Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone Read Free

vigil or of my certain knowledge that my brother was imprisoned in that place. I watched that building for many years. Sometimes, when the sunlight flashed on the windows, I was certain that my brother was signaling to me and I waved back. When we moved from that particular tenement (into another one) I screamed and cried because I was certain that now my brother would no longer be able to find me. Alas, he was not there; the building turned out to be City College; my brother was on a prison farm in the Deep South, working in the fields.
    I felt my hand being released. The doctor was back. He tapped, pushed, prodded, a complex hunk of meat. He flashed a light into my eyeballs, a light into my throat, a light into my nostrils. I hoped that they were clean. I remembered my mother’s insistence that I always wear clean underwear because I might get knocked down by a car on the way to or from school and I and the family would be disgraced even beyond the grave, presumably, if my underwear was dirty. And I began to worry, in fact, as the doctor sniffed and prodded, about the state of the shorts I was wearing. This made me want to laugh. But I could not breathe.
    I must have blacked out for a moment. When the light came on again the doctor had one hand under my back, holding me up, and held a small glass of brandy to my lips.
    â€œDrink it,” he said. “Slowly.”
    He held the glass for me and I tried to get it down. Two men in white were in the room, looking like executioners, and beyond them, Pete, and next to Pete, Barbara.The men in white frightened me terribly. The doctor realized this.
    â€œSlowly,” he repeated. “Slowly.” Then, “We are taking you to the hospital, where you can rest. You need rest very badly.”
    In panic I looked around the dressing room, my only home. I was still in costume, my street clothes were hanging against the wall. I had not showered, I had not removed my makeup, I had not got my own face back. The face I was wearing itched and burned, I wanted to take it off. My hair was still full of the cream I used to make it gray. I wanted to cry and I looked for help to Pete and Barbara, but they were dumb. What ruin, what relic, were these men in white ripping from its base, and how could Pete and Barbara bear to see me so heartlessly demolished? I looked at the lights above the long mirror, the tubes, the jars, the sticks, the Kleenex, the empty glasses, the whiskey bottle, the ashtray, the half-empty package of cigarettes. No one would recognize me where I was going! I would be lost. “Oh, Pete,” I muttered, I moaned, and I could not keep the tears from falling. “Please wash my face.”
    Without a word, Pete moved to the long dressing table and picked up the Kleenex and cold cream and came to where I lay. He covered my face with cream, he carefully wiped away the lines and distortions which I had so carefully painted in three or four hours before. “Hold still, now,” he said. He threw the dirty Kleenex into the wastebasket, he carefully replaced the box of Kleenex and the jar of cold cream on the long table, he went into the bathroom and returned with a wet face-towel and a dry towel. He ran the wet face-towel and thenthe dry towel over my face and hair. He said, “That’s the best I can do right now, old buddy.” He took both my hands and stared into my eyes. “You ready now?”
    â€œYes,” I said. “Thank you.”
    He smiled. “Anytime. I’ll be proud to wash your face any old time.” He held my shoulder a moment. “Don’t panic. You’ll be all right. But we’ve got to get you out of here, so the man can lock up his theater.”
    He stood up. The two men in white brought the stretcher next to the bed. Pete, probably in order to remain where I could see him, held me from the waist down, the doctor from the waist up, and they moved me to the stretcher. I was covered with a blanket.