“I’m not sure you...”
“Wanna sit up.”
“All right.” Turee cranked the bed up halfway. “That better?”
“Nothing’s better. Nothing’s better in the whole world.” His slurred speech and glassy, unfocused eyes made it clear that either Harry was still drunk or under the influence of a sedative. “Nothing. See?”
“I see. Sure.”
“You’re a good head, Ralph. There’s no better head than you, nowhere. See?”
“Sure, sure. Now take it easy.”
Harry closed his eyes and lapsed into incoherence for a time. Only the odd word was distinguishable, but his angry, guttural tone and his bellicose expression indicated strongly that Harry was telling somebody off.
Turee moved up to the head of the bed and put his hand lightly and firmly on Harry’s shoulder “Harry, can you hear me?”
“Can’t hear you. Go away.”
“What’s bothering you?”
“I bumped into a street car. Damn thing wouldn’t move. I was in a hurry.”
“Where were you going?”
“No place. No place to go.”
“Before you hit the street car, Harry, what happened?”
“I had a little drink.”
“I know that.”
“One little drink. ’S what I told the policeman. ’S what I’m telling you.”
“I thought you were at work. You don’t usually drink between office calls.”
“No office calls. No more office calls.”
“What do you mean?”
“ ‘Take your goddam pills,’ I said, ‘I quit.’ I said, ‘The whole bloody bunch of you can go jump in the lake.’ Lake.” He repeated the word, wincing, as if it had pierced his consciousness like a needle. “Lake. I was in a bar. I heard them talking about a lake. Ron. That’s what Ron did. Jumped in the lake. Isn’t that funny, hah? Isn’t that funny?” Tears were streaming down his face, and he had begun to hiccough. “Wanted to jump in the lake too. Couldn’t find it. Couldn’t find the bloody lake.”
“You can find it some other time,” Turee said dryly. “Right now you’re supposed to take it easy.”
“Street car in my way. Wouldn’t move. ‘Giddyap,’ I said, ‘giddyap,’ and I stepped on the gas. Didn’t mean to hit it, just wanted to push it along, get it started. I was in a hurry. I was — where was I going? Can’t remember.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Harry wiped his face on a corner of the bed sheet, then held it against his mouth to stem the flow of hiccoughs. “My head hurts. I broke something. Did I — broke something?”
“No.” He wishes he had, Turee thought. It would be easier on him if he could misdirect his misery at something physical. But all Harry’s breaks are in places no doctor could reach to use a splint or apply a cast. “You’ve got a hangover,” Turee added bluntly. “How much did you have to drink?”
“Just one little...”
“Come off it. I’m not a policeman. How much?”
“Don’t, don’t, don’t. I can’t remember.”
“All right.”
“I needed a drink. I quit my job.”
“Why? You’ve always liked your job.”
“No wife any more, no home, might as well have no job, start from scratch.”
“That’s pretty childish logic. How do you expect to live?”
“I don’t know. I don’t care.”
“Do you think the company will take you back? You’ve been with them for years.”
“I’m not going back.”
“You could apply for a transfer to another city.”
“No wife, no home, no job.”
“Also no friends, if you want to play it that way.”
“Friends.” Harry spit the word across the room as if it had a foul taste. Then he turned and buried his face in the pillow and started to curse. He kept it up for a long time.
“You’re beginning,” Turee said finally, “to repeat yourself.”
“Shut your goddam...”
“All right, all right, all right.”
“How the hell did you get here anyway? Who asked you to come?”
“Thelma. I was with her when the hospital phoned.”
“Doing what? Or is that too personal?”
Turee, white with anger, explained in very elementary language what he was not doing with Thelma. “Now is that clear enough for you or shall I draw pictures?”
“Goddam you, shut up! Shut up, shut up!”
As if on cue, Miss Hutchins, the nurse, reappeared. She wore the professional smile which she picked up outside the door like a surgical gown and left there when she departed. “Just what is going on in here? Do you want to wake the whole hospital? How does your head feel?”
Without waiting for any answers, she began adjusting the tray holder on Harry’s bed. “Here we are. Some nice Cream of Wheat. And a cup of chocolate with a marshmallow — one of the new dietitians is bugs on marshmallows, puts them in everything. And two little pills to help with the jitters.”
Harry glanced briefly at the pills. “Chlorpromazine.”
“Now how did you know that?”
“Never mind. I won’t take them anyway. I want my clothes.”
“What for?”
“I’ve got to get out of here. Where are my clothes?”
“Where I put them. So let’s not have a hassle, Mr. Bream. In a hospital when the doctors says you stay, you stay. Might as well pretend you’re a guest and be polite about it.”
“I have to talk to my wife. It’s urgent.”
“Look, Mr. Bream, even if you managed to get out of here, you wouldn’t be allowed to go home. You were driving while drunk and involved in an accident. You’ll have to be taken down to the jail and booked. There’s a policeman at the desk now waiting to question you about the accident. This isn’t the Royal York Hotel but it’s better than a cell in the local pokey.”
“Bail. I could get bail. Ralph, how much money have you got?”
“Here?” Turee said. “About a dollar and thirty-five cents. In the bank, a little more.”
“Well, there’s Bill Winslow or Joe Hepburn. Or Esther. No, we couldn’t bother Esther. But Bill would...”
“Bill won’t,” Miss Hutchins said bluntly. “Not tonight, anyway. Now if you behave yourself, you can stay here. You’re warm, comfy, well looked after. But if you start throwing fits they’ll haul you up to the psycho ward. Some of the beds there have cages around them. Now do you want to spend the night locked up like a monkey in a zoo, or are you going to be a good boy, eat your Cream of Wheat, take your pills and stop arguing?”
Harry peered at her resentfully from under his bandages. “You’re very rude.”
“Am I now?” Miss Hutchins’ smile for the first time was one of genuine amusement. “Well, I’ve been handling drunks for thirty years. I guess it’s not the best way in the world to learn manners. Think you can feed yourself?”
“Of course I can feed myself.”
“Try.”
Harry tried. He picked up the spoon and dipped it in the dish of cereal, but his hand was shaking so badly he didn’t attempt to raise the spoon to his mouth. He lay back and closed his eyes. “I’m not hungry.”
“None of you are,” Miss Hutchins said dryly. “But some protein helps with the shakes. The pills ought to help, too. Are you going to take them?”
“I — guess so.”
Miss Hutchins gave him the pills in a tiny paper cup and Harry swallowed them like an expert, without any water.
“There now,” Miss Hutchins said. “I’ll take your tray away and we’ll try eating again later after you’ve had a little rest.”
“Chlorpromazine never affects me. I’ve had it dozens of times.”
“Is that a fact?”
She removed the tray and cranked down the bed. Within a few minutes Harry was asleep again, snoring heavily through his open mouth.