North Carolina Miscellany
of open space followed. Wendell wrote that he slept fairly well, but he snored, and although his snoring sometimes woke him up, the real problem was that he kept Sibby awake. My wife says I sound like a train, he added at the end but would have erased that bit if he’d been working with a pencil. Next came: Are you tired during the day? To which he answered, I could use a nap after lunch. If you are a passenger in a car, what are the chances you might fall asleep? Wendell scribbled, If I have a decent driver, 100%. What is the probability of you falling asleep while at the wheel? To that, Wendell wrote Zero and underlined it. He usually asked the questions, and the temper of that last one put him on his guard. His reply was a bold-faced No to Do you have nightmares? He wasn’t about to go on record with an affirmative. Besides, his nightmares weren’t so much dreams as memories, one in particular. Even now, it churned to the surface, a twenty-year-old image, the sight of a dying patrolman he’d never get over. Not that he was complaining, not anymore than the Oates kid was. The final question – What worries you? – shut Wendell down. He hadn’t come to talk about what worried him, about how it was possible for somebody to beat up grandpa for a bucket of quarters, how the very same somebody might dive into an icy river to save a stranger: thug one day, hero the next. And he was no exception, full of law and order and full of sin. There was no accounting for man, no predicting what he was capable of. That sure as hell troubled him, but it was his own private affair. He set the pen down and looked around. No photos here, not a plant, everything impersonal and in shipshape order. Gene returned with an armload of wires. “I left your card on the bureau.” He laid the wires carefully across the desk. “You fixing to make a bomb?” Gene nearly smiled. “These take information from you and send it here to me.” He tossed his head toward a line of monitors and printers. One monitor had four frames, three filled with empty beds, another aimed at the door. “You got cameras, too?” The snip in Wendell’s voice showed his disapproval. “In case there’s a problem.” Gene put the end of a color-coded wire on Wendell’s left temple,
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plastered it down with a sticky dot. “Somebody comes up punching, doc wants to have a look.” Wendell felt two more wires dig into his scalp. In rapid succession, Gene attached wire after wire to Wendell’s face and head. “I need to get to your chest.” Wendell reached down and pulled his knit shirt up to his armpits. The folds of his stomach and a thicket of chestnut hair, the balloon of his belly button, all came into full view. After Gene strung him top to bottom, lines even down the legs of his pants, he clamped an oxygen monitor over Wendell’s index finger. “Feels mighty tight.” “One size fits all.” Gene looked right at him. “Kind of like handcuffs.” Wendell held up his throbbing finger. “Too much like.” “You’ll get used to it as the night goes along.” “Or I’ll take it off.” “You’re a free man.” Gene gathered the mass of wires in his hands.
Holding It Together (mixed media acrylic, graphite, masking tape, rope, twine on canvas, 40x30) by George Scott
Step for step, the men walked down the hall. Wendell marveled again at the leg’s facile workings. Without difficulty, Gene held steadily to the strands suspended from Wendell’s body. They passed two shut doors. Wendell slowed. “Am I your only customer?” “As a rule, we don’t schedule weekends.” Gene went into the room, pulling Wendell forward like a fish on a line, and then, in one