The Little Friend

“I’m sorry, sir.” Eugene sat rubbing his mouth. “I just don’t know what I can do for you.”

“Well, maybe you’d better think about it some more. Since we’re talking murder and all.”

“Murder?” Eugene sat stunned. “Farish is dead?” For a moment, he couldn’t catch his breath in the heat. He hadn’t been up to Intensive Care in over an hour; he’d allowed Gum and Curtis to go back up by themselves from the cafeteria, after their vegetable soup and banana pudding, while he sat and drank a cup of coffee.

The cop looked surprised—but whether it was real surprise, or fake surprise, Eugene couldn’t tell.

“You didn’t know?” he said. “I seen you coming down the hall thataway and I just thought—”

“Listen,” said Eugene, who had already stood up, and was moving away, “listen. I need to get in there and be with my grandmother. I—”

“Go on, go on,” said the cop, still looking away, flinging out a hand, “get back in there and do what you need to.”

————

Eugene went in at the side door, and stood dazed for a moment. A passing nurse caught his eye, gave him a grave look and a little shake of her head, and all of a sudden he began to run, shoes slapping noisily, past wide-eyed nurses and all the way down to Intensive Care. He heard Gum before he saw her—a dry, small, lonely-sounding wail that made his heart swell with a sharp pain. Curtis—frightened-looking, gasping for breath—sat in a chair in the hall, clutching a large stuffed animal he hadn’t had before. A lady from Patient Services—she’d been kind when they’d arrived at the hospital, ushered them directly back to Intensive Care with no nonsense—was holding his hand and talking to him quietly. She stood when she saw Eugene. “Here he is,” she said to Curtis, “he’s back, sweetie, don’t worry.” Then she glanced at the door of the next room. To Eugene she said: “Your grandmother …”

Eugene—arms outstretched—went to her. She pushed by him and staggered into the hallway, crying out Farish’s name in a strange, thin, high-pitched voice.

The lady from Patient Services caught the sleeve of Dr. Breedlove as he was passing. “Doctor,” she said, nodding at Curtis, who was choking for breath and practically blue in the face, “he’s having some breathing difficulty.”

The doctor stopped, for half a second, and looked at Curtis. Then he snapped: “Epinephrine.” A nurse hastened away. To another nurse, he snapped: “Why hasn’t Mrs. Ratliff been sedated yet?”

And somehow, in the middle of all the confusion—orderlies, a shot in the arm for Curtis (“here, honey, this’ll make you feel better right away”) and a pair of nurses converging on his grandmother—there was the cop again.

“Listen,” he was saying, palms in the air, “you just do what you have to.”

“What?” said Eugene, looking around.

“I’ll be waiting for you out here.” He nodded. “Because I think it’ll speed things up if you come on down to the station with me. Whenever you’re ready.”

Eugene looked around. Things hadn’t sunk in yet; it was like he was seeing everything through a cloud. His grandmother had grown quiet and was being shuffled away down the cold gray hall between a pair of nurses. Curtis was rubbing his arm—but, miraculously, his wheezing and choking had quieted. He showed Eugene the stuffed animal—a rabbit, it looked like.

“Mine!” he said, rubbing his swollen eyes with his fist.

The cop was still looking at Eugene as if expecting him to say something.

“My little brother,” he said, wiping a hand over his face. “He’s retarded. I can’t just leave him here by himself.”

“Well, bring him along,” said the cop. “I’ll bet we can find a candy bar for him.”

“Honey?” said Eugene—and was knocked backwards by Curtis rushing towards him. He threw his arms around Eugene and mashed his damp face in Eugene’s shirt.

“Love,” he said, in a muffled voice.

“Well, Curtis,” said Eugene, patting him awkwardly on the back, “well there, stop it now, I love you too.”

“They’re sweet things, aint they?” said the cop indulgently. “My sister had one of those Down’s syndromes. Didn’t live past his fifteenth birthday, but my Lord we all loved him. That’s the saddest funeral I’ve ever been to.”