Eventide (Plainsong #2)(28)

Since yesterday. He keeps coughing and he won’t get out of bed.

They crossed the vacant lot and went into the little house. She had never been beyond the front door, and he felt embarrassed for her to see the inside, to see how they lived. She looked around. Where is he?

Back here.

He led her through the hall to the dark bedroom that smelled of sweat and stale coffee and his grandfather’s sour bedding. He could smell it now in her presence. The old man lay in the bed, his hands outside the blanket. He heard them come in the room and opened his eyes.

Are you sick, Mr. Kephart?

Who’s that coming in here?

Mary Wells from up the street. You remember me.

The old man started to sit up.

No. Don’t move. She crossed to his bed. DJ says you seem like you’re getting sick.

Well, I don’t feel too good. But I ain’t sick.

You look like you are. She felt his forehead and he looked up at her out of his watery eyes. You’re hot. You feel feverish, Mr. Kephart.

It ain’t nothing to talk about. I’ll get over it.

No, you’re sick.

He began to cough. She stood over him, watching his face. He coughed for a good while. When he was done he cleared his throat and spat into the handkerchief.

I want to take you to the doctor, Mr. Kephart. Let’s see what he says.

No, I ain’t going to no doctor.

Well, you can just stop that now. I’m going home to get the car. And while I’m gone you can get dressed. I’ll be back in five minutes.

She left the room and they could hear the screen door slap shut. The old man stared at the boy. How come you ain’t in school where you belong? Look here what you done. Now you got the neighbors all worked up.

You’ve got to get dressed, Grandpa. She’s going to be here.

I know that, goddamn it. Meddling is what you been doing. Sticking your nose in.

Do you want me to help you get out of bed?

I can still do that myself. Goddamn it, give me a minute.

The old man came slowly out of the bed. The long underwear he wore was yellowed and dirty, the bottoms sagged in the seat and were considerably soiled in the front where he’d fumbled at the fly. He stood while the boy helped him into his blue workshirt and his overalls, pulling them on over the underwear, then he sat down on the bed and the boy brought him his high-topped black shoes and knelt and laced them. The old man stood again and went into the bathroom and swiped a wet comb across his white hair and rinsed his whiskered face and came out.

Mary Wells was honking at the curb. They went out and the old man climbed into the front seat and the boy got in back, and they drove out of the neighborhood over the tracks, going up Main Street. There were half a dozen cars parked at this noon hour at the curb along the three blocks of stores and a few more cars and pickups parked in front of the tavern at the corner of Third. The old man seemed lifted in spirit to be riding in the car on a bright day, heading up Main Street in the fall of the year with a young woman driving him. He seemed almost cheerful now that they were going.

Inside the clinic next door to the hospital they waited for an hour and Mary Wells decided to go home so she’d be in the house when the girls returned from school. She told DJ to call her if they needed a ride home. After she left, he and his grandfather sat without talking to any of the other patients who were waiting, and didn’t talk to each other. They sat without reading or even shifting from their chairs. People came in and left. A little girl was whimpering across the room on her mother’s lap. Another hour went by. Finally a nurse came out to the waiting room and called his grandfather’s name. The boy stood up with him.

What are you doing? his grandfather said.

I’m going with you.

Well, come on then. But keep your mouth shut. I’ll do the talking.

They walked back along the hall behind the nurse and were led into an examination room. They sat down. Across the room a diagram of the human heart was taped to the wall. All its valves and tubes and dark chambers were precisely labeled. Next to it hung a calendar with a picture of a mountain in winter, with snow on the trees and a cabin bearing up under the deep snow on its pitched roof. After a while another nurse came in and took the old man’s pulse and his blood pressure and temperature and wrote the information in a chart, then left and closed the door. A few minutes later Dr. Martin opened the door and came in. He was an old man dressed in a blue suit and starched white shirt with a maroon bow tie and clear rimless spectacles, and he had blue eyes that were paler than his suit. He washed his hands at the little sink in the corner and sat down and looked at the chart the nurse had left. So what seems to be the trouble? he said. Who’s this boy with you?

This here’s my daughter’s boy. He had to come along too.

How do you do, Dr. Martin said. I haven’t seen you before, have I? He shook the boy’s hand formally.

That boy’s the cause of all this, the old man said.

How’s that?

He decided I was sick. Then he goes over and gets the neighbor woman to drive me in here.

Well, let’s see if he’s right. Will you sit up here, please? The old man moved to the examining table and the doctor looked into his eyes and mouth, examined his hair-filled ears, and gently squeezed various spots along his stringy neck. Let me listen to your chest now, he said. Can you undo the tops of your pants there?

The old man unhooked the buttons on the shoulder straps of his overalls and let the bib fall. He sat forward.