“But what if they come back and find out that I’m still alive, and they kill me?”
“I’ll catch ‘em before they get here, don’t worry,” he said, trying to pry my fingers off his forearm.
“But, but what if I die before you get here? What if there’s a giant hematoma in my brain that’s about to explode, or something like that?”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen,” he said as he got the last finger off. “And believe me, I would be of no use to you if it does. The only thing I could do is watch it happen, and neither one of us wants that. So just let me run down to the car, call for help, and I’ll be right back.”
He was gone before I could launch another offensive, and I collapsed against the chair as soon as I heard his footsteps down the corridor.
“Ouch,” I said as my head hit the cushion.
That really hurt, Phil, I thought. I hope they got the other unit locked down before Friday regained consciousness, but it seemed like they had gotten away cleanly. I stayed in my seat, uncertain if Friday wasn’t waiting to spring a trap on me right outside the door.
I must have drifted off again. There were paramedics and cops swarming the room when I came to again, and soon I was on my way to Bellevue for a head CT.
“Aren’t you coming?” I asked Friday when I passed him in the hallway.
He was holding a cold pack over his temple.
“Nah, I been hit harder than this before,” he said. “I’ll catch up with you later, so you can tell me what’s missing.”
“I can tell you right now,” I said. “It’s all the files of papers for my dissertation research, and I have no idea why anyone would want to steal that stuff. There’s absolutely nothing of value there to anyone but me. It’s all just paper!” I yelled as the gurney rolled down the hall.
I don’t think he believed me, but I would do my damnedest to make him.
Five
It turned out I did have a concussion, a fact I was going to discuss with Phil later, and the ER was unwilling to release me unless I had someone who would stay with me. As I started dialing Michael, Detective Friday blustered into my curtained space and removed the phone from my hands.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he said.
He squinted at the screen trying to read the number I was entering.
“Who’re you calling?” he asked.
“A friend to come and get me,” I said. “You should go and get your head examined, too. I’m going home and you can’t stop me.”
“I can and I will. Let’s just say that it’s for your own good. Your life was threatened, and you could be in danger. So, it’s protective custody for you. Plus we should have these fine doctors keep an eye on that pretty little head of yours to make sure your brains didn’t get too scrambled when the bad man knocked you out.”
I groaned. “Can he do that?” I asked the resident, who was occupied with note-taking.
He nodded, never raising his eyes.
Friday smiled.
“Well, I think you should have to stay, too,” I said. “The same terms apply to you.”
“Yeah, but I have a gun,” he said.
“No guns in the hospital,” the resident said, holding out a hand. “Hand it over. We’ll give it to security, and you’ll get it back when you sign out.”
“I don’t think so…Let me talk to someone in charge out there.” And he was gone.
I slept on and off, and eventually I was moved into a semi-private room, where I spent a long night being awakened hourly by someone intent on shining a bright light into my eyes and asking me who was president. The only thing that made this adventure tolerable was the fact that my roommate, Detective Friday, had to endure the same treatment. However, his expression of displeasure was not very respectful of the responsibility of the staff to monitor our conditions.
“Give them a break, will you please?” I said after the third occasion of abusive language.
“Dammit, why should I?” he grumbled. “If they had let me keep my gun, I’d make sure no one interrupted me again.”
“Now you understand the weapons policy,” I said.
“Shut up.”
“Boy, are you always this grouchy?” I asked.
He ignored me.
“I mean, my head hurts too, but you don’t see me complaining or being abusive to people who are just trying to help.”
I heard his pillow being moved.
“Would you like me to hold that over your face for a few minutes, to help put an end to your misery?” I asked.
There was a long sigh, ending in something like a growl, so I decided to be quiet. I was awake now, however, and although my head was still pounding I longed to be able to turn on the light or the television as a diversion. My phone battery was long dead so that offered no entertainment. But I did have a notebook and pen so I decided to do the old-fashioned thing and write by hand.
I tried to quietly slip by the foot of my companion’s bed and enter the bathroom, but he was just as awake as me.
“Where you going?” he said, sitting upright in the bed.
“Bathroom,” I said. “Is that okay with you, or do you want to come, too?”
“It’s tempting, but I’ll pass. Just don’t try anything.”
I closed the door and turned on the light. What did he think I was going to try? An escape in this attractive johnnie? Or to rig up an explosive device that would be a diversion while I strangled him with the television cord? That was all I needed to get my creative juices flowing, and I looked around to find a place to sit and write. Unfortunately, there was no cover on the toilet, so that limited my options. I spread a towel on the floor and attempted to sit with my back against the door and all my privates somewhat covered by the thin cotton nightgown. The expressions “Yikes” and “Yeesh” came to mind.
My crude drawing of the knife had been ripped out of the notebook, hopefully by Dad or Phil, so I started writing on the next page. I began with a synopsis of what I knew about the people who were around Neville, starting with his partner, Kenneth.
Kenneth had been a darling of the art scene when Neville met him, and theirs was a romance that was something of a fairy tale, in a manner of speaking. Many people thought it was a fairy tale, how the washed out old poet came back to life when he met the young painter, his next book of love poems earning the Pulitzer Prize and the announcement of their commitment ceremony breaking the barrier for gay couples in the New York Times. It was a heady time for Neville, and his workshops were revitalized along with his career and his social standing.
I knew about this only by reading along with the rest of America in the pages of New York Magazine and Time Out, because I was nowhere near the epicenter when things started to crack. Apparently, happiness takes work in unions of all kinds, something Neville knew from his previous disastrous marriage and liaisons, but Kenneth had yet to discover. The sudden decline of interest in his art—which his agent kindly ascribed to the crisis in the stock market, naturally—coupled with the daily grind of living with an older and, let’s face it, less attractive man, coalesced into a full-blown depression and slide back into nasty habits of the past. Neville checked Kenneth into a facility, cleaned him up, and they returned from a month-long retreat to a private spa in Europe the proud parents of an adopted daughter.
That’s