Sourland

mysterious. In David’s suburban school there were few ethnic or minority students and most of these were Asian- Americans. The Cheetah was black haired, olive skinned, with distinctive features that reminded David of a cat’s, and he was catlike in his movements, restless, inclined to impatience. Sometimes he appeared stricken with grief; at other times he looked sulky, even bored. He and David often saw each other in the eighth-floor corridor, in the visitors’ lounge, just stepping out of an elevator, with relatives, or alone, eyes turned downward. The Cheetah was taller than David by several inches, about five foot five. He only vaguely acknowledged David, with a glance, though David was certain he recognized him. The Cheetah was the most striking boy of his age that David had ever seen up close.

His father has been struck down, too. Maybe dying.

The Cheetah’s father lay as if near comatose in his bed, breathing oxygen from a plastic tube. His dark- skinned face was ravaged though probably, David thought, he wasn’t any older than David’s own father. He looked like a big man who’d lost weight suddenly, like a partly deflated balloon. His room was the most frequently visited in the corridor, and many of these visitors brought young children with them. The nursing staff repeatedly asked them not to speak so loudly, to watch their children more closely, to “be considerate” of other patients. Always, they obeyed at once; yet shortly afterward, others arrived, and there was more commotion. Mr. Rainey complained that the “foreign” family stayed past 11 P.M. sometimes and woke him on their way out. David would have liked to inquire what nationality they were, what their name was, but didn’t want to appear curious.

There was another boy, older than the Cheetah, about seventeen, who came to visit the patient in room 837 less frequently. They were obviously brothers, the one a taller, heavier version of the other. The older boy, whom David came to call “the Hawk,” was handsome, too; his nose was prominent, beak-like — like a hawk’s. His black hair had been severely trimmed to a buzz cut. The Hawk was a swaggering high school kid in a black Pearl Jam T- shirt, ratty designer jeans, a gold stud glittering in his left earlobe. He, too, was taking his father’s hospitalization hard, you could see that, but he was more readily bored than the Cheetah and prowled about the cardiac unit talking to the West Indian orderlies and nurses’ aides. When the brothers were together, the Hawk was clearly dominant. He talked, and the Cheetah listened. It was easy to imagine their childhood: the older brother bossing the younger. David’s brothers, too, were older than he was, but so much older (Pete by ten years, Billy by six) they’d been protective of him rather than bullying, though mostly they hadn’t had time for him. Seeing the way the Cheetah glanced at the Hawk, alert and even admiring, David felt a stab of envy.

The Hawk took no notice of David but the Cheetah was different, at least some of the time. One night at 10 P.M., when David was sent to get fruit juice for his father, there was the Cheetah on a similar errand. Their gazes locked for an awkward moment. David might have mumbled, “Hi,” and the Cheetah might have mumbled something inaudible in passing.

That night in his dream he was Little Goat! He and the Cheetah were in kindergarten together. Playing on the slide and on the swings. They’d climbed, clambered up a steep staircase. A feeling of overwhelming happiness spread through David.

For the first time since the ambulance had come for his father, taking away Dadda to die amid strangers, David was able to sleep through to morning.

9

The puncture wound in his hand had come to nothing; he was a coward. His father wasn’t improving and until Mr. Rainey was stronger, the cardiologist couldn’t “proceed.” A voice taunted him, the God-in-whom-he-didn’t-believe. What would you give up to bring your father home?

His eyesight? The vision in one eye? His hearing? What about an arm? Which arm? His right? What about a leg? And what of his “future” — would he give that up? Never play any game again: softball, soccer, basketball? Would he give up his trombone? His friends? His high grades? His special feeling for math? His soul?

A sacrifice must be made. But what?

Around the house he was a sleepwalker-zombie; it wouldn’t be a surprise if an accident happened. Turning an ankle on the stairs and falling. Shutting a car door on his hand. All of them were distracted and not themselves. Mother on the telephone, Mother walking slowly through the rooms she seemed not to recognize. There was nothing for them to talk about except the father’s condition, yet there was so little for them to say of it that they hadn’t already said. Through this, the God-voice taunted the Raineys’ youngest son, the coward.

What would you give up? give up? give up?

He did return to school for a morning. There was a midterm test in solid geometry he didn’t want to miss. He made certain he failed, hoping his teacher wouldn’t be suspicious. He got enough answers wrong so he calculated his numerical grade was about 55 %, a letter grade of F.

Maybe that would help?

10

On the fourth morning Mr. Rainey was strong enough to endure a heart-probe procedure, and afterward Mrs. Rainey was crying, clutching at their hands. “It’s all right! The doctor said there were no blood clots.”

11

Yet the father’s arrhythmia didn’t respond to medication as the cardiologist expected. There was the probability that, if Mr. Rainey was removed from his intravenous medication, the atrial fibrillation would return. For that was the rhythm which his fifty-one-year-old heart, like a suddenly deranged clock, had taken on. So they might try electric shock.

Admittedly this was a more extreme procedure with some element of risk.

How much “element of risk” the Raineys wanted to know.

The cardiologist’s reply was lengthy, tactful, and, in the end, vague. For each heart patient is a unique problem, each heartbeat a unique beat, and any general anesthetic is a trauma to the brain.

“And to the heart?” Mrs. Rainey asked.

“Well, yes.” The cardiologist cleared his throat.

12

David wondered if the Cheetah had noticed: room 833 and room 837 were mirror-rooms.

Each was private and of the same proportions, bathroom to the rear, a single window. In each, as you approached, you could see a gowned man in bed, attached to intravenous sacs on poles. In each, you often saw visitors sitting or standing around the bed. Each room exuded the possibility of the empty bed.

After a few days, David began to worry not just that he’d return to room 833 and see his father’s bed empty, but he’d return to see the bed empty in room 837, too. That would mean he’d never see the Cheetah again. For the Cheetah’s father did seem sicker than David’s father. He was still breathing oxygen through a tube in his nose. There was more often a curtain drawn around his bed. Rarely did the Cheetah’s father sit up to talk with visitors or watch TV as David’s father had done since the second evening, and not once had David seen the Cheetah’s father walking in the corridor as David’s father did, slowly but gamely, twice a day, with one of the West Indian orderlies, hauling his two jingly IV poles and his blood-pressure paraphernalia with him. (“Like a cyborg.”) Once, when David was prowling the corridor, he passed the open door of 837 and happened to see the patient being prepared by two orderlies for a trip on a gurney, lifted stiffly out of his bed like a dead weight. There was the Cheetah at the foot of the bed, and there was the plump, anxious-looking woman David supposed was the Cheetah’s mother. David circled the floor, and when he returned to his corridor, there was the ravaged man, barely conscious, being wheeled to an elevator; in his wake, the Cheetah and his mother followed slowly, gripping each other’s hand. David would have liked to say, “If it’s the blood-clot test, it isn’t too bad. My dad had it and he’s okay. Good luck!” Of course, he said nothing.

Yet the Cheetah glanced at him in passing, a swift sidelong look of fear, hurt, anger, and an obscure shame.

13

He wasn’t spying on the brothers. Yet it happened he saw them everywhere.

In the parking garage, for instance. By what coincidence did Mrs. Rainey park one morning, on level B, close by the “foreign” family’s car? Both cars were large, new-model luxury cars, but the Raineys’ was mud splattered and its chrome fixtures dimmed as if in mourning while the other family’s car gleamed and glittered as if it had been driven directly out of a dealer’s showroom.

The Hawk was driving. In the harsh early sunshine he looked older than seventeen. He drove with a slight