The Two-Bear Mambo

It wasn't Raul that was between me and Leonard, it was us. We had not only recognized that we were not invincible, we had experienced real fear, and we each knew the other was frightened. It wasn't the first time. We've always been honest about being scared, but this time it was beyond fear in the normal way. It was helplessness. Not being anywhere near in control.

Goddamn Charlie and his Kmart shoes and his shadow fingers and his wife who wouldn't give him pussy. Goddamn everything about that sonofabitch.

Four mornings after Charlie came to visit, I went into the kitchen, purposely without my gun, took the phone off the wall, sat down at the table with it and dialed Leonard's number.

Raul answered. I asked for Leonard.

'Hap,' Leonard said when he came on the line. 'Good to hear from you, man.'

'Have you been as fucked up as me?'

'I don't know how fucked up you've been, but I've been fucked up. Come over for lunch.'

'I been wanting to see you, but ... I haven't been . . . you know?'

'Yeah. Come over.'

I heard Raul say in the background, 'We got plans, Lenny. Remember?'

'Come on over,' Leonard said.

Eleven that morning, the rain still coming down, the sky atwist with savage storm, I got all the money I had in the cookie jar—about fifty dollars—and left out of there with my revolver stuffed in the glove box of my truck. I drove to town and the hospital, went in without my revolver, found where Hanson was. I rode the elevator up, pushed open the door to his room.

It smelled bad in there. That creepy hospital smell that's somewhere between disinfectant, illness, and that funky food they serve. The two days I had been in had been bad enough, but poor Hanson. Jesus.

Hanson was hooked up like a spaceman, bristling with tubes and wires. His bed was cranked up slightly toward a television that was going, and on the other side of the bed, sitting in a chair, was a young black woman. She was lean and attractive, looked to be in her late twenties. I assumed she was his daughter, JoAnna. She lifted her head, gave a little smile.

'Hello,' she said. Her voice was soft, but it had a little gravel in it. I didn't know if that was the nature of her voice, or the nature of her mood. I went on in and introduced myself. She half stood, reached across the bed, shook my hand and gave her name and relation. She was, as I thought, JoAnna.

Hanson had his eyes closed and was breathing heavily. He didn't know I was there, or that the TV was going, or that ducks quacked and dogs barked. His head was bandaged thickly and he'd lost a lot of weight and looked easily twenty years older. Had I not known it was Hanson, I wouldn't have recognized him.

'How is he?' I asked. It was stupid, but I just didn't know anything else to say.

'Not good. We're taking him home though.'

'That ought to help.'

'Yeah.'

'I was here . . . this way, I'd want to go home.'

'Yeah.'

'He leaving soon?'

'Tomorrow. If the doctor says okay. They can't do anything for him here. I think they want him out, make room for another patient. I guess they're right. He's not going to get better, someone else might.' -

'Well, you never know. Some people, they get in a bad way like this, they come out of it. He's tough. He could do it.'

'Yeah. I guess.'

I looked at the television. It was a Gunsmoke rerun. An old one, when Dennis Weaver played Chester. I kept looking at it, 'cause I couldn't look at Hanson, and JoAnna's face, so sad, so brave, made me ache. Not just for Hanson, but for myself, Leonard, everybody.

'You live in LaBorde?' I asked.

'Tyler.'

'What do you do there?'

'Teach school.'

'Yeah, well, you take care.'

'Sure. Thanks for coming in, Mr. Collins.'

I looked at the television. 'I've seen this one.'

'Yeah. I never watched Westerns. Daddy loved them.'

'Yeah, well, me too. You take care, now.'

'I will.'

'You need anything I can help with, you tell Charlie and he'll get in touch with me. Hap Collins.'

'Yes sir.”