Well, come on then. But keep your mouth shut. I’ll do the talking.
They walked back along the hall behind the nurse and were led into an examination room. They sat down. Across the room a diagram of the human heart was taped to the wall. All its valves and tubes and dark chambers were precisely labeled. Next to it hung a calendar with a picture of a mountain in winter, with snow on the trees and a cabin bearing up under the deep snow on its pitched roof. After a while another nurse came in and took the old man’s pulse and his blood pressure and temperature and wrote the information in a chart, then left and closed the door. A few minutes later Dr. Martin opened the door and came in. He was an old man dressed in a blue suit and starched white shirt with a maroon bow tie and clear rimless spectacles, and he had blue eyes that were paler than his suit. He washed his hands at the little sink in the corner and sat down and looked at the chart the nurse had left. So what seems to be the trouble? he said. Who’s this boy with you?
This here’s my daughter’s boy. He had to come along too.
How do you do, Dr. Martin said. I haven’t seen you before, have I? He shook the boy’s hand formally.
That boy’s the cause of all this, the old man said.
How’s that?
He decided I was sick. Then he goes over and gets the neighbor woman to drive me in here.
Well, let’s see if he’s right. Will you sit up here, please? The old man moved to the examining table and the doctor looked into his eyes and mouth, examined his hair-filled ears, and gently squeezed various spots along his stringy neck. Let me listen to your chest now, he said. Can you undo the tops of your pants there?
The old man unhooked the buttons on the shoulder straps of his overalls and let the bib fall. He sat forward.
Now your shirt, please.
He unbuttoned the blue workshirt and shucked it off, revealing the dirty long underwear top, with the white hairs of his chest showing at the open neck.
Could you pull up your top there? Yes. That’ll do. That’s far enough. Now I’ll just listen for a moment. He pressed the cup end of the stethoscope against the old man’s chest. Take a deep breath. That’s right. And again. He moved to the back and listened there.
The old man sat and breathed with his eyes shut and puffed out his feverish cheeks. The boy stood beside him watching everything.
Well, Mr. Kephart, said Dr. Martin, it’s a good thing your grandson brought you in here today.
Oh?
Yes, sir. You’ve got yourself a good case of pneumonia. I’ll call the hospital and they’ll admit you this afternoon.
The old man peered at him. What if I don’t want to go to the hospital?
Well, you can die, I suppose. You don’t have to do what’s sensible. It’s up to you.
How long would they have to keep me?
Not long. Three or four days. Maybe a week. It depends. You can go ahead and get dressed now. Dr. Martin stood back and gathered up the chart on the counter. He started to walk out, then stopped and looked at the boy. You did well to insist that your grandfather come in, he said. What was your name?
DJ Kephart.
And you’re how old?
Eleven.
Yes. Well, you did fine. You did very well. You have reason to be satisfied that you made him come in to see me. I don’t suppose that was very easy, was it.
It wasn’t too hard, the boy said.
The old doctor went out of the room and shut the door.
The old man began to get dressed, but managed to put one of the buttons of his workshirt in the wrong hole so the front was looped forward. Here, he said. Fix this goddamn thing. I can’t do nothing with it. The boy unbuttoned his grandfather’s shirt and buttoned it again while the old man raised his chin and stared at the diagram of the heart that was taped to the wall.
You better not be getting a swelled head over what he told you, he said.
I’m not.