JOHN HILDEBIDLE
63
pIe kept looking at him, so he must have been a mess. He washed up
a little in the men's room at the hospital, but he did look like one of
those guys who always sit way out in right field, sipping from a brown
bag. He went I:lp to Ricky's room. Jo-An wasn't there, or Verna either
thank God; nobody but Ricky in fact, and he was sleeping again.
Kelly looked down at him, at the skinny arms and the mouth that was
partway open , the nose that was finally starting to look like some–
body's - Kelly's? at least a real nose , and not just a kid's - and the
hair that was always a little too long and lay spread out on the pillow.
It
was so soft you couldn't help but take a little bit of it between your
thumb and finger, so soft . "I just don't know," Kelly said, he supposed
to Ricky. The hair was so fine and the head underneath it smaller than
he'd remembered and as soft as if it were wrapped in silk. 'jesus,"
Kelly said; and only realized he'd been crying from the spots his
tears left on the sheet.
•
• •
It was two years, eight months, and six or seven days before he
came back. He'd thought maybe it would be three weeks or so , long
enough for things to settle and maybe the Skip would wise up too,
and his shoulder would be good and healed . But after three weeks he
was still in the Y in New York and still had a couple of bucks left
from what he'd taken out of the checking account, and he'd figured
out that it was chuck it all or chuck nothing. So he headed south. In
Greensboro he worked midnight-to-breakfast in an all-night grocery,
which was good quiet work and left him the days to laze around and
even for a while to talk his way into a fast-pitch softball league. But
that felt too fake, and in the winter the town was pretty dead . Then
there was a trucker in Little Rock who needed a fill-in driver, and
finally repossessing cars in Miami, damn good work too and you
couldn't complain about the climate . Until one day this huge Black
dingo started waving a gun and Kelly thought maybe he was going
to die over a '69 Fleetwood with a rebuilt body and lime-green suede
upholstery. Anyway he had enough money by then to pay back what
he'd taken with him (it was his money to begin with but he thought it
would help if there were no arguments about paying his own way).
The guy he was working for tipped him off to a Toyota with a lot of
body-rot but an engine that still sounded new, and he drove the
whole way back in three days.
He figured he'd call first. He knew her voice of course but he
saidJo-An?
as if maybe he didn't. She hung up, so at least she hadn't
