And Sometimes I Wonder About You

52

When I opened my eyes my father, Clarence, was sitting next to the bed. I could see through the hospital room window that it was early morning. I knew that there was some kind of opiate in my system because the pain in my shoulder was there but it wasn’t.

“Trot,” my father said to my open eyes.

“How’m I doin’?”

“No organs,” he said. “You were a pint and half down but they gave you a transfusion.”

“I’ll need a blood test in a few weeks,” my mouth proclaimed.

“Why’s that?”

“He stabbed somebody else and then ripped into me,” I said lazily. “That’s mixing bodily fluids for real.”

“Oh.”

“How did I rate a single room?” I asked.

“Police protection,” Clarence said. “Hmm. Where I come from those two words are mutually exclusive.”

I laughed and coughed, reached out, and my father took my hand.

We might have talked some more. I’m pretty sure we did but I can’t remember what was said.

When next I opened my eyes Twill had taken Clarence’s place in the chair next to my bed.

“...yeah, Pop,” my son was saying, “those guys we fought at the construction site reported in. They asked around until they found my name and then yours. That was all Jones needed. He was so hyped up comin’ after me and you that he didn’t know what the cops was doin’ until it was too late.”

“Did they find out who he was?” I asked.

“Julius Sneed. He ran a private organization that contracted with the city to help children and adolescents in jeopardy. Been doin’ it twenty-three years.”

“I guess he’s dead.”

“Yeah. He was the last one to die, though. The guy he stabbed and the one you hit died immediately but they had Sneed in this hospital. Even said that he had a good chance to pull through. Hush came down here with Fortune and Liza. He said he would wait and see what’s what, but then word came down that Sneed had a heart attack. Six bullets in the torso and he died of a heart attack.”

“White guy?”

“Mostly.”

And that’s how it went for the next day. Aura came and then Katrina with my father. Katrina was very worried. She assured me that she was going to get a job and take care of us like I had done for so many years for her. No one told my daughter because she would be shattered seeing me in a hospital; but Tatyana and Dimitri came. Taty sneaked in a small bottle of cognac.

The doctor, Christopher Omen, dropped by to tell me I was a lucky motherfucker, his actual words.

And then I woke up in the middle of the night. Visiting hours were over. The moon was three-quarters full through the window.

“You’re awake,” she said. She was wearing the same deep coral dress she had on when we first met.

“How’d you get here?”

“Twill called me.”

“How’d he call you?”

“We traded numbers for something just like this. I didn’t expect him to use it so soon.”

“I thought you’d be in Fiji by now.”

“We’re leaving for Hong Kong tomorrow.”

“He’s treating you right?”

“You’re the only man I ever met knew how to treat me, Lee.”

There was nothing left to say. If I wasn’t so drugged up we probably would have had sex. As it was we held hands for a while, then she kissed me.

I closed my eyes and it was morning again.

“Where are you going?” one of the two policemen guarding my door asked.

Two cops! I thought they must be considering putting Kit in the chief’s office. That bust must have netted him a whole month on the news.

“My best friend is getting married this afternoon,” I said simply.

“The doctor has to release you,” said the other cop, a black man with a belly that suited him for a job like this.

I didn’t even answer; just walked past them looking for an elevator or, failing that, an exit sign.