by Phoebe Stone
“What’s he need something like that for if he’s about to die? What do you need when you’re on the edge of death?” says Quentin, following the white line painted along the edge of the asphalt parking lot. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
“Can’t take it with you,” I say, feeling like I’m going to cry. Granddaddy waves good-bye to us from the front seat of the Chrysler Imperial, and Quentin and I go into the double doors at the Winifred P. Culpepper Memorial Hospital.
I’m not all that different from Granddaddy. I don’t like hospitals either. We get on the elevator with this person in a wheelchair who is all wrapped up from head to toe in white bandages, just his eyes left showing, like a mummy. Reminds me of the one in the computer game “The Quest of the Missing Mummy,” where the mummy escapes and goes after everybody. There’s a nurse pushing the mummy’s wheelchair.
“Just checking — is that you in there, Conrad?” says Quentin.
It isn’t Conrad. Thank goodness. But the nurse is mad at Quentin and she makes us get off the elevator one floor early and we have to go up the back stairs to the third floor. We get lost down a couple of hallways looking for room 348, Conrad Parker Smith’s room. Finally we find a door decorated with two clothespin angels and a tie-dyed T-shirt that says If your land’s posted, don’t hunt on mine.
“That’ll be it,” says Quentin.
Right next to the door there’s a cart full of supplies, stacks of hospital gowns and face masks for the surgeons. Somebody has left the cart alone for a second, and Quentin, who’s as fast as a hummingbird, grabs a hospital gown and one of the masks and puts them on. Then he opens Conrad’s door with a sweep. “Conrad Parker Smith,” he says, walking into the room, “it’s time for that operation. I’m ready to begin. Gimme that leg.”
Conrad goes green for a minute lying in his bed and his eyes look kind of crossed. It starts to look like he’s going to faint. But then I get in the room and I grab the mask off Quentin and the color returns to poor old Conrad’s face.
“How did you two turkeys get in here?” he says. “If you were headed for the funny farm, they brought you to the wrong place.”
“What’s that thing you’re all hitched up to, Conrad?” says Quentin, walking around the room. “It’s mean and ugly-looking, looks like a bomb’s ready to go off or something.”
“It’s a monitor. I’m going in for a groundbreaking operation. You’re not even supposed to be in here. I got a special doctor from Washington, D.C. I was selected to be the first one he tries his new technique on.”
I gulp. “A new technique?” I say. I haven’t said anything at all up until now ’cause I’m so upset to see Conrad dressed in green hospital pajamas, lying there looking like he’s about to die. I can see his old leg brace thrown on the table near the window, and I just feel like I am going to go to pieces if I say one word. So I just stand here like a sorry old beanpole.
“Yep,” say Conrad, pointing to the leg brace. “Doctor says I’m not going to be needing that old thing anymore.”
My heart sinks. If it can get any lower, it sinks yet again. In a split-second I am remembering all the good times we’ve had in these last few weeks. Like the time Conrad and I decided to pull his bicycle out of the river once and for all. We picked the day Quentin Duster had to go to a family reunion over in Liberty Furnace so he wasn’t around. When Conrad and I got to the river’s edge, we kind of waded out into the water, green branches hanging over us, my skirt dancing around me in the current. I could feel mud squeezing up between my toes and little minnows bumping against my knees. It was sweet being waist-deep in that river with Conrad Parker Smith. Right then, I could have floated away on my back all the way to Culpepper County.
When we got to the bicycle, Conrad looked over at me and said, “Leg brace is as light as a feather in this water.” His face was about half shining.
We pulled and shoved and laughed and finally we got that bicycle back up on the shore. We even rode it home together, me in the front steering, Conrad on the back hanging on, both of us laughing and falling off and laughing and falling off again.
“Yep,” says Conrad, “not going to need that old thing anymore. I think they’re taking me in a matter of minutes. I’m going in to get some tests done for tomorrow ’cause it’s a special operation.”
“Special?” I say.
“I’m gonna be getting something pinned, either the tibia or the fibia in my leg,” says Conrad.
“You mean pinned like a sewing project,” says Quentin, “like an old dress or something?”
“Well, maybe stapled is a better word,” says Conrad.
“Stapled?” says Quentin. “Like a geography project?”
“I don’t know,” says Conrad. “They put in some kind of pin or staple in there and then all you have to worry about is setting off alarms in airports.”
“Setting off alarms in airports?” says Quentin.
“That’s all. That’s it,” says Conrad. “Once the pin is in, you’re up and running.”
“Well, pin the tail on the donkey,” says Quentin.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” says Conrad.
“Gonna be able to play soccer again, Conrad?” I say real quietly.
Conrad looks down in a hoping kind of way and then he smiles. “Doctor says so.” And my heart drops just like that bicycle slipping down into the dark river.
“Conrad,” says Quentin, “you’re not going to believe this, but out of the blue, we ran into ‘The Engine’ again.”
“I think we woke him up,” I say.
“I heard he needs sixteen hours of sleep a night. And if he doesn’t get that, he has to pick it up during the day ’cause of his size,” says Quentin. “People have seen him sleeping at the vocational cafeteria right up on the table in the middle of the day. That’s what I heard.”
“Is that so,” says Conrad.
“’Cause of his size,” says Quentin.
“Well, I heard once he slept for a whole week straight and his daddy had to drop him into a swimming pool in subzero weather to get him to wake up,” says Conrad.
“Whoa,” says Quentin, making like to wipe his brow.
“Conrad,” I say, “your mama still want to get rid of those red T-shirts? Guess they really need them over there right away. Do you know where they are? I mean, since you’re not gonna be home and all.”
As soon as I say that, I feel kind of all alone and deep down blue. Then I look over at Conrad and I feel like dropping to the floor and begging him not to go and get himself all fixed up. I want to call out, “Conrad, don’t do it. Keep things the way they are. Don’t die and don’t leave me and don’t start playing soccer and getting popular again.”
“Come on,” says Quentin. “Where are those shirts? Exercise your memory, Conrad. Do some push-ups in your brain.” (Ever since I told them what those T-shirts are for, I’ve been hoping Quentin can act like a sixth grader and keep a secret for once in his life, even though I know he’s just a pesky half-baked nine-year-old.)
Conrad lies back on the pillow and closes his eyes real tight, trying to think where those boxes of shirts are. I can see he’s going through his messy old wreck of a house in his mind. Conrad lives in a sea of craft projects. A house like that could take weeks to unsnarl.
“Maybe under a bed or in the living room over by the TV,” says Conrad. “I’m not sure. You can go on in there and find them. House is open. But it’s going to be a pain.”
“Some things are worth it,” I say, feeling all melty and teary-eyed, trying not to look directly at Conrad. I go and stand at the window. I can see the parking lot below and Conrad’s mother just getting out of her car, probably coming back from the store down the street, picking up a few things for Conrad. I guess the truth is, I’d rather have Conrad popular again and lost to me forever than die. Dying is the worst of the choices. It doesn’t matter if Conrad isn’t going to be my friend anymore. All that matters is that he’ll be alive and that others can enjo
y him, if not myself.
Two nurses come into the room pushing a rolling hospital bed. The nurses are fast and quiet. “Have to say ’bye now,” one of them says, smiling. They lift Conrad on to the rolling bed and they wheel him right out of the room headfirst. And the last thing I see of Conrad Parker Smith is his big toe sticking out from under the sheet that they’ve draped over him.
Call me crazy. Call me dumb. Call me foolish. I don’t care. I have to find those T-shirts. If my granddaddy and the Bailey brothers need them, I gotta find them, and I’m not getting Quentin in on this or telling him any more about it because Quentin can only keep a secret for about twenty-four hours and then he might explode and tell everybody everything.
After we get back from Charlottesville and Granddaddy is putting the car in the garage, I walk off down the road like a little old ghost. I have my wagon with me, hoping to haul the boxes back.
The coyotes don’t hang around by Conrad’s. The houses are too crowded down there, but there are owls hooting and I still sense the wind all around me. I almost feel as light as a net curtain sailing down the road in the darkness, like being in a dark room on a windy summer night, curtains set loose like wings, blowing all over the place. The smell of lilacs is drifting across the road, and houses are glowing like jars of light in the distance or like fireflies over a field in August.
At Conrad’s house the door is unlocked. Thank goodness. I guess Conrad’s mother must think all those boxes and broken furniture and piles of fabric everywhere would scare away any robber. I just turn the doorknob and I enter Conrad’s damp and crowded house.
A lot of the lights have been left on as if someone is coming back any second. In the living room the widescreen TV is on. Coverage of the war in Iraq is playing to nobody at all in the dark, lonely room. The TV casts an eerie light in the living room, and that light falls into the hallway, making weird shadows on the wall. A fluorescent lamp is on over the sink in the kitchen, and I can see piles of clothespin angels everywhere, and there are all kinds of angels on shelves staring at you, glass ones and wooden ones and plastic ones.
The house looks and feels messier with Conrad and his mother not here. Houses are like that. They seem almost to disintegrate when the owners are gone, even for a day. Flowers wilt in vases. Food spoils on shelves. When I was here with Conrad and Quentin last week, the mess seemed less noticeable. It seemed acceptable, unimportant, even funny, when Conrad was here making all kinds of jokes about it, but now, without him here, I am astounded at the clutter and the chaos.
I go right into Conrad’s room. I lean down now to look under his bed, searching for two cardboard boxes with a hundred and fifty T-shirts in them that all say Best Things in Life Aren’t Things. All I see under the bed is a lineup of old shoes staring me in the face. There’s also a beat-up teddy bear of Conrad’s lying on its back, covered with dust, that looks like it’s been there at least forever, judging from the cobwebs.
I never had a teddy bear when I was a little kid. I didn’t care that much about my dolls either. Melinda had so many dolls and they were all dressed up in frills and lace and she never would let me play with them. I had instead these cookies I played with that I liked better. They were big gingerbread men that Mama made for all of us one Christmas. I saved mine. I had all fifteen of them and I made clothes for all of them and I put the clothes in the doll dresser Granddaddy made for me. All those gingerbread men had names. My favorite one was named Mr. Moon. He had a big round face and sometimes he slept on my pillow at night. I sewed him five different changes of clothes.
My mama used to say, “You’re a strange breed, Jessie Lou.” I guess she said that because Mr. Moon was my favorite toy and he was only a big old cookie. One day, after three years, I came home from school and all my gingerbread men were gone. Their clothes were folded up and put away in the doll dresser.
“Where’s my Mr. Moon?” I called out soon as I came in the door, knowing something was wrong.
“Honey,” said Mama, “the mice got into them this morning and I had to throw them away. We’ll make a new batch today, okay?”
“What did you do with my Mr. Moon?” I said, running into my room.
We never did make a new batch of cookies, but by that time I was too old to be playing with toys anyway. But one day I decided Conrad looked a lot like Mr. Moon. He had the same nice round cheerful face, and when I looked at him I got the same happy warm feeling.
I look next to Conrad’s dresser now. There isn’t much in it, ’cause all his clothes are on the floor. I look under his desk, in the closet. I look everywhere, but that box just doesn’t seem to be anywhere at all. I feel kind of sad about Granddaddy and those old Bailey brothers hoping and waiting to get those T-shirts. I turn out the light in Conrad’s room. I pass by the kitchen again. I open a few cupboards. I look under the table (even in the refrigerator!). I leave the light on over the sink the way it was when I came in. Then I stop for a minute in the living room, the TV dancing shadows on the furniture.
I am about to open the front door and leave when I see something red in the corner by the couch and if I tilt my head I can read the words Best Things in Life …
I throw myself on the couch and I pounce on those boxes like a cat from the bushes and I reach inside to feel all the folded piles of shirts lying in there. Yes. Yes, I got them. I pick up one of the boxes and I hold it tight against me. Tight as I can. I put that box outside on the steps, and then I go back to get the second one.
Now I need to get out of here as fast as possible. I pull open the front door, and as I’m slipping out, the wide-screen TV is still on. I can still see coverage of the war flickering into the dark room. In one corner of the screen a truck is burning. There are orange flames shooting up around it and all across the rest of the screen is nothing but blowing white sand.
This is the third day since I saw Conrad in the hospital and I haven’t heard a thing. The silence is about killing me. The last two days have been long and lonely. Yesterday, Granddaddy had Fred Bailey over. They were sitting at the table in the kitchen organizing a rally and protest against Big Box Home and Hardware while Mama was grocery shopping up at Piggly Wiggly.
“We’ll get out there with posters and we’ll block the door. We’ll lie down on the sidewalk. People will have to step on us to get in,” said Fred Bailey.
“Well, we need to come at them from all angles — air, land, and sea,” said Granddaddy. “We’ll use brains and strategy.”
“I’ll get out my great-grandfather’s Civil War uniform,” said Fred Bailey. “I’ll wear it at the protest, and I’ll hold up a sign that says, ‘STONEWALL JACKSON WILL NOT BACK DOWN.’”
Then Granddaddy got mad and said he wasn’t going to have anything to do with that bigot Stonewall Jackson.
I was waiting for news of Conrad. I was sitting there listening, hoping somebody would mention his name. But nobody ever did.
Two long, endless days have passed. Melinda has been pretty much holed up in her room playing her Patsy Cline Revisited CD over and over again. That afternoon when Granddaddy and Fred Bailey were arguing about the protest, I went upstairs. Melinda’s door was shut. I sat on the top stair for a while, looking at the rose pattern on the wallpaper.
Then I did something very un-me-like. I tapped on the door and then I opened Melinda’s door and I stood there. She was lying on her bed looking up at the ceiling, listening to that song “Crazy.” She had the CD on replay and she was listening to it over and over again. She looked at me and didn’t make an unpleasant face, so I went into her room and I sat down in a chair. She kept staring at the ceiling. I wanted to say something about how beauty wasn’t all that important. I wanted to say that she was beautiful anyway, no matter what the judges said, but I couldn’t figure out how to put it. So I just kind of sat there in the room with her for a while, listening to the music.
Yes, these few days have been long and lonesome — the longest two days I’ve ever experienced. Quentin’s daddy got a job
at Pool World and he brought home a stupid-looking snorkel set for Quentin. Quentin brought it down yesterday and he wore it running around the yard looking like an idiot space alien. “You’re supposed to use those in a swimming pool underwater, Quentin,” I told him. But he didn’t listen to me.
A new Martha Nottingham Cake Mix came out two days ago with chocolate chips and coconut fudge and pecans. Mama and I made up a batch for Granddaddy’s bowling night. And everything has been kind of slow, and no matter who I’m talking to, I feel kind of all alone. The shadows in the house at night seem extra dark. The clothes hanging on the line outside seem to be whipping around in the wind like they are crying and carrying on about something.
I have been drinking gallons of sweet tea, trying to decide about a lot of things, like what I’d do if Conrad dies and what I’d do if he doesn’t die, and I’ve been working on those T-shirts, crossing things out and adding words. There’s so many of them my arm feels tired.
It’s after dinner on the third longest day of my life. We are watching TV. Melinda has come out of her room and she is in the La-Z-Boy recliner and I’m on the couch. The news starts and Granddaddy is just saying how TV is ninety-five percent advertising and ninety-five percent bull and no thank you and he is getting up and leaving the room.
Suddenly Conrad’s face appears, covering the TV screen. The newscaster says, “And now in our Health Feature, we will be talking with a young man from the West Taluka Falls area who just underwent a successful operation with the famous Dr. Jerome Wildy! Dr. Wildy, how are you feeling right now?” says the newscaster.
“We’re very excited,” says Dr. Wildy. “This is the first operation I’ve done using this new pin I’ve developed and it was entirely successful. With a little physical therapy, the young man here will enjoy a complete return to normal activities fairly quickly. He’s been using crutches for the first couple of days here at the hospital, but when he’s ready, he can just throw those aside. That is the beauty of this new technique.”