What Is All This? (15 page)

The window's open. You going to the park?”

“For a quick look. I'll be very careful. I'll take a hammer with me.”

“Fine. Show it to the mugger and he'll be sure to use his own hammer or rock on you. That happens. Weapons are supposed to touch off corresponding weapons. That's why the London bobbies—don't go.”

Coat buttoned to the top. Galoshes, rainhat. “Have a hot toddy waiting for me.”

“You stupido.”

This may be the last time you'll see me.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“It means do you want those last words of yours to be your last to me?”

“Now you're really talking stupid.”

“Right. Bye, sweethearts.” I kiss her cheek and feel Jim's forehead.

“His cough's worse but his nose is dry now.” She carries him into the kitchen. “Goodbye.” She doesn't answer. I leave the apartment and walk to the park. I close the umbrella when I get to the park entrance, as it's keeping me from walking fast. But why walk fast and lose my breath, if there is someone to run from? I open the umbrella.

I reach the part of the path where I heard the groan. Nobody's around. It's still pouring. “Hey, anybody in there who needs help? We were by here before and heard some noises. Hello?”

I close the umbrella and hold it by the spike. But if I have to swing it, it'll probably open and throw me around, and it hasn't the weight to come down hard. I leave it by the path and pick up a stick. It's so rotted that half of it stays on the ground. A rock, then. But if I throw it I'll miss, and carrying it I'm more likely to get a stick over my own head before I get close enough. I need something to knock something out of someone's hand. If he's got a gun, forget it. I'll just drop what I have and run. A stick, a stick, but would I use it if forced? I'd have to, even if my built-in drawback is I'm not a natural attacker and never whacked any adult's head with even an open hand. I find one. Two inches across. I break it with my foot to about three feet long, peel off the twigs and swing it around. Good size, right weight. I walk through the bushes. No one. I'll check behind the bigger bushes and rocks. Only then I'll be satisfied.

A man. Face down on the ground and hat flattened over his head. Pants pockets hanging out. Shoe off and sock rolled down that foot. I touch him, listen to his back. No sound or response. I don't want to turn him over and possibly see his face smashed, body or face knifed. But how else will I know if he's alive? And if he is? First yell for the police or help, and if nobody, then over-the-shoulder fireman's carry, best way I know how. I shake his foot. “Hey, you, can you hear? I'm here to help.” I take his hat off. Left side's okay. Eye is closed and lips are warm, but I can't feel or hear his breath. “Listen. We'll both take it slow. But I want you to know I'm not the person who did this to you, if that's what's keeping you so quiet.”

I'm trying to turn him over when I hear a noise behind me. It's a man, leaning against a rock, opening an umbrella, foot on my stick. “You do that?”

“Him? I heard his groan before and came back. That's my umbrella. What do you want?”

“Why do you say what do I want?”

“Because you're just standing there. And this man could be dead. So if you're fixed on robbing me as you might have done him, fine. I'd give what I have except I left my wallet home.”

“I didn't rob him. Never saw him before. For all you know, he could be the one who did the man you heard groan.”

Then where's the man who groaned?”

“Maybe in the lake. You look all over? The big tree over there? But enough. Give it here.”

“What?”

“‘What? What?' Yours and the man's wallet. Quick.”

“I told you.”

He flips the umbrella behind him and from somewhere produces a knife.

That's great. For something I don't have?”

“Quit stalling.”

He's waving at me to give. I'll jump backwards and run. I jump backwards and trip. He moves for me. I throw a rock at him and miss. Stupid thing to do.

A boulder's behind my back. He lunges at me as I stand up. I feint right and he slits my coat and I think nicks my arm. I grab the hand holding the knife and wrestle with it. We kick, claw, knee, elbow and hook a foot around each other's leg and fall over the man, who says “Huh?” On the ground I bite the guy's ear but don't want to bite through it as I should, when the lobe pops and he's screaming and the knife drops. I'm spitting out his blood when I kick the knife away and go for the stick. He goes for the knife. I say “Don't move.” “Eat it,” he says, and moves and sees my stick coming down and swats at it, and the stick breaks his wrist, or something breaks. He howls but still reaches for the knife. I swing at his head, but at the last instant, his shoulder or neck. He falls on his back and is moaning. I pick up the knife, try closing it, but there must be some trick to it, and I throw it into the woods. “Move once more and I'll break your head in.”

He's biting his lips and trying to keep his eyes on me while feeling around his wrist. I think I also broke his shoulder or some part of his neck. That top left side of him seems misshapen when before it didn't. And he's bleeding a little from it and from the lobe very badly. My own blood's coming out from under my coat sleeve, but not much and mostly mixed with rain.

I turn over the older man. He's been knifed in the stomach and chest, judging by the holes there and the blood on his clothes. “Sir?” He's breathing and seems to be looking without seeing. I say to the other man “Stay where you are till we're out of here, and then you better get out fast because I'm calling the cops.” He's squeezing his eyes tight but nods. I fit the stick in my belt, put the older man's hat in my pocket, sit him up, stick gets in the way so I toss it over the boulder, lift him over my shoulder and grab his legs in front and go through the bushes and start down the hill.

I set him against the cottage door and put his hat on his head. My own hat's been lost somewhere and the top three buttons of my coat's been ripped off. He's a little guy, with his pants and hat way too big for him and his jacket sleeves coming down over his hands. Maybe I've been carrying him wrong and making him bleed more and damaging his insides worse with his belly and chest banging against my back as we walked. “Listen, don't move. I'm calling the police from the phone here and will be right back.”

I run to the call box and pick up the receiver. No officer answers, so I say “Hello, is there a policeman there?” I do this several times, then say “Hey, where the hell are you? This is an emergency. Oh, damn,” and slam the receiver down. I run back, pick the man up and hold him in my arms and carry him toward the park entrance that way, stopping every hundred feet or so to sit on a bench with him in my lap. I look for a police car when I reach the street. A regular car stops and the driver says “Anything wrong?”

“He got knifed in the park. We better take him straight to a hospital.”

“Who knifed him?”

“Not me. Some man, I think. And if it was him—look, will you open your back door?”

“Not in my car. I'm sorry. It's not the stains. I no longer trust anyone in this city.”

Then you shouldn't have stopped.”

“I thought it was something else. A man carrying his son.” He drives off. I rest on the curb with the man in my lap.

“You both going to get wet that way,” a truckman yells, driving past and blowing his air horn.

I carry the man to the apartment building a block away.

“What are you bringing me?” Frank says.

That Dr. Melnick.” I go into the lobby and reach under the man's knees and ring the bell and try to walk in as the sign says, but the door's locked.

“Since he had the robbery,” Frank says.

The peephole opens. “Yes?” a woman says. This man's been knifed,” I say, raising him in my arms a little so she can see his face. “In the park. He needs help fast.”

“Call Roosevelt Emergency and say you want an ambulance immediately.”

“I thought the doctor could help till they come.”

The doctor doesn't handle emergencies except for his own patients. Excuse me.” The peephole closes.

“Could you call Emergency for me? He's been knifed in a few places and it's been a long time.”

The peephole opens. “If I do, they'll ask me to identify myself and think the man's one of the doctor's patients, and he'd be responsible. It's best you call. Excuse me.” The peephole closes.

“I'll call,” Frank says. “Stay here, sit on the bench, even, but just see no delivery men or strange types sneak by. They're all to go through the delivery entrance around the side.” He goes through another door in the lobby.

I lie the man down on the bench. “Just take it easy,” I say. “We've an ambulance coming.”

The elevator door opens. “What's this?” the elevator man says.

“Frank went to call for an ambulance. This guy's been knifed.”

“I better get a mop.” The elevator rings. He gets in and takes it up.

A delivery boy chains his bike to the canopy pole and comes in with a box of groceries.

“All deliveries are supposed to be made through the side entrance,” I say.

“You work here?”

The doorman Frank told me to tell you.”

Then mind your own business. It's raining outside, can't you see? What he do, pass out?”

The elevator door opens and two women walk out.

“Will you go around the service entrance with that?” the elevator man says. “You've been told before. I've told you myself.”

The service door's locked.”

“Bull, it is. Around. Around.”

The boy puts the box into the bike basket, covers it, unlocks the bike and rides off.

“Is he a tenant?” the older woman says.

“Person from outside who had an accident,” the elevator man says.

“Frank's phoning for an ambulance.”

“If he was hit by a car, you could have broken his bones even more by carrying him in here.”

“I didn't. He and Frank must have.”

“He was robbed and knifed in the park,” I say.

That's terrible. And he's bleeding. But Frank's taking care of it?”

“Yes, ma'am,” the elevator man says.

Then could you see about my car? It's a long gray one and should be around now.”

He goes under the canopy and says “It's pulling up, Mrs. Phelps.”

“I hope he recovers,” she says to me. She opens her umbrella, the other woman gets under it with her, and they go to her car.

They're on the way,” Frank says, coming into the lobby. The police, too, when I said it was a knifing.”

“Is your phone a pay one?” I say.

“Go through there and ring the elevator bell. Say you want to use the house phone and I've given you permission to.”

I ring for the service elevator. It comes, the delivery boy and another elevator man inside. I go to the basement with them and dial my home.

“Where've you been?” Jane says. “I think Jim's really got pneumonia. His temperature's not too high, but he's coughing much harder and having trouble breathing. The reception said Dr. Blum will call back in a few minutes and might come over. You shouldn't have gone.”

“It's just a bad cold or virus. They'll give him something in the office, and by tomorrow it'll be over like the last times. Be more independent, will you? And listen. I found that man. He'd been knifed and is in real bad shape. The guy who did it, or another one, got me in the arm too.”

“Oh, my God. Bad?”

“I haven't had time to look. Can't be much if the bleeding's stopped. An ambulance and police are coming. We're in the lobby of the same apartment building you and I were in before.”

Then the doorman's there. You've helped enough. You belong here with the baby, and if Dr. Blum comes he can look at your arm.”

“My arm's nothing. And there's that doctor on the same floor here if I need one, remember? Also the ambulance doctor. If they want me to go to the hospital with the man, I'll call you from there. If not, I'll run home. Keep Jim warm. Put the vaporizer on if you have to. I've got to go now, Jane.”

“It's always everybody over us.”

“Not true.”

The ambulance people and police are in the lobby. A police-woman asks me several questions. The man's wrapped in a blanket and wheeled outside.

“Can I go with him?” I ask her.

“What for—he your friend?”

“No, I told you. Just that I've been with him so long I want to see how he turns out.”

“You come with us and we'll write up a detailed report with the detective, and then you can go anywhere you like.”

She drives me to the police station. I tell a detective the park story and give a description of the guy who attacked me.

“He sounds like everyone else,” he says. “Why didn't you call the park precinct when you first heard the man groaning?”

“I did. The officer said he'd send someone.”

“Maybe he did—I don't see anything on it yet—and they didn't find anything or went to the wrong spot. Those bushes can be thick.”

I call Jane. She doesn't answer. I call Dr. Blum's office and a nurse there says the doctor told Jane to take Jim to Emergency at Roosevelt.

I cab to Roosevelt. Jane's in the waiting room. They're working on him now. He's going to be all right, but they asked me to get out because I was so distraught I was upsetting him. Croup. Your son has croup. They say I'm lucky I brought him in when I did. His larynx. If it wasn't for your floundering back and forth about the man we would've been home long before and gotten Jim out of his wet clothes and spared him all this.”

“He had a cough when we started out today. It could have been the early stages of croup and we didn't realize it.”