by Ken Kesey
(After climbing up onto the end of the log still sticking out of the water, I noticed for the first time since the accident that the weather was clearing off a little; the wind had died down almost complete, and the rain was beginning to ease off. I rested a minute or so on the log there; then I got out of my back pocket some big cable staples and a crescent wrench I was carrying. I found Joe Ben's hand floating in the dark. I pulled the sleeve up over the limp hand and rolled it back into a thick cuff. Then I nailed it to the log. I found the other hand and did the same; it was clumsy work, hammering the big staples through the heavy fabric with a crescent wrench, about half under water to boot. I took out my hanky and tied it to that branch, the one that had whacked me. When I was finished I stood up, and already I could feel a little movement beneath my feet as the rising current lifted at the log. "If Joe could have hung on another twenty minutes or so . . ." Then I jumped from the log into the tangle of vines and made my way through the forest toward the place I had left the old man.
The climb up the hill to the pick-up shook the old man to consciousness. He rolled his poor old head back and forth in the dark while I was starting the motor, asking, "What? What, dammit all?" and, "You got the cast on the wrong ruttin' side er somethin'?"
I felt I should say something to reassure him but somehow couldn't make myself speak. I just kept saying, "Hang tough, hang tough." I drove the pick-up back down the hill, listening to the whimpered questions like they were coming from a long ways off. When I reached the highway the questions stopped and I could tell by the breathing that he had passed out again. I said thank the Lord for small favors and tore out west. I reached into my breast pocket after my smokes and it wasn't cigarettes at all: it scared me; it was that damned little transistor radio and it had dried out enough to peep a little when I touched it. I throwed it from me and it landed next to the door, going off and on with pieces of Western music. "Keep movin' on--" it played. "When they get you goin' they really keep at you," I said out loud. The old man answered, "Grab a root an' dig,"--and I really tromped down on her. I didn't want any more of that than necessary.
The rain slowed to a mist and had quit altogether by the time I swung the pick-up into the mill yard. The clouds above were beginning to break up and in the pale moonlight I could see Andy leaning on his peavey like a sleeping heron. I got out and handed him the two candy bars I'd found in the jockey box.
"You got to stay out here all night," I told him. My voice sounded like it was coming from someone standing in the shadow beside me. "Most of the logs rode the current up. You won't see no more probably for three or four hours, till the tides change again. And get every log that comes past, all of them. Every one, you hear me? And watch for one flagged. Joe Ben's nailed onto that one, drowned."
Andy nodded, wide-eyed, but he didn't say anything. I stood there a minute. The overcast had thinned and split above us and was beginning to curl up and pull apart into dark clots; the full white circle of the moon came out now and then between the clots. The dripping berry vines that grew along the plank walk from the mill to the moorage looked like banks of crumpled foil. I saw Andy look at the blood-drenched arms of my sweat shirt, wanting to be told what had happened, but there again--just like back at the slope--I couldn't bring myself to speak. I turned, going back along the planks toward the idling pick-up without saying anything else. I just wanted to be away from people. I didn't want to have to avoid answering questions about what happened. I didn't want the questions.
I barely slowed down as I approached the house. Just enough to glance over and see that the light was still on in Viv's room. I better call her when I get into town, I figured. Jan, too; call them from the hospital. But I knew I wouldn't.
The little radio had finally stopped playing. It was warm in the cab now, and quiet; just the tires ripping along the pavement as I passed our garage, and a sound beside me from the old man like a wind going back and forth over old dead leaves. I was tired. Too tired to mourn or care about what had happened. I'll mourn later, I figured, I'll--"What!" I'll mourn later when I get time--"What?"--after a rest I'll--"What! It's him!" Then I saw the kid, just as I went past the garage. Walking along the highway headed for the house, not at the hospital, not in town, but here, now, there, back there at the garage, back there getting ready to go down to the launch and across to the house! Damn. They really keep at you. When they get you going they really keep right at you. . . .)
By the time my damp pilgrimage ended and the garage came into sight it had stopped raining, my nose no longer ran, and a wind had sprung up and showed signs of blowing the skies clear. Yet my old anxiety was returning, barking WATCH OUT WATCH OUT over and over, and this time giving as a reason to hesitate the dangerous lateness of the hour: THEY WILL BE RETURNING; THEY WILL CATCH YOU. . . . But, where I might have procrastinated another hour away haggling with this thought, the reason eliminated itself for me: just as I stepped from the highway to the graveled drive I caught sight of brother Hank himself zooming past in the pick-up, face fixed with the obvious intention of going all the way into town--to look for the old man, I was certain.
That sight scuttled my new excuse; and, never once wondering how Hank had acquired the pick-up without old Henry's driving it to him, I made for the launch, unable to come up with any reasons not to. "Here's your chance to get into the game," I told myself, "with security insured and no tricky grounders or pricky needles."
And tried to convince myself that I was pleased that events had laid the way so open for me.
Indeed, the way seemed to be becoming more open, and more lovely, by the moment. The clouds, suddenly shriveled and empty, were returning on the wind over the treetops back to sea to reload, leaving the land to frost and the boat motor dry when I removed the tarp covering. The moon ran like quicksilver on the motor, guiding my hands to the right instruments; the rope pulled smoothly; the motor started the first try and held, even and full-throated; the mooring rope came loose with a single flip and the prow swung pointing at the house, as sure as a compass needle. And from the glisten of frozen forest across the river I could hear the bugle of an elk, possessed by lust or a cold bed, I didn't know which, but I know those high skirling notes marshaled me forward like a tune from a satyr's pipe. The light from Viv's upstairs window rolled a glowing carpet out across the water to me . . . ushered me dimly up the stairs . . . seeped warmly from beneath her door. Everything was perfect; I will be a veritable stallion, I told myself, Casanova personified . . . and had already knocked when a new fear smote me: but what if I can't make it! I TOLD YOU TO WATCH OUT what if I start to come on like a stallion and can't get it up!
I was petrified by the prospect; with no luck along that line since way back before Mother's suicide, and months even since my last painful attempt, what reason had I to expect success this time? perhaps that's why I have been holding back so long; perhaps it is this pain I have been warned to WATCH OUT for; perhaps I should--
But when a voice called, "Come in, Lee," from the other side of the door, I knew it was too late to use this reason to run, even if the reason had been real.
I opened the door and poked in my head--"Just for a quick hello," I said, and added matter-of-factly, "I walked out from town, now I--"
"I'm glad you did," she said, then added in a lighter tone, "It was getting a little scary out here all by myself so long. Boy! Are you drenched! Come sit by the heater."
"I became separated from Henry at the hospital," I offered lamely.
"Oh? Where do you suppose he went?"
"Where can one ever suppose old Henry goes? Maybe after more of the balm of Gilead. . . ."
She smiled. She was seated on the floor before the humming orange heat of her coiled heater with a book, wearing a pair of tight green capris and one of Hank's plaid woolen shirts that itched itched itched against her skin, I was positive. And the glow of the electric coils made her face and hair shimmer with a deep fluid opulence. "Yes," I said, "I suppose he must have stopped by Gilead f
or more balm. . . ."
After our initial howdy-do's and what-do-you-supposes, and that stretched instant of silence, I indicated her book. "I see you're still bent on improving your mind."
She smiled at the volume. "It's the Wallace Stevens." She looked back up, asking forgiveness. "I don't know that I'm getting all of it--"
"I don't know that anybody is."
"--but I like it. It--well, even when I don't get it, I still feel certain ways when I read it. Some places I feel happy, some places I feel all funny. And then"--she dropped her eyes again to the book resting in her hands--"sometimes I feel pretty awful."
"Then you are most certainly getting it!"
My enthusiasm hung there for another silence with egg on its face; she looked back up. "Oh say, what did they say to you at the doctor's?"
"They said"--I tried to change from enthusiasm to comedy again--"in so many words: 'Drop your pants and bend over.' And the next thing I knew they were pumping my lungs full of smelling salts."
"You passed out?"
"Cold."
She laughed softly at me, then became confidential, lowering her voice. "Hey now; I'll tell you a little something, if you promise not to plague him about it."
"Cross my heart. Plague who about what?"
"Old Henry. After his fall off those rocks. See, when they brought him in from the show he cussed and carried on just terrible while he was around here, then, when we got him to the doctor, he went tough as nails. You know the way he can be. He didn't make a peep while they were lookin' him over--except for joking with the nurses and kidding them about being so antsy with him. 'Ain't nothin' but a busted wing,' he kept saying. 'I had twicet as bad--twicet as bad! C'mawn, git the booger put back in place! I got to git back to work! Yarrrr!' "
We both laughed at her gravel-voiced impersonation. "But then," she went on, becoming secretive again, "they brought out a needle. Not even very big, but big enough. I knew how he felt about needles and I saw the old fella just go white as a sheet when he saw it coming. But he wasn't going to let on, you see? He was just going to keep up his front. 'C'mawn, c'mawn, c'-mawn; stick me with that outfit so I can get back to business!' he kept growling. Then, when they did shoot him--after him bein' so tough and so brave in front of them over his broken bones--he just flinched and made a face. But we heard something; and when I looked over I saw he'd wet all over himself and it was running down his leg all over the floor!"
"No! Henry? Oh no, Henry Stamper? Whoo! Oh god . . ." I laughed more than I could remember laughing in years. The thought of his funny surprised face reduced me to a soundless quivering. "Oh god . . . that's beautiful, oh my god . . ."
"And . . . and--oh listen," she went on in a whisper, "when we went to get him into pajamas--oh listen--after the shot had knocked him out . . . we saw that wetting himself wasn't all he'd done."
"Oh lord . . . oh that's marvelous, I can just see it. . . ."
We laughed until we reached that awkward emptiness that follows long laughing, like the emptiness that follows a long roll of thunder; then we were silent again, and uncomfortable, and terribly, deafeningly aware of the thought in both our minds. But what's the sense in trying? I demanded of myself, staring at the lock of hair which ran like a glowing arrow down the side of her averted face into the neck of her shirt. . . . What's the sense in dreaming? You can't make it, that's all. It's all part of the way you have worked it out. You should have known all along that the selfsame weapon of weakness that was to win you victory over Brother Hank would be incapable of partaking of the fruits of that victory. You should have known that the spoils which you won from him with limp impotence could never be taken with the same tact. . . .
I stood there, then, looking down at this girl's shy and unvoiced and obvious offering of herself, trying to be philosophic about my organic inability to accept the offer . . . while the very organ in question rose to refute this newest of excuses and demand with pounding insistence the chance to prove his ability. I stood there, with all obstacles at last removed and nothing separating me any more from my most desirable goal but the space of a few feet--all reasons removed, all excuses exhausted--and still that voice in my head refused to let me go: WATCH OUT WATCH OUT, it chanted. But for what? I demanded, almost sick with frustration. Please, tell me; watch out for what!
JUST DON'T DO IT, was the reply; IT WILL BE A BAD SCENE. . . .
For who? I'm safe, I know so. A bad scene for Hank? Viv? For who?
FOR YOU, FOR YOU . . .
So, when I had suffered this period of silent standing sufficiently, I sighed and mumbled something about well, it would probably be best--oh, for my cold and all--if I went on in to bed. And she nodded--face still averted--yes, that's probably true . . . well, good night, Viv . . . Good night, Lee; I'll see you, I guess, in the morning. . . .
With her eyes downcast for my cowardice as I slunk from the room. With my stomach sick for failure and my heart dying with shame for an impotence that could no longer even be blamed on impotence . . .
(I stopped the pick-up out in front of the hospital, and when I picked up the old man to cart him into the emergency room, I saw his arm had come all the rest of the way off. It dropped out of the ragged sleeve to the street like a snake coming out of its skin. I left it lay. I couldn't fuss with it now. There is something else, if I could just remember . . .
The night attendant stopped me and started to say something, then looked at the old man. His pencil fell out of his hand. I told him, "I'm Hank Stamper. This here is my old man. A log rolled on him." And I put the old man on a bed and went over and sat down in a cushioned chair. The attendant was asking questions that I didn't care about answering. I told him I had to get gone. He said I was nuts, I had to stay till the doc come. I said, "Okay. When Doc Layton gets here wake me up Soon as he gets here. And we'll see. Now. Take this old man somewhere and give him some blood and leave me alone."
When I woke I thought for a second that no time had passed, that I'd just blinked and that attendant had merely aged and put on about two hundred pounds and was still asking the same questions that I wasn't hearing yet. When I seen it was the doctor I stood up. "Now," I told him, "all I want to know is do I need to give him some blood?"
"Blood? Lord, Hank, what's wrong with you? You're in about as much condition to give a pint of blood as he is. What happened out there?"
"He's all right, then? The old man?"
"Sit down. No, he isn't all right, for chrissakes. He's an old man and he's lost him an arm. What in the name of god are you trying to rush off to that's so--"
"But he ain't dead? He ain't goin' to die tonight?"
"He isn't dead--Lord knows why--but as far as--What's the matter with you, Hank? Sit back down there and let me get a look at you."
"No. I got to go. In a minute I will--" I'm late for something, sleeping like that. "I got to in a minute--" In a minute I'll remember what it is. I pull on my hard hat and feel for cigarettes. "Now," I say.
The doctor's still waiting for me to explain.
"Now, you think he'll make it?" I ask him. "Is he still out? I reckon he would be, wouldn't he? Well . . ." I look up at the doctor's face. What's his name? Now I know this man, knowed him for years, but I can't recall his name to save me. "Ain't it funny how quick you get out of touch?" I say to him "Now. If that's it, I got to get that pick-up and--"
"Well, for chrissakes," the doctor said to me, "he's going to drive home. Look here, let me look at that hand, anyway."
It was the cut I'd got working on the jetty some days before; it had opened and was bleeding. "No," I said slowly, trying to remember what it was I was late for. "No thanks, I can get my wife to tend to that for me. I'll call you about old Henry in the morning."
I headed out the door. The arm was still laying there on the sidewalk beside the pick-up in a puddle. I picked it up and tossed it in just like it was cord wood. What was it? In a minute I'll--
On the way back through town I stopped at the Sea Breeze to
ask where the kid was. "Don't know," Mrs. Carleson answered, more sullen than usual, "jest he ain't here no more." I didn't feel like pressing it so I walked on up the street to check the bar. No one there had seen him. Before I could leave, Evenwrite eased up to me and said something at me. I just nodded and told him I didn't have time to fool with him right then and headed for the door. This Draeger guy was sitting there and he smiled at me and he said hello. He said, "Hank, I feel I should warn you that your casual presence in town is more dangerous to you than you--"
"I'm busy," I told him.
"Certainly, but stop a moment and consider--"
I walked out along Main. I wasn't sure where I was headed. In just a minute I'll remember . . . somewhere I have to go. I went to the Sea Breeze and started to go in and then I remembered that whatever it was I had asked about in there, they didn't have it. I started back for the pick-up when three guys I never saw before in my life come out of the alley by the grange hall. They pull me back in the alley and go to working me over. I think for a minute, they're gonna kill me, but then I knew that they weren't. Some way I knew. They just weren't working at it hard enough. They took turns holding me against the wall and belting me pretty good, but not like they really aimed to kill me. And I wasn't really giving them my undivided attention; just a minute I'll--I was about to sit down and just let them have their way when up the alley came Evenwrite and Les Gibbons and even old Big Newton, hollering, "Hang on, Hank! Hang on, boy!" And I'm damned if they didn't run off these three other guys and help me up from the ground. Dang, Les said; those must be that bunch of yahoos from Reedsport again, we heard they was spoiling for you . . . and I thanked them and Evenwrite says people got to stick together and I thank him. They help me out to my pick-up. Les Gibbons even says he'll drive me home if need be. I tell him no, I don't know that I'm going that way, but thanks just the same, I'm in somethin' of a hurry to--what? well, in a minute I'll--I told the boys so long and started the pick-up and headed off, feeling lightheaded and pleasant, floating, sort of. Some of that fever going around, I suspect. But what the devil? it ain't so bad, a little temperature . . . like Joby always says, accept your lot and swing with what you got. And a runny nose is maybe a damn nuisance, but a fever is a cheap drunk . . . driving up Main. It was funny; I felt that there was an errand or something that had slipped my mind in just a little bit I'll but I was damned if I could remember what, exactly. So in a minute I'll--I headed out up river, figuring I might as well go home as long as I couldn't recall what it was I was supposed to see to. I just drove, slow and easy, watching the white lines blink past and the clouds blowing in the moon, not trying to think.