JOHN HILDEBIDLE
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did was get his blood pressure up, so when he went into the hospital
lobby and saw Verna, it was just about what he expected. She was
chainsmoking Trues, and sweet as ever. "Nice you could drop in,"
she said, and let a cigarette ash collapse on to the sleeve of her dress.
"I couldn't sleep much and then dozed off, you know?" Kelly said. "No
big deal," she said, "everybody else is sleeping like babies." "Verna,
just this once don't be a bitch, okay? 1 got a couple things on my
mind." "You find any time to think about Ricky? Or just jockstraps?"
"Verna, I'm telling you 1 don't need this. 1 don't. I'm going upstairs."
"He's down getting some test. You might as well stay here." "For the
company?" "You could listen for once to somebody who isn't sweat–
ing." "Verna, don't start." "Don't start? Don't start? You want to run
around all the time pretending you're still Mr. Little League of 1965
and we should all just clap? Ricky could use a father right now who
works for a living." "I work. What the hell do you know about it? 1
work and just because I'm good at something...." "Yeah. 1 read
about it in the papers. You could be down at the lumberyard right
now and not waiting for some Puerto Rican to break a leg so you can
get your big chance." "I could be down at the lumberyard and happy
just like Frankie the Bastard was, huh? What have you ever done
that you didn't fuck up?" He said that louder than he meant to and
the mousy old lady at the information desk looked up and shushed
him. He went off to get a cup of coffee. Verna lit another cigarette,
with that look she always had, like she'd just proved something.
He was on his fifth cup of coffee when Verna came to find him .
"You could see him now," she said, and then waited a second and al–
most whispered, "hotshot." He let that go and went upstairs. Jo-An
sat next to Ricky's bed, holding his hand. From the doorway they
looked as still as a poster photograph:
give so more may live
and all that .
He waited to see if they noticed. A nurse had to squeeze past him
with some medicine or other and said
excuse me
as if he should have
known better than to get in the way. Jo-An couldn't take her eyes off
the boy but Ricky looked over and smiled. "Hey, Rick-o," Kelly said,
and stood near the bed. "Hey," Ricky said, "you get the day off?"
"Yeah," Kelly said, "to see you." Kelly knew he should ruffle the kid's
hair or something but he couldn't touch him; his hand just would not
move so he stood there, with his arms crossed and each hand stuck
under an armpit, and smiled. There were no tubes or bandaids but
Ricky was pale and in a few minutes he fell asleep. Kelly could see
that Jo-An was maybe going to let herself cry, while Ricky wouldn't
notice, and Kelly said he needed to pee and got the hell out of there.
