It carried out to the crowd and broke it up. It was her big line and she wambled about gloriously, her rouged mouth stretched in a flabby toothless grin, retrieving the pennies that people were pitch ing (Paul knew about them from being hit by them; one landed on his upper lip, stayed there, emitting that familiar dead smell common to pennies the world over), thrusting her chest forward to catch them in the cleft of her bosom. She shook and, shaking, jangled. She grabbed the policeman’s hand and pulled him forward to share a bow with her. The policeman smiled awkwardly, twitching his moustache.
“You asked for a doctor,” said an old but gentle voice.
The crowd noises subsided Paul opened his eyes and discovered above him a stooped old man in a rumpled gray suit. His hair was shaggy and white, his face dry, lined with age. He wore rimless glasses, carried a black leather bag. He smiled down at Paul, that easy smile of a man who comprehends and assuages pain, then looked back at the policeman. Inexplicably, a wave of terror shook Paul.
“You wanted a doctor,” the old man repeated.
“Yes! Yes!” cried the policeman, almost in tears. “Oh, thank God!”
“I’d rather you thanked the profession,” the doctor said. “Now what seems to be the problem?”
“Oh, doctor, it’s awful!” The policeman twisted the notebook in his hands, fairly destroying it “This man has been struck by this truck, or so it would appear, no one seems to know, it’s all a terrible mystery, and there is a woman, but now I don’t see—? and I’m not even sure of his name—”
“No matter,” interrupted the doctor with a kindly nod of his old head, “who he is. He is a man and that, I assure you, is enough for me.”
“Doctor, that’s so good of you to say so!” wept the policeman.
I’m in trouble, thought Paul. Oh boy, I’m really in trouble.
“Well, now, let us just see,” said the doctor, crouching down over Paul. He lifted Paul’s eyelids with his thumb and peered intently at Paul’s eyes; Paul, anxious to assist, rolled them from side to side. “Just relax, son,” the doctor said. He opened his black bag, rummaged about in it, withdrew a flashlight Paul was not sure exactly what the doctor did after that, but he seemed to be looking in his ears. I can’t move my head, Paul told him, but the doctor only asked: “Why does he have a penny under his nose?” His manner was not such as to insist upon an answer, and he got none. Gently, expertly, he pried Paul’s teeth apart, pinned his tongue down with a wooden depresser, and scrutinized his throat Paul’s head was on fire with pain. “Ahh, yes,” he mumbled. “Hum, hum.”
“How … how is he, Doctor?” stammered the policeman, his voice muted with dread and respect “Will… will he…?”
The doctor glared scornfully at the officer, then withdrew a stethoscope from his bag. He hooked it in his ears, slipped the disc inside Paul’s shirt and listened intently, his old head inclined to one side like a bird listening for worms. Absolute silence now. Paul could hear the doctor breathing, the policeman whimpering softly. He had the vague impression that the doctor tapped his chest a time or two, but if so, he didn’t feel it His head felt better with his mouth dosed. “Hmmm,” said the doctor gravely, “yes…”
“Oh, please! What is it, Doctor?” the policeman cried.
“What is it? What is it?” shouted the doctor in a sudden burst of rage. “I’ll tell you what is it!” He sprang to his feet, nimble for an old man. “I cannot examine this patient while you’re hovering over my shoulder and mewling like a goddamn schoolboy, that’s what is it!”
“B-but I only—” stammered the officer, staggering backwards.
“And how do you expect me to examine a man half buried under a damned truck?” The doctor was in a terrible temper.
“But I—”
“Damn it! I’ll but-I you, you idiot, if you don’t remove this truck from the scene so that I can determine the true gravity of this man’s injuries! Have I made myself clear?”
“Y-yes! But… but wh-what am I to do?” wept the police officer, hands clenched before his mouth. I’m only a simple police man, Doctor, doing my duty before God and count—”
“Simple, you said it!” barked the doctor. “I told you what to do, you God-and-cunt simpleton—now get moving!”
God and cunt! Did it again, thought Paul. Now what?
The policeman, chewing wretchedly on the corners of his note book, stared first at Paul, then at the truck, at the crowd, back at the truck. Paul felt fairly certain now that the letter following the “K” on the truck’s side was an “I.” “Shall I… shall I pull him out from under—?” the officer began tentatively, thin chin aquiver.
“Good God, no!” stormed the doctor, stamping his foot “This man may have a broken neck! Moving him would kill him, don’t you see that, you sniveling birdbrain? Now, goddamn it, wipe your wretched nose and go wake up your — your accomplice up there, and I mean right now! Tell him to back his truck off this poor devil!”
“B-back it off—! But… but he’d have to run over him again! He—”
“Don’t by God run-over-him-again me, you blackshirt hireling, or I’ll have your Badge!” screamed the doctor, brandishing his stethoscope.
The policeman hesitated but a moment to glance down at Paul’s body, then turned and ran to the front of the truck. “Hey! Come on, you!” He whacked the driver on the head with his nightstick. Hollow thunk! “Up and at ‘em!”
“—dam that boy what,” cried the truckdriver, rearing up wildly and fluttering his head as though lost, “HE DO BUT WALK RIGHT INTO ME AND MY POOR OLE TRICK! TRUCK, I MEAN!” The crowd laughed again, first time in a long time, but the doctor stamped his foot and they quieted right down.
“Now, start up that engine, you, right now! I mean it!” ordered die policeman, stroking his moustache. He was getting a little of his old spit and polish back. He slapped the nightstick in his palm two or three times.
Paul felt the pavement under his back quake as the truckdriver started the motor. The white letters above him joggled in their red fields like butterflies. Beyond, the sky’s blue had deepened, but white clouds now flowered in it The skyscrapers had grayed, as though withdrawing information.
The truck’s noise smothered the voices, but Paul did overhear die doctor and the policeman occasionally, the doctor ranting, the policeman imploring, something about mass and weight and vectors and direction. It was finally decided to go forward, since there were two sets of wheels up front and only one to the rear (a decent kind of humanism maintaining, after all, thought Paul), but the truck-driver apparently misunderstood, because lie backed up anyway, and the middle set of wheels rolled up on top of Paul.
“Stop! Stop!”.shrieked the police officer, and the truck motor coughed and died. “I ordered you to go forward, you pighead, not backward!”
The driver popped his head out the window, bulged his ping-pong-ball eyes at the policeman, then waggled his tiny hands in his ears and brayed. The officer took a fast practiced swing at die driver’s big head (epaulettes, or no, he had a skill or two), but the driver deftly dodged it He dapped his runty hands and bobbed back inside the cab.
“What oh what shall we ever do now?” wailed the officer. The doctor scowled at him with undisguised disgust. Paul felt like he was strangling, but he could locate no specific pain past his neck. “Dear lord above! There’s wheels on each side of him and wheels in the middle!”