Chapter 4 4

Anne Corrigan took me into the ward, and I saw my mother.She has always been fat, and the hospital ward seemed small and narrow, but now she is so sick that she can only lie helplessly on this hospital bed.Her hair, now grey, was spread out on the pillow.Her hand on the bed was as white as a baby's hand.The corners of her mouth were not as twisted as I had imagined, but her face was pale and her eyes were closed.When the nurse beside me called her softly, her eyes opened, blue and beautiful, this is the youngest and most energetic part of her body.She opened her eyes blankly for a moment before seeing me.She smiled and tried to raise her arms.One lifted up, the other trembled, lifted up a little, then fell down again, "Alan." She called me softly.

I walked up and couldn't help but shed tears.There is a chair by the wall, but I don't want to sit on it.I knelt on the floor and held her in my arms.Her body was warm and clean, and I kissed her forehead, cheeks, and corners of her mouth.She raised her free hand and ran her fingers under one of my eyes. "Don't cry." She said softly, "There's no need for this." "I came as soon as I got a call from Besty McCourty," I said. "Tell her... the weekend," she said in a weak voice, "I'll be fine this weekend." "Okay, stop talking about this." I said, hugging her tightly.

"Is the car repaired?" "No," I said, "I'll hitchhike." "Oh my God," she said.Clearly every word was labored, but it wasn't vague enough to confuse and embarrass me.She knows who she is, who I am, where we are and why we are here.The only indication that she was sick was her left arm.This was a great relief to me.Because all the other worries were Stauber's hoax, maybe there was no Stauber at all, it was all a dream, sentimental though it might be.Since I was beside her, kneeling by her bed, hugging her, and smelling the lingering scent of Lanwei perfume on her body, it makes sense to explain Stauber's encounter with a dream.

"Alan, there is blood on your collar." Her eyes closed, and then slowly opened again.I think she must feel that her eyelids are heavy, just like I felt that the rubber shoes were heavy in the corridor just now. "I kowtowed, Mom, it's okay." Her eyelids drooped, and then slowly opened. "Mr. Parker, I think we'd better put her to sleep," said the nurse standing behind me. "She's had enough for today." "I know." I kissed the corner of her mouth again. "Mom, I'm leaving, and I'll come back tomorrow." "Don't hitch a ride...dangerous."

"I won't take a ride. I'll take Mrs. McCourty's car. Would you like to sleep?" "Sleep... all I can do is sleep," she said, "while I was working today, I was taking the dishes out of the dishwasher, and I had a headache, passed out, woke up... and here it is," she looked up. Looking at me, "It's going to attack all of a sudden, the doctor said it's not too bad." "You'll be fine." I said standing up and holding her hand.Her skin was as smooth as water-soaked silk, despite the hands of an old man. "I dreamed we were playing at New Hampshire Amusement Park," she said.

I looked down at her and felt my whole body go cold, "Really?" "Yeah, waiting in line for that thing that climbs high, you remember that thing?" "Roller coaster," I said, "I remember it, Mom." "You're scared, and I'm yelling at you." "No, Mom, you didn't..." Her hand clenched mine, and the corners of her mouth stretched out to the edge of the dimples, which was her usual expression of impatience. "Yes," she said, "for cursing and beating you, on the back of the neck, isn't it?" "Probably," I didn't want to argue with her, "this is where you hit me the most."

"I shouldn't hit you," she said, "It's hot and I'm tired, but you still... I shouldn't, I just want to say sorry." The corners of my eyes were wet again, "It's okay, Mom, that was a long time ago." "You've never sat before." She whispered. "I sat down anyway," I said, "and finally I did." She smiled at me.That day when we finally got to the front of the line and I was timid, she yelled at me and slapped me hard on the back of the neck.At this time, she was very weak, and she was far from the angry, sweaty, and powerful woman at that time.I think she must have seen the insulting and mocking look on the face of someone waiting to ride the roller coaster. I remember she said to the person what are you watching, is it good?When she led me away in the hot sun, I cried and rubbed the back of my neck as I walked, but it didn't hurt very much, and she didn't hit me that hard.And what I remember most is getting off that towering, whirling, screaming roller coaster.

"Mr. Parker, you really should go." The nurse urged me. I lifted my mother's hand and kissed her knuckles. "Come see you tomorrow, I love you, Mom." "I love you too, Alan, I'm sorry, I used to hit you a lot. I won't hit you again." But it's been beaten and cursed, and it's all over.I don't know how to tell her that I understand what's going on and that I can understand her.This is our family's secret, we can only understand each other. "Mom, I'll come and see you tomorrow, okay?" She didn't respond, her eyelids drooped again, this time they didn't open again, her chest rose and fell slowly and evenly.I stepped back from the bed and stared at her intently.

In the hallway, I asked the nurse, "Will he get better? Will he?" "Nobody's sure, Mr. Parker. She's a patient of Dr. Nuneri, and he's a good doctor. He'll be here tomorrow afternoon. You can ask him." "And what do you think?" "I think she'll be fine." The nurse led me down the corridor to the elevator. "Her ECG signal is still very strong, and all signs indicate that it's just a mild attack." She frowned, "It's just that she needs to get rid of some habits, of course, in terms of diet and life..." "You mean smoking?"

"Oh, yes, I have to quit." She said it easily, as if getting my mother to quit smoking was as easy as moving a vase from the room to the hall.I pressed the button of the elevator, and the door of the elevator opened immediately.After visiting hours, the hospital was much quieter. "Thank you." I said. "It's okay, I'm sorry for scaring you just now, I was really stupid for talking like that." "Never mind, never mind," I said, even though I thought it was. I got into the elevator and pressed the button.The nurse raised her hand and snapped her fingers at me.I also gave her one back.The elevator doors closed between us.The elevator started to descend, and I looked at the pinch marks on the backs of my fingers and thought, I'm such a useless thing, so useless, I'm fucking useless even if it was just a dream.Take her, I said to Stauber.She is my mother, but I still said, take her away, don't take me away.She raised me up with painstaking efforts, and accompanied me to line up for the roller coaster ride in the hot sun and the flying dust of the small New Hampshire Amusement Park, but at the most critical moment, I said without hesitation to take her away, don't take me away.Cowards, cowards, real fucking cowards.

The elevator door opened and I walked out, went to the trash can and lifted the lid. The badge was still in there, thrown in someone's paper cup with coffee left on it. The words "I rode the roller coaster at Horrorland, Reconia" are still visible.I bent down and quickly picked up the badge from the coffee residue in the paper cup, wiped it on my jeans and put it in my pocket.It seems wrong to throw it away.It's mine now, whether it's lucky or unlucky, it's mine anyway.I walked out of the hospital and waved to Yi Wan as I passed her.The bright moon outside the house was in the sky, and everything was immersed in the indifferent and melancholy moonlight. I have never been so exhausted physically and mentally like this time in my life.I wish I could choose again, I would choose differently.Funny to say, if she died as I expected, I might accept it.At least things don't end that way. Nobody picks up a hitchhiker in town, said the old man with the hernia belt.How real is it?I walked the avenues that run through Lewiston—thirty-six blocks of Lisbon Avenue and nine blocks of Kennell Avenue—and past all the self-serve bars with jukeboxes playing Freegill, AD/DC, and Ray De Japilling's old French song, I never gave a thumbs up throughout.No one was driving by, and things didn't look good.It was past eleven o'clock when I reached the Dems Bridge.But as soon as I got to the border of Harrow, the first car I encountered stopped as soon as I stretched out my hand.Forty minutes later I was fumbling for my house key under the red cart next to the shed door behind the house.In ten minutes I was in bed.This is the first time I've slept alone in this house since I was growing up.The phone rang at 12:15 the next day and woke me up.I thought it might be from the hospital, who were going to tell me that my mother had taken a dramatic turnaround and had just passed away a few minutes ago, deeply saddened.But as soon as I answered the phone I realized it was just Mrs. McCourty wanting to know if I was home and about my visit to my mother last night (she asked me three times and by the end of the third I was starting to feel like a murderer interrogated generally).She also asked if I would take her car to visit my mother in the hospital in the afternoon.I told her it was great.I hung up the phone and walked out of the bedroom, where there was a floor-to-ceiling mirror by the bedroom door.In the mirror is a tall, unshaven young man with a small belly and wearing only a pair of baggy underwear.I said to myself in the mirror, "You can't be so crazy, man, and stop thinking every time the phone rings it's someone calling a funeral." It doesn't matter if I can't help thinking this way, time blurs memory, time always blurs everything... But the strange thing is that last night is still vivid and sharp.I still remember Stauber's handsome face under the hat he wore backwards, the cigarette in his ear, the smoke oozing from the slit in his neck as he smoked, and the tales of cheap Cadillacs he told still linger in my ear.Time will blur memory, but not for a moment.And I still have that badge, it's still on my clothes piled up by the bathroom door.This badge is my souvenir from last night, not every hero who has experienced a ghost story can get a souvenir from it to prove its authenticity, right? There is a stereo set in the corner of the room.I was digging through old tapes looking for some to listen to while I shave.I found a tape labeled Anthology of Folk Songs and put it in the machine.I recorded this tape when I was in high school and can hardly remember what songs were on it.It turns out that Bob Dylan mourns the lonely death of Heidi Carroll, Tom Paxton sings about old friends who are scattered everywhere, and then David Van Rocker begins his cocaine blues .I was still shaving when he got to the middle of the third verse, but I stopped to gulp down whiskey and gin until my belly was full.David gruffly sang his song: The doctor said it was going to poison me, but didn't say when.Of course, this will have an answer.A sense of guilt led me to imagine that my mother was going to die soon, and Stauber never corrected my assumption.How did he correct me when I never asked about it at the time?But it was clear that this assumption was obviously wrong, and my mother did not die immediately. The doctor said it was going to poison me, but didn't say when.David is still repeating. God, why should I blame myself.Did my choice violate the laws of nature?Don't children usually outlive their parents?That son of a bitch is trying to scare me and trap me in injustice, but don't I just buy him off?Didn't we all end up on a roller coaster ride? Don't you just want to avoid the condemnation of your conscience?Find a way to excuse yourself.Maybe you're right...but when he asked you to choose, you chose her, man, you chose her, there's no excuse for that. I opened my eyes and looked at my face in the mirror. "I've chosen," I said, not quite believing I'd make that choice, but eventually I thought I would. Mrs. McCourty and I went to see my mother, who was getting better.I asked her if she remembered dreaming about Thrillerland in Reconia last night.She shook her head and said, "I hardly remember you coming. I was very sleepy last night. What's the matter?" "It's okay." I said, and kissed her forehead, "It's okay." Five days later my mother was discharged from the hospital.For a short time after being discharged from the hospital, she walked with a limp.But it quickly returned to normal.A month later she went back to work, first only half-day shifts, but then full-time shifts as if nothing had happened.I also went back to school and got a part-time job at PATS Pizzeria in downtown Orono.It's not a lot of money, but it's enough to pay for my car repairs, which makes me feel very satisfied.I haven't hitchhiked since then. My mother wanted to quit smoking, for a short while.One morning in April, after school was out, I came home to find the kitchen as smoky as ever.She looked at me with shame and disbelief. "I can't help it," she said. "I know you want me to quit smoking, and I should quit, but there is something missing in my life without smoking. There is nothing to fill it. I can only regret that I shouldn't have smoked in the first place." Two weeks later, after I graduated from college, my mother had another attack, but it was not serious.After the doctor gave her a serious warning, she tried to quit smoking again. After quitting for a while, she gained fifty pounds and started smoking again.As the Bible says, "Nature is immutable", I firmly believe in this.Luckily I found a pretty good job in Portland the first time I was looking for a job, and I was going to keep my mom from going out to work.It was hard to persuade her at first. I may eventually give up trying to persuade her impatiently, but I now have the firm conviction to break down his obstinacy. "You should be making money to live your own life and leave me alone." She said, "Alan, one day you will get married, don't spend your money on me, spend it on your own life." "You are my life," I said, kissing her. "Whether you accept it or not, that's what I think." Finally she accepted my persuasion and quit working. From then on, for about seven years, we lived a peaceful and peaceful life.I didn't live with her, but I went to see her almost every day. We often played cards and watched videos. I bought him a VCR and lived a happy life.As she always said: We had a room full of laughter.I don't know if I owe Stauber all these years, but I did enjoy family fun.The night I met Staub grew in my memory like a nightmare, never to fade, as I always expected; everything from that night, from the old man telling me to wish on the autumn moon to Staub My hands fumbled on my shirt and pinned the badge on me, and the scene is still clearly in my memory.One day I couldn't find the badge and remembered that when I moved to my small flat in Valmouth I kept it in the first drawer of the bedside table, along with two sets of cufflinks and one with the stamp on it. "Bill Clinton, Safe Saks President ⑨" political badge, and now it's gone.A day or two later, the phone rang, and as soon as I answered it, I understood why Mrs. McCourty was crying.The bad news she brought was exactly what I had been vaguely anticipating: play as you play, and do as you do. After the funeral, the vigil and the long line of mourners dispersed.I went back to the cottage in Harrow, where my mother spent her final years, smoking cigarettes and eating donuts.Our mother and son depended on each other for life, and now I am the only one left. I took an inventory of her personal belongings, put aside the papers and documents to be dealt with after death, and said later, put away the items to be kept first, put away the items for charity on the other side of the room, and then packed box.Near the end of tidying, I got down on my knees to see what else was under her bunk, and there it was.I've been looking for it without admitting I was looking for it: a dusty badge that says "I rode the roller coaster at Thrillerlands, Reconia."I hold it tightly in my palm, the pin of the badge digging into my flesh as I hold it tighter, a bitter pleasure in the pain.Spreading my fingers again, my eyes were blurred with tears, and the words on the badge became heavier, stacked on top of each other, shimmering, looking like watching a three-dimensional movie without glasses. "Satisfied?" I questioned the quiet room. "Is it enough?" Of course no one responded. "Why do you keep looking for it? Why?" Still no one responded.why is it like this?You're in line for life, and that's it.You line up under the moonlight and make a wish in the evil moonlight, you line up and listen to them screaming in the roller coaster, they spend money to be frightened, and the roller coaster ride is always worth the money.Maybe when it's your turn you run away in fear.Both have the same effect.While life should be richer, it really isn't.In real life, you can only: play and play, do and do. Get your badge and get out of here. -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ ⑨ Safe Sax President: The original text is: Safe Sax President. Sax is a musical instrument saxophone. "Sax" and "Sex (sexual intercourse)" sound similar, referring to Clinton's sex scandal.