Getting Nowhere Read online

  He caught me as I lurched into him.

  “Did you call the ambulance?” he asked someone.

  “I told them to get here as fast as they could,” a voice answered.

  “There’s one in the back seat too,” another voice said.

  “That’s Tony,” I told them. “He didn’t want to come. My father’ll kill me if anything happens to Tony.”

  From a vast distance I heard a siren. After, every time I heard that siren, I wondered who was inside. Then I’d turn my head away the way I did when a funeral procession passed, so people wouldn’t think I was trying to see the dead person.

  I couldn’t see Jeff, I couldn’t see Tony. All I could see was the ambulance bearing down on me, its huge yellow eyes picking me out, lighting up the car nestled against the tree, tearing the night apart.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “Don’t look, Charlie. There’s blood all over. All over the seat and the ground and everything.”

  “Why don’t they get those kids out of there?”

  “The one in front’s in bad shape.”

  Tony was lying on a stretcher. A shadow passed over his face. His eyelids made a tremendous effort to stay up and let in some light. His eyes swam in a sea of nothingness. He sighed and I held his hand.

  “It hurts,” he whispered.

  “How old are you?” a policeman asked me. When I told him, he swore. He wanted my name and my father’s and Mr. Fields’s name and the registration. He wrote everything down. The flashing light on the ambulance lit up the cardboard faces of the crowd.

  An old lady in tennis shoes and a straw hat said, “Hail Mary, full of grace,” several times in a loud voice until someone led her away.

  “My father isn’t home,” I told the policeman who drove me to the hospital in a squad car. “There’s no use calling him. He isn’t there. Nobody’s home. They went to the movies. Nobody will answer.”

  “Slow down, kid,” the policeman said. “We’ll take care of it.”

  We went into the emergency room. I hadn’t been there since I broke my arm playing football two years ago.

  A crowd of nurses and doctors milled around. Jeff and Tony were somewhere. I couldn’t see them.

  “This the driver?” a man in a white coat said. I said, “Yes,” and he checked me over, made me stand up, walk around, bend my knees, raise my arms.

  “You’ll do,” he said. “Take one of these.” He handed me a pill. “Just to relax you. Better sit in the waiting room.”

  I went in and read an article telling how to build your own log cabin. Someone had cut out the last page so I never did find out how to finish the walls.

  Mr. and Mrs. Fields came in. Mrs. Fields sat down and put her arm around me. I wished she’d hit me instead. I could hardly bear the weight of her arm around my shoulders.

  “I didn’t mean anything,” I said. “We were just going to swing around the block once.”

  She didn’t answer. If only she’d holler at me. I’d never seen her so quiet. I wished she’d start chewing me out, telling me how rotten I was, blaming me. Anything. Not just sit there with her arm around me.

  Mr. Fields was out in the hall talking to the doctor. He had his hands behind his back. I could see his fingers white and cold looking, lacing, unlacing, holding each other close for comfort.

  It was very hot in the waiting room. Mr. Fields beckoned to his wife and she left me and went out into the hall. Presently they disappeared. I was alone.

  A guy with his foot wrapped in a dirty bandage sat down next to me.

  “Gout,” he said, pointing to the bandage. “What’s your problem?”

  I got up and walked out into the hall. I went to the desk and said, “Can I see Tony Johnson? He’s my brother.”

  The man checked down a list with a pencil. “If you go back and sit down, they’ll call you.”

  I looked into the waiting room. The guy with the bandaged foot was telling another man he wouldn’t wish gout on his worst enemy. “It throbs from morning till night,” he said. “I’m in agony. If they don’t give me something for it tonight, I won’t be responsible for what I might do.”

  It was too hot to stay inside. I went out into the driveway where the ambulance was parked. My head felt sort of woozy so I sat down on the grass. I wanted to lie down and go to sleep.

  A radio was playing. “Now it’s time for the nine o’clock news,” the announcer said. Nine o’clock. My father and Pat were sitting in the movie, eating popcorn, holding hands. Tony was hurting. Jeff was bleeding. Mr. and Mrs. Fields were standing by Jeff’s bed, waiting for him to wake up. If he was going to wake up. I should be standing by Tony’s bed so he wouldn’t be scared when he opened his eyes and saw all those strangers in white hanging around.

  I went back to the desk. “Could I please see Tony Johnson? He’s my brother and he’s only twelve and my father’s at the movies. I have to see him.”

  The man looked up at me. “You again,” he said. “You’re the one who wrapped the car around the tree, huh? Little late to start worrying about your brother now, isn’t it?” He lifted his lips to show off his stubby brown teeth.

  The guy was the kind they get on a child-abuse charge. He’d smack his baby around when it wet its pants or hollered at night. Not to mention if it didn’t want to eat its disgusting cereal or something. He didn’t have to say that to me. I already knew it. I knew it was too late to worry. He didn’t have to tell me. The reason he did was he was a cruel man. He was a sadist. He should be in an institution instead of behind a hospital desk. A sadist was the wrong kind of person to deal with other people who were in need of aid and comfort.

  I opened my mouth to tell him what a terriible man he was. I didn’t have the strength. I could barely walk. I made it to the men’s room and hung over the toilet bowl for a couple of minutes, dry heaving. When I went back to the waiting room, the man with the gout was gone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  When I’d almost given up, my father and Pat were there.

  “Mark,” my father said. His face looked bleached. “You’re all right?” I nodded. “And Tony? Jeff?”

  “They won’t tell me anything,” I said. “I don’t know. I asked a couple of times and they told me to sit here.”

  My father went to the desk. Pat and I went into the empty waiting room. We sat down, side by side.

  “How was the movie?” I asked her.

  “Terrible. Are Jeff’s parents here?”

  “I saw them, then they went away. I’ve been here for a long time by myself.”

  “Poor Mark. I’m sorry,” Pat said.

  Sorry. She doesn’t know what sorry is.

  She put her hand over mine. I didn’t mind. I let it stay. At that moment she was the only friend I had in the world. That was strange. I must’ve gone to sleep. When I woke up, my head was resting on Pat’s shoulder. My neck was stiff.

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  “Twelve-forty.”

  “Did Dad come out yet?”

  “No,” she said.

  Much later my father stood in front of us. “You’d better go home,” he said. “I’m going to stay until Tony comes to. He’s in a coma, from shock, they think.”

  There were lines in his face that had never been there before. Deep, dark lines running from his nose to his mouth. He looked old. My father handed Pat the car keys. I wanted to throw myself at him, to put my arms around him and have him do the same to me. “I’ll stay with you, Dad,” I said.

  He had already turned away. “No,” he said. I didn’t want to leave him there alone. He wanted me to go.

  He walked away from us, his shoulders bent, looking as if it were a difficult job to put one foot in front of the other. I had done this to him. To Tony and Jeff. To everybody. Everyone I cared about was in shreds around me.

  We drove home through the dark streets. There was a light upstairs in the Begoons’. They had a new baby. I suppose they were feeding it or changing its diapers.

>   “What if Tony doesn’t come out of the coma?” I said in the stillness.

  I wanted her to to say, “Of course he’ll come out of his coma. Don’t be silly.”

  Instead, she took a long time answering. When she did, all she said was, “All we can do is pray and hope.”

  I told her about the old lady in sneakers saying, “Hail Mary.” I told her about the awful noise the car made when it hit the tree and about the man with the napkin tucked in his belt. “There was this dog, or maybe it was a cat, and it ran in front of the car so I swerved so’s not to hit it. That’s when it happened.”

  When we got into the house, she asked me if I wanted some hot milk. If there’s anything in this world I really hate, it’s hot milk. The smell of it and the scum on top.

  “Sure,” I said. “That’d be fine.”

  “It always helps me to sleep,” she said, sprinkling cinnamon and nutmeg into the cups. It didn’t taste half bad.

  We turned out the lights, leaving one on in case Dad came home.

  “Thanks for not telling Dad about, you know, that time.” I couldn’t bring myself to say, “The time I put the moves on you.” “I wouldn’t have blamed you if you had.” She hadn’t. I knew that. A lot of people would’ve.

  Pat looked at me. “That’s all right,” she said.

  “And thanks for not giving me a hard time tonight,” I said.

  She was very tired.

  “There’s no need,” she said. “You’re going to be doing that to yourself for a long time to come.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Finally my father came home. In late afternoon a taxi pulled up and he got out. Pat ran to meet him. I stayed inside. He paid the driver and they walked up the path together.

  “Hi, Dad,” I said, opening the door. “How’s Tony?”

  He lifted his head to look at me. “He came out of the coma, if that’s what you want to hear. Fortunately he didn’t suffer any brain damage. The doctors say he’s going to be all right. He has a couple of cracked ribs so he’ll be pretty uncomfortable for a while.”

  “What about Jeff?” I was afraid to ask. I’d called Mrs. Fields a couple of times during the day but there wasn’t any answer.

  “Jeff,” my father said. “Jeff.” He drew his hand across his forehead.

  “Why don’t you lie down for a bit?” Pat said. I realized my father probably hadn’t slept in more than twenty-four hours.

  “In a minute.” He patted her cheek. “Jeff will require plastic surgery. His face is badly cut up. I talked to his father this morning. The police said if the car had been going any faster he would’ve gone through the windshield.

  “Jeff is a nice boy. I’m glad for his sake and for yours that that didn’t happen.”

  “Why don’t you rest for a while and then talk to Mark?” Pat suggested, trying to ease my father toward the bedroom.

  For the first time since they’d been married, she wasn’t successful.

  Relentlessly my father continued.

  “It was almost like a Greek tragedy, your taking that car out on the road,” he said. “Inevitable. Something terrible had to happen. You’re lucky you got off so easily, Mark. You’ve been building up to this for more than a year. So much rage inside a person eventually corrodes. I’ve always thought you’ve been treated reasonably well.”

  He lit a cigarette. The smoke snaked around his head. I stood as still as if he’d waved a wand and turned me to stone. That wasn’t the way it was, I wanted to say. I wasn’t sore. That wasn’t why I took the car out for a spin. I was happy. For once, I was happy. I was celebrating a victory over my enemies. That was the way it was.

  But what difference would it make if I told him? He wouldn’t listen and Tony and Jeff would still be in the hospital and I would still be a shit.

  My father went on. “You’ve been given respect and consideration, and, whether you know it or not, love. I know you’re at a bad age. But so am I. So are we all.”

  He stubbed out the cigarette and with utmost weariness got up.

  “I’m going to sleep now, Pat,” he said and left the room.

  “Thank God they’re going to be all right,” Pat said. “He’s exhausted. It’s been very hard for him, Mark.”

  “If it’s O.K. with you,” I told her, “I’m going to borrow Tony’s bike and cruise around.”

  “All right. Don’t be gone too long.”

  We were all walking as if we were wading through sand. I got on the bike and aimlessly pedaled through the streets. I parked on a side street and went inside a church and knelt down to pray. It was the only time I’d ever done that without having been made to. I said quite a few prayers and made quite a few promises. One thing I can say about myself is I’ve never broken a promise. Knowingly, that is.

  When it started to get dark, I went home.

  “A Mrs. Baumgartner called,” Pat said. “She said she’d read about the accident in the paper and she wanted to know if you were all right. I told her you’d call.”

  “She’s one of my customers,” I said. I looked up the number, dialed, and waited.

  “Yes?” Her voice sounded far away and frail.

  “It’s Mark, Mrs. Baumgartner. My stepmother told me you called. I’m O.K. We’re all O.K.”

  “Mark,” she said. I could hear her smiling. “I’m so glad you called and you’re all right. I thought if anything happened to you on top of everything else I didn’t know what I’d do.”

  “How’s Henry?” I asked.

  “He’s going into the home next week. I went to see it yesterday. It’s clean and they’ll be kind to him. It won’t be the same as home, but then, nothing ever is. Mark?”

  “Yes?”

  “If you’ll stop by in the next few days, I want to pay you what I owe you. I kept track of the hours you put in.”

  “I don’t want any money, Mrs. Baumgartner. I told you I was doing the work because I wanted to.”

  “We’ll talk about it when you get here. I’m so glad you’re all right. That you all are. So glad.”

  Me too.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “‘Do you know where you are?’ they kept asking me,” Tony said, relishing each syllable separately. “‘Do you know where you are?’ and every time I said, ‘Sure. In the hospital.’ You know”—his smile cracked his face wide open—“I couldn’t help feeling that they were disappointed that I had the right answer. I think they wanted me to say, ‘No, where am I?’ But I fooled ’em.”

  Tony was definitely out of his coma.

  “The nurse told me that’s what they always ask a patient who’s coming out of a coma,” Tony informed us importantly. “They want to make sure the patient has all his marbles, that his brain’s in one piece.”

  A nurse’s aide came into the room smiling, smelling of flowers and rubbing alcohol. She handed Tony a glass of orange juice.

  “Anything else I can get you?” she asked.

  “How about a steak and some French fries?” Tony said.

  “Dream on, lover,” she replied and glided out on her rubber-soled shoes.

  “If we don’t get him out of here soon, he’s going to be spoiled rotten,” Pat said.

  “Can I come home today?” Tony asked.

  My father touched him on the forehead lightly.

  “Not today,” he said. “Maybe tomorrow. They want to keep an eye on you. Make sure you don’t leap up and start doing push-ups or high hurdles. The ribs will mend faster if you stay quiet.”

  “Listen, Dad, I’m not messing around with those ribs,” Tony said. “Every time I move they let me know they’re there.”

  “Hello, Doctor,” my father said to a man who paused at the door. “I was hoping you’d come while we were here. Pat, this is Dr. Barnes. My wife and son Mark, Doctor.”

  “How do you do?” Dr. Barnes was tall and thin with ruddy cheeks and a bald head. He looked the way a doctor should look: wise and strong. And competent.

  “Thought I’d stop by t
o see how the young man was doing. Got any complaints, Tony?” the doctor asked.

  “Nope. Only that I’d like to go home,” Tony said.

  “In good time. All in good time.” He turned to me. “You managed to survive without any side effects?” he said. I kept my face carefully blank. I guess he knew all about me. I wasn’t used to people knowing about me. I nodded and wished he’d stop looking at me with that expression on his face.

  “If you’re going to hang around for a while,” I said to Pat and my father, “I think I’ll check and see if they’ll let me see Jeff for a couple of minutes.”

  “All right.” They let me go without a struggle. I could hear them all laughing as I trudged down the hall.

  The nurse told me I could see Jeff if I stayed for five minutes. No more. Five minutes would do it. Maybe he wouldn’t speak to me. Maybe he’d tell me to get out, that our friendship was over, that his mother and father didn’t want him to associate with me ever again.

  I knocked on his door and opened it a crack.

  “Hey,” I said, “it’s me. I came to see how you were.”

  “Hey, turkey.” Jeff’s voice came out in a croak. “Am I glad to see you. How do you like me?”

  Most of his face was swathed in bandages. The eyes peered out on the world as sparkly and bright as ever. I concentrated on his eyes.

  “How are things?” I asked him. A stupid question, everything considered. “How do you feel?”

  “You ought to stick around and catch the night nurse,” Jeff said. “She’s some classy broad. She comes in here, pussyfoots over to my bed, puts her cool hand on my fevered brow, and says in this soft voice, ‘Is there anything you’d like? Anything I can do for you?’”

  Jeff shifted in the bed. “Man, she doesn’t know it, but those are leading questions. If I wasn’t all taped up, I could give her a run for her money.”

  We smiled at each other. The night nurse was probably a grandmother about ten times and her feet hurt and she had varicose veins.

  “Maybe I’ll come back tonight when she’s here,” I told him. “She sounds like somebody I could get interested in.”