Robert Coover - Pricksongs & Descants

The doctor glared scornfully at the officer, then withdrew a stethoscope from his bag. He hooked it in his ears, slipped the disc inside Paul’s shirt and listened intently, his old head inclined to one side like a bird listening for worms. Absolute silence now. Paul could hear the doctor breathing, the policeman whimpering softly. He had the vague impression that the doctor tapped his chest a time or two, but if so, he didn’t feel it His head felt better with his mouth dosed. “Hmmm,” said the doctor gravely, “yes…”

“Oh, please! What is it, Doctor?” the policeman cried.

“What is it? What is it?” shouted the doctor in a sudden burst of rage. “I’ll tell you what is it!” He sprang to his feet, nimble for an old man. “I cannot examine this patient while you’re hovering over my shoulder and mewling like a goddamn schoolboy, that’s what is it!”

“B-but I only—” stammered the officer, staggering backwards.

“And how do you expect me to examine a man half buried under a damned truck?” The doctor was in a terrible temper.

“But I—”

“Damn it! I’ll but-I you, you idiot, if you don’t remove this truck from the scene so that I can determine the true gravity of this man’s injuries! Have I made myself clear?”

“Y-yes! But… but wh-what am I to do?” wept the police officer, hands clenched before his mouth. I’m only a simple police man, Doctor, doing my duty before God and count—”

“Simple, you said it!” barked the doctor. “I told you what to do, you God-and-cunt simpleton— now get moving!”

God and cunt! Did it again, thought Paul. Now what?

The policeman, chewing wretchedly on the corners of his note book, stared first at Paul, then at the truck, at the crowd, back at the truck. Paul felt fairly certain now that the letter following the “K” on the truck’s side was an “I.” “Shall I… shall I pull him out from under—?” the officer began tentatively, thin chin aquiver.

“Good God, no!” stormed the doctor, stamping his foot “This man may have a broken neck! Moving him would kill him, don’t you see that, you sniveling birdbrain? Now, goddamn it, wipe your wretched nose and go wake up your — your accomplice up there, and I mean right now! Tell him to back his truck off this poor devil!”

“B-back it off—! But… but he’d have to run over him again! He—”

“Don’t by God run-over-him-again me, you blackshirt hireling, or I’ll have your Badge!” screamed the doctor, brandishing his stethoscope.

The policeman hesitated but a moment to glance down at Paul’s body, then turned and ran to the front of the truck. “Hey! Come on, you!” He whacked the driver on the head with his nightstick. Hollow thunk! “Up and at ‘em!”

“—dam that boy what,” cried the truckdriver, rearing up wildly and fluttering his head as though lost, “HE DO BUT WALK RIGHT INTO ME AND MY POOR OLE TRICK! TRUCK, I MEAN!” The crowd laughed again, first time in a long time, but the doctor stamped his foot and they quieted right down.

“Now, start up that engine, you, right now! I mean it!” ordered die policeman, stroking his moustache. He was getting a little of his old spit and polish back. He slapped the nightstick in his palm two or three times.

Paul felt the pavement under his back quake as the truckdriver started the motor. The white letters above him joggled in their red fields like butterflies. Beyond, the sky’s blue had deepened, but white clouds now flowered in it The skyscrapers had grayed, as though withdrawing information.

The truck’s noise smothered the voices, but Paul did overhear die doctor and the policeman occasionally, the doctor ranting, the policeman imploring, something about mass and weight and vectors and direction. It was finally decided to go forward, since there were two sets of wheels up front and only one to the rear (a decent kind of humanism maintaining, after all, thought Paul), but the truck-driver apparently misunderstood, because lie backed up anyway, and the middle set of wheels rolled up on top of Paul.

“Stop! Stop!”.shrieked the police officer, and the truck motor coughed and died. “I ordered you to go forward , you pighead, not backward!”

The driver popped his head out the window, bulged his ping-pong-ball eyes at the policeman, then waggled his tiny hands in his ears and brayed. The officer took a fast practiced swing at die driver’s big head (epaulettes, or no, he had a skill or two), but the driver deftly dodged it He dapped his runty hands and bobbed back inside the cab.

“What oh what shall we ever do now? ” wailed the officer. The doctor scowled at him with undisguised disgust. Paul felt like he was strangling, but he could locate no specific pain past his neck. “Dear lord above! There’s wheels on each side of him and wheels in the middle!”

“Capital!” the doctor snorted. “Figure that out by yourself, or somebody help you?”

“You’re making fun,” whimpered the officer.

“And you’re murdering this man!” bellowed the doctor.

The police officer uttered a short anxious cry, then raced to the front of die truck again. Hostility welling in the crowd, Paul could hear it “Okay, okay!” cried the officer. “Back up or go forward, please , I don’t care, but hurry! Hurry!”

The motor started up again, there was a jarring grind of gears abrading, then slowly slowly slowly the middle set of wheels backed down off Paul’s body. There was a brief tense interim before the next set climbed up on him, hesitated as a ferris wheel hesitates at the top of its ambit, then sank down off him.

Some time passed.

He opened his eyes.

The truck had backed away, out of sight, out of Paul’s limited range of sight anyway. His eyelids weighed closed. He remembered the doctor being huddled over him, shreds of his clothing being peeled away.

Much later, or perhaps not, he opened his eyes once more. The doctor and the policeman were standing over him, some other people too, people he didn’t recognize, though he felt somehow he ought to know them. Mrs. Grundy, she was there; in fact, it looked for all the world as though she had set up a ticket booth and was charging admission. Some of the people were holding little children up to see, warm faces, tender, compassionate; more or less. News men were taking his picture. “You’ll be famous,” one of them said.

“His goddamn body is like a mulligan stew,” the doctor was telling a reporter. The policeman shook his head. He was a bit green. “Do you think—?”

“Do I think what?” the doctor asked. Then he laughed, a thin raking old man’s laugh. “You mean, do I think he’s going to die?” He laughed again. “Good God, man, you can see for yourself! There’s nothing left of him, he’s a goddamn gallimaufry, and hardly an appetizing one at that!” He dipped his fingers into Paul, licked them, grimaced. “Foo!”

“I think we should get a blanket for him,” the policeman said weakly.

“Of course you should!” snapped the doctor, wiping his stained hands on a small white towel he had brought out of his black bag. He peered down through his rimless spectacles at Paul, smiled. “Still there, eh?” He squatted beside him. ‘I’m sorry, son. There’s not a damn thing I can do. Well, yes, I suppose I can take this penny off your lip. You’ve little use for it, eh?” He laughed softly. “Now, let’s see, there’s no function for it, is there? No, no, there it is.” The doctor started to pitch it away, then pocketed it instead The eyes, don’t they use them for the eyes? “Well, that’s better, I’m sure. But let’s be honest: it doesn’t get to the real problem, does it?” Paul’s lip tickled where die penny had been. “No, I’m of all too little use to you there, boy. I can’t even prescribe a soporific platitude. Leave that to the goddamn priests, eh? Hee hee hee! Oops, sorry, son! Would you like a priest?”