WHITE SUMMER
(Chap. 2)

This is the only thing that I am sure of
And that’s all that lives is gonna die
And there’ll always be some people here to wonder why
And for every happy hello, there will be good-bye. –Love


Clusters of tiny hammers yammering. Clusters of tiny hammers yammering. Clusters of tiny hammers yammering. Insistent, the clappering bell of the encased wall phone hooked my lidded eyes open. I stumbled out of bed hunched by a morning hard-on, gauzy-eyed, naked into the glare of the sun. On one foot, hopping, I tugged on my underwear. I knocked the phone off the hook. Juggling the receiver in one hand, I clamped it to my ear with my shoulder.
"What," I barked.
"Jase," It was Verlaine’s voice, cold as stone. "it’s Suzy. She’s been taken to the hospital. Jase, they think she tried to kill herself."
The phone slipped from my shoulder. My sleepy state fading rapidly, I frantically grabbed at the cord as the phone smacked the desk. I pressed it to the side of my head, my brain still uncomprehending. "How!? Why? I can’t believe..."
"I’m not sure. I’m getting this all second-hand from her suite-mate."
"Where is she?"
" Bloomington Hospital. "
"I need to go see her."
"I knew you would."
"Would you go with me?"
"I can, yes."
"You and Ingrid. I think we all need to go. She needs friends, right?"
"Yes."
"I’ll throw on some clothes and give you a call back. I’ll get us a cab."
"Okay. We’ll be ready."
I hung up the phone and turned around to see Hunter swivelling his legs over the side of his bed. Sitting up in his boxers, he rubbed his stomach and reached for his pack of cigarettes.
"Hey, buddy, get your blow job last night, or did you get lucky and fuck her?" He looked casually at me through the slit of his sleepy eyes as he tapped out a smoke.
I leaped forward slamming my forearm across his face. His cigarettes flying, we tumbled backwards onto his bed, rolling and thrashing to the floor. My fist found the side of his head twice before he flipped me and pinned me, cuffing my wrists in his iron grip, straddling my stomach. I struggled to buck him off.
"What the Hell is the matter with you!?"
"Let me up, Goddamn you, let me up!"
"Why’d you clock me!" His blue eyes were burning, his face flushed. His cheek where my forearm had made contact was turning an angry red.
"Suzy’s in the hospital! She tried to kill herself!"
"Oh, shit. She’s finally gone and done it. I didn’t mean... Sorry what I said, buddy. I’m going to let you up okay? Be cool, okay?" He relaxed his grip and slipped off me. I sat up, my chest heaving, my anger subsiding.
"It’s not you, Jase. You know that, right? It’s not us. She...well, you know. I told you." He sat back down on the edge of his bed and retrieved a cigarette from the floor, slipping it between his lips, he snapped his lighter open. "Bad news." He blew twin strands of smoke from his nose before exhaling the rest. "You want to go see her? I’ll drive you. We’ll both go. We can take my M.G."
"Verlaine and Ingrid are going too. I was going to call a cab."
"Fine. I can tag along. That alright?"
"I guess so. Sure."
"You think she’ll want to see me?"
"I don’t know. She might not want to see either one of us."
He rubbed the side of his face. "You hammered me pretty good."
"Sorry, you really piss me off sometimes. I guess we’re even." I grabbed my bell- bottoms. "We’re taking off as soon as we can. You need to get dressed, if you’re going."
"Let me wash my face first, try to bring some of the swelling down. I’ll be ready."
We met the girls in front of McNutt. When Verlaine saw Hunter, she turned crystalline. Then she noticed his swollen face. She turned to me and whispered.
"What happened to him?"
"We’ve come to an understanding," I said.
A smile hooked into her left cheek and she bumped me with her shoulder.
When the Yellow Cab pulled up in front. Verlaine popped the front passenger side door open.
"Hunter, you ride in front,"she smiled. "We’ll take the back seat."
The three of us squeezed into the rear, Verlaine first. I sat in the middle, folded-up, a leg on either side of the drive shaft hump. Ingrid’s hip pressed into mine, her hand wrapping around my right knee. The cramped interior of the cab was suffused with the smell of stale cigarette smoke, Hunter’s ‘Juicy Fruit’ and the scent of Verlaine’s warm skin and Ingrid’s sandalwood.
On the drive to the hospital, we held our thoughts to ourselves. The radio was tuned to some country station. I concentrated on Ingrid’s hand on my knee, trying not to remember Suzy’s delicate fingers. I periodically flicked my gaze over to her to find her eyes waiting . My arm found it’s way around her shoulders and she leaned into me.
When we arrived we split the cab fare, Ingrid’s idea, and tipped the cabbie. We signed in at the reception desk and asked for Suzy’s room. I always felt anxious in hospitals. Getting into the elevator just reinforced it, the foreignness of it all, sterile, antiseptic. None of my memories of hospitals were good. When we got out, the floor nurse at the desk informed us that Hunter and I wouldn’t be allowed to see her. A psychiatrist had interviewed Suzy and had determined we may have been responsible for initiating her episode. So it was best to preclude any possible further...the nurse was still talking when Hunter stalked over to what could have passed for a waiting room. He kicked one of the chrome legs on the chairs and swiped a stack of magazines to the floor before he plopped down in a seat and lit a cigarette. The girls were allowed to visit.
I went over and sat next to Hunter on one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs and started to read the covers of the magazines strewn across the floor: Sports Illustrated; Good Housekeeping; Time; Humpty Dumpty. Hunter stubbed his cigarette into the barbell-shaped ash tray, his lips pressed thin.
"They don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about. I didn’t have anything to do with her slitting her wrists, or over-dosing or whatever the fuck she did."
"I’m in it too."
"You didn’t know her. I mean not really. She had some heavy shit going on. I should never have messed with her."
"You were going to marry her."
"Yeah, the joke’s on me."
When the girls reemerged from Suzy’s room, Ingrid was leaning into Verlaine whispering something. I watched them walk down the hallway toward us, a smile flickered across Verlaine’s face when she noticed me and just as quickly vanished. We stood as they neared.
"Well," I asked.
"She’ll live," Verlaine responded simply. "Her wrists are bandaged. They have her hooked-up to an IV. I think they gave her a tranq., too."
"She’s cried much, I think," Ingrid continued. " her eyes were very red. She is so out of it."
"She apologized to you, for the things she said last night," Verlaine added, " And she was glad you came Hunter. It meant a lot to her." She pushed the down button for the elevator.
"I guess I should be pleased." Hunter looked down the empty hall toward her room.
"She wants attention," Ingrid interjected.
"There’s that too," Verlaine said. "I think she’s really needy."
" If in her mind was to kill herself, she would be dead."
I clutched at Ingrid’s hand. It flew away like a wild bird.
"That’s not helpful,"Hunter responded.
"It is true!" Her eyes flared.
"This was more about her parents than anyone else," said, Verlaine. " She really needs them now." The elevator dinged open and we stepped in. "She told me they’re flying in. She seemed a bit apprehensive about that. There’s a story there isn’t there?"
"Yes," Hunter said.
"She’s going to withdraw from school, she told me."
Ingrid’s hand nestled once more in mine and her chin sought my shoulder as the elevator deposited us on the ground floor.
We caught another cab and had it take us to The Wagon Wheel for breakfast. Over the clatter of ceramic cups and plates, jangling silverware and oceans of coffee, we talked ourselves away from her.
"It’s about her brother," Verlaine said. "... her brother’s death. I don’t think she’s ever gotten over it. That’s why she goes overboard when it comes to guys. You don’t care what we’re going through. Guys always take advantage."
"That’s not true," I shot back, as I dealt with my pancakes.
"Maybe not for you, Jase," She picked a strawberry off her plate and bit into it. "At least not yet."
"Listen, if a girl’s offering, I’m not refusing." Omelet dangled from Hunter’s fork as his eyes met ours. " Sorry, but it always takes two." He, continued with a mouthful of egg. " If you want to lay it on somebody, lay it on Johnson. His stupid war. He got her brother killed and as well as two guys from my high school graduating class. Johnson needs to end the fucking thing."
"You actually think Johnson has any intention of ending it," I answered. "He’d loose face. He’s the big cowboy. He’s not going to let some rice paddy gook show him up."
"President Kennedy was ready to pull the plug before he was assassinated ."
Verlaine was dismantling a banana as she spoke. She peeled the skin off then broke sections from the raw fruit, pushing them into her mouth.
"Kennedy got us into this mess. He should have," Hunter continued.
"It wasn’t Kennedy it was Eisenhower," I answered.
"The French were the ones who fucked it up, even before Eisenhower," Hunter’s eyes met Ingrid’s across the table.
"No. You don’t look at me," Ingrid’s fork clinked as she dropped it on the ceramic plate. "The French knew when to get out. You Americans were stupid to go in when we left. You think you can always solve everyone’s problems and make them like you. You always want to be the cowboy, John Wayne. You are never wrong. God is always on your side. You are arrogant, so you do foolish things." She cut into her syrupy french toast and shoved a piece into her mouth.
" The communists would over-run Southeast Asia if we weren’t there," Hunter replied as he tipped his coffee mug to his lips.
"It is the big lie your government tells you. You Americans always have your ‘boogey’ men."
"French toast good?" Hunter smiled.
Ingrid tossed her balled up napkin at him. "You’re such a swine."
"Charmed, I’m sure." He replied as it sailed past.
"All I know is that Johnson was behind Kennedy’s assassination. It’ll come out, just watch." Verlaine popped another section of banana into her mouth.
"Verlaine, how can you say that? He was in the motorcade," I said.
"That doesn’t prove anything. Where did it happen? Texas. Johnson has all his cronies down there. Big oil wanted the war. He hated Kennedy. Connelly was in the president’s car, not Johnson, hmmm, I wonder why. He was set up.They had him in a triangulated line of fire..."
"Pass the cream please."
I passed the small metal pitcher to Ingrid.
"Guns, guns, guns, that’s all you know." Ingrid said as she tipped the cream into her coffee.
"The grassy knoll, we know," Hunter interjected before crumbling a piece of bacon into his mouth.
"Prove me wrong!"
" Anyone going to hear McCarthy at his rally in Dunn Meadow?" I wanted to change the subject.
"Yeah, knee-jerk liberals and grad students in penny loafers," Verlaine chuckled.
"I wonder if he knows a pot-head is on the bill?" Hunter was waving another bacon strip toward his mouth.
"You mean, Warlock," I replied. "Peter, Paul and Mary are on the bill too. You don’t think they take a toke now and then? What about ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’? That’s a pot song! Little Jackie Paper loved that rascal Puff . Rolling paper, get it? The magic drag-in. Smokin’ the weed, smokin’ the weed." I pinched my thumb and forefinger together in pantomime.
"That’s rich," Hunter answered.
"Bobby’s going to speak at the I. U. Auditorium. Ingrid and I are going , anyone else," Verlaine asked.
"I’ll go just to be there."
Hunter pushed his plate away. " I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve got a paper due Monday. I need to get back and type it up."
"Strawberry, Hunter?" Verlaine, smiled, plucking one from her plate and twirling it by the stem.
"Clever. No, I already have one courtesy of ole’ Jason, here." He slapped me hard on the shoulder before sliding from the booth. "I’ll call a cab."
Ingrid lit one of her Gitanes and flipped the still burning match nub at me.
I reached over and grabbed her wrist. Her smile was haughty and pleased, her eyes bright as chrome.
"Let go."
"Why should I?"
"Because I say."
I threw her hand away. "What’s with it with you? Trying to start a fire?"
"Maybe." Her smile eased into a laugh as she got up with Verlaine and they went ahead.
I wiped my mouth with the paper napkin and crumpled it. I paused to say a prayer, in my mind, silent. I never prayed, at least not often, not for a long time, not since, not since that night. I prayed that Suzy would find her way, that’s all. That simple. I stood and tossed a couple dollars on the table for the waitress then followed after my friends.