The Day I Died

by Lawrence Lariar

  Miss Cumber patted his hand. “Doctor Linden wanted me to tell you that he’s notified your draft board that you can’t be drafted.”

  “I know. He said he would.”

  “Because of your leg,” she added.

  “It won’t ever be normal again?”

  “It might. But it will need lots of care, Tom.”

  “I see.”

  “I hope so,” Miss Cumber said softly. “But you mustn’t feel badly about it. You’ve just been through a pretty terrible accident, and accidents happen to all of us. You need time to recover from the shock of the accident, Tom. You’ve got to forget about it and carry on in the outside world.”

  “I know just what you mean.”

  “Have you made any plans? You remember you used to talk about staying in Camberton? Settling down?”

  Was she testing him again? The ring of her voice was gentle and persuasive and something in the way she phrased the question reminded him of Doctor Linden’s roundabout routine, in the office down the hall, day after day, the long talks about his personal beliefs and ambitions and fears and hopes and confusions.

  Coyle watched Miss Cumber cautiously. She had sat so close to him that he could hear her breathing. How capable she was! He looked at her hands, soft and smooth and yet strong. And the sight of her hands moved him backward in time. He was up on the roof again, all alone, looking down at the parking lot, five stories below, the small square patch of grass, no bigger than a handkerchief, and in the middle, the monument, the lump of metal that seemed to resemble a rock. He was deciding to jump, gripping the rail of the ladder in his sweaty hands. One step off the side and he would go screaming to his death. One more step. They would find him down there, a bloody mess, so bloody that he would look exactly like Joey, on the rock in the canyon below Chicopee Hill.

  He had wandered from the sun deck and used his crutches to take him to the edge of doom. How long ago? Six weeks? Eight weeks? A lifetime? In the beginning, when he left the sun deck, he had only decided on a purposeless stroll, to test the new crutches, to move his leg around a bit. And then there was the ladder before him and the dizzying edge of the roof and the rock down there below him. He found himself listening for the deep and distant whisper of Joey. Did he hear Joey down there? His foot was out and his hands were loose on the rail. In the split second of his deliberation, he paused and closed his eyes and tried for sanity. The past came forward then, and only one great thought emerged to hold him teetering on the rim of the roof. Masterson! But it was too late now. The earth began to spin and he was lost to reality until the strong hands clutched him and pulled him back and back and into life again.

  It was Miss Cumber, somehow beside him and tugging him to safety, rudely at first and then gently and persuasively, her big body between him and eternity, her sure hands piloting him to the fence back near the sun deck, to sit him down and let him cry into his hands. She had saved him from himself, for the talks with Doctor Linden, for the encouragement and hope the little doctor tried to spoon-feed him. And now? Was she still worried about him?

  Miss Cumber was purring and cooing about Camberton. Coyle heard only the vague rhythm of her voice and smiled. Miss Cumber of Camberton. Would he ever forget her? Cumber of Camberton.

  “Have you ever worked in a store?” she was asking.

  “Once. I used to deliver for Kelso’s Drug Store.”

  “I don’t mean as a delivery boy. But you could get a job as a clerk.”

  “I don’t think it’s for me, Miss Cumber.”

  “What are your ideas, Tom?”

  “I can’t say that I’ve got anything really definite in mind.”

  The lie was out. Coyle felt himself stiffen and go tight with the effort of projecting the lie. How could he tell her the truth? How could he explain that his whole soul was screaming for a one-way ticket, out of this place and down the road to New York? He felt fit enough to run the distance. At the end of the line, across the street from the Rebus Bar was Florian’s—and Masterson! Would it be possible for Miss Cumber to understand the scheme he had devised for Masterson? Could he ever hope to explain the deal?

  “I suppose I just want to take it easy for a while,” Coyle said.

  “That’s a good idea, Tom. But not for too long. Doctor Linden wants you to get a job.”

  “I know. He explained the reasons to me.”

  “Then you know how important it is for you to keep busy,” the nurse said. “Doctor Linden can’t be here this morning to say goodbye to you, Tom. That’s why I’m talking to you, really. You’ve been sick, but it wasn’t your leg that bothered us so much. We knew we could fix up your leg pretty soon, so that you could get along with a slight limp, and maybe lose the limp after a while, if you exercise your leg properly. But you should know that your mind, too, was hurt in that accident. You were in shock for a long time. You’re better now, but Doctor Linden wants you to stay all right when you go out into the world. And that means you should find a job you like, something to keep you interested …”

  The soft maternal voice purred on. In many ways, Miss Cumber reminded him of his foster mother. From the very beginning, after the first day in Miss Cumber’s care, Coyle had reacted to her with a moody sadness. He was blind to the reason for this reaction until much later, when Doctor Linden had made him a friend and explored the mysteries of his mind. Coyle had spent many hours in the little office at the end of the hall, talking quietly with Doctor Linden. And after a while, it became clear why Miss Cumber affected him so deeply. It was the sound of her voice. In the early days of his pain she would read to him and with his eyes closed he was lifted back to his early adolescence, the sick-abed days when his foster mother sat beside him and soothed him with stories out of the many books she bought for him. It was as simple as that, but the intricate pattern confused him, the questions asked him by gentle Doctor Linden, the subtle stabs into the murky shadows that seemed to hide Coyle’s early life, not his adolescence, but long before that …

  CHAPTER 5

  Doctor Linden’s quiet voice asking:

  “Think of your first mother now, Tom. Not your foster mother any more, but back when you were just a little boy. Can you remember your first mother? How she died?”

  Six? Seven? Eight? Nine? It was the age of small boy activity and the facts and dates were a long time coming, a long time remembering. It was an age of adventure and exploration, on the outskirts of Camberton in the tiny farmhouse at the end of Neck Road, among the poplars and the tall grasses where Neck Stream wound down from the mysterious heights and spilled out in a narrow course between high banks until it reached the town and lost itself in the river beyond. It was a lonely house because your father had died and you lived alone with your mother.

  “Can you remember your first mother? What did she look like, Tom?”

  There was a time when her image came into focus and you recalled the sound of her, a melodic figure as she sang you to sleep. Her face was no face at all, but you could feel the warmth of her and the strength of her embrace and the overpowering sadness in her because of her loneliness. She was a crying woman, a sobbing symbol in your mind’s eye. Young? How young? Handsome? Beautiful? You could not bring, her back that clearly because the one strong picture remained a silhouette for some strange reason.

  “A silhouette? Why, Tom?”

  Think of the picture. You cannot see her at all, even when you try to concentrate, especially when your brain commands you to dig her out of those lonely hours. She was all things—and nothing. She was music and silence. There was a way back to her, but the headaches came when you fought to return to her. Your mind went off on a hundred tangents, into the little events, the recollections of the outside world around the cottage. The friend.

  “You had a little friend? Tell me about him?”

  At first he was nameless, a neighbor kid who came to pick you up and walk to s
chool with him, across fields to another road and after that into the tiny classroom. He always took the short cut, but on the way home he led you the long way around, through the deepest part of the woods and sometimes beyond Camberton before turning back. And sometimes Alvin kept you out late …

  “Did you say Alvin? You see, you’ve remembered his name. Tell me some more about Alvin.”

  And then the floodgates of memory opened. It was night and you were running down Neck Road and there was a figure on the porch and it was your mother. She ran to meet you and crushed you in her arms and cried and cried over you. She scolded you and warned you about staying out so late. She wept over you and reminded you that she was alone, so terribly alone without you and you must never, never stay away so long again. She hurried you inside and fed you and sat with you, still sobbing as she watched you. And in the long hours of the night, safe in your bed, you heard her whimpering out there and ran to her and tried to make her stop. It ached you to see her that way, so lost, so frightened, so much alone when you slept. You lived with her in a great loneliness and the days lengthened and summer came and her suffering in the solitude brought a great cloud of fear and despondency to your lives.

  “And nobody came to see you? Nobody?”

  No relatives, no visitors you can recall, nothing but the great loneliness.

  “And when did it all end, Tom?”

  There was a day when you and Alvin forgot your mother’s warning; a gay day, bright and sunny and rich with the color of fall. You remember the promise of good fishing far up Neck Creek, and the quick figure of Alvin running ahead, older and nimbler on the rocks alongside the stream. You galloped behind him and a long time later you were at the old pool and sitting on a high rock and waiting for the fish to bite.

  How long the wait?

  The canopy of leaves began to fade in the sun above your head and the long shadows fell across the burbling pool and you were suddenly frightened because of the darkness and the distance home.

  Or was it a greater fear that sent you stumbling and rushing down the hill and into the night?

  Because it was black now and a thin moon raced with you in the stream like a jumping fish, skittering alongside you as you ran.

  The breath was hot in your mouth and the fishing pole long abandoned and you were able to keep up with Alvin and finally pass Alvin, amazed at your own speed, down to the rim of the valley and around the edge of the barns and out on the main road, puffing and blowing, seeing nothing but the looming shape of the house, your house, up ahead.

  The house was around the bend of Neck Creek and you slowed and stiffened at the sight of it, a dark and dismal silhouette, a saddening sight in the night, no lights on at all, unless there was a light burning somewhere in one of the rear rooms.

  The kitchen?

  You slowed now and sobbed as you crossed through the tall weeds in the meadow, taking the soggy path to the yard, planning to creep in and pretend you were in the yard all this time.

  Would she believe you?

  You looked up at the sky and struggled to measure the time, but found no answer in the puffed clouds that flew along in a race with the moon.

  Seven o’clock?

  Eight o’clock?

  You felt your heart hammering and your throat was dry and dusty as you crawled toward the kitchen window, praying that she would be taking a nap the way she sometimes did, in the living room, on the couch near the fireplace.

  You were quiet as an animal at the window and it took a long, long time for you to lift your head, to raise your eyes above the sill, noticing the cracked and crusted paint as you looked up, feeling a certain overpowering sadness in the sight of the old wood and the caked and dirtied paint.

  And then she was there!

  She was standing in the doorway and she looked tired from the way she seemed to lean against the wall, a thin woman, a little woman alone in the halo of light from the kitchen.

  What was she staring at?

  What was she holding in her hand?

  You could only see her fogged silhouette but you knew that she was looking down at something that fascinated her, a thing that filled her hand because she was gripping it.

  A gun.

  And she was lifting the gun and aiming it at her head as you watched, like a moving picture, something in slow motion and without any sound at all.

  Until the gun went off.

  And you realized that you had killed your mother, just as surely as if you had pulled the trigger yourself, because her body was failing slowly, slipping to the kitchen floor and you were screaming and running inside, knowing that you could no longer help her, that she was gone forever and no amount of screaming would bring her back, no amount of pain would help you now, your head splitting and hurting as you ran to her, stumbling and falling over a kitchen chair …

  CHAPTER 6

  That was the beginning of it, really, because Coyle could never carry his mind beyond that barrier, that single horrifying incident in his youth. Things had happened after that but he couldn’t recall them clearly. He only knew that he was living soon with another mother and her name was Mrs. Coyle and he was Tom Coyle, her son. She had tried to bury his frightening past with love and sympathy and Coyle called her “Mom” and she became more of a parent to him than the first mother, the mother in his nightmare. So that when Mrs. Coyle died, her death was a violent shock and his loneliness a great burden, too much to bear. He could not stem the awful wave of sorrow and the pain drove him out of the house and seeking solace in liquor. In some subtle way, the very act of overdrinking tied him closer to his first mother, because he knew he was doing a bad thing, a thing that would bring him to more evil. And it was after the first night of drunkenness that he had returned to the kitchen and almost killed himself.

  He stared at Miss Cumber. She didn’t really resemble his foster mother. He could discern now, that the trickery lay in her voice, the pitch, the music, the saccharine quality that came through in every line. Miss Cumber was really quite pretty. She might be in her middle thirties, but there was a girlish freshness in her. Her face was a smiling oval and she used only enough lipstick to accent her full lips. She was really not bad-looking at all, if a man could imagine her in street clothes.

  “You were talking about New York a while ago,” Miss Cumber was saying. “Remember the last talk we had, Tom?”

  “Oh, yes,” he lied. She must have been talking for quite some time, but her words had faded away, never reaching his inner ear. “I want to see New York, Miss Cumber. It’s number one on my list.”

  “That should be fun. There’s a lot to see in New York. You have enough money for a while?”

  “A couple of weeks of sightseeing,” Coyle said. “And then I’ll get myself some kind of a job. I’ve always wanted to live in New York. It’s been sort of a boyhood dream, and if I can make the grade, I’ll stay there for life.”

  “You’ll make the grade.” She patted his hand affectionately. “You no longer think things look so black?”

  “Rose-colored,” Coyle said, returning the pressure of her hands. She seemed to enjoy the closeness and he continued to hold her, wanting to please her, to thank her in this way for her past favors, her great concern for him. “I can blame it all on you, Miss Cumber. You and Doctor Linden fixed things for me.”

  “Doctor Linden will be glad to hear about you,” she said. “He believes that you’ll always be happy so long as you stay busy, Tom. So long as you have a goal in life—and ambition.”

  “It won’t be too tough.”

  “That’s the spirit.”

  She gave his hand a final pat and stood up and the interview was over. He was on his way out and it felt funny. All he had was what he wore, a pair of slacks and a summer shirt and nothing else. Miss Cumber had shopped for these clothes last week. He would have to discard them as soon as he reached New York.
He didn’t want any part of the Camberton hospital living in New York with him, nothing to remind him of the accident and the months of sweating out his recovery.

  Miss Cumber’s starched uniform rustled as she moved alongside him and he was aware that he was about to walk out of her life. For good. He felt a pang of sorrow and emptiness in the main corridor. Beyond the big door, the sun lit the flower border into closer focus, neat and orderly rows of yellow blooms. Beyond the rim of the border, he knew he would see the metal rock with the statue on it. He turned his eyes away from it and shook hands with Miss Cumber.

  “Doctor Linden and I would like to know how you make out,” she said. “Drop us a line, Tom?”

  “You bet I will,” Coyle said and leaned forward impulsively to kiss her cheek. She blushed and opened her mouth to say something but instead only smiled at him.

  “Goodbye,” he said. “I’ll never forget you.”

  “Goodbye, Tom. And good luck.”

  She stood in the hall watching him limp up the concrete walk alongside the flower border, never pausing to look to either side or back at her. An interne came through the hall and saw her there and patted her on the rear playfully. But she didn’t notice it. She felt a strange loss now that Tom Coyle was gone. Miss Cumber was a keen student of psychiatry, who had spent some time at the Tompkinsville Sanitarium and didn’t want Coyle to wind up in a place like that. It had been interesting to fight for him, to bring some happiness to the tall and lean and frightened boy. Boy? Why did she keep thinking of him this way? Was it because of his helplessness on the roof? It certainly couldn’t have anything to do with his physical appearance, because Tom Coyle appealed to her in another way, a deeper, more exciting way that she would never forget. He was pretty much a man, an exciting man. Twice as exciting as George Brokaw, for instance, the interne who was standing at her side.