Epitaph

EPILOGUE

It wasn't until the early spring that he received permission to walk-or at least to attempt to walk. The attempt lasted all of two minutes. Two minutes he spent negotiating his way toward a pillowed chair held out by Mr. Brickman on the far side of the room, while Mr. Leonati shouted invectives at his back-the carrot and the stick. No matter. The carrot was too far away, the stick too soft; he collapsed somewhere between the two. Don't worry, the doctors said. It will take time. Don't worry, he told Mr. Brickman and Leonati-it won't. He tried again the next day, but with just about the same results. This time, Mr. Brickman caught him just before he hit the floor. "At least you're improving," he said to Mr. Brickman, who didn't laugh, but instead demanded to know why he was rushing things.

"I just want to walk," William said. And that's all he said.

The doctors had really done a splendid job-in fact, it made all the newspapers (along with the rest of it, of course)-a triumph of microsurgery, in that tendon, muscle, gristle, and bone-half of the bone anyway-had been completely torn apart. It was, in the words of one of the surgeons, a god-awful mess. The kind of thing they sometimes saw in plane crashes or accidents involving farm machinery. But they'd stitched it and fused it and plastered it and set it, and finally-or so they'd assured him-fixed it.

Only it wasn't working yet. It felt artificial, not quite part of him, as if someone else's leg had been glued on. It felt neither strong or flexible-just stiff and useless.

He kept trying.

In between, he had a limited but steady stream of visitors.

Mrs. Simpson came every other day. She doted on him, in a sweetly maternal sort of way. Mr. Simpson, her nearly invalid husband, had passed away on Christmas day; she had no one else now. So she came and knitted scarves for him, baked him cookies every Sunday, and kept him up on all the local gossip.

The neighborhood, for example, had yet to calm down. Dr. Fern-a mass murderer! Kindly Dr. Fern. It was enough to cause several more deaths just from shock. After all, he'd been her very own Mr. Simpson's doctor. And next-door neighbor. People from who knows where still came to stare at the house, which, by the way, made it no easier for Fern's old handyman, who'd inherited the property through default maybe and found the crowds both threatening and inescapable. She'd gone over a few times to try and comfort him but the old man would have none of it. He was selling the house as soon as he found a buyer-then he'd be off. Mrs. Simpson couldn't blame him.

No, William said, between bites of a freshly baked oatmeal cookie. I think I'm ready for another try.

And Mrs. Simpson would call for Mr. Brickman and Mr. Leonati-and they'd do it all again. The carrot and the stick-and Mrs. Simpson the audience, adding to Mr. Brickman's plaintive protestations. Why must you rush it? Why?

I just want to walk, he said.

Mr. Weeks, of course, showed up too. Mr. Weeks, who'd been called by Mr. Brickman the minute after William left in the backseat of Fern's car-after all, it had looked pretty bad, and William had told Brickman to call Weeks if anything should happen to him. So Weeks, the recluse, had finally left home-but not without his army gun placed firmly in his pocket. Weeks, the Sandman on the steps, who'd interrupted Fern in mid-saw, and shot him squarely through the back.

Now that he was sort of a hero, and now that he'd ventured outside at least once and found it less threatening than he'd imagined, he came regularly-a small, withered man, as unlikely-looking a hero as Astoria had ever seen.

Sometimes the three of them sat around the bed talking-four, if you included Mrs. Simpson-talking about what older people generally talked about-doctors-the non-murdering kind, Social Security payments, grand- children-and if William closed his eyes he found it easy to imagine that it hadn't happened, none of it, that they were simply four retiring people at a retiring age-and not witnesses, participants to a tragedy-a notion both soothing and sad.

And William thought about things while he was waiting to walk, all sorts of things, about Jean and Santini and that night at the Par Central Motel and he could see it for what it was now, which was two people who'd made a human mistake, and one human, William, who'd made an even greater one. Because when he'd gone back and looked for Jean, he'd found himself too of course, and he'd found Rachel. And if he shut his eyes he could almost imagine a woman about his own age sitting somewhere on a porch near Sacramento. And when he walked up to her and said hello they hugged each other like old friends, like more than old friends, and they talked about an ice storm long ago when they'd held on to each other for dear life. Imagine that.

Eventually, painstakingly, though with enough setbacks to try the patience of Job, if not Leonati, his leg improved.

He was able to make it across the room, haltingly, minc- ingly, but with enough balance and leg strength to get it done. He practiced at night-several times waking Mr. Brickman, who appeared at the door with his eyes half closed like a bad-tempered sleepwalker.

On a lovely spring Sunday on which Mrs. Simpson was faithfully due to arrive no later than two, William made his way down the steps and into the outside air.

The asphalt sparkled like sandpaper. The air was pregnant with summer-sweet, damp, and milky warm. William took his time, savoring it like a famished gourmet, walking so slowly that he hardly seemed to move at all. But he did-down the three blocks or so to Northern Boulevard, then half a block down to the bus stop.

The bus, when it finally arrived, seemed new as well, like the asphalt and air, freshly cleansed as it was of all its Fuck your Mama graffiti. Even the bus driver was different, his old black friend giving way to a fat surly Irishman who cursed under his breath as William made his way down the aisle like Speedy Gonzalez on methadone.

But when he got off-he was hit flush with good old deja vu. Everything was pretty much as he'd left it; the world had rotated clear around but come back. The Japanese, Korean, and Indian stores were still there, sort of- but the Chinese were still winning the war. He smelled the same too-pungent aromas, he drew the same non- stares. And when he reached the lot-that was the same too, the weeds and brambles already reaching toward summer with outstretched arms.

The Fern house, however, seemed to be in transition. No doubt about it. There were cartons spread out all over the lawn, along with several tightly wrapped bundles and a bunch of other odd bric-a-brac: wheelbarrows, globes, half a bicycle, and an old sewing machine. And when he entered the front door, the scene was pretty much the same. Everything was packed up, battened down, or discarded; it was moving day.

Fern's handyman appeared a second later, silverware in one hand, a small traveling case in the other. He seemed to be wondering whether to say hello or demand an explanation. No matter.

It was the traveling case that hit the floor first, just a soft thud, quite different from the forks and spoons that crashed and clattered and flew about the floor like panicked silverfish. Last of all was the body, which landed sitting up and only keeled over with the second shot.

Then William put Mr. Weeks's gun back into his pocket, and left.