Some Came Running (128 page)

’Bama merely stared back at him, narrow-eyed.

“Sister Theresa,” the doctor said, “go downstairs and get Mr Dillert’s clothes. Bring a release form for him to sign.”

The sister, who had been watching all of this anxiously, went to the door without a word. ’Bama shifted himself a little in the bed again, but Dave noticed he did not groan this time. He and the doctor continued to stare at each other.

“How’s this hip wound, Doc?” ’Bama said after a moment.

“I removed the bullet and opened up the puncture wound,” the doctor said, “but I thought it best to put gauze drains in it.”

’Bama merely nodded and continued to stare back at the doctor. “Doc,” he said after a moment; “were you ever in the Army?”

“Yes,” the doctor said. “I was.”

“What were you? A colonel?”

“I was a lieutenant colonel,” the doctor said.

“In the Medical Corps.”

“That’s correct,” the doctor said stonily.

“I figured you were,” ’Bama said. “I was a sergeant, Doc.” He paused a moment. “A tank sergeant. You know, I was wounded twice in that war, Doc. Both times they put me in the hospital. And you know something, Doc? I actually preferred bein shot at up the front to bein in those hospitals because both of them were full of doctors like you. Can you feature that? In the Army, Doc, you could have made me stay in the hospital, if you wanted me to. And I’d have had to stay. Or get court-martialed.” He stopped, apparently unfinished, but actually not unfinished at all, and stared at the doctor with eyes as flat as two windless ponds.

“It would be better for you if I could do so now, Mr Dillert,” the doctor said stonily.

“Maybe. What’s ‘better,’ Doc?” ’Bama said. “Doc, do you believe in adultery?”

The doctor’s face stiffened. “Mr Dillert, I don’t think—”

’Bama raised his hand. “Or in excessive alcohol drinkin?”

“No, Mr Dillert,” the doctor said; “I do not.”

’Bama grinned. “Well, you see? there’s the difference. I believe in both adultery and excessive alcoholism for the human race, Doc. In fact, I don’t see how they could get along at all without ’em. You and me just don’t see life alike at all. You believe it’s yore
duty
to live like you do,” he said insolently; “well, I believe it’s
my
duty
not
to live like yore duty tells you to
do,”
and once again they stared at each other in that strange antagonistic way.

“Well, Mr Dillert, perhaps so,” the doctor said finally. “At any rate, I feel it is my ‘duty’ to try to impress upon you the seriousness of your condition.”

“You done did, Doc,” ’Bama said.

“Then my ‘duty’ is done, Mr Dillert,” the doctor said. “If you will excuse me, I have other important ‘duties’ to perform. Please sign the release which Sister Theresa brings.”

“Sure thing, Doc,” ’Bama said with insolent cheerfulness as the doctor went to the door; and after he had gone, he sat staring at the door, his eyes and face flat and cold—(once again Dave had that chilling feeling about his friend)—until gradually he became aware of Dave and his face softened. He turned to look at him and suddenly he winked, and then grinned, and then laughed out loud.

“I guess that last was about the best statement of the credo of the artist I’ve ever heard,” Dave said with a grin.

“Shore,” ’Bama grinned. “I’m a real artist.” He moved himself gingerly again in the bed and this time he groaned. He looked back out the window at the drizzly weather. “I hate hospitals. And I ain’t got much use for most of the medical profession, either. The pompous bastards.”

“What are you going to do about the diabetes?” Dave said.

The Southerner shrugged. “I’ll worry about that when I get out of this dump. I got a doctor at home I go to. I’ll see what he says.”

“You don’t think this guy was lying, do you?”

“Hell, no! He’s a damned good doctor, I ’magine. I just can’t stomach him, that’s all. He’s just a little too happy over all he found wrong with me. Come on, help me get up out of this sack. I got to piss.”

When the sister returned with his clothes and the release form, he was standing by the window in the knee-length gown. He signed the release form and returned it to her, and looked at the clothes on the bed, the suit pants and the coat still both torn and bloodstained. “Sister, what about my money?” he grinned. “That’s what I got into all this mess over in the first place.”

“There’s a slip there,” Sister Theresa said. “You can draw it at the desk when you go down. Mr Dillert, you weren’t supposed to get out of bed!”

“Sister, I’m gonna be out of this place in five minutes,” ’Bama grinned. “Cool off.”

“Just the same, you should have rested all you could before you left,” the sister said. “The trip is going to be quite an ordeal for you.” She started to bustle around trying to help him. It was obvious she was going to miss him.

“Sister,” ’Bama grinned, “you just go on out and let us get me dressed. You know how bashful I am.”

“Yes! I certainly can see
that,
Mr Dillert!” But reluctantly, she went outside. When they had him dressed and ready to go, amid much groaning and cursing, she came back.

“God bless you, Mr Dillert,” she said, her round, little face encased in its cloth staring at him earnestly. “God be with you.”

“Sister,” ’Bama grinned, “I’m shore He is. I left that deck of cards there for you on the table. Don’t forget to practice.”

They left her then, standing in the doorway, still looking embarrassed over the card playing.

The trip home was every bit of the ordeal she had said it would be. ’Bama, silent while Dave drove the heavy Packard for the first time since they had come back from Florida, tried to sit on his left buttock and favor his right. Only twice did he speak at all. Once it was to tell Dave, grinning stiffly at him, that his own wound was actually very similar to the wound received by Bedford Forrest at Columbia, Tennesseee, from the hands of the young Confederate officer who tried to kill him because Forrest had transferred him from his command for incompetency. Speaking through clenched teeth, he told Dave the story, how the young lieutenant had come to Forrest to ask to be taken back, how when Forrest who happened to be twirling a closed penknife in his fingers had refused he drew his pistol and shot Forrest, how Forrest had grabbed the gun and got the penknife open with his teeth and stabbed the lieutenant in the belly, a wound he later died of, how the lieutenant had then run from the building and Forrest had then walked to a doctor and being told the wound was probably mortal had started after the lieutenant to make sure he killed him, too, how in the end when he was assured the lieutenant who was by now lying in the street would also die he had desisted. Finally, in the end, Forrest had had himself carried to the room where the lieutenant lay dying so the lieutenant could apologize, and they had wept together over it.

“In a lot of ways, it was like yore story,” ’Bama said grinning. “‘The Confederate.’ It might even be a sort of history of all Southerners. They were great fighters. They just spent too much time fightin with each other.”

The only other time he spoke was some time later, when he suddenly began to talk about the diabetes and told Dave he had halfway suspected it for some time. He just hadn’t done anything about it because he didn’t want to know for sure. Well, now he knew. After that, he spoke no more until they had got home.

It was something like seventy-five miles from Indianapolis to Parkman, and long before they got there, the trip had turned into a nightmare for Dave. Everything seemed as if it wasn’t happening and yet seemed to promise to go on endlessly. After a while, he did not believe they would ever get there. The man beside him, his friend, obviously in constant pain and yet not saying a word about it; himself, pushing hard, trying to get them there, and yet at the same time trying to drive as smoothly as he could. The wound had opened up again from all the moving around and was bleeding steadily. It was an experience Dave did not soon forget, and seemed somehow to set the mood for everything that followed.

“Don’t say anything about this diabetes stuff to anyone,” ’Bama said when they finally pulled into the drive, and Dave only nodded.

As soon as he had got him inside and helped him upstairs to bed, he called Doc Mitchell, the doctor ’Bama said he went to. Dr Earl Mitchell was a roly-poly little man with a big, fleshy nose and kindly eyes. He was one of the few successful doctors in Parkman who had made money and not used it to open up a “clinic” or a “sanitarium.” He came right out when Dave called, and Dave sat upstairs with them while he dressed the wound and they discussed the diabetes.

“Well, if they’re right and it is diabetes,” Doc Mitchell said in his mild sad way, “the best thing to do is to get you into a hospital and have them check you out.”

“I won’t go into any hospital,” ’Bama said. “I’ve had enough hospitals today to last me forever.” His lips were still drawn tight across his face from the changing of the drainage wicks in the wound. “Can’t you fix it up without me havin to go in?”

“Well, I guess I can, ’Bama,” the little doctor said. “It’ll be a little harder. But yes, I can do it all right. I’ll just take the blood for the test myself and have one of the labs here in town do it. I’ll get the syringe and all the stuff and show you how to use it. It’s simple enough.” He smiled. “When I have the blood sugar test from the lab, I’ll know how many units to start you out on.”

“What about this drinkin business?” ’Bama said.

Doc Mitchell spread his hands, almost helplessly. He was as kind and self-effacing a man as the doctor at the hospital had been commanding. “He’s quite right about that, of course, ’Bama,” he said. “You should quit drinking entirely. The diet itself isn’t so tough. They make a lot more out of it than they need to. All you really need to do is cut out the carbohydrates and eat lots of leafy vegetables. But you should quit drinking.”

“I’ve been drinkin whiskey all my life,” ’Bama said, his voice flat. Then he grinned. “In fact, I could use a drink right now, after the way you tore me up, Doc.”

Doc Mitchell laughed, the humor in his eyes curiously tinged with sadness.

“No, I been drinkin all of my damned life,” ’Bama said, “and I don’t reckon to stop now.”

Again, the little doctor spread his hands. There was a look of sad understanding on his face. “Well, try to cut it down all you can,” he said.

“What about this dying business?” ’Bama said.

“It’s hard to say,” Doe Mitchell said. “But he was probably right about that, too. And then again you might live on damned near forever. It’s just hard to say.”

“Well, to hell with it,” ’Bama said. “Five or ten years is quite a while anyway. Dave, go down and get me a bottle of Jack Daniels, will you?”

And that was the way they left it. ’Bama kept on drinking whiskey. Doc Mitchell fixed him up with everything he needed, brought him out the syringe and equipment, showed him how to use it, even brought him a couple of books on diabetes. ’Bama studied them carefully with that meticulous mathematical attitude of his and learned all about the insulin injections and the mechanics of the disease itself. But he did not stop the drinking.

“The thing I hate about most doctors,” he said to Dave, “is that they always want to
dominate
you into living. Now Doc Mitchell’s not like that, and that’s why I like him: He understands. And then after they’ve dominated you into living, and you do go on living, all the damn fun’s gone out of living anyway. So what have you got?”

In three weeks, nearly the end of March, he was up and around again, still limping but able to navigate and to sit up and play poker all night at the Moose or Eagles. The wound had healed well, and every day he faithfully gave himself his shot of insulin. Dave would see him sometimes, late in the morning when he had got up, sitting by the light of the bedroom window, his pants down around his ankles, the little glass and metal insulin syringe in his hands against the light. ’Bama would look up and laugh, and make a gesture as if to goose him with the syringe. All of his diabetic equipment and the books he kept locked up in a little cabinet in his room. Neither of them ever mentioned anything about it ever, to anyone.

’Bama had digested the books on diabetes immediately, while he was still laid up with the hip. He also went through all of Dave’s books on reincarnation and metaphysics that Bob had given him, although neither of them ever talked about them. As soon as he was back up on his feet again and the limp had nearly subsided, he packed his little diabetes cabinet in the Packard and went down to the farm and stayed for several days, almost a whole week, the longest Dave had ever seen him stay down there.

Apparently, to all intents and purposes, he was the same old ’Bama.

But he had changed.

I
T WAS STRANGE
to watch the change take place, grow more pronounced—especially for Dave: Dave who, he realized now, had always had this almost worshipful hero worship for him. It was not so much that he changed physically. If anything, he looked to be even healthier, after he started taking the insulin. That sallow, hollow-eyed look that he had had ever since Dave had first known him faded away somewhat, and more color came into his face. The strange protruding paunch melted away a little, too, probably from the diet and from keeping his bowels open with plain-water enemas as Doc Mitchell had advised him. It was eerie to Dave, to think that even back then, almost a year and a half ago now, when he had first met him there in Ciro’s, even then the tall gambler was probably already suffering from this disease. The change wasn’t physical, it was something inside ’Bama. The old cool, collected, objective, always-in-command-of-the-situation ’Bama was being sucked out of him, eaten away, before your very eyes. In its place was a flighty, irascible, often petulant man whose judgment was no longer dependable and whose grin was bitter as gall. It even showed up in his gambling: From the cold methodical poker player, patient as a steel trap, he became an irritable greedy player; he was even on occasion given to fits of wild unreasonable betting on hands which even he knew weren’t worth it, but unlike Bob French in his sporadic poker jaunts he could not push his bluffing through. And then, he would actually complain almost querulously about losing! It was as if—or so Dave analyzed it—it was as if, knowing that he was sick, knowing that he was
dependent
—upon insulin, upon diet, upon
help—
took away all his old self-confidence and left him no longer powerful, no longer positive—exposed. Only when he was thinking or when he was reading some of his metaphysical books on luck, or working at his calculations of their still dwindling wins, did he seem at all to be the old, calm mathematical systematic ’Bama. Only then, and when he was driving the big black car.