But he knew who I was and more or less pushed away from me, although we worked together and he would just whitewash the fences where other boys scribbled ‘Carl the Swish’ and ‘Carl’s a fag.’ Mommy loves me, of course. Brother is angry at me. I think it’s your obligation—no, it’s your biology—to love and understand your family and to be kind and just . . . nice to them. I’m sad about my brother, because he would always throw the ball with me in the yard. And he would play horseshoes with me. And I was his best man, and then he talked to some people and stopped talking to me. But the truth is, it’s against your biology not to love your brother no matter what.
“I liked the cows. I liked the process of the cows. It’s commerce, but it’s life. Only farm people know that. But I liked my garden best. It made sense. I had a vegetable stand all late summer and fall. Squash, pumpkins, corn. Eggplants and tomatoes. Herbs. One year I grew flats of African violets. Now that made sense. Flowers are understandable. They’re in the rhythm of the world, and the colors and textures are a gift. They simply give out to the world. The next growing season, I raised my beds, altered my fertilizer, and planted gloxinia, dahlias, pasqueflowers, primroses, fuchsia in hanging pots, and I’m not exaggerating to say I sold and sold and sold. Once, for the adventure of it, I arranged to sell at a farmers’ market in New York. I’d sold in Indianapolis, Dayton, Columbus. You’re a gypsy, really. You’re a vagabond selling with your people. Farmers. My people are farmers. This New York market was in Union Square, and I drove fourteen straight hours. It was wonderful. Oh, God. Breads and jams and apples and cider and everything. And my peonies and chrysanthemums and arrangements of white plum. Nice arrangements. Not ‘special’ or ‘cutesy,’ but fine and nice. You let the flowers do the display. You can’t add to the grandeur of flowers, so don’t try. That’s all. Don’t try.
“Here comes a browser in Union Square, and the browser became Renny Kurtz, who had a small shop on Twenty-eighth Street. That’s New York’s flower district. We talked and talked. He bought muffins and coffee and brought them to my truck. We discussed compositions of flowers. Of stalks and stems and petals and pods. We could have been talking classical art, which the natural state of flowers was to us. Simpatico. Understanding. Conclusions. We bought here, so close to the dairy, because Indiana is flower-friendly. There’s ash in the soil. There’s volcanic power. We did well. We did so well. And things would frighten Renny, because he wasn’t a farm boy. He wasn’t fearless like we are, but that was all right, to be frightened. Hard weather. Storms. I would tell him that that is where soil comes from. And it’s true. The soil smells like mint leaves in a storm. But my bad luck, my sickness, frightened him most, and he became ashamed of being frightened and finally couldn’t move out of his fear. He would sit in the greenhouse and pretend to cut flowers, but he was waiting for me to sleep. And it was okay. I wasn’t mad. I wrote him a note and made him an offer for his part, and one day he was gone. New York. I think, I really think, that people who love each other should never let anything interfere with that strange emotion. But I’m not angry. I’m sad. I’m disappointed.”
The rain had stopped. Strips of white sunlight cut into the room from everywhere.
“Rain’s stopped,” I said.
“It’s a general disappointment. A general sadness. Could I have some water?”
I handed him his water.
“I grow, is what I want to say. I sink my hands into our black soil, and I understand variety. What is good for what. Nutrients. So I’m a little sad. But did I say I’m not angry?”
“Yes.”
“Because I’m not. I have to go to the bathroom.”
I helped Carl move his legs to the floor. I never had felt anything quite like that before. Even through the heavy plaid pajamas, it was as if I had plastic pipe in my hand. I pulled him to his feet and led him to the bookcase/door of the bathroom. While I waited for him, I filled his water glass and shook out his damp sheets. He stayed in the bathroom about an hour.
“You okay in there?”
“I’m okay.”
“Okay.”
“Runs.”
“Okay.”
Carl got back in bed and fell immediately asleep. I neatened up his covers, then went into the kitchen and called Norma.
“Hello?”
“It’s early. It’s too early, isn’t it?”
“Smithy! Smithy! Smithy Ide!” she hollered into the phone.
“It’s not too early?”
Norma was crying hard. I didn’t know if they were the good kind of cries or the bad kind.
“I’m sorry I was mad. I’m sorry I was mad. I’m sorry I was mad.”
“You weren’t mad, Norma.”
“When you called me, I was mad, and I was mad at you, and then you didn’t call me anymore. You didn’t call me.”
“I wanted—”
“Please call me. Oh, please call me.”
“I’ll call, Norma, and I didn’t not call because you were mad. It’s okay to be mad at me.”
She was quiet for a minute. East Providence paused and sniffled. “You have to call me.”
“I do. I know. I been calling you in my mind.”
“You have?”
“Norma, I swear to God. And it’s nice, it’s wonderful.”
“Oh, Smithy.”
“And I’m in Indiana. Providence, Indiana.”
“No!”
“Really! We’re from East Providence, Rhode Island, and here I am in Providence, Indiana.”
“Here it is. I’ve got it. I’ve got my map out.”
“Providence, Indiana.”
“I’ve got it. Wow.”
“Yesterday I had a beautiful ride, and guess where I was going to sleep? You can’t guess.”
“A field.”
“What kind of field?”
“Cornfield.”
“Sunflower field. More sunflowers than you could imagine, and every beautiful sunflower faced in the same direction. I was going to park my Raleigh in from the road and make a space right there in the flowers to sleep, but Carl Everett Greenleaf hit me with his pickup truck and broke my bike.”
“Smithy!”
“And he’s awfully sick and sleeping in the other room, and I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
“Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Tell me again exactly what happen
ed.”
I told her.
“And the doctors wouldn’t look at you?”
“They were so busy. Carl is so sick. I’ve taken a hot bath and some aspirins.”
“They can upset your stomach.”
“Yesterday a busload of kids went by and waved. People are just better than I thought.”
“Sometimes they’re good.”
We were quiet again, like we get on the phone, only this time it was a nice quiet, a really hopeful kind of quiet. And I could see her as clearly as I saw Bethany. Tall and powerful in her chair. A complete human being surrounded by the tools of her life.
“Smithy?” Norma said after a while.
“I’m still here, Norma.”
“I meant what I said. I didn’t mean somebody else. I meant . . . I meant you, me.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
I enjoy our quiet, our pauses, when they’re these kind. I’m not great on the phone. I would say that I have no phone skills. I always hold the receiver with both hands and lean my body against something, because I’m sure, somewhere along in my conversation, there’ll be bad news. Horrible news. This time I didn’t feel this.
“I got to go now, Norma, I got to watch Carl.”
“He’s very sick.”
“It’s terrible . . . but maybe not, maybe I’m wrong. All I—”
Someone pulled the receiver out of my hand and slammed it onto the counter. Both of my arms seemed to fly behind my back in one smooth motion, and I could feel plastic handcuff strips tightening over my wrists. I was whirled around facing into the kitchen. The doctor, the woman doctor who was at the hospital, was standing about ten feet away. A policeman in a light green uniform stood to the side of me, tilting my handcuffed wrists up so that it felt as if my shoulders would break up over my ears.
“Norma, I was—” Stupid me.
“Shut up,” the big blond cop ordered, raising my arms again.
“Oww!”
“Just a sample, pal.”
“I warned you,” the doctor said. “I warned you not to take advantage of the situation.”
“What situation?”