The doorknob turned slowly and his door opened wide enough to admit his mother’s head. She saw that he was awake.
“Good morning, Johnny,” she said, coming in. The flowers on her rumpled, quilted housecoat matched the flowers on the wallpaper. She was tall—taller than both her sons, and her long face was coy and girlish. Her gray hair, pulled taut to her head by painful-looking curlers, was partly covered by the top of an old nylon stocking.
“A beautiful day for your first day at home,” she said, sitting on his bed. She put out her hand to touch his forehead, and he involuntarily pulled back.
“I haven’t got a temperature,” he said. She looked at him fondly. “What’s for breakfast?” he asked.
“Anything you want. Ham and eggs? Pancakes? Waffles? You look thin, Johnny. Have you been eating well in France?”
“Sure, but they don’t eat good breakfasts in France. They more or less drink their breakfasts.”
“I hope you didn’t do that,” she said, smiling.
“I drank my lunch and dinner,” he said.
“Oh, don’t try to fool me, Johnnykins!” She got up and did an awkward pirouette as she went to the door.
“Ham and eggs?” she asked. He nodded. “Get right up now, and you’ll get a good breakfast for a change.”
She went down the back stairs to the kitchen, leaving his door open. This was to make him get up. She seemed always to do little things like leaving the door open, as if she realized that a simple request was not enough, and people had to be forced to do what she wanted. He could never ask her what time it was: if she wanted him to hurry she would add fifteen minutes to the time, and if she didn’t want him to hurry she would say it was fifteen minutes earlier than it was. At least she was consistently fifteen minutes off, and if her wants were known to him he could make a fairly good guess. One always had to know her motives.
He rolled over and looked out the window, seeing the leaves of the rock maple bright against a brighter blue sky. He was thirty years old and she called him Johnnykins. Oh, well.
His father came in, washed and shining, tying his necktie.
“Welcome home!” he said. He sat in John’s old leather chair and looked seriously at his son.
“You know, we all have to go and see Bruce this morning. They may have to operate right away. That is, if Bruce gives them the go-ahead. When did you start smoking before breakfast?”
“I don’t know exactly when. Don’t they have visiting hours?”
“Not in Bruce’s case. It’s too serious, I guess, Johnny. I guess they think we may not have much more time to see Bruce. You know, he made out his will the other day.”
“Jesus!” John said.
“You said it.”
They both stared at the flowered wall. Finally William Cotter got up.
“I smell ham and eggs,” he said. “How about you?”
They ate breakfast in his mother’s specially constructed breakfast nook, cramped into a corner of the big kitchen.
“We’ll eat a good breakfast and then we’ll go and see Bruce,” she said. John and his father went on eating.
“He wants to see you, Johnny,” she said.
“He wants to see me?”
“Of course he does! What’s the matter with you?” She suddenly started to cry as she bent over the toaster. The toast popped up and made her jump. “What’s the matter with this family? What’s the matter with it?”
John and his father looked at each other quickly and went on eating.
“He’s your own brother! I don’t understand any of you people!” She left the toast unbuttered and worked her long legs out of the breakfast nook, then went to the window and stood with her back toward them.
“It’s O.K., Glad,” William Cotter said, “Of course he wants to see Johnny. And Johnny wants to see him. Don’t you, Johnny?”
“Sure I do,” John said. “I haven’t seen Bruce for two years now. Got to see how the old boy’s getting along.”
This was the lie she wanted. Now one of them, John or his father, would have to think of something to do to get her back to the table. John put two pieces of bread in the toaster and pushed down the lever. A little bell inside tinkled and attracted his mother’s attention.
“I’ll attend to that,” she said. “You two finish your breakfast.” She buttered toast and poured coffee, her long fingers expert at it.
They took the river road, William Cotter driving. John watched the sluggish river, low and dead between high mudbanks and mud-encrusted stones. He had never seen the river so low. Twisted tree trunks lay half covered, stubby branches reaching out of the muck. Even the hills were different; a lighter, dustier green. The fields along the river flats were overdue for the second cutting, but the sparse stalks of hay would not be much meat for a cutterbar.
“It’s been cold, nights,” William Cotter said, “but no rain and this everlasting wind…” He easily passed a pickup truck and swung back into his own lane. “I’m going to drop you two off and head back to the office for a minute. Got to get things going. Then I’ll come back.”
“It seems to me they can get along for a while without you this morning,” his wife said.
“No, I’d better be there. Nobody knows what to do now Bruce is gone—in the hospital. Got to start things going,” he said, looking straight ahead.
“I don’t understand you,” his wife said, waving away the office. “This morning! Your own son!” Her voice turned ragged.
John decided not to take sides.
“Now, Glad. I’ll come right back as soon as I can! Bruce wouldn’t want things all messed up. Now, would he?”
“I can’t understand you. You know the decision he has to make about operating! And you want to get out of it! Oh, goodness!” She lost control of her voice and put her head down to cry. John put his arm around her and patted her shoulder, but this didn’t seem to help. William Cotter, his forehead beginning to sweat, finally reached over and patted her.
“All right, Glad. All right, Gladdie. Take it easy now. Of course I’ll stay if you feel that way about it. It’s just that business…”
“Business!” she said, sobbing.
“I’m sorry, now. Everything’ll turn out O.K. You wait and see. We’ll have him back before hunting season, you wait and see. Of course I’ll stay!”
She raised her head and took a Kleenex out of her purse.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but today…” She started to cry again, but braced herself against it and this time managed to stop. “There!” she said. She reached up and tilted the rear-view mirror so she could see her face in it, and got to work with the Kleenex.
They came into Northlee and went around the square, past the college buildings. John noticed that the palms of his hands were wet. He felt that he was in a mild state of shock. His face, in the still-tilted rear-view mirror, was pale and unhealthy, and he had to go to the toilet. His father didn’t look very good, either.
They parked in the parking lot beside the ambulance entrance and walked in line around to the front, John’s father and mother slightly ahead, walking as people walk to see the very sick—carefully picking their steps, aware of the fragility of their own bodies. He felt stiff, yet tired, as if he had run a long race and had his wind back, but not his strength. The doors were ahead, up stone steps. It was the first time he had gone to the hospital for such a reason. Before, he had always entered the place in strength and youth—even with his broken ankle the visit meant youth and vigor; the ankle had been broken skiing. But now his brother lay rotting, weakened by his disease, out of shape, in the hospital because of some internal corruption.
“Hello, Johnny,” said a girl whom he had seen in his preoccupation only as a flash of white. Her name. In the neighborhood of Leah he must remember names.
“Hello, Charlotte.” It was Charlotte Paquette. He looked at her out of his nervousness and saw that she had become less pretty, remembered that she had been in nursing school a long time ago
.
“You look different,” he said.
“Well, I’m older.”
“Are you married yet?”
She blushed a little. That hadn’t changed, but where was the quick answer she always had for such questions? Her five brothers had asked many embarrassing questions, and she always had an answer.
“No, not yet. Maybe I look tired. I’ve been on duty all night.” She straightened her uniform. “Mike Spinelli got hurt on his motorcycle—very bad. They brought him in last night.”
“That’s too bad,” he said. Mike Spinelli had sat next to him in home room one year. That was the year Mike had managed to be kicked out of school three times in one week. “He married Jane Stevens, didn’t he?”
“You know that, Johnny.”
“I know. I never could figure out why she married him. She didn’t have to. They don’t have any kids, do they?”
“No, thank God.” Charlotte looked back toward the desk, then to the door. “He’ll probably die. He crushed his chest. On a mailbox. The damn’ fool!”
This startled him. Charlotte, among her five profane brothers, never used to swear at all.
“I’m glad to see you back, Johnny. Are you going to stay for a while this time?”
“I guess so.”
“You’ll be out to see us,” she said. She had gone before he realized that she hadn’t mentioned Bruce.
His mother and father had gone ahead. He asked at the desk and followed the directions to his brother’s room, down cream-colored halls, past trays on stands and sudden views of people in bed, past an old man in a bathrobe walking stooped and slow. Bruce’s door was open, and they all looked up as John entered.
“So he did come,” Bruce said. His bed was tilted so that he could sit up, and his round face, pale, with the eyes dark and burning in it, and the blue of his shaven beard below, turned, after he had spoken, toward his father. John looked away, out the curtained window.
“How are you, Bruce?” he managed to say, and then realized what he had said. He waited for Bruce’s sarcastic answer. But it didn’t come. A man moaned down the corridor, long and windy, then moaned again.
“He always does that,” Gladys Cotter said. “The nurse says she’s disgusted with him.”
“It must hurt bad,” William Cotter said. His forehead was wet. He sat in a deep chair with his knees together and his hat and coat ready on his lap.
Bruce smiled, and as they furtively looked toward him he carefully lit a cigarette. John stood at the window and saw his brother reign over the room as he had always tried to dominate any room; strong, this time, in his sickness. A nurse came in with a tray of medications, picked out a jigger of colorless oil and fed it to Bruce.
“Agh!” Bruce said loudly. She tried to smile. “Would you have somebody bring a chair for my brother?” he said, pointing at John. Her smile became professionally fixed.
“Surely,” she said, and as she left Bruce called to her.
“Hey, Miss Pease J Hey, PeasyJ When are you going to give me a back rub?”
“You just had one,” she said. “My, you’re spoiled!”
“I like your touch, Peasy. I love your lovely touch.”
“Bruce!” Gladys Cotter said.
It was necessary to smile. John made his face smile until the old man’s moan grew in the corridor again. Bruce didn’t seem to hear it.
“Do you have any more of those headaches?” William Cotter asked shyly.
“They keep me doped up,” Bruce said, and then went on quickly, turning to John. “Well, how’s the prodigal son like it back in the sticks? Pretty dull after Paris?”
“Now, Bruce,” Gladys Cotter said, “let’s not start arguing now. Johnny just got home—came home to see you.”
“Ran out of money, you mean. Just made it for the funeral.” Bruce grinned at John, his eyes glaring—the old expression that asked for a fight.
“Same old Bruce,” John said, trying again to smile. My brother, he thought, my brother.
Bruce seemed perplexed. His mad grin disappeared and he reached for his cigarette with a shaking hand.
“He’s probably afraid the goose won’t lay any more golden eggs, or something….” But the effort was evidently too much. He leaned back, and the cigarette rolled out of his fingers and down the sheet. John stepped forward and picked it up.
“You’ll burn youself up,” he said.
“Who cares?” Bruce said, his eyes cramped shut.
“We do! We all do!” Gladys Cotter cried. “What’s the matter with you?” She began to cry.
“Well, well,” Bruce said, watching her carefully.
“Now don’t be like that, Bruce,” William Cotter said without looking up from his bundle of hat and coat. Bruce ignored him and turned to John.
“I suppose this is your chance to go whoring around in my car.” But he began to look perplexed again, and John saw, amazed, that this time Bruce tried to grin and make a joke out of it. As he spoke he became more and more unsure of himself. “I’d give you a list, but I haven’t had time.” He turned his face away and reached for the ash tray on his bedside table, then turned back. “Well, we’ve decided to drill a hole in my head tomorrow.”
“Bruce!” Gladys Cotter said. She could barely speak, and came toward him, her face in fragments. She made a sound like escaping steam and her teeth clicked together several times.
“For God’s sake, Bruce!” John said. Bruce reached out and grabbed his coat, a quick, vicious jerk that turned him around.
“What do you care?” Bruce said. “It’s not your head they’re going to shave. They save the hair, did you know that? Then the undertaker can stick it back on again, did you know that? What did you do? What did I do to get this? You bastard! You son of a bitch!”
“Bruce, I never hurt you.” He pulled away and went to the window. His eyes began to stream tears. Outside, across the green lawn, a woman walked with a little girl who limped. The sun shone on the little girl’s brown hair as she pointed to a gray squirrel. She and the woman spoke to each other, their faces serious and serene.
The room behind him was silent. An English sparrow landed on the windowsill and flew away. John blinked away the tears, precariously balancing them on the edges of his eyes, hoping none would run down his face. The sparrow darted back, saw him and veered away jerkily on short wings.
Bruce, he knew, could not take it any more than he—take the fact of metal in his head, of cutting tools working at his own dear skin and skull. Bruce, who possibly with good reason never trusted anyone, had now to let himself be drugged and hacked. What would he do in Bruce’s place? Call for help? There was no one to call. He might say to the doctors: “Well, thanks for everything. Thanks for your trouble and all, but I guess I won’t have it just now.” No, he must wait while the minutes go by, smoke another cigarette, think about the sound a saw makes on bone. (And what corruption will they find inside? Something is wrong and working in there.)
His father mumbled in the corner. My father, he thought, our father who sits afraid in the shadow, cuddling his hat and coat, his two passports to the freedom of outside. Our mother, whom for some odd reason we despise and love, who can help us? Love we cannot use at the moment. We’re overstocked on it at the moment.
They were talking in the room behind him, and he knew he must turn around.
“Oh, Johnny will help you,” his mother said. He turned, hoping his tears were dry.
“Sure,” he said.
“He doesn’t like to have the nurse,” Gladys Cotter said.
“I would in other circumstances,” Bruce said.
“Oh, Bruce!” she said coyly, happy at once.
Bruce slowly swung his legs over the side of the bed, then pulled his bathrobe around after.
“Here goes,” he said, and stood unsteadily, holding the edge of the table. He arranged his slippers with an uncertain toe, then sighed as he worked his feet into them. He had gained weight, a soft white babyish padding. In spite of
the dark blue shadow of his beard and the wiry hair on his chest and shoulders, he seemed too clean to be a man.
“One of my few remaining pleasures is my bath.” He put his arm out and John took it, hardly able to believe this gesture of need. They had never touched each other except, as children, with the cruel hardness of fists, elbows and knees. And now his hand circled Bruce’s arm above the elbow and found weakness in the soft flesh. The idea of touching Bruce had been to poke a snake with a stick to see the fearful, fascinating coil and strike, or even more to see in Bruce’s eyes the same simple hatred he had seen in the eyes of a wounded hawk. But now he held his brother with a hand suddenly superior in all the mechanics and electronics of the body. The frightening machine needed help.
In the hall nurses and attendants passed, unaware of the miracle. Bruce’s slippers shuffled. John took short steps, knowing that if he let Bruce go, Bruce would fall. For a terrible second he contemplated letting go: Bruce would stare up at him, unsurprised, perhaps, the hawk’s eyes hating and understanding all that needed to be understood, and say, “Now you do it. Now in my weakness you do it.”
Town Burning Page 5
