The Cider House Rules

"Gomer!" cried David Copperfield.

"It's Homer, you idiot," Curly Day said.

"Gomer!" David Copperfield cried.

"Get out of here, please," Homer told them.

"Whatcha got?" Curly asked Homer. He reached upward, for the edge of the tray, but Homer picked off his dirty little hand; he grabbed Curly at the wrist and twisted Curly's arm behind his back. Homer balanced the tray and its content expertly; Curly Day tried to struggle.

"Ow!" Curly cried. David Copperfield tried to stand up in the bottom of the carton, but he lost his balance and sat down.

Homer lifted Curly Day's arm behind his back--just slightly higher than the right-angle mark--which caused Curly to bend over and rest his forehead on the edge of the enema-bag carton. "Cut it out," Curly said.

"You're leaving, Curly--right?" Homer asked.

"Yeah, yeah," Curly said, and Homer let him go. "Tough guy," Curly said.

"Right," said Homer Wells.

"Gomer!" David Copperfield managed to say.

Curly Day wiped his nose on his disheveled sleeve. He jerked the carton so suddenly that David Copperfield rolled on his side. "Ack!" little Copperfield cried.

"Shut up," Curly said to his cargo. He shuffled away from Homer Wells, to whom he gave a look of peevish sorrow, of aimless complaint--nothing more. His body bobbed from side to side as he made his way with the carton containing David Copperfield. Homer noted that Curly's shoes were on the wrong feet, and one of them was untied, but he decided it would be unworthy criticism to mention this to Curly, who was as buoyant as he was messy--and wasn't his buoyancy more important than his carelessness, especially since he was an orphan?

"Good-bye, Curly," Homer said to the boy's slouched back; Curly's untucked shirt hung to his knees.

"See ya, Homer," Curly said, keeping his face turned away. When he passed the dispensary door, Nurse Edna appeared and scolded him.

"You're not supposed to be playing here, Curly," she said.

"Yeah, yeah," Curly said. "I'm going, I'm going."

"Medna!" David Copperfield cried in a muffled voice from the bottom of the enema-bag carton.

"It's Edna, you little scum," Curly said.

Then Homer was at the door of Nurse Angela's office, which was open. He could see Dr. Larch at the typewriter; the doctor wasn't writing; there wasn't even any paper in the machine. Dr. Larch was just looking out the window. In the doctor's trancelike expression Homer recognized the peaceful distance that ether provided in those moments when Homer had found the doctor "just resting" in the dispensary. Perhaps the state of mind that ether occasionally allowed Dr. Larch to enjoy was, increasingly, a state of mind that Larch could summon by just looking out a window. Homer assumed that Dr. Larch used a little ether because he was in some kind of pain; he suspected that almost everyone in St. Cloud's was in some kind of pain, and that Larch, as a doctor, was especially qualified in remedying it. The smell of ether was so cloying and nauseating to Homer Wells that it was no remedy he would have chosen. It hadn't yet occurred to him: what an addiction was. The state of a dream was so present on Wilbur Larch's face that Homer Wells paused in the doorway before continuing his gruesome presentation; he almost turned around and took the baby from Three Mile Falls away with him.

But no one encounters the presence of a soul so casually that one can permit the accompanying sense of mission to pass without remarking upon it; and a sense of mission usually requires a gesture more demonstrative than a passing remark. In the doorway of Nurse Angela's office, Homer hesitated; then he stepped forward and clunked the metal tray down on top of the typewriter. The dead baby from Three Mile Falls was level with Dr. Larch's throat--it was close enough to bite, as they say in Maine.

"Doctor Larch?" Homer Wells said. Larch looked away from his dream; he stared over the baby at Homer. "The source of the bleeding was the pulmonary artery, which was completely severed--as you see," Homer said, as Larch looked down at the display upon the typewriter. He stared at the baby as if it were something he'd written--come to life (and then to death) at his bidding.

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Outside the hospital, someone was screaming, but the wind whipped the words to a muddle; the screamer's message sounded confused.

"Goddamn!" said Wilbur Larch, staring at the severed artery.

"I have to tell you that I won't perform an abortion, not ever," Homer Wells said. This followed, logically, from the severed artery; in Homer's mind, it followed, but Dr. Larch looked confused.

"You won't?" Larch said. "You what?"

Outside, the screaming was louder but no more distinct. Homer Wells and Dr. Larch just stared at each other--the baby from Three Mile Falls occupying the space between them.

"I'm coming, I'm coming," they heard Nurse Angela say.

"It's that Curly Day," Nurse Edna was explaining to Nurse Angela. "I just had to kick him and the Copperfield kid out of here."