Ronnie bawled. ‘Marchant! Brennan! Jesus Christ, little help here you fuckin brain-dead ringmeats, what do you say?’
Randy and Billy splashed forward. Others — three or four drawn by the shouts and splashing, most still from the third-floor Hearts group — took hold of Stoke as well. We turned him awkwardly, probably looking like the world’s most spastic cheerleading squad, for some reason out practicing in the downpour. Stoke had quit struggling. He lay in our grip,
arms hanging out to either side, palms up and filling with little cups of rain. Diminishing waterfalls ran out of his sodden jacket and from the seat of his pants. He picked me up and carried me, Carol had said. Talking about the boy with the crewcut, the boy who had been her first love. All the way up Broad Street on one of the hottest days of the year. He carried me in his arms. I couldn’t get her voice out of my head. In a way I never have.
‘The dorm?’ Ronnie asked Skip. ‘We takin him into the dorm?’
‘Jeepers, no,’ Nate said. ‘The infirmary.’
Since we’d managed to get him out of the water — that was the hardest part and it was behind us — the infirmary made sense. It was a small brick building just beyond Bennett Hall, no more than three or four hundred yards away. Once we got off the path and onto the road, the footing would be good.
So we carried him to the infirmary — bore him up at shoulder height like a slain hero being ceremonially removed from the field of battle. Some of us were still laughing in little snorts and giggles. I was one of them. Once I saw Nate looking at me as if I was a thing almost below contempt, and I tried to stop the sounds that were coming out of me. I’d do okay for a little while, then I’d think of him spinning on the pivot of his crutch (‘ The Olymp ic judges give him . . . ALL TENS!’} and I’d start in again.
Stoke only spoke once as we carried him up the walk to the infirmary door. ‘Let me die,’ he said. ‘For once in your stupid greedy-me-me lives do something worthwhile. Put me down and let me die.’
35
The waiting room was empty, the television in the corner showing an old episode of Bonanza to no one at all. In those days they hadn’t really found the handle on color TV yet, and Pa Cartwright’s face was the color of a fresh avocado. We must have sounded like a herd of hippopotami just out of the watering-hole, and the duty-nurse came on the run. Following her was a candystriper (probably a work-study kid like me) and a little guy in a white coat. He had a stethoscope hung around his neck and a cigarette poked in the corner of his mouth. In Atlantis even the doctors smoked.
‘What’s the trouble with him?’ The doc asked Ronnie, either because Ronnie had an in-charge look or because he was the closest at hand.
‘Took a header in Bennett’s Run while he was on his way to Holyoke,’ Ronnie said.
‘Damned near drowned himself.’ He paused, then added: ‘He’s a cripple.’
As if to underline this point, Billy Marchant waved one of Stoke’s crutches. Apparently no one had bothered to salvage the other one.
‘Put that thing down, you want to fuckin bonk my brains out?’ Nick Prouty asked waspishly, ducking.
‘What brains?’ Brad responded, and we all laughed so hard we nearly dropped Stoke.
‘Suck me sideways, ass-breath,’ Nick said, but he was laughing, too.
The doctor was frowning. ‘Bring him in here, and save that language for your bull sessions.’ Stoke began coughing again, a deep, ratcheting sound. You expected to see blood and filaments of tissue come popping out of his mouth, that cough was so heavy.
We carried Stoke down the infirmary hallway in a conga-line, but we couldn’t get him through the door that way. ‘Let me,’ Skip said.
‘You’ll drop him,’ Nate said.
‘No,’ Skip said. ‘I won’t. Just let me get a good hold.’
He stepped up beside Stoke, then nodded first to me on his right, then to Ronnie on his left.