Now Is the Hour

by Tom Spanbauer

  Neither Mom nor I said a damn word to each other on the ride into town. Usually, what was silent when there was silence came from Mom and Dad. After Flaco and Acho, though, I discovered I could be silent too. Something real hard was in my heart for Dad, and even more for Mom. Sending a family off in the middle of the night — now there’s a Christian act of charity for you. Their talk about their good name and the abomination of good Christian values had never sounded so ridiculous.

  Halfway to town, Mom got her rosary out. There we were again with the sorrowful mysteries. Every goddamn Hail Mary stuck in my throat. Then after the rosary, just as we started to get into town traffic, insult to injury, Mom started on a litany.

  Have mercy on us. Have mercy on us. Pray for us. Pray for us. Pray for us. Over and over and over again.

  Fucking litanies, man.

  Like to drive you fucking nuts.

  Mom’s almond-shaped hazel eyes were definitely green, and she squinted a lot, one eye gone south and the other east. Her hair had frizzed so she tried to cover up the frizz with a hat. The blue hat from LeVine’s with the pheasant feather in it. Her new big plastic glasses. She wore her tan slacks with the big crease in them and the cuffs and a blue and white polka-dot blouse tucked in and no belt and her white Keds and her nylons. Really, she looked weird. When we walked in the hospital, I didn’t want anyone to know I was with her.

  At the admissions desk, Mom made me hold the blue square overnight case while she signed the insurance papers. It felt like I was holding a purse, so I set the overnight case on the shiny waxed linoleum floor closer to her feet.

  Across from me in the line was a girl my age from Highland High School. She was checking in to the hospital too. That girl was Billie Cody, but I didn’t know it then. Billie was with her mom, and I remember that she was short and that she smiled at me. Pretty soon we were talking, and Billie told me she was in to have her tonsils out and perhaps her tonsils out would help her tear duct thing. I noticed that her eyes were red, but I didn’t ask what her tear duct thing was. I told her for me it was submucous resection and that I couldn’t breathe out of my nose and the doctor was going to drill me some new holes. I remember Billie laughed, that great laugh of hers in her big chest that seemed to take over her whole body. Billie’s mom said something to my mom and my mom said something back. I don’t know what they said, but that’s the only time those two ever spoke to each other, let alone spent time in the same room together.

  When Mom finished with the papers and it was time to go to my room, I didn’t want to pick up the blue square overnight case, but I did. Billie looked at the blue square overnight case in my hand, and the way she looked at me was somehow the way Flaco had looked at me, in a moment that look that takes in the whole situation — the overnight case that looks like a purse, me holding the purse, my embarrassment that I was holding something that looked like a purse. Billie saw the whole picture — Gestalt is the word Billie would use — all the levels of me and Mom. I saw it in her eyes, her tear duct eyes rimmed in red, there inside her eyes, the Jesus look.

  The hospital was dark woodwork and big dark wooden doors with little windows above the doors, mostly open, and green walls. The floor made big creaks in the long lengths of hardwood. In the hallways, up high, you could see where the old gaslights had been on the walls. But the gaslights had been replaced by long fluorescent bulbs hanging down, which made everything have that too bright light from above. The dark woodwork had strange whanged-out shadows.

  My room was room 22, and I turned off the fluorescent lights as soon as I walked in. There were three beds in room 22, and my bed was the bed by the big wood bay window. There were no other patients in the room but me. The black and white clock above the door said five-thirty. I looked around before I unbuttoned my madras shirt. I hung the shirt up on a hanger in the closet, then my Levi’s on a hanger. Put my wallet and my change inside the blue overnight case. I pulled off my T-shirt, folded the T-shirt and laid the T-shirt along with my socks and my underwear next to my shoes at the bottom of the closet.

  There I was stark-naked in a strange place, and you know what that always does. Poking straight out in front of me. I didn’t dare whack off. It was a Catholic hospital, plus I had nothing to come into. Then I saw the sink and the mirror above the sink, and I thought the sink would work. Then there was a knock on the door. I quick pulled the hospital gown over me, didn’t tie the gown up in back, just jumped into the bed, lay down, and pulled my hard-on into between my legs and pressed my legs together.

  Mom came in with a nurse who was a nun. Sister Angelica. A Benedictine. No big crinkled fan of starched halo across her head like the Holy Cross. Just a little white cap on her forehead called a wimple that looks like it hides horns and a white veil and white robe instead of black.

  Rigby John, Sister Angelica said, do you want the lights off?

  I was about to mumble some shit I hadn’t formulated yet.

  That’s when Mom said: My son doesn’t like bright light, she said. He takes after his grandfather.

  In a moment, the anger I had for my mother went away, and there she was, the woman in my life I could never live without.

  My body sank way down in the bed I was in, flat as the mattress. All of a sudden there I was, a part of myself I’d never known.

  My grandfather. I wasn’t differnt at all. I took after my grandfather.

  When I came back from wherever I was, Sister Angelica was gone and Mom was at the closet. She picked up my jockey shorts from next to my shoes, folded them, and put my jockey shorts inside the blue square overnight case.

  Mom didn’t pull out her black beaded rosary that was blessed in the Vatican. She just sat down, sinking in that side of the bed in her blue and white polka-dot blouse and the blue felt hat and the pheasant feather staring out the window. Her new big plastic glasses on her face looked like scaffolding for her eyes. The trees outside the second-story window were big silver maples. Big Idaho wind in the trees scattering sun.

  It took her awhile, but then Mom said: You’ll be safe here. You’ll be fine. The nuns are so kind and helpful, especially Sister Angelica.

  Mom still stared out the window. Shaky shadows and sun across the white sheets of the bed. She didn’t move her head, she just reached out her arm, and her hand touched my arm, which was connected to my hand, which was cupped over my other hand, which was covering the lurking evil in my crotch.

  At first all I could think about was the evil under my cupped hand, but then the longer she touched me, the more the evil went away, and the more I didn’t have to worry about covering anything up.

  A big white room, three white beds. Shiny waxed brown linoleum. The fluorescent lights off, light and shadow, light and shadow. Everything quiet. The way Flaco had accepted my hand, it took me awhile, but I accepted Mom’s hand as it lay on my arm. Rough, red farm hand, cut-to-the-quick fingernails.

  Your grandfather was a frail man, Mom said.

  In the room, my eyes couldn’t lie on a piece of shadow or a piece of sun for even a second without the sun or the shadow going differnt, getting brighter or longer or wider, or sun changing into shadow or shadow sun right there, there in front of my eyes.

  He loved to sit in his room, Mom said, and read and read and smoke his pipe. The ceiling light was never allowed on, only the reading lamp at his desk. Your grandfather sat in a dim circle of light in a room full of books. Floor-to-ceiling books. The smell of old books and Prince Albert.

  Mom waved her hand in front of her nose.

  My mother hated the smell of that room, she said.

  She wrinkled up her nose, which made her new big plastic glasses go up and down.

  On my hand, the palm of her rough hand curled, then took within it some of my fingers.

  Us children were never allowed in his room, Mom said. I only went in there to clean, and cleaning only meant emptying the ashtray, the garbage can, to vacuum, and dust the lamp and the wood of the bookshelves where there wasn’t an
y books stacked.

  Out in the hospital hallway, a gurney with a bum wheel. Over the intercom, a woman with a soft voice.

  You’re a lot like your grandfather, Rigby John, Mom said. His eyes were hazel too. Green, sometimes gold. I loved his eyes when they were gold.

  Outside the window, green leaves, gold sun. Shadows and light all over on us on the sheets of the bed, the gold band on her third finger, her hand on top of my hands. Mom stared ahead out the window, chin up, light and shadow all over her face. She took her new big plastic glasses off, laid her glasses on the bed, rubbed her eyes.

  One time I walked in on him reading, Mom said. I don’t know what got into me. I just opened his door and walked in. There he was with his glasses down on his nose, the room full of smoke. My father looked over and smiled at me. The way he smiled, I knew I wasn’t his daughter. I was a strange visitor from one of his books.

  Mein wildes Mädchen, he called me, Mom said. My wild girl.

  Mom held tight to my fingers. She used my fingers to pull herself around. Her knee on the bed, her beige slacks with the crease, the cuff, nylon folds on her ankle, the white Ked. She looked straight at me. Frizzy hair, the stupid hat. No glasses. I loved it when her eyes were gold. At that moment, if I curled my lip up, crossed my eyes, scratched my butt, she’d laugh so hard she’d never catch her breath.

  You’ve never imagined your mother as a wild girl, Mom said. Now, have you?

  That night it was cool falling asleep in the big empty room. Just me in a white room in a white bed, the sheets folded down, just my arms out. Through the bay window, the moon, that same old moon shining through the silver maple leaves, like my dog, Tramp, always there ready to accompany you.

  The black and white clock above the dark wood door said ten-thirty. I dangled my feet over the side before they landed on the cool, shiny linoleum. I watched my feet walk through the moonlight and the shadows of the silver maple leaves on the floor. My butt was hanging out and I liked my butt hanging out. Of course, you know what happened.

  When I got to the sink, I pulled the little chain on the light above the sink, and there in the mirror, sure enough, there I was poking out in front of me.

  What happened next is something that has never happened before.

  When I am half-naked and poking out in front of me like that, there has never been one single time that I haven’t whacked off and broken the sixth commandment.

  But this night it was differnt.

  The light above the sink was a tiny light globe with a glass cover that was green, and the light globe with the glass cover made a circle on the wall, around the sink, and onto my feet on the shiny floor.

  I put my closed eyes into the light. Warm light on my cheeks, on my lips, on my eyes.

  I opened my eyes, and there they were, looking right back at me. My hazel eyes. Almond-shaped.

  Moments of gesture.

  Grandpa, I said. Hello.

  The next morning, some Swiss doctor guy with an accent put a needle in my arm and asked me to count back from ten.

  The next thing I knew I was waking up in bed. The bed was at an angle so I was halfway sitting up. It felt like my head was in a vise clamp. The bib down the front of me was covered in blood all the way down to my waist.

  Mom was sitting in the chair next to my bed. The black beaded rosary blessed in the Vatican was lightning through her fingers. I quick closed my eyes because the last thing I wanted was to pray another rosary.

  Who knows how much later I opened my eyes again. Somebody’d tightened the vise clamp. Mom was sitting at the bay window, staring out at the tall silver maples. The shadows and the light all over her and all over in the room. She had her face on. Her glasses off, her eyebrows penciled on, her new lipstick Royal Red. Her hair fluffed out, not frizzed, so she didn’t need a hat.

  The next time I woke up, Sister Angelica was plumping up my pillow. The bib that was on me before was gone, and the whole bed, including me, was all white. Everything was bright and shiny. My eyes took awhile to see. There was something stuck up in my nose. When I moved my head, I thought it would fall off. The shadows and the light were gone, and the sky through the silver maple leaves was gray. In the bed next to me was a man with black hair. He looked like an Indian man. He was sleeping.

  Looks like we’re in for a storm, Sister Angelica said.

  Up close her skin looked yellow next to the white of the pointy wimple on her head. Lots of black eyebrows.

  I love these Idaho storms, she said. When I was a girl in Oregon, we never had storms like you do here.

  Sister Angelica picked up a tray from the table between me and the Indian man. She set the tray with cottage cheese and mandarin oranges in front of me and pushed a button at the side of the bed. The bed made a sound, and I was sitting straight up in no time. On the tray, there was also a carton of milk, some crackers, and a gingersnap cookie.

  Your mother had to go home and cook supper, Sister Angelica said.

  Supper! I said. What time is it?

  Five o’clock, she said.

  I was supposed to wake up in the afternoon and have lunch, I said. And dinner. Why did I wake up so late?

  Dr. Verhooven is a very good doctor, Rigby John, Sister Angelica said. But he is only a doctor. These things are God’s concerns, she said. God’s and the anesthesiologist, she said. And sometimes I wonder about the anesthesiologist.

  Sister Angelica smiled at me and looked in my eyes while she touched my forehead. Then she picked up my arm by the wrist. She held my wrist cuffed in her hand and looked at her wristwatch that looked like a man’s wristwatch.

  My head hurts, I said.

  You’re going to live, Sister Angelica said. Keep your hands away from your nose. Don’t waste your food. Later on tonight I’ll get you something more. Now say your prayers.

  I made the sign of the cross and started in on the Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy fucking gifts.

  Sister Angelica walked over to the next bed. The way she stood above the sleeping Indian man made you know she was a real holy person. She had tears in her eyes, and she held her hands bunched up and close to her heart. Then she made the sign of the cross.

  At the dark wood door, Sister Angelica stopped, the skirts of her habit swaying. The long wood rosary tied around her waist knocked against the wood of the door. She looked at me as she turned off the fluorescent light.

  I don’t like these lights either, she said. They make everything so garish.

  Is garish two r’s or one? I said.

  One, she said.

  Then: Rigby John? she said.

  Yes, Sister? I said.

  If you need anything, Sister Angelica said, just push that buzzer next to your bed.

  I moved my head real slow. On the side of my bed, at the top, on the railing was a green lever.

  This one? I said.

  No, she said. That one is to adjust your bed. It’s the button on the wall.

  On the wall, behind my bed, there was a button that looked like a doorbell.

  That’s the one, she said.

  Then: Perhaps you could do me a favor, Sister Angelica said.

  Sure, I said.

  If Mr. Serano wakes, push that buzzer as soon as possible, will you?

  Yes, Sister, I said.

  Then something quick in my throat, and I said: Sister?

  Yes?

  Is that George Serano?

  George Serano, yes, she said. Do you know him?

  For a while my mouth just hung open and then hung open some more.

  Then: No, I said quick, I don’t know him.

  Sister Angelica stayed in the dark wood doorway for a moment, the white from the fluorescence in the hallway making her bright.

  Then she was gone.

  I was alone with a plate of cottage cheese and mandarin oranges, crackers, a gingersnap cookie, a carton of Meadow Gold milk, two buttons, a head the size of Idaho, and George Serano.

  Injun George. The naked guy who almost got me
and Mom killed.

  The queer.

  Now that I look back on it, that moment in room 22 of Saint Anthony’s Hospital, the fluorescent lights off, the dark gray light through the window, the tall trees dancing up a storm, when I leaned up and turned so I could see this George Serano guy, I wouldn’t admit it then, but I can tell you now, the helpless feeling was in my arms, and the scared place inside of me was scared.

  That moment.

  Oh my heavens pretty woman so far, what was a queer Indian doing in a Catholic hospital?

  I’ve always said the universe always conspires to fuck me up.

  But that didn’t stop me from looking. In fact, I’m surprised Georgy Girl didn’t wake up the way my hazel eyes were looking. Gawking.

  Every aspect.

  He wasn’t an Indian with hair like when Indians had long hair. His hair was cut in a butch. He was tall — as long as the bed. Big hands with nice fingernails, long feet. He didn’t look like most Indians I’d seen.

  Then of course I’d never really seen any Indians yet, now had I? I mean, looked at them like people.

  The first Indians I’d seen was way back when I’d seen Indians coming down the steps of the Pocatello House.

  One time, I was driving the John Deere A up Tyhee Road and there was a bunch of Indians in an old car sitting in the barrow pit. All four doors were open and beer and wine bottles all around the old Ford on the ground. I never stopped to look at their faces. Who would? Drunk Indians are dangerous, and you have to steer clear of them.

  One story my father told, there was this Indian man beating up his wife and when a white guy stopped to help, the Indian woman turned on the white guy and hit him over the head with a purse full of rocks.

  Another time I saw Indians was at the Pocatello Frontier Rodeo. The lights went off and the spotlight went on a bunch of Indians dressed up in beaded buckskins and feathers, dancing a war dance, spinning around while a bunch of guys played drums and sang, Hey ya, hey ya, hey ya.