John Irving - The Cider House Rules

'Only British ees crazy enough to make something to stir a drink,' the magistrate said, chuckling. He lubricated the catheter with his own saliva.

Through his tears, Wally tried to laugh.

And in the rounds that Dr. Stone was making, wouldn't many of the diarrhetic children suffer urinary retention, wouldn't Dr. Stone have to relieve their little, {652} distended bladders, and wouldn't his catheter be proper and his method of instrumentation sound? In Wilbur Larch's eyes, which were over Burma, Dr. Stone would be perfect-Fuzzy Stone wouldn't lose a single patient.

Nurse Caroline, understanding that the coincidence of the woman dying without a name would not sit well alongside the recent 'evidence' submitted to the board of trustees, knew it was time for her to write to Homer Wells. While Dr. Larch rested in the dispensary, Nurse Caroline worked with a vengeance over the typewriter in Nurse Angela's office.

'Don't be a hypocrite,' she began. 'I hope you recall how vehemently you were always telling me to leave Cape Kenneth, that my services were more needed here -and you were right. And do you think your services aren't needed here, or that they aren't needed right now? Do you think the apples can't grow without you? Just who do you think the board's going to replace him with if you don't step forward? One of the usual cowards who does what he's told, one of your typically careful, mousy, medical men-a little law-abiding citizen who will be of absolutely NO USE!'

She mailed that letter at the same time she alerted the stationmaster that there was a body at the orphanage; various authorities would have to be sent for. It had been a long time since the stationmaster had seen bodies at the orphanage, but he would never forget the bodies he had seen-not his predecessor, after the sternum shears had opened him up, and certainly never the fetal autopsy from Three Mile Falls.

'A body?' the stationmaster asked. He gripped the sides of the small table where the constant television revealed to him its blurry, fade-in and fade-out images-any of which the stationmaster found preferable to the more vivid picture of those long-ago bodies.

'Someone who didn't want to have a baby,' Nurse Caroline told him. 'She butchered herself, trying to get the baby out. She got to us too late for us to be able to do anything about it.' {653}

Unanswering, and never taking his eyes from the snowy, zigzagging figures on the TV screen, the stationmaster clung to the table as if it were an altar and the television was his god-at least, he knew, he would never see on that television anything resembling what Nurse Caroline described, and so the stationmaster continued to watch the TV instead of looking into Nurse Caroline's eyes.

Carmen? Cecelia? Charity? Claudia? Constance? Cookie? Cordelia? Angel Wells cocked the Red Sox cap at the correct angle; although it was cool in the early morning, he elected not to wear a shirt. Dagmar? he thought. Daisy? Dolores? Dotty?

'Where are you going in my hat?' Candy asked him; she was picking up the breakfast dishes.

'It's my hat,' Angel said, going out the door.

'Love is blind,' Wally said, pushing his wheelchair away from the table.

Does he mean me or Angel? Candy wondered. Homer and Wally were worried about Angel's puppylike infatuation with Rose Rose, but that is all it seemed to Candy: puppylike. Candy knew that Rose Rose had too much experience to allow Angel to get carried away. That wasn't the point, Homer had said. Candy imagined that Rose Rose had more experience in her little finger than… but that wasn't the point, either, Wally had said.

'Well, I hope the point isn't that she's colored,' Candy had said.

'The point is Mister Rose,' Wally had said. The word 'Right!' had been almost visible on Homer's lips. Men want to control everything, Candy thought.

Homer Wells was in the apple-mart office. In the mail there was a letter for him from Dr. Larch, but Homer didn't look through the mail. That was Wally's job; besides, the picking crew had arrived. The harvest would be starting as soon as Homer could get it organized. He {654} looked out the office window and saw his son not wearing any shirt and talking to Big Dot Taft. He opened the screen door and hollered at Angel. 'Hey, it's cold this morning-put on a shirt!' Angel was already walking toward the barns beyond the apple mart.

'I got to warm up the tractor!' he told his father.

'Warm yourself up first!' Homer told him, but the boy was already very warm this morning.

Edith? Angel asked himself. Ernestine? Esmeralda? Eve! he thought.

He bumped into Vernon Lynch, who was glowering over a cup of hot coffee.

'Watch where yer goin',' Vernon told Angel.

'Faith!' Angel said to him. 'Felicia! Francesca! Frederica!'

'Asshole,' said Vernon Lynch.

'No, that's you,' Big Dot Taft told him. 'You're the asshole, Vernon.'

'God, I love the harvest!' Wally said, cruising around the kitchen table, while Candy washed the dishes. 'It's my favorite time.'

'Mine, too,' Candy said, smiling. What she thought was: I have six more weeks to live.

Black Pan, the cook, was back; Candy had to hurry- she had to take Black Pan shopping. A man named Peaches had picked for them before, but not for several years; he was called Peaches because his beard never grew. Also, a man named Muddy was back; no one had seen Muddy for years. He'd been badly knifed at the cider house one night, and Homer had driven him to the hospital in Cape Kenneth. Muddy had taken one hundred twenty-three stitches; Homer Wells thought he'd looked like a kind of experimental sausage.

The man who'd cut him was long gone. That was one of Mr. Rose's rules; Homer guessed it might have been the dominant rule of the cider house. No hurting each other. You cut people to scare them, to show them who's boss, but you don't send people to the hospital. Then the {655} law comes, and everyone at the cider house feels small. The man who'd cut Muddy hadn't been thinking about the community.

'He was really tryin' to cut my ass off, man,' Muddy had said, as if he were surprised.

'He was an amateur,' Mr. Rose had said. 'He long gone now, anyway.'

The rest of the crew, except for Mr. Rose's daughter, hadn't been to Ocean View before. Mr. Rose arranged, with Angel, how Rose Rose and her daughter would spend the day.

'She gonna ride around with you and help you out,' Mr. Rose told Angel. 'She can sit on the fender, or stand behind the seat. She can ride on the trailer, before it full.'

'Sure!'Angel said.

'If she need to take the baby back to the cider house, she can walk,' Mr. Rose said. 'She don't need no special favors.'

'No,' Angel said; it surprised him that Mr. Rose would speak this way about his daughter when she was standing beside him, looking a little embarrassed. Baby Rose-pacifier in place-rode her hip.

'Sometimes Black Pan can look after the baby,' Mr. Rose said, and Rose Rose nodded.

'Candy said she'd look after her, too,' Angel offered.

'No need botherin' Missus Worthington,' said Mr. Rose, and Rose Rose shook her head.

When Angel drove the tractor, he always stood up; if he sat down without a cushion on the seat (and he thought a cushion was for an old man with piles), he couldn't quite see the radiator cap. He was afraid that, if he sat down, the engine might overheat and the radiator would boil over without his noticing it. But most of all, it looked better to drive a tractor standing up.

He was glad he was driving the International Harvester; years ago, Raymond Kendall had built a swivel for the seat. He could let Rose Rose sit down-with or without Baby Rose in her lap-and he could stand a {656} little to one side of the swivel seat and operate the tractor without awkwardness. There was a foot clutch, a foot brake, and a hand throttle. The emergency hand brake was next to Rose Rose's hip; the gearshift was by her knee.