by John Irving
Peaches appeared over the hill; he was walking the bicycle beside him, and he was limping.
"It hit a tree," he explained. "It went right at the tree like the tree was its enemy."
"You supposed to steer it," Muddy told him.
"It steer itself," Peaches said. "It don't listen to me."
Homer supported Black Pan while the cook mounted Candy's bike a second time. "Here we go," Black Pan said with determination, but he kept one arm wrapped around Homer's neck; he had only one hand on the handlebars, and he wasn't pedaling.
"You've got to pedal it, to make it go," Homer told him.
"You got to push me first," Black Pan said.
"Somethin' burnin'!" someone shouted.
"Oh shit, my corn bread!" Black Pan said. He lunged to one side, his arm still around Homer's neck so that Homer fell over with him--on top of the bicycle.
"I told you he was gonna burn that bread," Peaches told Muddy.
"Give me that bike," Muddy said, taking Angel's bike away from Peaches.
Two of the men were giving Homer a push.
"I got it, I got it," Homer told them, so they let go. But he didn't have it. He veered sharply in one direction, then he veered back toward the men, who had to run out of his way; then he jackknifed the bike and went tumbling one way--the bike went another.
Everyone was laughing now. Peaches looked at Homer Wells lying on the ground.
"Sometimes, it don't help if you white!" Peaches told Homer, and everyone howled.
"It help, if you white, most of the time," said Mr. Rose. He stood in the cider house door, the smoke from the burning corn bread billowing behind him, his daughter's daughter in his arms--the pacifier a seemingly permanent fixture in her mouth. And after Mr. Rose had spoken, he stuck a pacifier in his mouth, too.
In the heart of the valley that was at the bottom of Frying Pan, where the ocean might be a hundred miles away and no breath from the sea ever reached, Rose Rose was stretched out in the dark grass under a Northern Spy that no one had picked yet; Angel Wells was stretched out beside her. She let her arm loll on his waist; he ran his finger very lightly over her face, following the line of her scar down her nose to her lip. When he got to her lip, she held his hand still and kissed his finger.
She had taken off the work shoes and the blue jeans, but she kept Candy's bathing suit and the T-shirt on.
"Wouldn't of had no fun at no beach, anyway," she said.
"We'll go another day," Angel said.
"We won't go nowhere," she said. They kissed each other for a while. Then Rose Rose said, "Tell me 'bout it again." Angel Wells began to describe the ocean, but she interrupted him. "No, not that part," she said. "I don't care 'bout no ocean. Tell me 'bout the other part--where we all livin' together in the same house. You and me and my baby and your father and Mistuh and Missus Worthington," Rose Rose said. "That the part that get to me," she said, smiling.
And he began again: about how it was possible. He was sure that his father and Wally and Candy wouldn't object.
"You all crazy," she told Angel. "But go on," she said.
There was plenty of room, Angel assured her.
"Ain't nobody gonna mind 'bout the baby?" she asked him; she shut her eyes; with her eyes shut, she could see what Angel was describing a little better.
That was when Angel Wells became a fiction writer, whether he knew it or not. That's when he learned how to make the make-believe matter to him more than real life mattered to him; that's when he learned how to paint a picture that was not real and never would be real, but in order to be believed at all--even on a sunny Indian summer day--it had to be better made and seem more real than real; it had to sound at least possible. Angel talked all day; he just went on and on and on; he would be a novelist before nightfall. In his story, Rose Rose and everyone else got along famously. No one objected to anything anyone else did. All of it, as they say in Maine, worked out.
Sometimes, Rose Rose cried a little; more often, they just kissed. Only a few times did she interrupt him, usually because she wanted him to repeat something that had seemed especially unlikely to her. "Hold on a minute," she'd say to Angel. "Better go over that again, 'cause I must be slow."
In the late afternoon, the mosquitoes began to bother them, and it crossed Angel's mind how, some evening, Rose Rose could ask Wally to tell her what the rice paddy mosquitoes were like.
"An Ocean View mosquito isn't anything compared to a Japanese B mosquito," Wally would have told her, but Angel didn't get to tell Rose Rose this part of the fantasy. She was starting to stand up when an apparent cramp, or the pain from her fall against the bicycle's crossbar, dropped her to her knees as if she'd been kicked, and Angel caught her around her shoulders.
"You hurt yourself on the bicycle, didn't you?" he asked her.
"I was tryin' to," she said then.
"What?" he asked her.
"I was tryin' to hurt myself," Rose Rose told him, "but I don't think I hurt myself enough."
"Enough for what?" he asked.
"To lose the baby," she told him.
"You're pregnant?" Angel asked her.
"Again," she said. "Again and again, I guess," she said. "Somebody must want me to keep havin' babies."
"Who?" Angel asked her.
"Never mind," she told him.
"Someone who's not here?" he asked.
"Oh, he here," Rose Rose said. "But never mind."
"The father is here?" Angel asked.
"The father of this one--yeah, he here," she said, patting her flat stomach.
"Who is he?" Angel asked.
"Never mind who he is," she told Angel. "Tell me that part again--only better make it two babies. Now they me and you, and everybody else, and two babies," she said. "Won't we all have fun?"
Angel looked as if she'd slapped him; Rose Rose kissed him and hugged him--and she changed her tone of voice.
"You see?" she whispered to him, holding him tight. "We wouldn't of had no fun at no beach, Angel."
"Do you want the baby?" he asked her.
"I want the one I got," she told him. "I don't want this other one!" She struck herself as hard as she could when she said "other"; she bent herself over again, she'd knocked the wind out of herself. She lay in the grass in what Angel could not help observing was a fetal position.
"You wanna love me or help me?" she asked him.
"Both," he said miserably.
"Ain't no such thing as both," she said. "If you smart, you just stick with helpin' me--that easier."
"You can stay with me," Angel began--again.
"Don't tell me no more 'bout that!" Rose Rose said angrily. "Don't tell me no more names for my baby, either. Just plain help me," she said.
"How?" Angel asked. "Anything," he told her.
"Just get me an abortion," Rose Rose said. "I don't live 'round here, I don't know nobody to ask, and I got no money."
Angel thought that the money he'd been saving to buy his first car would probably be enough money for an abortion--he had saved about five hundred dollars--but the problem was that the money was in a savings account, the trustees of which were his father and Candy; Angel couldn't take any money out without their signatures. And when Angel called Herb Fowler at home, the news regarding the abortionist was typically vague.
"There's some old fart named Hood who does 'em," Herb told Angel. "He's a retired doctor from Cape Kenneth. But he does the business in his summer house over on Drinkwater. Lucky for you it's still almost summer. I heard he does 'em in the summer house even if it's the middle of the winter."
"Do you know what it costs?" Angel asked Herb.
"A lot," Herb said. "But it don't cost as much as a baby."
"Thanks, Herb," Angel said.
"Congratulations," Herb Fowler told the boy. "I didn't know your pecker was long enough."
"It's long enough," Angel said bravely.
But when Angel looked in the phone book, there was no Dr. Hood among the many Hoods in that part of Maine
, and Herb Fowler didn't know the man's first name. Angel knew he couldn't call everyone named Hood and ask, each time, if this was the abortionist. Angel also knew he'd have to speak to Candy and his father in order to get the money, and so he didn't delay in telling them the whole story.
"God, what a good boy Angel is!" Wally would say later. "He never tries to keep anything from anybody. He just comes right out with it--no matter what it is."
"She wouldn't tell you who the father is?" Homer Wells asked Angel.
"No, she wouldn't," Angel said.
"Maybe Muddy," Wally said.
"Probably Peaches," Candy said.
"What's it matter if she doesn't want to say who the father is? The main thing is she doesn't want the baby," said Homer Wells. "The main thing is to get her an abortion." Wally and Candy were quiet; they wouldn't question Homer's authority on this subject.
"The problem is, how do we know which Hood to call, when the phone book doesn't say which one is the doctor?" Angel asked.
"I know which one it is," Homer said, "and he's not a doctor."
"Herb said he was a retired doctor," Angel said.
"He's a retired biology teacher," said Homer Wells, who knew exactly which Mr. Hood it was. Homer also remembered that Mr. Hood had once confused a rabbit's uteri with a sheep's. He wondered how many uteri Mr. Hood imagined women had? And would he be more careful if he knew a woman had only one?
"A biology teacher?" Angel asked.
"Not a very good one, either," Homer said.
"Herb Fowler has never known shit about anything," Wally said.
The thought of what Mr. Hood might not know gave Homer Wells the shivers.
"She's not going anywhere near Mister Hood," Homer said. "You'll have to take her to Saint Cloud's," he told Angel.
"But I don't think she wants to have the baby," Angel said. "And if she had it, I don't think she'd want to leave it in the orphanage."
"Angel," Homer said, "she doesn't have to have a baby in Saint Cloud's. She can have an abortion there."
Wally moved the wheelchair back and forth.
Candy said: "I had an abortion there, once, Angel."
"You did?" Angel said.
"At the time," Wally told the boy, "we thought we'd always be able to have another baby."
"It was before Wally was hurt--before the war," Candy began.
"Doctor Larch does it?" Angel asked his father.
"Right," said Homer Wells. He was thinking that he should put Angel and Rose Rose on a train to St. Cloud's as soon as possible; with all the "evidence" that had been submitted to the board of trustees, Homer didn't know how much more time Dr. Larch would have to practice.
"I'll call Doctor Larch right now," Homer said. "We'll put you and Rose Rose on the next train."
"Or I could drive them in the Cadillac," Wally said.
"It's too far for you to drive, Wally," Homer told him.
"Baby Rose can stay here, with me," Candy said.
They decided that it would be best if Candy went to the cider house and brought Rose Rose and her baby back to the house. Mr. Rose might give Rose Rose an argument if Angel showed up at night, wanting Rose Rose and the baby to go off with him.
"He won't argue with me," Candy said. "I'll just say I've found a lot of old baby clothes, and that Rose Rose and I are going to dress up the baby in everything that fits her."
"At night?" Wally said. "For Christ's sake, Mister Rose isn't a fool."
"I don't care if he believes me," Candy said. "I just want to get the girl and her baby out of there."
"Is there that much of a rush?" Wally asked.
"Yes, I'm afraid there is," said Homer Wells. He had not told Candy or Wally about Dr. Larch's desire to replace himself, or what revelations and fictions had been delivered to the board. An orphan learns to keep things to himself; an orphan holds things in. What comes out of orphans comes out of them slowly.
When Homer called St. Cloud's, he got Nurse Caroline; in their shock, in their grief, in their mourning for Dr. Larch, they had determined that Nurse Caroline had the sturdiest voice over the phone. And they had all been trying to familiarize themselves with Dr. Larch's plans, for everything, and with his massive A Brief History of St. Cloud's as well. Every time the phone rang, they assumed it was someone from the board of trustees.
"Caroline?" said Homer Wells. "It's Homer. Let me speak with the old man."
Nurse Angela and Nurse Edna, and even Mrs. Grogan, would love Homer Wells forever--in spite of his note of denial--but Nurse Caroline was younger than any of them; she did not feel the abiding sweetness for Homer Wells that comes from knowing someone when he's a baby. She felt he had betrayed Larch. And, of course, it was a bad time for him to ask for "the old man." When Larch had died, Nurse Angela and Nurse Edna and Mrs. Grogan had said they were not up to calling Homer; Nurse Caroline hadn't wanted to call him.
"What do you want?" Nurse Caroline asked him coldly. "Or have you changed your mind?"
"There's a friend of my son's," said Homer Wells. "She's one of the migrants here. She's already got a baby who's got no father, and now she's going to have another."
"Then she'll have two," Nurse Caroline informed him.
"Caroline!" said Homer Wells. "Cut the shit. I want to talk to the old man."
"I'd like to talk to him, too," Nurse Caroline told him, her voice rising. "Larch is dead, Homer," she said more quietly.
"Cut the shit," said Homer Wells; he felt his heart dancing.
"Too much ether," she said. "There's no more Lord's work in Saint Cloud's. If you know someone who needs it, you'll have to do it yourself."
Then she hung up on him--she really slammed the phone down. His ear rang; he heard the sound of the logs bashing together in the water that swept the Winkles away. His eyes had not stung so sharply since that night in the Drapers' furnace room, in Waterville, when he had dressed himself for his getaway. His throat had not ached so deeply--the pain pushing down, into his lungs--since that night he had yelled across the river, trying to make the Maine woods repeat the name of Fuzzy Stone.
Snowy Meadows had found happiness with the furniture Marshes; good for Snowy, thought Homer Wells. He imagined that the other orphans would have difficulty finding happiness in the furniture business. At times, he admitted, he had been very happy in the apple business. He knew what Larch would have told him: that his happiness was not the point, or that it wasn't as important as his usefulness.
Homer shut his eyes and watched the women getting off the train. They always looked a little lost. He remembered them in the gaslit sleigh--their faces were especially vivid to him when the sled runners would cut through the snow and strike sparks against the ground; how the women had winced at that grating sound. And, briefly, when the town had cared enough to provide a bus service, how isolated the women had seemed in the sealed buses, their faces cloudy behind the fogged glass; through the windows they had appeared to Homer Wells the way the world appeared to them, just before the ether transported them.
And now they walked from the station. Homer saw them marching uphill; there were more of them than he'd remembered. They were an army, advancing on the orphanage hospital, bearing with them a single wound.
Nurse Caroline was tough; but where would Nurse Edna and Nurse Angela go, and what would happen to Mrs. Grogan? worried Homer Wells. He remembered the hatred and contempt in Melony's eyes. If Melony were pregnant, I would help her, he thought. And with that thought he realized that he was willing to play God, a little.
Wilbur Larch would have told him there was no such thing as playing a little God; when you were willing to play God--at all--you played a lot.
Homer Wells was thinking hard when he reached into his pocket and found the burned-down nub of the candle Mr. Rose had returned to him--"That 'gainst the rules, ain't it?" Mr. Rose had asked him.
On his bedside table, between the reading lamp and the telephone, was his battered copy of David Copperfield. Homer didn't have to open
the book to know how the story began. " 'Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show,' " he recited from memory.
His memory was exceedingly keen. He could recall the different sizes of the ether cones that Larch insisted upon making himself. The apparatus was rudimentary: Larch shaped a cone out of an ordinary huckaback towel; between the layers of the towel were layers of stiff paper to keep the cone from collapsing. At the open tip of the cone was a wad of cotton--to absorb the ether. Crude, but Larch could make one in three minutes; they were different sizes for different faces.
Homer had preferred the ready-made Yankauer mask--a wire-mesh mask, shaped like a soup ladle, wrapped with ten or twelve layers of gauze. It was into the old Yankauer mask on his bedside table that Homer deposited the remains of the cider house candle. He kept change in the mask, and sometimes his watch. Now he peered into it; the mask contained a piece of chewing gum in a faded green wrapper and the tortoiseshell button from his tweed jacket. The gauze in the mask was yellow and dusty, but all the mask needed was fresh gauze. Homer Wells made up his mind; he would be a hero.
He went downstairs to the kitchen where Angel was pushing Wally around in the wheelchair--it was a game they played when they were both restless. Angel stood on the back of the wheelchair and pushed it, the way you push a scooter; he got the chair going faster and faster--much faster than Wally could make it move by himself. Wally just steered--he kept turning and turning. Wally kept trying to miss the furniture, but despite his skill as a pilot and the good size of the kitchen floor, eventually Angel would get the chair going too fast to control and they'd crash into something. Candy got angry at them for it, but they did it, anyway (especially when she was out of the house). Wally called it "flying"; most of all, it was something they did when they were bored. Candy had gone to the cider house to get Rose Rose and her baby. Angel and Wally were freewheeling.
When they saw how Homer looked, they stopped.
"What's the matter, old boy?" Wally asked his friend.
Homer knelt by Wally's wheelchair and put his head in Wally's lap.
"Doctor Larch is dead," he told Wally, who held Homer while he cried. He cried a very short time; in Homer's memory, Curly Day had been the only orphan who ever cried for a long time. When Homer stopped crying, he said to Angel, "I've got a little story for you--and I'm going to need your help."
