The Passenger (The Passenger, #1)(92)

Jesus.

Yeah, well.

You talk about your arithmetic exercises as if they had minds of their own.

I know.

Is that what you think?

No. It’s just hard not to.

Why arent you going back to school?

I told you. I dont have time to. I’ve got too much to do. I’ve applied for a fellowship in France. I’m waiting to hear.

Crikey. For real?

I dont know what’s going to happen. I’m not sure that I want to. Know. If I could plan my life I wouldnt want to live it. I probably dont want to live it anyway. I know that the characters in the story can be either real or imaginary and that after they are all dead it wont make any difference. If imaginary beings die an imaginary death they will be dead nonetheless. You think that you can create a history of what has been. Present artifacts. A clutch of letters. A sachet in a dressingtable drawer. But that’s not what’s at the heart of the tale. The problem is that what drives the tale will not survive the tale. As the room dims and the sound of voices fades you understand that the world and all in it will soon cease to be. You believe that it will begin again. You point to other lives. But their world was never yours.





When he came past the Napoleon Long John and Brat were on the sidewalk at one of the tables drinking gibsons from large stemmed glasses. God’s blood, said the long one. An apparition.

Juan Largo. Como estás?

Mejor que nunca. Sit down. What would you like? The highballs are on me. As the giraffe said to the bartender.

Western pulled back one of the little bentwood chairs. Brat. How are you doing?

I’m all right.

Are you in law school?

I’ve been admitted.

Where?

Emory.

Good school.

I think so.

Expensive school.

Yes.

You’ve come into some bucks.

I have. We thought you’d been carried off to Davy Jones.

Not yet.

He ordered a beer and sat with his feet crossed in the fourth chair. You’re looking well, John. Color. Weight. Have you been taking the waters somewhere?

Not exactly. The truth is I’ve suffered something of a misadventure. You see me in the throes of recovery.

What happened?

A stint at Eastern State Hospital.

The criminally insane ward?

Mossy Creek smiled. He was unwrapping a Churchillian and addressing himself to the procedure of preparing it for smoking. He’d been at a party in Knoxville and as was his wont was using his host’s bedroom phone to place a few fairly expensive longdistance calls. He was on the line with a girlfriend in San Francisco when the conversation degenerated into acrimony such that he finally slammed down the receiver and strode back out through the livingroom. On the coffeetable was a glass punchbowl filled with prescription pills. A multicolored pharmacopoeia of drugs of every provenance and purpose representing the then state of the art in the chemical reconfiguration of the human soul. He reached in and seized a great handful and crammed them in his mouth and washed them down with someone’s gin and tonic and stalked out the door.

The waiter brought Western’s beer. Western tilted the bottle toward his friends.

I woke up, said John, on a dentist’s lawn. Forest Avenue. Some sort of security person was jostling my foot. I asked him what he wanted and he told me I couldnt lie there. And why is that? I wondered aloud.

This is a dentist’s office. People are going to be coming here in a couple of hours to get their teeth fixed. They cant have you lying here. I asked him if it would be all right if I just moved over a bit so that I wouldnt be blocking the walkway but he said no. He said that it looked unprofessional. Which I suppose it did.

He clipped the tip from the cigar. Explaining how he’d struggled on hands and knees up the hill as far as Fort Sanders Hospital and crawled into the lobby to lie on the cool tiles.

Help me, he called.

Margaret did you hear somebody?

Hear somebody?

Help me.

There it is again.

They looked over the counter.

What’s wrong with you?

Help me.

Two black men came with a gurney and took him to the emergency room. The resident came out and looked at him. What’s wrong with you? he said.

Help me.

What do you want us to do for you?

Sheddan thought about that. Well. You could get me one of those half-grain tablets of morphine. You know, the blue ones?

The resident stood studying him. Finally he took some quarters from his pocket and handed them to one of the orderlies. They’re going to wheel you down the hall to that payphone. I want you to call someone to come and get you. If you cant get someone to come and get you I’m going to call someone. To come and get you.

Yessir.

The orderlies wheeled him down the hall and they dialed Richard Hardin’s number and handed him the phone. It rang for a long time. Finally Pat answered. Where are you? she said.

I’m in the emergency room at Fort Sanders. They want to put me in jail.

All right. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.

He handed up the phone. She’ll be here in twenty minutes.

She came swinging through the doors wearing a black silk trenchcoat and dark glasses with a large black leather handbag slung over her shoulder.

What’s wrong with you? Can you walk?

I dont know. Just get me out of here. This is not a favorable environment.