A Patient Boy, Page 3 of 8

Looking back I don't know if it was the tires screeching or the crash. They both hardened into a single memory burned so deep, so eternal, that if they X-rayed my brain it would stand out like a nail driven into my head.

I woke up first. I think I heard them coming-a badly tuned engine and the little shrieks of an under-inflated tire. It was the pause between the crash and our awareness that burns me like the spikes in Jesus' hands-that three or four seconds we just sat there, side by side like useless scarecrows, till she said: "Oh, God... Denny."

I got there first. Headlights were lighting up the brush, and this trashed -out '83 Impala lying on its side-and the grating noise of the left rear tire spinning against a twig. I remember dust and bugs flying in the headlights, and this massive metal thing lying there next to the rocking horse blanket.

The first thing my flashlight found was Teddy, sitting up in his bag, mouth open, eyes big as saucers, shivering like he was lying in the snow. His bedroom had been on the left.

I heard groaning and turned my head.

"Call an ambulance!" I screamed to Alice.

"Are they all right?"

"Don't come in here! Call an ambulance now! Fast! Now!"

"Dad?"

I didn't want to look at him. It was too strange, too otherworldly.

"Let me get Teddy to your mom, sweetheart. I'll be right back."

God curse me for a coward, but I picked up little Ted, sleeping bag and all. Halfway to the house I realized what I'd done and put him down.

"Go in to Mommy, Teddy. I have to take care of Denny. It's okay, honey. It's going to be okay. Go in to Mommy!"

It was two of them in the car. She broke her nose and a finger. All he got was a concussion and some scratches.

God's a strange one.

Denny was waiting for me. No pain. That was a kindness. He didn't seem to know. Wasn't afraid. Just uncertain...

He'd been sleeping in his underwear, lying on top of his bag because of the hot night and you could just see the top of his underpants where the car was lying. The whole lower half of his body was out of sight. But he was so ... all right... looking at me like he always looked at me, like I'd be fixing it in a minute. Patient. That's what made him such a special boy. How many eight-year-olds are patient, have even an inkling of what it is to wait? Yet here he was, knowing there was nothing to be done right away. Not screaming. Not crying.

I swear, I thought maybe there was a pocket of hollow ground under him. The field is full of groundhogs; I thought maybe the car had pushed him into a depression or something. I mean it was like nothing had happened, like this damn car had interrupted his night and as soon as we got it off he'd be back to sleeping under the stars.