3.
Early in August, Dave Pelsen came to see Johnny. The Cleaves Mills High assistant principal was a small, neat man who wore thick glasses and Hush Puppies and a series of loud sports jackets. Of all the people who came to see Johnny during that almost endless summer of 1975, Dave had changed the least. The gray was speckled a little more fully through his hair, but that was all.
'So how are you doing? Really?' Dave asked, when they had finished the amenities.
'Not so bad,' Johnny said. 'I can walk alone now if I don't overdo it. I can swim six laps in the pool. I get headaches sometimes, real killers, but the doctors say I can expect that to go on for some time. Maybe the rest of my life.'
'Mind a personal question?'
'If you're going to ask me if I can still get it up,' Johnny said with a grin, 'that's affirmative.'
'That's good to know, but what I wanted to know about is the money. Can you pay for this?'
Johnny shook his head. 'I've been in the hospital for going on five years. No one but a Rockefeller could pay for that. My father and mother got me into some sort of state-funded program. Total Disaster, or something like that.'
Dave nodded. 'The Extraordinary Disaster program. I figured that. But how did they keep you out of the state hospital, Johnny? That place is the pits.'
'Dr. Weizak and Dr. Brown saw to that. And they're largely responsible for my having been able to come back as far as I have. I was a ... a guinea pig, Dr. Weizak says. How long can we keep this comatose man from turning into a total vegetable? The physical therapy unit was working on me the last two years I was in coma. I had megavitamin shots ... my ass still looks like a case of smallpox. Not that they expected any return on the project from me personally. I was assumed to be a terminal case almost from the time I came in. Weizak says that what he and Brown did with me is aggressive life support". He thinks it's the beginning of a response to all the criticism about sustaining life after hope of recovery is gone. Anyway, they couldn't continue to use me if I'd gone over to the state hospital, so they kept me here. Eventually, they would have finished with me and then I would have gone to the state hospital.'
'Where the most sophisticated care you would have gotten would have been a turn every six hours to prevent bedsores,' Dave said. 'And if you'd waked up in 1980, you would have been a basket case.'
'I think I would have been a basket case no matter what,' Johnny said. He shook his head slowly. 'I think if someone proposes one more operation on me, I'll go nuts. And I'm still going to have a limp and I'll never be able to turn my head all the way to the left.'
'When are they letting you out?'
'In three weeks, God willing.'
'Then what?'
Johnny shrugged. 'I'm going down home, I guess. To Pownal. My mother's going to be in California for a while on a ... a religious thing. Dad and I can use the time to get reacquainted. I got a letter from one of the big literary agents in New York... well, not him, exactly, but one of his assistants. They think there might be a book in what happened to me. I thought I'd try to do two or three chapters and an outline, maybe this guy or his assistants can sell it. The money would come in pretty damn handy, no kidding there.'
'Has there been any other media interest?'
'Well, the guy from the Bangor Daily News who did that original story...
'Bright? He's good.'
'He'd like to come down to Pownal after I blow this joint and do a feature story. I like the guy; but right now I'm holding him off. There's no money in it for me, and right now, frankly, that's what I'm looking for. I'd go on "To Tell the Truth" if I thought I could make two hundred bucks out of it. My folks' savings are gone. They sold their car and bought a clunker. Dad took a second mortgage on the house when he should have been thinking about retiring and selling it and living on the proceeds.'
'Have you thought about coming back into teaching?'
Johnny glanced up. 'Is that an offer?'
'It ain't chopped liver.'
'I'm grateful,' Johnny said. 'But I'm just not going to be ready in September, Dave.'
'I wasn't thinking about September. You must remember Sarah's friend, Anne Strafford?' Johnny nodded. 'Well, she's Anne Beatty now, and she's going to have a baby in December. So we need an English teacher second semester. Light schedule. Four classes, one senior study hall, two free periods.'
'Are you making a firm offer, Dave?'
'Firm.'
'That's pretty damn good of you,' Johnny said hoarsely.
'Hell with that,- Dave said easily. 'You were a pretty damn good teacher.'
'Can I have a couple of weeks to think it over?'
'Until the first of October, if you want,' Dave said. 'You'd still be able to work on your book, I think. If it looks like there might be a possibility there.'
Johnny nodded.
'And you might not want to stay down there in Pownal too long,' Dave said. 'You might find it ... uncomfortable.'