“Well, do we?”
“I’ll be the first one to say it.
I love you, Frank.”
“I love you, Cora.”
“Kiss me.”
I kissed her, and held her close, and then I saw a flicker of light on the hill across the ravine.
“Up on the road, now.
You’re going through with it.”
“I’m going through with it.”
“Just ask for help.
You don’t know he’s dead yet.”
“I know.”
“You fell down, after you climbed out.
That’s how you got the sand on your clothes.”
“Yes.
Goodbye.”
“Goodbye.”
She started up to the road, and I dived for the car.
But all of a sudden, I found I didn’t have any hat.
I had to be in the car, and my hat had to be with me.
I began clawing around for it.
The car was coming closer and closer.
It was only two or three bends away, and I didn’t have my hat yet, and I didn’t have a mark on me.
I gave up, and started for the car. Then I fell down. I had hooked my foot in it.
I grabbed it, and jumped in.
My weight no sooner went on the floor than it sank and I felt the car turning over on me.
That was the last I knew for a while.
Next, I was on the ground, and there was a lot of yelling and talking going on around me.
My left arm was shooting pain so bad I would yell every time I felt it, and so was my back.
Inside my head was a bellow that would get big and go away again.
When it did that the ground would fall away, and this stuff I had drunk would come up.
I was there and I wasn’t there, but I had sense enough to roll around and kick.
There was sand on my clothes too, and there had to be a reason.
Next there was a screech in my ears, and I was in an ambulance.
A state cop was at my feet, and a doctor was working on my arm.
I went out again as soon as I saw it.
It was running blood, and between the wrist and the elbow it was bent like a snapped twig.
It was broke.
When I came out of it again the doctor was still working on it, and I thought about my back.
I wiggled my foot and looked at it to see if I was paralyzed.
It moved.
The screech kept bringing me out of it, and I looked around, and saw the Greek.
He was on the other bunk.
“Yay Nick.”
Nobody said anything.
I looked around some more, but I couldn’t see anything of Cora.
After a while they stopped, and lifted out the Greek.
I waited for them to lift me out, but they didn’t.
I knew he was really dead, then, and there wouldn’t be any cock-eyed stuff this time, selling him a story about a cat.
If they had taken us both out, it would be a hospital.