The Studebaker made more noise than a Sherman tank as it cruised off the hill and back to the hospital. If you think everybody didn't look as we roared down Castleton Avenue and into the hospital oval, you're very much mistaken. We tried to get the priest and Gus into the hospital, but a guard at the front said we could only take the priest—so we had to put the top up and lock Gus up in the car with the windows open just a crack so he wouldn't suffocate. I knew it was only a temporary measure, so I didn't mind doing it to the poor dog—who you could just tell was salivating to see the Colonel.
Lorraine and I flanked the priest in the elevator to make sure he wouldn't get away from us. We watched the floors light up again as we ascended, NURSERY, CARDIOLOGY, etc. …Weerupted out of the thing on the intensive-care ward and rushed the priest straight to the Colonel's room. You never saw a more bedazzled collection of doctors and nurses than those there when we rammed this nice Italian priest right up to the side of the bed. The Colonel's face ignited with joy.
“I want to marry her now!” the Colonel demanded, pointing at Dolly, who was holding his hand. It took another couple of minutes before it all sank in. Dolly did some double-talk and pleaded for the Colonel to wait, but the Colonel knew he didn't have time for any waiting. The Colonel said Lorraine and I could be the witnesses, but the priest said we weren't old enough. By now the medical profession was getting into the swing of things and a nurse and an attendant agreed to stand up for the nuptial ceremony.
“Hurry, will you?” the Colonel brayed.
The priest took out a little prayer book of some kind and started talking in broken English. The look of peace that fell over the Colonel's face as he listened to the words was something I'll never forget. It was a look so beautiful and yet deadly: I knew the Colonel was getting ready to die in peace. And then I did something instinctive. I knew there was only one more thing I could do for him. I grabbed Lorraine's hand and started running down the hall with her. It was almost religious the way she seemed to know there was just one thing left that we had to make happen. We jumped into the elevator and started back down toward the ground floor. The thoughts that ran through my mind were like a tapestry, complicated, embroidered in my brain. My mind skipped from one thread to another, and I could tell Lorraine's brain was doing the same thing. It was like a series of little pictures—Dolly dancing with the Colonel at the Calypso Lounge. Her earrings shining above her lips, her always saying “Lookin' up. Lookin' up!” Lorraine's voice in the bedroom of the town house: “No woman ever lived here.” The acidophilus milk. The Game of Life, with the Wall of Death at the end of it. The Cup of Love and the fossil swinging around the Colonel's neck. “When it comes time to die, you will fight it,” I remembered the Colonel telling me, but I realized he was really telling me about himself “You will struggle, and you will claw at it. You will do everything possible to escape it!”
When we reached the Studebaker it was as though the dog was screaming at us—“Hurry! Hurry, you teenage jerks!” We yanked open the door and Gus ran beside us. Lorraine, Gus, and I ran straight in the front door past the outraged guard. “Hey, stop! Stop!” the guy yelled, but we didn't. We reached the elevator, but the guard was fast behind us.
“Here!” I called, and pushed open a door that said Staircase.
The dog ran faster up the stairs than we could. It seemed like Gus knew right where he was going. He was waiting, whining at the top of the fifth-floor stairwell, and I pulled the door open for him. The three of us galloped past the nurses' station. Past a dozen rooms, and Gus' hind legs almost skidded out from under him as he veered into the Colonel's room.
“He's dead, my darlings,” Dolly sobbed, rushing into our arms. “My darling's dead.”
Gus jumped up onto the bed, almost knocking over the doctor, and started licking the poor Colonel's face. If there's a God in heaven or anywhere I just know the Colonel must have felt those kisses as he traveled deeper into his Death.
fourteen
John and Dolly had to hold me up as I burst into tears and I felt my legs going out from under me. I heard the doctor tell John to get me some air, and once I got outside the hospital room I was able to walk.
“I'm his wife,” Dolly told us. “I 'm his wife. I've got to sign some papers and take care of calling a funeral director.” She stayed with us in the hall until she was certain I wouldn't faint. We could hear Gus whining inside. It was such a sad whimpering.
“He's on the bed with him,” Dolly said, tears flooding down her face though she stood tall and strong. “Gus knows the Colonel is dead.”
“We'll take him,” John said.
“You just get Lorraine to the car and wait for us,” Dolly suggested. “It may take a little while, but we'll be down. I want Gus to stay with me. He'll stay with me from now on.”
“You bet,” John agreed. “You sure you're okay?”
Dolly nodded affirmatively. “You kids are swell. You kids are just swell.” She managed to smile.
As we walked away from the room, we could hear the priest giving last rites in Italian or something. Near the elevator I thought my legs were going to give out on me again, but John held me until I felt my strength come back.
“Breathe deeply,” he kept repeating. “Breathe deeply,” After a few minutes I was ready to get on the elevator. I felt so confused, and in a strange way embarrassed. I was leaning too much on John. I was being too weak—almost as if I had been trained to be weak. Somewhere inside me I felt the voice of my mother telling me I was weak, that I was supposed to be weak. That all women were weak, which is why they had to watch out for boys who were strong and could control girls and do whatever they wanted to them. I tried to be strong, to stop the helplessness I was feeling, and my first act was to reach out myself and press the button on the elevator for the ground floor. At least I thought I had pressed for the ground floor, but the elevator came to a stop on the second and the doors opened to reveal a wall of glass. I heard the sounds of babies crying, and as the elevator door started to close again I shot my foot forward and stopped the door. For some reason I just wanted to get off, and it didn't take John long to adapt to the unusual. I fought now to halt my crying, and my eyes surveyed the wall of glass in front of us. This was not an endless wall but more like a picture window. I let go of John's hand and walked forward as though I was viewing a huge mural in a museum. When I reached the edge of the glass, I felt John's hands slipping around my waist and we both looked into the glass room. What met our eyes were about two dozen tiny babies, and it seemed they were all looking up at us from white boatlike cradles. They each had a card on the front of their bassinets—even the few that were only inches long and wiggling in incubators. The biggest baby was a Chinese one with a full head of hair. Its card said, “GLORIA WONG, 10 pounds 5 ounces, born May 21, 8:04 A.M.”
My eyes traveled over the cards. There was a JOHNNIE, and a SEAN and a LUCILLE and a HELEN, and they were so cute I wanted to reach out and touch them all. Two nurses were busy inside the glass room changing and feeding these new arrivals to our world—and I felt like I was watching a pair of lovely gardeners tending the most beautiful crop the world could grow. I was mesmerized, being drawn back through time and up into the highest, most brilliant galaxies. I felt as though I was in a dream and that John was flying with me, hurtling toward the very center of Life itself. I was drugged, desperately standing in a field of simple, priceless flowers, when I heard John's voice whisper in my ear.
“I want to spend my life with you,” John said so gently and sincerely my entire body heard. We turned toward each other, holding on to one another there in front of that glass wall that I felt held the answer to every mystery of what we were doing on this earth to begin with. Our bodies were touching and there was no shame, there was no fear, there was no Death.
Love.
That was our legacy—the gift which had come to us through our Pigman.
Our legacy was love.
&
nbsp; Paul Zindel, The Pigman's Legacy
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