Okay for Now (27 page)

the shoes from behind the door, and by the time I turned around Lil was picking out an orchid for

herself and the sun had come out suddenly and was throwing everything it could through that window

and it was all landing on Lil, and she was smiling and brushing her hair back the way she does and

being kind of embarrassed because Mr. Ballard was giving her this orchid that was almost as

beautiful as she was, a pale purple one with white just barely on its edges.

She looked at me and smiled, holding the orchid. "What do you think?" she said.

"Beautiful," I said.

We left the orchid and went out of the office and across the mill floor. The sun was still shining

when we opened the door, and some of the people on the floor gasped when they saw the light

pouring through. "Leave it open," someone said, and we did.

We went outside, and there, standing against the wall, I guess on another break, were my father and

Ernie Eco.

They were smoking and laughing like something was really, really funny. The funniest thing in the

whole world.

And Ernie Eco? Ernie Eco was wearing...

My father said, "What are you doing here?" I didn't even look at him.

Ernie Eco was wearing my Yankee jacket from Joe Pepitone.

Lil and I went back inside. We walked across the floor. I left the horseshoes outside Mr. Ballard's

office door. Lil took my hand.

"You better go in and get your orchid," I said.

"I don't..."

"Go ahead," I said.

She waited for a bit, then she bent down to pick up the horseshoes and went on inside.

I was gone before she came out.

I didn't want her to see me.

I ran. Hard. Really hard. Until I hurt so bad that it didn't matter that the world was so unstable. And

it didn't even matter that maybe I was wrong: when the hurricane blew in, it would throw the Brown

Pelican as far as it wanted to.

Ernie Eco didn't come to supper that night.

My mother asked if I'd seen Mr. Ballard and given him the note. I said yes. The orchid was in the

middle of the table, and every so often she would reach across and turn it so that she could look at it

from a different angle, like she was studying its balance.

I didn't say much the whole meal. Neither did my father.

At dessert, Lucas said he thought it was about time he should be looking for work. Christopher said

he could help him get around if he could cut school, and my mother slapped at him, and Christopher

said he should get credit for trying and Lucas told him he'd get by and Christopher wasn't allowed to

miss a day, not a single day, and Christopher said, "How come?" and Lucas got real quiet and said,

almost whispered, "Because you're not going to Vietnam, you're going to college," and my father said

there wasn't any way in the whole world he was going to pay for that and Lucas said that was why he

was getting a job and my father said he wasn't going to get a job because what could he do?

Which pretty much ended dessert.

There's a kind of angry quiet that can lie down over a house. Maybe there are some houses, like the

Daughertys', that have never known it—that house probably hasn't ever had a quiet day. But in The

Dump, Angry Quiet was an old friend, and he moved in again. No one talked because we all wanted

to scream.

Lucas started going out every morning to look for work. You know how many people in stupid

Marysville want to hire someone who doesn't have legs?

Zero.

He went out in that stupid wheelchair every day the first week of April. Every day. He wheeled

himself up and down every street in Marysville that had someplace where someone might get work.

You know how hard it is to go down a stupid curb in a wheelchair? You know how hard it is to get

back up on the other side before a light turns red again? You know how many stores even have doors

that Lucas could figure out how to open while sitting in a wheelchair?

Here's what they told Lucas:

I don't think you could do this job from a wheelchair.

Sorry, but I couldn't put up with a contraption like that rattling around here all day.

It'd be too hard on you, son.

The aisles are too small for your wheelchair. You'd never manage.

Frankly, we don't want our customers feeling sorry about something when they walk in.

People who know they're going to feel sorry don't come back to the store.

And more like that.

But Lucas went out every day. I guess being in a wheelchair can be pretty unstable. But Lucas isn't.

***

Do you know what it feels like to walk into a house where everything is going along just fine when

back at your own house Lucas is going out every day for nothing and Ernie Eco is wearing your

jacket?

That's what it was like the next Wednesday night when I went to the Daughertys' on short notice

again and Mrs. Daugherty said, "Thanks for coming, Doug," and told me there were marshmallow

brownies for me after the kids were in bed but they had already had theirs and they didn't need any

more sugar—which I could tell because Phronsie and Davie had me by the legs and Joel was trying to

push me over and Polly and Ben were waiting to see if I was going to fall over so they could pounce.

"Don't hurt him," Mrs. Daugherty said, and Mr. Daugherty said I was big enough to take it and he

laughed and that was the cue I guess for Ben and Polly because I was down on the floor before Mr.

and Mrs. Daugherty were out the door, and they were tickling me until I agreed to play Bloody,

Bloody Murderer and they all went screaming to hide. When I found Davie, I tagged him and he

became a Bloody, Bloody Murderer too, and then we went into the kitchen and found Polly and she

became a Bloody, Bloody Murderer too, and then we went ... well, I guess you can figure out the

rules. And after that we all had some cold milk and I let them have just a tiny piece of marshmallow

brownie and then we started in on the reading, which as you might remember takes a while.

Phronsie had a new book, and I don't care what anyone says: elephants don't wear clothes.

Davie made me read about this kid who had a name like Tick Tock Tiddley Wink Tembe something

that I could never read right and Joel just about died laughing when I tried and you couldn't do it

either.

Joel had a book about Ben that he thought was great because he had a brother Ben and this Ben

could figure out how to jump to the top of the castle and could I guess how he did it? "You can't jump

to the top of a castle," I said, and Joel started to laugh and laugh and laugh because you can too, you

can too, so go ahead and read it!

Polly had this book about a house in a forest where Laura lives with Pa and Ma and her sisters.

You'd be surprised how good this was, especially considering that nothing happens.

And Ben had this book about a pig that went to Florida and it turned out to be funnier than it

sounds, which was good because there are a whole lot of books with this pig—could I believe it?—

and Ben wanted to read every single one.

Terrific.

So by the time the pig got on his way and all the kids got to bed, it was probably later than the

Daughertys would have wanted it to be but it usually was, and I was sitting in the upstairs hall

listening to everything settle into that kind of sweet and beautiful breathing. Mrs. Verne had given us

more quadratic equations than she should have for Advanced Algebra, and then four problems about

two men who were driving in different directions at different speeds for different amounts of time and

who cares how far apart they could get before one of them ran out of gas, and then the breathing

wasn't sweet and beautiful anymore.

It was wheezing. From Joel's room. Breathing like the breather couldn't get enough air. I stood up.

Wheezing hard and kind of desperate. I went in. Turned on the light. Joel was looking at me, and his

eyes...

Oh God, I had seen the Black-Backed Gull.

I run to his bed and he tries to breathe. He can hardly get anything in. His eyes get bigger. He tries

drawing more air in. Hardly anything.

I run into the hall. I call home. Christopher answers. I tell him to get over here now and hang up. I

run in to Joel. Hardly anything. Run to Ben's room and tell him I have to take Joel to Dr. Bottom's

house and he should stay awake with the others until Christopher comes. "Is it his asthma?" he says. "I

don't know," I say. I run in to Joel. He is standing by the bed with his back arched, dragging in air,

rubbing at his chest, starting to cry. Sweaty. Ben runs in. "Where's your inhaler? Joel, where's your

inhaler?" Joel looks at me like he thinks I can do something. Ben starts tearing the bed apart, and then

he runs to the nightstand and pulls out the drawer and empties it on the bed. "I can't find it," he yells.

"Joel, where is your inhaler?" Polly comes and stands by the door. She looks at Joel. "Is he going to

die?" she says.

I wrap him in a blanket. I carry him downstairs and out the door. Joel puts his arms around me,

tight, like he is fighting a bloody, bloody murderer. Start to run.

Do you know what it feels like running in the night, holding this kid who's crying but he can't cry

because he can't breathe, and you're running and running and you don't know if it's your sweat or his

and he's staring at you afraid and believing in you but you're not believing in you and if the Bottoms

aren't home what are you going to do then?

Running in the night running in the night running in the night running.

Their lights are on. I kick at the door as hard as I can. Again. Again. Again. Joel drags another

breath, weaker now. Again.

The door opens. Dr. Bottom, I hope. One look at us, and he reaches out and he takes Joel. "Otis,

Otis, get the shower running. Hot as you can get it. Now!" Carries Joel into the living room and looks

at me and points to another room where he wants me to get something and then sees that I probably

can't figure out what he wants and he tells me to hold Joel and he runs and then he comes back with

this thing and he hollers, "Here!" and he holds it out and Joel grabs it and holds it to his mouth and

pumps.

And pumps.

And pumps.

And pumps.

And I can hear the air dragging in but it's less draggy. And Joel—who was starting to turn a color

that no human being should turn but I didn't want to tell you about that until you knew it was going to

be all right—Joel looks at me and he smiles.

Keeps pumping.

Breathing.

Breathing.

Sweet, beautiful breathing.

Beautifully.

Dr. Bottom carries him to the stairs. Then he looks back at me. "I'm going to bring him up into the

steam for a bit," he says. He looks down at Joel, breathing, watching me. "Do you know what he's

telling you?"

I shook my head.

Dr. Bottom smiled. "I think you do."

I did.

It's the same thing that Mr. and Mrs. Daugherty told me when they got to Dr. Bottom's house and saw

Joel asleep on the couch, covered with two afghans and being watched over by Dr. Bottom and Otis

and me.

And by the way, Otis made the coffee for us that night, and for the record, it was a whole lot

stronger than Mrs. Windermere's. I guess he was used to making coffee that helps people stay awake.

Maybe he's a good guy too.

Mrs. Daugherty stayed the night at Dr. Bottom's house so she would be there when Joel woke up.

Mr. Daugherty drove me home, then he went back for Christopher and drove him home. When

Christopher came up into our bedroom, I was still awake and sitting on his bed. "So how did it go?" I

said.

This is what he told me:

"Piece of cake."

"Really?

"Really."

"They didn't..."

"Hey, I'm not some chump babysitter. I told them all to go to bed, and they did. That's it. Get off my

bed and go to sleep."

"Shut up or I'm coming over there and kick you both to death."

You can guess who said that.

I went by the Daughertys' house the next morning. Joel was great. And here's what Mrs. Daugherty

told me: When they got home, they saw Ben and Polly holding Christopher down on the floor, and

Davie and Phronsie were beating him around the head with one hand and holding a marshmallow

brownie with the other, and Christopher was begging for mercy, and when he saw the Daughertys he

picked up Davie and Phronsie—who were still beating at him but not letting go of their marshmallow

brownies—and he told Mr. and Mrs. Daugherty where Joel was, and they got into the car right away

and hadn't even thought about telling the children to go to bed.

Piece of cake.

After school, Mr. Daugherty was waiting with his patrol car. When he saw me, he waved, told me

to come over. He opened the side door and I got in, and he said he was going to drive me home to

thank me, and he put the siren on, and off we went.

And here's what Mr. Daugherty told me: The night before, when he got back to the house to pick up