The Dead Zone(50)

'I'm glad you did.'

Like strangers on a bus, he thought dismally. It's got to be more than this, doesn't it?

'So how're you doing?' she asked.

He smiled. 'I've been in the war. Want to see my battle scars?' He raised his gown over his knees, showing the S-shaped incisions that were now beginning to heal. They were still red and hashmarked with stitches.

'Oh, my Lord, what are they doing to you?'

'They're trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again,' Johnny said. 'All the king's horses, all the king's men, and all the king's doctors. So I guess.. 'And then he stopped, because she was crying.

'Don't say it like that. Johnny,' she said. 'Please don't say it like that.'

'I'm sorry. It was just ... I was trying to joke about it.' Was that it? Had he been trying to laugh it off or had it been a way of saying, Thanks for coming to see me, they're cutting me to pieces?

'Can you? Can you joke about it?' She had gotten a Kleenex from the clutch bag and was wiping her eyes with it.

'Not very often. I guess seeing you again ... the defenses go up, Sarah.'

'Are they going to let you out of here?'

'Eventually. It's like running the gauntlet in the old days, did you ever read about that? If I'm still alive after every Indian in the tribe has had a swing at me with his tomahawk, I get to go free.'

'This summer?'

'No, I... I don't think so.'

'I'm so sorry it happened,' she said, so low he could barely hear her. 'I try to figure out why... or how things could have changed -,. and it just robs me of sleep. if I hadn't eaten that bad hot dog ... if you had stayed instead of going back...' She shook her head and looked at him, her eyes red. 'It seems sometimes there's no percentage.

Johnny smiled. 'Double zero. House spin. Hey, you remember that? I clobbered that Wheel, Sarah.'

'Yes. You won over five hundred dollars.

He looked at her, still smiling, but now the smile was puzzled, wounded almost. 'You want to know something funny? My doctors think maybe the reason I lived was because I had some sort of head injury when I was young. But I couldn't remember any, and neither could my mom and dad. But it seems like every time I think of it, I flash on that Wheel of Fortune ... and a smell like burning rubber.'

'Maybe you were in a car accident...' she began doubtfully.

'No, I don't think that's it. But it's like the Wheel was my warning... and I ignored it.'

She shifted a little and said uneasily, 'Don't, Johnny.'

He shrugged. 'Or maybe it was just that I used up four years of luck in one evening. But look at this, Sarah.' Carefully, painfully, he took one leg off the hassock, bent it to a ninety degree angle, then stretched it out on the hassock again. 'Maybe they can put Humpty back together again. When I woke up, I couldn't do that, and I couldn't get my legs to straighten out as much as they are now, either.'

'And you can think, Johnny,' she said. 'You can talk. We all thought that... you know.'

'Yeah, Johnny the turnip.' A silence fell between them again, awkward and heavy. Johnny broke it by saying with forced brightness, 'So how's by you?'

'Well... I'm married. I guess you knew that.'

'Dad told me.'

'He's such a fine man,' Sarah said. And then, in a burst, 'I couldn't wait, Johnny. I'm sorry about that, too. The doctors said you'd never come out of it, that you'd get lower and lower until you just... just slipped away. And

even if I had known ...' She looked up at him with an uneasy expression of defense on her face. 'Even if I had known, Johnny, I don't think I could have waited. Four-and-a-half years is a long time.'

'Yeah, it is,' he said. 'That's a hell of a long time. You want to hear something morbid? I got them to bring me four years worth of news magazines just so I could see who died. Truman. Janis Joplin. Jimi Hendrix - Jesus, I thought of him doing "Purple Haze" and I could hardly believe it. Dan Blocker. And you and me. We just slipped away.'

'I feel so bad about it,' she said, nearly whispering. 'So damn guilty. But I love the guy, Johnny. I love him a lot.'

'Okay, that's what matters.'

'His name is Walt Hazlett, and he's a...'

'I think I'd rather hear about your kid,' Johnny said. 'No offense, huh?'

'He's a peach,' she said, smiling. 'He's seven months old now. His name is Dennis but we call him Denny. He's named after his paternal grandfather.'

'Bring him in sometime. I'd like to see him.'

'I will,' Sarah said, and they smiled at each other falsely, knowing that nothing of the kind was ever going to happen. 'Johnny, is there anything that you need?'

Only you, babe. And the last four-and-a-half years back again.

'Nah,' he said. 'You still teachin?'

'Still teachin, for a while yet,' she agreed.

'Still snortin that wicked cocaine?'

'Oh Johnny, you haven't changed. Same old tease.'

'Same old tease,' he agreed, and the silence fell between them again with an almost audible thump.

'Can I come see you again?'