The Walls of Jericho by Rudolph Fisher

That Shine should visit a hospital when he felt almost perfectly well meant that some decided difference had come about in him. The scramble which had delivered him from grave injury had had no more serious visible effect than to abrade his hands and forehead against the cement, but it marked a conscious internal change which first came to light when he followed Linda into the house. Shine, the disciple of hardness, would not in any imaginable situation have been guilty of a surrender like that. Now again the change appeared when he decided that maybe he'd better go on 'round to the man's clinic and let one them doctors look him over -- might even be some bones broke, who could tell?

He sat at one end of a white metal pew, an article of hospital furniture as uncomfortable in fact as it is in suggestion, and awaited his turn. Funny kid, Linda. Come runnin' out there yesterday, scared clean white, then didn' do a damn thing but turn around and go back. But "Honey -- ? " Yea. He fell for that. And when he went in the house for water -- huh -- she was like as if nothing had happened. Showed him the sink and let him wash his head and gave him a towel -- but not another word. Honey. Yea. When he had stalled around as long as he could, he too said, "Well, honey -- " And all she answered -- didn't need to be so tight about it, either -- was, "You better go see a doctor and make sure you're all right. " Damned if he would. But here he was -- a whole day late, but here.