The Second Coming

tar and craters of pavement were coming up at him like a moon landing fast and silent yet slow enough for him to say to himself: right, it’s not going to end like this or in a Georgia swamp either because I won’t stand for it and don’t have to. Then the Eagle landed and the moon went dark.
    4
    The room was dark.
    The table he was strapped to began to move. It slanted up at the foot, then slanted down, rolled over on one side, stood on end. Quick sure woman’s hands moved his body, straightening it. Someone measured his head with a ruler and marked it. There was the sense of conforming his body, its warm wayward flesh and bone, to the simple cold geometry of straight metal edges. A motor went on and off. There was a hum.
    When he and the table were stood on end like a mummy case, he saw stars. A window directly in front of him seemed to open into deep space. There twinkling in a thousand, a million points of light was a distant galaxy. But it was not a window, not deep space, not a galaxy, but a brain. The fore part of the brain crouched between two lobes like a sphinx.
    He turned his head. The sphinx turned. He turned his head the other way. The sphinx turned the other way.
    It was his own brain.
    Later the same quick hands unstrapped him and led him into a brightly lit examining room. There were Leslie and Jack Curl and Vance Battle and another man, no doubt a doctor, wearing a long white coat with a rubber hammer sticking out of his pocket. Leslie and Jack were smiling at him.
    â€œWhat are you grinning about?” he asked Leslie crossly. Uh oh, he thought. Something is wrong for sure. Leslie never smiles unless somebody dies or the Holy Spirit descends. What had happened to her inverted-U frown?
    â€œCredit friend Jack here,” she said, giving him a pat. Ah, they had become friends. What was up? “There is nothing like the power of prayer.”
    â€œThere you go,” said Jack absently, dancing a little.
    â€œPower of prayer to do what?” asked Will Barrett.
    â€œTo find you and get you here at Duke!” said Leslie, giving him a hug. “Oh, Poppy, you’re a mess!”
    Vance and the other man were holding their arms and talking, their heads down. The other man must be a doctor because he was talking to Vance both seriously and casually. He didn’t have to smile. A courtesy was being extended Vance. They did not seem to be exchanging medical information as doctors do, but rather reaching an agreement, as lawyers do. They traced designs on the floor with the toes of their shoes. An agreement was reached. Both men nodded. The other doctor left.
    Leslie and Jack Curl were smiling and shaking their heads. Vance winked. With so much cheerfulness—Leslie smiling and soft-eyed!—the news must be bad.
    â€œSon, we had a time catching up with you and throwing you down,” said Vance, talking more country man usual. Bad! He turned to Leslie. “What this old boy needs is some strong-arm tactics, and this little lady is just the one to do it.”
    â€œThere you go,” said Jack Curl, doing a turn and bumping into Leslie. There occurred between them some kind of comic Christian jostle.
    He was looking down at his short hospital smock. It was tied loosely in the back. A draft blew up under the flap. There was lettering on the front. He tried to read it.
    â€œWhere am I?” he asked.
    â€œYou’re at Duke, Poppy,” said Leslie and sure enough took him by a strong hand. “The Duke hospital.”
    â€œSit down, Tiger, before you fall down,” said Vance.
    â€œI feel fine,” he said. He did. Except for a lightness in the head and a throbbing above one eye, he felt strong. He was hungry. “How long have I been here?”
    â€œTwelve hours,” said Vance. “And I’m here to tell you one damn thing. Out of your head you’re a lot easier to get along with. You’re not a bad patient. You actually hold still when I tell you.”
    â€œHow did I get here from the bus?”
    The three looked at each other and laughed.
    Jack Curl did a turn and addressed the others, with Will Barrett as listener-in. “I don’t know what friend Will here told that bus driver, but that sucker turned that bus around and delivered him straight to Linwood Hospital.”
    He looked at them. Their smiles and winks and jokes bore him along as skillfully as the swift hands on the X-ray table. “What am I doing