“Rick,” she said, “Rick,” and she led him into the apartment, not bothering to lock the door, sensing that the danger had passed long ago. “Darling, oh my darling, my poor darling.”
He didn’t speak. He walked into the living room like a dead man, with his arm around her shoulder, his weight heavy on her. He flopped down onto the couch, still not speaking, lifting his legs as if the effort was an extremely painful one.
“I’ll get a doctor,” she said in a rush, and he shook his head, and she stood there undecided for a moment, not knowing quite what to do, knowing only that he was hurt badly, and wanting desperately to help him. She left him and ran to the bathroom, still crying wildly, unable to control the tears. She got iodine and peroxide, and gauze and adhesive tape, and she rushed back into the living room, helping him out of his jacket, kissing his hands when she saw the lacerated skin there. She undressed him, biting her lip when she saw the blue bruises on his body, almost screaming when the red welts on his crotch were exposed.
“Darling, darling,” she kept repeating, soothingly through her tears, unable to think of anything else to say, working hastily with her medicines and her bandages.
“When the world should all be sleeping,” the radio sang, “and a melody comes creeping, ’til you want to sway, it’s the Milkman’s Matinee...”
“Midnight already,” Rick said hoarsely.
“Yes, darling, yes,” Anne answered, not knowing what to do about the flap of skin that hung from his cheek, with the crisscrossing red fibers under it. She splashed peroxide into the wound and Rick winced, and she said, “Oh, I’m sorry,” and he said, “That’s all right.” She put the flap of skin back into place, wondering if that were the right thing to do, and then she covered it with gauze and adhesive tape and began treating the other cuts on his face.
“They didn’t hurt your teeth,” she said, really wanting to think it, and surprised when it found voice.
“No,” he answered.
“Were they...”
“The boys, yes. Me and Josh. I took him home first. We got a cab. I’m sorry, honey, but he...”
“It’s all right,” she said.
“He’s a good guy, Anne. I’m sorry he got dragged into it. Oh Christ, why did he have to get dragged into it?”
“It’s all right, Rick,” she repeated.
“We were high,” he said. “We shouldn’t have got high. We’d have stood a better chance...”
“How many were there?” she asked, not wanting to hear his answer, but having to know.
“Seven, I think. Big kids. We shouldn’t have got high.”
“You didn’t know, Rick. Rick, shall I get a doctor?”
“No, I’ll be all right.”
“Did you recognize any of them?”
“It was dark,” he said helplessly.
“That’s all right. Come, Rick, come to bed. Come, darling. You’ll be all right.”
“Can’t I just... just rest here a while?”
“Yes, whatever you want. Would you like some coffee? Did you eat anything, Rick?”
“No. Nothing, Anne. I’m not hungry.”
She washed his face, and then got him into his pajamas and threw a robe around his shoulders. She got a pot of coffee going anyway, remembering something about hot drinks being good for shock. She almost started crying again as she measured out the coffee, but this time she held back the tears because she didn’t want him to know what a sissy she was. When the coffee was ready, she poured two cupfuls and brought them into the living room, dragging over one of the end tables and placing them on it.
He drank the coffee gratefully, even though he’d said he hadn’t wanted anything. She saw a little color coming back into his face, and she watched him while he sipped at the coffee, hardly touching her own, just watching him and glad to have him home again, and knowing he’d be all right, knowing she’d do everything she could to make him all right.
“Shall I get a doctor?” she asked again, and he shook his head and sipped at the coffee, the steam enveloping his face.
“I must look like The Invisible Man,” he said. “All these bandages.”
She smiled, feeling her eyes moist again. He began telling her what had happened then, leaving nothing out, telling her the whole story. She listened with her hands clenched in her lap, feeling unaccountably proud of him, not knowing why, knowing you’re not supposed to be proud of the side that loses, but feeling this pride bursting inside her anyway. When he finished his story and his coffee, she sat beside him on the couch and held him close to her breast, stroking his face.
They sat silently and listened to Art Ford and his records, and after a long while, Rick said, “I think I’ll survive, don’t you?”
“You’d damn well better,” she said. “I’m too young to be a widow.”
He laughed, and she laughed with him, and she knew that everything was really going to be all right. Their laughter broke the solemn mood that had been upon them. As if they were both anxious to forget what had happened, they began talking of other things, of what she’d done all day, avoiding any talk of the school and the attack and what was to happen when he went back to his classes on Monday.
“Jerry called,” she said.
“Jerry Lefkowitz?”
“Yes. He got a job.”
“Really?” he asked. “Where?”
“Central Commercial.”
“I’ll be damned,” Rick said. “And I was worrying about him!”
“Is it a good school?” Anne asked, smiling because Rick was smiling, but not really knowing what was funny.
“Is it a good school?” He began laughing. “Oh, Anne, baby, and I felt guilty about taking this job from him. Oh, honey!” He started laughing again, really laughing this time, the laughter that is produced sometimes after tears, the laughter that is spontaneous and often completely humorless, the laughter that is more a release of sorrow than an expression of joy. He laughed boomingly, shaking his head continually, and because the laughter was so spontaneous, and because he looked so pathetic in his bandages, she laughed with him. They sat there on the couch and laughed like two idiots, shook with laughter until the tears were streaming down their faces, laughed until the man upstairs banged on the floor with a broom handle, and even then they couldn’t stop.
Part two
6
The first snowfall came on Monday, October 19th, a little more than a month after Rick and Josh were attacked.
It started in the early hours of the morning, while the city slept. The snowflakes filtered down from a cast-iron sky, lazily at first, large wet flakes that melted the instant they touched the pavement. The darkened, empty streets took on a glistening, wet, polished look, black asphalt slickly shining in the wan light of the street lamps. And then the snow began in earnest. The big, sloppy, wet flakes fled before an onslaught of smaller, sharper white. The wind swept the snow over the pavements and gutters, and the snow clung and whirled and clung again. The street lamps stood like sentries at attention, their yellow-capped heads erect, the snow lashing at them, swirling about them. The snow covered. Slowly, patiently, it devoured black patches of asphalt, smothered the gray concrete, lodged in the brown earth of open lots, caked on the chipped paint of window sills, heaped against the curbs and the bases of the lamp posts, dropped a clinging downy-wet blanket on the metal-beetle tops of the parked automobiles.
And still it fell, silently, covering, muting, hushing the world and disguising the filth of a city, thick underfoot, a fleecy cold robe of crowded white flakes.