When I had a few things packed, I took some cold medicine and drove into town on my way to the hospital. The sky was a gigantic charcoal smear backgrounded by a dying burst of red sunlight, bright and jagged as if God’s heart had exploded. Bats filtered about, radaring for bugs.
I drove over to a burger joint and had a burger, thought about everything that had been going on, then thought about nothing. By the time I arrived at the hospital God’s heart had bled out, and all that was left was a dark stain, like blood drying on a brick.
I was uncertain what I was supposed to do at the hospital, so I parked and went right up to my room. My name was still written on the paper in the slot outside the door.
I peeked inside. It was dark in there. The bed next to where I had slept was still empty. My bed, where I had had such joyous moments watching pigeons, was also empty.
I turned on the light, pulled back the closet door, and looked in there. My gown was dangling from a hanger. At least I assumed it was my gown. Same style. Same color. Plenty of room for my ass to hang out. I knew for a fact I’d had one just like it.
I looked at my watch. I was a half hour early. I sat in the visitor’s chair beside the bed and wished I’d gone home first to get something to read. I looked out the window. It was dark, but I could make out the pigeon poop on the sill, the stuff I’d named Leonard.
I turned on the TV and watched a news program.
About eight-twenty Doc Sylvan came in. “Thanks for showing up. It’s nice of you. You know, I didn’t think you would. If you hadn’t, I’d have made sure the insurance didn’t cover shit.”
I clicked the TV off. “I’m sorry, Doc. I wasn’t trying to give anyone a hard time. I really did have an emergency. I just can’t talk about it.”
Doc Sylvan eyed me. “Yeah… Well, all right. Gown’s in the closet. Suit up.”
He went out and shut the door. I put on the gown and stuffed my clothes in the closet. Sylvan came back after a while. I had crawled into bed and had the covers around my neck.
“You stay here tonight and tomorrow night,” Sylvan said, “and we’ll be through with this insurance foolishness. You do that, I can make the insurance work. I think. You come to my office for the remaining shots.”
“We could have done that in the first place.”
“Insurance, Hap. Keep that in mind. Just keep telling yourself. Insurance. I’m tired of having to sound like a broken record.”
“Yes, Yoda.”
“You look like shit.”
“I got a cold. I picked it up here.”
“I don’t doubt that. I hate coming to the goddamn hospital to examine patients. They always give me something.”
“You could let them die.”
“Believe me, there’s some I wish would.”
“My God, Doc, isn’t that against that Hippocratic oath?”
“Hippocrates never had to deal with some of the assholes I deal with. He did, he’d have shoved that oath up their ass.”
“Are you indicating any patient in particular?”
“Could be,” Sylvan said. “Could be.”
Sylvan got his stethoscope and checked me over. He used a tongue depressor on me. He clucked and clicked. “Upper respiratory. Bit of a sore throat. I’ll have them check you out. Give you something for the symptoms.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Hey, what else can I do for my favorite patient?”
“Let me see…”
“Hap, get out of this bed before day after tomorrow, I’ll kill you.”
“Any news on the squirrel’s head?”
“Other than the fact there are tire marks on it, not much. It’ll be a while before we hear. They got boxes of heads at the lab in Austin. We’ve had several rabid dogs and raccoons since you came into the office. Goddamn woods are full of them this year. It’s epidemic. I’m leavin’.”
“Will you tuck me in before you go?”
Sylvan grunted and left. I closed my eyes, was surprised to discover that so early into the night I was sleepy. I suppose it was the cold, or the medicine I had taken before I left the house. Don’t take cold medicine and drive. I wasn’t driving. I couldn’t quite figure out what it was I was doing. I drifted off.
I came awake and checked my watch about eleven P.M. I was surprised. I felt as if I had been asleep for only moments. I used the bed-lift button, raised my back, turned the TV on again.
The entire television industry hadn’t revamped itself during my nap. Everything that was on the standard channels sucked the big ole donkey dick. I tried for some of the specialty channels. No luck. Didn’t have any. You’d think if you had to eat the food in the hospital, least they could do was get cable.
I turned off the television and sat in the dark. About fifteen minutes later Brett showed up pushing a metal table on wheels. She turned on the light beside my bed. She lifted a brown paper bag off the metal table. She smiled at me. God, I liked that smile.
“Well,” she said. “I heard you ran off.”
“Ssssshhhhhh,” I said. “Doc Sylvan and I like to think of it as a bit of a sabbatical.”
“Since you’re back, I figured you’d be needing this.”
She opened the brown paper bag, took out the copy of Boobs and Butts Charlie had given me, laid it on the nightstand beside my bed.
“One thing I like to see in a man,” she said, “is attention to culture.”
“That’s not really mine.”
“It was in the nightstand drawer here.”
“Yes, but Charlie, a friend of mine, gave it to me.”
“I see. Well, just so you’ll stay occupied, I brought you a little something.”
She reached back into the bag. She brought out a Playboy magazine and a Penthouse. “I thought you might as well move up to the classics. Though I’m afraid both of these have words in them.”
“Actually, Boobs and Butts is very precise. Very modern. They have words. It’s just minimalist. They choose what they have to say wisely and place the words under the photographs.”
“Yes. I read a few of those words. Did you know they misspelled pussy? They used one s.”
“No. I’ll have to drop them a line.”
“Let’s check the vital signs.”
She did the general routine, pronounced me a bit feverish.
“Doctor’s notes say you have a bit of a cold,” she said.
“I think I have more than a bit. In fact, when you’re in the room I think I gain a couple of degrees on the thermometer.”
“Is that a compliment, Hap Collins?”
“I hope so.”
She took a water pitcher from the table, poured me a plastic cup of water, gave me a couple of pills. I swallowed them. She said. “Those have plenty of saltpeter in them.”
“That’s a good idea,” I said. “In fact, maybe you could arrange for me to have an ongoing prescription.”
“I might be back later,” Brett said. “You’re not asleep, perhaps I can sit by the bed and read you the captions from the Boobs and Butts .”
“I wouldn’t sit too close.”
“Sleep tight, Hap Collins.”
“I doubt it,” I said. “Wait. What’s your last name? I never caught it.”
“I never gave it. It’s Sawyer. Brett Sawyer. I’m in the phone book. I don’t have an answering machine. I don’t fuck on the first date, and some men find me forward.”
“I can’t imagine that.”
“That I don’t fuck on the first date?”
