How It Ended: New and Collected Stories - By Jay McInerney Page 0,78

though he is the only guard on duty in a cell block of twenty-four violent criminals, most of whom are on the block this moment, lounging around the television or conspiring in small knots. If they wanted to, they could overpower him in a minute; it is only the crude knowledge of greater force outside the door of the block that keeps them from doing so. McClarty himself has almost learned to suppress the fear, to dial down the crackle of active malevolence that is the permanent atmosphere of the wards, as palpable as the falling pressure and static electricity before a storm. So he is not alarmed when a cluster of inmates moves toward him, Greco and Smithfield and two others, whose names he forgets. They all have their ailments and their questions and they're trotting over to him like horses crossing the field to a swinging bucket of grain.

“Hey, Doc!” they call out from all sides. And once again, he feels the rush that every doctor knows, the power of the healer, a taste of the old godlike sense of commanding the forces of life and death. This truly is the best buzz, but he could never quite believe it, or feel that he deserved it, and now he's too chastened to allow himself to really revel in the feeling. But he can still warm himself, if only briefly, in the glow of this tribal admiration, even in this harsh and straitened place. And for a moment he forgets what he has learned at such expense in so many airless, smoky church basements—that he actually is powerless, that his healing skills, like his sobriety, are on loan from a higher power, just as he forgets the caution he has learned from the guards and from his own experience behind these walls, and he doesn't see Lesko until it is too late, fat Lesko, who is feeling even nastier than usual without his Valium, his hand striking out from the knot of inmates like the head of a cobra, projecting a deadly thin silvery tongue. McClarty feels the thud against his chest, the blunt impact, which he does not immediately identify as sharp-instrument trauma. And when he sees the knife, he reflects that it's a damn good thing he isn't Terri, or his left breast implant would be punctured. As he falls into Lesko's arms, he realizes, with a sense of recognition bordering on relief, that he is back in the dream. They've come for him at last.

Looking up from the inmate roster, Santiago is puzzled by this strange embrace—and by the expression on McClarty's face as he turns toward the guard booth. “He was smiling,” Santiago will say afterward, “like he just heard a good one and wanted to tell it to you, you know, or like he was saying, Hey, check out my bro Lesko here.” Santiago will tell the same thing to his boss, to the board of inquiry, to the grand jury and to the prosecutor, and he will always tell the story to the new guards who train under him. It will never cease to amaze him—that smile. And after a respectful pause and a thoughtful drag on his cigarette, Santiago will always mention that the doc was a big Cowboys fan.

1996

Getting in Touch with Lonnie

Jared let his parched eyes slide across the soothing green lawns, watching the impeccable houses sail past the cab window. Colonials, mostly—the indigenous style here in Protestant-refugee country, some dating back to the exodus from the Old World. The twisty roads, paved and widened deer paths, the old stone walls, the deep green shade of oak and maple—all this was second nature to him. After two years, he wondered if he would ever become comfortable with palm trees and the architectural miscegenation of Los Angeles. In fact, he was thinking of moving back East. A town like this, maybe. He didn't have to live in Manhattan any more than he had to live in L.A. They would come to him now. Send a car (with a bar and a phone, please). He regretted not hiring a car and driver in Manhattan for the round-trip, but he had thought Laura would consider it ostentatious. He could've made some calls on the way up. One thing he had to do was call Lonnie. That was one thing you got used to in L.A., car phones. The phone he could live without, but this cab he'd picked up at the train station