Control by William Goldman

say? Haggerty sat on the top step and smoked. Ten minutes without moving, maybe twenty, maybe he would have never moved if the hand hadn ’ t rested on his shoulder and there was Doctor Lorber kneeling beside him.
    “ It just happened, ” Haggerty said, “ I didn ’ t mean for it, I was showing him around, we were parked, it was going okay, and then this gunfight started and I had to do something and I guess he left t)ie car or I don ’ t know, I only do know that my God, I never meant for it to happen. ” He looked at Eric ’ s father now.
    Who was almost smiling.
    “ He ’ ll be coming to soon. No damage of a permanent type. The face will heal, the ribs are cracked and broken but that should be the worst thing that ever happens to him. ”
    “ I ’ ll make it up to you, Doctor Lorber—I won ’ t rest till I do. You ’ ve got my word on that. ” He stood then, and they left the. stairwell, moving back into the corridor. Karen was sitting with an older woman now, the mother.
    “ You don ’ t understand something, Frank—you did what I asked—young people today don ’ t meet reality soon enough—I guarantee you, when Eric comes to, he ’ ll have some brains. ” He lowered his voice. “ It ’ s a terrible thing to say, but the way things turned out—couldn ’ t be better. ”
    A nurse came out of Eric ’ s room. “ Is Karen here? He ’ d like to see Karen. ”
    Karen stood, looked at her parents, started hesitantly toward the room. She reached the doorway. The nurse waited outside, gestured for Karen to enter. But it was hard. She and Eric were close, always—eerily close with their minds. They sometimes answered questions the other one hadn ’ t asked. Not asked out loud.
    In the room now she told herself she was going to be a doctor, she could look at a wounded patient, but she wasn ’ t prepared. If he ’ d been a stranger she ’ d have recoiled, what with his eyes swollen totally shut and his mouth almost as bad and God knew what the rest of his body looked like beneath the sheet. He had tubes all over and what skin there was was red and blue with brushings and she managed “ Hey Little, ” her private name for him since he came fifteen minutes after her arrival, which meant she was the big one of the family.
    “ … oh … ”
    “ Easy. ” She took his hand.
    “ .. . oh Kawen … ” he whispered, his mouth too swollen to make r ’ s.
    She was afraid she was going to unravel then, so quickly she told him, “ You sound like Elmer Fudd. ”
    That almost made him laugh but it also caused terrible pain.
    “ Oh Christ Pm sorry, ” Karen said. “ I am, Little, please believe me, no more jokes, it ’ s all going to be fine, there ’ s no damage, you ’ ll forget everything about this night. ”
    “ …no,.. ”
    “ Believe me, you will. ”
    “ … Kawen … ? ”
    “ What? ”
    “ … I wuved it… ”
    Karen said nothing.
    “ . , . I did an ’ … an ’ you know what … ? ”
    “ What, Little? ”
    “ … gonn be po-weese-munnn … ”
     
    There was not widespread joy in the Lorber household when Eric ’ s decision was announced. Ike and Essy berated themselves, which is what parents do best, asking endlessly where they went wrong, how did such a curse come to fall on them and not some neighboring gentile. And they hoped, as Eric left for his senior year at Swarthmore, for a return of sanity.
    He did wonderfully that year, no surprise, and they received more letters from him than ever, about his classes and his friends and there was no mention of the law. They were pleased with him and how his year was going, but then they didn ’ t know that several nights a week after his work was done, Eric took a bus into South Philly to study the one subject he felt he had to learn before graduation: night-fighting. Because yes he was quick and sure he could drop you with his right, but not at night, not when there were shadows. The beating in Harlem he tried to consider a