Sons from Afar (30 page)

“Your sweater?”

“I left it in there.”

“Then mine.” James made his protesting muscles remove the sweater. He tied the arms around Sammy's neck to make a sling.

The light had been growing, and they could see the narrow, filthy alley clearly. The street dirt had been added onto by garbage dirt—slimy green vegetable leaves and oily patches of tomato—like colors spread on an artist's palette—dark brown coffee grounds, and an occasional white bone fallen free. If James could have seen the place where they had holed up, he'd never have gone into it. “Let's get out of here,” he told Sammy.

“Stinks, doesn't it,” Sammy agreed, cheerful. “I'd never live in a city.”

“I would. It isn't all like this,” James reminded him. “I think. Can you slow down? I'm really stiff and—I'm okay, I just can't hustle. Cities are all right if you're not poor, I bet. Exciting.”

“Because of all the things you can buy?”

James shook his head. He didn't really have the strength for
talking, not even to try to argue with Sammy about what exactly he'd meant. He'd meant: all the different buildings and what was in them, all the different faces and their lives. But he was too exhausted to talk, too physically at the end of his strength to do more than put one foot in front of the other, keeping step with his brother. As long as Sammy set the rhythm, and didn't try to hurry it up, James could keep going.

He sensed the trees of the park around him, tasted their presence in the air, but his eyes were fixed on his own feet. That helped them to keep moving. Being so frightened really took it out of you, he thought. He sensed Sammy looking over at him, now and then. He wondered if Sammy was thinking of stopping and taking a rest; but James wouldn't let him do that. Sammy had to get to a doctor; but James didn't want to tell his brother that, didn't want to worry him about that.

“Thanks, James,” Sammy said. “For getting me out of it.”

“Hunh?” James grunted.

“I knew I could count on you to think of something,” Sammy said. “You were terrific.”

“You weren't counting on me,” James protested. Asked.

“No. But I knew I could,” Sammy insisted. He was grinning again, James could hear it. Nothing kept Sammy down. “That was really smart, the way you stopped him. I'd have just kept on until he broke my neck, or smashed my leg, or something. But you scared them. Or slit my throat,” he remembered. “Boy, were we in over our heads. We were lucky to get out of there. James? Thanks, and you'll make a great lawyer.”

“I'm not so sure about that,” James answered, his voice wispy. His sneakers just kept moving, left ahead then right, then left again, keeping step with Sammy's sneakers.

“You will, you'll be a great lawyer. You'll make pots of money, and—”

“No,” James said. “About being a lawyer.”

“But why not? What'll you do instead?”

“Can we talk later?” James asked. “Please?”

Sammy didn't even make James talk any more to the extent of agreeing with him. James felt his brother looking at him again, and they just kept on moving.

At the bus station, they went right to the men's room. Sammy took one look at himself in the mirror and burst out laughing. “Back from the wars, hunh?” He studied himself in the mirror. “Did we win or lose, James?”

“We survived,” James told him. He registered only his own pale face before he left Sammy there, while he called Mr. Lingerle in Easton and said they were catching the eight o'clock bus, which would arrive at eleven thirty in Easton, and asked the man to call Dr. Landros to meet them at her office, and reassured the concerned voice that they were okay, only Sammy needed a doctor, and yes, they really were okay, he'd explain later.

Sammy didn't say a word on the bus. James thought he'd like to fall asleep, but he couldn't, with the bouncing and the frequent halts in little towns, with the red lights and uneven acceleration. At Annapolis, he thought with relief that there was only an hour and a half to go, then another hour and a half to home. “You okay?” he asked Sammy.

“He's here,” Sammy said, looking out the window. “Get up, we've got to get off. Cn you get up?”

“Sure,” James said, forcing himself up. He didn't remember a minute of the ride, and didn't wonder who was there. He just followed Sammy.

It was when he put his hand out to hold on to the metal railing beside the steps down from the bus that he heard—it sounded like bones grinding, deep inside the cavity of his chest. The grinding noise echoed the way a sounding bell echoes through
air, only without music. It sounded inside his chest, in his ears, his head. His legs gave way under him, and he would have fallen down the steps except Sammy caught him.
He
was Mr. Lingerle, come to meet them. He took James's other arm.

“What's wrong?” he asked, but moving to the Volkswagen. “What happened?”

“Tired,” James said. Sammy first, then he'd ask the doctor what would make that horrible grinding noise, as if bones were rubbing up against one another.

“There's a hospital here,” Mr. Lingerle suggested, but James said no. He didn't know how they'd pay a hospital, and he could work off any fees for Dr. Landros.

“Are you okay?” he asked Sammy, who leaned back in the rear seat.

“Neither of you are okay,” Mr. Lingerle announced. He was angry. James had never seen him angry. Mr. Lingerle's anger was quiet. “You told me you'd be all right, you told me not to worry,” Mr. Lingerle said.

James leaned his head back against the seat and closed his eyes.

“I'm sorry,” Sammy's voice came from the back. “It's my fault.”

“And what about your grandmother—”

“I know,” Sammy said. “We'll settle it all later. We will. It's great to see you, anyway.”

Then James did fall asleep.

He woke up outside the doctor's office. Dr. Landros didn't say a word to scold them. She just took them back into an examining room and untied the makeshift sling. She was just telling Sammy, and the other two, that it was hematoma, explaining that the swelling was just that, swelling, nothing broken, when Gram burst into the room.

Sammy didn't wait for whatever it was Gram opened her mouth to say. “It's my fault. Really it is,” Sammy said to her, not waiting for whatever she wanted to say.

Gram didn't answer him. She looked at Dr. Landros, who was wearing old slacks and a baggy sweater. “What kind of a doctor are you?” Gram asked. Gram didn't look any much different from the doctor, in her baggy shirt with her hair wild and curly. Neither of them looked too respectable.

“A woman doctor,” Dr. Landros answered.

“Don't be stupid,” Gram snapped. “It says out there obstetrics.”

“Gram,” James said, but it came out a whisper and she ignored him, too.

“Former internist, present general practitioner, fully licensed by the state of Maryland,” Dr. Landros said, turning her attention to James. “And what damage have you done to yourself?” she asked.

“I heard something—grinding,” he said. “Like in my chest. Just when I lifted my arm, and it's kind of hard to breathe deeply and—”

“Take off your shirt,” Dr. Landros ordered.

“These are my grandsons,” Gram explained to the doctor. She was apologizing.

“I don't blame you,” Dr. Landros answered. “You can give them an earful when I'm through here. Does that hurt?” she asked James, her strong fingers pressing on his chest.

Yes, it did.

*   *   *

Four days later, James sat in French class, sat up straight and stiff because of the thick tape his chest was strapped around with, from armpits down to his navel. The X-rays showed two broken ribs. Dr. Landros had strapped him herself, while Gram watched, right there in the emergency room up at Salisbury. Gram hadn't
asked James what happened, not then; neither had Dr. Landros. The only bright spot of the long afternoon had been watching the two women watching each other not ask any questions. They put the bicycle Gram had ridden to the doctor's into the back of Dr. Landros's car, with the fishing rods and tackle boxes. “You rode a bike?” James asked. “Maybeth was worried,” Gram said. James believed that, but he didn't believe for a minute that was all. He'd smiled dopily, and snoozed, almost the whole next day through. Finally caught up on sleep, he went back to school Tuesday. There was nobody at school to tell about what had happened, so he just kept his torso stiff and went through his life as usual.

They'd almost finished with the French reports. Celie's report, and her pronunciation, had been the best so far, although James knew his had been about as good. Better in content but not so good in grammar and accent. The rest were just about what you'd expect. It was Andy Walker's he was listening to now.

James listened with his eyes on his own desk. Usually, he looked at the speaker and thought of questions to ask. There was always time for questions, and they were allowed to be in English, although the oral report, like the written, had to be given in French. James listened to Andy with his body straight but his head down. If he hadn't been strapped up, his whole body would have been hunched over.

Because Andy Walker had just taken the ideas and translated them into simple sentences. Some of them weren't even sentences, because he'd neglected to put an
est
in somewhere, or any kind of verb. Andy hadn't thought about the ideas, or connected them, or anything. James bet Andy hadn't even read the Camus essay. But that wasn't what was making him feel so terrible. James spoke sternly to himself: He'd already known how little he liked what he'd done, so why was he griping now?

He just wanted this to be over, and behind him. He closed his eyes, trying not to hear. He'd never felt so bad before, listening to Andy drop James's ideas one by one, like a kid dropping mudballs onto the ground. Andy didn't even know what the ideas were, not that they were necessarily so good, but that they deserved some attention, some respect. Ashamed, that's what James was feeling. He'd let this happen to his own ideas. He knew ideas didn't have feelings, weren't people, couldn't know what he'd done to them—but he was ashamed before his own ideas.

The ideas didn't know, couldn't know—but that didn't help any, because James knew. He'd thought he could stand it and then forget about it, knowing he'd never do it again. But now he didn't think he could do that. He had to do it, and he couldn't. Personally, he was a dork, a wimp, and he could live with that, he guessed; but his ideas were something else.

Except, there was nothing he could do.

Except, of course, there was. He saw suddenly and clearly what there was for him to do. Except he didn't have the courage. Although Sammy would say he did. Then maybe he did.

When Mr. Norton asked if there were any questions anyone wanted to ask Andy, James raised his hand. His was the only hand up. Since Andy hadn't said much of anything, there wasn't much of anything for anyone to ask questions about. Mr. Norton called on James.

“I wanted to ask Andy,” James told the teacher, “if he thought Camus had based his essay on the myth that says Sisyphus was punished for defying the gods when he brought water to Corinth.”

“You mean Camus's interpretation of the myth,” Andy said. He hadn't expected James to ask any questions.

“The myth he bases the essay on, yes,” James clarified it, making himself look at Andy. “Do you think that's the one?”

“I'd say so,” Andy said, saying nothing.

James nodded his head, then raised his hand again. Mr. Norton called on him again.

“Or, do you think it was based on the story about Sisyphus wrestling Death, and winning, so the underworld was empty, so the gods punished him for that?”

“You know,” Andy said, sounding surprised, “I think that's probably it. Instead.”

James nodded his head. Andy was trying to sound surprised at a new idea—another old student trick—but he was really surprised at James asking questions. James raised his hand yet again. Mr. Norton called on him again, but with a strange expression on his face. James could bet that Mr. Norton could guess what his next question would be—after all, the teacher had read the essay.

“Or do you think it's the story about Sisyphus being allowed to come back from the dead to get back at his wife and then refusing to go back down into the underworld because life was so good. Do you think that's what they're punishing him for?”

Andy hesitated over his answer to that question. He was trying to figure out how to answer it without giving himself away.

“I never heard that one,” he said. He wasn't looking any too pleased with James. Mr. Norton wasn't looking any too pleased with James either, although he was also looking puzzled. When James raised his hand again, Mr. Norton hesitated. A lot of people in the class, restless, ready to let Andy off the hook, turned to stare at James. He ignored them all, even Celie.

“What do you think Camus means when he says there's no fate that can't be surmounted by scorn?” James asked Andy. He didn't bother trying to make his face look innocent. Andy wasn't an idiot; he knew what James was up to. He was nervous, James could see, but scaring Andy Walker wasn't what James was
after. If Andy wanted James not to ask questions, then he should have used James's ideas with a little respect. But Andy hadn't, any more that he'd used respect in making a date with Celie Anderson. James waited for Andy's answer. He knew Andy couldn't answer.

“Well, it's pretty much just what Camus says. It's pretty simple. I don't have any trouble with it.” Andy tried to turn the tables on James, trying to make it sound like James was turning something simple and clear into something complicated and difficult. “It just means—you should scorn your fate. You know, not let it get you down.”