Thomas Tryon - The Night of the Moonbow

Wanda was outraged. “He’ll do nothing of the sort! He’s staying right where he is – in bed!”

Reece showed surprise. “You don’t mean to say you intend to keep him lolling around just because he got a couple of bruises on his fanny?”

“It’s not just a couple of bruises, he can barely move. Besides, he’s under doctor’s orders. He’s to stay here overnight at least.”

Reece looked genuinely puzzled. “Gee, Goldilocks, I just don’t get it. A guy gets a little paddling and you want to treat him like he’s the Dying Gladiator or something. That stuff doesn’t go in Jeremiah. I won’t stand for any of my boys malingering.”

“He’s not malingering,” Wanda retorted. “He has quite a painful hematoma. A boy can’t take a beating like that and then be expected to go hopping around on both feet. Tomorrow will be soon enough. Why don’t you just scram on out of here-”

“Now don’t get yourself in an uproar, nursie,” Reece began playfully, but nursie wasn’t in a playful mood.

“Oh, get out,” she growled, and, pushing him from the sickroom, she went to fetch some more cubes for Leo’s ice pack.

Wanda Koslowski was, Leo and Emerson decided, just what a camp nurse ought to be, with her cap with the two blue stripes on it identifying her as a graduate of Saint Francis Hospital in Hartford, and the crisp crackle of her starched uniform, the slippery slide of her white stockings, the puckery tread of her rubber-soled oxfords on the green linoleum floor. They liked the brisk, efficient way she went about looking after them, and especially the way, when she leaned over to administer the thermometer, the feminine swell of her bosom (embellished with a nurse’s pin of red-blue-and-gold enamel) pressed against them.

The afternoon wore on, bringing no more visitors, but enlivened by the sight of Honey Oliphant over at Three Corner Cove: she had taken her drum majorette’s baton down to the dock to practice, and was tossing the flashing rod into the air and catching it in- a series of deft moves, never missing once. Togged out in her white shorts and halter, with her lissome figure and her golden hair and dimples smile, Honey was (the boys decided) like a Petty Girl out of Esquire magazine.

At powwow time Fritz came back with Rex Kenniston, who expressed sympathy and blamed himself for having left his post.

“I’m okay,” Leo said.

“Are you kidding?” said Fritz. “I’d like to be in a nice clean bed, such as yours, waited on hand and foot by this Valkyrie.”

He grinned at Wanda, who gave his hand a push.

“I brought you this,” Fritz went on, holding up a book he had under his arm. “We’ll speak of it when you’re feeling better. In the meantime, you must get well if you’re going to play for us in the Major Bowes Amateur Night contest.”

Fritz said he’d stop by again in the morning, Rex said goodnight, and they left. Leo glanced through the book Fritz had left him, a collection of stories, tales in verse, old classics, some of which Emily had once read to Leo, and which he was now free to enjoy again.

But right now he did not feel like reading. Where were the Jeremians? he wondered. Why hadn’t they dropped by to say hello? Were they mad at him? Finally, not long before bedtime, they appeared, Tiger, Bomber, Dump, Monkey, and Eddie – all but Phil and Wally. Still, five visitors was plenty; the room was small and their talk and laughter reverberated off the tongue-and-groove walls. No direct references were made to Leo’s injuries, and they all seemed bent on speaking of other things: there’d been a baseball game and then powwow, and after supper an archery contest, which Reece naturally expected all Jeremians to attend.

Then two more visitors arrived: Honey, accompanied by her mother, Maryann, bringing ice cream, dishes, and spoons. Honey had thoughtfully brought along her radio, which she left with the boys so they could listen to “Lights Out.” At nine o’clock, except for the invalids, they all prepared to head back to camp, but Leo asked that Tiger and the Bomber be allowed to stay a little longer – there was something he wanted to tell them. Wanda okayed the request and, when she had dispatched Emerson to the Dewdrop, Leo called the Bomber to come away from the windowsill where he was perched. He wanted to explain, he said, why he’d been unable to jump off the tower.

“Aw, that’s okay, you don’t have to explain,” the Bomber said. “You’ll get over it anyways. By the end of summer you’ll be doing swan dives off the tower.”

Leo shook his head. He would never go up that ladder again, would never jump off the platform. The mere thought sickened him. “Acrophobia – that’s what Dr Epstein called it.”

“Who’s Dr Epstein?” the Bomber said.

“The doctor at the as-as-” He tried to get the word out but couldn’t.

“Never mind,” Tiger said. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to… ”

“But I do. I wa-want to, only it’s – it’s hard. I n-never told anyone. Dr Epstein was – at the as-asylum.”

“You mean” – the Bomber showed surprise – “the loony bin?”

Leo nodded.

“Why? What happened to you?”

Leo giggled. “I guess they must have thought I was loony.”

There was a bit of a laugh over that. Leo was feeling better. '

“Yeah, but, really, why were you there?” the Bomber insisted.

Leo shrugged. “I couldn’t remember anything. My mind just went blooey. You know-” he imitated the “cuckoo” in a cuckoo clock. “That’s when they told me my mother wa. s dead.”

“Jeez,” said a sympathetic Bomber. “How’d that happen, anyways?”

There was a pause; Tiger watched and listened, saying nothing. Leo interlaced his fingers and rotated his palms together, thinking it out.

“There was this bridge,” he said at last. “The L Street Bridge. It was old and rusty. They’d been working on it, trying to repair it. The river overflowed, it – it just carried the bridge away.”

The Bomber leaned on the foot of the bed. “And your folks were on it?”

“Yes. On it.” Leo was staring out the window. All he had to do was close his eyes and he would see them, Emily and Rudy in the delivery truck, driving onto the bridge – and below, the deep and rushy river swirling and foaming, that boiling witch’s pot – and hear her cries -“Help! Help!” – the words ringing in his ears. “Mother! Mother! MOTHER! I’ll save you” – but he cannot save her. No one can. The bridge begins to sway, it humps up like as camel’s back and buckles, and all at once goes crashing down into the river, taking with it all the stars in the sky, all of them falling and drowning in the Cat River and Leo had a siege of coughing that he relieved with a full tumbler of water. When he had drained the glass the Bomber took it, and Leo lay back against the pillow. His backside was hurting again; maybe Wanda would give him another one of those little pills.

Nobody said anything more until Emerson came back from taking his pee and climbed stiffly into bed, pulling up the sheet until only his itchy, swollen, bunny-pink face was visible.

“Jeez, Emmy,” the Bomber boomed, “you shoulda heard what we just heard.”

“Yeah? What was it?” Emerson asked.

“Forget it, Emmy,” Tiger said. “You didn’t miss anything.” He slipped Leo a wink and leaned closer to the bed, his gray eyes shining in the lamplight. “It’s getting late,” he said. “We’d better break it up.”

A look to the Bomber forced him reluctantly to his feet just as Wanda reappeared to send the two visitors on their way and get her patients ready for bed. Deftly she touched up Emerson’s calamine lotion, then gave Leo a refreshing witch-hazel sponging, afterward folding down his coverlet a precise eight inches and smoothing it with deft, professional strokes. It was like being put to bed by Emily, a little.