'My sister'n-law don't even remember her own
name,' he said. 'She don't know aye, yes, no, nor
maybe. That's what that Anderson's Disease does to
you, son. There's a look in her eyes . . . like she's sayin
'Let me out of here' . . . or would say it, if she could think of the words. Do you know what I mean?' 'Yes,' I said. I took a deep breath and wondered if the pee I smelled was the old man's or if he maybe had a dog that rode with him sometimes. I wondered if he'd be offended if I rolled down my window a little. Finally I did. He didn't seem to notice, any more than he noticed the oncoming cars flashing their highs at him. Around seven o'clock we breasted a hill in West Gates and my chauffeur cried, 'Lookit, son! The moon! Ain't she a corker?'
She was indeed a corker-a huge orange ball hoist-ing itself over the horizon. I thought there was never-theless something terrible about it. It looked both pregnant and infected. Looking at the rising moon, a sudden and awful thought came to me: what if I got to the hospital and my ma didn't recognize me? What if her memory was gone, completely shot, and she didn't know aye, yes, no, nor maybe? What if the doc-tor told me she'd need someone to take care of her for the rest of her life? That someone would have to be me, of course; there was no one else. Goodbye college. What about that, friends and neighbors?
'Make a wish on it, boyo!' the old man cried. In his excitement his voice grew sharp and unpleasant-it was like having shards of glass stuffed into your ear.
He gave his crotch a terrific tug. Something in there
made a snapping sound. I didn't see how you could
yank on your crotch like that and not rip your balls right off at the stem, truss or no truss. 'Wish you make on the ha'vest moon allus comes true, that's what my father said!'
So I wished that my mother would know me when I walked into her room, that her eyes would light up at once and she would say my name. I made that wish and immediately wished I could have it back again; I thought that no wish made in that fevery orange light could come to any good.
'Ah, son!' the old man said. 'I wish my wife was here! I'd beg forgiveness for every sha'ap and unkind word I ever said to her!'
Twenty minutes later, with the last light of the day still in the air and the moon still hanging low and bloated in the sky, we arrived in Gates Falls. There's a yellow blinker at the intersection of Route 68 and Pleasant Street. Just before he reached it, the old man swerved to the side of the road, bumping the Dodge's right front wheel up over the curb and then back down again. It rattled my teeth. The old man looked at me with a kind of wild, defiant excitement-every-thing about him was wild, although I hadn't seen that at first; everything about him had that broken-glass feeling. And everything that came out of his mouth seemed to be an exclamation.
'I'll take you up there! I will, yessir! Never mind Ralph! Hell with him! You just say the word!'
I wanted to get to my mother, but the thought of another twenty miles with the smell of piss in the air and cars flashing their brights at us wasn't very pleas-ant. Neither was the image of the old fellow wander-ing and weaving across four lanes of Lisbon Street. Mostly, though, it was him. I couldn't stand another twenty miles of crotch-snatching and that excited broken-glass voice.
'Hey, no,' I said, 'that's okay. You go on and take care of your brother.' I opened the door and what I'd feared happened-he reached out and took hold of my arm with his twisted old man's hand. It was the hand with which he kept tearing at his crotch.
'You just say the word!' he told me. His voice was hoarse, confidential. His fingers were pressing deep into the flesh just below my armpit. 'I'll take you right to the hospital door! Ayuh! Don't matter if I never saw you before in my life nor you me! Don't matter aye, yes, no, nor maybe! I'll take you right . . . there!'
'It's okay,' I repeated, and all at once I was fighting
an urge to bolt out of the car, leaving my shirt behind
in his grip if that was what it took to get free. It was as
if he were drowning. I thought that when I moved, his
grip would tighten, that he might even go for the nape
of my neck, but he didn't. His fingers loosened, then
slipped away entirely as I put my leg out. And I won-dered,
