Cops and Robbers

Joe

I didn’t much like visiting Paul in the hospital. I don’t like hospitals anyway, but I particularly don’t like them when there’s a brother officer in there. I don’t like that reminder.

Did you ever watch pro football on television, and notice what happens when one of the players gets hurt? He’s laying there on the ground, moving his knees a little, and maybe one or two other players go over to see what the story is, but all the rest kind of walk off by themselves and pretend they have a problem with their shoes. I know exactly how they feel, I do. It isn’t they’re heartless or anything, it’s just they don’t like to be reminded how easy it could turn out to be one of them.

Same with me. I had plenty of chances to visit Paul, but until I was feeling really good and guilty I wouldn’t go at all. Then I’d finally go and there’d be nothing to say, and we’d sit around and watch soap operas together for half an hour. It’s a funny thing, we always had plenty to talk about in the car, but not in the hospital. The hospital is death on conversation.

So I was there again, going back and forth at the foot of the bed. Paul was in a semiprivate room, but the other bed was empty right now. His windows gave a good clear view of a brick wall. If you stood right next to the window and looked down you could see green grass, but if Paul could have stood next to the window he wouldn’t have to be in the hospital, and from the bed what you saw was brick wall.

The television set mounted on the wall was turned on, but the sound was off. Paul was sitting up in bed, newspapers and magazines all around him, and he kept sneaking glances at the TV.

I was trying to think of something to say. I hate long uncomfortable silences.

Paul said, “Listen, Joe, if you want to get back out there, it’s okay.”

I stopped walking, and tried to look interested. “No, no, this is fine. What the hell, let Lou drive around a while.” Lou was Paul’s replacement in the car, a rookie.

Paul said, “How’s he doing?”

“He’s okay,” I said. I shrugged, not much caring. Then I tried to keep the conversation alive, saying, “He’s too gung ho, that’s all. I’ll be glad to get you back.”

“Me too.” He grinned and said, “Can you believe it? I want to go to work.”

“A couple of times,” I told him, “I would have traded places with you.”

All of a sudden he started scratching his leg through the covers. “They keep telling me it won’t itch anymore,” he said.

“I haven’t seen the doctor yet,” I said, “that knew his ass from his elbow.” I nodded at the other bed. “At least you don’t have the old geek around anymore. They send him home?”

“Naw,” Paul said. “He died.” He was still scratching through the covers.

“That must have been fun.”

“Middle of the night.” He stopped scratching, and yawned. “He fell right out of bed,” he said. “Woke me up. Scared the crap out of me.”

“Nice little vacation for you,” I said. And I thought, Nice little conversation we’re having.

“Oh, it’s great,” he said.

I didn’t have anything else I wanted to say about an old man falling out of bed and dropping dead, so the silence came back again for a while. I looked up at the television set, and it showed a guy in a rowboat floating around in a toilet tank. Television is fucking incredible sometimes.

Paul shifted around in the bed, kicking his legs out this way and that, and a couple of his magazines slid off onto the floor. Like the old man, I thought. “Boy, my ass gets to hurting,” he said. He couldn’t seem to decide what position he wanted to be in. “Pins and needles, you know?”

“I know,” I said. I picked the magazines up and tossed them on the bed again. “You ought to roll over on your other side,” I told him. “Lie on a nurse, that’ll help.”

“Have you seen the beasts around here?”

“I’ve seen them.”

And so much for that conversation. I looked at the television set again, and the commercial was over — I hope that was a commercial — and what was up there on the screen? A hospital room, one guy in the bed and one guy walking around the room, talking to him. “We’re on television,” I said.

Paul said, “The guy in the bed has amnesia.”

I looked at him. “Where’d you get it?”

He grinned at me. “I forgot.”

No place to go from there either. Christ, conversation is impossible in the hospital, it really is.

Paul glanced over at the empty bed. He had a thoughtful look on his face, and he said, “You know what used to get me about him?”

“What, the old guy?”

“He was always saying he hadn’t done anything yet.” Paul gave me a look, with this strange-looking kind of crooked smile on his face. He said, “He’d wasted his life, that’s what he thought, he hadn’t done anything with himself. He was older’n hell, but all he wanted was to get healthy and get out of here, so he could start doing something.”

“Like what?”

“He didn’t know, the poor old fart.” Paul shrugged. “Just something different, I guess.”

I looked at the other bed. I could almost see the old man falling out of it onto the floor. I wondered what he’d done for a living.