Then I had tried so hard to make my legs move, and finally I had given up and withdrawn into resignation.
Now there was movement, slight and feeble, but with it returned a sense of hope. I looked out the window at the mountain. I thought of Filomón and what he had said. I thought of my first night at the hospital and the woman in the dreams, Ismelda, the woman who had led me to the springs where we entered the mountain. And Mike? How had he found me? Why? How were they working their way into my new life? In the other hospital I couldnât remember faces. Many people had come to see me, and they had gathered around my bed, looking at me with silent, sad eyes, praying they could lift the paralysis with their pleas to God ⦠and my mother, growing gray before my eyes, hers was the only face I remembered. But nothing they could do or say had cut through that numbing weight of the paralysis as had these strange powers that worked their way at the foot of the mountain â¦
âYouâre doing fine, just fine,â Dr. Steel said when he checked me that evening, and he went out shaking his head, making his rounds.
Other boys who lived in the ward dropped by to say hello. Most were my age, polio victims, cripples of every sort, but some were just kids, ten or twelve year olds who lived in a world of their own, raised hell whenever they could but quickly settled down when Mike spoke. He seemed to be the leader in the ward. He was bunking with two other boys, Jerry and Sadsack, and he was trying to get me moved to their room where there was an extra bed. In the meantime I waited, lying alone in the bare room, listening to the rush of sounds that filled the ward in the morning and which settled down as the kids went swimming or to physical therapy or to the classes that were held for those who cared to attend.
There was also a lull during mid-afternoon. I lay quietly and listened to Franco strumming his guitar and singing western or rhythm and blues songs. Somebody told me he looked exactly like Elvis Presley but that he had lost his legs to an incurable disease, so he kept to himself in his room, roaming the halls only at night in his wheelchair, taking old songs and changing the words to tell his story.
He had already composed a song for me. I lay thinking and listening to the words which drifted through the stale, antiseptic air of the ward.
Tortuga was a wounded turtle
Cast in a lonely shell
He thought of heaven
And he dreamed of home
But he had come to hell â¦
Then Danny came in. âPsst. You awake, Tortuga?â
âWhat do you want?â I asked. After our first encounter I didnât trust him.
âI just came to see how you are,â he said and moved into my sight. He stood there for a long time, looking at me, mulling something over in his mind, and I felt sorry for him because he was a pathetic kid, dressed in an oversize hospital shirt and holding his withered hand up as if he had to keep it in sight, had to keep asking himself why the hand was drying up and dying on him. His pale yellow eyes darted back and forth, from me to his hand to the window which held the mountain framed as a still life.
âYouâre lucky,â he said finally, âthe doc knows whatâs the problem ⦠I heard your legs moved ⦠youâre lucky.â He looked at the mountain and cursed. âGoddammit, nothing works for me.â He held his hand in front of me, close so I could see the dry wrinkles and scabs which covered it, and I smelled something rancid and dying.
âAt first it was only my fingers ⦠They got numb and I couldnât move them ⦠then they began to dry out. I came here, and they brought all sorts of specialists to look at me, and not a one of them could tell me what was the matter ⦠and the curse kept spreading, now itâs my whole hand ⦠like cancer, but it ainât cancer, itâs just dying ⦠Sonsofbitches canât do
Now there was movement, slight and feeble, but with it returned a sense of hope. I looked out the window at the mountain. I thought of Filomón and what he had said. I thought of my first night at the hospital and the woman in the dreams, Ismelda, the woman who had led me to the springs where we entered the mountain. And Mike? How had he found me? Why? How were they working their way into my new life? In the other hospital I couldnât remember faces. Many people had come to see me, and they had gathered around my bed, looking at me with silent, sad eyes, praying they could lift the paralysis with their pleas to God ⦠and my mother, growing gray before my eyes, hers was the only face I remembered. But nothing they could do or say had cut through that numbing weight of the paralysis as had these strange powers that worked their way at the foot of the mountain â¦
âYouâre doing fine, just fine,â Dr. Steel said when he checked me that evening, and he went out shaking his head, making his rounds.
Other boys who lived in the ward dropped by to say hello. Most were my age, polio victims, cripples of every sort, but some were just kids, ten or twelve year olds who lived in a world of their own, raised hell whenever they could but quickly settled down when Mike spoke. He seemed to be the leader in the ward. He was bunking with two other boys, Jerry and Sadsack, and he was trying to get me moved to their room where there was an extra bed. In the meantime I waited, lying alone in the bare room, listening to the rush of sounds that filled the ward in the morning and which settled down as the kids went swimming or to physical therapy or to the classes that were held for those who cared to attend.
There was also a lull during mid-afternoon. I lay quietly and listened to Franco strumming his guitar and singing western or rhythm and blues songs. Somebody told me he looked exactly like Elvis Presley but that he had lost his legs to an incurable disease, so he kept to himself in his room, roaming the halls only at night in his wheelchair, taking old songs and changing the words to tell his story.
He had already composed a song for me. I lay thinking and listening to the words which drifted through the stale, antiseptic air of the ward.
Tortuga was a wounded turtle
Cast in a lonely shell
He thought of heaven
And he dreamed of home
But he had come to hell â¦
Then Danny came in. âPsst. You awake, Tortuga?â
âWhat do you want?â I asked. After our first encounter I didnât trust him.
âI just came to see how you are,â he said and moved into my sight. He stood there for a long time, looking at me, mulling something over in his mind, and I felt sorry for him because he was a pathetic kid, dressed in an oversize hospital shirt and holding his withered hand up as if he had to keep it in sight, had to keep asking himself why the hand was drying up and dying on him. His pale yellow eyes darted back and forth, from me to his hand to the window which held the mountain framed as a still life.
âYouâre lucky,â he said finally, âthe doc knows whatâs the problem ⦠I heard your legs moved ⦠youâre lucky.â He looked at the mountain and cursed. âGoddammit, nothing works for me.â He held his hand in front of me, close so I could see the dry wrinkles and scabs which covered it, and I smelled something rancid and dying.
âAt first it was only my fingers ⦠They got numb and I couldnât move them ⦠then they began to dry out. I came here, and they brought all sorts of specialists to look at me, and not a one of them could tell me what was the matter ⦠and the curse kept spreading, now itâs my whole hand ⦠like cancer, but it ainât cancer, itâs just dying ⦠Sonsofbitches canât do
Similar Books
