John Irving - The Cider House Rules

'Can you ride one?' Mr. Rose asked Homer.

'I never tried,' said Homer Wells. 'I'd probably have a little trouble,' he admitted; it looked easy enough to him. There were no bicycles at the orphanage; the children might have used them to ride away. The only bicycle in St. Cloud's was the stationmaster's, and he rarely rode it.

'I never tried, either,' said Mr. Rose. He watched his daughter careen over a slight hill; she shrieked., the bike jackknifed, she fell-and Angel Wells ran to her, to help her up.

A line of men sat with their backs against the cider house wall; some were drinking coffee, some were drinking beer, but all of them watched the bicycle lesson. Some were encouraging-and as vocal as local fans, rooting at a sporting event-and others watched the procedure as placidly as Mr. Rose.{674}

It had been going on for a while, and the applause- what there'd been of it-grew spottier and more random.

'Don't give up,' Angel said to Rose Rose.

'I not givin' up,' Rose Rose said. 'Did I say I was givin' up?' 'You remember what you said to me, once, about the rules?' Homer asked Mr. Rose.

'What rules?' Mr. Rose asked.

'You know, those rules I put up every year in the cider house,' Homer said. 'And you mentioned that you had other rules-your own rules for living here.'

'Yeah, those rules,' said Mr. Rose.

'I thought you meant that your rules were about not hurting each other-I thought they were about being careful,' Homer said. 'Sort of like my rules, too, I guess.'

'Say what you mean, Homer,' said Mr. Rose.

'Is someone getting hurt?' Homer asked. 'I mean, this year-is there some kind of trouble?'

Rose Rose was up on the bicycle; her look was grim; both she and Angel were sweating. It appeared to Homer that Rose Rose was jouncing on the seat too hard, almost intentionally hurting herself; or else she was treating herself so roughly in order to give herself the intensity she needed to master the machine. She wobbled off a knoll, out of sight behind some apple trees, and Angel sprinted after her.

'Why don't they just walk?' the picker named Peaches asked. 'They coulda been there by now.'

'Why don't someone take 'em in some car?' another man asked.

'They wanna do it they own way,' Muddy said. There was a little laughter about that.

'Show some respect,' said Mr. Rose. Homer thought Mr. Rose was speaking to him, but he was speaking to the men, who stopped laughing. 'Pretty soon, that bicycle gonna break,' Mr. Rose said to Homer.

Rose Rose was wearing a pair of blue jeans, some {675} heavy work shoes and a white T-shirt; because she was sweating, the outline and the colors of the emerald-green and pink bathing suit were visible through her shirt.

'Imagine her learnin' to swim,' said Mr. Rose.

Homer Wells felt bad for Angel, but another subject weighed more heavily on his mind.

'About someone being hurt,' Homer said. 'About the rules.'

Mr Rose reached into his pocket, slowly, and Homer half expected to see the knife, but it was not the knife that Mr. Rose removed from his pocket and very gently placed in Homer's hand-it was the burned-down nub of a candle. It was what was left of the candle Candy had lit for their lovemaking in the cider house. In her panic-when she thought it was Wally who had caught them there-she had forgotten it.

Homer closed his fingers around the candle, and Mr. Rose patted his hand.

'That 'gainst the rules, ain't it?' Mr. Rose asked Homer.

Black Pan was baking corn bread and the smell rose from the cider house and hung deliriously over the roof, which was warming in the late-morning sun; pretty soon, it would be uncomfortably hot on the roof.

'Ain't that bread ready to eat yet?' Peaches hollered into the kitchen.

'No it ain't,' Black Pan said from inside the cider house. 'And pipe down, or you wake the baby.'

'Shit,' Peaches said. Black Pan came outside and kicked Peaches-not terribly hard-where he was leaning against the cider house wall.

'When that bread ready, you won't call it “shit”, will you?' Black Pan asked him.

'I wasn't callin' nothin' “shit”, man-I was just sayin' it,' Peaches said.

'Just pipe down,' Black Pan said. He observed the bicycle lesson. 'How it comin' with that?' he asked.

'They tryin' hard,' Muddy said.{676}

'They inventin' a new sport,' Peaches said, and everyone laughed.

'Show some respect,' said Mr. Rose, and everyone piped down. Black Pan went back inside the cider house.

'What you bet he burns the bread?' Peaches asked quietly.

'If he burns it, it 'cause he took the time to kick your ass,' Muddy told him.

The bicycle was broken; either the rear wheel wouldn't turn, or else the chain was jammed in the wheel.

'There's another bicycle,' Angel told Rose Rose. 'You try that one, while I fix this one.' But while he fixed Candy's bicycle, Rose Rose had to suffer with a boy's bicycle, so that in addition to her troubles, she slipped and hurt her crotch against the crossbar. Homer was actually worried about how hard a fall she had, and he asked her if she was all right.

'It just like a cramp,' she called to him, but she remained bent over until Angel managed to get Candy's bicycle running again.

'It looks hopeless,' Homer confided to Mr. Rose.

'What about them rules?' Mr. Rose asked him. Homer put the candle in his pocket. He and Mr. Rose regarded each other-it was almost a contest, the way they looked at each other.

'I'm worried about your daughter,' said Homer Wells, after a while. Together they watched Rose Rose fall off the bicycle again.

'Don't worry about her,' said Mr. Rose.

'She looks unhappy, sometimes,' Homer said.

'She ain't unhappy,' Mr. Rose said.

'Are you worried about her?' Homer asked him.

'Once you start worryin', you can worry 'bout anybody, can't you?' said Mr. Rose.

It appeared to Homer Wells that her fall against the crossbar was still giving Rose Rose some pain because she stood for a while with her hands on her knees and her {677} head down (as if her stomach hurt her) each time she fell off the bicycle.

Homer and Mr. Rose missed the moment when she gave up. They just noticed that she was running off, in the direction of the orchard called Frying Pan, and that Angel was running after her; both bicycles were left behind.

'That's too bad,' Homer said. They would have had a good time at the beach. Maybe I can convince them to let me drive them there.'

'Leave 'em alone,' said Mr. Rose; the way Homer heard it, it was more of a command than a suggestion. They don't have to go to no beach,' Mr. Rose said, more mildly. 'They just young, they not sure how to have a good time,' he said. 'Just think what might happen at the beach. They might get drowned. Or some people might not like seein' a white boy with a colored girl-and they both in bathin' suits. It better they don't go nowhere,' Mr. Rose concluded. That was the end of that subject, because then Mr. Rose asked, 'Are you happy, Homer?'

'Am I happy?' said Homer Wells.

'Why you repeat every single thing?' Mr. Rose asked him.

'I don't know,' Homer said. 'I'm happy, sometimes,' he said cautiously.

'That good,' said Mr. Rose. 'And Mistuh and Missus Worthington-are they happy?'

'I think they're pretty happy, most of the time,' Homer told him.

'That good,' said Mr. Rose.

Peaches, who'd had a few beers, approached Angel's bicycle warily, as if the machine were dangerous even when it was lying on the ground.

'Careful it don't bite you,' Muddy warned him. Peaches mounted the bike and grinned at the men.

'How do it start?' he asked them, and they all laughed.

Muddy got up from against the wall and went over to Candy's bicycle.

'I have you a race,' he said to Peaches.{678}

'Yeah,' said Black Pan, in the cider house door. 'We see which one of you falls down first.'