Chapter 10 old ones don't go

Building Seven, the tuberculosis building, had been separated from the rest of the Molloy VA Hospital for five years after the war.It was only fifty yards from Building Six, the Paraplegic Building—they faced the same flagpole, on the windy Long Island Plain—but there had been no neighborhood traffic between them since the summer of 1948. , that summer, paraplegics handed in petitions asking tuberculosis patients to stay on their own lawns.Made TB people resent at the time ("Those paraplegics think they own the fucking place"), but it doesn't matter anymore; even people in Building 7 can't go to the hospital commissary without wearing a sterile paper mask It doesn't matter.

who cares?After all, Building Seven is different.Over the years, almost all of the more than one hundred patients in its three yellow wards have escaped from this place once or twice, and once their X-rays are clean, or they can recover after various operations, they all hope to be able to recover. Run away again and never come back; at the same time, they don’t regard this place as a home or life here as a life, to be precise, they just regard this place as a constant water prison, and they can go “outside” every once in a while .Like prisoners, they call the world outside the hospital "outside."Also: since their illnesses were not caused by combat injuries, they never considered themselves "veterans" (except perhaps at Christmas, when each received a presidential greeting letter from Shanyin, along with a five-year dollar bills), and therefore did not feel any real connection to disabled servicemen.

Building No. 7 is a separate world.Every day it chooses between its virtues and its vices, stays in bed, plays dice until midnight, deserts, and sneaks beer and whiskey in through the fire doors of two public toilets.Comedies of their own are staged here—like Snyder chasing the nurse on duty into the perspective room one night with a water pistol, or a pint of bourbon slipping from old Faury's bathrobe at the feet of Dr. Snicker; and here and there it plays out its own tragedies—Jack Fox sits on the bed and says, "For God's sake, open the window," coughing loudly, causing an unnatural hemorrhage, and within ten minutes Killed him, and there were times, two or three times a year, when somebody was pushed into surgery in a wheelchair and he laughed and yelled "Take care" and "Good luck, man! "The man waved, but never came back.But most of the time, boredom eats the world, where people sit or lie between Kleenex and spittoons, drowning in the noise of radios that are on all day.That was the case in Ward C that afternoon on New Year's Eve, except that the sound of the radio was drowned out by little Kovax's laughter.

Little Kovacs was thirty years old, six and a half feet tall, big, bear-like.He was having a conversation with his friend Jones that afternoon.Jones was small and scrawny, and sitting next to the little one was comical.They whispered and laughed—Jones's laugh was a nervous giggle, and he kept reaching into the hospital gown to scratch his belly while laughing, and the little one laughed like a bell.After a while they stood up, flushed from laughing, and walked across the room toward McIntyre's bed. "Hey, Mike, listen," Jones began, "Little and I have an idea." He giggled, then added, "Tell him, Little."

The problem was, McIntyre had been busy writing an important letter.He was forty-one years old, frail, with a wrinkled and teasing expression on his face.But the two of them smiled at his impatient monster, and Xiao Budian began to explain sincerely. "Look, Mike, tonight around twelve o'clock, I'm going to get naked, understand?" He had trouble speaking because his front teeth were missing; The custom-made new trays have not arrived. "I'm going to be naked except for this towel I'm going to tie, understand? Does that look like a diaper? Listen, I'm going to wear this across my chest." He unwrapped a four-inch roll of bandage, a yard long , where he or Jones wrote the block number "1951" with a marker. "Got it?" he said. "A big fat baby? No teeth? Listen again, Mike, you're a year old, okay? You can wear this, and this. You're perfect." The second bandage read "1950," and the other thing was a fake beard made of white cotton that they dug out of a Red Cross locker in the Rec Room—obviously ripped off Santa's clothes from the past.

"No thanks," McIntyre said. "Go find someone else, okay?" "Oh, my God, you gotta do it, Mike," said Tiny. "Listen, we thought about everyone in the building, and you were the only one—don't you get it? You're thin, you're bald, and you have some gray hair. The best part is you look like me, and you also No teeth." Then, without offense, he added, "Well, I mean, at least you can take them out, can't you? You can take them out for a few minutes and put them back in— Right?" "Listen, Kovacs," McIntyre said, closing his eyes, "I'm done with this. Will you two get out of here now?"

Xiao Budian's face slowly changed, his face was sullen, and his cheeks were flushed with anger, as if someone had slapped him. "Okay," he said restrainedly, grabbing his beard and bandages from McIntyre's bed. "Okay, go to hell." He turned around and strode back to his side of the ward.Jones trotted along behind him, grinning awkwardly, his baggy slippers tapping on the ground. McIntyre shook his head. "Why do you like this pair of idiots?" he said to the man in the next bed, a thin, sick black man named Vernon Sloan. "Did you hear it all, Vernon?"

"I got the general idea," said Sloane, and went on to something else, but coughed so badly that he reached for the spittoon with his long brown hand while McIntyre went on with his letter. Back at his hospital bed, Xiao Budian threw the beard and bandages into his locker, and slammed the door shut.Jones came up and stood beside him, begging him. "Look, little one, we'll get someone else. We'll get Schulman, or—" "Ah, Schulman is too fat." "Well, either Johnson, or—" "Listen, don't mention it again, okay, Jones?" Tiny finally broke out. "Damn it. I don't care anymore. Trying to have some fun to make these guys laugh at New Year's, but that's what you get in return." Jones sat in the chair next to the little one's bed. "Well," he paused, "that's still a good idea, isn't it?"

"Ah!" The little boy waved his hand in disgust. "You think these bastards are going to appreciate it? You think there's a son of a bitch in this building who appreciates it? To hell with it." There's no point in arguing; the little one will be moping for the rest of the day.It always does when his feelings are hurt.And his feelings are often hurt, because his unique playfulness often upsets others.Take, for example, the quacking rubber duck.He bought the rubber duck at the hospital commissary shortly before Christmas as a Christmas present for one of his nephews.The problem was that in the end he decided to buy the kid another gift, the duck, for himself; because the quack of the rubber duck kept him laughing for hours.After the lights went out at night, he would climb into the beds of other patients and let the ducks quack in their faces, and it wasn't long before almost everyone told him to stop and shut up.Then someone—McIntyre, actually—stolen the duck from Kiddie's bed and hid it, and Kiddie was depressed for three days. "You guys think you're smart," he grumbled to the room. "Acts like a bunch of kids."

It was Jones who found the duck and gave it back to him; Jones was probably the only one who thought it was funny what the little one was doing.At this moment, he stood up to leave, with a slight joy on his face. "Anyway, I've got a bottle, little one," he said. "You and I can have a good time tonight." Jones is not a drinker, but New Year's Eve is a special day after all, and it is not easy to sneak in wine: as early as a few days ago, he had made arrangements and got a pint. The rye whiskey came in, and he laughed and hid it under some little hospital gown in the locker.

"Don't tell anyone you have wine," said Tiny. "I'll never tell the time for them bastards every day again." He popped a cigarette in his mouth and struck a match roughly.Then he took his new Christmas dress from the coat hook—and put it on carefully and calmly, adjusting the shoulder pads and tying the belt.It was a magnificent gown, of fuchsia satin, with red lapels, and when it was put on, Tini's face and manner suddenly took on a strange dignity.The look is as new, or as seasonal, as the dress: Back in time to this week, he came home fully dressed for the Christmas holidays. Many people put on their usual clothes and find something new in one way or another.McIntyre, in his barely worn little accountant's uniform of blue serge, was suddenly remarkably unassuming, unlike a sarcasm or a prankster; Jones, in his Old Navy After the wind and rain are installed, it becomes very fierce and surprising.Young Crabbe, as everyone called him, looked dignified and sophisticated in his double-breasted suit; and Travers, whom many people forgot he graduated from Yale The flannel coat, with its buttoned collar, was strangely effeminate at once.When a few Negroes put on their narrow trousers, baggy coats, and huge Windsor bow ties, they were suddenly Negroes again, not ordinary people.They are no longer even ashamed to talk to white people in the familiar tone of the past.But perhaps the biggest change of all is the little one.The clothes themselves were not surprising—his family ran a posh restaurant in Queens, and he was fittingly in a long jet-black coat and silk scarf—but they gave him an uncommon dignity .Gone is the smirk, the laughter is gone, and the awkwardness is subdued.The eyes under the flip-brimmed hat are calm and dignified, not petite eyes at all.Not even the loss of his teeth spoiled the effect, for he kept his lips tightly shut and said nothing, save for a few simple Christmas wishes he mumbled.The other patients looked up, a little shyly, in admiration at the new man, the striking stranger, as he strode out of the building, his hard heels crunching on the marble floor— Later, as he turned on the sidewalk in Jamaica Quarter and headed home, the crowd instinctively moved aside to make way for him. The little one knew he was playing this charming part, but when he got home he didn't think about it anymore; life was real among family members.No one there called him little--he was Harold, the gentle son, a quiet hero, a dignified rare visitor to many round-eyed children.When the feast was coming to an end, a little girl was solemnly ushered to his seat. She stood there shyly, not daring to look into his eyes, her hands tightly clutching the hem of her dress.Her mother urged her, "Would you like to tell Uncle Harold what you say at your prayers every night, Eileen?" "Yes," said the little girl. "I told Jesus please bless Uncle Harold and get him well soon." Uncle Harold smiled, and took her hands. "That's very kind, Eileen," he said hoarsely. "But you know, you shouldn't tell him. You should beg him." She looked at his face for the first time. "That's what I mean," she said. "I beg him." Uncle Harold took her into his arms and buried his face in her shoulders so that she wouldn't see the tears in his eyes. "What a nice girl," he said lightly.No one in Building No. 7 would believe such a scene. It wasn't until the vacation was over, when he strode away amidst the lingering blessings of his family, shrugged his shoulders under his overcoat, and squared his hat, that he was still Harold.On the way to the bus terminal, he was Harold, and on the way to the hospital, he was Harold.When he walked to Ward C with heavy steps, the others still looked at him strangely and greeted him a little bit shyly.He went to the bed, put down a few packages (one of which contained the new gown), and headed straight for the public bathroom to change.It was almost over, because when he came out of the toilet in his old and faded hospital gown, pulling on his slippers, only a trace of conspicuous color remained on his soft face, an hour or two later, he lay on the bed, listening to On the radio, even that disappeared.Later in the evening, when most of the returning patients had settled down, he sat up in bed and looked around with his old goofy look.He waited patiently for everyone to quiet down, then tossed the duck high into the air and quacked it seven times to the rhythm of "Shave and cut hair, twenty-five cents."Everyone complained and cursed.Tiny is back and ready for a new year. Now, in less than a week, if he wanted to, he could regain his dignity, put on a tuxedo, put on a pose, and think hard about his home.Of course, it's just a matter of time before people get used to it and the dress gets crumpled and then it's really over, but at the time it was magical. Across the aisle, McIntyre sat despondently brooding over unfinished letters. "Vernon, I don't know," he said to Sloan. "You got to spend Christmas in this dump last week, and I'm sorry, but you know what? You're lucky. I hope they didn't let me go home." "Really?" Long said. "What do you mean by that?" "Ah, I don't know," McIntyre said, dabbing the fountain pen with a Kleenex. "I don't know. It's just that I hate having to come back, I suppose." But that was only part of the reason; the other part, like the letter he'd been writing this week, was his business. McIntyre's wife has gained weight in the past two years, and she has become quite confused.She visits him every other week, and on Sunday afternoons when she sees him, she seems to have nothing on her mind other than the movie or TV show she just watched. She rarely mentions her two children to him, and they almost never came. "Anyway, you'll see them for Christmas," she'd say. "We're going to have fun. But listen, Dad, are you sure you won't be too tired from the long car trip?" "Of course not," he said, several times. "I didn't do anything last year, did I?" However, when he finally got out of the car with a few packages bought from the hospital canteen, he was out of breath and had to walk home slowly on the snowy Brooklyn streets. Daughter, Jane, is eighteen years old.She wasn't home when he came home. "Oh, yes," explained his wife, "I thought I told you she might be out tonight." "No," he said. "You didn't tell me. Where did she go?" "Oh, just out to the movies, with her mate, Brenda. I don't think you'll mind, Dad. Actually, I let her. Sometimes, she needs to relax at night. You know, she A little tired. She's a little nervous or something." "What is she nervous about?" "Uh, you know. First of all, she has a very tiring job. I mean she likes it, but she's not used to working eight hours a day, you know what I mean? She'll get used to it .Come on, grab a coffee, and we'll put this tree up. We're going to have fun." On his way to wash his hands, he passed her room, where the daughter was not there, a clean smell of cosmetics, battered teddy bears and framed photographs of singers."It's a joy to be home," he said. Son Joseph, last Christmas was a kid wandering around with a model airplane; but this year, his hair grew four inches long, and he spends a lot of time every day on his hair, combing it all up with a comb, and combing it into a shiny big back head.He has also become a heavy smoker, holding a cigarette with his smoky thumb and forefinger, and hiding the burning cigarette butt in his palm.The lips barely move when speaking, and the only laugh is a brief snort through the nose.He snorted just like that while decorating the Christmas tree.McIntyre was speaking at the time, hearing rumors that the Department of Veterans Affairs might soon increase disability benefits.Maybe a snort doesn't mean much, but to McIntyre it's like, "Are you kidding me, Dad? We know where the money comes from." It seems like an unmistakable, self-righteous footnote that says It was McIntyre's brother-in-law, not his pension, that supported the family.He made up his mind to tell his wife about it when he went to bed at night, but when he did, all he said was, "Can't he cut his hair shorter?" "Now kids all have that kind of hair," she said. "Why do you always dislike him?" In the morning, Jane was there, dull and disheveled in her baggy blue nightgown. "Hi, honey," she said, and kissed him, reeking of sleepiness and bad perfume.She quietly unwrapped her presents, and for a long time she reclined in the upholstered high chair, one leg draped over the arm of the high chair, her feet dangling, her fingers pinching a pimple on her chin. McIntyre couldn't take his eyes off her.And not just because she was a woman—the kind of introverted, evasively smiling woman he'd been craving irresistibly throughout adolescence in the midst of his shyness—there was something more unsettling about Jen than that. . "What are you looking at, Daddy?" she said, smiling, then frowning again. "You've been staring at me." He felt himself blushing. "I've always liked looking at pretty girls. That's annoying, isn't it?" "Of course not." She began to concentrate on tearing a crack in a nail, lowered her head and frowned at her hands, her long eyelashes drooped down and lined her face, forming a beautiful arc. "It's just—you know. If a guy keeps staring at you, it makes you nervous, that's all." "Listen, honey." McIntyre leaned forward with his elbows on his skinny knees. "Can I ask you? What's the tension? Ever since I got home, all I've heard is tension. 'Jen's nervous. Jane's nervous.' So, listen, can you tell me, here What's there to be nervous about?" "Nothing," she said. "I don't know, Dad. I guess it's nothing." "Okay, I'm asking because—" He tried to make his voice as deep and gentle as possible, using the voice of long ago, but what came out was harsh and irritable rapid breathing—"The reason I'm asking is, If something bothers you, shouldn't you talk to your dad?" Her nails were torn into the flesh, which made her shake her hands desperately, put her fingers in her mouth, and whimpered in pain, and suddenly she stood up, blushing, and crying. "Dad, can you leave me alone? Please leave me alone?" She ran out of the room, went upstairs, and slammed the door of her room. McIntyre followed for a few steps, then stopped, looking sideways at his wife and son, who were inspecting the carpet across the room. "What's the matter with her?" he asked. "Huh? What the hell is going on here?" But they just kept silent, like two children who have done something wrong. "Come on, come on," he said.Every time air was sucked into his feeble lungs, the head moved slightly involuntarily. "Come on, damn it, tell me!" With a burst of sentimental whimpers, his wife slumped on the sofa, spreading her hands and feet between the sofa cushions, sobbing, letting her face soak in tears. "Okay," she said. "Well, you asked for it. We're all trying to give you a merry Christmas, but if you're going to come home and poke around and drive everyone crazy with your questions, well—you're Asking for trouble. She's four months pregnant—well, are you satisfied now? Can you stop bothering us now?" McIntyre slumped down in the easy chair, covered in rustling Christmas wrapping paper, his head still bobbing with every breath. "Who is it?" he said at last. "Who is that man?" "Ask her," said his wife. "Go, ask her, and you'll find out. She won't tell you. She won't tell anyone—that's the trouble. She wouldn't even tell me she was pregnant if I hadn't found out, Even now she doesn't want to tell her mother the boy's name. She would rather break her mother's heart—yes, she would rather break her mother's heart, and her brother's heart." Then he heard it again, a hum from across the room.Joseph stood there, smiling smugly, and stamped out his cigarette.His lower lip moved slightly, and he said, "Maybe she doesn't know what that guy's name is either." McIntyre slowly rose from the rustling paper, walked up to his son, and slapped him so hard that his long hair flew up from the top of his head and fell to the sides of his ears; his face shrank with pain. Get up and shrink back into the pained, frightened little boy.As blood trickled from the little boy's nose and dripped onto the new nylon shirt he had bought for Christmas, McIntyre hit him again, and his wife screamed. A few hours later, he returned to Building Seven with nothing to do.For a whole week, he ate very little.Except for a few words to Vernon Sloan, he rarely spoke.He spent almost all of his time writing letters to his daughter, which were still unfinished by the afternoon of New Year's Eve. He wrote many less-than-successful beginnings, which ended up in a paper bag that hung beside his bed, with Kleenex.He wrote: (The second page) (page three) That's all for this letter. Now the little one's laughter stopped, and the ward seemed unnaturally quiet.The old year faded behind the west window in a ray of yellow sunset; as night fell, the lights came on, and servicemen in masks and smocks clattered in pushing carts with rubber wheels, on which there were plates of dinner.One of the waiters, a thin, bright-eyed man named Karl, began his day's work. "Hey, have you all heard of the man who ran over you?" he asked, stopping in the middle of the aisle with a large pot of steaming coffee in his hand. "Pour your coffee, Carl," someone said. Carl poured a few cups of coffee, crossed the aisle, and poured a few more, but halfway, he stopped again, his eyes wide open, showing above the sterile mask. "No, but listen—have you all heard the story of the man who ran over you? It's a new story." He looked at the little one, who was usually willing to play a supporting role.But now the little one was so absorbed in buttering a slice of bread that his cheek quivered at every stroke of the knife. "Well, then," finally Carl had to say, "this guy said to a kid, 'Hey, kid, run across the street and buy me a pack of cigarettes, okay?' And the kid said, 'No.' Got it?" ? So this person had to run (roll) over by himself!" He patted his thigh and bent over laughing.Jones whined a few times in appreciation; the others ate in silence. When the meal was over and the plates were removed, McIntyre tore off the beginning of the third page and threw it in the waste paper bag.He rearranged the pillows, dusted the bed of crumbs, and began to write: (page three) But he threw this page away too, and sat for a long time without writing a word, but smoking, taking care not to inhale it as usual.Finally he picked up the fountain pen again and cleaned the nib very carefully with a Kleenex.Then he began on a new page: (page three) The rustle of the nurse's starched clothes and the thump of rubber heels on the floor made him look up; she was standing by the bed, holding a bottle of rubbing alcohol. "How are you, McIntyre?" she said. "Do you want some paint on your back?" "No thanks," he said. "Not tonight." "My God." She glanced at the letter, and he covered most of it with his hand. "Are you still writing? You are always writing every time I pass here. You must be writing to a lot of friends. I wish I had time to write." "Yeah," he said. "Well, that's pretty obvious. I've got a lot of time." "Okay, but how do you have so much to write about?" she said. "That's my problem. I get ready to write all the letters, and I sit down, but I can't think of one thing worth writing about. Too bad." He looked at her ass, watching her leave the aisle.Then he read a new page, crumpled it up, and threw it in the wastebasket.Closing his eyes and rubbing the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, he tried to recall the exact words of the first edition.In the end he tried to write out what he remembered: (page three) But from then on, the pen seemed to be dead under the grip of his fingers.It is as if all the letters of the alphabet, all the characters connected by letters, and the infinite ways in which the language can be written no longer exist. He looks out the window for help, but the window becomes a black mirror, and all that returns are lights, bright sheets, and hospital gowns.He put on his hospital gown and slippers, walked over, stood there, and pressed his forehead against the cold glass with his hands.Now he could see a line of lights on the highway in the distance, the black trees on the horizon between the snow and the sky.Just at the horizon, to the right, the lights from Brooklyn and New York dyed the sky a pale pink, some of which was blocked by a large black front.Black is a blind corner of the paraplegic building, another world far away. McIntyre turned from the window, his eyes squinted under the yellow light, leaving only a diminishing trace of his breathing on the window pane, a grotesque timid look of rebirth and release.He walked to the bed, folded the written letter neatly, tore it in half, and threw it into the wastebasket.He picked up his cigarette case and stopped beside Vernon Sloan, who was blinking through the Saturday Evening Post through his reading glasses. "Smoking, Vernon?" he said. "No thanks, Mike. I can't smoke more than one or two a day, and it just makes me cough." "Okay," McIntyre said, rooting himself. "Do you want to kill a game of backgammon?" "No, thanks, Mike, not now. I'm a bit tired--I think I'll read the paper." "Any good articles in the paper this week, Vernon?" "Oh, yes," he said. "A couple of good articles." Then he opened his mouth and smiled slowly, almost showing all his whitened teeth. "I said, what's the matter with you, man? Are you feeling fine or something?" "Oh, not too bad, Vernon," he said, stretching his skinny arms and straightening his back. "Not too bad." "You've finally finished writing your letter, haven't you?" "Yes, I think so," he said. "My problem is, I can't think of anything to write about." Seeing the broad back of little Kovacs across the aisle, sitting languidly in his new, purple-red gown, McIntyre walked over and put a hand on his huge satin shoulders. "So?" he said. Xiao Budian turned his head and looked at him angrily, immediately full of hostility. "So, what?" "So where's the beard?" The little boy yanked open the locker, pulled out his beard, and shoved it roughly into McIntyre's hands. "Here," he said. "Do you want it? Take it." McIntyre held his mustache up to his ears and put the rope behind his head. "The rope should be tighter," he said. "Here, how about this? Maybe I'll look better with the teeth out." But the little one wasn't listening, he was rummaging through the bandages in the cabinet. "Here," he said. "Take these, too. I don't want to participate. If you want to do it, find someone else." Just then, Jones walked over without a sound, all smiles on his face. "Hey, are you going to do it, Mike? Have you changed your mind?" "Jones, talk to the big son of a bitch," McIntyre said through a wagging beard. "He didn't cooperate." "Oh my God, little one," pleaded Jones. "The whole thing is up to you. The whole thing was your idea." "I've told you," said Tiny. "I don't want to participate. If you want to do it, you find some other idiot to do it." After lights out at ten o'clock, no one bothered to hide the whiskey anymore.Throughout the ward, with the unofficial annual blessing of the head nurse, those who had been hiding in the toilets for a few sips at night were now forming secret and merry coteries of swigs.Before midnight, without anyone noticing, three people slipped from Ward C to the quilt room, took a sheet and a towel, then went to the kitchen to get a mop stick, then crossed the entire building and disappeared in In the toilet of ward A. Last-minute fuss over the beard: it covered McIntyre's face so much that it ruined his toothless effect.Jones solved the problem by cutting off most of his beard, leaving only the beard on his chin, and using some duct tape to hold it in place. "Okay," he said, "that's it. Great. Now roll up your hospital trousers, Mike, and only your bare legs are showing under the sheet, understand? Where's your mop stick now?" "Jones, it doesn't work!" cried Tiny Dot miserably.He stood there naked, wearing only a pair of white wool socks, trying to fasten the towel wrapped around his waist. "The son of a bitch can't hold back!" Jones rushed to help, and finally everything was in order.Nervous, they drank the last of Jones' rye whiskey and threw the empty bottle in the laundry basket; then they slipped outside, huddled together at the front of Ward A in the dark. "Are you ready?" Jones asked softly. "Okay... let's go." He snapped on the overhead light, thirty shocked faces squinted their eyes in the strong light. "1950" appeared first, with a weak appearance, leaning on a trembling pole, huddled up, limping and trembling with age; behind him was the New Year's baby, grinning and showing off his strength , wearing a huge diaper, dancing.For a second or two there was silence save for the sound of the old man's stick striking the floor, followed by laughter and cheers. "Don't get rid of the old one!" the baby growled, his voice drowning out the noise.As they walked down the aisle, he made an elaborate antic, kicking the old man in the buttocks to drive him away, causing the old man to wobble weakly, nearly fall, and touch the side butt. Jones ran ahead and turned on the lights in Ward B, where the cheers grew louder.The nurses gathered helplessly at the door, and they frowned or giggled behind the sterile masks, and the performance continued amidst cheers and boos. The door of a single room was knocked open with a bang, the lights were turned on, and a dying old man opened his eyes through the oxygen tent.He watched in bewilderment at these two demented toothless clowns, who were bouncing around the end of his bed; finally he understood, gave them a yellow smile, and they moved on to the next private room, and the next, and finally came to In Ward C, friends had already gathered in the aisle with smiles and waited. Before a fresh drink could be poured, all the radios blared loudly and Guy Lombardo's band played "The Good Times"; Everyone else's voice: Even Vernon Sloan sang, propping himself up, sitting on the bed, holding a whiskey-and-water and slowly rocking to the music.They are still singing: After the singing, the handshake began. "Good luck, man." "You too, man - hope you make it through this year." People all over Building 7 walking around, looking for handshakes, over the yelling, the blare of the radio, the words repeated over and over again: "Good luck to you..." "Hope you make it through this year, man... McIntyre stood quietly beside the little Kovax's bed, tired, the fuchsia dress on the bed was thrown there in a ball, crumpled, McIntyre raised his glass, smiled at the crowd, laughed His gums were showing, his small laughter roared in his ears, and heavy arms were wrapped around his neck.

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