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battle.
    His father knew he would, and knew he might win—something—what?— something better than this . Saul needled him ceaselessly. What if it was not meanness or jealousy? (Sometimes David longed to say, Can’t you get it up anymore, old man?) What if it was exactly what Saul had to give: permission to try for more than either of his parents would ever have? What if his father was driving him away, so that he could go?
    Or did his father like it when he lost? Saul laughed at him in the spring when he came back empty-handed from the tennis tournament. He tapped David’s head and said, “If this gets too big—” and he hit his ass—“or this—” and he laughed again—“you can’t keep this—” and he mimed a back stroke—“you can’t keep this going where the goddamned ball is!”
    Like father like son . Was that Saul’s ambition for him? David had spent many hours sitting in his father’s little shop, doing homework while. Saul hummed, altering some rich man’s trousers. Would a son who repeated his father’s sorry life validate it?
    â€œNot me, sport!” David said aloud to no one, shaking his fist in the direction his father had driven. The shrill squeal of an arriving ambulance brought him back to himself, standing in the side entrance of the hospital. Does anybody think like me? he wondered. He knew other boys had dreams, of course they did. Leland Piper wanted to go to Rice and become a scientist. Ellis wanted to play professional tennis. He heard a kid once in the hall at school say that he could die happy if he ever owned an eighteen-wheeler. Sure kids dreamed, but did the longing feel like something searing their souls? Was it bigger than anything?

5.
    As he pushed the buzzer at Ward 2-West, the supper cart rattled up behind him. He said hello. The pudgy woman pushing it nodded curtly. He hoped it was not the food making her look so grimly determined. A strong, steamy, unidentifiable smell wafted out from the cart. “Can I help?” he asked, as the door opened. She shoved the cart past him without answering.
    It was Nurse Benke who let him in. “It’s you,” she said. Benke always seemed befuddled to David, which at first had surprised him. In time he had come to expect personnel on the mental ward to have their own eccentricities. His own mother often looked sour, but could be very kind. Sometimes hysterical at home, sometimes morose, she never lost control at work. And she was tough; even a small person could be difficult to manage on the ward.
    She was on the phone behind the desk. She wore a name tag on her left breast pocket, PUCKETT. He went into the day room. There were a lot of patients on the ward today. Pajama-clad men huddled at a big round table, awaiting their supper. The food server gave them their trays without speaking and then, consulting a list, set more trays in front of empty chairs around both tables. Other patients shuffled into place. A woman lay sprawled on the vinyl couch over by the television, which was off. She was talking to herself, twisting her head this way and that, and kneading her knuckles. Another woman patient went over to her. “You come eat,” she said loudly, and led the way back to the table. As they sat down, David heard an elderly man say his wife had cooked the supper. A tall fellow with a long bony face was working his way down the corridor, touching one wall with the palms of his hands, then turning and going to the opposite side. He was standing behind a chair, holding onto the back of it, when two women came on the ward. The older woman looked uneasy. Her eyes darted from patient to patient. The younger woman called, “Daddy!” and ran and hugged the man. He pulled the chair out and sat down without reply. David went to the desk.
    Marge came out from her place and gave him a quick hug. “I came on shift, and only four patients