Tucson II

Upon waking I was being put onto a hospital bed. The nurse and security guard leaned me back, I guess I had taken a couple of steps from the wheelchair they were wheeling out of the room. My head was swirling, my knee throbbing. The fluorescent lights were too bright and hazy. 

“What happened?” I asked. 

“Well you had a little tumble.” The nurse said and she closed the cordoned off hospital room’s curtain. 

I leaned back and next thing I knew she was talking to me and placing an IV in my arm. 

“...We might do a CT Scan, you seem pretty out of it. Are these old bruises?” She was pouring over my forehead. I flinched away as she was wiping up blood from my new cut with gauze. 

“I had a fall about a week ago. I was just falling…” 

“... You said so, you fall a lot?” She asked as she suddenly was shaving my wound on the back of my head, I felt sticky blood among my collar. 

Was that ice pack always bandaged to my knee? I picked at the elastic bandage around it, holding the ice pack on.

The curtain swung open and a man wearing scrubs and coke bottle glasses was smiling at me. His teeth were too bright, they matched the white coat he wore, and they were too perfectly placed. “Thank you Alex!” he clapped. “I appreciate it, the others are swamped.” His eyes narrowed on me he gave me a courteous nod then shuffled forward like an excited game show host. Now that he was closer I could see that his thick black hair was a well manicured toupee. It looked like a thick block on his head like he was a lego man. 

“I’m Doctor Brock,” He said. “We are giving you some liquids intravenously because witnesses out there said you were awfully flushed. Gotta stay hydrated in the heat.” He smiled and patted me on the back and wiped the sweat off his hand on his coat with a tiny scowl, then his face folded back into place with that smile that never reached his eyes. 

“He was pretty frantic Doctor.” Alex said as she was now across the room holding a sewing kit and placing it out for him on a metallic tray. 

“Couple of stitches.” The doctor said as he poked on the wound at the back of my head. He flipped around and started shining lights in my eyes. In between pulling them away I saw he had some spinach stuck in his ultra-white veneers. Then he asked me questions that I must have done poorly on because next thing I knew I was in a tunnel and the CT machine was roaring to life. It hissed at me and they told me to hold still. 

“No brain bleed. Ain’t that peachy,” he said sometime later. By now I knew it was dark out even in my drifting to and from. Dreaming of joining my love. “Inflammation that looks like a concussion!” I was rubbing at the gauze now stuck to the back of my head. I had a recollection that they stitched it but my fingers couldn’t feel it outside the bandage. He swatted my hand. “Don’t ruin my handiwork please!” He laughed again. Boy, was he always awkwardly giggling. 

“Dr. Brock.” I said as he was about to leave. 

“Yes?” He wheeled around. 

“I’m… My name…” 

He cut me off. “Pete! I know.” he cozied up next to me on a stool. “I was the one to work on Mr. Hodges when he came in. He called for you quite a lot. I understand you were here to see him when you fainted. He’s a relative?”

“Well I don’t think I fainted. Truly.” I said.

“Whatever it is, we will need to keep you overnight. We’ll need that insurance info too. But hey no ambulance cost. Can’t say the same for the old man upstairs!” He pointed up and laughed. 

“Is he okay?” I asked.

“Oh heavens no.” He was a little embarrassed. “I thought they told you? He’s in rough shape after surgery. He’s in the ICU now. You at least know that he got shot three times, right? We had to do a chest tube on him, I was up to my elbow in his lungs. Like a puppet!” He said excitedly. “Also, had a through and through wound in his leg, the artery was nicked but the surgeons said he had a blood clot that actually helped him. Crazy.” he shook his head and smiled and got up to leave after imparting the information. 

“Wait doc.” I said befuddled. “Can I talk to him? He’s all I got.” I almost felt bad lying about this man who seemingly had no one else in the entire world. But maybe that wasn’t the case… We were connected afterall. I was trying to help us both. At least get to the bottom of what the hell happened. I was already here in the hospital, it would be a shame to let this brain injury go to waste. It was kismet. Just finding my way here. 

The doctor thought for a moment. “It might be some good stimulus for him. You might pep him up. But it is difficult… usually there are no visitors up on that floor. You don’t have any ID do you? We are going to need that insurance. Did I already say that? Usually the nurses get that stuff.” He nodded thoughtfully. “Definitely will need that insurance card, but your social security number will do too. Hmm.” He looked at my chart. 

“Wait a minute. I’ve been calling you Pete this whole time!” He slapped the clipboard. “You go by Alex?”

“It’s my middle name.” I stuttered trying to focus on his words and my own and not the ringing that was building up in my noggin.

“Alex or Peter?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied. 

He smiled at me and was silent as his face grew stale. I imagined keeping a grin like that would cramp my cheeks. The AC kicked on in the noiseless room. 

“Well okay then. Let’s see what we can swing.” He stood up and winked at me, slapped the clipboard on my shoulder then set it on the table before whisking away out of the curtain, whistling as he went. 

~

Some more administrative staff came in and swapped out my wristband with my real-fake name. I fed them more bullshit that must have sounded alright enough. Eventually the doctor waved them away and told them to stop pestering me. He had worked out my visit with my “uncle” Mr. Hodges. I didn’t correct him that in my fake story he was my adopted father. We were all on different pages but I suppose that’s what you want in an infiltration mission. A distraction came in the form of a neglected old woman who entered the ER in the evening. From the whispering hospital staff I learned she had maggots between her toes.

Finally a transport technician wearing plum colored scrubs was directed over to me to take me up to ICU room 9029 to see my beloved fake father. Thank the lord. 

He better not have died while I was waiting so long. 

The skinny early twenty-year-old man got me in a wheelchair and off we went. It was a labyrinth of long halls, oddly numbered doors, and different elevators taking us to different levels. His key card worked on most of the wings, and he spoke through an intercom to get us access to the others. He tried to talk to me but less was more in my opinion. I was silent with my head tucked to my chest. 

Finally we arrived, the staff tisking at us and cursing Dr. Brock under their breaths. Visiting hours were over I was guessing, but I tried to give them my most unassuming smile and thanked them for this trip.

The transport tech opened the door and snuck a hit of his vape pen as I wheeled myself into the room. “I’d give you a tip if I had my wallet,” I joked and he just rolled his eyes at me.   

Ahead, the low lit room was full of machinery monitoring the elderly man. Their lights flashed numbers I didn’t know the meaning of. Some random beeps and whines occasionally joined in with the sporadic and troubled breathing of the old man. He had the thin itchy covers over his lower legs which both stuck out of his scrunched up hospital gown. The left leg was bandaged mid thigh, with such thick gauze that it looked like a pillow was taped to it. His whole left side was bandaged as well, I imagined the whole area was stapled shut under it. Peeking out was a plastic sack sewn in place that collected pink frothy blood. While various IV bags were dripping other medication and fluids into him. 

His gown covered his fat stomach and rolled off his thin shoulders. He had scratches and scrapes along his arms that were bandaged. Ointment peeked out of the bandages and made the surrounding skin shiny. He had a long grey beard that came to a point on his fat stomach. It was wiry and thick like steel wool. But it was only unruly past his neck. He must trim the sides and along his sideburns, there I could see the soft pink skin and rosacea that ran along his cheekbones and held tight on his bulbous nose. 

I steadied myself and got up from my wheelchair. Walking uneasily. I still felt the world swirling around me. Mr. Hodges breathed in deeply. He moaned in pain and I froze. The world steadying with how he steadied his breaths. I walked to the chair next to him and sat. I could see my reflection in his bald waxed head. It looked so bald I was sure it hadn’t even had the thought of growing hair in decades. Unlike mine, which softly dreamed about it every night and woke up in more and more agony each day. He was old, not the grizzled war veteran I thought he would be. He looked weak, pale, hurt and maybe even dying. If he had killed Tim then maybe we could both die in peace. .

I rocked his shoulder.

Nothing. He just snored louder.

“Mr. Hodges.” I spoke, pulling up closer to his head. 

I tapped him on his forehead. His hand, the one without the IV, flung up and grabbed mine. His bloodshot eyes sprang open. I saw they were pools of deep brown, so brown they could have been black. His right eye had a blown vessel and blood red encapsulated the iris. It made me look away from him.

He groaned in pain. And immediately his grip lightened. I took my arm back, rubbing the firmness away that I had felt. It was like a cold shackle. In that split second I saw the young man that had long rotted away. What was left was a man who watched his strength fade and couldn’t remember how it had occurred. How cruel time was, to make us, then turn us from boys to men to inert graves. All the while keeping pieces of us intact so we can watch in horror along the years. Every tombstone in America told the same story. Mine and Mr. Hodges would be the same.

“Pete?” Mr Hodges said, his voice trembled and it sounded like a small gravely dry thing. “Did they get you?” He coughed and winced again. His pain made me cringe in turn.

“Uh. no. I’m not Pete. I’m…” 

His eyes focused on me and he threw his hand up and waved me away. “I see you now,” Blinking the delusions away. “What do you want? I ain’t got time to buy girl scout cookies” Said like a true old miser.

“I don’t want to waste your time.” I spoke, my clasped hands in front of my face. Praying he would tell me what I wanted to hear.

“You are wasting my time.” He looked away and sighed while wincing. “God but I wasted so much time.” He took a moment before addressing me again. “They say I might be in a wheelchair till I die! Fools! A wheelchair! For me? Can you believe it? That is if infection don’t take me.”

“You’re tough though. A true old bastard,” I said, raising my eyebrows and nodding along. 

“Yes sonny, that I am. They want me hopped up on drugs so I won’t feel myself fade away. So they get a bed to free up. But I've been shot before. It aint nothing.” He nodded and his beard rustled against his chest with the movement. He was breathing heavily, grimacing at every breath and the numbers were rising on the screen. He closed his eyes again and let the pain from talking fade a little. I tapped him on the shoulder.

“Mr Hodges, I need to talk to you about…”

He cracked his bloodshot eye open. This time I stared at it, using all my will to not flinch. He opened the other one up and spoke, licking his dry lips. “I told the cops all about what happened. Best I could remember. Said I had every right. You some civil case looking for a payday? I only got my pension. What else do you vultures want?” He groaned and rubbed his stomach. “I’m in pain here.” He slowly and methodically moved to press a button on the side of his bed. A hissing sound happened. “Just a little bit, not too much,” He muttered. It took him a moment to ease back down.

“I’m actually from the press. From the Tucson Gazette,” That sounded like a reasonable newspaper. “I wanted to know your side of events. The mayor is interested in you. In your story. You’re being hailed as a hero. Maybe get the key to the city.” I smiled.

He took some time to process this. Then spoke frankly. “Fuck the mayor.”

I tried to hide my frustration but couldn’t help but feel my heart pounding. I was letting him slip away. I couldn’t let that happen. I felt my fingers grip his arm, harder than I intended. My fingers curled around the IV line. I pulled him back to the discussion with a squeeze. “Did you kill a man with an evil face? A dark face?” He was trying to squirm away from me. I didn’t let him. His eyes were confused. “He might have worn a hat! One with a feather in it?” I asked.

His eyes ticked over from confusion into anger. He knew he had miscalculated who I was. His mistake. If I was an evil man I might have liked that power but I was just a desperate one. Maybe, there’s not much of a difference. He looked at where I was grabbing in disbelief. His bloody eye trailed up and met mine and he stopped fidgeting. He calmed a bit and relaxed, re-assessing me. “I killed lots of men. Marine Corps son. Not during a time where we sat around in the sandbox neither. You earned your stripes by the ears you brought back.”

“I ain’t talking about that. I’m looking for someone that broke into my home, just like yours, he killed my wife.” I eased up a bit but did not dare blink. He knew why I was here now. Enough lying. He didn’t like liars. I knew that.

“I know what you're talking about. Same story, sure” He pulled away with a huff. Then he thought for a moment. “If I'm lead to believe the ones I shot are in fact dead. Then yes I killed a man. And a woman too. And I think I’ll sleep fine over it.”

“The man. That's all I care about. The man? Did he have a dark face?” I stuttered and moved closer.

“If you are asking if he was black. No. He seemed like a white fellow as far as I could see.”

“But his eyes… What did you see in them?” He looked me up and down and tried scooting back from me. But there was nowhere to go. Plus his whole left side was shot.  

“What is this? I don’t know. I didn’t see much.” 

“Was he… Well.” I tried to take myself back to that day. To picture him. “Skinny I think. A face that was handsome but seemed dark underneath. Like shadowy. His eyes… When I say dark. I mean it. Evil. Was he evil?” 

He shook his head. “How am I supposed to know that? He seemed like a junky… A fiend. And fat as a frog. I mean the asshole waddled up the path, I saw him a mile away. But he had a gun I saw that much too. And I saw him shoot me with it. Would have killed me if they got the jump on me... I was ready for them. He told me it might happen.” The medication was working as his eyes were growing glossed over. “I… I shouldn’t have yelled to get him to drop the gun neither. I should have just ended him. Wouldn't have this fucked up hip if I did that. And I would have still been in my rights.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. The man didn’t sound like Tim at all. He wasn’t a junkie like Mr. Hodges described. Or maybe he was but he wasn’t a fat idiot like this, he was tactical, he was clever and I never saw a gun. He didn't need a gun at my house.

“I mean it's the castle doctrine.” He was hurting between his words. Even with the IV full of morphine dripping into his veins. I saw his vein bulge on his forehead as he patted his chest with a bandaged arm. “I’m the king in my castle. I had the right to shoot invaders!”

“No, not that. About being warned? You said you were warned. Is that right?”

He calmed down somewhat, rubbing his eyes. Thinking. Like it was a hazy memory he had to reel back from the depths. “A couple hours before. Before those two fucks came up. I told police this. A man came to my door. He was an odd fellow, sure. But he gave me a security card. Marigold security. Told me that there have been a rash of break ins, home intrusions as you called them. Told me to watch out and sign up for their program. I told him to fuck off. But…” 

“But what?” I spurned.

“Usually I say that to solicitors. Fuck them,” He lolled his head back. “But I didn't to this man. Not out loud at least.” 

Something about this character gave Mr. Hodges pause. Pausing just like he is now. He looked nervous, drawn away from his contempt for me and back into this memory. Even in recollection this man made an old vet wary. He continued. “I told him instead I'd think about it. That I wasn’t away from home hardly at all… That I was a light sleeper from all that jungle sleeping.” His old raspy voice caught for a second. “He told me they don’t come at night…” 

“They didn’t.” I uttered. My hand was trembling on my knee, I realized.  

“No they didn't. He said…” Mr. Hodges gulped then shook his head. “The way he said it…” 

I gave him a moment. 

“Well. This security salesman. He backed away from me. I remember he took off his hat.” Mr. Hodges recreated it, holding the invisible hat to his chest. “He let the sun hit his eyes and looked up into that cloudless sky. Then he said, ‘they come just on days like today’ I thought that was odd. Made me keep an eye out on my driveway. Sure enough a couple hours later, they come waddling up.” He turned the invisible hat into a finger gun, and fired twice. “Bang, Bang.” He said beneath his weary breath. His fingers were curled with arthritis, the joints bulbous and inflamed. His hand quaked slightly. With great pain he grabbed it with the other one and balled it up. Stopping it from shaking. “I didn’t like that man. But he was my guardian angel in a way. What are the chances? The same day he warned me…” 

I scooted in. “What kind of hat was it?” I spoke softly, trying to hide the shaking that was going on in my own voice. 

He thought some. “Like an old 1950’s hat. Like the one my dad wore.” He nodded. Jowls shaking with the movement.

“A feather. Was there a feather in the band?” I was so close to him I was almost leaning over him.

“I don’t know,” He tried waving me away. “I can't remember.” He wiped at the moisture in his eyes. “Leave me be.”

“Tell me please! Did the hat have a feather on it?” 

“Maybe! I can’t remember!” He shouted back at me. Tears streamed down his cheeks now. He couldn’t hide them anymore. I gripped both of his frail shoulders. 

“Please!” I shouted.

A nurse whipped open the door and the skinny tech rubbed his face behind her. “What’s going on in here?” She bellowed. 

 “Did it have the feather?” I asked again, watching as the tears trailed in their troughs, tumbling down his wrinkled face. Fat drops. Like they hadn’t been used in years and had built up. But the dam had broken now. Terribly so. He had seen Tim and he had been saved by him, my murderer, saved his life and the memory itself was too strong for the old man to broach! But I had to hear him say it.

“Yes! I’m sure it did!” He shouted back finally. A wave of adrenalin crashed through me. I let him go and he held his arms across his chest. More tears came from the old bald man. He looked older now. Closer to death. More like the image the doctor downstairs sold me on. He wasn’t some strong Marine I saw flashes of, just whatever was left, cooped up in a house, paranoid as all hell all day long. Relieving the worst days of his life. Now he bawled and held himself. “Why?” He asked. “Why did they have to come up my street? My house?” He wasn't talking to me anymore. I was already backing out of his room. “Why did they have to try me! Why? I just wanted to be left alone! After all this time I just wanted to be left alone…” 

He shouted some more but the nurse and the technician dragged me out of the room and slammed the door. I couldn't make out what else he had to say. In the hall some nurses and the floor doctor pressed past me and into Mr. Hodges room. His yelling echoed out for moments as they tried to calm him. The nurse pointedly asked me what I was doing? What I had said? Something along those lines. I didn’t know. I was hurt myself but I had my proof. I believed every word he said, I was singularly focussed now, the adrenalin giving me poise. 

I let her yell at me. I was far off. Somewhere in my own head. 

The man had been there. Just like I thought. 

Just as that gas-station had told me, pointed me towards. 

But this time he wasn't the one that broke in. He warned him. Why? 

He must have known those junkies were coming. Why? He set them up?

He was an angel and the devil. What’s his game? 

I had to find out. But when the nurse mentioned security again I knew I couldn’t find out anymore here. Besides, I had to get back to my dog. 

I stepped through the nurse and the skinny tech. He fell flat on his ass and his glasses bounced off his nose and flew over his head. I turned and started running. This time taking off my flip flops and holding them. I was free and I was picking up speed. I slipped out of the ICU ward as security was pushing in. They tried to chase. Shouting at me to stop. It was like I was a child again, running in the grass with bare feet. Playing a game of tag. It was exhilarating. Liberating. I howled with laughter as the chasers fell behind me. Luckily, no one ahead wanted to try and get in my way. I was a sweaty fat guy after all. Soon the yelling and other commotion slipped away as I was too fast for them. I didn’t try to find my way back in this labyrinth. I forged my own path this time. I found stairs, I took them. And I bursted out into the nighttime as bells rang out behind me. 

I ducked behind cover and avoided cars and circulating ambulances, but it was late at night, no one was around on the deserted streets. I crossed back after a while, after I caught my breath. My energy crashed back down, I realized I was not that care-free kid with nothing to lose. I was a desperate middle aged man who hadn’t ran a quarter mile in years… with nothing to lose. Everything to gain.