Town Burning by Thomas Williams Page B

window frame. John ran out of cigarettes and couldn’t make himself borrow one from his father or Bruce. Outside, the cars ground in the gravel. The nurse came in and gave Bruce his mineral oil, but this time he said nothing to her, and she seemed to be in a hurry to pour it down his throat and leave. John rationed his trips to the bathroom, figuring that two and no more would not make Bruce think that he couldn’t stand to sit in the room. When the intern wheeled in the napkin-covered stand he found himself moving his lips, saying over and over, “Please make us go home. Tell us we have to go home.” He had no more feeling for Bruce; now it was self-preservation alone. He had to get out of the room. He had a headache and wondered in fear if he had a tumor. He could plainly see the tumor—it looked like a black walnut right in the back of his head, and he found his hand up there feeling around as if he might feel the bulge in his skull. My God! he thought. What if it was me? The intern spoke to Bruce in a low voice.
    “I thought you might want them to go,” the intern said.
    “Yes,” Bruce said, and then turned, smiling, to the others. “This is when I lose my hair, but don’t worry, they’ll save it for me.”
    The intern was embarrassed. He fiddled with his equipment, and wouldn’t raise his head. Gladys Cotter stood up, and the intern said, “I’ll be back in a little while,” and left.
    “We’ll come back after supper,” Gladys Cotter said.
    “No. This is it,” Bruce said.
    “But they aren’t going to operate now!”
    “No. But they’re going to get me ready for morning.”
    “What about your supper?”
    “I don’t know about that. Goodbye.” Bruce smiled, his eyes triumphant, and John thought, If only he can hold on until we get out!
    “Then we won’t see you until…afterward?” Gladys Cotter’s voice went high and out of control and she ran around the bed toward Bruce, but his eyes held her off.
    “Goodbye,” he said in a level, taut voice, and deliberately took her hand, holding her away from him.
    “I’ll see about the edging,” William Cotter said, “and tell you how it comes out.”
    “Sure. Goodbye.”
    John and his father both shook Bruce’s limp hand, so weak compared to the hard determination in his face.
    John looked back, once the doorframe was past and Bruce’s room was at least a room he had left, as if it were in another dimension. He saw Bruce’s steady profile against the white window, one hand bringing a cigarette slowly up to the face. It was the face of the gut-shot hawk he had killed in the woods—cold, violent and brave.
     
    The next morning they were summoned, with a certain amount of apology, to the hospital, where three neurosurgeons explained that the cancerous tissue in Bruce’s brain was too widespread to be removed completely. The patient lived, and might recover consciousness for a while. They would just have to wait and see.
    Gladys Cotter had to be helped from the room, from the hospital, and into the car. She didn’t scream or cry, and after spending the day alone, in bed, she went back to the hospital to sit by Bruce’s bed.

CHAPTER 6
    Michael Spinelli had been dead a week. Because of the long dry spell his grave had not begun to heal; the replaced blanket of sod was brown around the cut, and the flowers in pots were wilted and dying. Jane went twice to the Catholic cemetery with the Spinellis, Mrs. Spinelli humped and older in shiny black dress and veil, Cesare Spinelli dried up and silent as the faded flowers.
    Jane knew she would now see the Spinellis only by chance, in Leah. She had moved to the farm the few things ten years of marriage had brought her; wedding presents such as unused silver and dishes, linen and a little radio. Mike’s motorcycle leaned against the wall in one of the farm sheds where Junior had put it after hauling it back from the accident.
    Mrs. Pettibone, Sam Steven’s housekeeper, washed dishes. Jane wiped,