The Second Coming

and apparently was satisfied, for he, Will, took it as he took everything else, attentively and without surprise. They had got the infection in time, Mr. Ryan said, and this time he could keep his knee. He explained, watching Will Barrett closely, that it was better to chop off a good piece the first time than nibble away as they had done with the other leg. I could have told them from the beginning, he said, that it’s exactly like pruning back boxwood with the blight.
    Mr. Ryan was lying on top of the bedclothes. He pulled up his hospital gown to show his stump. “Ain’t that a pistol?” His thigh too had the same pink and white baby skin.
    The watchful, almost angry look, he saw, was Mr. Ryan’s way of asking him if he thought he would keep his knee. Is it such a bad thing, he mused chin in hand over Mr. Ryan’s remaining knee, to have a knee to think about day in and day out? Even if both knees were well and all was well, what would you do here? “They going to keep chopping on me till I’ll fit on a skateboard,” said Mr. Ryan, watching him.
    â€œIt looks very healthy,” he said. “It looks fine to me.”
    â€œYes, it does,” said Mr. Ryan instantly. “I believe they got it this time. We can’t see the show, Erroll,” he said to Mr. Arnold.
    But Mr. Arnold didn’t move.
    After a while Mr. Ryan said, “Like I said, Erroll, you may be a pane but we can’t see through you.”
    Still Mr. Arnold didn’t move.
    â€œYou want to know what Erroll does?” Mr. Ryan asked Will Barrett with a smile, but his eyes were glittering.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œHe knows I can’t move yet he sits his ass right there on the end of his bed between me and the TV, Erroll you shit!” said Mr. Ryan, laughing, then with a sob but still laughing lunged out between the two beds and, propping himself on the floor with one hand, grabbed Mr. Arnold’s crutch with the other. When, with difficulty, veins pounding in his neck, glossy eye bulging, he got himself back in place, it appeared he meant only to steal Mr. Arnold’s crutch, but no. Gripping the crutch at the small end in both hands like a baseball bat and giving himself what purchase he could by gathering his knee stump under him, he swung the crutch with all his might and caught Mr. Arnold a heavy glancing blow on his onion dome, cursing all the while.
    â€œYou no-good peckerwood son of a bitch!” he cried, his voice going suddenly hoarse.
    Mr. Arnold, suddenly on the move, turned, his good eye winking at Barrett, grabbed the crossbar of the crutch with his good hand, yanked it, and kicked out at Mr. Ryan with his good leg, but fell off the bed. Mr. Ryan flew through the air like a doll and fell on top of him. Three fists rose and fell.
    â€œYou covite cocksucker,” said Mr. Ryan.
    â€œCornholer,” said Mr. Arnold clearly. He had got on top, and though he could only use one arm, the curtain of his face had been lifted by rage. His whole mouth formed curses. Cursing cures paralysis.
    â€œWait, hold it, okay okay,” said Will Barrett, jumping clean across the bed and landing astraddle the roommates in time to catch the crutch on his shin. “Shit,” he said. The two old men were grunting and embracing and cursing like lovers. “I mean for God’s sake stop it!” Picking up Mr. Ryan, who, truncated, was no bigger than a chunky child, he set him in place on his pillows. Mr. Arnold was already back on his perch at the foot of the bed, once again blocking Mr. Ryan’s view of Hollywood Squares. The fight might never have occurred. Instead of moving Mr. Arnold, Will Barrett moved the TV arm so Mr. Ryan’s view could not be blocked. He looked at them. They were gazing at Paul Lynde in the middle square as if nothing had happened.
    â€œHow often does this happen?” he asked them.
    â€œEver’ damn time they chop me down to size, Erroll sits his bony ass right where I can’t see the TV,” said Mr. Ryan.
    â€œIt’s the onliest place I can see it good,” said Mr. Arnold. “It’s too little to see from back there.”
    â€œYou speak very well,” Will Barrett told Mr. Arnold. “The last time I saw you at my house, you didn’t have much to say.”
    â€œThere wasn’t much to say.”
    â€œHe’s too damn mean to talk,” said Mr. Ryan. “But knock him upside the head like a