McGovern nodded again, watching as the Medical Services workers slammed the doors of the step-van and then stood behind them talking quietly in the fading light. "I went to grammar school and junior high with May Locher. Way out in Carriville, home of the brave and land of the cows. There were only five of us in our graduating class. Back in those days she was known as a hot ticket and fellows like me were known as "a wee bit lavender." In that amusingly antique era, gay was how you described your Christmas tree after it was decorated."
Ralph looked down at his hands uncomfortable and tongue-tied.
Of course he knew that McGovern was a homosexual, had known rungRalph wished he could you until this evening have saved preferably one when Ralph himself it for another day brains had been replaced with wasn't feeling as goosedown if most of his "That was about a thousand years ago. down.
"Who'd've thought we'd both wash up ago," McGovern said.
Avenue. P on the shores of Harris "It's emphysema she has, isn't that right? I think that's what I heard."
"Yep. One of those diseases that keep on giving-Getting old certainly no job for sissies, is it', is "No, it's not," Ralph said, and then his mind brought the truth of it home with sudden force. It was Carolyn he thought of, and the terror he had felt when he came squelching into the apartment his soaked sneakers and had seen her lying half in and half out of the kitchen-exactly where he had stood during most of his conversation with Helen, in fact. Facing Ed Deepneau had been nothing compared to the terror he had felt at that moment, when he had been sure Carolyn was dead. two weeks or so", McGovern said. "Now they come every Monday can remember when they just brought May oxygen once ever, and Thursday evening, like clockwork. I go over and see her when I can. Sometimes I read to her-the most boring women's magazine bullshit You can imagine me-and sometimes we just sit and talk.
She says it feels as if her lungs are filling up with seaweed. It won't be long now. They'll come one day, and instead of loading an empty oxy tank into the back of that wagon, they'll load May in.
They'll take her Off to Derry Home, and that'll be ' "Was it cigarettes?" Ralph asked.
McGovern favored him with a look so alien to that lean, mild face that it took Ralph several moments to realize it was contempt. "May Locher never smoked a Cigarette in her whole life. What she's paying off is twenty years in the dyehouse at a mill in Corinna and another twenty working the picker at a mill in Newport. It's cotton, wool, and nylon she's trying to breathe through, not seaweed."
The two young men from Derry Medical Services got into their van and drove away.
"Maine's the northeastern anchor of Appalachia, Ralph-a lot of people don't realize that, but it's true-and May's dying of an Appalachian disease. The doctors call it Textile Lung."
"That's a shame. I guess she means a lot to you."
McGovern laughed ruefully. "Nah. I visit her because she happens to be the last visible piece of my misspent youth. Sometimes I read to her and I always manage to get down one or two of her dry old oatmeal cookies, but that's about as far as it goes. My concern is safely selfish, I assure you."
Safely selfish, Ralph thought. What a really odd phrase. What a really McGovern phrase.
"Never mind May," McGovern said. "The question on the lips of Americans everywhere is what we're going to do about you, Ralph.
The whiskey didn't work, did it?"
"No," Ralph said. "I'm afraid it didn't."
"To make a particularly apropos pun, did you give it a fair shot?"
Ralph nodded.
"Well, you have to do something about the bags under your eyes or you'll never land the lovely Lois." McGovern studied Ralph's facial response to this and sighed. "Not that funny, huh?"
"Nope. It's been a long day."
"Sorry."
"It's okay."
They sat in companionable silence for awhile, watching the comings and goings on their part of Harris Avenue. Three little girls were playing hopscotch in the Red Apple's parking lot across the street.
Mrs. Perrine stood nearby, straight as a sentry, watching them.
A boy with his Red Sox cap turned around backward went past, bopping to the beat of his Walkman headset, Two kids were tossing a Frisbee back and forth in front of Lois's house. A