The Cider House Rules

He went and read some stories to the tonsillectomy patients. They were all dumb stories--children's books didn't impress Homer Wells. But the tonsillectomy patients were not likely to be around long enough to hear David Copperfield or Great Expectations.

Nurse Caroline asked him if he would give a bath and a back rub to the large man recovering from the prostate operation.

"Don't ever underestimate the pleasure of pissing," the big man told Homer Wells.

"No, sir," Homer said, rubbing the mountain of flesh until the big man shone a healthy pink.

Olive was not home when Homer returned to Ocean View; it was her time for plane spotting. They used what was called the yacht-watching tower at the Haven Club, but Homer didn't think any planes had been spotted. All the men spotters--most of them Senior's former drinking companions--had the silhouettes of the enemy planes tacked on their lockers; the women brought the silhouettes home and stuck them on places like the refrigerator door. Olive was a plane spotter for two hours every day.

Homer studied the silhouettes that Olive had on the refrigerator.

I could learn all those, he was thinking. And I can learn everything there is to know about apple farming. But what he already knew, he knew, was near-perfect obstetrical procedure and the far easier procedure--the one that was against the rules.

He thought about rules. That sailor with the slashed hand had not been in a knife fight that was according to anyone's rules. In a fight with Mr. Rose, there would be Mr. Rose's own rules, whatever they were. A knife fight with Mr. Rose would be like being pecked to death by a small bird, thought Homer Wells. Mr. Rose was an artist--he would take just the tip of a nose, just a button or a nipple. The real cider house rules were Mr. Rose's.

And what were the rules at St. Cloud's? What were Larch's rules? Which rules did Dr. Larch observe, which ones did he break, or replace--and with what confidence? Clearly Candy was observing some rules, but whose? And did Wally know what the rules were? And Melony--did Melony obey any rules? wondered Homer Wells.

"Look," said Lorna. "There's a war, have you noticed?"

"So what?" said Melony.

"Because he's probably in it, that's so what!" Lorna said. "Because he either enlisted or he's gonna get drafted."

Melony shook her head. "I can't see him in a war, not him. He just doesn't belong there."

"For Christ's sake," Lorna said. "You think e

veryone in a war belongs there?"

"If he goes, then he'll come back," Melony said. The ice on the Kennebec in December was not secure; it was a tidal river, it was brackish, and there was open water, gray and choppy, in the middle. But not even Melony could throw a beer bottle as far as the middle of that river in Bath. Her bottle, bounding off the creaky ice, made a hollow sound and rolled toward the open water it couldn't reach. It disturbed a gull, who got up and walked a short way along the ice, like an old woman holding up a number of cumbersome petticoats above a puddle.

"Not everyone's comin' back from this war--that's all I'm sayin'," Lorna replied.

Wally had trouble coming back from Texas. There were a series of delays, and bad weather; the landing field was closed--when Homer and Candy picked him up in Boston, the first thing he told them was that he had only forty-eight hours. He was still happy, however--"He was still Wally," Candy would say later--and especially pleased that he'd received his commission.

"Second Lieutenant Worthington!" Wally announced to Olive. Everyone cried, even Ray.

With the gas rationing, they couldn't manage the usual driving around and around. Homer wondered when Wally would want to be alone with Candy and how they would manage it. Surely he wants to manage it, Homer thought. Does she want to, too? he wondered.

For Christmas Eve everyone was together. And Christmas Day there was nowhere to go; Olive was home, and Ray wasn't building torpedoes or pulling lobster traps. And the day after Christmas, Candy and Homer would have to take Wally back to Boston.

Oh, Candy and Wally did plenty of hugging and kissing--everyone could see that. On Christmas night, in Wally's bedroom, Homer realized that he'd been so glad to see Wally that he'd forgotten to notice very much about his second Christmas away from St. Cloud's. He also realized he'd forgotten to send Dr. Larch anything--not even a Christmas card.

"I've got more flying school to get through," Wally was saying, "but I think it's going to be India for me."

"India," said Homer Wells.

"The Burma run," said Wally. "To go from India to China, you got to go over Burma. The Japs are in Burma."

Homer Wells had studied the maps at Cape Kenneth High. He knew that Burma was mountains, that Burma was jungles. When they shot your plane down, there would be quite a wide range of possible things to land on.

"How are things with Candy?" Homer asked.

"Great!" Wally said. "Well, I'll see tomorrow," he added.

Ray went early to build the torpedoes, and Homer observed that Wally left Ocean View at about the same time Ray would be leaving for Kittery. Homer spent the early morning being of little comfort to Olive. "Forty-eight hours is not what I'd call coming home," she said. "He hasn't been here for a year--does he call this a proper visit? Does the Army call it a proper visit?"

Candy and Wally came to pick up Homer before noon. Homer imagined that they had "managed it." But how does one know such things, short of asking?