The Body

22

We walked further down the tracks—I don’t know just how far—and I was starting to think: Well, okay, I’m going to be able to handle it, it’s all over anyway, just a bunch of leeches, what the fuck; I was still thinking it when waves of whiteness suddenly began to come over my sight and I fell down.

I must have fallen hard, but landing on the crossties was like plunging into a warm and puffy feather bed. Someone turned me over. The touch of hands was faint and unimportant. Their faces were disembodied balloons looking down at me from miles up. They looked the way the ref’s face must look to a fighter who has been punched silly and is currently taking a ten-second rest on the canvas. Their words came in gentle oscillations, fading in and out.

“…him?”

“…be all…”

“…if you think the sun…”

“Gordie, are you…”

Then I must have said something that didn’t make much sense because they began to look really worried.

“We better take him back, man,” Teddy said, and then the whiteness came over everything again.

When it cleared, I seemed to be all right. Chris was squatting next to me, saying: “Can you hear me, Gordie? You there, man?”

“Yes,” I said, and sat up. A swarm of black dots exploded in front of my eyes, and then went away. I waited to see if they’d come back, and when they didn’t, I stood up.

“You scared the cheesly old shit outta me, Gordie,” he said. “You want a drink of water?”

“Yeah.”

He gave me his canteen, half-full of water, and I let three warm gulps roll down my throat.

“Why’d you faint, Gordie?” Vern asked anxiously.

“Made a bad mistake and looked at your face,” I said.

“Eeee-eee-eeee!” Teddy cackled. “Fuckin Gordie! You wet!”

“You really okay?” Vern persisted.

“Yeah. Sure. It was… bad there for a minute. Thinking about those suckers.”

They nodded soberly. We took five in the shade and then went on walking, me and Vern on one side of the tracks again, Chris and Teddy on the other. We figured we must be getting close.