Mohawk

imagine being hungry today. The medicine leaves a brassy taste in his mouth, and any more he eats out of duty, to avoid weakness. He nods sleepily, his chin coming to rest upon his breastbone, his bald spot staring at the smiling black-and-white evangelist.
    Mather Grouse is asleep only a few minutes when the doorbell rings. He ignores it, not even bothering to open his eyes. Odd people sometimes come by on Sundays, wanting to discuss Scripture. They are far more likely to go away if you don’t answer the door than if you do and tell them to. Mather Grouse cannot remember if the blinds are drawn, but this doesn’t matter. If they look in, see an old man slumped forward in an armchair and fail to raise him with the bell, they will depart. Basically they just follow Scripture, and Scripture doesn’t have any advice about what to do in these situations. Soon he will hear the sound of their retreating footsteps.
    When the bell rings again, Mather Grouse slyly opens one eye, just enough to see. A lone man is standing on the porch, but the blinds are half drawn and Mather Grouse cannot make out who it is. He can think of no one who has any business standing on his porch on a Sunday morning, but when the bell rings a third time, he pulls himself out of the chair and goes to the door where his old friend Dr. Walters is waiting patiently. “Are you going to invite me in, Mather?”
    Mather Grouse decides not to, but he does pull openthe door and step out of the way. “You’re not in church,” he remarks.
    “I don’t go as regularly as I used to,” the old doctor admits. “In fact I’ve been feeling particularly irreligious lately. I don’t suppose it’s good form for men our age to indulge in crises of faith, though.”
    Mather Grouse has already returned to his armchair. “Men our age shouldn’t indulge in anything.”
    Dr. Walters takes off his outer coat and folds it neatly over the arm of the sofa. If Mrs. Grouse were there, she would hang it up and offer him a cup of tea, but Mather Grouse’s inhospitality is legendary, even among his friends. “Any more I find myself a prey to young men’s doubts. I’ve come to suspect there’s something dark at the center. Don’t you find that silly?”
    “No.”
    “Neither do I, just now, but the feeling may pass. Still, I doubt you and I have ever been men of real faith. I much more enjoyed our friendly competitions than anything else about Sunday churchgoing.”
    Mather Grouse smiles. As ushers, they always made tiny wagers on who would take in more in the collection basket. “You could always afford to make up the difference. My side was always dimes and quarters, the occasional dollar bill. A crisp new ten-spot always turned up in yours. If it hadn’t been for that, you’d never have won.”
    “You were better at making people feel guilty. They saw you coming and dug into their pockets. They saw me and said, let
him
pay. Perhaps if you came back to church I’d get my religion back.”
    Mather Grouse knows all this is leading somewhere. His friend is a master of indirection, but he will notbe able to conceal the purpose of his visit much longer. “It was you who insisted I give it up to begin with.”
    “Yes,” the other man admits, but his voice is tentative.
    “Besides,” Mather Grouse says, “I get all the religion I need right here.” The two friends smile and watch the evangelist, whose face is aglow with love and makeup.
    “I have another patient with emphysema,” Dr. Walters ventures. “About your age, though according to the X-rays the damage to his lungs is far greater.”
    Mather Grouse says nothing. The two men are not looking at each other. It is very close now, and Mather Grouse begins to suspect the direction they are heading.
    “The man is a mover. He carries people’s furniture up and down flights of stairs. I told him this would have to stop. He has two big, strong sons. I said he’d have to let them do the heavy work.”
    “Very good advice.”
    “But you see what I’m driving at?”
    “No,” Mather Grouse lied.
    “Here, then. You are suffering from emphysema, a disease we’re only now learning about. We know it will gradually grow worse, because that’s the only thing it can do. Eventually, unless you get hit by a car in the meantime, it will take your life. This much we know. But for a long time I’ve suspected—and now I’m certain of it—that you are sicker than you should be. Your lungs have suffered some