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.
Now your shirt, please.
He unbuttoned the blue workshirt and shucked it off, revealing the dirty long underwear top, with the white hairs of his chest showing at the open neck.
Could you pull up your top there? Yes. That’ll do. That’s far enough. Now I’ll just listen for a moment. He pressed the cup end of the stethoscope against the old man’s chest. Take a deep breath. That’s right. And again. He moved to the back and listened there.
The old man sat and breathed with his eyes shut and puffed out his feverish cheeks. The boy stood beside him watching everything.
Well, Mr. Kephart, said Dr. Martin, it’s a good thing your grandson brought you in here today.
Oh?
Yes, sir. You’ve got yourself a good case of pneumonia. I’ll call the hospital and they’ll admit you this afternoon.
The old man peered at him. What if I don’t want to go to the hospital?
Well, you can die, I suppose. You don’t have to do what’s sensible. It’s up to you.
How long would they have to keep me?
Not long. Three or four days. Maybe a week. It depends. You can go ahead and get dressed now. Dr. Martin stood back and gathered up the chart on the counter. He started to walk out, then stopped and looked at the boy. You did well to insist that your grandfather come in, he said. What was your name?
DJ Kephart.
And you’re how old?
Eleven.
Yes. Well, you did fine. You did very well. You have reason to be satisfied that you made him come in to see me. I don’t suppose that was very easy, was it.
It wasn’t too hard, the boy said.
The old doctor went out of the room and shut the door.
The old man began to get dressed, but managed to put one of the buttons of his workshirt in the wrong hole so the front was looped forward. Here, he said. Fix this goddamn thing. I can’t do nothing with it. The boy unbuttoned his grandfather’s shirt and buttoned it again while the old man raised his chin and stared at the diagram of the heart that was taped to the wall.
You better not be getting a swelled head over what he told you, he said.
I’m not.
Well, see that you don’t. You’re a good boy. That’s enough. Now help me get these overalls hooked up and we’ll get out of here. We’ll have to see what they’re saying up front.
The boy fastened the shoulder straps of his grandfather’s pants and the old man rose from the chair.
What’d I do with that handkerchief I was using?
It’s in your back pocket.
Is it?
Yes. That’s where you put it.
The old man took out the dirty handkerchief and cleared his throat and spat, then wiped the handkerchief across his mouth and put it back in his pocket, and then together he and the boy went out of the room down the hall to the front desk, to learn what next would be required of them.
17
IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON WHEN THE NURSE BROUGHT THE old man into the hospital room occupied by Raymond McPheron. She rolled his wheelchair in next to the vacant bed near the door and set the hand brakes and told the old man to get undressed and to put on the hospital gown that was laid out for him at the foot of the bed. It opens in the back, she said. Then I’ll come back and get you settled in. She yanked the curtain partway closed around his bed and left. The boy had followed them into the room and stood now beside his grandfather, accompanying him as he had all the long afternoon.
Across the room Raymond lay in bed under the window, his leg in the cast and raised onto two pillows on top of the thin hospital blankets. Beside him sat Victoria Roubideaux with the little girl in her lap. They could see the old white-haired man and the boy beyond the end of the curtain, but they hadn’t yet said anything to them. The old man had begun to complain in a high whining voice.
I can’t change out of my clothes right here, he said. Do they expect me to take my pants off behind this goddamn curtain like I was in some kind of circus sideshow?
You have to, Grandpa. The nurse will be coming back any minute.
I ain’t about to.
Raymond leaned up in his bed and spoke across the room: Mister, they put a bathroom in yonder through that door there. You can step in there if you’d care to. I don’t guess they put it there just for me.
The old man pulled the curtain back. In there, you say?
That’s right.
I guess I could do that. But look here, don’t I know you? Aren’t you one of the McPheron brothers?
What’s left of them.
I read about you in the paper. I’m sorry to hear about your brother.
The woman that wrote that didn’t even know the half of what she was saying, Raymond said.
My name’s Kephart, the old man said. Walter Kephart. They tell me I got pneumonia.
Is that right.
That’s what they’re telling me.
You look like you got some good help there with you anyway.
Too good, the old man said. This boy here keeps telling me what to do all the time.
Well, it’s nice having a young person around, Raymond said. I got awful fine help myself. This here is Victoria Roubideaux. And her little girl, Katie.
Hello, Mr. Kephart, Victoria said.
How do you do, young lady.
Grandpa, the boy said, you have to get changed.
You see there? the old man said. Right there’s what I’m talking about.
You go ahead and use that bathroom, Raymond said.
The old man stood out of the wheelchair and shuffled slowly around the bed into the bathroom and shut the door. He was inside for ten minutes and beyond the door they could hear him coughing and spitting. When he came out he was wearing the striped hospital gown and carrying his clothes over one arm. The skirts of the cotton gown flapped about his old flanks. He had left the strings at the rear untied and all of his scrawny gray backside was exposed to view. He handed the clothes to the boy and sat down at the edge of the bed and settled the skirts of the hospital gown over his legs like an old lady. Go get that goddamn nurse that was in here, he said. Tell that woman I’m waiting on her.
The boy went out into the hall and they could hear the sound of his rapid steps going away on the tiled floor. The old man looked across at Raymond. It ain’t even decent what they make you wear in this place.
No sir, Raymond said. I’ll have to agree with you on that.
It’s goddamn indecent is what it is.
The boy came back with the nurse. She was carrying a sterile tray that she set on the bedside table and then she looked at the old man. Are you ready, Mr. Kephart?
For what?
To get into bed.
I ain’t planning on just setting here, he said.
No, I didn’t think you’d want to do that.