The Collected Stories of Richard Yates (63 page)

“I wouldn't worry about it,” Garvey said. “Probably just that she was afraid you
might
be jealous; might get upset over nothing.”

“Well, yeah,” Lynch said doubtfully, “I guess you're right.” He didn't want to talk about it any more, and all the next morning he was silent and brooding until the mail came. But when he read the letter he received, and it looked as though he read it several times, he seemed relieved and pleased.

Garvey caught his eye. “She still love you?”

Lynch smiled, half embarrassed and half proud, and said yes, he guessed so. And that afternoon, when Mary Kovarsky took the pulses after Quiet Hour, she gave Lynch a look that sent the color rising flagrantly in his thick neck. Even with the mask covering half her face, it was a look conveying all the reassurance in the world.

Everything seemed all right, then. Lynch had no further trouble getting his calls through, and Costello no longer hogged the portable telephone; apparently he had given up. Any traces of doubt were removed a month later, when it became evident that Costello had, as Coyne put it, gotten himself shacked up with something in the neighborhood, possibly one of the girls they had met that night in the bar, when Costello had been a million laughs. This was indicated—proven to Coyne—by the fact that he had begun going out three or four nights a week, sometimes taking Coyne along but always leaving him after the first few beers to go off alone. Soon he stopped taking Coyne altogether, and it was regularly reported that the headlights of a car came up to within a hundred yards of the latrine's fire exit, where the car apparently picked Costello up and drove him away. Once he returned a white shirt he had borrowed from old Mr. Mueller, who held it up with comic chagrin to show it was smeared with lipstick. “Damn shirt's been in my stand for two years,” he whined, surrounded by laughter, “and all
I
ever got on it was
dust.
” And Coyne, examining Costello's bare back when he stripped to the waist in the heat of that same afternoon, swore he could see scratches, evidence that frenzied fingers had clawed him. “Damn, boy,” he said, “she really must've given you the business.”

By now it was late summer, heavy and hot in the ward, and except during visiting hours the men would lie half-naked on stripped beds, too hot to read or write or play cards, while the radios droned. (“. . . It's a high, high fly ball out to left field; Woodling's under it—a-and—takes it, to retire the side. Say, men: Want a shave that leaves your face feeling like a million dollars? . . .”) Electric fans had been shelved at either end of the room, but their lolling wire faces barely stirred the sickroom air, barely lifted and let fall the dangling corner of a sheet. In order to survive the afternoon it was almost essential to have some promise of an evening's reward, so beer parties in the latrine had become more frequent, arranged by telephoning a local delicatessen whose delivery boy had standing instructions to wait outside the fire exit until a patient slipped out to meet him. It was on just such a day, with a party planned, that Lynch received his final letter in the afternoon mail. He came over to Garvey's bed with that odd, incongruous little smile that plays on the lips of the very shy when they announce a death. “It's all over, Frank. She wants to call the whole thing off.”

“Christ, Tom, what do you mean? Just like that? Out of a clear sky?”

“Wasn't exactly a clear sky,” he said. “Seems that way now, but I guess I've known for a couple of weeks she was acting kind of funny—” He broke off, as if bewildered, far from satisfied with what he had said. “Ah, I don't know, I don't know, it just don't sound natural. You want to read it?”

“Not unless you want me to.”

“Go ahead.”

“You sure?”

“Sure I'm sure. Go ahead—see if it sounds natural to
you
.”

Mary Kovarsky's handwriting was a blend of lifelessly even grammar-school scripts and girlish affectations. Some of her
i
's were dotted with little circles.

The party shaped up about nine. Two cases had been ordered and when Garvey and Lynch joined the group in the latrine the delivery boy had just arrived. Coyne brought the first case through the fire-exit door, and then old Mueller wrestled the second one inside, his scrawny back bent painfully. Costello gave him a hand, and they stowed both cartons in the shower stall, where they would be out of sight in case an angry nurse opened the door or an unfriendly attendant walked through. The parties always began the same way; after the hiding of the beer and a search for can openers, the first round of cans would be punctured with careful noiselessness, and the men would settle down to talk, very quietly at first, about the nurses on duty that night—whether they were good skates or could be counted on to make trouble. It was a big, ugly room of yellow-brown tile, staringly lighted by two big globes in the ceiling. The only places to sit down were the open toilet bowls that stood in facing rows against two of the walls, two or three steel chairs from the ward that had been left here from previous parties, and an overturned wastebasket.

Tonight it developed that a reasonably good skate, a Miss Berger, was on duty until midnight, but that they'd have to watch their step after that because old Fosdick had the twelve-to-eight shift. Coyne did most of the talking, his chair tilted back against the tiles and his pajama pants hiked to the knee while he scratched a white leg. “Hell, I don't think we got to worry about old Fosdick, long as we keep the noise down. She's been pretty good lately.”

“You want to watch her, though,” Costello said. “She's all right as long as she thinks you're scared of her, but she won't take any crap.”

“Well,” Coyne said, grinning over at Garvey and Lynch, “I guess our boy Costello's the expert on
that
subject all right. Ha-ha-ha goddamn! Any of us tried raising the kind of hell he does around here we'd be on Report five times a week.” Costello chuckled, pleased, and swilled the beer around in his half-empty can. “Ah, it's all in knowing the angles, lad. Some things can't be taught, that's all.”

Lynch looked all alone, hunched on one of the toilet bowls in his faded pajamas, staring at the floor. He had eaten almost none of the supper, drank the coffee and nibbled at the cake that was for dessert, that was about all. Garvey was trying to think of something to say, trying to get him to talk.

“What's the matter with old Lynch over there,” Coyne demanded. “He sick or something? Got a slight case of TB or something?”

“I think he needs a new beer,” Garvey said. “That's his trouble.”

“By God, Professor,” Costello said, “that's my trouble too.” And he went to the shower stall.

By the time the first case was gone the party had divided into two groups; Mueller and several other old-timers at one end of the room, comparing reminiscences of hospitals they had known, and Lynch, Garvey, Coyne and Costello at the other end, talking about homosexuality. Garvey didn't know how the subject came up; he hadn't been listening to all of it. The beer had numbed his senses a little and he had removed and wiped his glasses several times before he realized they weren't really misted; he was getting drunk.

“—So when he said that,” Coyne was saying, “about coming up to his room, I figured ‘oh-oh, I don't want no part of this,' so I told him no thanks, I had to go, and I took off. But it was a funny thing, to look at him you'd never think he was any different from you and me.” It was the end of a long story, Coyne's contribution.

“Sure,” Costello said. “That's the way a lot of them are. Look and act just like anybody else.”

“That's the kind you want to look out for,” Lynch said. “I hate them sneaky bastards.” He bore down heavily on the opener, piercing a fresh can, and the foam slopped over his fingers onto the floor.

“No reason to hate 'em,” Costello said, shrugging.

“Oh, no?” Lynch glared at him. He looked tough sitting there, his pajama top open across his chest, a tiny religious medallion swinging on its damp silver chain among the hairs. “Well, I do. I hate their guts, every one of 'em. Like that Cianci bastard, that attendant. ‘Member, Frank? I told you about him. Comes creeping around one night when I'm taking a shower, starts talking about how lonely the boys must get here, giving me that goddamned smile of his. “You lonely, Lynch?' he says. I told him, ‘Look, Jack—you want to play games, you picked the wrong boy. Think you better keep outa my way from now on.' That's the only way to talk to them bastards. I hate 'em all.”

“Oh, what the hell,” Costello said. “They're psycho cases, that's all.”

“Oh, yeah?” Lynch said. “Oh, yeah? Well if you like 'em so goddamn much I'll fix you up with Cianci.”

Costello laughed softly. “Jesus, he gets nasty when he's drunk, doesn't he? I didn't know you were one of these nasty drunks, Lynch.”

“I want everybody out of there in five minutes,” Mrs. Fosdick called through the door.

“Okay, Mrs. Fosdick,” Costello called back. “Just breaking it up now.” The old-timers began tiptoeing to the shower stall to deposit their empty cans.

“Damn,” Coyne whispered. “We still got half a case in there.”

“So?” Costello said, yawning and getting to his feet. “Go in and lay down for half an hour, then come back and finish it up if you want to. Me, I'm going to sleep.”

“Well, Christ, we can't let it go to waste,” Coyne said. “How about you, Garvey?”

“I think I've had enough too.”

“Lynch?”

“What?”

“Want to come back?”

“Hell,” Lynch said. “I'm just beginning.”

They filed out and felt their way to bed in the darkness. Garvey lay down gratefully and closed his eyes, but opened them quickly when he felt a sudden rush of dizziness. For a long time it was necessary to lie with the pillow folded tight under the back of his neck and concentrate on the dim white outline of the foot of his bed. Whenever he closed his eyes or lost sight of the outline, the sickly dizziness returned. His concentration was so intense that he scarcely noticed when Lynch got up, whispering to Coyne, and the two of them went back to the latrine. Sleep settled over him in uneasy, fitful waves, each heavier than the last. He fought them off at first and then gave in, like a man drowning.

“—Garvey. Garvey.” It was Coyne's voice, low and urgent. “Garvey.” Something was digging into his shoulder; Coyne's hand. The folded pillow was a painful lump under his skull, and there was another streak of pain over his eyes. “Garvey.” His mouth felt swollen, too dry for speaking. “What time is it?” he said at last.

“Jesus, I don't know.” Coyne's voice had a sharp whiskey smell. “About four, I guess.”

“Four?” he said, tying to make it mean something.

“Listen, your boy Lynch is in bad shape. We been out to a couple gin mills and he's loaded. Sitting in the latrine, won't take off his clothes. You wanna gimme a hand with him?”

“All right,” Garvey said. He was fully awake now, moistening his lips. “Be right in.” Coyne hurried off and Garvey sat up painfully, holding his head. He found his glasses on the bed stand and fumbled on the floor for his slippers.

The latrine lights shocked his eyes, but in a moment he made out Lynch, slumped on one of the chairs in his blue suit, and Coyne hovering over him. Lynch looked terrible. His face shone bright red, the mouth loose and wet and the eyes filmed over. “Come on, boy,” Coyne was saying. “Lemme take your coat off.”

“Ah, lea' me alone, lea' me alone, will ya?” Lynch tossed his head and pushed Coyne's hand away from his shoulder. “There's old Frank. Wha'ya say, Frank? Listen, Frank, tell this sunvabish to lea' me alone, will ya?”

“Okay, Tom,” Garvey said. “Take it easy now.”

Coyne took one lapel of Lynch's coat and Garvey the other, but Lynch tightened his arms. “Lea' me alone, gah damn it! Both you bastards, lea' me alone!”

“Keep your voice down, Tom,” Garvey said. They managed to work the coat down around his elbows when suddenly he stopped resisting, his eyes fixed glitteringly on the latrine door. Garvey looked up. Cianci, the night attendant, had just come in, blinking under the lights. The linen mask hung loose under his chin, revealing a childish mouth.

“Well,” Lynch said. “Speaka the devil.”

“Somebody speaking of me?” Cianci asked in mock concern, and then he smiled knowingly at Garvey. “Look, do you gentlemen want some help?”

“No thanks,” Garvey said. “We can handle him.”

Lynch glared at the attendant. “Thought I tol' you keep outa my way.”