Free Eleven Kinds of Loneliness by Richard Yates Page A

another and a voice said, “Yes, your money buys more in a Crawford store!”
    “Turn that son of a bitch off,” Marty said, and sounding the horn again, he pulled out into the fast lane.
    When the car entered the hospital grounds, Irene turned around in the front seat and said, “Say, this is a beautiful place.I mean it, isn’t this a beautiful place? Oh, look, they got a Christmas tree up, with lights and all.”
    “Well,” Marty said, “where to?”
    “Straight ahead,” Myra told him, “down to that big circle, where the Christmas tree is. Then you turn right, out around the Administration Building, and on out to the end of that street.” He made the turn correctly, and as they approached the long, low TB building, she said, “Here it is, Marty, this one right here.” He drew up to the curb and stopped, and she gathered together the magazines she had brought for her husband and stepped out on the thin gray snow.
    Irene hunched her shoulders and turned around, hugging herself. “Oo-oo, it’s cold out there, isn’t it? Listen, honey, what time is it you’ll be through, now? Eight o’clock, is it?”
    “That’s right,” Myra said, “but listen, why don’t you people go on home? I can just as soon take the bus back, like I always do.”
    “Whaddya think I am, crazy?” Irene said. “You think I want to drive all the way home with Jack moping there in the back seat?” She giggled and winked. “Be hard enough just trying to keep him happy while you’re inside, let alone driving all the way home. No, listen, we’ll cruise around a little, honey, maybe have a little drink or something, and then we’ll come back here for you at eight o’clock sharp.”
    “Well okay, but I’d really just as soon—”
    “Right here,” Irene said. “We’ll see you right here in front of the building at eight o’clock sharp. Now hurry up and shut the door before we all freeze to death.”
    Myra smiled as she slammed the door, but Jack, sulking, did not look up to smile back, or wave. Then the car rolled away and she walked up the path and the steps to the TB building.
    The small waiting room smelled of steam heat and wetovershoes, and she hurried through it, past the door marked NURSES’ OFFICE—CLEAN AREA and into the big, noisy center ward. There were thirty-six beds in the center ward, divided in half by a wide aisle and subdivided by shoulder-high partitions into open cubicles of six beds each. All the sheets and the hospital pajamas were dyed yellow, to distinguish them from uncontaminated linen in the hospital laundry, and this combined with the pale green of the walls made a sickly color scheme that Myra could never get used to. The noise was terrible too; each patient had a radio, and they all seemed to be playing different stations at once. There were clumps of visitors at some of the beds—one of the newer men lay with his arms around his wife in a kiss— but at other beds the men looked lonely, reading or listening to their radios.
    Myra’s husband didn’t see her until she was right beside his bed. He was sitting up, cross-legged, frowning over something in his lap. “Hello, Harry,” she said.
    He looked up. “Oh, hi there, honey, didn’t see you coming.”
    She leaned over and kissed him quickly on the cheek. Sometimes they kissed on the lips, but you weren’t supposed to.
    Harry glanced at his watch. “You’re late. Was the bus late?”
    “I didn’t come on the bus,” she said, taking off her coat. “I got a ride out. Irene, the girl that works in my office? She and her husband drove me out in their car.”
    “Oh, that’s nice. Whyn’t you bring ’em on in?”
    “Oh, they couldn’t stay—they had someplace else to go. But they both said to give you their regards. Here, I brought you these.”
    “Oh, thanks, that’s swell.” He took the magazines and spread them out on the bed: Life, Collier’s and Popular Science . “That’s swell, honey. Sit down and stay